The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Books

Volume 2

Being the Second Sampler of the Earlier Exploits of a Certain Gathering
of Incredible Individuals, to whit :

Miss Mina Harker, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll
and Hawley Griffin, taking on the very foreign menace of the
Martian Invasion along with their esteemed allies, Alphonse Moreau,
Mycroft Holmes, John Carter and Gullivar Jones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Extraordinary_Gentlemen




John Carter defies THE GODS OF MARS

as told by EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS





FOREWORD




Twelve years had passed since I had laid the body of my great-uncle,
Captain John Carter, of Virginia, away from the sight of men in
that strange mausoleum in the old cemetery at Richmond.

Often had I pondered on the odd instructions he had left me
governing the construction of his mighty tomb, and especially those
parts which directed that he be laid in an OPEN casket and that
the ponderous mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault's
huge door be accessible ONLY FROM THE INSIDE.

Twelve years had passed since I had read the remarkable manuscript
of this remarkable man; this man who remembered no childhood and
who could not even offer a vague guess as to his age; who was always
young and yet who had dandled my grandfather's great-grandfather
upon his knee; this man who had spent ten years upon the planet
Mars; who had fought for the green men of Barsoom and fought against
them; who had fought for and against the red men and who had won
the ever beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, for his wife,
and for nearly ten years had been a prince of the house of Tardos
Mors, Jeddak of Helium.

Twelve years had passed since his body had been found upon the bluff
before his cottage overlooking the Hudson, and oft-times during
these long years I had wondered if John Carter were really dead,
or if he again roamed the dead sea bottoms of that dying planet; if
he had returned to Barsoom to find that he had opened the frowning
portals of the mighty atmosphere plant in time to save the countless
millions who were dying of asphyxiation on that far-gone day that
had seen him hurtled ruthlessly through forty-eight million miles
of space back to Earth once more.  I had wondered if he had found
his black-haired Princess and the slender son he had dreamed was
with her in the royal gardens of Tardos Mors, awaiting his return.

Or, had he found that he had been too late, and thus gone back to
a living death upon a dead world?  Or was he really dead after all,
never to return either to his mother Earth or his beloved Mars?

Thus was I lost in useless speculation one sultry August evening
when old Ben, my body servant, handed me a telegram.  Tearing it
open I read:


'Meet me to-morrow hotel Raleigh Richmond.

'JOHN CARTER'


Early the next morning I took the first train for Richmond and
within two hours was being ushered into the room occupied by John
Carter.

As I entered he rose to greet me, his old-time cordial smile of
welcome lighting his handsome face.  Apparently he had not aged a
minute, but was still the straight, clean-limbed fighting-man of
thirty.  His keen grey eyes were undimmed, and the only lines upon
his face were the lines of iron character and determination that
always had been there since first I remembered him, nearly thirty-five
years before.

'Well, nephew,' he greeted me, 'do you feel as though you were
seeing a ghost, or suffering from the effects of too many of Uncle
Ben's juleps?'

'Juleps, I reckon,' I replied, 'for I certainly feel mighty good;
but maybe it's just the sight of you again that affects me.  You
have been back to Mars?  Tell me.  And Dejah Thoris?  You found
her well and awaiting you?'

'Yes, I have been to Barsoom again, and--but it's a long story,
too long to tell in the limited time I have before I must return.
I have learned the secret, nephew, and I may traverse the trackless
void at my will, coming and going between the countless planets as
I list; but my heart is always in Barsoom, and while it is there
in the keeping of my Martian Princess, I doubt that I shall ever
again leave the dying world that is my life.

'I have come now because my affection for you prompted me to see
you once more before you pass over for ever into that other life
that I shall never know, and which though I have died thrice and
shall die again to-night, as you know death, I am as unable to
fathom as are you.

'Even the wise and mysterious therns of Barsoom, that ancient cult
which for countless ages has been credited with holding the secret
of life and death in their impregnable fastnesses upon the hither
slopes of the Mountains of Otz, are as ignorant as we.  I have
proved it, though I near lost my life in the doing of it; but you
shall read it all in the notes I have been making during the last
three months that I have been back upon Earth.'

He patted a swelling portfolio that lay on the table at his elbow.

'I know that you are interested and that you believe, and I know
that the world, too, is interested, though they will not believe
for many years; yes, for many ages, since they cannot understand.
Earth men have not yet progressed to a point where they can comprehend
the things that I have written in those notes.

'Give them what you wish of it, what you think will not harm them,
but do not feel aggrieved if they laugh at you.'

That night I walked down to the cemetery with him.  At the door of
his vault he turned and pressed my hand.

'Good-bye, nephew,' he said.  'I may never see you again, for I
doubt that I can ever bring myself to leave my wife and boy while
they live, and the span of life upon Barsoom is often more than a
thousand years.'

He entered the vault.  The great door swung slowly to.  The ponderous
bolts grated into place.  The lock clicked.  I have never seen
Captain John Carter, of Virginia, since.

But here is the story of his return to Mars on that other occasion,
as I have gleaned it from the great mass of notes which he left
for me upon the table of his room in the hotel at Richmond.

There is much which I have left out; much which I have not dared
to tell; but you will find the story of his second search for Dejah
Thoris, Princess of Helium, even more remarkable than was his first
manuscript which I gave to an unbelieving world a short time since
and through which we followed the fighting Virginian across dead
sea bottoms under the moons of Mars.

E. R. B.





CONTENTS




I.      The Plant Men

II.     A Forest Battle

III.    The Chamber of Mystery

IV.     Thuvia

V.      Corridors of Peril

VI.     The Black Pirates of Barsoom

VII.    A Fair Goddess

VIII.   The Depths of Omean

IX.     Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal

X.      The Prison Isle of Shador

XI.     When Hell Broke Loose

XII.    Doomed to Die

XIII.   A Break for Liberty

XIV.    The Eyes in the Dark

XV.     Flight and Pursuit

XVI.    Under Arrest

XVII.   The Death Sentence

XVIII.  Sola's Story

XIX.    Black Despair

XX.     The Air Battle

XXI.    Through Flood and Flame

XXII.   Victory and Defeat





CHAPTER I

THE PLANT MEN




As I stood upon the bluff before my cottage on that clear cold
night in the early part of March, 1886, the noble Hudson flowing
like the grey and silent spectre of a dead river below me, I felt
again the strange, compelling influence of the mighty god of war,
my beloved Mars, which for ten long and lonesome years I had implored
with outstretched arms to carry me back to my lost love.

Not since that other March night in 1866, when I had stood without
that Arizona cave in which my still and lifeless body lay wrapped
in the similitude of earthly death had I felt the irresistible
attraction of the god of my profession.

With arms outstretched toward the red eye of the great star I stood
praying for a return of that strange power which twice had drawn
me through the immensity of space, praying as I had prayed on a
thousand nights before during the long ten years that I had waited
and hoped.

Suddenly a qualm of nausea swept over me, my senses swam, my knees
gave beneath me and I pitched headlong to the ground upon the very
verge of the dizzy bluff.

Instantly my brain cleared and there swept back across the threshold
of my memory the vivid picture of the horrors of that ghostly
Arizona cave; again, as on that far-gone night, my muscles refused
to respond to my will and again, as though even here upon the banks
of the placid Hudson, I could hear the awful moans and rustling
of the fearsome thing which had lurked and threatened me from the
dark recesses of the cave, I made the same mighty and superhuman
effort to break the bonds of the strange anaesthesia which held me,
and again came the sharp click as of the sudden parting of a taut
wire, and I stood naked and free beside the staring, lifeless thing
that had so recently pulsed with the warm, red life-blood of John
Carter.

With scarcely a parting glance I turned my eyes again toward Mars,
lifted my hands toward his lurid rays, and waited.

Nor did I have long to wait; for scarce had I turned ere I shot
with the rapidity of thought into the awful void before me.  There
was the same instant of unthinkable cold and utter darkness that I
had experienced twenty years before, and then I opened my eyes in
another world, beneath the burning rays of a hot sun, which beat
through a tiny opening in the dome of the mighty forest in which
I lay.

The scene that met my eyes was so un-Martian that my heart sprang
to my throat as the sudden fear swept through me that I had been
aimlessly tossed upon some strange planet by a cruel fate.

Why not?  What guide had I through the trackless waste of
interplanetary space?  What assurance that I might not as well be
hurtled to some far-distant star of another solar system, as to
Mars?

I lay upon a close-cropped sward of red grasslike vegetation, and
about me stretched a grove of strange and beautiful trees, covered
with huge and gorgeous blossoms and filled with brilliant, voiceless
birds.  I call them birds since they were winged, but mortal eye
ne'er rested on such odd, unearthly shapes.

The vegetation was similar to that which covers the lawns of the
red Martians of the great waterways, but the trees and birds were
unlike anything that I had ever seen upon Mars, and then through
the further trees I could see that most un-Martian of all sights--an
open sea, its blue waters shimmering beneath the brazen sun.

As I rose to investigate further I experienced the same ridiculous
catastrophe that had met my first attempt to walk under Martian
conditions.  The lesser attraction of this smaller planet and the
reduced air pressure of its greatly rarefied atmosphere, afforded so
little resistance to my earthly muscles that the ordinary exertion
of the mere act of rising sent me several feet into the air and
precipitated me upon my face in the soft and brilliant grass of
this strange world.

This experience, however, gave me some slightly increased assurance
that, after all, I might indeed be in some, to me, unknown corner
of Mars, and this was very possible since during my ten years'
residence upon the planet I had explored but a comparatively tiny
area of its vast expanse.

I arose again, laughing at my forgetfulness, and soon had mastered
once more the art of attuning my earthly sinews to these changed
conditions.

As I walked slowly down the imperceptible slope toward the sea I
could not help but note the park-like appearance of the sward and
trees.  The grass was as close-cropped and carpet-like as some old
English lawn and the trees themselves showed evidence of careful
pruning to a uniform height of about fifteen feet from the ground,
so that as one turned his glance in any direction the forest had
the appearance at a little distance of a vast, high-ceiled chamber.

All these evidences of careful and systematic cultivation convinced
me that I had been fortunate enough to make my entry into Mars on
this second occasion through the domain of a civilized people and
that when I should find them I would be accorded the courtesy and
protection that my rank as a Prince of the house of Tardos Mors
entitled me to.

The trees of the forest attracted my deep admiration as I proceeded
toward the sea.  Their great stems, some of them fully a hundred
feet in diameter, attested their prodigious height, which I could
only guess at, since at no point could I penetrate their dense
foliage above me to more than sixty or eighty feet.

As far aloft as I could see the stems and branches and twigs were
as smooth and as highly polished as the newest of American-made
pianos.  The wood of some of the trees was as black as ebony, while
their nearest neighbours might perhaps gleam in the subdued light
of the forest as clear and white as the finest china, or, again,
they were azure, scarlet, yellow, or deepest purple.

And in the same way was the foliage as gay and variegated as the
stems, while the blooms that clustered thick upon them may not be
described in any earthly tongue, and indeed might challenge the
language of the gods.

As I neared the confines of the forest I beheld before me and
between the grove and the open sea, a broad expanse of meadow land,
and as I was about to emerge from the shadows of the trees a sight
met my eyes that banished all romantic and poetic reflection upon
the beauties of the strange landscape.

To my left the sea extended as far as the eye could reach, before
me only a vague, dim line indicated its further shore, while at my
right a mighty river, broad, placid, and majestic, flowed between
scarlet banks to empty into the quiet sea before me.

At a little distance up the river rose mighty perpendicular bluffs,
from the very base of which the great river seemed to rise.

But it was not these inspiring and magnificent evidences of Nature's
grandeur that took my immediate attention from the beauties of
the forest.  It was the sight of a score of figures moving slowly
about the meadow near the bank of the mighty river.

Odd, grotesque shapes they were; unlike anything that I had ever
seen upon Mars, and yet, at a distance, most manlike in appearance.
The larger specimens appeared to be about ten or twelve feet in
height when they stood erect, and to be proportioned as to torso
and lower extremities precisely as is earthly man.

Their arms, however, were very short, and from where I stood seemed
as though fashioned much after the manner of an elephant's trunk,
in that they moved in sinuous and snakelike undulations, as though
entirely without bony structure, or if there were bones it seemed
that they must be vertebral in nature.

As I watched them from behind the stem of a huge tree, one of the
creatures moved slowly in my direction, engaged in the occupation
that seemed to be the principal business of each of them, and which
consisted in running their oddly shaped hands over the surface of
the sward, for what purpose I could not determine.

As he approached quite close to me I obtained an excellent view of
him, and though I was later to become better acquainted with his
kind, I may say that that single cursory examination of this awful
travesty on Nature would have proved quite sufficient to my desires
had I been a free agent.  The fastest flier of the Heliumetic Navy
could not quickly enough have carried me far from this hideous
creature.

Its hairless body was a strange and ghoulish blue, except for a
broad band of white which encircled its protruding, single eye: an
eye that was all dead white--pupil, iris, and ball.

Its nose was a ragged, inflamed, circular hole in the centre of
its blank face; a hole that resembled more closely nothing that I
could think of other than a fresh bullet wound which has not yet
commenced to bleed.

Below this repulsive orifice the face was quite blank to the chin,
for the thing had no mouth that I could discover.

The head, with the exception of the face, was covered by a tangled
mass of jet-black hair some eight or ten inches in length.  Each
hair was about the bigness of a large angleworm, and as the thing
moved the muscles of its scalp this awful head-covering seemed
to writhe and wriggle and crawl about the fearsome face as though
indeed each separate hair was endowed with independent life.

The body and the legs were as symmetrically human as Nature could
have fashioned them, and the feet, too, were human in shape, but
of monstrous proportions.  From heel to toe they were fully three
feet long, and very flat and very broad.

As it came quite close to me I discovered that its strange movements,
running its odd hands over the surface of the turf, were the result
of its peculiar method of feeding, which consists in cropping off
the tender vegetation with its razorlike talons and sucking it up
from its two mouths, which lie one in the palm of each hand, through
its arm-like throats.

In addition to the features which I have already described, the
beast was equipped with a massive tail about six feet in length,
quite round where it joined the body, but tapering to a flat, thin
blade toward the end, which trailed at right angles to the ground.

By far the most remarkable feature of this most remarkable creature,
however, were the two tiny replicas of it, each about six inches
in length, which dangled, one on either side, from its armpits.
They were suspended by a small stem which seemed to grow from the
exact tops of their heads to where it connected them with the body
of the adult.

Whether they were the young, or merely portions of a composite
creature, I did not know.

As I had been scrutinizing this weird monstrosity the balance of
the herd had fed quite close to me and I now saw that while many
had the smaller specimens dangling from them, not all were thus
equipped, and I further noted that the little ones varied in size
from what appeared to be but tiny unopened buds an inch in diameter
through various stages of development to the full-fledged and
perfectly formed creature of ten to twelve inches in length.

Feeding with the herd were many of the little fellows not much larger
than those which remained attached to their parents, and from the
young of that size the herd graded up to the immense adults.

Fearsome-looking as they were, I did not know whether to fear them
or not, for they did not seem to be particularly well equipped for
fighting, and I was on the point of stepping from my hiding-place
and revealing myself to them to note the effect upon them of the
sight of a man when my rash resolve was, fortunately for me, nipped
in the bud by a strange shrieking wail, which seemed to come from
the direction of the bluffs at my right.

Naked and unarmed, as I was, my end would have been both speedy
and horrible at the hands of these cruel creatures had I had time
to put my resolve into execution, but at the moment of the shriek
each member of the herd turned in the direction from which the sound
seemed to come, and at the same instant every particular snake-like
hair upon their heads rose stiffly perpendicular as if each had been
a sentient organism looking or listening for the source or meaning
of the wail.  And indeed the latter proved to be the truth, for
this strange growth upon the craniums of the plant men of Barsoom
represents the thousand ears of these hideous creatures, the last
remnant of the strange race which sprang from the original Tree of
Life.

Instantly every eye turned toward one member of the herd, a large
fellow who evidently was the leader.  A strange purring sound
issued from the mouth in the palm of one of his hands, and at the
same time he started rapidly toward the bluff, followed by the
entire herd.

Their speed and method of locomotion were both remarkable, springing
as they did in great leaps of twenty or thirty feet, much after
the manner of a kangaroo.

They were rapidly disappearing when it occurred to me to follow
them, and so, hurling caution to the winds, I sprang across the
meadow in their wake with leaps and bounds even more prodigious
than their own, for the muscles of an athletic Earth man produce
remarkable results when pitted against the lesser gravity and air
pressure of Mars.

Their way led directly towards the apparent source of the river at
the base of the cliffs, and as I neared this point I found the meadow
dotted with huge boulders that the ravages of time had evidently
dislodged from the towering crags above.

For this reason I came quite close to the cause of the disturbance
before the scene broke upon my horrified gaze.  As I topped a great
boulder I saw the herd of plant men surrounding a little group of
perhaps five or six green men and women of Barsoom.

That I was indeed upon Mars I now had no doubt, for here were members
of the wild hordes that people the dead sea bottoms and deserted
cities of that dying planet.


Here were the great males towering in all the majesty of their
imposing height; here were the gleaming white tusks protruding
from their massive lower jaws to a point near the centre of their
foreheads, the laterally placed, protruding eyes with which they
could look forward or backward, or to either side without turning
their heads, here the strange antennae-like ears rising from the
tops of their foreheads; and the additional pair of arms extending
from midway between the shoulders and the hips.

Even without the glossy green hide and the metal ornaments which
denoted the tribes to which they belonged, I would have known
them on the instant for what they were, for where else in all the
universe is their like duplicated?

There were two men and four females in the party and their ornaments
denoted them as members of different hordes, a fact which tended
to puzzle me infinitely, since the various hordes of green men of
Barsoom are eternally at deadly war with one another, and never,
except on that single historic instance when the great Tars Tarkas
of Thark gathered a hundred and fifty thousand green warriors from
several hordes to march upon the doomed city of Zodanga to rescue
Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, from the clutches of Than Kosis,
had I seen green Martians of different hordes associated in other
than mortal combat.

But now they stood back to back, facing, in wide-eyed amazement,
the very evidently hostile demonstrations of a common enemy.

Both men and women were armed with long-swords and daggers, but no
firearms were in evidence, else it had been short shrift for the
gruesome plant men of Barsoom.

Presently the leader of the plant men charged the little party, and
his method of attack was as remarkable as it was effective, and by
its very strangeness was the more potent, since in the science of
the green warriors there was no defence for this singular manner
of attack, the like of which it soon was evident to me they were as
unfamiliar with as they were with the monstrosities which confronted
them.

The plant man charged to within a dozen feet of the party and then,
with a bound, rose as though to pass directly above their heads.
His powerful tail was raised high to one side, and as he passed
close above them he brought it down in one terrific sweep that
crushed a green warrior's skull as though it had been an eggshell.

The balance of the frightful herd was now circling rapidly and
with bewildering speed about the little knot of victims.  Their
prodigious bounds and the shrill, screeching purr of their uncanny
mouths were well calculated to confuse and terrorize their prey,
so that as two of them leaped simultaneously from either side, the
mighty sweep of those awful tails met with no resistance and two
more green Martians went down to an ignoble death.

There were now but one warrior and two females left, and it seemed
that it could be but a matter of seconds ere these, also, lay dead
upon the scarlet sward.

But as two more of the plant men charged, the warrior, who was
now prepared by the experiences of the past few minutes, swung his
mighty long-sword aloft and met the hurtling bulk with a clean cut
that clove one of the plant men from chin to groin.

The other, however, dealt a single blow with his cruel tail that
laid both of the females crushed corpses upon the ground.

As the green warrior saw the last of his companions go down and at
the same time perceived that the entire herd was charging him in
a body, he rushed boldly to meet them, swinging his long-sword in
the terrific manner that I had so often seen the men of his kind
wield it in their ferocious and almost continual warfare among
their own race.

Cutting and hewing to right and left, he laid an open path straight
through the advancing plant men, and then commenced a mad race
for the forest, in the shelter of which he evidently hoped that he
might find a haven of refuge.

He had turned for that portion of the forest which abutted on the
cliffs, and thus the mad race was taking the entire party farther
and farther from the boulder where I lay concealed.

As I had watched the noble fight which the great warrior had put
up against such enormous odds my heart had swelled in admiration
for him, and acting as I am wont to do, more upon impulse than after
mature deliberation, I instantly sprang from my sheltering rock
and bounded quickly toward the bodies of the dead green Martians,
a well-defined plan of action already formed.

Half a dozen great leaps brought me to the spot, and another instant
saw me again in my stride in quick pursuit of the hideous monsters
that were rapidly gaining on the fleeing warrior, but this time I
grasped a mighty long-sword in my hand and in my heart was the old
blood lust of the fighting man, and a red mist swam before my eyes
and I felt my lips respond to my heart in the old smile that has
ever marked me in the midst of the joy of battle.

Swift as I was I was none too soon, for the green warrior had been
overtaken ere he had made half the distance to the forest, and now
he stood with his back to a boulder, while the herd, temporarily
balked, hissed and screeched about him.

With their single eyes in the centre of their heads and every eye
turned upon their prey, they did not note my soundless approach,
so that I was upon them with my great long-sword and four of them
lay dead ere they knew that I was among them.

For an instant they recoiled before my terrific onslaught, and in
that instant the green warrior rose to the occasion and, springing
to my side, laid to the right and left of him as I had never seen
but one other warrior do, with great circling strokes that formed
a figure eight about him and that never stopped until none stood
living to oppose him, his keen blade passing through flesh and bone
and metal as though each had been alike thin air.

As we bent to the slaughter, far above us rose that shrill, weird
cry which I had heard once before, and which had called the herd
to the attack upon their victims.  Again and again it rose, but we
were too much engaged with the fierce and powerful creatures about
us to attempt to search out even with our eyes the author of the
horrid notes.

Great tails lashed in frenzied anger about us, razor-like talons
cut our limbs and bodies, and a green and sticky syrup, such as
oozes from a crushed caterpillar, smeared us from head to foot,
for every cut and thrust of our longswords brought spurts of this
stuff upon us from the severed arteries of the plant men, through
which it courses in its sluggish viscidity in lieu of blood.

Once I felt the great weight of one of the monsters upon my back
and as keen talons sank into my flesh I experienced the frightful
sensation of moist lips sucking the lifeblood from the wounds to
which the claws still clung.

I was very much engaged with a ferocious fellow who was endeavouring
to reach my throat from in front, while two more, one on either
side, were lashing viciously at me with their tails.

The green warrior was much put to it to hold his own, and I felt
that the unequal struggle could last but a moment longer when the
huge fellow discovered my plight, and tearing himself from those
that surrounded him, he raked the assailant from my back with a
single sweep of his blade, and thus relieved I had little difficulty
with the others.

Once together, we stood almost back to back against the great
boulder, and thus the creatures were prevented from soaring above
us to deliver their deadly blows, and as we were easily their match
while they remained upon the ground, we were making great headway
in dispatching what remained of them when our attention was again
attracted by the shrill wail of the caller above our heads.

This time I glanced up, and far above us upon a little natural
balcony on the face of the cliff stood a strange figure of a man
shrieking out his shrill signal, the while he waved one hand in
the direction of the river's mouth as though beckoning to some one
there, and with the other pointed and gesticulated toward us.

A glance in the direction toward which he was looking was sufficient
to apprise me of his aims and at the same time to fill me with the
dread of dire apprehension, for, streaming in from all directions
across the meadow, from out of the forest, and from the far distance
of the flat land across the river, I could see converging upon
us a hundred different lines of wildly leaping creatures such as
we were now engaged with, and with them some strange new monsters
which ran with great swiftness, now erect and now upon all fours.

"It will be a great death," I said to my companion. "Look!"

As he shot a quick glance in the direction I indicated he smiled.

"We may at least die fighting and as great warriors should, John
Carter," he replied.

We had just finished the last of our immediate antagonists as
he spoke, and I turned in surprised wonderment at the sound of my
name.

And there before my astonished eyes I beheld the greatest of the
green men of Barsoom; their shrewdest statesman, their mightiest
general, my great and good friend, Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.





CHAPTER II

A FOREST BATTLE




Tars Tarkas and I found no time for an exchange of experiences as
we stood there before the great boulder surrounded by the corpses
of our grotesque assailants, for from all directions down the broad
valley was streaming a perfect torrent of terrifying creatures in
response to the weird call of the strange figure far above us.

"Come," cried Tars Tarkas, "we must make for the cliffs.  There
lies our only hope of even temporary escape; there we may find a
cave or a narrow ledge which two may defend for ever against this
motley, unarmed horde."

Together we raced across the scarlet sward, I timing my speed that
I might not outdistance my slower companion.  We had, perhaps,
three hundred yards to cover between our boulder and the cliffs,
and then to search out a suitable shelter for our stand against
the terrifying things that were pursuing us.

They were rapidly overhauling us when Tars Tarkas cried to me to
hasten ahead and discover, if possible, the sanctuary we sought.
The suggestion was a good one, for thus many valuable minutes might
be saved to us, and, throwing every ounce of my earthly muscles
into the effort, I cleared the remaining distance between myself
and the cliffs in great leaps and bounds that put me at their base
in a moment.

The cliffs rose perpendicular directly from the almost level sward
of the valley.  There was no accumulation of fallen debris, forming
a more or less rough ascent to them, as is the case with nearly
all other cliffs I have ever seen.  The scattered boulders that had
fallen from above and lay upon or partly buried in the turf, were
the only indication that any disintegration of the massive, towering
pile of rocks ever had taken place.

My first cursory inspection of the face of the cliffs filled my
heart with forebodings, since nowhere could I discern, except where
the weird herald stood still shrieking his shrill summons, the
faintest indication of even a bare foothold upon the lofty escarpment.

To my right the bottom of the cliff was lost in the dense foliage
of the forest, which terminated at its very foot, rearing its gorgeous
foliage fully a thousand feet against its stern and forbidding
neighbour.

To the left the cliff ran, apparently unbroken, across the head of
the broad valley, to be lost in the outlines of what appeared to
be a range of mighty mountains that skirted and confined the valley
in every direction.

Perhaps a thousand feet from me the river broke, as it seemed,
directly from the base of the cliffs, and as there seemed not the
remotest chance for escape in that direction I turned my attention
again toward the forest.

The cliffs towered above me a good five thousand feet.  The sun
was not quite upon them and they loomed a dull yellow in their own
shade.  Here and there they were broken with streaks and patches
of dusky red, green, and occasional areas of white quartz.

Altogether they were very beautiful, but I fear that I did not
regard them with a particularly appreciative eye on this, my first
inspection of them.

Just then I was absorbed in them only as a medium of escape, and
so, as my gaze ran quickly, time and again, over their vast expanse
in search of some cranny or crevice, I came suddenly to loathe them
as the prisoner must loathe the cruel and impregnable walls of his
dungeon.

Tars Tarkas was approaching me rapidly, and still more rapidly came
the awful horde at his heels.

It seemed the forest now or nothing, and I was just on the point of
motioning Tars Tarkas to follow me in that direction when the sun
passed the cliff's zenith, and as the bright rays touched the dull
surface it burst out into a million scintillant lights of burnished
gold, of flaming red, of soft greens, and gleaming whites--a more
gorgeous and inspiring spectacle human eye has never rested upon.

The face of the entire cliff was, as later inspection conclusively
proved, so shot with veins and patches of solid gold as to quite
present the appearance of a solid wall of that precious metal except
where it was broken by outcroppings of ruby, emerald, and diamond
boulders--a faint and alluring indication of the vast and unguessable
riches which lay deeply buried behind the magnificent surface.

But what caught my most interested attention at the moment that the
sun's rays set the cliff's face a-shimmer, was the several black
spots which now appeared quite plainly in evidence high across the
gorgeous wall close to the forest's top, and extending apparently
below and behind the branches.

Almost immediately I recognised them for what they were, the dark
openings of caves entering the solid walls--possible avenues of
escape or temporary shelter, could we but reach them.

There was but a single way, and that led through the mighty, towering
trees upon our right.  That I could scale them I knew full well,
but Tars Tarkas, with his mighty bulk and enormous weight, would
find it a task possibly quite beyond his prowess or his skill, for
Martians are at best but poor climbers.  Upon the entire surface
of that ancient planet I never before had seen a hill or mountain
that exceeded four thousand feet in height above the dead sea
bottoms, and as the ascent was usually gradual, nearly to their
summits they presented but few opportunities for the practice
of climbing.  Nor would the Martians have embraced even such
opportunities as might present themselves, for they could always
find a circuitous route about the base of any eminence, and these
roads they preferred and followed in preference to the shorter but
more arduous ways.

However, there was nothing else to consider than an attempt to
scale the trees contiguous to the cliff in an effort to reach the
caves above.

The Thark grasped the possibilities and the difficulties of the plan
at once, but there was no alternative, and so we set out rapidly
for the trees nearest the cliff.

Our relentless pursuers were now close to us, so close that it
seemed that it would be an utter impossibility for the Jeddak of
Thark to reach the forest in advance of them, nor was there any
considerable will in the efforts that Tars Tarkas made, for the
green men of Barsoom do not relish flight, nor ever before had I seen
one fleeing from death in whatsoever form it might have confronted
him.  But that Tars Tarkas was the bravest of the brave he had
proven thousands of times; yes, tens of thousands in countless
mortal combats with men and beasts.  And so I knew that there was
another reason than fear of death behind his flight, as he knew
that a greater power than pride or honour spurred me to escape
these fierce destroyers.  In my case it was love--love of the divine
Dejah Thoris; and the cause of the Thark's great and sudden love
of life I could not fathom, for it is oftener that they seek death
than life--these strange, cruel, loveless, unhappy people.

At length, however, we reached the shadows of the forest, while
right behind us sprang the swiftest of our pursuers--a giant plant
man with claws outreaching to fasten his bloodsucking mouths upon
us.

He was, I should say, a hundred yards in advance of his closest
companion, and so I called to Tars Tarkas to ascend a great tree
that brushed the cliff's face while I dispatched the fellow, thus
giving the less agile Thark an opportunity to reach the higher
branches before the entire horde should be upon us and every vestige
of escape cut off.

But I had reckoned without a just appreciation either of the cunning
of my immediate antagonist or the swiftness with which his fellows
were covering the distance which had separated them from me.

As I raised my long-sword to deal the creature its death thrust it
halted in its charge and, as my sword cut harmlessly through the
empty air, the great tail of the thing swept with the power of a
grizzly's arm across the sward and carried me bodily from my feet
to the ground.  In an instant the brute was upon me, but ere it
could fasten its hideous mouths into my breast and throat I grasped
a writhing tentacle in either hand.

The plant man was well muscled, heavy, and powerful but my earthly
sinews and greater agility, in conjunction with the deathly strangle
hold I had upon him, would have given me, I think, an eventual
victory had we had time to discuss the merits of our relative prowess
uninterrupted.  But  as we strained and struggled about the tree
into which Tars Tarkas was clambering with infinite difficulty,
I suddenly caught a glimpse over the shoulder of my antagonist of
the great swarm of pursuers that now were fairly upon me.

Now, at last, I saw the nature of the other monsters who had come
with the plant men in response to the weird calling of the man
upon the cliff's face.  They were that most dreaded of Martian
creatures--great white apes of Barsoom.

My former experiences upon Mars had familiarized me thoroughly with
them and their methods, and I may say that of all the fearsome and
terrible, weird and grotesque inhabitants of that strange world,
it is the white apes that come nearest to familiarizing me with
the sensation of fear.

I think that the cause of this feeling which these apes engender
within me is due to their remarkable resemblance in form to our
Earth men, which gives them a human appearance that is most uncanny
when coupled with their enormous size.

They stand fifteen feet in height and walk erect upon their hind
feet.  Like the green Martians, they have an intermediary set of
arms midway between their upper and lower limbs.  Their eyes are
very close set, but do not protrude as do those of the green men
of Mars; their ears are high set, but more laterally located than
are the green men's, while their snouts and teeth are much like
those of our African gorilla.  Upon their heads grows an enormous
shock of bristly hair.

It was into the eyes of such as these and the terrible plant men
that I gazed above the shoulder of my foe, and then, in a mighty
wave of snarling, snapping, screaming, purring rage, they swept
over me--and of all the sounds that assailed my ears as I went down
beneath them, to me the most hideous was the horrid purring of the
plant men.

Instantly a score of cruel fangs and keen talons were sunk into
my flesh; cold, sucking lips fastened themselves upon my arteries.
I struggled to free myself, and even though weighed down by these
immense bodies, I succeeded in struggling to my feet, where, still
grasping my long-sword, and shortening my grip upon it until I
could use it as a dagger, I wrought such havoc among them that at
one time I stood for an instant free.

What it has taken minutes to write occurred in but a few seconds,
but during that time Tars Tarkas had seen my plight and had dropped
from the lower branches, which he had reached with such infinite
labour, and as I flung the last of my immediate antagonists from
me the great Thark leaped to my side, and again we fought, back to
back, as we had done a hundred times before.

Time and again the ferocious apes sprang in to close with us, and
time and again we beat them back with our swords.  The great tails
of the plant men lashed with tremendous power about us as they charged
from various directions or sprang with the agility of greyhounds
above our heads; but every attack met a gleaming blade in sword
hands that had been reputed for twenty years the best that Mars
ever had known; for Tars Tarkas and John Carter were names that
the fighting men of the world of warriors loved best to speak.

But even the two best swords in a world of fighters can avail not
for ever against overwhelming numbers of fierce and savage brutes
that know not what defeat means until cold steel teaches their hearts
no longer to beat, and so, step by step, we were forced back.  At
length we stood against the giant tree that we had chosen for our
ascent, and then, as charge after charge hurled its weight upon
us, we gave back again and again, until we had been forced half-way
around the huge base of the colossal trunk.

Tars Tarkas was in the lead, and suddenly I heard a little cry of
exultation from him.

"Here is shelter for one at least, John Carter," he said, and,
glancing down, I saw an opening in the base of the tree about three
feet in diameter.

"In with you, Tars Tarkas," I cried, but he would not go; saying
that his bulk was too great for the little aperture, while I might
slip in easily.

"We shall both die if we remain without, John Carter; here is a
slight chance for one of us.  Take it and you may live to avenge
me, it is useless for me to attempt to worm my way into so small
an opening with this horde of demons besetting us on all sides."

"Then we shall die together, Tars Tarkas," I replied, "for I shall
not go first.  Let me defend the opening while you get in, then
my smaller stature will permit me to slip in with you before they
can prevent."

We still were fighting furiously as we talked in broken sentences,
punctured with vicious cuts and thrusts at our swarming enemy.

At length he yielded, for it seemed the only way in which either
of us might be saved from the ever-increasing numbers of our
assailants, who were still swarming upon us from all directions
across the broad valley.

"It was ever your way, John Carter, to think last of your own
life," he said; "but still more your way to command the lives and
actions of others, even to the greatest of Jeddaks who rule upon
Barsoom."

There was a grim smile upon his cruel, hard face, as he, the greatest
Jeddak of them all, turned to obey the dictates of a creature of
another world--of a man whose stature was less than half his own.

"If you fail, John Carter," he said, "know that the cruel and
heartless Thark, to whom you taught the meaning of friendship, will
come out to die beside you."

"As you will, my friend," I replied; "but quickly now, head first,
while I cover your retreat."

He hesitated a little at that word, for never before in his whole
life of continual strife had he turned his back upon aught than a
dead or defeated enemy.

"Haste, Tars Tarkas," I urged, "or we shall both go down to profitless
defeat; I cannot hold them for ever alone."

As he dropped to the ground to force his way into the tree, the
whole howling pack of hideous devils hurled themselves upon me.  To
right and left flew my shimmering blade, now green with the sticky
juice of a plant man, now red with the crimson blood of a great
white ape; but always flying from one opponent to another, hesitating
but the barest fraction of a second to drink the lifeblood in the
centre of some savage heart.

And thus I fought as I never had fought before, against such frightful
odds that I cannot realize even now that human muscles could have
withstood that awful onslaught, that terrific weight of hurtling
tons of ferocious, battling flesh.

With the fear that we would escape them, the creatures redoubled
their efforts to pull me down, and though the ground about me
was piled high with their dead and dying comrades, they succeeded
at last in overwhelming me, and I went down beneath them for the
second time that day, and once again felt those awful sucking lips
against my flesh.

But scarce had I fallen ere I felt powerful hands grip my ankles,
and in another second I was being drawn within the shelter of the
tree's interior.  For a moment it was a tug of war between Tars
Tarkas and a great plant man, who clung tenaciously to my breast,
but presently I got the point of my long-sword beneath him and with
a mighty thrust pierced his vitals.

Torn and bleeding from many cruel wounds, I lay panting upon the
ground within the hollow of the tree, while Tars Tarkas defended
the opening from the furious mob without.

For an hour they howled about the tree, but after a few attempts
to reach us they confined their efforts to terrorizing shrieks and
screams, to horrid growling on the part of the great white apes,
and the fearsome and indescribable purring by the plant men.

At length, all but a score, who had apparently been left to prevent
our escape, had left us, and our adventure seemed destined to
result in a siege, the only outcome of which could be our death
by starvation; for even should we be able to slip out after dark,
whither in this unknown and hostile valley could we hope to turn
our steps toward possible escape?

As the attacks of our enemies ceased and our eyes became accustomed
to the semi-darkness of the interior of our strange retreat, I took
the opportunity to explore our shelter.

The tree was hollow to an extent of about fifty feet in diameter,
and from its flat, hard floor I judged that it had often been used to
domicile others before our occupancy.  As I raised my eyes toward
its roof to note the height I saw far above me a faint glow of
light.

There was an opening above.  If we could but reach it we might
still hope to make the shelter of the cliff caves.  My eyes had
now become quite used to the subdued light of the interior, and as
I pursued my investigation I presently came upon a rough ladder at
the far side of the cave.

Quickly I mounted it, only to find that it connected at the top
with the lower of a series of horizontal wooden bars that spanned
the now narrow and shaft-like interior of the tree's stem.  These
bars were set one above another about three feet apart, and formed
a perfect ladder as far above me as I could see.

Dropping to the floor once more, I detailed my discovery to Tars
Tarkas, who suggested that I explore aloft as far as I could go in
safety while he guarded the entrance against a possible attack.

As I hastened above to explore the strange shaft I found that the
ladder of horizontal bars mounted always as far above me as my eyes
could reach, and as I ascended, the light from above grew brighter
and brighter.

For fully five hundred feet I continued to climb, until at length
I reached the opening in the stem which admitted the light.  It
was of about the same diameter as the entrance at the foot of the
tree, and opened directly upon a large flat limb, the well worn
surface of which testified to its long continued use as an avenue
for some creature to and from this remarkable shaft.

I did not venture out upon the limb for fear that I might be
discovered and our retreat in this direction cut off; but instead
hurried to retrace my steps to Tars Tarkas.

I soon reached him and presently we were both ascending the long
ladder toward the opening above.

Tars Tarkas went in advance and as I reached the first of the
horizontal bars I drew the ladder up after me and, handing it to
him, he carried it a hundred feet further aloft, where he wedged
it safely between one of the bars and the side of the shaft.  In
like manner I dislodged the lower bars as I passed them, so that
we soon had the interior of the tree denuded of all possible means
of ascent for a distance of a hundred feet from the base; thus
precluding possible pursuit and attack from the rear.

As we were to learn later, this precaution saved us from dire
predicament, and was eventually the means of our salvation.

When we reached the opening at the top Tars Tarkas drew to one
side that I might pass out and investigate, as, owing to my lesser
weight and greater agility, I was better fitted for the perilous
threading of this dizzy, hanging pathway.

The limb upon which I found myself ascended at a slight angle
toward the cliff, and as I followed it I found that it terminated
a few feet above a narrow ledge which protruded from the cliff's
face at the entrance to a narrow cave.

As I approached the slightly more slender extremity of the branch
it bent beneath my weight until, as I balanced perilously upon its
outer tip, it swayed gently on a level with the ledge at a distance
of a couple of feet.

Five hundred feet below me lay the vivid scarlet carpet of the valley;
nearly five thousand feet above towered the mighty, gleaming face
of the gorgeous cliffs.

The cave that I faced was not one of those that I had seen from the
ground, and which lay much higher, possibly a thousand feet.  But
so far as I might know it was as good for our purpose as another,
and so I returned to the tree for Tars Tarkas.

Together we wormed our way along the waving pathway, but when we
reached the end of the branch we found that our combined weight so
depressed the limb that the cave's mouth was now too far above us
to be reached.

We finally agreed that Tars Tarkas should return along the branch,
leaving his longest leather harness strap with me, and that when
the limb had risen to a height that would permit me to enter the
cave I was to do so, and on Tars Tarkas' return I could then lower
the strap and haul him up to the safety of the ledge.

This we did without mishap and soon found ourselves together upon
the verge of a dizzy little balcony, with a magnificent view of
the valley spreading out below us.

As far as the eye could reach gorgeous forest and crimson sward
skirted a silent sea, and about all towered the brilliant monster
guardian cliffs.  Once we thought we discerned a gilded minaret
gleaming in the sun amidst the waving tops of far-distant trees,
but we soon abandoned the idea in the belief that it was but an
hallucination born of our great desire to discover the haunts of
civilized men in this beautiful, yet forbidding, spot.

Below us upon the river's bank the great white apes were devouring
the last remnants of Tars Tarkas' former companions, while great
herds of plant men grazed in ever-widening circles about the sward
which they kept as close clipped as the smoothest of lawns.

Knowing that attack from the tree was now improbable, we determined
to explore the cave, which we had every reason to believe was but
a continuation of the path we had already traversed, leading the
gods alone knew where, but quite evidently away from this valley
of grim ferocity.

As we advanced we found a well-proportioned tunnel cut from the
solid cliff.  Its walls rose some twenty feet above the floor,
which was about five feet in width.  The roof was arched.  We had
no means of making a light, and so groped our way slowly into the
ever-increasing darkness, Tars Tarkas keeping in touch with one
wall while I felt along the other, while, to prevent our wandering
into diverging branches and becoming separated or lost in some
intricate and labyrinthine maze, we clasped hands.

How far we traversed the tunnel in this manner I do not know,
but presently we came to an obstruction which blocked our further
progress.  It seemed more like a partition than a sudden ending of
the cave, for it was constructed not of the material of the cliff,
but of something which felt like very hard wood.

Silently I groped over its surface with my hands, and presently
was rewarded by the feel of the button which as commonly denotes
a door on Mars as does a door knob on Earth.

Gently pressing it, I had the satisfaction of feeling the door slowly
give before me, and in another instant we were looking into a dimly
lighted apartment, which, so far as we could see, was unoccupied.

Without more ado I swung the door wide open and, followed by the
huge Thark, stepped into the chamber.  As we stood for a moment in
silence gazing about the room a slight noise behind caused me to
turn quickly, when, to my astonishment, I saw the door close with
a sharp click as though by an unseen hand.

Instantly I sprang toward it to wrench it open again, for something
in the uncanny movement of the thing and the tense and almost
palpable silence of the chamber seemed to portend a lurking evil
lying hidden in this rock-bound chamber within the bowels of the
Golden Cliffs.

My fingers clawed futilely at the unyielding portal, while my eyes
sought in vain for a duplicate of the button which had given us
ingress.

And then, from unseen lips, a cruel and mocking peal of laughter
rang through the desolate place.





CHAPTER III

THE CHAMBER OF MYSTERY




For moments after that awful laugh had ceased reverberating through
the rocky room, Tars Tarkas and I stood in tense and expectant
silence.  But no further sound broke the stillness, nor within the
range of our vision did aught move.

At length Tars Tarkas laughed softly, after the manner of his
strange kind when in the presence of the horrible or terrifying.
It is not an hysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression
of the pleasure they derive from the things that move Earth men to
loathing or to tears.

Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits
of uncontrollable mirth when witnessing the death agonies of women
and little children beneath the torture of that hellish green
Martian fete--the Great Games.

I looked up at the Thark, a smile upon my own lips, for here in
truth was greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin.

"What do you make of it all?" I asked.  "Where in the deuce are
we?"

He looked at me in surprise.

"Where are we?" he repeated.  "Do you tell me, John Carter, that
you know not where you be?"

"That I am upon Barsoom is all that I can guess, and but for you and
the great white apes I should not even guess that, for the sights
I have seen this day are as unlike the things of my beloved Barsoom
as I knew it ten long years ago as they are unlike the world of my
birth.

"No, Tars Tarkas, I know not where we be."

"Where have you been since you opened the mighty portals of
the atmosphere plant years ago, after the keeper had died and the
engines stopped and all Barsoom was dying, that had not already
died, of asphyxiation?  Your body even was never found, though the
men of a whole world sought after it for years, though the Jeddak
of Helium and his granddaughter, your princess, offered such fabulous
rewards that even princes of royal blood joined in the search.

"There was but one conclusion to reach when all efforts to locate
you had failed, and that, that you had taken the long, last pilgrimage
down the mysterious River Iss, to await in the Valley Dor upon the
shores of the Lost Sea of Korus the beautiful Dejah Thoris, your
princess.

"Why you had gone none could guess, for your princess still lived--"

"Thank God," I interrupted him.  "I did not dare to ask you, for
I feared I might have been too late to save her--she was very low
when I left her in the royal gardens of Tardos Mors that long-gone
night; so very low that I scarcely hoped even then to reach the
atmosphere plant ere her dear spirit had fled from me for ever.
And she lives yet?"

"She lives, John Carter."

"You have not told me where we are," I reminded him.

"We are where I expected to find you, John Carter--and another.
Many years ago you heard the story of the woman who taught me the
thing that green Martians are reared to hate, the woman who taught
me to love.  You know the cruel tortures and the awful death her
love won for her at the hands of the beast, Tal Hajus.

"She, I thought, awaited me by the Lost Sea of Korus.

"You know that it was left for a man from another world, for
yourself, John Carter, to teach this cruel Thark what friendship
is; and you, I thought, also roamed the care-free Valley Dor.

"Thus were the two I most longed for at the end of the long pilgrimage
I must take some day, and so as the time had elapsed which Dejah
Thoris had hoped might bring you once more to her side, for she
has always tried to believe that you had but temporarily returned
to your own planet, I at last gave way to my great yearning and a
month since I started upon the journey, the end of which you have
this day witnessed.  Do you understand now where you be, John
Carter?"

"And that was the River Iss, emptying into the Lost Sea of Korus
in the Valley Dor?" I asked.

"This is the valley of love and peace and rest to which every
Barsoomian since time immemorial has longed to pilgrimage at the
end of a life of hate and strife and bloodshed," he replied.  "This,
John Carter, is Heaven."

His tone was cold and ironical; its bitterness but reflecting
the terrible disappointment he had suffered.  Such a fearful
disillusionment, such a blasting of life-long hopes and aspirations,
such an uprooting of age-old tradition might have excused a vastly
greater demonstration on the part of the Thark.

I laid my hand upon his shoulder.

"I am sorry," I said, nor did there seem aught else to say.

"Think, John Carter, of the countless billions of Barsoomians who
have taken the voluntary pilgrimage down this cruel river since
the beginning of time, only to fall into the ferocious clutches of
the terrible creatures that to-day assailed us.

"There is an ancient legend that once a red man returned from the
banks of the Lost Sea of Korus, returned from the Valley Dor, back
through the mysterious River Iss, and the legend has it that he
narrated a fearful blasphemy of horrid brutes that inhabited a valley
of wondrous loveliness, brutes that pounced upon each Barsoomian
as he terminated his pilgrimage and devoured him upon the banks
of the Lost Sea where he had looked to find love and peace and
happiness; but the ancients killed the blasphemer, as tradition
has ordained that any shall be killed who return from the bosom of
the River of Mystery.

"But now we know that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a
true one, and that the man told only of what he saw; but what does
it profit us, John Carter, since even should we escape, we also
would be treated as blasphemers?  We are between the wild thoat of
certainty and the mad zitidar of fact--we can escape neither."

"As Earth men say, we are between the devil and the deep sea, Tars
Tarkas," I replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma.

"There is naught that we can do but take things as they come,
and at least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays
us eventually will have far greater numbers of their own dead to
count than they will get in return.  White ape or plant man, green
Barsoomian or red man, whosoever it shall be that takes the last
toll from us will know that it is costly in lives to wipe out John
Carter, Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak
of Thark, at the same time."

I could not help but laugh at him grim humour, and he joined in with
me in one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of
the attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked him from
the others of his kind.

"But about yourself, John Carter," he cried at last.  "If you have
not been here all these years where indeed have you been, and how
is it that I find you here to-day?"

"I have been back to Earth," I replied.  "For ten long Earth years I
have been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once
more to this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its
cruel and terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even
greater than for the world that gave me birth.

"For ten years have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty
and doubt as to whether Dejah Thoris lived, and now that for the
first time in all these years my prayers have been answered and my
doubt relieved I find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled
into the one tiny spot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently
no escape, and if there were, at a price which would put out for
ever the last flickering hope which I may cling to of seeing my
princess again in this life--and you have seen to-day with what
pitiful futility man yearns toward a material hereafter.

"Only a bare half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant
men I was standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river
that taps the eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land.  I have
answered you, my friend.  Do you believe?"

"I believe," replied Tars Tarkas, "though I cannot understand."

As we talked I had been searching the interior of the chamber with
my eyes.  It was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as
broad, with what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall
directly opposite that through which we had entered.

The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff, showing
mostly dull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium
illuminator in the centre of the roof diffused throughout its great
dimensions.  Here and there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald,
and diamond patched the golden walls and ceiling.  The floor was of
another material, very hard, and worn by much use to the smoothness
of glass.  Aside from the two doors I could discern no sign of other
aperture, and as one we knew to be locked against us I approached
the other.

As I extended my hand to search for the controlling button, that
cruel and mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to me this
time that I involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the
hilt of my great sword.

And then from the far corner of the great chamber a hollow voice
chanted: "There is no hope, there is no hope; the dead return not,
the dead return not; nor is there any resurrection.  Hope not, for
there is no hope."

Though our eyes instantly turned toward the spot from which the
voice seemed to emanate, there was no one in sight, and I must
admit that cold shivers played along my spine and the short hairs
at the base of my head stiffened and rose up, as do those upon a
hound's neck when in the night his eyes see those uncanny things
which are hidden from the sight of man.

Quickly I walked toward the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere
I reached the further wall, and then from the other end of the
chamber came another voice, shrill and piercing:

"Fools!  Fools!" it shrieked.  "Thinkest thou to defeat the eternal
laws of life and death?  Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus,
Goddess of Death, of her just dues?  Did not her mighty messenger,
the ancient Iss, bear you upon her leaden bosom at your own behest
to the Valley Dor?

"Thinkest thou, O fools, that Issus wilt give up her own?  Thinkest
thou to escape from whence in all the countless ages but a single
soul has fled?

"Go back the way thou camest, to the merciful maws of the children
of the Tree of Life or the gleaming fangs of the great white
apes, for there lies speedy surcease from suffering; but insist in
your rash purpose to thread the mazes of the Golden Cliffs of the
Mountains of Otz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses
of the Holy Therns, and upon your way Death in its most frightful
form will overtake you--a death so horrible that even the Holy
Therns themselves, who conceived both Life and Death, avert their
eyes from its fiendishness and close their ears against the hideous
shrieks of its victims.

"Go back, O fools, the way thou camest."

And then the awful laugh broke out from another part of the chamber.

"Most uncanny," I remarked, turning to Tars Tarkas.

"What shall we do?" he asked.  "We cannot fight empty air; I would
almost sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may feel
my blade bite and know that I am selling my carcass dearly before
I go down to that eternal oblivion which is evidently the fairest
and most desirable eternity that mortal man has the right to hope
for."

"If, as you say, we cannot fight empty air, Tars Tarkas," I replied,
"neither, on the other hand, can empty air fight us.  I, who have
faced and conquered in my time thousands of sinewy warriors and
tempered blades, shall not be turned back by wind; nor no more
shall you, Thark."

"But unseen voices may emanate from unseen and unseeable creatures
who wield invisible blades," answered the green warrior.

"Rot, Tars Tarkas," I cried, "those voices come from beings as real
as you or as I.  In their veins flows lifeblood that may be let as
easily as ours, and the fact that they remain invisible to us is the
best proof to my mind that they are mortal; nor overly courageous
mortals at that.  Think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly
at the first shriek of a cowardly foe who dare not come out into
the open and face a good blade?"

I had spoken in a loud voice that there might be no question that
our would-be terrorizers should hear me, for I was tiring of this
nerve-racking fiasco.  It had occurred to me, too, that the whole
business was but a plan to frighten us back into the valley of
death from which we had escaped, that we might be quickly disposed
of by the savage creatures there.

For a long period there was silence, then of a sudden a soft,
stealthy sound behind me caused me to turn suddenly to behold a
great many-legged banth creeping sinuously upon me.

The banth is a fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills
surrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars.  Like nearly all Martian
animals it is almost hairless, having only a great bristly mane
about its thick neck.

Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous
jaws are equipped, like those of the calot, or Martian hound,
with several rows of long needle-like fangs; its mouth reaches to
a point far back of its tiny ears, while its enormous, protruding
eyes of green add the last touch of terror to its awful aspect.

As it crept toward me it lashed its powerful tail against its
yellow sides, and when it saw that it was discovered it emitted
the terrifying roar which often freezes its prey into momentary
paralysis in the instant that it makes its spring.

And so it launched its great bulk toward me, but its mighty voice
had held no paralysing terrors for me, and it met cold steel instead
of the tender flesh its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf.

An instant later I drew my blade from the still heart of this great
Barsoomian lion, and turning toward Tars Tarkas was surprised to
see him facing a similar monster.

No sooner had he dispatched his than I, turning, as though drawn
by the instinct of my guardian subconscious mind, beheld another
of the savage denizens of the Martian wilds leaping across the
chamber toward me.

From then on for the better part of an hour one hideous creature
after another was launched upon us, springing apparently from the
empty air about us.

Tars Tarkas was satisfied; here was something tangible that he could
cut and slash with his great blade, while I, for my part, may say
that the diversion was a marked improvement over the uncanny voices
from unseen lips.

That there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was well
evidenced by their howls of rage and pain as they felt the sharp
steel at their vitals, and the very real blood which flowed from
their severed arteries as they died the real death.

I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beasts
appeared only when our backs were turned; we never saw one really
materialize from thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently
lose my excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the
belief that the beasts came into the room other than through some
concealed and well-contrived doorway.

Among the ornaments of Tars Tarkas' leather harness, which is the
only manner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and
robes of silk and fur for protection from the cold after dark, was
a small mirror, about the bigness of a lady's hand glass, which
hung midway between his shoulders and his waist against his broad
back.

Once as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist my eyes
happened to fall upon this mirror and in its shiny surface I saw
pictured a sight that caused me to whisper:

"Move not, Tars Tarkas!  Move not a muscle!"

He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image while my eyes
watched the strange thing that meant so much to us.

What I saw was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind
me.  It was turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor
directly in front of it was turning.  It was as though you placed
a visiting-card upon end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat
upon a table, so that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the
surface of the coin.

The card might represent the section of the wall that turned and
the silver dollar the section of the floor.  Both were so nicely
fitted into the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no
crack had been noticeable in the dim light of the chamber.

As the turn was half completed a great beast was revealed sitting
upon its haunches upon that part of the revolving floor that had
been on the opposite side before the wall commenced to move; when
the section stopped, the beast was facing toward me on our side of
the partition--it was very simple.

But what had interested me most was the sight that the half-turned
section had presented through the opening that it had made.  A
great chamber, well lighted, in which were several men and women
chained to the wall, and in front of them, evidently directing and
operating the movement of the secret doorway, a wicked-faced man,
neither red as are the red men of Mars, nor green as are the green
men, but white, like myself, with a great mass of flowing yellow
hair.

The prisoners behind him were red Martians.  Chained with them
were a number of fierce beasts, such as had been turned upon us,
and others equally as ferocious.

As I turned to meet my new foe it was with a heart considerably
lightened.

"Watch the wall at your end of the chamber, Tars Tarkas,"
I cautioned, "it is through secret doorways in the wall that the
brutes are loosed upon us."  I was very close to him and spoke
in a low whisper that my knowledge of their secret might not be
disclosed to our tormentors.

As long as we remained each facing an opposite end of the apartment
no further attacks were made upon us, so it was quite clear to me
that the partitions were in some way pierced that our actions might
be observed from without.

At length a plan of action occurred to me, and backing quite close
to Tars Tarkas I unfolded my scheme in a low whisper, keeping my
eyes still glued upon my end of the room.

The great Thark grunted his assent to my proposition when I had
done, and in accordance with my plan commenced backing toward the

wall which I faced while I advanced slowly ahead of him.

When we had reached a point some ten feet from the secret doorway
I halted my companion, and cautioning him to remain absolutely
motionless until I gave the prearranged signal I quickly turned
my back to the door through which I could almost feel the burning
and baleful eyes of our would be executioner.

Instantly my own eyes sought the mirror upon Tars Tarkas' back and
in another second I was closely watching the section of the wall
which had been disgorging its savage terrors upon us.

I had not long to wait, for presently the golden surface commenced
to move rapidly.  Scarcely had it started than I gave the signal
to Tars Tarkas, simultaneously springing for the receding half of
the pivoting door.  In like manner the Thark wheeled and leaped
for the opening being made by the inswinging section.

A single bound carried me completely through into the adjoining
room and brought me face to face with the fellow whose cruel face
I had seen before.  He was about my own height and well muscled
and in every outward detail moulded precisely as are Earth men.

At his side hung a long-sword, a short-sword, a dagger, and one of
the destructive radium revolvers that are common upon Mars.

The fact that I was armed only with a long-sword, and so according
to the laws and ethics of battle everywhere upon Barsoom should
only have been met with a similar or lesser weapon, seemed to have
no effect upon the moral sense of my enemy, for he whipped out his
revolver ere I scarce had touched the floor by his side, but an
uppercut from my long-sword sent it flying from his grasp before
he could discharge it.

Instantly he drew his long-sword, and thus evenly armed we set to
in earnest for one of the closest battles I ever have fought.

The fellow was a marvellous swordsman and evidently in practice,
while I had not gripped the hilt of a sword for ten long years
before that morning.

But it did not take me long to fall easily into my fighting stride,
so that in a few minutes the man began to realize that he had at
last met his match.

His face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable,
while blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his face and
body.

"Who are you, white man?" he hissed.  "That you are no Barsoomian
from the outer world is evident from your colour.  And you are not
of us."

His last statement was almost a question.

"What if I were from the Temple of Issus?" I hazarded on a wild
guess.

"Fate forfend!" he exclaimed, his face going white under the blood
that now nearly covered it.

I did not know how to follow up my lead, but I carefully laid the
idea away for future use should circumstances require it.  His
answer indicated that for all he KNEW I might be from the Temple
of Issus and in it were men like unto myself, and either this man
feared the inmates of the temple or else he held their persons or
their power in such reverence that he trembled to think of the harm
and indignities he had heaped upon one of them.

But my present business with him was of a different nature than
that which requires any considerable abstract reasoning; it was to
get my sword between his ribs, and this I succeeded in doing within
the next few seconds, nor was I an instant too soon.

The chained prisoners had been watching the combat in tense silence;
not a sound had fallen in the room other than the clashing of our
contending blades, the soft shuffling of our naked feet and the
few whispered words we had hissed at each other through clenched
teeth the while we continued our mortal duel.

But as the body of my antagonist sank an inert mass to the floor
a cry of warning broke from one of the female prisoners.

"Turn!  Turn!  Behind you!" she shrieked, and as I wheeled at the
first note of her shrill cry I found myself facing a second man of
the same race as he who lay at my feet.

The fellow had crept stealthily from a dark corridor and was almost
upon me with raised sword ere I saw him.  Tars Tarkas was nowhere
in sight and the secret panel in the wall, through which I had
come, was closed.

How I wished that he were by my side now!  I had fought almost
continuously for many hours; I had passed through such experiences
and adventures as must sap the vitality of man, and with all this
I had not eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, nor slept.

I was fagged out, and for the first time in years felt a question
as to my ability to cope with an antagonist; but there was naught
else for it than to engage my man, and that as quickly and ferociously
as lay in me, for my only salvation was to rush him off his feet by
the impetuosity of my attack--I could not hope to win a long-drawn-out
battle.

But the fellow was evidently of another mind, for he backed and
parried and parried and sidestepped until I was almost completely
fagged from the exertion of attempting to finish him.

He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe,
and I must admit that he led me a pretty chase and in the end came
near to making a sorry fool of me--and a dead one into the bargain.

I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at length
objects commenced to blur before my eyes and I staggered and blundered
about more asleep than awake, and then it was that he worked his
pretty little coup that came near to losing me my life.

He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the corpse of
his fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly so that I was forced back
upon it, and as my heel struck it the impetus of my body flung me
backward across the dead man.

My head struck the hard pavement with a resounding whack, and
to that alone I owe my life, for it cleared my brain and the pain
roused my temper, so that I was equal for the moment to tearing
my enemy to pieces with my bare hands, and I verily believe that
I should have attempted it had not my right hand, in the act of
raising my body from the ground, come in contact with a bit of cold
metal.

As the eyes of the layman so is the hand of the fighting man when
it comes in contact with an implement of his vocation, and thus I
did not need to look or reason to know that the dead man's revolver,
lying where it had fallen when I struck it from his grasp, was at
my disposal.

The fellow whose ruse had put me down was springing toward me,
the point of his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, and
as he came there rang from his lips the cruel and mocking peal of
laughter that I had heard within the Chamber of Mystery.

And so he died, his thin lips curled in the snarl of his hateful
laugh, and a bullet from the revolver of his dead companion bursting
in his heart.

His body, borne by the impetus of his headlong rush, plunged upon
me.  The hilt of his sword must have struck my head, for with the
impact of the corpse I lost consciousness.





CHAPTER IV

THUVIA




It was the sound of conflict that aroused me once more to the realities
of life.  For a moment I could neither place my surroundings nor
locate the sounds which had aroused me.  And then from beyond the
blank wall beside which I lay I heard the shuffling of feet, the
snarling of grim beasts, the clank of metal accoutrements, and the
heavy breathing of a man.

As I rose to my feet I glanced hurriedly about the chamber in which
I had just encountered such a warm reception.  The prisoners and
the savage brutes rested in their chains by the opposite wall eyeing
me with varying expressions of curiosity, sullen rage, surprise,
and hope.

The latter emotion seemed plainly evident upon the handsome and
intelligent face of the young red Martian woman whose cry of warning
had been instrumental in saving my life.

She was the perfect type of that remarkably beautiful race whose
outward appearance is identical with the more god-like races of
Earth men, except that this higher race of Martians is of a light
reddish copper colour.  As she was entirely unadorned I could not
even guess her station in life, though it was evident that she was
either a prisoner or slave in her present environment.

It was several seconds before the sounds upon the opposite side of
the partition jolted my slowly returning faculties into a realization
of their probable import, and then of a sudden I grasped the
fact that they were caused by Tars Tarkas in what was evidently a
desperate struggle with wild beasts or savage men.

With a cry of encouragement I threw my weight against the secret
door, but as well have assayed the down-hurling of the cliffs
themselves.  Then I sought feverishly for the secret of the revolving
panel, but my search was fruitless, and I was about to raise my
longsword against the sullen gold when the young woman prisoner
called out to me.

"Save thy sword, O Mighty Warrior, for thou shalt need it more where
it will avail to some purpose--shatter it not against senseless
metal which yields better to the lightest finger touch of one who
knows its secret."

"Know you the secret of it then?" I asked.

"Yes; release me and I will give you entrance to the other horror
chamber, if you wish.  The keys to my fetters are upon the first
dead of thy foemen.  But why would you return to face again the
fierce banth, or whatever other form of destruction they have loosed
within that awful trap?"

"Because my friend fights there alone," I answered, as I hastily
sought and found the keys upon the carcass of the dead custodian
of this grim chamber of horrors.

There were many keys upon the oval ring, but the fair Martian maid
quickly selected that which sprung the great lock at her waist,
and freed she hurried toward the secret panel.

Again she sought out a key upon the ring.  This time a slender,
needle-like affair which she inserted in an almost invisible hole
in the wall.  Instantly the door swung upon its pivot, and the
contiguous section of the floor upon which I was standing carried
me with it into the chamber where Tars Tarkas fought.

The great Thark stood with his back against an angle of the walls,
while facing him in a semi-circle a half-dozen huge monsters crouched
waiting for an opening.  Their blood-streaked heads and shoulders
testified to the cause of their wariness as well as to the
swordsmanship of the green warrior whose glossy hide bore the same
mute but eloquent witness to the ferocity of the attacks that he
had so far withstood.

Sharp talons and cruel fangs had torn leg, arm, and breast literally
to ribbons.  So weak was he from continued exertion and loss of
blood that but for the supporting wall I doubt that he even could
have stood erect.  But with the tenacity and indomitable courage
of his kind he still faced his cruel and relentless foes--the
personification of that ancient proverb of his tribe: "Leave to a
Thark his head and one hand and he may yet conquer."

As he saw me enter, a grim smile touched those grim lips of his,
but whether the smile signified relief or merely amusement at the
sight of my own bloody and dishevelled condition I do not know.

As I was about to spring into the conflict with my sharp long-sword
I felt a gentle hand upon my shoulder and turning found, to my
surprise, that the young woman had followed me into the chamber.

"Wait," she whispered, "leave them to me," and pushing me advanced,
all defenceless and unarmed, upon the snarling banths.

When quite close to them she spoke a single Martian word in low
but peremptory tones.  Like lightning the great beasts wheeled upon
her, and I looked to see her torn to pieces before I could reach
her side, but instead the creatures slunk to her feet like puppies
that expect a merited whipping.

Again she spoke to them, but in tones so low I could not catch the
words, and then she started toward the opposite side of the chamber
with the six mighty monsters trailing at heel.  One by one she
sent them through the secret panel into the room beyond, and when
the last had passed from the chamber where we stood in wide-eyed
amazement she turned and smiled at us and then herself passed
through, leaving us alone.

For a moment neither of us spoke.  Then Tars Tarkas said:

"I heard the fighting beyond the partition through which you passed,
but I did not fear for you, John Carter, until I heard the report
of a revolver shot.  I knew that there lived no man upon all Barsoom
who could face you with naked steel and live, but the shot stripped
the last vestige of hope from me, since you I knew to be without
firearms.  Tell me of it."

I did as he bade, and then together we sought the secret panel
through which I had just entered the apartment--the one at the
opposite end of the room from that through which the girl had led
her savage companions.

To our disappointment the panel eluded our every effort to negotiate
its secret lock.  We felt that once beyond it we might look with
some little hope of success for a passage to the outside world.

The fact that the prisoners within were securely chained led us
to believe that surely there must be an avenue of escape from the
terrible creatures which inhabited this unspeakable place.

Again and again we turned from one door to another, from the
baffling golden panel at one end of the chamber to its mate at the
other--equally baffling.

When we had about given up all hope one of the panels turned silently
toward us, and the young woman who had led away the banths stood
once more beside us.

"Who are you?" she asked, "and what your mission, that you have
the temerity to attempt to escape from the Valley Dor and the death
you have chosen?"

"I have chosen no death, maiden," I replied.  "I am not of Barsoom,
nor have I taken yet the voluntary pilgrimage upon the River Iss.
My friend here is Jeddak of all the Tharks, and though he has not
yet expressed a desire to return to the living world, I am taking
him with me from the living lie that hath lured him to this frightful
place.

"I am of another world.  I am John Carter, Prince of the House of
Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium.  Perchance some faint rumour of me
may have leaked within the confines of your hellish abode."

She smiled.

"Yes," she replied, "naught that passes in the world we have left
is unknown here.  I have heard of you, many years ago.  The therns
have ofttimes wondered whither you had flown, since you had neither
taken the pilgrimage, nor could be found upon the face of Barsoom."

"Tell me," I said, "and who be you, and why a prisoner, yet with
power over the ferocious beasts of the place that denotes familiarity
and authority far beyond that which might be expected of a prisoner
or a slave?"

"Slave I am," she answered.  "For fifteen years a slave in this
terrible place, and now that they have tired of me and become
fearful of the power which my knowledge of their ways has given me
I am but recently condemned to die the death."

She shuddered.

"What death?" I asked.

"The Holy Therns eat human flesh," she answered me; "but only that
which has died beneath the sucking lips of a plant man--flesh from
which the defiling blood of life has been drawn.  And to this cruel
end I have been condemned.  It was to be within a few hours, had
your advent not caused an interruption of their plans."

"Was it then Holy Therns who felt the weight of John Carter's hand?"
I asked.

"Oh, no; those whom you laid low are lesser therns; but of the
same cruel and hateful race.  The Holy Therns abide upon the outer
slopes of these grim hills, facing the broad world from which they
harvest their victims and their spoils.

"Labyrinthine passages connect these caves with the luxurious
palaces of the Holy Therns, and through them pass upon their many
duties the lesser therns, and hordes of slaves, and prisoners, and
fierce beasts; the grim inhabitants of this sunless world.

"There be within this vast network of winding passages and countless
chambers men, women, and beasts who, born within its dim and gruesome
underworld, have never seen the light of day--nor ever shall.

"They are kept to do the bidding of the race of therns; to furnish
at once their sport and their sustenance.

"Now and again some hapless pilgrim, drifting out upon the silent
sea from the cold Iss, escapes the plant men and the great white
apes that guard the Temple of Issus and falls into the remorseless
clutches of the therns; or, as was my misfortune, is coveted by
the Holy Thern who chances to be upon watch in the balcony above
the river where it issues from the bowels of the mountains through
the cliffs of gold to empty into the Lost Sea of Korus.

"All who reach the Valley Dor are, by custom, the rightful prey of
the plant men and the apes, while their arms and ornaments become
the portion of the therns; but if one escapes the terrible denizens
of the valley for even a few hours the therns may claim such a one
as their own.  And again the Holy Thern on watch, should he see a
victim he covets, often tramples upon the rights of the unreasoning
brutes of the valley and takes his prize by foul means if he cannot
gain it by fair.

"It is said that occasionally some deluded victim of Barsoomian
superstition will so far escape the clutches of the countless
enemies that beset his path from the moment that he emerges from
the subterranean passage through which the Iss flows for a thousand
miles before it enters the Valley Dor as to reach the very walls
of the Temple of Issus; but what fate awaits one there not even
the Holy Therns may guess, for who has passed within those gilded
walls never has returned to unfold the mysteries they have held
since the beginning of time.

"The Temple of Issus is to the therns what the Valley Dor is imagined
by the peoples of the outer world to be to them; it is the ultimate
haven of peace, refuge, and happiness to which they pass after
this life and wherein an eternity of eternities is spent amidst
the delights of the flesh which appeal most strongly to this race
of mental giants and moral pygmies."

"The Temple of Issus is, I take it, a heaven within a heaven," I
said.  "Let us hope that there it will be meted to the therns as
they have meted it here unto others."

"Who knows?" the girl murmured.

"The therns, I judge from what you have said, are no less mortal
than we; and yet have I always heard them spoken of with the utmost
awe and reverence by the people of Barsoom, as one might speak of
the gods themselves."

"The therns are mortal," she replied.  "They die from the same
causes as you or I might: those who do not live their allotted span
of life, one thousand years, when by the authority of custom they
may take their way in happiness through the long tunnel that leads
to Issus.

"Those who die before are supposed to spend the balance of their
allotted time in the image of a plant man, and it is for this
reason that the plant men are held sacred by the therns, since they
believe that each of these hideous creatures was formerly a thern."

"And should a plant man die?" I asked.

"Should he die before the expiration of the thousand years from
the birth of the thern whose immortality abides within him then the
soul passes into a great white ape, but should the ape die short
of the exact hour that terminates the thousand years the soul is
for ever lost and passes for all eternity into the carcass of the
slimy and fearsome silian whose wriggling thousands seethe the
silent sea beneath the hurtling moons when the sun has gone and
strange shapes walk through the Valley Dor."

"We sent several Holy Therns to the silians to-day, then," said
Tars Tarkas, laughing.

"And so will your death be the more terrible when it comes," said
the maiden.  "And come it will--you cannot escape."

"One has escaped, centuries ago," I reminded her, "and what has
been done may be done again."

"It is useless even to try," she answered hopelessly.

"But try we shall," I cried, "and you shall go with us, if you wish."

"To be put to death by mine own people, and render my memory
a disgrace to my family and my nation?  A Prince of the House of
Tardos Mors should know better than to suggest such a thing."

Tars Tarkas listened in silence, but I could feel his eyes riveted
upon me and I knew that he awaited my answer as one might listen
to the reading of his sentence by the foreman of a jury.

What I advised the girl to do would seal our fate as well, since if
I bowed to the inevitable decree of age-old superstition we must
all remain and meet our fate in some horrible form within this
awful abode of horror and cruelty.

"We have the right to escape if we can," I answered.  "Our own
moral senses will not be offended if we succeed, for we know that
the fabled life of love and peace in the blessed Valley of Dor is
a rank and wicked deception.  We know that the valley is not sacred;
we know that the Holy Therns are not holy; that they are a race of
cruel and heartless mortals, knowing no more of the real life to
come than we do.

"Not only is it our right to bend every effort to escape--it is
a solemn duty from which we should not shrink even though we know
that we should be reviled and tortured by our own peoples when we
returned to them.

"Only thus may we carry the truth to those without, and though the
likelihood of our narrative being given credence is, I grant you,
remote, so wedded are mortals to their stupid infatuation for
impossible superstitions, we should be craven cowards indeed were
we to shirk the plain duty which confronts us.

"Again there is a chance that with the weight of the testimony of
several of us the truth of our statements may be accepted, and at
least a compromise effected which will result in the dispatching
of an expedition of investigation to this hideous mockery of heaven."

Both the girl and the green warrior stood silent in thought for
some moments.  The former it was who eventually broke the silence.

"Never had I considered the matter in that light before," she said.
"Indeed would I give my life a thousand times if I could but save
a single soul from the awful life that I have led in this cruel
place.  Yes, you are right, and I will go with you as far as we
can go; but I doubt that we ever shall escape."

I turned an inquiring glance toward the Thark.

"To the gates of Issus, or to the bottom of Korus," spoke the green
warrior; "to the snows to the north or to the snows to the south,
Tars Tarkas follows where John Carter leads.  I have spoken."

"Come, then," I cried, "we must make the start, for we could not be
further from escape than we now are in the heart of this mountain
and within the four walls of this chamber of death."

"Come, then," said the girl, "but do not flatter yourself that
you can find no worse place than this within the territory of the
therns."

So saying she swung the secret panel that separated us from the
apartment in which I had found her, and we stepped through once
more into the presence of the other prisoners.

There were in all ten red Martians, men and women, and when we had
briefly explained our plan they decided to join forces with us,
though it was evident that it was with some considerable misgivings
that they thus tempted fate by opposing an ancient superstition,
even though each knew through cruel experience the fallacy of its
entire fabric.

Thuvia, the girl whom I had first freed, soon had the others at
liberty.  Tars Tarkas and I stripped the bodies of the two therns
of their weapons, which included swords, daggers, and two revolvers
of the curious and deadly type manufactured by the red Martians.

We distributed the weapons as far as they would go among our
followers, giving the firearms to two of the women; Thuvia being
one so armed.

With the latter as our guide we set off rapidly but cautiously
through a maze of passages, crossing great chambers hewn from the
solid metal of the cliff, following winding corridors, ascending
steep inclines, and now and again concealing ourselves in dark
recesses at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Our destination, Thuvia said, was a distant storeroom where arms
and ammunition in plenty might be found.  From there she was to
lead us to the summit of the cliffs, from where it would require
both wondrous wit and mighty fighting to win our way through the
very heart of the stronghold of the Holy Therns to the world without.

"And even then, O Prince," she cried, "the arm of the Holy Thern is
long.  It reaches to every nation of Barsoom.  His secret temples
are hidden in the heart of every community.  Wherever we go should
we escape we shall find that word of our coming has preceded us, and
death awaits us before we may pollute the air with our blasphemies."

We had proceeded for possibly an hour without serious interruption,
and Thuvia had just whispered to me that we were approaching our
first destination, when on entering a great chamber we came upon
a man, evidently a thern.

He wore in addition to his leathern trappings and jewelled ornaments
a great circlet of gold about his brow in the exact centre of which
was set an immense stone, the exact counterpart of that which I
had seen upon the breast of the little old man at the atmosphere
plant nearly twenty years before.

It is the one priceless jewel of Barsoom.  Only two are known to
exist, and these were worn as the insignia of their rank and position
by the two old men in whose charge was placed the operation of the
great engines which pump the artificial atmosphere to all parts
of Mars from the huge atmosphere plant, the secret to whose mighty
portals placed in my possession the ability to save from immediate
extinction the life of a whole world.

The stone worn by the thern who confronted us was of about the same
size as that which I had seen before; an inch in diameter I should
say.  It scintillated nine different and distinct rays; the seven
primary colours of our earthly prism and the two rays which are
unknown upon Earth, but whose wondrous beauty is indescribable.

As the thern saw us his eyes narrowed to two nasty slits.

"Stop!" he cried.  "What means this, Thuvia?"

For answer the girl raised her revolver and fired point-blank at
him.  Without a sound he sank to the earth, dead.

"Beast!" she hissed.  "After all these years I am at last revenged."

Then as she turned toward me, evidently with a word of explanation
on her lips, her eyes suddenly widened as they rested upon me, and
with a little exclamation she started toward me.

"O Prince," she cried, "Fate is indeed kind to us.  The way is still
difficult, but through this vile thing upon the floor we may yet
win to the outer world.  Notest thou not the remarkable resemblance
between this Holy Thern and thyself?"

The man was indeed of my precise stature, nor were his eyes and
features unlike mine; but his hair was a mass of flowing yellow
locks, like those of the two I had killed, while mine is black and
close cropped.

"What of the resemblance?" I asked the girl Thuvia.  "Do you wish
me with my black, short hair to pose as a yellow-haired priest of
this infernal cult?"

She smiled, and for answer approached the body of the man she had
slain, and kneeling beside it removed the circlet of gold from the
forehead, and then to my utter amazement lifted the entire scalp
bodily from the corpse's head.

Rising, she advanced to my side and placing the yellow wig over
my black hair, crowned me with the golden circlet set with the
magnificent gem.

"Now don his harness, Prince," she said, "and you may pass where
you will in the realms of the therns, for Sator Throg was a Holy
Thern of the Tenth Cycle, and mighty among his kind."

As I stooped to the dead man to do her bidding I noted that not a
hair grew upon his head, which was quite as bald as an egg.

"They are all thus from birth," explained Thuvia noting my surprise.
"The race from which they sprang were crowned with a luxuriant
growth of golden hair, but for many ages the present race has been
entirely bald.  The wig, however, has come to be a part of their
apparel, and so important a part do they consider it that it is
cause for the deepest disgrace were a thern to appear in public
without it."

In another moment I stood garbed in the habiliments of a Holy Thern.

At Thuvia's suggestion two of the released prisoners bore the body
of the dead thern upon their shoulders with us as we continued
our journey toward the storeroom, which we reached without further
mishap.

Here the keys which Thuvia bore from the dead thern of the prison
vault were the means of giving us immediate entrance to the
chamber, and very quickly we were thoroughly outfitted with arms
and ammunition.

By this time I was so thoroughly fagged out that I could go no
further, so I threw myself upon the floor, bidding Tars Tarkas to
do likewise, and cautioning two of the released prisoners to keep
careful watch.

In an instant I was asleep.





CHAPTER V

CORRIDORS OF PERIL




How long I slept upon the floor of the storeroom I do not know,
but it must have been many hours.

I was awakened with a start by cries of alarm, and scarce were my
eyes opened, nor had I yet sufficiently collected my wits to quite
realize where I was, when a fusillade of shots rang out, reverberating
through the subterranean corridors in a series of deafening echoes.

In an instant I was upon my feet.  A dozen lesser therns confronted
us from a large doorway at the opposite end of the storeroom from
which we had entered.  About me lay the bodies of my companions,
with the exception of Thuvia and Tars Tarkas, who, like myself, had
been asleep upon the floor and thus escaped the first raking fire.

As I gained my feet the therns lowered their wicked rifles, their
faces distorted in mingled chagrin, consternation, and alarm.

Instantly I rose to the occasion.

"What means this?" I cried in tones of fierce anger.  "Is Sator
Throg to be murdered by his own vassals?"

"Have mercy, O Master of the Tenth Cycle!" cried one of the fellows,
while the others edged toward the doorway as though to attempt a
surreptitious escape from the presence of the mighty one.

"Ask them their mission here," whispered Thuvia at my elbow.

"What do you here, fellows?" I cried.

"Two from the outer world are at large within the dominions of the
therns.  We sought them at the command of the Father of Therns.
One was white with black hair, the other a huge green warrior,"
and here the fellow cast a suspicious glance toward Tars Tarkas.

"Here, then, is one of them," spoke Thuvia, indicating the Thark,
"and if you will look upon this dead man by the door perhaps you
will recognize the other.  It was left for Sator Throg and his
poor slaves to accomplish what the lesser therns of the guard were
unable to do--we have killed one and captured the other; for this
had Sator Throg given us our liberty.  And now in your stupidity
have you come and killed all but myself, and like to have killed
the mighty Sator Throg himself."

The men looked very sheepish and very scared.

"Had they not better throw these bodies to the plant men and then
return to their quarters, O Mighty One?" asked Thuvia of me.

"Yes; do as Thuvia bids you," I said.

As the men picked up the bodies I noticed that the one who stooped
to gather up the late Sator Throg started as his closer scrutiny
fell upon the upturned face, and then the fellow stole a furtive,
sneaking glance in my direction from the corner of his eye.

That he suspicioned something of the truth I could have sworn;
but that it was only a suspicion which he did not dare voice was
evidenced by his silence.

Again, as he bore the body from the room, he shot a quick but
searching glance toward me, and then his eyes fell once more upon
the bald and shiny dome of the dead man in his arms.  The last
fleeting glimpse that I obtained of his profile as he passed from
my sight without the chamber revealed a cunning smile of triumph
upon his lips.

Only Tars Tarkas, Thuvia, and I were left.  The fatal marksmanship
of the therns had snatched from our companions whatever slender
chance they had of gaining the perilous freedom of the world without.

So soon as the last of the gruesome procession had disappeared the
girl urged us to take up our flight once more.

She, too, had noted the questioning attitude of the thern who had
borne Sator Throg away.

"It bodes no good for us, O Prince," she said.  "For even though
this fellow dared not chance accusing you in error, there be those
above with power sufficient to demand a closer scrutiny, and that,
Prince would indeed prove fatal."

I shrugged my shoulders.  It seemed that in any event the outcome
of our plight must end in death.  I was refreshed from my sleep,
but still weak from loss of blood.  My wounds were painful.  No
medicinal aid seemed possible.  How I longed for the almost
miraculous healing power of the strange salves and lotions of the
green Martian women.  In an hour they would have had me as new.

I was discouraged.  Never had a feeling of such utter hopelessness
come over me in the face of danger.  Then the long flowing, yellow
locks of the Holy Thern, caught by some vagrant draught, blew about
my face.

Might they not still open the way of freedom?  If we acted in time,
might we not even yet escape before the general alarm was sounded?
We could at least try.

"What will the fellow do first, Thuvia?" I asked.  "How long will
it be before they may return for us?"

"He will go directly to the Father of Therns, old Matai Shang.  He
may have to wait for an audience, but since he is very high among
the lesser therns, in fact as a thorian among them, it will not be
long that Matai Shang will keep him waiting.

"Then if the Father of Therns puts credence in his story, another
hour will see the galleries and chambers, the courts and gardens,
filled with searchers."

"What we do then must be done within an hour.  What is the best
way, Thuvia, the shortest way out of this celestial Hades?"

"Straight to the top of the cliffs, Prince," she replied, "and then
through the gardens to the inner courts.  From there our way will
lie within the temples of the therns and across them to the outer
court.  Then the ramparts--O Prince, it is hopeless.  Ten thousand
warriors could not hew a way to liberty from out this awful place.

"Since the beginning of time, little by little, stone by stone, have
the therns been ever adding to the defences of their stronghold.
A continuous line of impregnable fortifications circles the outer
slopes of the Mountains of Otz.

"Within the temples that lie behind the ramparts a million fighting-men
are ever ready.  The courts and gardens are filled with slaves,
with women and with children.

"None could go a stone's throw without detection."

"If there is no other way, Thuvia, why dwell upon the difficulties
of this.  We must face them."

"Can we not better make the attempt after dark?" asked Tars Tarkas.
"There would seem to be no chance by day."

"There would be a little better chance by night, but even then the
ramparts are well guarded; possibly better than by day.  There are
fewer abroad in the courts and gardens, though," said Thuvia.

"What is the hour?" I asked.

"It was midnight when you released me from my chains," said Thuvia.
"Two hours later we reached the storeroom.  There you slept for
fourteen hours.  It must now be nearly sundown again.  Come, we
will go to some nearby window in the cliff and make sure."

So saying, she led the way through winding corridors until at
a sudden turn we came upon an opening which overlooked the Valley
Dor.

At our right the sun was setting, a huge red orb, below the western
range of Otz.  A little below us stood the Holy Thern on watch upon
his balcony.  His scarlet robe of office was pulled tightly about
him in anticipation of the cold that comes so suddenly with darkness
as the sun sets.  So rare is the atmosphere of Mars that it absorbs
very little heat from the sun.  During the daylight hours it is
always extremely hot; at night it is intensely cold.  Nor does the
thin atmosphere refract the sun's rays or diffuse its light as upon
Earth.  There is no twilight on Mars.  When the great orb of day
disappears beneath the horizon the effect is precisely as that of
the extinguishing of a single lamp within a chamber.  From brilliant
light you are plunged without warning into utter darkness.  Then
the moons come; the mysterious, magic moons of Mars, hurtling like
monster meteors low across the face of the planet.

The declining sun lighted brilliantly the eastern banks of Korus,
the crimson sward, the gorgeous forest.  Beneath the trees we saw
feeding many herds of plant men.  The adults stood aloft upon their
toes and their mighty tails, their talons pruning every available
leaf and twig.  It was then that I understood the careful trimming
of the trees which had led me to form the mistaken idea when first
I opened my eyes upon the grove that it was the playground of a
civilized people.

As we watched, our eyes wandered to the rolling Iss, which issued
from the base of the cliffs beneath us.  Presently there emerged
from the mountain a canoe laden with lost souls from the outer world.
There were a dozen of them.  All were of the highly civilized and
cultured race of red men who are dominant on Mars.

The eyes of the herald upon the balcony beneath us fell upon the
doomed party as soon as did ours.  He raised his head and leaning
far out over the low rail that rimmed his dizzy perch, voiced the
shrill, weird wail that called the demons of this hellish place to
the attack.

For an instant the brutes stood with stiffly erected ears, then
they poured from the grove toward the river's bank, covering the
distance with great, ungainly leaps.

The party had landed and was standing on the sward as the awful
horde came in sight.  There was a brief and futile effort of defence.
Then silence as the huge, repulsive shapes covered the bodies of
their victims and scores of sucking mouths fastened themselves to
the flesh of their prey.

I turned away in disgust.

"Their part is soon over," said Thuvia.  "The great white apes get
the flesh when the plant men have drained the arteries.  Look, they
are coming now."

As I turned my eyes in the direction the girl indicated, I saw a
dozen of the great white monsters running across the valley toward
the river bank.  Then the sun went down and darkness that could
almost be felt engulfed us.

Thuvia lost no time in leading us toward the corridor which winds
back and forth up through the cliffs toward the surface thousands
of feet above the level on which we had been.

Twice great banths, wandering loose through the galleries, blocked
our progress, but in each instance Thuvia spoke a low word of
command and the snarling beasts slunk sullenly away.

"If you can dissolve all our obstacles as easily as you master
these fierce brutes I can see no difficulties in our way," I said
to the girl, smiling.  "How do you do it?"

She laughed, and then shuddered.

"I do not quite know," she said.  "When first I came here I angered
Sator Throg, because I repulsed him.  He ordered me to be thrown
into one of the great pits in the inner gardens.  It was filled
with banths.  In my own country I had been accustomed to command.
Something in my voice, I do not know what, cowed the beasts as they
sprang to attack me.

"Instead of tearing me to pieces, as Sator Throg had desired, they
fawned at my feet.  So greatly were Sator Throg and his friends
amused by the sight that they kept me to train and handle the
terrible creatures.  I know them all by name.  There are many of
them wandering through these lower regions.  They are the scavengers.
Many prisoners die here in their chains.  The banths solve the
problem of sanitation, at least in this respect.

"In the gardens and temples above they are kept in pits.  The therns
fear them.  It is because of the banths that they seldom venture
below ground except as their duties call them."

An idea occurred to me, suggested by what Thuvia had just said.

"Why not take a number of banths and set them loose before us above
ground?" I asked.

Thuvia laughed.

"It would distract attention from us, I am sure," she said.

She commenced calling in a low singsong voice that was half purr.
She continued this as we wound our tedious way through the maze of
subterranean passages and chambers.

Presently soft, padded feet sounded close behind us, and as I turned I
saw a pair of great, green eyes shining in the dark shadows at our
rear.  From a diverging tunnel a sinuous, tawny form crept stealthily
toward us.

Low growls and angry snarls assailed our ears on every side as we
hastened on and one by one the ferocious creatures answered the
call of their mistress.

She spoke a word to each as it joined us.  Like well-schooled
terriers, they paced the corridors with us, but I could not help
but note the lathering jowls, nor the hungry expressions with which
they eyed Tars Tarkas and myself.

Soon we were entirely surrounded by some fifty of the brutes.  Two
walked close on either side of Thuvia, as guards might walk.  The
sleek sides of others now and then touched my own naked limbs.  It
was a strange experience; the almost noiseless passage of naked human
feet and padded paws; the golden walls splashed with precious stones;
the dim light cast by the tiny radium bulbs set at considerable
distances along the roof; the huge, maned beasts of prey crowding
with low growls about us; the mighty green warrior towering high
above us all; myself crowned with the priceless diadem of a Holy
Thern; and leading the procession the beautiful girl, Thuvia.

I shall not soon forget it.

Presently we approached a great chamber more brightly lighted than
the corridors.  Thuvia halted us.  Quietly she stole toward the
entrance and glanced within.  Then she motioned us to follow her.

The room was filled with specimens of the strange beings that
inhabit this underworld; a heterogeneous collection of hybrids--the
offspring of the prisoners from the outside world; red and green
Martians and the white race of therns.

Constant confinement below ground had wrought odd freaks upon their
skins.  They more resemble corpses than living beings.  Many are
deformed, others maimed, while the majority, Thuvia explained, are
sightless.

As they lay sprawled about the floor, sometimes overlapping one
another, again in heaps of several bodies, they suggested instantly
to me the grotesque illustrations that I had seen in copies of
Dante's INFERNO, and what more fitting comparison?  Was this not
indeed a veritable hell, peopled by lost souls, dead and damned
beyond all hope?

Picking our way carefully we threaded a winding path across the
chamber, the great banths sniffing hungrily at the tempting prey
spread before them in such tantalizing and defenceless profusion.

Several times we passed the entrances to other chambers similarly
peopled, and twice again we were compelled to cross directly through
them.  In others were chained prisoners and beasts.

"Why is it that we see no therns?" I asked of Thuvia.

"They seldom traverse the underworld at night, for then it is that
the great banths prowl the dim corridors seeking their prey.  The
therns fear the awful denizens of this cruel and hopeless world
that they have fostered and allowed to grow beneath their feet.  The
prisoners even sometimes turn upon them and rend them.  The thern
can never tell from what dark shadow an assassin may spring upon
his back.

"By day it is different.  Then the corridors and chambers are filled
with guards passing to and fro; slaves from the temples above come
by hundreds to the granaries and storerooms.  All is life then.
You did not see it because I led you not in the beaten tracks, but
through roundabout passages seldom used.  Yet it is possible that
we may meet a thern even yet.  They do occasionally find it necessary
to come here after the sun has set.  Because of this I have moved
with such great caution."

But we reached the upper galleries without detection and presently
Thuvia halted us at the foot of a short, steep ascent.

"Above us," she said, "is a doorway which opens on to the inner
gardens.  I have brought you thus far.  From here on for four miles
to the outer ramparts our way will be beset by countless dangers.
Guards patrol the courts, the temples, the gardens.  Every inch of
the ramparts themselves is beneath the eye of a sentry."

I could not understand the necessity for such an enormous force of
armed men about a spot so surrounded by mystery and superstition
that not a soul upon Barsoom would have dared to approach it even
had they known its exact location.  I questioned Thuvia, asking
her what enemies the therns could fear in their impregnable fortress.

We had reached the doorway now and Thuvia was opening it.

"They fear the black pirates of Barsoom, O Prince," she said, "from
whom may our first ancestors preserve us."

The door swung open; the smell of growing things greeted my nostrils;
the cool night air blew against my cheek.  The great banths sniffed
the unfamiliar odours, and then with a rush they broke past us with
low growls, swarming across the gardens beneath the lurid light of
the nearer moon.

Suddenly a great cry arose from the roofs of the temples; a cry of
alarm and warning that, taken up from point to point, ran off to
the east and to the west, from temple, court, and rampart, until
it sounded as a dim echo in the distance.

The great Thark's long-sword leaped from its scabbard; Thuvia shrank
shuddering to my side.





CHAPTER VI

THE BLACK PIRATES OF BARSOOM




"What is it?" I asked of the girl.

For answer she pointed to the sky.

I looked, and there, above us, I saw shadowy bodies flitting hither
and thither high over temple, court, and garden.

Almost immediately flashes of light broke from these strange objects.
There was a roar of musketry, and then answering flashes and roars
from temple and rampart.

"The black pirates of Barsoom, O Prince," said Thuvia.

In great circles the air craft of the marauders swept lower and
lower toward the defending forces of the therns.

Volley after volley they vomited upon the temple guards; volley on
volley crashed through the thin air toward the fleeting and illusive
fliers.

As the pirates swooped closer toward the ground, thern soldiery
poured from the temples into the gardens and courts.  The sight of
them in the open brought a score of fliers darting toward us from
all directions.

The therns fired upon them through shields affixed to their rifles,
but on, steadily on, came the grim, black craft.  They were small
fliers for the most part, built for two to three men.  A few larger
ones there were, but these kept high aloft dropping bombs upon the
temples from their keel batteries.

At length, with a concerted rush, evidently in response to a signal
of command, the pirates in our immediate vicinity dashed recklessly
to the ground in the very midst of the thern soldiery.

Scarcely waiting for their craft to touch, the creatures manning
them leaped among the therns with the fury of demons.  Such fighting!
Never had I witnessed its like before.  I had thought the green
Martians the most ferocious warriors in the universe, but the awful
abandon with which the black pirates threw themselves upon their
foes transcended everything I ever before had seen.

Beneath the brilliant light of Mars' two glorious moons the whole
scene presented itself in vivid distinctness.  The golden-haired,
white-skinned therns battling with desperate courage in hand-to-hand
conflict with their ebony-skinned foemen.

Here a little knot of struggling warriors trampled a bed of gorgeous
pimalia; there the curved sword of a black man found the heart of
a thern and left its dead foeman at the foot of a wondrous statue
carved from a living ruby; yonder a dozen therns pressed a single
pirate back upon a bench of emerald, upon whose iridescent surface
a strangely beautiful Barsoomian design was traced out in inlaid
diamonds.

A little to one side stood Thuvia, the Thark, and I.  The tide of
battle had not reached us, but the fighters from time to time swung
close enough that we might distinctly note them.

The black pirates interested me immensely.  I had heard vague
rumours, little more than legends they were, during my former life
on Mars; but never had I seen them, nor talked with one who had.

They were popularly supposed to inhabit the lesser moon, from which
they descended upon Barsoom at long intervals.  Where they visited
they wrought the most horrible atrocities, and when they left
carried away with them firearms and ammunition, and young girls
as prisoners.  These latter, the rumour had it, they sacrificed
to some terrible god in an orgy which ended in the eating of their
victims.

I had an excellent opportunity to examine them, as the strife
occasionally brought now one and now another close to where I stood.
They were large men, possibly six feet and over in height.  Their
features were clear cut and handsome in the extreme; their eyes were
well set and large, though a slight narrowness lent them a crafty
appearance; the iris, as well as I could determine by moonlight,
was of extreme blackness, while the eyeball itself was quite white
and clear.  The physical structure of their bodies seemed identical
with those of the therns, the red men, and my own.  Only in the
colour of their skin did they differ materially from us; that is
of the appearance of polished ebony, and odd as it may seem for
a Southerner to say it, adds to rather than detracts from their
marvellous beauty.

But if their bodies are divine, their hearts, apparently, are quite
the reverse.  Never did I witness such a malign lust for blood as
these demons of the outer air evinced in their mad battle with the
therns.

All about us in the garden lay their sinister craft, which the
therns for some reason, then unaccountable to me, made no effort
to injure.  Now and again a black warrior would rush from a near by
temple bearing a young woman in his arms.  Straight for his flier
he would leap while those of his comrades who fought near by would
rush to cover his escape.

The therns on their side would hasten to rescue the girl, and in
an instant the two would be swallowed in the vortex of a maelstrom
of yelling devils, hacking and hewing at one another, like fiends
incarnate.

But always, it seemed, were the black pirates of Barsoom victorious,
and the girl, brought miraculously unharmed through the conflict,
borne away into the outer darkness upon the deck of a swift flier.

Fighting similar to that which surrounded us could be heard in
both directions as far as sound carried, and Thuvia told me that
the attacks of the black pirates were usually made simultaneously
along the entire ribbon-like domain of the therns, which circles
the Valley Dor on the outer slopes of the Mountains of Otz.

As the fighting receded from our position for a moment, Thuvia
turned toward me with a question.

"Do you understand now, O Prince," she said, "why a million warriors
guard the domains of the Holy Therns by day and by night?"

"The scene you are witnessing now is but a repetition of what I
have seen enacted a score of times during the fifteen years I have
been a prisoner here.  From time immemorial the black pirates of
Barsoom have preyed upon the Holy Therns.

"Yet they never carry their expeditions to a point, as one might
readily believe it was in their power to do, where the extermination
of the race of therns is threatened.  It is as though they but
utilized the race as playthings, with which they satisfy their
ferocious lust for fighting; and from whom they collect toll in
arms and ammunition and in prisoners."

"Why don't they jump in and destroy these fliers?" I asked.  "That
would soon put a stop to the attacks, or at least the blacks would
scarce be so bold.  Why, see how perfectly unguarded they leave
their craft, as though they were lying safe in their own hangars
at home."

"The therns do not dare.  They tried it once, ages ago, but the
next night and for a whole moon thereafter a thousand great black
battleships circled the Mountains of Otz, pouring tons of projectiles
upon the temples, the gardens, and the courts, until every thern who
was not killed was driven for safety into the subterranean galleries.

"The therns know that they live at all only by the sufferance of
the black men.  They were near to extermination that once and they
will not venture risking it again."

As she ceased talking a new element was instilled into the conflict.
It came from a source equally unlooked for by either thern or pirate.
The great banths which we had liberated in the garden had evidently
been awed at first by the sound of the battle, the yelling of the
warriors and the loud report of rifle and bomb.

But now they must have become angered by the continuous noise and
excited by the smell of new blood, for all of a sudden a great form
shot from a clump of low shrubbery into the midst of a struggling
mass of humanity.  A horrid scream of bestial rage broke from the
banth as he felt warm flesh beneath his powerful talons.

As though his cry was but a signal to the others, the entire great
pack hurled themselves among the fighters.  Panic reigned in an
instant.  Thern and black man turned alike against the common enemy,
for the banths showed no partiality toward either.

The awful beasts bore down a hundred men by the mere weight of their
great bodies as they hurled themselves into the thick of the fight.
Leaping and clawing, they mowed down the warriors with their powerful
paws, turning for an instant to rend their victims with frightful
fangs.

The scene was fascinating in its terribleness, but suddenly it came
to me that we were wasting valuable time watching this conflict,
which in itself might prove a means of our escape.

The therns were so engaged with their terrible assailants that now,
if ever, escape should be comparatively easy.  I turned to search
for an opening through the contending hordes.  If we could but reach
the ramparts we might find that the pirates somewhere had thinned
the guarding forces and left a way open to us to the world without.

As my eyes wandered about the garden, the sight of the hundreds of
air craft lying unguarded around us suggested the simplest avenue
to freedom.  Why it had not occurred to me before!  I was thoroughly
familiar with the mechanism of every known make of flier on Barsoom.
For nine years I had sailed and fought with the navy of Helium.
I had raced through space on the tiny one-man air scout and I had
commanded the greatest battleship that ever had floated in the thin
air of dying Mars.

To think, with me, is to act.  Grasping Thuvia by the arm, I
whispered to Tars Tarkas to follow me.  Quickly we glided toward a
small flier which lay furthest from the battling warriors.  Another
instant found us huddled on the tiny deck.  My hand was on the
starting lever.  I pressed my thumb upon the button which controls
the ray of repulsion, that splendid discovery of the Martians which
permits them to navigate the thin atmosphere of their planet in
huge ships that dwarf the dreadnoughts of our earthly navies into
pitiful significance.

The craft swayed slightly but she did not move.  Then a new cry of
warning broke upon our ears.  Turning, I saw a dozen black pirates
dashing toward us from the melee.  We had been discovered.  With
shrieks of rage the demons sprang for us.  With frenzied insistence
I continued to press the little button which should have sent us
racing out into space, but still the vessel refused to budge.  Then
it came to me--the reason that she would not rise.

We had stumbled upon a two-man flier.  Its ray tanks were charged
only with sufficient repulsive energy to lift two ordinary men.
The Thark's great weight was anchoring us to our doom.

The blacks were nearly upon us.  There was not an instant to be
lost in hesitation or doubt.

I pressed the button far in and locked it.  Then I set the lever
at high speed and as the blacks came yelling upon us I slipped from
the craft's deck and with drawn long-sword met the attack.

At the same moment a girl's shriek rang out behind me and an instant
later, as the blacks fell upon me.  I heard far above my head, and
faintly, in Thuvia's voice: "My Prince, O my Prince; I would rather
remain and die with--" But the rest was lost in the noise of my
assailants.

I knew though that my ruse had worked and that temporarily at
least Thuvia and Tars Tarkas were safe, and the means of escape
was theirs.

For a moment it seemed that I could not withstand the weight of
numbers that confronted me, but again, as on so many other occasions
when I had been called upon to face fearful odds upon this planet
of warriors and fierce beasts, I found that my earthly strength
so far transcended that of my opponents that the odds were not so
greatly against me as they appeared.

My seething blade wove a net of death about me.  For an instant
the blacks pressed close to reach me with their shorter swords,
but presently they gave back, and the esteem in which they suddenly
had learned to hold my sword arm was writ large upon each countenance.

I knew though that it was but a question of minutes before their
greater numbers would wear me down, or get around my guard.  I must
go down eventually to certain death before them.  I shuddered at
the thought of it, dying thus in this terrible place where no word
of my end ever could reach my Dejah Thoris.  Dying at the hands of
nameless black men in the gardens of the cruel therns.

Then my old-time spirit reasserted itself.  The fighting blood of
my Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins.  The fierce blood
lust and the joy of battle surged over me.  The fighting smile that
has brought consternation to a thousand foemen touched my lips.  I
put the thought of death out of my mind, and fell upon my antagonists
with fury that those who escaped will remember to their dying day.

That others would press to the support of those who faced me I
knew, so even as I fought I kept my wits at work, searching for an
avenue of escape.

It came from an unexpected quarter out of the black night behind
me.  I had just disarmed a huge fellow who had given me a desperate
struggle, and for a moment the blacks stood back for a breathing
spell.

They eyed me with malignant fury, yet withal there was a touch of
respect in their demeanour.

"Thern," said one, "you fight like a Dator.  But for your detestable
yellow hair and your white skin you would be an honour to the First
Born of Barsoom."

"I am no thern," I said, and was about to explain that I was from
another world, thinking that by patching a truce with these fellows
and fighting with them against the therns I might enlist their aid
in regaining my liberty.  But just at that moment a heavy object
smote me a resounding whack between my shoulders that nearly felled
me to the ground.

As I turned to meet this new enemy an object passed over my shoulder,
striking one of my assailants squarely in the face and knocking him
senseless to the sward.  At the same instant I saw that the thing
that had struck us was the trailing anchor of a rather fair-sized
air vessel; possibly a ten man cruiser.

The ship was floating slowly above us, not more than fifty feet
over our heads.  Instantly the one chance for escape that it offered
presented itself to me.  The vessel was slowly rising and now the
anchor was beyond the blacks who faced me and several feet above
their heads.

With a bound that left them gaping in wide-eyed astonishment I
sprang completely over them.  A second leap carried me just high
enough to grasp the now rapidly receding anchor.

But I was successful, and there I hung by one hand, dragging through
the branches of the higher vegetation of the gardens, while my late
foemen shrieked and howled beneath me.

Presently the vessel veered toward the west and then swung gracefully
to the south.  In another instant I was carried beyond the crest
of the Golden Cliffs, out over the Valley Dor, where, six thousand
feet below me, the Lost Sea of Korus lay shimmering in the moonlight.

Carefully I climbed to a sitting posture across the anchor's arms.
I wondered if by chance the vessel might be deserted.  I hoped so.
Or possibly it might belong to a friendly people, and have wandered
by accident almost within the clutches of the pirates and the
therns.  The fact that it was retreating from the scene of battle
lent colour to this hypothesis.

But I decided to know positively, and at once, so, with the greatest
caution, I commenced to climb slowly up the anchor chain toward
the deck above me.

One hand had just reached for the vessel's rail and found it when
a fierce black face was thrust over the side and eyes filled with
triumphant hate looked into mine.





CHAPTER VII

A FAIR GODDESS




For an instant the black pirate and I remained motionless, glaring
into each other's eyes.  Then a grim smile curled the handsome
lips above me, as an ebony hand came slowly in sight from above
the edge of the deck and the cold, hollow eye of a revolver sought
the centre of my forehead.

Simultaneously my free hand shot out for the black throat, just
within reach, and the ebony finger tightened on the trigger.  The
pirate's hissing, "Die, cursed thern," was half choked in his
windpipe by my clutching fingers.  The hammer fell with a futile
click upon an empty chamber.

Before he could fire again I had pulled him so far over the edge
of the deck that he was forced to drop his firearm and clutch the
rail with both hands.

My grasp upon his throat effectually prevented any outcry, and so
we struggled in grim silence; he to tear away from my hold, I to
drag him over to his death.

His face was taking on a livid hue, his eyes were bulging from
their sockets.  It was evident to him that he soon must die unless
he tore loose from the steel fingers that were choking the life
from him.  With a final effort he threw himself further back upon
the deck, at the same instant releasing his hold upon the rail to
tear frantically with both hands at my fingers in an effort to drag
them from his throat.

That little second was all that I awaited.  With one mighty downward
surge I swept him clear of the deck.  His falling body came near
to tearing me from the frail hold that my single free hand had upon
the anchor chain and plunging me with him to the waters of the sea
below.

I did not relinquish my grasp upon him, however, for I knew that
a single shriek from those lips as he hurtled to his death in the
silent waters of the sea would bring his comrades from above to
avenge him.

Instead I held grimly to him, choking, ever choking, while his
frantic struggles dragged me lower and lower toward the end of the
chain.

Gradually his contortions became spasmodic, lessening by degrees
until they ceased entirely.  Then I released my hold upon him and
in an instant he was swallowed by the black shadows far below.

Again I climbed to the ship's rail.  This time I succeeded
in raising my eyes to the level of the deck, where I could take a
careful survey of the conditions immediately confronting me.

The nearer moon had passed below the horizon, but the clear effulgence
of the further satellite bathed the deck of the cruiser, bringing
into sharp relief the bodies of six or eight black men sprawled
about in sleep.

Huddled close to the base of a rapid fire gun was a young white
girl, securely bound.  Her eyes were widespread in an expression
of horrified anticipation and fixed directly upon me as I came in
sight above the edge of the deck.

Unutterable relief instantly filled them as they fell upon the
mystic jewel which sparkled in the centre of my stolen headpiece.
She did not speak.  Instead her eyes warned me to beware the sleeping
figures that surrounded her.

Noiselessly I gained the deck.  The girl nodded to me to approach
her.  As I bent low she whispered to me to release her.

"I can aid you," she said, "and you will need all the aid available
when they awaken."

"Some of them will awake in Korus," I replied smiling.

She caught the meaning of my words, and the cruelty of her
answering smile horrified me.  One is not astonished by cruelty
in a hideous face, but when it touches the features of a goddess
whose fine-chiselled lineaments might more fittingly portray love
and beauty, the contrast is appalling.

Quickly I released her.

"Give me a revolver," she whispered.  "I can use that upon those
your sword does not silence in time."

I did as she bid.  Then I turned toward the distasteful work that
lay before me.  This was no time for fine compunctions, nor for
a chivalry that these cruel demons would neither appreciate nor
reciprocate.

Stealthily I approached the nearest sleeper.  When he awoke he was
well on his journey to the bosom of Korus.  His piercing shriek as
consciousness returned to him came faintly up to us from the black
depths beneath.

The second awoke as I touched him, and, though I succeeded in
hurling him from the cruiser's deck, his wild cry of alarm brought
the remaining pirates to their feet.  There were five of them.

As they arose the girl's revolver spoke in sharp staccato and one
sank back to the deck again to rise no more.

The others rushed madly upon me with drawn swords.  The girl
evidently dared not fire for fear of wounding me, but I saw her
sneak stealthily and cat-like toward the flank of the attackers.
Then they were on me.

For a few minutes I experienced some of the hottest fighting I had
ever passed through.  The quarters were too small for foot work.
It was stand your ground and give and take.  At first I took
considerably more than I gave, but presently I got beneath one
fellow's guard and had the satisfaction of seeing him collapse upon
the deck.

The others redoubled their efforts.  The crashing of their blades
upon mine raised a terrific din that might have been heard for
miles through the silent night.  Sparks flew as steel smote steel,
and then there was the dull and sickening sound of a shoulder bone
parting beneath the keen edge of my Martian sword.

Three now faced me, but the girl was working her way to a point
that would soon permit her to reduce the number by one at least.
Then things happened with such amazing rapidity that I can scarce
comprehend even now all that took place in that brief instant.

The three rushed me with the evident purpose of forcing me back
the few steps that would carry my body over the rail into the void
below.  At the same instant the girl fired and my sword arm made
two moves.  One man dropped with a bullet in his brain; a sword
flew clattering across the deck and dropped over the edge beyond
as I disarmed one of my opponents and the third went down with my
blade buried to the hilt in his breast and three feet of it protruding
from his back, and falling wrenched the sword from my grasp.

Disarmed myself, I now faced my remaining foeman, whose own sword
lay somewhere thousands of feet below us, lost in the Lost Sea.

The new conditions seemed to please my adversary, for a smile of
satisfaction bared his gleaming teeth as he rushed at me bare-handed.
The great muscles which rolled beneath his glossy black hide
evidently assured him that here was easy prey, not worth the trouble
of drawing the dagger from his harness.

I let him come almost upon me.  Then I ducked beneath his outstretched
arms, at the same time sidestepping to the right.  Pivoting on my
left toe, I swung a terrific right to his jaw, and, like a felled
ox, he dropped in his tracks.

A low, silvery laugh rang out behind me.

"You are no thern," said the sweet voice of my companion, "for
all your golden locks or the harness of Sator Throg.  Never lived
there upon all Barsoom before one who could fight as you have fought
this night.  Who are you?"

"I am John Carter, Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of
Helium," I replied.  "And whom," I added, "has the honour of serving
been accorded me?"

She hesitated a moment before speaking.  Then she asked:

"You are no thern.  Are you an enemy of the therns?"

"I have been in the territory of the therns for a day and a half.
During that entire time my life has been in constant danger.  I
have been harassed and persecuted.  Armed men and fierce beasts
have been set upon me.  I had no quarrel with the therns before,
but can you wonder that I feel no great love for them now?  I have
spoken."

She looked at me intently for several minutes before she replied.
It was as though she were attempting to read my inmost soul, to
judge my character and my standards of chivalry in that long-drawn,
searching gaze.

Apparently the inventory satisfied her.

"I am Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador of the Holy
Therns, Father of Therns, Master of Life and Death upon Barsoom,
Brother of Issus, Prince of Life Eternal."

At that moment I noticed that the black I had dropped with my fist
was commencing to show signs of returning consciousness.  I sprang
to his side.  Stripping his harness from him I securely bound his
hands behind his back, and after similarly fastening his feet tied
him to a heavy gun carriage.

"Why not the simpler way?" asked Phaidor.

"I do not understand.  What 'simpler way'?" I replied.

With a slight shrug of her lovely shoulders she made a gesture with
her hands personating the casting of something over the craft's
side.

"I am no murderer," I said.  "I kill in self-defence only."

She looked at me narrowly.  Then she puckered those divine brows
of hers, and shook her head.  She could not comprehend.

Well, neither had my own Dejah Thoris been able to understand what
to her had seemed a foolish and dangerous policy toward enemies.
Upon Barsoom, quarter is neither asked nor given, and each dead man
means so much more of the waning resources of this dying planet to
be divided amongst those who survive.

But there seemed a subtle difference here between the manner in
which this girl contemplated the dispatching of an enemy and the
tender-hearted regret of my own princess for the stern necessity
which demanded it.

I think that Phaidor regretted the thrill that the spectacle would
have afforded her rather than the fact that my decision left another
enemy alive to threaten us.

The man had now regained full possession of his faculties, and
was regarding us intently from where he lay bound upon the deck.
He was a handsome fellow, clean limbed and powerful, with an
intelligent face and features of such exquisite chiselling that
Adonis himself might have envied him.

The vessel, unguided, had been moving slowly across the valley;
but now I thought it time to take the helm and direct her course.
Only in a very general way could I guess the location of the Valley
Dor.  That it was far south of the equator was evident from the
constellations, but I was not sufficiently a Martian astronomer
to come much closer than a rough guess without the splendid charts
and delicate instruments with which, as an officer in the Heliumite
Navy, I had formerly reckoned the positions of the vessels on which
I sailed.

That a northerly course would quickest lead me toward the more
settled portions of the planet immediately decided the direction
that I should steer.  Beneath my hand the cruiser swung gracefully
about.  Then the button which controlled the repulsive rays sent us
soaring far out into space.  With speed lever pulled to the last
notch, we raced toward the north as we rose ever farther and farther
above that terrible valley of death.

As we passed at a dizzy height over the narrow domains of the therns
the flash of powder far below bore mute witness to the ferocity of
the battle that still raged along that cruel frontier.  No sound
of conflict reached our ears, for in the rarefied atmosphere of our
great altitude no sound wave could penetrate; they were dissipated
in thin air far below us.

It became intensely cold.  Breathing was difficult.  The girl,
Phaidor, and the black pirate kept their eyes glued upon me.  At
length the girl spoke.

"Unconsciousness comes quickly at this altitude," she said quietly.
"Unless you are inviting death for us all you had best drop, and
that quickly."

There was no fear in her voice.  It was as one might say: "You had
better carry an umbrella.  It is going to rain."

I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level.  Nor was I a moment
too soon.  The girl had swooned.

The black, too, was unconscious, while I, myself, retained my senses,
I think, only by sheer will.  The one on whom all responsibility
rests is apt to endure the most.

We were swinging along low above the foothills of the Otz.  It
was comparatively warm and there was plenty of air for our starved
lungs, so I was not surprised to see the black open his eyes, and
a moment later the girl also.

"It was a close call," she said.

"It has taught me two things though," I replied.

"What?"

"That even Phaidor, daughter of the Master of Life and Death, is
mortal," I said smiling.

"There is immortality only in Issus," she replied.  "And Issus is
for the race of therns alone.  Thus am I immortal."

I caught a fleeting grin passing across the features of the black
as he heard her words.  I did not then understand why he smiled.
Later I was to learn, and she, too, in a most horrible manner.

"If the other thing you have just learned," she continued, "has
led to as erroneous deductions as the first you are little richer
in knowledge than you were before."

"The other," I replied, "is that our dusky friend here does not hail
from the nearer moon--he was like to have died at a few thousand
feet above Barsoom.  Had we continued the five thousand miles that
lie between Thuria and the planet he would have been but the frozen
memory of a man."

Phaidor looked at the black in evident astonishment.

"If you are not of Thuria, then where?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes elsewhere, but did
not reply.

The girl stamped her little foot in a peremptory manner.

"The daughter of Matai Shang is not accustomed to having her queries
remain unanswered," she said.  "One of the lesser breed should feel
honoured that a member of the holy race that was born to inherit
life eternal should deign even to notice him."

Again the black smiled that wicked, knowing smile.

"Xodar, Dator of the First Born of Barsoom, is accustomed to give
commands, not to receive them," replied the black pirate.  Then,
turning to me, "What are your intentions concerning me?"

"I intend taking you both back to Helium," I said.  "No harm will
come to you.  You will find the red men of Helium a kindly and
magnanimous race, but if they listen to me there will be no more
voluntary pilgrimages down the river Iss, and the impossible belief
that they have cherished for ages will be shattered into a thousand
pieces."

"Are you of Helium?" he asked.

"I am a Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium," I
replied, "but I am not of Barsoom.  I am of another world."

Xodar looked at me intently for a few moments.

"I can well believe that you are not of Barsoom," he said at
length.  "None of this world could have bested eight of the First
Born single-handed.  But how is it that you wear the golden hair
and the jewelled circlet of a Holy Thern?"  He emphasized the word
holy with a touch of irony.

"I had forgotten them," I said.  "They are the spoils of conquest,"
and with a sweep of my hand I removed the disguise from my head.

When the black's eyes fell on my close-cropped black hair they
opened in astonishment.  Evidently he had looked for the bald pate
of a thern.

"You are indeed of another world," he said, a touch of awe in his
voice.  "With the skin of a thern, the black hair of a First Born
and the muscles of a dozen Dators it was no disgrace even for Xodar
to acknowledge your supremacy.  A thing he could never do were you
a Barsoomian," he added.

"You are travelling several laps ahead of me, my friend,"
I interrupted.  "I glean that your name is Xodar, but whom, pray,
are the First Born, and what a Dator, and why, if you were conquered
by a Barsoomian, could you not acknowledge it?"

"The First Born of Barsoom," he explained, "are the race of black
men of which I am a Dator, or, as the lesser Barsoomians would
say, Prince.  My race is the oldest on the planet.  We trace our
lineage, unbroken, direct to the Tree of Life which flourished in
the centre of the Valley Dor twenty-three million years ago.

"For countless ages the fruit of this tree underwent the gradual
changes of evolution, passing by degrees from true plant life to
a combination of plant and animal.  In the first stages the fruit
of the tree possessed only the power of independent muscular action,
while the stem remained attached to the parent plant; later a brain
developed in the fruit, so that hanging there by their long stems
they thought and moved as individuals.

"Then, with the development of perceptions came a comparison of
them; judgments were reached and compared, and thus reason and the
power to reason were born upon Barsoom.

"Ages passed.  Many forms of life came and went upon the Tree of
Life, but still all were attached to the parent plant by stems of
varying lengths.  At length the fruit tree consisted in tiny plant
men, such as we now see reproduced in such huge dimensions in the
Valley Dor, but still hanging to the limbs and branches of the tree
by the stems which grew from the tops of their heads.

"The buds from which the plant men blossomed resembled large nuts
about a foot in diameter, divided by double partition walls into
four sections.  In one section grew the plant man, in another a
sixteen-legged worm, in the third the progenitor of the white ape
and in the fourth the primaeval black man of Barsoom.

"When the bud burst the plant man remained dangling at the end of
his stem, but the three other sections fell to the ground, where the
efforts of their imprisoned occupants to escape sent them hopping
about in all directions.

"Thus as time went on, all Barsoom was covered with these imprisoned
creatures.  For countless ages they lived their long lives within
their hard shells, hopping and skipping about the broad planet;
falling into rivers, lakes, and seas, to be still further spread
about the surface of the new world.

"Countless billions died before the first black man broke through
his prison walls into the light of day.  Prompted by curiosity, he
broke open other shells and the peopling of Barsoom commenced.

"The pure strain of the blood of this first black man has remained
untainted by admixture with other creatures in the race of which
I am a member; but from the sixteen-legged worm, the first ape and
renegade black man has sprung every other form of animal life upon
Barsoom.

"The therns," and he smiled maliciously as he spoke, "are but the
result of ages of evolution from the pure white ape of antiquity.
They are a lower order still.  There is but one race of true and
immortal humans on Barsoom.  It is the race of black men.

"The Tree of Life is dead, but before it died the plant men learned
to detach themselves from it and roam the face of Barsoom with the
other children of the First Parent.

"Now their bisexuality permits them to reproduce themselves after
the manner of true plants, but otherwise they have progressed
but little in all the ages of their existence.  Their actions and
movements are largely matters of instinct and not guided to any great
extent by reason, since the brain of a plant man is but a trifle
larger than the end of your smallest finger.  They live upon
vegetation and the blood of animals, and their brain is just large
enough to direct their movements in the direction of food, and to
translate the food sensations which are carried to it from their
eyes and ears.  They have no sense of self-preservation and so are
entirely without fear in the face of danger.  That is why they are
such terrible antagonists in combat."

I wondered why the black man took such pains to discourse thus at
length to enemies upon the genesis of life Barsoomian.  It seemed
a strangely inopportune moment for a proud member of a proud race
to unbend in casual conversation with a captor.  Especially in view
of the fact that the black still lay securely bound upon the deck.

It was the faintest straying of his eye beyond me for the barest
fraction of a second that explained his motive for thus dragging
out my interest in his truly absorbing story.

He lay a little forward of where I stood at the levers, and thus
he faced the stern of the vessel as he addressed me.  It was at
the end of his description of the plant men that I caught his eye
fixed momentarily upon something behind me.

Nor could I be mistaken in the swift gleam of triumph that brightened
those dark orbs for an instant.

Some time before I had reduced our speed, for we had left the Valley
Dor many miles astern, and I felt comparatively safe.

I turned an apprehensive glance behind me, and the sight that I
saw froze the new-born hope of freedom that had been springing up
within me.

A great battleship, forging silent and unlighted through the dark
night, loomed close astern.





CHAPTER VIII

THE DEPTHS OF OMEAN




Now I realized why the black pirate had kept me engrossed with his
strange tale.  For miles he had sensed the approach of succour,
and but for that single tell-tale glance the battleship would have
been directly above us in another moment, and the boarding party
which was doubtless even now swinging in their harness from the
ship's keel, would have swarmed our deck, placing my rising hope
of escape in sudden and total eclipse.

I was too old a hand in aerial warfare to be at a loss now for the
right manoeuvre.  Simultaneously I reversed the engines and dropped
the little vessel a sheer hundred feet.

Above my head I could see the dangling forms of the boarding party
as the battleship raced over us.  Then I rose at a sharp angle,
throwing my speed lever to its last notch.

Like a bolt from a crossbow my splendid craft shot its steel prow
straight at the whirring propellers of the giant above us.  If I
could but touch them the huge bulk would be disabled for hours and
escape once more possible.

At the same instant the sun shot above the horizon, disclosing a
hundred grim, black faces peering over the stern of the battleship
upon us.

At sight of us a shout of rage went up from a hundred throats.  Orders
were shouted, but it was too late to save the giant propellers,
and with a crash we rammed them.

Instantly with the shock of impact I reversed my engine, but my
prow was wedged in the hole it had made in the battleship's stern.
Only a second I hung there before tearing away, but that second
was amply long to swarm my deck with black devils.

There was no fight.  In the first place there was no room to fight.
We were simply submerged by numbers.  Then as swords menaced me a
command from Xodar stayed the hands of his fellows.

"Secure them," he said, "but do not injure them."

Several of the pirates already had released Xodar.  He now personally
attended to my disarming and saw that I was properly bound.  At
least he thought that the binding was secure.  It would have been
had I been a Martian, but I had to smile at the puny strands that
confined my wrists.  When the time came I could snap them as they
had been cotton string.

The girl they bound also, and then they fastened us together.  In
the meantime they had brought our craft alongside the disabled
battleship, and soon we were transported to the latter's deck.

Fully a thousand black men manned the great engine of destruction.
Her decks were crowded with them as they pressed forward as far as
discipline would permit to get a glimpse of their captives.

The girl's beauty elicited many brutal comments and vulgar jests.
It was evident that these self-thought supermen were far inferior
to the red men of Barsoom in refinement and in chivalry.

My close-cropped black hair and thern complexion were the subjects
of much comment.  When Xodar told his fellow nobles of my fighting
ability and strange origin they crowded about me with numerous
questions.

The fact that I wore the harness and metal of a thern who had been
killed by a member of my party convinced them that I was an enemy
of their hereditary foes, and placed me on a better footing in
their estimation.

Without exception the blacks were handsome men, and well built.
The officers were conspicuous through the wondrous magnificence
of their resplendent trappings.  Many harnesses were so encrusted
with gold, platinum, silver and precious stones as to entirely hide
the leather beneath.

The harness of the commanding officer was a solid mass of diamonds.
Against the ebony background of his skin they blazed out with a
peculiarly accentuated effulgence.  The whole scene was enchanting.
The handsome men; the barbaric splendour of the accoutrements; the
polished skeel wood of the deck; the gloriously grained sorapus
of the cabins, inlaid with priceless jewels and precious metals in
intricate and beautiful design; the burnished gold of hand rails;
the shining metal of the guns.

Phaidor and I were taken below decks, where, still fast bound,
we were thrown into a small compartment which contained a single
port-hole.  As our escort left us they barred the door behind them.

We could hear the men working on the broken propellers, and from the
port-hole we could see that the vessel was drifting lazily toward
the south.

For some time neither of us spoke.  Each was occupied with his
own thoughts.  For my part I was wondering as to the fate of Tars
Tarkas and the girl, Thuvia.

Even if they succeeded in eluding pursuit they must eventually fall
into the hands of either red men or green, and as fugitives from
the Valley Dor they could look for but little else than a swift
and terrible death.

How I wished that I might have accompanied them.  It seemed to me
that I could not fail to impress upon the intelligent red men of
Barsoom the wicked deception that a cruel and senseless superstition
had foisted upon them.

Tardos Mors would believe me.  Of that I was positive.  And that
he would have the courage of his convictions my knowledge of his
character assured me.  Dejah Thoris would believe me.  Not a doubt
as to that entered my head.  Then there were a thousand of my red
and green warrior friends whom I knew would face eternal damnation
gladly for my sake.  Like Tars Tarkas, where I led they would
follow.

My only danger lay in that should I ever escape the black pirates
it might be to fall into the hands of unfriendly red or green men.
Then it would mean short shrift for me.

Well, there seemed little to worry about on that score, for the
likelihood of my ever escaping the blacks was extremely remote.

The girl and I were linked together by a rope which permitted us
to move only about three or four feet from each other.  When we had
entered the compartment we had seated ourselves upon a low bench
beneath the porthole.  The bench was the only furniture of the
room.  It was of sorapus wood.  The floor, ceiling and walls were
of carborundum aluminum, a light, impenetrable composition extensively
utilized in the construction of Martian fighting ships.

As I had sat meditating upon the future my eyes had been riveted upon
the port-hole which was just level with them as I sat.  Suddenly I
looked toward Phaidor.  She was regarding me with a strange expression
I had not before seen upon her face.  She was very beautiful then.

Instantly her white lids veiled her eyes, and I thought I discovered
a delicate flush tingeing her cheek.  Evidently she was embarrassed
at having been detected in the act of staring at a lesser creature,
I thought.

"Do you find the study of the lower orders interesting?" I asked,
laughing.

She looked up again with a nervous but relieved little laugh.

"Oh very," she said, "especially when they have such excellent
profiles."

It was my turn to flush, but I did not.  I felt that she was poking
fun at me, and I admired a brave heart that could look for humour
on the road to death, and so I laughed with her.

"Do you know where we are going?" she said.

"To solve the mystery of the eternal hereafter, I imagine," I
replied.

"I am going to a worse fate than that," she said, with a little
shudder.

"What do you mean?"

"I can only guess," she replied, "since no thern damsel of all the
millions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the
ages they have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate her
experiences among them.  That they never take a man prisoner lends
strength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is
worse than death."

"Is it not a just retribution?" I could not help but ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Do not the therns themselves do likewise with the poor creatures
who take the voluntary pilgrimage down the River of Mystery?  Was
not Thuvia for fifteen years a plaything and a slave?  Is it less
than just that you should suffer as you have caused others to
suffer?"

"You do not understand," she replied.  "We therns are a holy race.
It is an honour to a lesser creature to be a slave among us.  Did
we not occasionally save a few of the lower orders that stupidly
float down an unknown river to an unknown end all would become the
prey of the plant men and the apes."

"But do you not by every means encourage the superstition among
those of the outside world?" I argued.  "That is the wickedest of
your deeds.  Can you tell me why you foster the cruel deception?"

"All life on Barsoom," she said, "is created solely for the support
of the race of therns.  How else could we live did the outer world
not furnish our labour and our food?  Think you that a thern would
demean himself by labour?"

"It is true then that you eat human flesh?" I asked in horror.

She looked at me in pitying commiseration for my ignorance.

"Truly we eat the flesh of the lower orders.  Do not you also?"

"The flesh of beasts, yes," I replied, "but not the flesh of man."

"As man may eat of the flesh of beasts, so may gods eat of the
flesh of man.  The Holy Therns are the gods of Barsoom."

I was disgusted and I imagine that I showed it.

"You are an unbeliever now," she continued gently, "but should we
be fortunate enough to escape the clutches of the black pirates and
come again to the court of Matai Shang I think that we shall find
an argument to convince you of the error of your ways.  And--," she
hesitated, "perhaps we shall find a way to keep you as--as--one of
us."

Again her eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint colour suffused
her cheek.  I could not understand her meaning; nor did I for a
long time.  Dejah Thoris was wont to say that in some things I was
a veritable simpleton, and I guess that she was right.

"I fear that I would ill requite your father's hospitality," I
answered, "since the first thing that I should do were I a thern
would be to set an armed guard at the mouth of the River Iss to
escort the poor deluded voyagers back to the outer world.  Also
should I devote my life to the extermination of the hideous plant
men and their horrible companions, the great white apes."

She looked at me really horror struck.

"No, no," she cried, "you must not say such terribly sacrilegious
things--you must not even think them.  Should they ever guess that
you entertained such frightful thoughts, should we chance to regain
the temples of the therns, they would mete out a frightful death
to you.  Not even my--my--"  Again she flushed, and started over.
"Not even I could save you."

I said no more.  Evidently it was useless.  She was even more
steeped in superstition than the Martians of the outer world.  They
only worshipped a beautiful hope for a life of love and peace and
happiness in the hereafter.  The therns worshipped the hideous plant
men and the apes, or at least they reverenced them as the abodes
of the departed spirits of their own dead.

At this point the door of our prison opened to admit Xodar.

He smiled pleasantly at me, and when he smiled his expression was
kindly--anything but cruel or vindictive.

"Since you cannot escape under any circumstances," he said, "I
cannot see the necessity for keeping you confined below.  I will
cut your bonds and you may come on deck.  You will witness something
very interesting, and as you never shall return to the outer world
it will do no harm to permit you to see it.  You will see what
no other than the First Born and their slaves know the existence
of--the subterranean entrance to the Holy Land, to the real heaven
of Barsoom.

"It will be an excellent lesson for this daughter of the therns,"
he added, "for she shall see the Temple of Issus, and Issus,
perchance, shall embrace her."

Phaidor's head went high.

"What blasphemy is this, dog of a pirate?" she cried.  "Issus would
wipe out your entire breed an' you ever came within sight of her
temple."

"You have much to learn, thern," replied Xodar, with an ugly smile,
"nor do I envy you the manner in which you will learn it."

As we came on deck I saw to my surprise that the vessel was passing
over a great field of snow and ice.  As far as the eye could reach
in any direction naught else was visible.

There could be but one solution to the mystery.  We were above the
south polar ice cap.  Only at the poles of Mars is there ice or
snow upon the planet.  No sign of life appeared below us.  Evidently
we were too far south even for the great fur-bearing animals which
the Martians so delight in hunting.

Xodar was at my side as I stood looking out over the ship's rail.

"What course?" I asked him.

"A little west of south," he replied.  "You will see the Otz Valley
directly.  We shall skirt it for a few hundred miles."

"The Otz Valley!" I exclaimed; "but, man, is not there where lie
the domains of the therns from which I but just escaped?"

"Yes," answered Xodar.  "You crossed this ice field last night in
the long chase that you led us.  The Otz Valley lies in a mighty
depression at the south pole.  It is sunk thousands of feet below
the level of the surrounding country, like a great round bowl.  A
hundred miles from its northern boundary rise the Otz Mountains
which circle the inner Valley of Dor, in the exact centre of which
lies the Lost Sea of Korus.  On the shore of this sea stands the
Golden Temple of Issus in the Land of the First Born.  It is there
that we are bound."

As I looked I commenced to realize why it was that in all the ages
only one had escaped from the Valley Dor.  My only wonder was that
even the one had been successful.  To cross this frozen, wind-swept
waste of bleak ice alone and on foot would be impossible.

"Only by air boat could the journey be made," I finished aloud.

"It was thus that one did escape the therns in bygone times; but
none has ever escaped the First Born," said Xodar, with a touch of
pride in his voice.

We had now reached the southernmost extremity of the great ice
barrier.  It ended abruptly in a sheer wall thousands of feet high
at the base of which stretched a level valley, broken here and
there by low rolling hills and little clumps of forest, and with
tiny rivers formed by the melting of the ice barrier at its base.

Once we passed far above what seemed to be a deep canyon-like rift
stretching from the ice wall on the north across the valley as far
as the eye could reach.  "That is the bed of the River Iss," said
Xodar.  "It runs far beneath the ice field, and below the level of
the Valley Otz, but its canyon is open here."

Presently I descried what I took to be a village, and pointing it
out to Xodar asked him what it might be.

"It is a village of lost souls," he answered, laughing.  "This strip
between the ice barrier and the mountains is considered neutral
ground.  Some turn off from their voluntary pilgrimage down the
Iss, and, scaling the awful walls of its canyon below us, stop in
the valley.  Also a slave now and then escapes from the therns and
makes his way hither.

"They do not attempt to recapture such, since there is no escape
from this outer valley, and as a matter of fact they fear the
patrolling cruisers of the First Born too much to venture from
their own domains.

"The poor creatures of this outer valley are not molested by us
since they have nothing that we desire, nor are they numerically
strong enough to give us an interesting fight--so we too leave them
alone.

"There are several villages of them, but they have increased
in numbers but little in many years since they are always warring
among themselves."

Now we swung a little north of west, leaving the valley of lost
souls, and shortly I discerned over our starboard bow what appeared
to be a black mountain rising from the desolate waste of ice.  It
was not high and seemed to have a flat top.

Xodar had left us to attend to some duty on the vessel, and Phaidor
and I stood alone beside the rail.  The girl had not once spoken
since we had been brought to the deck.

"Is what he has been telling me true?" I asked her.

"In part, yes," she answered.  "That about the outer valley
is true, but what he says of the location of the Temple of Issus
in the centre of his country is false.  If it is not false--" she
hesitated.  "Oh it cannot be true, it cannot be true.  For if it
were true then for countless ages have my people gone to torture
and ignominious death at the hands of their cruel enemies, instead
of to the beautiful Life Eternal that we have been taught to believe
Issus holds for us."

"As the lesser Barsoomians of the outer world have been lured by you
to the terrible Valley Dor, so may it be that the therns themselves
have been lured by the First Born to an equally horrid fate," I
suggested.  "It would be a stern and awful retribution, Phaidor;
but a just one."

"I cannot believe it," she said.

"We shall see," I answered, and then we fell silent again for we were
rapidly approaching the black mountains, which in some indefinable
way seemed linked with the answer to our problem.

As we neared the dark, truncated cone the vessel's speed was
diminished until we barely moved.  Then we topped the crest of the
mountain and below us I saw yawning the mouth of a huge circular
well, the bottom of which was lost in inky blackness.

The diameter of this enormous pit was fully a thousand feet.  The
walls were smooth and appeared to be composed of a black, basaltic
rock.

For a moment the vessel hovered motionless directly above the centre
of the gaping void, then slowly she began to settle into the black
chasm.  Lower and lower she sank until as darkness enveloped us
her lights were thrown on and in the dim halo of her own radiance
the monster battleship dropped on and on down into what seemed to
me must be the very bowels of Barsoom.

For quite half an hour we descended and then the shaft terminated
abruptly in the dome of a mighty subterranean world.  Below us rose
and fell the billows of a buried sea.  A phosphorescent radiance
illuminated the scene.  Thousands of ships dotted the bosom of the
ocean.  Little islands rose here and there to support the strange
and colourless vegetation of this strange world.

Slowly and with majestic grace the battleship dropped until
she rested on the water.  Her great propellers had been drawn and
housed during our descent of the shaft and in their place had been
run out the smaller but more powerful water propellers.  As these
commenced to revolve the ship took up its journey once more, riding
the new element as buoyantly and as safely as she had the air.

Phaidor and I were dumbfounded.  Neither had either heard or dreamed
that such a world existed beneath the surface of Barsoom.

Nearly all the vessels we saw were war craft.  There were a few
lighters and barges, but none of the great merchantmen such as ply
the upper air between the cities of the outer world.

"Here is the harbour of the navy of the First Born," said a voice
behind us, and turning we saw Xodar watching us with an amused
smile on his lips.

"This sea," he continued, "is larger than Korus.  It receives the
waters of the lesser sea above it.  To keep it from filling above
a certain level we have four great pumping stations that force the
oversupply back into the reservoirs far north from which the red
men draw the water which irrigates their farm lands."

A new light burst on me with this explanation.  The red men had
always considered it a miracle that caused great columns of water
to spurt from the solid rock of their reservoir sides to increase
the supply of the precious liquid which is so scarce in the outer
world of Mars.

Never had their learned men been able to fathom the secret of the
source of this enormous volume of water.  As ages passed they had
simply come to accept it as a matter of course and ceased to question
its origin.

We passed several islands on which were strangely shaped circular
buildings, apparently roofless, and pierced midway between the ground
and their tops with small, heavily barred windows.  They bore the
earmarks of prisons, which were further accentuated by the armed
guards who squatted on low benches without, or patrolled the short
beach lines.

Few of these islets contained over an acre of ground, but presently
we sighted a much larger one directly ahead.  This proved to be
our destination, and the great ship was soon made fast against the
steep shore.

Xodar signalled us to follow him and with a half-dozen officers and
men we left the battleship and approached a large oval structure
a couple of hundred yards from the shore.

"You shall soon see Issus," said Xodar to Phaidor.  "The few
prisoners we take are presented to her.  Occasionally she selects
slaves from among them to replenish the ranks of her handmaidens.
None serves Issus above a single year," and there was a grim smile
on the black's lips that lent a cruel and sinister meaning to his
simple statement.

Phaidor, though loath to believe that Issus was allied to such as
these, had commenced to entertain doubts and fears.  She clung very
closely to me, no longer the proud daughter of the Master of Life
and Death upon Barsoom, but a young and frightened girl in the
power of relentless enemies.

The building which we now entered was entirely roofless.  In its
centre was a long tank of water, set below the level of the floor
like the swimming pool of a natatorium.  Near one side of the pool
floated an odd-looking black object.  Whether it were some strange
monster of these buried waters, or a queer raft, I could not at
once perceive.

We were soon to know, however, for as we reached the edge of
the pool directly above the thing, Xodar cried out a few words in
a strange tongue.  Immediately a hatch cover was raised from the
surface of the object, and a black seaman sprang from the bowels
of the strange craft.

Xodar addressed the seaman.

"Transmit to your officer," he said, "the commands of Dator Xodar.
Say to him that Dator Xodar, with officers and men, escorting two
prisoners, would be transported to the gardens of Issus beside the
Golden Temple."

"Blessed be the shell of thy first ancestor, most noble Dator,"
replied the man.  "It shall be done even as thou sayest," and
raising both hands, palms backward, above his head after the manner
of salute which is common to all races of Barsoom, he disappeared
once more into the entrails of his ship.

A moment later an officer resplendent in the gorgeous trappings of
his rank appeared on deck and welcomed Xodar to the vessel, and in
the latter's wake we filed aboard and below.

The cabin in which we found ourselves extended entirely across the
ship, having port-holes on either side below the water line.  No
sooner were all below than a number of commands were given, in
accordance with which the hatch was closed and secured, and the
vessel commenced to vibrate to the rhythmic purr of its machinery.

"Where can we be going in such a tiny pool of water?" asked Phaidor.

"Not up," I replied, "for I noticed particularly that while the
building is roofless it is covered with a strong metal grating."

"Then where?" she asked again.

"From the appearance of the craft I judge we are going down," I
replied.

Phaidor shuddered.  For such long ages have the waters of Barsoom's
seas been a thing of tradition only that even this daughter of the
therns, born as she had been within sight of Mars' only remaining
sea, had the same terror of deep water as is a common attribute of
all Martians.

Presently the sensation of sinking became very apparent.  We were
going down swiftly.  Now we could hear the water rushing past the
port-holes, and in the dim light that filtered through them to the
water beyond the swirling eddies were plainly visible.

Phaidor grasped my arm.

"Save me!" she whispered.  "Save me and your every wish shall
be granted.  Anything within the power of the Holy Therns to give
will be yours.  Phaidor--" she stumbled a little here, and then in
a very low voice, "Phaidor already is yours."

I felt very sorry for the poor child, and placed my hand over hers
where it rested on my arm.  I presume my motive was misunderstood,
for with a swift glance about the apartment to assure herself that
we were alone, she threw both her arms about my neck and dragged
my face down to hers.





CHAPTER IX

ISSUS, GODDESS OF LIFE ETERNAL




The confession of love which the girl's fright had wrung from her
touched me deeply; but it humiliated me as well, since I felt that
in some thoughtless word or act I had given her reason to believe
that I reciprocated her affection.

Never have I been much of a ladies' man, being more concerned
with fighting and kindred arts which have ever seemed to me more
befitting a man than mooning over a scented glove four sizes too
small for him, or kissing a dead flower that has begun to smell
like a cabbage.  So I was quite at a loss as to what to do or say.
A thousand times rather face the wild hordes of the dead sea bottoms
than meet the eyes of this beautiful young girl and tell her the
thing that I must tell her.

But there was nothing else to be done, and so I did it.  Very
clumsily too, I fear.

Gently I unclasped her hands from about my neck, and still holding
them in mine I told her the story of my love for Dejah Thoris.
That of all the women of two worlds that I had known and admired
during my long life she alone had I loved.

The tale did not seem to please her.  Like a tigress she sprang,
panting, to her feet.  Her beautiful face was distorted in an
expression of horrible malevolence.  Her eyes fairly blazed into
mine.

"Dog," she hissed.  "Dog of a blasphemer!  Think you that Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, supplicates?  She commands.  What to her
is your puny outer world passion for the vile creature you chose
in your other life?

"Phaidor has glorified you with her love, and you have spurned her.
Ten thousand unthinkably atrocious deaths could not atone for the
affront that you have put upon me.  The thing that you call Dejah
Thoris shall die the most horrible of them all.  You have sealed
the warrant for her doom.

"And you!  You shall be the meanest slave in the service of the
goddess you have attempted to humiliate.  Tortures and ignominies
shall be heaped upon you until you grovel at my feet asking the
boon of death.

"In my gracious generosity I shall at length grant your prayer,
and from the high balcony of the Golden Cliffs I shall watch the
great white apes tear you asunder."

She had it all fixed up.  The whole lovely programme from start
to finish.  It amazed me to think that one so divinely beautiful
could at the same time be so fiendishly vindictive.  It occurred
to me, however, that she had overlooked one little factor in her
revenge, and so, without any intent to add to her discomfiture, but
rather to permit her to rearrange her plans along more practical
lines, I pointed to the nearest port-hole.

Evidently she had entirely forgotten her surroundings and her
present circumstances, for a single glance at the dark, swirling
waters without sent her crumpled upon a low bench, where with her
face buried in her arms she sobbed more like a very unhappy little
girl than a proud and all-powerful goddess.

Down, down we continued to sink until the heavy glass of the
port-holes became noticeably warm from the heat of the water without.
Evidently we were very far beneath the surface crust of Mars.

Presently our downward motion ceased, and I could hear the propellers
swirling through the water at our stern and forcing us ahead at
high speed.  It was very dark down there, but the light from our
port-holes, and the reflection from what must have been a powerful
searchlight on the submarine's nose showed that we were forging
through a narrow passage, rock-lined, and tube-like.

After a few minutes the propellers ceased their whirring.  We
came to a full stop, and then commenced to rise swiftly toward the
surface.  Soon the light from without increased and we came to a
stop.

Xodar entered the cabin with his men.

"Come," he said, and we followed him through the hatchway which
had been opened by one of the seamen.

We found ourselves in a small subterranean vault, in the centre of
which was the pool in which lay our submarine, floating as we had
first seen her with only her black back showing.

Around the edge of the pool was a level platform, and then the walls
of the cave rose perpendicularly for a few feet to arch toward the
centre of the low roof.  The walls about the ledge were pierced
with a number of entrances to dimly lighted passageways.

Toward one of these our captors led us, and after a short walk
halted before a steel cage which lay at the bottom of a shaft rising
above us as far as one could see.

The cage proved to be one of the common types of elevator cars that
I had seen in other parts of Barsoom.  They are operated by means
of enormous magnets which are suspended at the top of the shaft.  By
an electrical device the volume of magnetism generated is regulated
and the speed of the car varied.

In long stretches they move at a sickening speed, especially on
the upward trip, since the small force of gravity inherent to Mars
results in very little opposition to the powerful force above.

Scarcely had the door of the car closed behind us than we were
slowing up to stop at the landing above, so rapid was our ascent
of the long shaft.

When we emerged from the little building which houses the upper
terminus of the elevator, we found ourselves in the midst of
a veritable fairyland of beauty.  The combined languages of Earth
men hold no words to convey to the mind the gorgeous beauties of
the scene.

One may speak of scarlet sward and ivory-stemmed trees decked
with brilliant purple blooms; of winding walks paved with crushed
rubies, with emerald, with turquoise, even with diamonds themselves;
of a magnificent temple of burnished gold, hand-wrought with marvellous
designs; but where are the words to describe the glorious colours
that are unknown to earthly eyes? where the mind or the imagination
that can grasp the gorgeous scintillations of unheard-of rays as
they emanate from the thousand nameless jewels of Barsoom?

Even my eyes, for long years accustomed to the barbaric splendours
of a Martian Jeddak's court, were amazed at the glory of the scene.

Phaidor's eyes were wide in amazement.

"The Temple of Issus," she whispered, half to herself.

Xodar watched us with his grim smile, partly of amusement and partly
malicious gloating.

The gardens swarmed with brilliantly trapped black men and women.
Among them moved red and white females serving their every want.
The places of the outer world and the temples of the therns had
been robbed of their princesses and goddesses that the blacks might
have their slaves.

Through this scene we moved toward the temple.  At the main
entrance we were halted by a cordon of armed guards.  Xodar spoke
a few words to an officer who came forward to question us.  Together
they entered the temple, where they remained for some time.

When they returned it was to announce that Issus desired to look
upon the daughter of Matai Shang, and the strange creature from
another world who had been a Prince of Helium.

Slowly we moved through endless corridors of unthinkable beauty;
through magnificent apartments, and noble halls.  At length we were
halted in a spacious chamber in the centre of the temple.  One of
the officers who had accompanied us advanced to a large door in
the further end of the chamber.  Here he must have made some sort
of signal for immediately the door opened and another richly trapped
courtier emerged.

We were then led up to the door, where we were directed to get down
on our hands and knees with our backs toward the room we were to
enter.  The doors were swung open and after being cautioned not to
turn our heads under penalty of instant death we were commanded to
back into the presence of Issus.

Never have I been in so humiliating a position in my life, and only
my love for Dejah Thoris and the hope which still clung to me that
I might again see her kept me from rising to face the goddess of
the First Born and go down to my death like a gentleman, facing my
foes and with their blood mingling with mine.

After we had crawled in this disgusting fashion for a matter of a
couple of hundred feet we were halted by our escort.

"Let them rise," said a voice behind us; a thin, wavering voice, yet
one that had evidently been accustomed to command for many years.

"Rise," said our escort, "but do not face toward Issus."

"The woman pleases me," said the thin, wavering voice again after
a few moments of silence.  "She shall serve me the allotted time.
The man you may return to the Isle of Shador which lies against the
northern shore of the Sea of Omean.  Let the woman turn and look
upon Issus, knowing that those of the lower orders who gaze upon
the holy vision of her radiant face survive the blinding glory but
a single year."

I watched Phaidor from the corner of my eye.  She paled to a ghastly
hue.  Slowly, very slowly she turned, as though drawn by some
invisible yet irresistible force.  She was standing quite close to
me, so close that her bare arm touched mine as she finally faced
Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal.

I could not see the girl's face as her eyes rested for the first
time on the Supreme Deity of Mars, but felt the shudder that ran
through her in the trembling flesh of the arm that touched mine.

"It must be dazzling loveliness indeed," thought I, "to cause such
emotion in the breast of so radiant a beauty as Phaidor, daughter
of Matai Shang."

"Let the woman remain.  Remove the man.  Go."  Thus spoke Issus, and
the heavy hand of the officer fell upon my shoulder.  In accordance
with his instructions I dropped to my hands and knees once more
and crawled from the Presence.  It had been my first audience with
deity, but I am free to confess that I was not greatly impressed--other
than with the ridiculous figure I cut scrambling about on my marrow
bones.

Once without the chamber the doors closed behind us and I was bid
to rise.  Xodar joined me and together we slowly retraced our steps
toward the gardens.

"You spared my life when you easily might have taken it," he said
after we had proceeded some little way in silence, "and I would aid
you if I might.  I can help to make your life here more bearable,
but your fate is inevitable.  You may never hope to return to the
outer world."

"What will be my fate?" I asked.

"That will depend largely upon Issus.  So long as she does not send
for you and reveal her face to you, you may live on for years in
as mild a form of bondage as I can arrange for you."

"Why should she send for me?" I asked.

"The men of the lower orders she often uses for various purposes of
amusement.  Such a fighter as you, for example, would render fine
sport in the monthly rites of the temple.  There are men pitted
against men, and against beasts for the edification of Issus and
the replenishment of her larder."

"She eats human flesh?" I asked.  Not in horror, however, for since
my recently acquired knowledge of the Holy Therns I was prepared
for anything in this still less accessible heaven, where all was
evidently dictated by a single omnipotence; where ages of narrow
fanaticism and self-worship had eradicated all the broader humanitarian
instincts that the race might once have possessed.

They were a people drunk with power and success, looking upon the
other inhabitants of Mars as we look upon the beasts of the field
and the forest.  Why then should they not eat of the flesh of the
lower orders whose lives and characters they no more understood
than do we the inmost thoughts and sensibilities of the cattle we
slaughter for our earthly tables.

"She eats only the flesh of the best bred of the Holy Therns and
the red Barsoomians.  The flesh of the others goes to our boards.
The animals are eaten by the slaves.  She also eats other dainties."

I did not understand then that there lay any special significance
in his reference to other dainties.  I thought the limit of
ghoulishness already had been reached in the recitation of Issus'
menu.  I still had much to learn as to the depths of cruelty and
bestiality to which omnipotence may drag its possessor.

We had about reached the last of the many chambers and corridors
which led to the gardens when an officer overtook us.

"Issus would look again upon this man," he said.  "The girl has
told her that he is of wondrous beauty and of such prowess that
alone he slew seven of the First Born, and with his bare hands took
Xodar captive, binding him with his own harness."

Xodar looked uncomfortable.  Evidently he did not relish the thought
that Issus had learned of his inglorious defeat.

Without a word he turned and we followed the officer once again to
the closed doors before the audience chamber of Issus, Goddess of
Life Eternal.

Here the ceremony of entrance was repeated.  Again Issus bid me
rise.  For several minutes all was silent as the tomb.  The eyes
of deity were appraising me.

Presently the thin wavering voice broke the stillness, repeating
in a singsong drone the words which for countless ages had sealed
the doom of numberless victims.

"Let the man turn and look upon Issus, knowing that those of the
lower orders who gaze upon the holy vision of her radiant face
survive the blinding glory but a single year."

I turned as I had been bid, expecting such a treat as only the
revealment of divine glory to mortal eyes might produce.  What
I saw was a solid phalanx of armed men between myself and a dais
supporting a great bench of carved sorapus wood.  On this bench,
or throne, squatted a female black.  She was evidently very old.
Not a hair remained upon her wrinkled skull.  With the exception
of two yellow fangs she was entirely toothless.  On either side of
her thin, hawk-like nose her eyes burned from the depths of horribly
sunken sockets.  The skin of her face was seamed and creased with
a million deepcut furrows.  Her body was as wrinkled as her face,
and as repulsive.

Emaciated arms and legs attached to a torso which seemed to be
mostly distorted abdomen completed the "holy vision of her radiant
beauty."

Surrounding her were a number of female slaves, among them Phaidor,
white and trembling.

"This is the man who slew seven of the First Born and, bare-handed,
bound Dator Xodar with his own harness?" asked Issus.

"Most glorious vision of divine loveliness, it is," replied the
officer who stood at my side.

"Produce Dator Xodar," she commanded.

Xodar was brought from the adjoining room.

Issus glared at him, a baleful light in her hideous eyes.

"And such as you are a Dator of the First Born?" she squealed.  "For
the disgrace you have brought upon the Immortal Race you shall be
degraded to a rank below the lowest.  No longer be you a Dator, but
for evermore a slave of slaves, to fetch and carry for the lower
orders that serve in the gardens of Issus.  Remove his harness.
Cowards and slaves wear no trappings."

Xodar stood stiffly erect.  Not a muscle twitched, nor a tremor
shook his giant frame as a soldier of the guard roughly stripped
his gorgeous trappings from him.

"Begone," screamed the infuriated little old woman.  "Begone, but
instead of the light of the gardens of Issus let you serve as a
slave of this slave who conquered you in the prison on the Isle of
Shador in the Sea of Omean.  Take him away out of the sight of my
divine eyes."

Slowly and with high held head the proud Xodar turned and stalked
from the chamber.  Issus rose and turned to leave the room by
another exit.

Turning to me, she said: "You shall be returned to Shador for the
present.  Later Issus will see the manner of your fighting.  Go."
Then she disappeared, followed by her retinue.  Only Phaidor lagged
behind, and as I started to follow my guard toward the gardens,
the girl came running after me.

"Oh, do not leave me in this terrible place," she begged.  "Forgive
the things I said to you, my Prince.  I did not mean them.  Only
take me away with you.  Let me share your imprisonment on Shador."
Her words were an almost incoherent volley of thoughts, so rapidly
she spoke.  "You did not understand the honour that I did you.
Among the therns there is no marriage or giving in marriage, as
among the lower orders of the outer world.  We might have lived
together for ever in love and happiness.  We have both looked upon
Issus and in a year we die.  Let us live that year at least together
in what measure of joy remains for the doomed."

"If it was difficult for me to understand you, Phaidor," I replied,
"can you not understand that possibly it is equally difficult for
you to understand the motives, the customs and the social laws that
guide me?  I do not wish to hurt you, nor to seem to undervalue
the honour which you have done me, but the thing you desire may not
be.  Regardless of the foolish belief of the peoples of the outer
world, or of Holy Thern, or ebon First Born, I am not dead.  While
I live my heart beats for but one woman--the incomparable Dejah
Thoris, Princess of Helium.  When death overtakes me my heart shall
have ceased to beat; but what comes after that I know not.  And
in that I am as wise as Matai Shang, Master of Life and Death upon
Barsoom; or Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal."

Phaidor stood looking at me intently for a moment.  No anger showed in
her eyes this time, only a pathetic expression of hopeless sorrow.

"I do not understand," she said, and turning walked slowly in
the direction of the door through which Issus and her retinue had
passed.  A moment later she had passed from my sight.





CHAPTER X

THE PRISON ISLE OF SHADOR




In the outer gardens to which the guard now escorted me, I found
Xodar surrounded by a crowd of noble blacks.  They were reviling
and cursing him.  The men slapped his face.  The woman spat upon
him.

When I appeared they turned their attentions toward me.

"Ah," cried one, "so this is the creature who overcame the great
Xodar bare-handed.  Let us see how it was done."

"Let him bind Thurid," suggested a beautiful woman, laughing.
"Thurid is a noble Dator.  Let Thurid show the dog what it means
to face a real man."

"Yes, Thurid!  Thurid!" cried a dozen voices.

"Here he is now," exclaimed another, and turning in the direction
indicated I saw a huge black weighed down with resplendent ornaments
and arms advancing with noble and gallant bearing toward us.

"What now?" he cried.  "What would you of Thurid?"

Quickly a dozen voices explained.

Thurid turned toward Xodar, his eyes narrowing to two nasty slits.

"Calot!" he hissed.  "Ever did I think you carried the heart of a
sorak in your putrid breast.  Often have you bested me in the secret
councils of Issus, but now in the field of war where men are truly
gauged your scabby heart hath revealed its sores to all the world.
Calot, I spurn you with my foot," and with the words he turned to
kick Xodar.

My blood was up.  For minutes it had been boiling at the cowardly
treatment they had been according this once powerful comrade because
he had fallen from the favour of Issus.  I had no love for Xodar,
but I cannot stand the sight of cowardly injustice and persecution
without seeing red as through a haze of bloody mist, and doing
things on the impulse of the moment that I presume I never should
do after mature deliberation.

I was standing close beside Xodar as Thurid swung his foot for the
cowardly kick.  The degraded Dator stood erect and motionless as a
carven image.  He was prepared to take whatever his former comrades
had to offer in the way of insults and reproaches, and take them
in manly silence and stoicism.

But as Thurid's foot swung so did mine, and I caught him a painful
blow upon the shin bone that saved Xodar from this added ignominy.

For a moment there was tense silence, then Thurid, with a roar
of rage sprang for my throat; just as Xodar had upon the deck of
the cruiser.  The results were identical.  I ducked beneath his
outstretched arms, and as he lunged past me planted a terrific
right on the side of his jaw.

The big fellow spun around like a top, his knees gave beneath him
and he crumpled to the ground at my feet.

The blacks gazed in astonishment, first at the still form of the
proud Dator lying there in the ruby dust of the pathway, then at
me as though they could not believe that such a thing could be.

"You asked me to bind Thurid," I cried; "behold!"  And then I
stooped beside the prostrate form, tore the harness from it, and
bound the fellow's arms and legs securely.

"As you have done to Xodar, now do you likewise to Thurid.  Take
him before Issus, bound in his own harness, that she may see with
her own eyes that there be one among you now who is greater than
the First Born."

"Who are you?" whispered the woman who had first suggested that I
attempt to bind Thurid.

"I am a citizen of two worlds; Captain John Carter of Virginia,
Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium.  Take this
man to your goddess, as I have said, and tell her, too, that as I
have done to Xodar and Thurid, so also can I do to the mightiest of
her Dators.  With naked hands, with long-sword or with short-sword,
I challenge the flower of her fighting-men to combat."

"Come," said the officer who was guarding me back to Shador; "my
orders are imperative; there is to be no delay.  Xodar, come you
also."

There was little of disrespect in the tone that the man used in
addressing either Xodar or myself.  It was evident that he felt
less contempt for the former Dator since he had witnessed the ease
with which I disposed of the powerful Thurid.

That his respect for me was greater than it should have been for a
slave was quite apparent from the fact that during the balance of
the return journey he walked or stood always behind me, a drawn
short-sword in his hand.

The return to the Sea of Omean was uneventful.  We dropped down
the awful shaft in the same car that had brought us to the surface.
There we entered the submarine, taking the long dive to the tunnel
far beneath the upper world.  Then through the tunnel and up again
to the pool from which we had had our first introduction to the
wonderful passageway from Omean to the Temple of Issus.

From the island of the submarine we were transported on a small
cruiser to the distant Isle of Shador.  Here we found a small stone
prison and a guard of half a dozen blacks.  There was no ceremony
wasted in completing our incarceration.  One of the blacks opened
the door of the prison with a huge key, we walked in, the door
closed behind us, the lock grated, and with the sound there swept
over me again that terrible feeling of hopelessness that I had felt
in the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs beneath the gardens
of the Holy Therns.

Then Tars Tarkas had been with me, but now I was utterly alone in
so far as friendly companionship was concerned.  I fell to wondering
about the fate of the great Thark, and of his beautiful companion,
the girl, Thuvia.  Even should they by some miracle have escaped
and been received and spared by a friendly nation, what hope had I
of the succour which I knew they would gladly extend if it lay in
their power.

They could not guess my whereabouts or my fate, for none on all
Barsoom even dream of such a place as this.  Nor would it have
advantaged me any had they known the exact location of my prison,
for who could hope to penetrate to this buried sea in the face of
the mighty navy of the First Born?  No: my case was hopeless.

Well, I would make the best of it, and, rising, I swept aside the
brooding despair that had been endeavouring to claim me.  With the
idea of exploring my prison, I started to look around.

Xodar sat, with bowed head, upon a low stone bench near the centre
of the room in which we were.  He had not spoken since Issus had
degraded him.

The building was roofless, the walls rising to a height of about
thirty feet.  Half-way up were a couple of small, heavily barred
windows.  The prison was divided into several rooms by partitions
twenty feet high.  There was no one in the room which we occupied,
but two doors which led to other rooms were opened.  I entered
one of these rooms, but found it vacant.  Thus I continued through
several of the chambers until in the last one I found a young red
Martian boy sleeping upon the stone bench which constituted the
only furniture of any of the prison cells.

Evidently he was the only other prisoner.  As he slept I leaned
over and looked at him.  There was something strangely familiar
about his face, and yet I could not place him.

His features were very regular and, like the proportions of his
graceful limbs and body, beautiful in the extreme.  He was very
light in colour for a red man, but in other respects he seemed a
typical specimen of this handsome race.

I did not awaken him, for sleep in prison is such a priceless boon
that I have seen men transformed into raging brutes when robbed by
one of their fellow-prisoners of a few precious moments of it.

Returning to my own cell, I found Xodar still sitting in the same
position in which I had left him.

"Man," I cried, "it will profit you nothing to mope thus.  It were
no disgrace to be bested by John Carter.  You have seen that in the
ease with which I accounted for Thurid.  You knew it before when
on the cruiser's deck you saw me slay three of your comrades."

"I would that you had dispatched me at the same time," he said.

"Come, come!" I cried.  "There is hope yet.  Neither of us is dead.
We are great fighters.  Why not win to freedom?"

He looked at me in amazement.

"You know not of what you speak," he replied.  "Issus is omnipotent.
Issus is omniscient. She hears now the words you speak.  She knows
the thoughts you think.  It is sacrilege even to dream of breaking
her commands."

"Rot, Xodar," I ejaculated impatiently.

He sprang to his feet in horror.

"The curse of Issus will fall upon you," he cried.  "In another
instant you will be smitten down, writhing to your death in horrible
agony."

"Do you believe that, Xodar?" I asked.

"Of course; who would dare doubt?"

"I doubt; yes, and further, I deny," I said.  "Why, Xodar, you tell
me that she even knows my thoughts.  The red men have all had that
power for ages.  And another wonderful power.  They can shut their
minds so that none may read their thoughts.  I learned the first
secret years ago; the other I never had to learn, since upon all
Barsoom is none who can read what passes in the secret chambers of
my brain.

"Your goddess cannot read my thoughts; nor can she read yours when
you are out of sight, unless you will it.  Had she been able to
read mine, I am afraid that her pride would have suffered a rather
severe shock when I turned at her command to 'gaze upon the holy
vision of her radiant face.'"

"What do you mean?" he whispered in an affrighted voice, so low
that I could scarcely hear him.

"I mean that I thought her the most repulsive and vilely hideous
creature my eyes ever had rested upon."

For a moment he eyed me in horror-stricken amazement, and then with
a cry of "Blasphemer" he sprang upon me.

I did not wish to strike him again, nor was it necessary, since he
was unarmed and therefore quite harmless to me.

As he came I grasped his left wrist with my left hand, and, swinging
my right arm about his left shoulder, caught him beneath the chin
with my elbow and bore him backward across my thigh.

There he hung helpless for a moment, glaring up at me in impotent
rage.

"Xodar," I said, "let us be friends.  For a year, possibly, we
may be forced to live together in the narrow confines of this tiny
room.  I am sorry to have offended you, but I could not dream that
one who had suffered from the cruel injustice of Issus still could
believe her divine.

"I will say a few more words, Xodar, with no intent to wound your
feelings further, but rather that you may give thought to the fact
that while we live we are still more the arbiters of our own fate
than is any god.

"Issus, you see, has not struck me dead, nor is she rescuing her
faithful Xodar from the clutches of the unbeliever who defamed her
fair beauty.  No, Xodar, your Issus is a mortal old woman.  Once
out of her clutches and she cannot harm you.

"With your knowledge of this strange land, and my knowledge of the
outer world, two such fighting-men as you and I should be able to
win our way to freedom.  Even though we died in the attempt, would
not our memories be fairer than as though we remained in servile
fear to be butchered by a cruel and unjust tyrant--call her goddess
or mortal, as you will."

As I finished I raised Xodar to his feet and released him.  He did
not renew the attack upon me, nor did he speak.  Instead, he walked
toward the bench, and, sinking down upon it, remained lost in deep
thought for hours.

A long time afterward I heard a soft sound at the doorway leading
to one of the other apartments, and, looking up, beheld the red
Martian youth gazing intently at us.


"Kaor," I cried, after the red Martian manner of greeting.

"Kaor," he replied.  "What do you here?"

"I await my death, I presume," I replied with a wry smile.

He too smiled, a brave and winning smile.

"I also," he said.  "Mine will come soon.  I looked upon the radiant
beauty of Issus nearly a year since.  It has always been a source
of keen wonder to me that I did not drop dead at the first sight
of that hideous countenance.  And her belly!  By my first ancestor,
but never was there so grotesque a figure in all the universe.
That they should call such a one Goddess of Life Eternal, Goddess
of Death, Mother of the Nearer Moon, and fifty other equally
impossible titles, is quite beyond me."

"How came you here?" I asked.

"It is very simple.  I was flying a one-man air scout far to the
south when the brilliant idea occurred to me that I should like
to search for the Lost Sea of Korus which tradition places near to
the south pole.  I must have inherited from my father a wild lust
for adventure, as well as a hollow where my bump of reverence should
be.

"I had reached the area of eternal ice when my port propeller jammed,
and I dropped to the ground to make repairs.  Before I knew it the
air was black with fliers, and a hundred of these First Born devils
were leaping to the ground all about me.

"With drawn swords they made for me, but before I went down beneath
them they had tasted of the steel of my father's sword, and I had
given such an account of myself as I know would have pleased my
sire had he lived to witness it."

"Your father is dead?" I asked.

"He died before the shell broke to let me step out into a world
that has been very good to me.  But for the sorrow that I had never
the honour to know my father, I have been very happy.  My only
sorrow now is that my mother must mourn me as she has for ten long
years mourned my father."

"Who was your father?" I asked.

He was about to reply when the outer door of our prison opened and
a burly guard entered and ordered him to his own quarters for the
night, locking the door after him as he passed through into the
further chamber.

"It is Issus' wish that you two be confined in the same room," said
the guard when he had returned to our cell.  "This cowardly slave
of a slave is to serve you well," he said to me, indicating Xodar
with a wave of his hand.  "If he does not, you are to beat him
into submission.  It is Issus' wish that you heap upon him every
indignity and degradation of which you can conceive."

With these words he left us.

Xodar still sat with his face buried in his hands.  I walked to
his side and placed my hand upon his shoulder.

"Xodar," I said, "you have heard the commands of Issus, but you
need not fear that I shall attempt to put them into execution.
You are a brave man, Xodar.  It is your own affair if you wish to
be persecuted and humiliated; but were I you I should assert my
manhood and defy my enemies."

"I have been thinking very hard, John Carter," he said, "of all
the new ideas you gave me a few hours since.  Little by little I
have been piecing together the things that you said which sounded
blasphemous to me then with the things that I have seen in my past
life and dared not even think about for fear of bringing down upon
me the wrath of Issus.

"I believe now that she is a fraud; no more divine than you or I.
More I am willing to concede--that the First Born are no holier
than the Holy Therns, nor the Holy Therns more holy than the red
men.

"The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief
in lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly
above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to
have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.

"I am ready to cast off the ties that have bound me.  I am ready to
defy Issus herself; but what will it avail us?  Be the First Born
gods or mortals, they are a powerful race, and we are as fast in
their clutches as though we were already dead.  There is no escape."

"I have escaped from bad plights in the past, my friend," I replied;
"nor while life is in me shall I despair of escaping from the Isle
of Shador and the Sea of Omean."

"But we cannot escape even from the four walls of our prison,"
urged Xodar.  "Test this flint-like surface," he cried, smiting the
solid rock that confined us.  "And look upon this polished surface;
none could cling to it to reach the top."

I smiled.

"That is the least of our troubles, Xodar," I replied.  "I will
guarantee to scale the wall and take you with me, if you will help
with your knowledge of the customs here to appoint the best time
for the attempt, and guide me to the shaft that lets from the dome
of this abysmal sea to the light of God's pure air above."

"Night time is the best and offers the only slender chance we have,
for then men sleep, and only a dozing watch nods in the tops of
the battleships.  No watch is kept upon the cruisers and smaller
craft.  The watchers upon the larger vessels see to all about them.
It is night now."

"But," I exclaimed, "it is not dark!  How can it be night, then?"

He smiled.

"You forget," he said, "that we are far below ground.  The light
of the sun never penetrates here.  There are no moons and no stars
reflected in the bosom of Omean.  The phosphorescent light you
now see pervading this great subterranean vault emanates from the
rocks that form its dome; it is always thus upon Omean, just as
the billows are always as you see them--rolling, ever rolling over
a windless sea.

"At the appointed hour of night upon the world above, the men whose
duties hold them here sleep, but the light is ever the same."

"It will make escape more difficult," I said, and then I shrugged
my shoulders; for what, pray, is the pleasure of doing an easy
thing?

"Let us sleep on it to-night," said Xodar.  "A plan may come with
our awakening."

So we threw ourselves upon the hard stone floor of our prison and
slept the sleep of tired men.





CHAPTER XI

WHEN HELL BROKE LOOSE




Early the next morning Xodar and I commenced work upon our plans
for escape.  First I had him sketch upon the stone floor of our
cell as accurate a map of the south polar regions as was possible
with the crude instruments at our disposal--a buckle from my harness,
and the sharp edge of the wondrous gem I had taken from Sator Throg.

From this I computed the general direction of Helium and the distance
at which it lay from the opening which led to Omean.

Then I had him draw a map of Omean, indicating plainly the position
of Shador and of the opening in the dome which led to the outer
world.

These I studied until they were indelibly imprinted in my memory.
From Xodar I learned the duties and customs of the guards who
patrolled Shador.  It seemed that during the hours set aside for
sleep only one man was on duty at a time.  He paced a beat that
passed around the prison, at a distance of about a hundred feet
from the building.

The pace of the sentries, Xodar said, was very slow, requiring
nearly ten minutes to make a single round.  This meant that for
practically five minutes at a time each side of the prison was
unguarded as the sentry pursued his snail like pace upon the opposite
side.

"This information you ask," said Xodar, "will be all very valuable
AFTER we get out, but nothing that you have asked has any bearing
on that first and most important consideration."

"We will get out all right," I replied, laughing.  "Leave that to
me."

"When shall we make the attempt?" he asked.

"The first night that finds a small craft moored near the shore of
Shador," I replied.

"But how will you know that any craft is moored near Shador?  The
windows are far beyond our reach."

"Not so, friend Xodar; look!"

With a bound I sprang to the bars of the window opposite us, and
took a quick survey of the scene without.

Several small craft and two large battleships lay within a hundred
yards of Shador.

"To-night," I thought, and was just about to voice my decision to
Xodar, when, without warning, the door of our prison opened and a
guard stepped in.

If the fellow saw me there our chances of escape might quickly go
glimmering, for I knew that they would put me in irons if they had
the slightest conception of the wonderful agility which my earthly
muscles gave me upon Mars.

The man had entered and was standing facing the centre of the room,
so that his back was toward me.  Five feet above me was the top of
a partition wall separating our cell from the next.

There was my only chance to escape detection.  If the fellow turned,
I was lost; nor could I have dropped to the floor undetected, since
he was no nearly below me that I would have struck him had I done
so.

"Where is the white man?" cried the guard of Xodar.  "Issus commands
his presence."  He started to turn to see if I were in another part
of the cell.

I scrambled up the iron grating of the window until I could catch
a good footing on the sill with one foot; then I let go my hold
and sprang for the partition top.

"What was that?" I heard the deep voice of the black bellow as
my metal grated against the stone wall as I slipped over.  Then I
dropped lightly to the floor of the cell beyond.

"Where is the white slave?" again cried the guard.

"I know not," replied Xodar.  "He was here even as you entered.  I
am not his keeper--go find him."

The black grumbled something that I could not understand, and then
I heard him unlocking the door into one of the other cells on the
further side.  Listening intently, I caught the sound as the door
closed behind him.  Then I sprang once more to the top of the
partition and dropped into my own cell beside the astonished Xodar.

"Do you see now how we will escape?" I asked him in a whisper.

"I see how you may," he replied, "but I am no wiser than before
as to how I am to pass these walls.  Certain it is that I cannot
bounce over them as you do."

We heard the guard moving about from cell to cell, and finally, his
rounds completed, he again entered ours.  When his eyes fell upon
me they fairly bulged from his head.

"By the shell of my first ancestor!" he roared.  "Where have you
been?"

"I have been in prison since you put me here yesterday," I answered.
"I was in this room when you entered.  You had better look to your
eyesight."

He glared at me in mingled rage and relief.

"Come," he said.  "Issus commands your presence."

He conducted me outside the prison, leaving Xodar behind.  There
we found several other guards, and with them the red Martian youth
who occupied another cell upon Shador.

The journey I had taken to the Temple of Issus on the preceding day
was repeated.  The guards kept the red boy and myself separated,
so that we had no opportunity to continue the conversation that
had been interrupted the previous night.

The youth's face had haunted me.  Where had I seen him before.
There was something strangely familiar in every line of him; in
his carriage, his manner of speaking, his gestures.  I could have
sworn that I knew him, and yet I knew too that I had never seen
him before.

When we reached the gardens of Issus we were led away from the temple
instead of toward it.  The way wound through enchanted parks to a
mighty wall that towered a hundred feet in air.

Massive gates gave egress upon a small plain, surrounded by the same
gorgeous forests that I had seen at the foot of the Golden Cliffs.

Crowds of blacks were strolling in the same direction that our
guards were leading us, and with them mingled my old friends the
plant men and great white apes.

The brutal beasts moved among the crowd as pet dogs might.  If
they were in the way the blacks pushed them roughly to one side, or
whacked them with the flat of a sword, and the animals slunk away
as in great fear.

Presently we came upon our destination, a great amphitheatre situated
at the further edge of the plain, and about half a mile beyond the
garden walls.

Through a massive arched gateway the blacks poured in to take their
seats, while our guards led us to a smaller entrance near one end
of the structure.

Through this we passed into an enclosure beneath the seats, where
we found a number of other prisoners herded together under guard.
Some of them were in irons, but for the most part they seemed
sufficiently awed by the presence of their guards to preclude any
possibility of attempted escape.

During the trip from Shador I had had no opportunity to talk with
my fellow-prisoner, but now that we were safely within the barred
paddock our guards abated their watchfulness, with the result that
I found myself able to approach the red Martian youth for whom I
felt such a strange attraction.

"What is the object of this assembly?" I asked him.  "Are we to
fight for the edification of the First Born, or is it something
worse than that?"

"It is a part of the monthly rites of Issus," he replied, "in
which black men wash the sins from their souls in the blood of men
from the outer world.  If, perchance, the black is killed, it is
evidence of his disloyalty to Issus--the unpardonable sin.  If he
lives through the contest he is held acquitted of the charge that
forced the sentence of the rites, as it is called, upon him.

"The forms of combat vary.  A number of us may be pitted together
against an equal number, or twice the number of blacks; or singly
we may be sent forth to face wild beasts, or some famous black
warrior."

"And if we are victorious," I asked, "what then--freedom?"

He laughed.

"Freedom, forsooth.  The only freedom for us death.  None who
enters the domains of the First Born ever leave.  If we prove able
fighters we are permitted to fight often.  If we are not mighty
fighters--"  He shrugged his shoulders.  "Sooner or later we die
in the arena."

"And you have fought often?" I asked.

"Very often," he replied.  "It is my only pleasure.  Some hundred
black devils have I accounted for during nearly a year of the rites
of Issus.  My mother would be very proud could she only know how
well I have maintained the traditions of my father's prowess."

"Your father must have been a mighty warrior!" I said.  "I have
known most of the warriors of Barsoom in my time; doubtless I knew
him.  Who was he?"

"My father was--"

"Come, calots!" cried the rough voice of a guard.  "To the slaughter
with you," and roughly we were hustled to the steep incline that
led to the chambers far below which let out upon the arena.

The amphitheatre, like all I had ever seen upon Barsoom, was built
in a large excavation.  Only the highest seats, which formed the
low wall surrounding the pit, were above the level of the ground.
The arena itself was far below the surface.

Just beneath the lowest tier of seats was a series of barred cages
on a level with the surface of the arena.  Into these we were
herded.  But, unfortunately, my youthful friend was not of those
who occupied a cage with me.

Directly opposite my cage was the throne of Issus.  Here the horrid
creature squatted, surrounded by a hundred slave maidens sparkling
in jewelled trappings.  Brilliant cloths of many hues and strange
patterns formed the soft cushion covering of the dais upon which
they reclined about her.

On four sides of the throne and several feet below it stood three
solid ranks of heavily armed soldiery, elbow to elbow.  In front
of these were the high dignitaries of this mock heaven--gleaming
blacks bedecked with precious stones, upon their foreheads the
insignia of their rank set in circles of gold.

On both sides of the throne stretched a solid mass of humanity
from top to bottom of the amphitheatre.  There were as many women
as men, and each was clothed in the wondrously wrought harness of
his station and his house.  With each black was from one to three
slaves, drawn from the domains of the therns and from the outer
world.  The blacks are all "noble."  There is no peasantry among the
First Born.  Even the lowest soldier is a god, and has his slaves
to wait upon him.

The First Born do no work.  The men fight--that is a sacred privilege
and duty; to fight and die for Issus.  The women do nothing,
absolutely nothing.  Slaves wash them, slaves dress them, slaves
feed them.  There are some, even, who have slaves that talk for
them, and I saw one who sat during the rites with closed eyes while
a slave narrated to her the events that were transpiring within
the arena.

The first event of the day was the Tribute to Issus.  It marked
the end of those poor unfortunates who had looked upon the divine
glory of the goddess a full year before.  There were ten of
them--splendid beauties from the proud courts of mighty Jeddaks and
from the temples of the Holy Therns.  For a year they had served
in the retinue of Issus; to-day they were to pay the price of this
divine preferment with their lives; tomorrow they would grace the
tables of the court functionaries.

A huge black entered the arena with the young women.  Carefully
he inspected them, felt of their limbs and poked them in the ribs.
Presently he selected one of their number whom he led before the
throne of Issus.  He addressed some words to the goddess which I
could not hear.  Issus nodded her head.  The black raised his hands
above his head in token of salute, grasped the girl by the wrist,
and dragged her from the arena through a small doorway below the
throne.

"Issus will dine well to-night," said a prisoner beside me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That was her dinner that old Thabis is taking to the kitchens.
Didst not note how carefully he selected the plumpest and tenderest
of the lot?"

I growled out my curses on the monster sitting opposite us on the
gorgeous throne.

"Fume not," admonished my companion; "you will see far worse than
that if you live even a month among the First Born."

I turned again in time to see the gate of a nearby cage thrown open
and three monstrous white apes spring into the arena.  The girls
shrank in a frightened group in the centre of the enclosure.

One was on her knees with imploring hands outstretched toward
Issus; but the hideous deity only leaned further forward in keener
anticipation of the entertainment to come.  At length the apes spied
the huddled knot of terror-stricken maidens and with demoniacal
shrieks of bestial frenzy, charged upon them.

A wave of mad fury surged over me.  The cruel cowardliness of the
power-drunk creature whose malignant mind conceived such frightful
forms of torture stirred to their uttermost depths my resentment
and my manhood.  The blood-red haze that presaged death to my foes
swam before my eyes.

The guard lolled before the unbarred gate of the cage which confined
me.  What need of bars, indeed, to keep those poor victims from
rushing into the arena which the edict of the gods had appointed
as their death place!

A single blow sent the black unconscious to the ground.  Snatching
up his long-sword, I sprang into the arena.  The apes were almost
upon the maidens, but a couple of mighty bounds were all my earthly
muscles required to carry me to the centre of the sand-strewn floor.

For an instant silence reigned in the great amphitheatre, then
a wild shout arose from the cages of the doomed.  My long-sword
circled whirring through the air, and a great ape sprawled, headless,
at the feet of the fainting girls.

The other apes turned now upon me, and as I stood facing them
a sullen roar from the audience answered the wild cheers from the
cages.  From the tail of my eye I saw a score of guards rushing
across the glistening sand toward me.  Then a figure broke from
one of the cages behind them.  It was the youth whose personality
so fascinated me.

He paused a moment before the cages, with upraised sword.

"Come, men of the outer world!" he shouted.  "Let us make our
deaths worth while, and at the back of this unknown warrior turn
this day's Tribute to Issus into an orgy of revenge that will echo
through the ages and cause black skins to blanch at each repetition
of the rites of Issus.  Come!  The racks without your cages are
filled with blades."

Without waiting to note the outcome of his plea, he turned
and bounded toward me.  From every cage that harboured red men a
thunderous shout went up in answer to his exhortation.  The inner
guards went down beneath howling mobs, and the cages vomited forth
their inmates hot with the lust to kill.

The racks that stood without were stripped of the swords with
which the prisoners were to have been armed to enter their allotted
combats, and a swarm of determined warriors sped to our support.

The great apes, towering in all their fifteen feet of height, had
gone down before my sword while the charging guards were still some
distance away.  Close behind them pursued the youth.  At my back
were the young girls, and as it was in their service that I fought,
I remained standing there to meet my inevitable death, but with
the determination to give such an account of myself as would long
be remembered in the land of the First Born.

I noted the marvellous speed of the young red man as he raced after
the guards.  Never had I seen such speed in any Martian.  His leaps
and bounds were little short of those which my earthly muscles had
produced to create such awe and respect on the part of the green
Martians into whose hands I had fallen on that long-gone day that
had seen my first advent upon Mars.

The guards had not reached me when he fell upon them from the rear,
and as they turned, thinking from the fierceness of his onslaught
that a dozen were attacking them, I rushed them from my side.

In the rapid fighting that followed I had little chance to note
aught else than the movements of my immediate adversaries, but
now and again I caught a fleeting glimpse of a purring sword and a
lightly springing figure of sinewy steel that filled my heart with
a strange yearning and a mighty but unaccountable pride.

On the handsome face of the boy a grim smile played, and ever and
anon he threw a taunting challenge to the foes that faced him.
In this and other ways his manner of fighting was similar to that
which had always marked me on the field of combat.

Perhaps it was this vague likeness which made me love the boy, while
the awful havoc that his sword played amongst the blacks filled my
soul with a tremendous respect for him.

For my part, I was fighting as I had fought a thousand times
before--now sidestepping a wicked thrust, now stepping quickly in
to let my sword's point drink deep in a foeman's heart, before it
buried itself in the throat of his companion.

We were having a merry time of it, we two, when a great body of
Issus' own guards were ordered into the arena.  On they came with
fierce cries, while from every side the armed prisoners swarmed
upon them.

For half an hour it was as though all hell had broken loose.  In
the walled confines of the arena we fought in an inextricable
mass--howling, cursing, blood-streaked demons; and ever the sword
of the young red man flashed beside me.

Slowly and by repeated commands I had succeeded in drawing the
prisoners into a rough formation about us, so that at last we fought
formed into a rude circle in the centre of which were the doomed
maids.

Many had gone down on both sides, but by far the greater havoc
had been wrought in the ranks of the guards of Issus.  I could see
messengers running swiftly through the audience, and as they passed
the nobles there unsheathed their swords and sprang into the arena.
They were going to annihilate us by force of numbers--that was
quite evidently their plan.

I caught a glimpse of Issus leaning far forward upon her throne,
her hideous countenance distorted in a horrid grimace of hate and
rage, in which I thought I could distinguish an expression of fear.
It was that face that inspired me to the thing that followed.

Quickly I ordered fifty of the prisoners to drop back behind us
and form a new circle about the maidens.

"Remain and protect them until I return," I commanded.

Then, turning to those who formed the outer line, I cried, "Down
with Issus!  Follow me to the throne; we will reap vengeance where
vengeance is deserved."

The youth at my side was the first to take up the cry of "Down
with Issus!" and then at my back and from all sides rose a hoarse
shout, "To the throne!  To the throne!"

As one man we moved, an irresistible fighting mass, over the bodies
of dead and dying foes toward the gorgeous throne of the Martian
deity.  Hordes of the doughtiest fighting-men of the First Born
poured from the audience to check our progress.  We mowed them down
before us as they had been paper men.

"To the seats, some of you!" I cried as we approached the arena's
barrier wall.  "Ten of us can take the throne," for I had seen
that Issus' guards had for the most part entered the fray within
the arena.

On both sides of me the prisoners broke to left and right for the
seats, vaulting the low wall with dripping swords lusting for the
crowded victims who awaited them.

In another moment the entire amphitheatre was filled with the shrieks
of the dying and the wounded, mingled with the clash of arms and
triumphant shouts of the victors.

Side by side the young red man and I, with perhaps a dozen others,
fought our way to the foot of the throne.  The remaining guards,
reinforced by the high dignitaries and nobles of the First Born,
closed in between us and Issus, who sat leaning far forward upon
her carved sorapus bench, now screaming high-pitched commands to
her following, now hurling blighting curses upon those who sought
to desecrate her godhood.

The frightened slaves about her trembled in wide-eyed expectancy,
knowing not whether to pray for our victory or our defeat.  Several
among them, proud daughters no doubt of some of Barsoom's noblest
warriors, snatched swords from the hands of the fallen and fell
upon the guards of Issus, but they were soon cut down; glorious
martyrs to a hopeless cause.

The men with us fought well, but never since Tars Tarkas and I
fought out that long, hot afternoon shoulder to shoulder against
the hordes of Warhoon in the dead sea bottom before Thark, had I
seen two men fight to such good purpose and with such unconquerable
ferocity as the young red man and I fought that day before the
throne of Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal.

Man by man those who stood between us and the carven sorapus wood
bench went down before our blades.  Others swarmed in to fill the
breach, but inch by inch, foot by foot we won nearer and nearer to
our goal.

Presently a cry went up from a section of the stands near by--"Rise
slaves!"  "Rise slaves!" it rose and fell until it swelled to a
mighty volume of sound that swept in great billows around the entire
amphitheatre.

For an instant, as though by common assent, we ceased our fighting
to look for the meaning of this new note nor did it take but a moment
to translate its significance.  In all parts of the structure the
female slaves were falling upon their masters with whatever weapon
came first to hand.  A dagger snatched from the harness of her
mistress was waved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade
crimson with the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from
the bodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments which could be
turned into bludgeons--such were the implements with which these
fair women wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could
but partially recompense them for the unspeakable cruelties and
indignities which their black masters had heaped upon them.  And
those who could find no other weapons used their strong fingers
and their gleaming teeth.

It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer; but in a
brief second we were engaged once more in our own battle with only
the unquenchable battle cry of the women to remind us that they
still fought--"Rise slaves!" "Rise slaves!"

Only a single thin rank of men now stood between us and Issus.  Her
face was blue with terror.  Foam flecked her lips.  She seemed too
paralysed with fear to move.  Only the youth and I fought now.  The
others all had fallen, and I was like to have gone down too from
a nasty long-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behind my
adversary and clutched his elbow as the blade was falling upon me.
The youth sprang to my side and ran his sword through the fellow
before he could recover to deliver another blow.

I should have died even then but for that as my sword was tight
wedged in the breastbone of a Dator of the First Born.  As the fellow
went down I snatched his sword from him and over his prostrate body
looked into the eyes of the one whose quick hand had saved me from
the first cut of his sword--it was Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang.

"Fly, my Prince!" she cried.  "It is useless to fight them longer.
All within the arena are dead.  All who charged the throne are
dead but you and this youth.  Only among the seats are there left
any of your fighting-men, and they and the slave women are fast
being cut down.  Listen!  You can scarce hear the battle-cry of
the women now for nearly all are dead.  For each one of you there
are ten thousand blacks within the domains of the First Born.  Break
for the open and the sea of Korus.  With your mighty sword arm you
may yet win to the Golden Cliffs and the templed gardens of the
Holy Therns.  There tell your story to Matai Shang, my father.  He
will keep you, and together you may find a way to rescue me.  Fly
while there is yet a bare chance for flight."

But that was not my mission, nor could I see much to be preferred
in the cruel hospitality of the Holy Therns to that of the First
Born.

"Down with Issus!" I shouted, and together the boy and I took
up the fight once more.  Two blacks went down with our swords in
their vitals, and we stood face to face with Issus.  As my sword
went up to end her horrid career her paralysis left her, and with
an ear-piercing shriek she turned to flee.  Directly behind her a
black gulf suddenly yawned in the flooring of the dais.  She sprang
for the opening with the youth and I close at her heels.  Her
scattered guard rallied at her cry and rushed for us.  A blow fell
upon the head of the youth.  He staggered and would have fallen,
but I caught him in my left arm and turned to face an infuriated
mob of religious fanatics crazed by the affront I had put upon their
goddess, just as Issus disappeared into the black depths beneath
me.





CHAPTER XII

DOOMED TO DIE




For an instant I stood there before they fell upon me, but the
first rush of them forced me back a step or two.  My foot felt for
the floor but found only empty space.  I had backed into the pit
which had received Issus.  For a second I toppled there upon the
brink.  Then I too with the boy still tightly clutched in my arms
pitched backward into the black abyss.

We struck a polished chute, the opening above us closed as magically
as it had opened, and we shot down, unharmed, into a dimly lighted
apartment far below the arena.

As I rose to my feet the first thing I saw was the malignant countenance
of Issus glaring at me through the heavy bars of a grated door at
one side of the chamber.

"Rash mortal!" she shrilled.  "You shall pay the awful penalty for
your blasphemy in this secret cell.  Here you shall lie alone and
in darkness with the carcass of your accomplice festering in its
rottenness by your side, until crazed by loneliness and hunger you
feed upon the crawling maggots that were once a man."

That was all.  In another instant she was gone, and the dim light
which had filled the cell faded into Cimmerian blackness.

"Pleasant old lady," said a voice at my side.

"Who speaks?" I asked.

"'Tis I, your companion, who has had the honour this day of fighting
shoulder to shoulder with the greatest warrior that ever wore metal
upon Barsoom."

"I thank God that you are not dead," I said.  "I feared for that
nasty cut upon your head."

"It but stunned me," he replied.  "A mere scratch."

"Maybe it were as well had it been final," I said.  "We seem to be
in a pretty fix here with a splendid chance of dying of starvation
and thirst."

"Where are we?"

"Beneath the arena," I replied.  "We tumbled down the shaft that
swallowed Issus as she was almost at our mercy."

He laughed a low laugh of pleasure and relief, and then reaching
out through the inky blackness he sought my shoulder and pulled my
ear close to his mouth.

"Nothing could be better," he whispered.  "There are secrets within
the secrets of Issus of which Issus herself does not dream."

"What do you mean?"

"I laboured with the other slaves a year since in the remodelling
of these subterranean galleries, and at that time we found below
these an ancient system of corridors and chambers that had been
sealed up for ages.  The blacks in charge of the work explored
them, taking several of us along to do whatever work there might
be occasion for.  I know the entire system perfectly.

"There are miles of corridors honeycombing the ground beneath the
gardens and the temple itself, and there is one passage that leads
down to and connects with the lower regions that open on the water
shaft that gives passage to Omean.

"If we can reach the submarine undetected we may yet make the sea
in which there are many islands where the blacks never go.  There
we may live for a time, and who knows what may transpire to aid us
to escape?"

He had spoken all in a low whisper, evidently fearing spying ears
even here, and so I answered him in the same subdued tone.

"Lead back to Shador, my friend," I whispered.  "Xodar, the black,
is there.  We were to attempt our escape together, so I cannot
desert him."

"No," said the boy, "one cannot desert a friend.  It were better
to be recaptured ourselves than that."

Then he commenced groping his way about the floor of the dark
chamber searching for the trap that led to the corridors beneath.
At length he summoned me by a low, "S-s-t," and I crept toward the
sound of his voice to find him kneeling on the brink of an opening
in the floor.

"There is a drop here of about ten feet," he whispered.  "Hang
by your hands and you will alight safely on a level floor of soft
sand."

Very quietly I lowered myself from the inky cell above into the
inky pit below.  So utterly dark was it that we could not see our
hands at an inch from our noses.  Never, I think, have I known such
complete absence of light as existed in the pits of Issus.

For an instant I hung in mid air.  There is a strange sensation
connected with an experience of that nature which is quite difficult
to describe.  When the feet tread empty air and the distance below
is shrouded in darkness there is a feeling akin to panic at the
thought of releasing the hold and taking the plunge into unknown
depths.

Although the boy had told me that it was but ten feet to the floor
below I experienced the same thrills as though I were hanging above
a bottomless pit.  Then I released my hold and dropped--four feet
to a soft cushion of sand.

The boy followed me.

"Raise me to your shoulders," he said, "and I will replace the
trap."

This done he took me by the hand, leading me very slowly, with much
feeling about and frequent halts to assure himself that he did not
stray into wrong passageways.

Presently we commenced the descent of a very steep incline.

"It will not be long," he said, "before we shall have light.  At
the lower levels we meet the same strata of phosphorescent rock
that illuminates Omean."

Never shall I forget that trip through the pits of Issus.  While
it was devoid of important incidents yet it was filled for me with
a strange charm of excitement and adventure which I think I must
have hinged principally on the unguessable antiquity of these
long-forgotten corridors.  The things which the Stygian darkness
hid from my objective eye could not have been half so wonderful as
the pictures which my imagination wrought as it conjured to life
again the ancient peoples of this dying world and set them once
more to the labours, the intrigues, the mysteries and the cruelties
which they had practised to make their last stand against the
swarming hordes of the dead sea bottoms that had driven them step
by step to the uttermost pinnacle of the world where they were now
intrenched behind an impenetrable barrier of superstition.

In addition to the green men there had been three principal races
upon Barsoom.  The blacks, the whites, and a race of yellow men.
As the waters of the planet dried and the seas receded, all other
resources dwindled until life upon the planet became a constant
battle for survival.

The various races had made war upon one another for ages, and the
three higher types had easily bested the green savages of the water
places of the world, but now that the receding seas necessitated
constant abandonment of their fortified cities and forced upon them
a more or less nomadic life in which they became separated into
smaller communities they soon fell prey to the fierce hordes of
green men.  The result was a partial amalgamation of the blacks,
whites and yellows, the result of which is shown in the present
splendid race of red men.

I had always supposed that all traces of the original races had
disappeared from the face of Mars, yet within the past four days
I had found both whites and blacks in great multitudes.  Could it
be possible that in some far-off corner of the planet there still
existed a remnant of the ancient race of yellow men?

My reveries were broken in upon by a low exclamation from the boy.

"At last, the lighted way," he cried, and looking up I beheld at
a long distance before us a dim radiance.

As we advanced the light increased until presently we emerged into
well-lighted passageways.  From then on our progress was rapid
until we came suddenly to the end of a corridor that let directly
upon the ledge surrounding the pool of the submarine.

The craft lay at her moorings with uncovered hatch.  Raising his
finger to his lips and then tapping his sword in a significant
manner, the youth crept noiselessly toward the vessel.  I was close
at his heels.

Silently we dropped to the deserted deck, and on hands and knees
crawled toward the hatchway.  A stealthy glance below revealed no
guard in sight, and so with the quickness and the soundlessness
of cats we dropped together into the main cabin of the submarine.
Even here was no sign of life.  Quickly we covered and secured the
hatch.

Then the boy stepped into the pilot house, touched a button and
the boat sank amid swirling waters toward the bottom of the shaft.
Even then there was no scurrying of feet as we had expected, and
while the boy remained to direct the boat I slid from cabin to
cabin in futile search for some member of the crew.  The craft was
entirely deserted.  Such good fortune seemed almost unbelievable.

When I returned to the pilot house to report the good news to my
companion he handed me a paper.

"This may explain the absence of the crew," he said.

It was a radio-aerial message to the commander of the submarine:


"The slaves have risen.  Come with what men you have and those that
you can gather on the way.  Too late to get aid from Omean.  They
are massacring all within the amphitheatre.  Issus is threatened.
Haste.

"ZITHAD"


"Zithad is Dator of the guards of Issus," explained the youth.  "We
gave them a bad scare--one that they will not soon forget."

"Let us hope that it is but the beginning of the end of Issus," I
said.

"Only our first ancestor knows," he replied.

We reached the submarine pool in Omean without incident.  Here
we debated the wisdom of sinking the craft before leaving her,
but finally decided that it would add nothing to our chances for
escape.  There were plenty of blacks on Omean to thwart us were
we apprehended; however many more might come from the temples and
gardens of Issus would not in any decrease our chances.

We were now in a quandary as to how to pass the guards who patrolled
the island about the pool.  At last I hit upon a plan.

"What is the name or title of the officer in charge of these guards?"
I asked the boy.

"A fellow named Torith was on duty when we entered this morning,"
he replied.

"Good.  And what is the name of the commander of the submarine?"

"Yersted."

I found a dispatch blank in the cabin and wrote the following order:


"Dator Torith: Return these two slaves at once to Shador.

"YERSTED"


"That will be the simpler way to return," I said, smiling, as I
handed the forged order to the boy.  "Come, we shall see now how
well it works."

"But our swords!" he exclaimed.  "What shall we say to explain
them?"

"Since we cannot explain them we shall have to leave them behind
us," I replied.

"Is it not the extreme of rashness to thus put ourselves again,
unarmed, in the power of the First Born?"

"It is the only way," I answered.  "You may trust me to find a way
out of the prison of Shador, and I think, once out, that we shall
find no great difficulty in arming ourselves once more in a country
which abounds so plentifully in armed men."

"As you say," he replied with a smile and shrug.  "I could not
follow another leader who inspired greater confidence than you.
Come, let us put your ruse to the test."

Boldly we emerged from the hatchway of the craft, leaving our swords
behind us, and strode to the main exit which led to the sentry's
post and the office of the Dator of the guard.

At sight of us the members of the guard sprang forward in surprise,
and with levelled rifles halted us.  I held out the message to one
of them.  He took it and seeing to whom it was addressed turned
and handed it to Torith who was emerging from his office to learn
the cause of the commotion.

The black read the order, and for a moment eyed us with evident
suspicion.

"Where is Dator Yersted?" he asked, and my heart sank within me, as
I cursed myself for a stupid fool in not having sunk the submarine
to make good the lie that I must tell.

"His orders were to return immediately to the temple landing," I
replied.

Torith took a half step toward the entrance to the pool as though
to corroborate my story.  For that instant everything hung in the
balance, for had he done so and found the empty submarine still
lying at her wharf the whole weak fabric of my concoction would
have tumbled about our heads; but evidently he decided the message
must be genuine, nor indeed was there any good reason to doubt it
since it would scarce have seemed credible to him that two slaves
would voluntarily have given themselves into custody in any such
manner as this.  It was the very boldness of the plan which rendered
it successful.

"Were you connected with the rising of the slaves?" asked Torith.
"We have just had meagre reports of some such event."

"All were involved," I replied.  "But it amounted to little.  The
guards quickly overcame and killed the majority of us."

He seemed satisfied with this reply.  "Take them to Shador," he
ordered, turning to one of his subordinates.  We entered a small
boat lying beside the island, and in a few minutes were disembarking
upon Shador.  Here we were returned to our respective cells; I with
Xodar, the boy by himself; and behind locked doors we were again
prisoners of the First Born.





CHAPTER XIII

A BREAK FOR LIBERTY




Xodar listened in incredulous astonishment to my narration of the
events which had transpired within the arena at the rites of Issus.
He could scarce conceive, even though he had already professed his
doubt as to the deity of Issus, that one could threaten her with
sword in hand and not be blasted into a thousand fragments by the
mere fury of her divine wrath.

"It is the final proof," he said, at last.  "No more is needed to
completely shatter the last remnant of my superstitious belief in
the divinity of Issus.  She is only a wicked old woman, wielding a
mighty power for evil through machinations that have kept her own
people and all Barsoom in religious ignorance for ages."

"She is still all-powerful here, however," I replied.  "So it behooves
us to leave at the first moment that appears at all propitious."

"I hope that you may find a propitious moment," he said, with
a laugh, "for it is certain that in all my life I have never seen
one in which a prisoner of the First Born might escape."

"To-night will do as well as any," I replied.

"It will soon be night," said Xodar.  "How may I aid in the
adventure?"

"Can you swim?" I asked him.

"No slimy silian that haunts the depths of Korus is more at home
in water than is Xodar," he replied.

"Good.  The red one in all probability cannot swim," I said,
"since there is scarce enough water in all their domains to float
the tiniest craft.  One of us therefore will have to support him
through the sea to the craft we select.  I had hoped that we might
make the entire distance below the surface, but I fear that the
red youth could not thus perform the trip.  Even the bravest of the
brave among them are terrorized at the mere thought of deep water,
for it has been ages since their forebears saw a lake, a river or
a sea."

"The red one is to accompany us?" asked Xodar.

"Yes."

"It is well.  Three swords are better than two.  Especially when
the third is as mighty as this fellow's.  I have seen him battle
in the arena at the rites of Issus many times.  Never, until I
saw you fight, had I seen one who seemed unconquerable even in the
face of great odds.  One might think you two master and pupil, or
father and son.  Come to recall his face there is a resemblance
between you.  It is very marked when you fight--there is the same
grim smile, the same maddening contempt for your adversary apparent
in every movement of your bodies and in every changing expression
of your faces."

"Be that as it may, Xodar, he is a great fighter.  I think that
we will make a trio difficult to overcome, and if my friend Tars
Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, were but one of us we could fight our way
from one end of Barsoom to the other even though the whole world
were pitted against us."

"It will be," said Xodar, "when they find from whence you have come.
That is but one of the superstitions which Issus has foisted upon
a credulous humanity.  She works through the Holy Therns who are
as ignorant of her real self as are the Barsoomians of the outer
world.  Her decrees are borne to the therns written in blood upon
a strange parchment.  The poor deluded fools think that they are
receiving the revelations of a goddess through some supernatural
agency, since they find these messages upon their guarded altars
to which none could have access without detection.  I myself have
borne these messages for Issus for many years.  There is a long
tunnel from the temple of Issus to the principal temple of Matai
Shang.  It was dug ages ago by the slaves of the First Born in such
utter secrecy that no thern ever guessed its existence.

"The therns for their part have temples dotted about the entire
civilized world.  Here priests whom the people never see communicate
the doctrine of the Mysterious River Iss, the Valley Dor, and the
Lost Sea of Korus to persuade the poor deluded creatures to take
the voluntary pilgrimage that swells the wealth of the Holy Therns
and adds to the numbers of their slaves.

"Thus the therns are used as the principal means for collecting
the wealth and labour that the First Born wrest from them as they
need it.  Occasionally the First Born themselves make raids upon
the outer world.  It is then that they capture many females of the
royal houses of the red men, and take the newest in battleships and
the trained artisans who build them, that they may copy what they
cannot create.

"We are a non-productive race, priding ourselves upon our
non-productiveness.  It is criminal for a First Born to labour or
invent.  That is the work of the lower orders, who live merely that
the First Born may enjoy long lives of luxury and idleness.  With
us fighting is all that counts; were it not for that there would
be more of the First Born than all the creatures of Barsoom could
support, for in so far as I know none of us ever dies a natural
death.  Our females would live for ever but for the fact that we
tire of them and remove them to make place for others.  Issus alone
of all is protected against death.  She has lived for countless
ages."

"Would not the other Barsoomians live for ever but for the doctrine
of the voluntary pilgrimage which drags them to the bosom of Iss
at or before their thousandth year?" I asked him.

"I feel now that there is no doubt but that they are precisely the
same species of creature as the First Born, and I hope that I shall
live to fight for them in atonement of the sins I have committed
against them through the ignorance born of generations of false
teaching."

As he ceased speaking a weird call rang out across the waters of
Omean.  I had heard it at the same time the previous evening and
knew that it marked the ending of the day, when the men of Omean
spread their silks upon the deck of battleship and cruiser and fall
into the dreamless sleep of Mars.

Our guard entered to inspect us for the last time before the new
day broke upon the world above.  His duty was soon performed and
the heavy door of our prison closed behind him--we were alone for
the night.

I gave him time to return to his quarters, as Xodar said he probably
would do, then I sprang to the grated window and surveyed the nearby
waters.  At a little distance from the island, a quarter of a mile
perhaps, lay a monster battleship, while between her and the shore
were a number of smaller cruisers and one-man scouts.  Upon the
battleship alone was there a watch.  I could see him plainly in
the upper works of the ship, and as I watched I saw him spread his
sleeping silks upon the tiny platform in which he was stationed.
Soon he threw himself at full length upon his couch.  The discipline
on Omean was lax indeed.  But it is not to be wondered at since no
enemy guessed the existence upon Barsoom of such a fleet, or even
of the First Born, or the Sea of Omean.  Why indeed should they
maintain a watch?

Presently I dropped to the floor again and talked with Xodar,
describing the various craft I had seen.

"There is one there," he said, "my personal property, built to carry
five men, that is the swiftest of the swift.  If we can board her
we can at least make a memorable run for liberty," and then he
went on to describe to me the equipment of the boat; her engines,
and all that went to make her the flier that she was.

In his explanation I recognized a trick of gearing that Kantos Kan
had taught me that time we sailed under false names in the navy
of Zodanga beneath Sab Than, the Prince.  And I knew then that the
First Born had stolen it from the ships of Helium, for only they
are thus geared.  And I knew too that Xodar spoke the truth when
he lauded the speed of his little craft, for nothing that cleaves
the thin air of Mars can approximate the speed of the ships of
Helium.

We decided to wait for an hour at least until all the stragglers
had sought their silks.  In the meantime I was to fetch the red
youth to our cell so that we would be in readiness to make our rash
break for freedom together.

I sprang to the top of our partition wall and pulled myself up
on to it.  There I found a flat surface about a foot in width and
along this I walked until I came to the cell in which I saw the
boy sitting upon his bench.  He had been leaning back against the
wall looking up at the glowing dome above Omean, and when he spied
me balancing upon the partition wall above him his eyes opened wide
in astonishment.  Then a wide grin of appreciative understanding
spread across his countenance.

As I stooped to drop to the floor beside him he motioned me to wait,
and coming close below me whispered: "Catch my hand; I can almost
leap to the top of that wall myself.  I have tried it many times,
and each day I come a little closer.  Some day I should have been
able to make it."

I lay upon my belly across the wall and reached my hand far down
toward him.  With a little run from the centre of the cell he sprang
up until I grasped his outstretched hand, and thus I pulled him to
the wall's top beside me.

"You are the first jumper I ever saw among the red men of Barsoom,"
I said.

He smiled.  "It is not strange.  I will tell you why when we have
more time."

Together we returned to the cell in which Xodar sat; descending to
talk with him until the hour had passed.

There we made our plans for the immediate future, binding ourselves
by a solemn oath to fight to the death for one another against
whatsoever enemies should confront us, for we knew that even should
we succeed in escaping the First Born we might still have a whole
world against us--the power of religious superstition is mighty.

It was agreed that I should navigate the craft after we had reached
her, and that if we made the outer world in safety we should attempt
to reach Helium without a stop.

"Why Helium?" asked the red youth.

"I am a prince of Helium," I replied.

He gave me a peculiar look, but said nothing further on the subject.
I wondered at the time what the significance of his expression
might be, but in the press of other matters it soon left my mind,
nor did I have occasion to think of it again until later.

"Come," I said at length, "now is as good a time as any.  Let us
go."

Another moment found me at the top of the partition wall again with
the boy beside me.  Unbuckling my harness I snapped it together
with a single long strap which I lowered to the waiting Xodar below.
He grasped the end and was soon sitting beside us.

"How simple," he laughed.

"The balance should be even simpler," I replied.  Then I raised
myself to the top of the outer wall of the prison, just so that
I could peer over and locate the passing sentry.  For a matter of
five minutes I waited and then he came in sight on his slow and
snail-like beat about the structure.

I watched him until he had made the turn at the end of the building
which carried him out of sight of the side of the prison that was
to witness our dash for freedom.  The moment his form disappeared
I grasped Xodar and drew him to the top of the wall.  Placing one
end of my harness strap in his hands I lowered him quickly to the
ground below.  Then the boy grasped the strap and slid down to
Xodar's side.

In accordance with our arrangement they did not wait for me, but
walked slowly toward the water, a matter of a hundred yards, directly
past the guard-house filled with sleeping soldiers.

They had taken scarce a dozen steps when I too dropped to the
ground and followed them leisurely toward the shore.  As I passed
the guard-house the thought of all the good blades lying there
gave me pause, for if ever men were to have need of swords it was
my companions and I on the perilous trip upon which we were about
to embark.

I glanced toward Xodar and the youth and saw that they had slipped
over the edge of the dock into the water.  In accordance with our
plan they were to remain there clinging to the metal rings which
studded the concrete-like substance of the dock at the water's
level, with only their mouths and noses above the surface of the
sea, until I should join them.

The lure of the swords within the guard-house was strong upon me,
and I hesitated a moment, half inclined to risk the attempt to take
the few we needed.  That he who hesitates is lost proved itself a
true aphorism in this instance, for another moment saw me creeping
stealthily toward the door of the guard-house.

Gently I pressed it open a crack; enough to discover a dozen blacks
stretched upon their silks in profound slumber.  At the far side
of the room a rack held the swords and firearms of the men.  Warily
I pushed the door a trifle wider to admit my body.  A hinge gave
out a resentful groan.  One of the men stirred, and my heart stood
still.  I cursed myself for a fool to have thus jeopardized our
chances for escape; but there was nothing for it now but to see
the adventure through.

With a spring as swift and as noiseless as a tiger's I lit beside
the guardsman who had moved.  My hands hovered about his throat
awaiting the moment that his eyes should open.  For what seemed
an eternity to my overwrought nerves I remained poised thus.  Then
the fellow turned again upon his side and resumed the even respiration
of deep slumber.

Carefully I picked my way between and over the soldiers until I
had gained the rack at the far side of the room.  Here I turned to
survey the sleeping men.  All were quiet.  Their regular breathing
rose and fell in a soothing rhythm that seemed to me the sweetest
music I ever had heard.

Gingerly I drew a long-sword from the rack.  The scraping of
the scabbard against its holder as I withdrew it sounded like the
filing of cast iron with a great rasp, and I looked to see the room
immediately filled with alarmed and attacking guardsmen.  But none
stirred.

The second sword I withdrew noiselessly, but the third clanked in
its scabbard with a frightful din.  I knew that it must awaken some
of the men at least, and was on the point of forestalling their
attack by a rapid charge for the doorway, when again, to my intense
surprise, not a black moved.  Either they were wondrous heavy
sleepers or else the noises that I made were really much less than
they seemed to me.

I was about to leave the rack when my attention was attracted by
the revolvers.  I knew that I could not carry more than one away
with me, for I was already too heavily laden to move quietly with
any degree of safety or speed.  As I took one of them from its pin
my eye fell for the first time on an open window beside the rack.
Ah, here was a splendid means of escape, for it let directly upon
the dock, not twenty feet from the water's edge.

And as I congratulated myself, I heard the door opposite me open,
and there looking me full in the face stood the officer of the guard.
He evidently took in the situation at a glance and appreciated the
gravity of it as quickly as I, for our revolvers came up simultaneously
and the sounds of the two reports were as one as we touched the
buttons on the grips that exploded the cartridges.

I felt the wind of his bullet as it whizzed past my ear, and at the
same instant I saw him crumple to the ground.  Where I hit him I do
not know, nor if I killed him, for scarce had he started to collapse
when I was through the window at my rear.  In another second the
waters of Omean closed above my head, and the three of us were
making for the little flier a hundred yards away.

Xodar was burdened with the boy, and I with the three long-swords.
The revolver I had dropped, so that while we were both strong
swimmers it seemed to me that we moved at a snail's pace through
the water.  I was swimming entirely beneath the surface, but Xodar
was compelled to rise often to let the youth breathe, so it was a
wonder that we were not discovered long before we were.

In fact we reached the boat's side and were all aboard before the
watch upon the battleship, aroused by the shots, detected us.  Then
an alarm gun bellowed from a ship's bow, its deep boom reverberating
in deafening tones beneath the rocky dome of Omean.

Instantly the sleeping thousands were awake.  The decks of a thousand
monster craft teemed with fighting-men, for an alarm on Omean was
a thing of rare occurrence.

We cast away before the sound of the first gun had died, and
another second saw us rising swiftly from the surface of the sea.
I lay at full length along the deck with the levers and buttons
of control before me.  Xodar and the boy were stretched directly
behind me, prone also that we might offer as little resistance to
the air as possible.

"Rise high," whispered Xodar.  "They dare not fire their heavy
guns toward the dome--the fragments of the shells would drop back
among their own craft.  If we are high enough our keel plates will
protect us from rifle fire."

I did as he bade.  Below us we could see the men leaping into the
water by hundreds, and striking out for the small cruisers and
one-man fliers that lay moored about the big ships.  The larger
craft were getting under way, following us rapidly, but not rising
from the water.

"A little to your right," cried Xodar, for there are no points of
compass upon Omean where every direction is due north.

The pandemonium that had broken out below us was deafening.  Rifles
cracked, officers shouted orders, men yelled directions to one
another from the water and from the decks of myriad boats, while
through all ran the purr of countless propellers cutting water and
air.

I had not dared pull my speed lever to the highest for fear of
overrunning the mouth of the shaft that passed from Omean's dome
to the world above, but even so we were hitting a clip that I doubt
has ever been equalled on the windless sea.

The smaller fliers were commencing to rise toward us when Xodar
shouted: "The shaft!  The shaft!  Dead ahead," and I saw the opening,
black and yawning in the glowing dome of this underworld.

A ten-man cruiser was rising directly in front to cut off our
escape.  It was the only vessel that stood in our way, but at the
rate that it was traveling it would come between us and the shaft
in plenty of time to thwart our plans.

It was rising at an angle of about forty-five degrees dead ahead of
us, with the evident intention of combing us with grappling hooks
from above as it skimmed low over our deck.

There was but one forlorn hope for us, and I took it.  It was useless
to try to pass over her, for that would have allowed her to force
us against the rocky dome above, and we were already too near that
as it was.  To have attempted to dive below her would have put us
entirely at her mercy, and precisely where she wanted us.  On either
side a hundred other menacing craft were hastening toward us.  The
alternative was filled with risk--in fact it was all risk, with
but a slender chance of success.

As we neared the cruiser I rose as though to pass above her, so
that she would do just what she did do, rise at a steeper angle to
force me still higher.  Then as we were almost upon her I yelled
to my companions to hold tight, and throwing the little vessel into
her highest speed I deflected her bows at the same instant until
we were running horizontally and at terrific velocity straight for
the cruiser's keel.

Her commander may have seen my intentions then, but it was too late.
Almost at the instant of impact I turned my bows upward, and then
with a shattering jolt we were in collision.  What I had hoped for
happened.  The cruiser, already tilted at a perilous angle, was
carried completely over backward by the impact of my smaller vessel.
Her crew fell twisting and screaming through the air to the water
far below, while the cruiser, her propellers still madly churning,
dived swiftly headforemost after them to the bottom of the Sea of
Omean.

The collision crushed our steel bows, and notwithstanding every
effort on our part came near to hurling us from the deck.  As it
was we landed in a wildly clutching heap at the very extremity of
the flier, where Xodar and I succeeded in grasping the hand-rail,
but the boy would have plunged overboard had I not fortunately
grasped his ankle as he was already partially over.

Unguided, our vessel careened wildly in its mad flight, rising ever
nearer the rocks above.  It took but an instant, however, for me
to regain the levers, and with the roof barely fifty feet above I
turned her nose once more into the horizontal plane and headed her
again for the black mouth of the shaft.

The collision had retarded our progress and now a hundred swift
scouts were close upon us.  Xodar had told me that ascending the
shaft by virtue of our repulsive rays alone would give our enemies
their best chance to overtake us, since our propellers would be
idle and in rising we would be outclassed by many of our pursuers.
The swifter craft are seldom equipped with large buoyancy tanks,
since the added bulk of them tends to reduce a vessel's speed.

As many boats were now quite close to us it was inevitable that we
would be quickly overhauled in the shaft, and captured or killed
in short order.

To me there always seems a way to gain the opposite side of
an obstacle.  If one cannot pass over it, or below it, or around
it, why then there is but a single alternative left, and that is
to pass through it.  I could not get around the fact that many of
these other boats could rise faster than ours by the fact of their
greater buoyancy, but I was none the less determined to reach the
outer world far in advance of them or die a death of my own choosing
in event of failure.

"Reverse?" screamed Xodar, behind me.  "For the love of your first
ancestor, reverse.  We are at the shaft."

"Hold tight!" I screamed in reply.  "Grasp the boy and hold tight--we
are going straight up the shaft."

The words were scarce out of my mouth as we swept beneath the
pitch-black opening.  I threw the bow hard up, dragged the speed
lever to its last notch, and clutching a stanchion with one hand
and the steering-wheel with the other hung on like grim death and
consigned my soul to its author.

I heard a little exclamation of surprise from Xodar, followed by a
grim laugh.  The boy laughed too and said something which I could
not catch for the whistling of the wind of our awful speed.

I looked above my head, hoping to catch the gleam of stars by which
I could direct our course and hold the hurtling thing that bore us
true to the centre of the shaft.  To have touched the side at the
speed we were making would doubtless have resulted in instant death
for us all.  But not a star showed above--only utter and impenetrable
darkness.

Then I glanced below me, and there I saw a rapidly diminishing
circle of light--the mouth of the opening above the phosphorescent
radiance of Omean.  By this I steered, endeavouring to keep the
circle of light below me ever perfect.  At best it was but a slender
cord that held us from destruction, and I think that I steered that
night more by intuition and blind faith than by skill or reason.

We were not long in the shaft, and possibly the very fact of our
enormous speed saved us, for evidently we started in the right
direction and so quickly were we out again that we had no time to
alter our course.  Omean lies perhaps two miles below the surface
crust of Mars.  Our speed must have approximated two hundred miles
an hour, for Martian fliers are swift, so that at most we were in
the shaft not over forty seconds.

We must have been out of it for some seconds before I realised that
we had accomplished the impossible.  Black darkness enshrouded all
about us.  There were neither moons nor stars.  Never before had I
seen such a thing upon Mars, and for the moment I was nonplussed.
Then the explanation came to me.  It was summer at the south pole.
The ice cap was melting and those meteoric phenomena, clouds, unknown
upon the greater part of Barsoom, were shutting out the light of
heaven from this portion of the planet.

Fortunate indeed it was for us, nor did it take me long to grasp
the opportunity for escape which this happy condition offered
us.  Keeping the boat's nose at a stiff angle I raced her for the
impenetrable curtain which Nature had hung above this dying world
to shut us out from the sight of our pursuing enemies.

We plunged through the cold camp fog without diminishing our
speed, and in a moment emerged into the glorious light of the two
moons and the million stars.  I dropped into a horizontal course
and headed due north.  Our enemies were a good half-hour behind us
with no conception of our direction.  We had performed the miraculous
and come through a thousand dangers unscathed--we had escaped from
the land of the First Born.  No other prisoners in all the ages of
Barsoom had done this thing, and now as I looked back upon it it
did not seem to have been so difficult after all.

I said as much to Xodar, over my shoulder.

"It is very wonderful, nevertheless," he replied.  "No one else
could have accomplished it but John Carter."

At the sound of that name the boy jumped to his feet.

"John Carter!" he cried.  "John Carter!  Why, man, John Carter,
Prince of Helium, has been dead for years.  I am his son."





CHAPTER XIV

THE EYES IN THE DARK




My son!  I could not believe my ears.  Slowly I rose and faced
the handsome youth.  Now that I looked at him closely I commenced
to see why his face and personality had attracted me so strongly.
There was much of his mother's incomparable beauty in his clear-cut
features, but it was strongly masculine beauty, and his grey eyes
and the expression of them were mine.

The boy stood facing me, half hope and half uncertainty in his
look.

"Tell me of your mother," I said.  "Tell me all you can of the years
that I have been robbed by a relentless fate of her dear companionship."

With a cry of pleasure he sprang toward me and threw his arms
about my neck, and for a brief moment as I held my boy close to
me the tears welled to my eyes and I was like to have choked after
the manner of some maudlin fool--but I do not regret it, nor am I
ashamed.  A long life has taught me that a man may seem weak where
women and children are concerned and yet be anything but a weakling
in the sterner avenues of life.

"Your stature, your manner, the terrible ferocity of your
swordsmanship," said the boy, "are as my mother has described them
to me a thousand times--but even with such evidence I could scarce
credit the truth of what seemed so improbable to me, however
much I desired it to be true.  Do you know what thing it was that
convinced me more than all the others?"

"What, my boy?" I asked.

"Your first words to me--they were of my mother.  None else but
the man who loved her as she has told me my father did would have
thought first of her."

"For long years, my son, I can scarce recall a moment that the
radiant vision of your mother's face has not been ever before me.
Tell me of her."

"Those who have known her longest say that she has not changed,
unless it be to grow more beautiful--were that possible.  Only,
when she thinks I am not about to see her, her face grows very
sad, and, oh, so wistful.  She thinks ever of you, my father, and
all Helium mourns with her and for her.  Her grandfather's people
love her.  They loved you also, and fairly worship your memory as
the saviour of Barsoom.

"Each year that brings its anniversary of the day that saw you
racing across a near dead world to unlock the secret of that awful
portal behind which lay the mighty power of life for countless
millions a great festival is held in your honour; but there are
tears mingled with the thanksgiving--tears of real regret that the
author of the happiness is not with them to share the joy of living
he died to give them.  Upon all Barsoom there is no greater name
than John Carter."

"And by what name has your mother called you, my boy?" I asked.

"The people of Helium asked that I be named with my father's name,
but my mother said no, that you and she had chosen a name for me
together, and that your wish must be honoured before all others,
so the name that she called me is the one that you desired, a
combination of hers and yours--Carthoris."

Xodar had been at the wheel as I talked with my son, and now he
called me.

"She is dropping badly by the head, John Carter," he said.  "So
long as we were rising at a stiff angle it was not noticeable, but
now that I am trying to keep a horizontal course it is different.
The wound in her bow has opened one of her forward ray tanks."

It was true, and after I had examined the damage I found it a much
graver matter than I had anticipated.  Not only was the forced angle
at which we were compelled to maintain the bow in order to keep a
horizontal course greatly impeding our speed, but at the rate that
we were losing our repulsive rays from the forward tanks it was
but a question of an hour or more when we would be floating stern
up and helpless.

We had slightly reduced our speed with the dawning of a sense of
security, but now I took the helm once more and pulled the noble
little engine wide open, so that again we raced north at terrific
velocity.  In the meantime Carthoris and Xodar with tools in hand
were puttering with the great rent in the bow in a hopeless endeavour
to stem the tide of escaping rays.

It was still dark when we passed the northern boundary of the ice
cap and the area of clouds.  Below us lay a typical Martian landscape.
Rolling ochre sea bottom of long dead seas, low surrounding hills,
with here and there the grim and silent cities of the dead past;
great piles of mighty architecture tenanted only by age-old memories
of a once powerful race, and by the great white apes of Barsoom.

It was becoming more and more difficult to maintain our little
vessel in a horizontal position.  Lower and lower sagged the bow
until it became necessary to stop the engine to prevent our flight
terminating in a swift dive to the ground.

As the sun rose and the light of a new day swept away the darkness
of night our craft gave a final spasmodic plunge, turned half upon
her side, and then with deck tilting at a sickening angle swung in
a slow circle, her bow dropping further below her stern each moment.

To hand-rail and stanchion we clung, and finally as we saw the end
approaching, snapped the buckles of our harness to the rings at
her sides.  In another moment the deck reared at an angle of ninety
degrees and we hung in our leather with feet dangling a thousand
yards above the ground.

I was swinging quite close to the controlling devices, so I reached
out to the lever that directed the rays of repulsion.  The boat
responded to the touch, and very gently we began to sink toward
the ground.

It was fully half an hour before we touched.  Directly north of
us rose a rather lofty range of hills, toward which we decided to
make our way, since they afforded greater opportunity for concealment
from the pursuers we were confident might stumble in this direction.

An hour later found us in the time-rounded gullies of the hills,
amid the beautiful flowering plants that abound in the arid waste
places of Barsoom.  There we found numbers of huge milk-giving
shrubs--that strange plant which serves in great part as food and
drink for the wild hordes of green men.  It was indeed a boon to
us, for we all were nearly famished.

Beneath a cluster of these which afforded perfect concealment from
wandering air scouts, we lay down to sleep--for me the first time
in many hours.  This was the beginning of my fifth day upon Barsoom
since I had found myself suddenly translated from my cottage on
the Hudson to Dor, the valley beautiful, the valley hideous.  In
all this time I had slept but twice, though once the clock around
within the storehouse of the therns.

It was mid-afternoon when I was awakened by some one seizing my
hand and covering it with kisses.  With a start I opened my eyes
to look into the beautiful face of Thuvia.

"My Prince!  My Prince!" she cried, in an ecstasy of happiness.
"'Tis you whom I had mourned as dead.  My ancestors have been good
to me; I have not lived in vain."

The girl's voice awoke Xodar and Carthoris.  The boy gazed upon the
woman in surprise, but she did not seem to realize the presence of
another than I.  She would have thrown her arms about my neck and
smothered me with caresses, had I not gently but firmly disengaged
myself.

"Come, come, Thuvia," I said soothingly; "you are overwrought
by the danger and hardships you have passed through.  You forget
yourself, as you forget that I am the husband of the Princess of
Helium."

"I forget nothing, my Prince," she replied.  "You have spoken
no word of love to me, nor do I expect that you ever shall; but
nothing can prevent me loving you.  I would not take the place of
Dejah Thoris.  My greatest ambition is to serve you, my Prince,
for ever as your slave.  No greater boon could I ask, no greater
honour could I crave, no greater happiness could I hope."

As I have before said, I am no ladies' man, and I must admit that
I seldom have felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed as I did that
moment.  While I was quite familiar with the Martian custom which
allows female slaves to Martian men, whose high and chivalrous
honour is always ample protection for every woman in his household,
yet I had never myself chosen other than men as my body servants.

"And I ever return to Helium, Thuvia," I said, "you shall go with
me, but as an honoured equal, and not as a slave.  There you shall
find plenty of handsome young nobles who would face Issus herself
to win a smile from you, and we shall have you married in short order
to one of the best of them.  Forget your foolish gratitude-begotten
infatuation, which your innocence has mistaken for love.  I like
your friendship better, Thuvia."

"You are my master; it shall be as you say," she replied simply,
but there was a note of sadness in her voice.

"How came you here, Thuvia?" I asked.  "And where is Tars Tarkas?"

"The great Thark, I fear, is dead," she replied sadly.  "He was a
mighty fighter, but a multitude of green warriors of another horde
than his overwhelmed him.  The last that I saw of him they were
bearing him, wounded and bleeding, to the deserted city from which
they had sallied to attack us."

"You are not sure that he is dead, then?" I asked.  "And where is
this city of which you speak?"

"It is just beyond this range of hills.  The vessel in which you so
nobly resigned a place that we might find escape defied our small
skill in navigation, with the result that we drifted aimlessly about
for two days.  Then we decided to abandon the craft and attempt to
make our way on foot to the nearest waterway.  Yesterday we crossed
these hills and came upon the dead city beyond.  We had passed within
its streets and were walking toward the central portion, when at
an intersecting avenue we saw a body of green warriors approaching.

"Tars Tarkas was in advance, and they saw him, but me they did not
see.  The Thark sprang back to my side and forced me into an adjacent
doorway, where he told me to remain in hiding until I could escape,
making my way to Helium if possible.

"'There will be no escape for me now,' he said, 'for these be the
Warhoon of the South.  When they have seen my metal it will be to
the death.'

"Then he stepped out to meet them.  Ah, my Prince, such fighting!
For an hour they swarmed about him, until the Warhoon dead formed
a hill where he had stood; but at last they overwhelmed him, those
behind pushing the foremost upon him until there remained no space
to swing his great sword.  Then he stumbled and went down and
they rolled over him like a huge wave.  When they carried him away
toward the heart of the city, he was dead, I think, for I did not
see him move."

"Before we go farther we must be sure," I said.  "I cannot leave
Tars Tarkas alive among the Warhoons.  To-night I shall enter the
city and make sure."

"And I shall go with you," spoke Carthoris.

"And I," said Xodar.

"Neither one of you shall go," I replied.  "It is work that requires
stealth and strategy, not force.  One man alone may succeed where
more would invite disaster.  I shall go alone.  If I need your
help, I will return for you."

They did not like it, but both were good soldiers, and it had been
agreed that I should command.  The sun already was low, so that
I did not have long to wait before the sudden darkness of Barsoom
engulfed us.

With a parting word of instructions to Carthoris and Xodar, in case
I should not return, I bade them all farewell and set forth at a
rapid dogtrot toward the city.

As I emerged from the hills the nearer moon was winging its wild
flight through the heavens, its bright beams turning to burnished
silver the barbaric splendour of the ancient metropolis.  The city
had been built upon the gently rolling foothills that in the dim
and distant past had sloped down to meet the sea.  It was due to
this fact that I had no difficulty in entering the streets unobserved.

The green hordes that use these deserted cities seldom occupy more
than a few squares about the central plaza, and as they come and
go always across the dead sea bottoms that the cities face, it is
usually a matter of comparative ease to enter from the hillside.

Once within the streets, I kept close in the dense shadows of the
walls.  At intersections I halted a moment to make sure that none
was in sight before I sprang quickly to the shadows of the opposite
side.  Thus I made the journey to the vicinity of the plaza without
detection.  As I approached the purlieus of the inhabited portion
of the city I was made aware of the proximity of the warriors'
quarters by the squealing and grunting of the thoats and zitidars
corralled within the hollow courtyards formed by the buildings
surrounding each square.

These old familiar sounds that are so distinctive of green Martian
life sent a thrill of pleasure surging through me.  It was as one
might feel on coming home after a long absence.  It was amid such
sounds that I had first courted the incomparable Dejah Thoris in
the age-old marble halls of the dead city of Korad.

As I stood in the shadows at the far corner of the first square
which housed members of the horde, I saw warriors emerging from
several of the buildings.  They all went in the same direction,
toward a great building which stood in the centre of the plaza.  My
knowledge of green Martian customs convinced me that this was either
the quarters of the principal chieftain or contained the audience
chamber wherein the Jeddak met his jeds and lesser chieftains.  In
either event, it was evident that something was afoot which might
have a bearing on the recent capture of Tars Tarkas.

To reach this building, which I now felt it imperative that I do,
I must needs traverse the entire length of one square and cross a
broad avenue and a portion of the plaza.  From the noises of the
animals which came from every courtyard about me, I knew that there
were many people in the surrounding buildings--probably several
communities of the great horde of the Warhoons of the South.

To pass undetected among all these people was in itself a difficult
task, but if I was to find and rescue the great Thark I must expect
even more formidable obstacles before success could be mine.  I
had entered the city from the south and now stood on the corner of
the avenue through which I had passed and the first intersecting
avenue south of the plaza.  The buildings upon the south side
of this square did not appear to be inhabited, as I could see no
lights, and so I decided to gain the inner courtyard through one
of them.

Nothing occurred to interrupt my progress through the deserted pile
I chose, and I came into the inner court close to the rear walls
of the east buildings without detection.  Within the court a great
herd of thoats and zitidars moved restlessly about, cropping the
moss-like ochre vegetation which overgrows practically the entire
uncultivated area of Mars.  What breeze there was came from the
north-west, so there was little danger that the beasts would scent
me.  Had they, their squealing and grunting would have grown to
such a volume as to attract the attention of the warriors within
the buildings.

Close to the east wall, beneath the overhanging balconies of the
second floors, I crept in dense shadows the full length of the
courtyard, until I came to the buildings at the north end.  These
were lighted for about three floors up, but above the third floor
all was dark.

To pass through the lighted rooms was, of course, out of the question,
since they swarmed with green Martian men and women.  My only path
lay through the upper floors, and to gain these it was necessary
to scale the face of the wall.  The reaching of the balcony of the
second floor was a matter of easy accomplishment--an agile leap
gave my hands a grasp upon the stone hand-rail above.  In another
instant I had drawn myself upon the balcony.

Here through the open windows I saw the green folk squatting upon
their sleeping silks and furs, grunting an occasional monosyllable,
which, in connection with their wondrous telepathic powers, is ample
for their conversational requirements.  As I drew closer to listen
to their words a warrior entered the room from the hall beyond.

"Come, Tan Gama," he cried, "we are to take the Thark before Kab
Kadja.  Bring another with you."

The warrior addressed arose and, beckoning to a fellow squatting
near, the three turned and left the apartment.

If I could but follow them the chance might come to free Tars Tarkas
at once.  At least I would learn the location of his prison.

At my right was a door leading from the balcony into the building.
It was at the end of an unlighted hall, and on the impulse of
the moment I stepped within.  The hall was broad and led straight
through to the front of the building.  On either side were the
doorways of the various apartments which lined it.

I had no more than entered the corridor than I saw the three warriors
at the other end--those whom I had just seen leaving the apartment.
Then a turn to the right took them from my sight again.  Quickly I
hastened along the hallway in pursuit.  My gait was reckless, but
I felt that Fate had been kind indeed to throw such an opportunity
within my grasp, and I could not afford to allow it to elude me
now.

At the far end of the corridor I found a spiral stairway leading
to the floors above and below.  The three had evidently left the
floor by this avenue.  That they had gone down and not up I was
sure from my knowledge of these ancient buildings and the methods
of the Warhoons.

I myself had once been a prisoner of the cruel hordes of northern
Warhoon, and the memory of the underground dungeon in which I
lay still is vivid in my memory.  And so I felt certain that Tars
Tarkas lay in the dark pits beneath some nearby building, and that
in that direction I should find the trail of the three warriors
leading to his cell.

Nor was I wrong.  At the bottom of the runway, or rather at the
landing on the floor below, I saw that the shaft descended into
the pits beneath, and as I glanced down the flickering light of a
torch revealed the presence of the three I was trailing.

Down they went toward the pits beneath the structure, and at a
safe distance behind I followed the flicker of their torch.  The
way led through a maze of tortuous corridors, unlighted save for
the wavering light they carried.  We had gone perhaps a hundred
yards when the party turned abruptly through a doorway at their
right.  I hastened on as rapidly as I dared through the darkness
until I reached the point at which they had left the corridor.
There, through an open door, I saw them removing the chains that
secured the great Thark, Tars Tarkas, to the wall.

Hustling him roughly between them, they came immediately from the
chamber, so quickly in fact that I was near to being apprehended.
But I managed to run along the corridor in the direction I had been
going in my pursuit of them far enough to be without the radius of
their meagre light as they emerged from the cell.

I had naturally assumed that they would return with Tars Tarkas
the same way that they had come, which would have carried them away
from me; but, to my chagrin, they wheeled directly in my direction
as they left the room.  There was nothing for me but to hasten on
in advance and keep out of the light of their torch.  I dared not
attempt to halt in the darkness of any of the many intersecting
corridors, for I knew nothing of the direction they might take.
Chance was as likely as not to carry me into the very corridor they
might choose to enter.

The sensation of moving rapidly through these dark passages was far
from reassuring.  I knew not at what moment I might plunge headlong
into some terrible pit or meet with some of the ghoulish creatures
that inhabit these lower worlds beneath the dead cities of dying
Mars.  There filtered to me a faint radiance from the torch of the
men behind--just enough to permit me to trace the direction of the
winding passageways directly before me, and so keep me from dashing
myself against the walls at the turns.

Presently I came to a place where five corridors diverged from
a common point.  I had hastened along one of them for some little
distance when suddenly the faint light of the torch disappeared
from behind me.  I paused to listen for sounds of the party behind
me, but the silence was as utter as the silence of the tomb.

Quickly I realized that the warriors had taken one of the other
corridors with their prisoner, and so I hastened back with a feeling
of considerable relief to take up a much safer and more desirable
position behind them.  It was much slower work returning, however,
than it had been coming, for now the darkness was as utter as the
silence.

It was necessary to feel every foot of the way back with my hand
against the side wall, that I might not pass the spot where the
five roads radiated.  After what seemed an eternity to me, I reached
the place and recognized it by groping across the entrances to the
several corridors until I had counted five of them.  In not one,
however, showed the faintest sign of light.

I listened intently, but the naked feet of the green men sent back
no guiding echoes, though presently I thought I detected the clank
of side arms in the far distance of the middle corridor.  Up this,
then, I hastened, searching for the light, and stopping to listen
occasionally for a repetition of the sound; but soon I was forced
to admit that I must have been following a blind lead, as only
darkness and silence rewarded my efforts.

Again I retraced my steps toward the parting of the ways, when to
my surprise I came upon the entrance to three diverging corridors,
any one of which I might have traversed in my hasty dash after the
false clue I had been following.  Here was a pretty fix, indeed!
Once back at the point where the five passageways met, I might
wait with some assurance for the return of the warriors with Tars
Tarkas.  My knowledge of their customs lent colour to the belief
that he was but being escorted to the audience chamber to have
sentence passed upon him.  I had not the slightest doubt but that
they would preserve so doughty a warrior as the great Thark for
the rare sport he would furnish at the Great Games.

But unless I could find my way back to that point the chances
were most excellent that I would wander for days through the awful
blackness, until, overcome by thirst and hunger, I lay down to die,
or--What was that!

A faint shuffling sounded behind me, and as I cast a hasty glance
over my shoulder my blood froze in my veins for the thing I saw
there.  It was not so much fear of the present danger as it was the
horrifying memories it recalled of that time I near went mad over
the corpse of the man I had killed in the dungeons of the Warhoons,
when blazing eyes came out of the dark recesses and dragged the
thing that had been a man from my clutches and I heard it scraping
over the stone of my prison as they bore it away to their terrible
feast.

And now in these black pits of the other Warhoons I looked into
those same fiery eyes, blazing at me through the terrible darkness,
revealing no sign of the beast behind them.  I think that the most
fearsome attribute of these awesome creatures is their silence and
the fact that one never sees them--nothing but those baleful eyes
glaring unblinkingly out of the dark void behind.

Grasping my long-sword tightly in my hand, I backed slowly along
the corridor away from the thing that watched me, but ever as I
retreated the eyes advanced, nor was there any sound, not even the
sound of breathing, except the occasional shuffling sound as of
the dragging of a dead limb, that had first attracted my attention.

On and on I went, but I could not escape my sinister pursuer.
Suddenly I heard the shuffling noise at my right, and, looking, saw
another pair of eyes, evidently approaching from an intersecting
corridor.  As I started to renew my slow retreat I heard the noise
repeated behind me, and then before I could turn I heard it again
at my left.

The things were all about me.  They had me surrounded at the intersection
of two corridors.  Retreat was cut off in all directions, unless
I chose to charge one of the beasts.  Even then I had no doubt but
that the others would hurl themselves upon my back.  I could not
even guess the size or nature of the weird creatures.  That they
were of goodly proportions I guessed from the fact that the eyes
were on a level with my own.

Why is it that darkness so magnifies our dangers?  By day I would
have charged the great banth itself, had I thought it necessary, but
hemmed in by the darkness of these silent pits I hesitated before
a pair of eyes.

Soon I saw that the matter shortly would be taken entirely from my
hands, for the eyes at my right were moving slowly nearer me, as
were those at my left and those behind and before me.  Gradually
they were closing in upon me--but still that awful stealthy silence!

For what seemed hours the eyes approached gradually closer and
closer, until I felt that I should go mad for the horror of it.  I
had been constantly turning this way and that to prevent any sudden
rush from behind, until I was fairly worn out.  At length I could
endure it no longer, and, taking a fresh grasp upon my long-sword,
I turned suddenly and charged down upon one of my tormentors.

As I was almost upon it the thing retreated before me, but a sound
from behind caused me to wheel in time to see three pairs of eyes
rushing at me from the rear.  With a cry of rage I turned to meet
the cowardly beasts, but as I advanced they retreated as had their
fellow.  Another glance over my shoulder discovered the first eyes
sneaking on me again.  And again I charged, only to see the eyes
retreat before me and hear the muffled rush of the three at my
back.

Thus we continued, the eyes always a little closer in the end than
they had been before, until I thought that I should go mad with the
terrible strain of the ordeal.  That they were waiting to spring
upon my back seemed evident, and that it would not be long before
they succeeded was equally apparent, for I could not endure the
wear of this repeated charge and countercharge indefinitely.  In
fact, I could feel myself weakening from the mental and physical
strain I had been undergoing.

At that moment I caught another glimpse from the corner of my eye
of the single pair of eyes at my back making a sudden rush upon me.
I turned to meet the charge; there was a quick rush of the three
from the other direction; but I determined to pursue the single
pair until I should have at least settled my account with one of
the beasts and thus be relieved of the strain of meeting attacks
from both directions.

There was no sound in the corridor, only that of my own breathing,
yet I knew that those three uncanny creatures were almost upon me.
The eyes in front were not retreating so rapidly now; I was almost
within sword reach of them.  I raised my sword arm to deal the blow
that should free me, and then I felt a heavy body upon my back.
A cold, moist, slimy something fastened itself upon my throat.  I
stumbled and went down.





CHAPTER XV

FLIGHT AND PURSUIT




I could not have been unconscious more than a few seconds, and yet
I know that I was unconscious, for the next thing I realized was
that a growing radiance was illuminating the corridor about me and
the eyes were gone.

I was unharmed except for a slight bruise upon my forehead where
it had struck the stone flagging as I fell.

I sprang to my feet to ascertain the cause of the light.  It came
from a torch in the hand of one of a party of four green warriors,
who were coming rapidly down the corridor toward me.  They had
not yet seen me, and so I lost no time in slipping into the first
intersecting corridor that I could find.  This time, however, I
did not advance so far away from the main corridor as on the other
occasion that had resulted in my losing Tars Tarkas and his guards.

The party came rapidly toward the opening of the passageway in which
I crouched against the wall.  As they passed by I breathed a sigh
of relief.  I had not been discovered, and, best of all, the party
was the same that I had followed into the pits.  It consisted of
Tars Tarkas and his three guards.

I fell in behind them and soon we were at the cell in which the
great Thark had been chained.  Two of the warriors remained without
while the man with the keys entered with the Thark to fasten his
irons upon him once more.  The two outside started to stroll slowly
in the direction of the spiral runway which led to the floors above,
and in a moment were lost to view beyond a turn in the corridor.

The torch had been stuck in a socket beside the door, so that its
rays illuminated both the corridor and the cell at the same time.
As I saw the two warriors disappear I approached the entrance to
the cell, with a well-defined plan already formulated.

While I disliked the thought of carrying out the thing that I had
decided upon, there seemed no alternative if Tars Tarkas and I were
to go back together to my little camp in the hills.

Keeping near the wall, I came quite close to the door to Tars
Tarkas' cell, and there I stood with my longsword above my head,
grasped with both hands, that I might bring it down in one quick
cut upon the skull of the jailer as he emerged.

I dislike to dwell upon what followed after I heard the footsteps
of the man as he approached the doorway.  It is enough that within
another minute or two, Tars Tarkas, wearing the metal of a Warhoon
chief, was hurrying down the corridor toward the spiral runway,
bearing the Warhoon's torch to light his way.  A dozen paces behind
him followed John Carter, Prince of Helium.

The two companions of the man who lay now beside the door of the
cell that had been Tars Tarkas' had just started to ascend the
runway as the Thark came in view.

"Why so long, Tan Gama?" cried one of the men.

"I had trouble with a lock," replied Tars Tarkas.  "And now I find
that I have left my short-sword in the Thark's cell.  Go you on,
I'll return and fetch it."

"As you will, Tan Gama," replied he who had before spoken.  "We
shall see you above directly."

"Yes," replied Tars Tarkas, and turned as though to retrace his
steps to the cell, but he only waited until the two had disappeared
at the floor above.  Then I joined him, we extinguished the torch,
and together we crept toward the spiral incline that led to the
upper floors of the building.

At the first floor we found that the hallway ran but halfway through,
necessitating the crossing of a rear room full of green folk, ere
we could reach the inner courtyard, so there was but one thing
left for us to do, and that was to gain the second floor and the
hallway through which I had traversed the length of the building.

Cautiously we ascended.  We could hear the sounds of conversation
coming from the room above, but the hall still was unlighted, nor
was any one in sight as we gained the top of the runway.  Together
we threaded the long hall and reached the balcony overlooking the
courtyard, without being detected.

At our right was the window letting into the room in which I
had seen Tan Gama and the other warriors as they started to Tars
Tarkas' cell earlier in the evening.  His companions had returned
here, and we now overheard a portion of their conversation.

"What can be detaining Tan Gama?" asked one.

"He certainly could not be all this time fetching his shortsword
from the Thark's cell," spoke another.

"His short-sword?" asked a woman.  "What mean you?"

"Tan Gama left his short-sword in the Thark's cell," explained the
first speaker, "and left us at the runway, to return and get it."

"Tan Gama wore no short-sword this night," said the woman.  "It was
broken in to-day's battle with the Thark, and Tan Gama gave it to
me to repair.  See, I have it here," and as she spoke she drew Tan
Gama's short-sword from beneath her sleeping silks and furs.

The warriors sprang to their feet.

"There is something amiss here," cried one.

"'Tis even what I myself thought when Tan Gama left us at the runway,"
said another.  "Methought then that his voice sounded strangely."

"Come! let us hasten to the pits."

We waited to hear no more.  Slinging my harness into a long single
strap, I lowered Tars Tarkas to the courtyard beneath, and an
instant later dropped to his side.

We had spoken scarcely a dozen words since I had felled Tan Gama
at the cell door and seen in the torch's light the expression of
utter bewilderment upon the great Thark's face.

"By this time," he had said, "I should have learned to wonder at
nothing which John Carter accomplishes."  That was all.  He did
not need to tell me that he appreciated the friendship which had
prompted me to risk my life to rescue him, nor did he need to say
that he was glad to see me.

This fierce green warrior had been the first to greet me that day,
now twenty years gone, which had witnessed my first advent upon
Mars.  He had met me with levelled spear and cruel hatred in his
heart as he charged down upon me, bending low at the side of his
mighty thoat as I stood beside the incubator of his horde upon the
dead sea bottom beyond Korad.  And now among the inhabitants of two
worlds I counted none a better friend than Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of
the Tharks.

As we reached the courtyard we stood in the shadows beneath the
balcony for a moment to discuss our plans.

"There be five now in the party, Tars Tarkas," I said; "Thuvia,
Xodar, Carthoris, and ourselves.  We shall need five thoats to bear
us."

"Carthoris!" he cried.  "Your son?"

"Yes.  I found him in the prison of Shador, on the Sea of Omean,
in the land of the First Born."

"I know not any of these places, John Carter.  Be they upon Barsoom?"

"Upon and below, my friend; but wait until we shall have made good
our escape, and you shall hear the strangest narrative that ever a
Barsoomian of the outer world gave ear to.  Now we must steal our
thoats and be well away to the north before these fellows discover
how we have tricked them."

In safety we reached the great gates at the far end of the courtyard,
through which it was necessary to take our thoats to the avenue
beyond.  It is no easy matter to handle five of these great, fierce
beasts, which by nature are as wild and ferocious as their masters
and held in subjection by cruelty and brute force alone.

As we approached them they sniffed our unfamiliar scent and with
squeals of rage circled about us.  Their long, massive necks upreared
raised their great, gaping mouths high above our heads.  They are
fearsome appearing brutes at best, but when they are aroused they
are fully as dangerous as they look.  The thoat stands a good ten
feet at the shoulder.  His hide is sleek and hairless, and of a
dark slate colour on back and sides, shading down his eight legs
to a vivid yellow at the huge, padded, nailless feet; the belly
is pure white.  A broad, flat tail, larger at the tip than at the
root, completes the picture of this ferocious green Martian mount
--a fit war steed for these warlike people.

As the thoats are guided by telepathic means alone, there is
no need for rein or bridle, and so our object now was to find two
that would obey our unspoken commands.  As they charged about us we
succeeded in mastering them sufficiently to prevent any concerted
attack upon us, but the din of their squealing was certain to bring
investigating warriors into the courtyard were it to continue much
longer.

At length I was successful in reaching the side of one great brute,
and ere he knew what I was about I was firmly seated astride his
glossy back.  A moment later Tars Tarkas had caught and mounted
another, and then between us we herded three or four more toward
the great gates.

Tars Tarkas rode ahead and, leaning down to the latch, threw the
barriers open, while I held the loose thoats from breaking back to
the herd.  Then together we rode through into the avenue with our
stolen mounts and, without waiting to close the gates, hurried off
toward the southern boundary of the city.

Thus far our escape had been little short of marvellous, nor did
our good fortune desert us, for we passed the outer purlieus of the
dead city and came to our camp without hearing even the faintest
sound of pursuit.

Here a low whistle, the prearranged signal, apprised the balance of
our party that I was returning, and we were met by the three with
every manifestation of enthusiastic rejoicing.

But little time was wasted in narration of our adventure.  Tars
Tarkas and Carthoris exchanged the dignified and formal greetings
common upon Barsoom, but I could tell intuitively that the Thark
loved my boy and that Carthoris reciprocated his affection.

Xodar and the green Jeddak were formally presented to each other.
Then Thuvia was lifted to the least fractious thoat, Xodar and
Carthoris mounted two others, and we set out at a rapid pace toward
the east.  At the far extremity of the city we circled toward
the north, and under the glorious rays of the two moons we sped
noiselessly across the dead sea bottom, away from the Warhoons and
the First Born, but to what new dangers and adventures we knew not.

Toward noon of the following day we halted to rest our mounts and
ourselves.  The beasts we hobbled, that they might move slowly
about cropping the ochre moss-like vegetation which constitutes
both food and drink for them on the march.  Thuvia volunteered to
remain on watch while the balance of the party slept for an hour.

It seemed to me that I had but closed my eyes when I felt her
hand upon my shoulder and heard her soft voice warning me of a new
danger.

"Arise, O Prince," she whispered.  "There be that behind us which
has the appearance of a great body of pursuers."

The girl stood pointing in the direction from whence we had come,
and as I arose and looked, I, too, thought that I could detect
a thin dark line on the far horizon.  I awoke the others.  Tars
Tarkas, whose giant stature towered high above the rest of us,
could see the farthest.

"It is a great body of mounted men," he said, "and they are travelling
at high speed."

There was no time to be lost.  We sprang to our hobbled thoats,
freed them, and mounted.  Then we turned our faces once more toward
the north and took our flight again at the highest speed of our
slowest beast.

For the balance of the day and all the following night we raced
across that ochre wilderness with the pursuers at our back ever
gaining upon us.  Slowly but surely they were lessening the distance
between us.  Just before dark they had been close enough for us to
plainly distinguish that they were green Martians, and all during
the long night we distinctly heard the clanking of their accoutrements
behind us.

As the sun rose on the second day of our flight it disclosed
the pursuing horde not a half-mile in our rear.  As they saw us a
fiendish shout of triumph rose from their ranks.

Several miles in advance lay a range of hills--the farther shore
of the dead sea we had been crossing.  Could we but reach these
hills our chances of escape would be greatly enhanced, but Thuvia's
mount, although carrying the lightest burden, already was showing
signs of exhaustion.  I was riding beside her when suddenly her
animal staggered and lurched against mine.  I saw that he was going
down, but ere he fell I snatched the girl from his back and swung
her to a place upon my own thoat, behind me, where she clung with
her arms about me.

This double burden soon proved too much for my already overtaxed
beast, and thus our speed was terribly diminished, for the others
would proceed no faster than the slowest of us could go.  In that
little party there was not one who would desert another; yet we
were of different countries, different colours, different races,
different religions--and one of us was of a different world.

We were quite close to the hills, but the Warhoons were gaining
so rapidly that we had given up all hope of reaching them in time.
Thuvia and I were in the rear, for our beast was lagging more and
more.  Suddenly I felt the girl's warm lips press a kiss upon my
shoulder.  "For thy sake, O my Prince," she murmured.  Then her
arms slipped from about my waist and she was gone.

I turned and saw that she had deliberately slipped to the ground
in the very path of the cruel demons who pursued us, thinking that
by lightening the burden of my mount it might thus be enabled to
bear me to the safety of the hills.  Poor child!  She should have
known John Carter better than that.

Turning my thoat, I urged him after her, hoping to reach her side
and bear her on again in our hopeless flight.  Carthoris must have
glanced behind him at about the same time and taken in the situation,
for by the time I had reached Thuvia's side he was there also, and,
springing from his mount, he threw her upon its back and, turning
the animal's head toward the hills, gave the beast a sharp crack
across the rump with the flat of his sword.  Then he attempted to
do the same with mine.

The brave boy's act of chivalrous self-sacrifice filled me with
pride, nor did I care that it had wrested from us our last frail
chance for escape.  The Warhoons were now close upon us.  Tars Tarkas
and Xodar had discovered our absence and were charging rapidly to
our support.  Everything pointed toward a splendid ending of my
second journey to Barsoom.  I hated to go out without having seen
my divine Princess, and held her in my arms once again; but if
it were not writ upon the book of Fate that such was to be, then
would I take the most that was coming to me, and in these last few
moments that were to be vouchsafed me before I passed over into that
unguessed future I could at least give such an account of myself
in my chosen vocation as would leave the Warhoons of the South food
for discourse for the next twenty generations.

As Carthoris was not mounted, I slipped from the back of my
own mount and took my place at his side to meet the charge of the
howling devils bearing down upon us.  A moment later Tars Tarkas
and Xodar ranged themselves on either hand, turning their thoats
loose that we might all be on an equal footing.

The Warhoons were perhaps a hundred yards from us when a loud
explosion sounded from above and behind us, and almost at the same
instant a shell burst in their advancing ranks.  At once all was
confusion.  A hundred warriors toppled to the ground.  Riderless
thoats plunged hither and thither among the dead and dying.
Dismounted warriors were trampled underfoot in the stampede which
followed.  All semblance of order had left the ranks of the green
men, and as they looked far above our heads to trace the origin of
this unexpected attack, disorder turned to retreat and retreat to
a wild panic.  In another moment they were racing as madly away
from us as they had before been charging down upon us.

We turned to look in the direction from whence the first report
had come, and there we saw, just clearing the tops of the nearer
hills, a great battleship swinging majestically through the air.
Her bow gun spoke again even as we looked, and another shell burst
among the fleeing Warhoons.

As she drew nearer I could not repress a wild cry of elation, for
upon her bows I saw the device of Helium.





CHAPTER XVI

UNDER ARREST




As Carthoris, Xodar, Tars Tarkas, and I stood gazing at the magnificent
vessel which meant so much to all of us, we saw a second and then
a third top the summit of the hills and glide gracefully after
their sister.

Now a score of one-man air scouts were launching from the upper
decks of the nearer vessel, and in a moment more were speeding in
long, swift dives to the ground about us.

In another instant we were surrounded by armed sailors, and an
officer had stepped forward to address us, when his eyes fell upon
Carthoris.  With an exclamation of surprised pleasure he sprang
forward, and, placing his hands upon the boy's shoulder, called
him by name.

"Carthoris, my Prince," he cried, "Kaor!  Kaor!  Hor Vastus greets
the son of Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, and of her husband,
John Carter.  Where have you been, O my Prince?  All Helium has
been plunged in sorrow.  Terrible have been the calamities that
have befallen your great-grandsire's mighty nation since the fatal
day that saw you leave our midst."

"Grieve not, my good Hor Vastus," cried Carthoris, "since I bring
not back myself alone to cheer my mother's heart and the hearts of
my beloved people, but also one whom all Barsoom loved best--her
greatest warrior and her saviour--John Carter, Prince of Helium!"

Hor Vastus turned in the direction indicated by Carthoris, and
as his eyes fell upon me he was like to have collapsed from sheer
surprise.

"John Carter!" he exclaimed, and then a sudden troubled look came
into his eyes.  "My Prince," he started, "where hast thou--" and
then he stopped, but I knew the question that his lips dared not
frame.  The loyal fellow would not be the one to force from mine
a confession of the terrible truth that I had returned from the
bosom of the Iss, the River of Mystery, back from the shore of the
Lost Sea of Korus, and the Valley Dor.

"Ah, my Prince," he continued, as though no thought had interrupted
his greeting, "that you are back is sufficient, and let Hor Vastus'
sword have the high honour of being first at thy feet."  With these
words the noble fellow unbuckled his scabbard and flung his sword
upon the ground before me.

Could you know the customs and the character of red Martians you
would appreciate the depth of meaning that that simple act conveyed
to me and to all about us who witnessed it.  The thing was equivalent
to saying, "My sword, my body, my life, my soul are yours to do
with as you wish.  Until death and after death I look to you alone
for authority for my every act.  Be you right or wrong, your word
shall be my only truth.  Whoso raises his hand against you must
answer to my sword."

It is the oath of fealty that men occasionally pay to a Jeddak whose
high character and chivalrous acts have inspired the enthusiastic
love of his followers.  Never had I known this high tribute paid to
a lesser mortal.  There was but one response possible.  I stooped
and lifted the sword from the ground, raised the hilt to my lips,
and then, stepping to Hor Vastus, I buckled the weapon upon him
with my own hands.

"Hor Vastus," I said, placing my hand upon his shoulder, "you know
best the promptings of your own heart.  That I shall need your sword
I have little doubt, but accept from John Carter upon his sacred
honour the assurance that he will never call upon you to draw this
sword other than in the cause of truth, justice, and righteousness."

"That I knew, my Prince," he replied, "ere ever I threw my beloved
blade at thy feet."

As we spoke other fliers came and went between the ground and the
battleship, and presently a larger boat was launched from above, one
capable of carrying a dozen persons, perhaps, and dropped lightly
near us.  As she touched, an officer sprang from her deck to the
ground, and, advancing to Hor Vastus, saluted.

"Kantos Kan desires that this party whom we have rescued be brought
immediately to the deck of the Xavarian," he said.

As we approached the little craft I looked about for the members of
my party and for the first time noticed that Thuvia was not among
them.  Questioning elicited the fact that none had seen her since
Carthoris had sent her thoat galloping madly toward the hills, in
the hope of carrying her out of harm's way.

Immediately Hor Vastus dispatched a dozen air scouts in as many
directions to search for her.  It could not be possible that she
had gone far since we had last seen her.  We others stepped to
the deck of the craft that had been sent to fetch us, and a moment
later were upon the Xavarian.

The first man to greet me was Kantos Kan himself.  My old friend
had won to the highest place in the navy of Helium, but he was still
to me the same brave comrade who had shared with me the privations
of a Warhoon dungeon, the terrible atrocities of the Great Games,
and later the dangers of our search for Dejah Thoris within the
hostile city of Zodanga.

Then I had been an unknown wanderer upon a strange planet, and he
a simple padwar in the navy of Helium.  To-day he commanded all
Helium's great terrors of the skies, and I was a Prince of the
House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium.

He did not ask me where I had been.  Like Hor Vastus, he too dreaded
the truth and would not be the one to wrest a statement from me.
That it must come some time he well knew, but until it came he
seemed satisfied to but know that I was with him once more.  He
greeted Carthoris and Tars Tarkas with the keenest delight, but he
asked neither where he had been.  He could scarcely keep his hands
off the boy.

"You do not know, John Carter," he said to me, "how we of Helium
love this son of yours.  It is as though all the great love we
bore his noble father and his poor mother had been centred in him.
When it became known that he was lost, ten million people wept."

"What mean you, Kantos Kan," I whispered, "by 'his poor mother'?"
for the words had seemed to carry a sinister meaning which I could
not fathom.

He drew me to one side.

"For a year," he said, "Ever since Carthoris disappeared, Dejah Thoris
has grieved and mourned for her lost boy.  The blow of years ago,
when you did not return from the atmosphere plant, was lessened
to some extent by the duties of motherhood, for your son broke his
white shell that very night."

"That she suffered terribly then, all Helium knew, for did not
all Helium suffer with her the loss of her lord!  But with the boy
gone there was nothing left, and after expedition upon expedition
returned with the same hopeless tale of no clue as to his whereabouts,
our beloved Princess drooped lower and lower, until all who saw
her felt that it could be but a matter of days ere she went to join
her loved ones within the precincts of the Valley Dor.

"As a last resort, Mors Kajak, her father, and Tardos Mors, her
grandfather, took command of two mighty expeditions, and a month
ago sailed away to explore every inch of ground in the northern
hemisphere of Barsoom.  For two weeks no word has come back from
them, but rumours were rife that they had met with a terrible
disaster and that all were dead.

"About this time Zat Arras renewed his importunities for her hand
in marriage.  He has been for ever after her since you disappeared.
She hated him and feared him, but with both her father and grandfather
gone, Zat Arras was very powerful, for he is still Jed of Zodanga,
to which position, you will remember, Tardos Mors appointed him
after you had refused the honour.

"He had a secret audience with her six days ago.  What took place
none knows, but the next day Dejah Thoris had disappeared, and
with her had gone a dozen of her household guard and body servants,
including Sola the green woman--Tars Tarkas' daughter, you recall.
No word left they of their intentions, but it is always thus with
those who go upon the voluntary pilgrimage from which none returns.
We cannot think aught than that Dejah Thoris has sought the icy bosom
of Iss, and that her devoted servants have chosen to accompany her.

"Zat Arras was at Helium when she disappeared.  He commands this
fleet which has been searching for her since.  No trace of her have
we found, and I fear that it be a futile quest."

While we talked, Hor Vastus' fliers were returning to the Xavarian.
Not one, however, had discovered a trace of Thuvia.  I was much
depressed over the news of Dejah Thoris' disappearance, and now
there was added the further burden of apprehension concerning the
fate of this girl whom I believed to be the daughter of some proud
Barsoomian house, and it had been my intention to make every effort
to return her to her people.

I was about to ask Kantos Kan to prosecute a further search for her
when a flier from the flagship of the fleet arrived at the Xavarian
with an officer bearing a message to Kantos Kan from Arras.

My friend read the dispatch and then turned to me.

"Zat Arras commands me to bring our 'prisoners' before him.  There
is naught else to do.  He is supreme in Helium, yet it would be
far more in keeping with chivalry and good taste were he to come
hither and greet the saviour of Barsoom with the honours that are
his due."

"You know full well, my friend," I said, smiling, "that Zat Arras
has good cause to hate me.  Nothing would please him better than
to humiliate me and then to kill me.  Now that he has so excellent
an excuse, let us go and see if he has the courage to take advantage
of it."

Summoning Carthoris, Tars Tarkas, and Xodar, we entered the small
flier with Kantos Kan and Zat Arras' officer, and in a moment were
stepping to the deck of Zat Arras' flagship.

As we approached the Jed of Zodanga no sign of greeting or recognition
crossed his face; not even to Carthoris did he vouchsafe a friendly
word.  His attitude was cold, haughty, and uncompromising.

"Kaor, Zat Arras," I said in greeting, but he did not respond.

"Why were these prisoners not disarmed?" he asked to Kantos Kan.

"They are not prisoners, Zat Arras," replied the officer.

"Two of them are of Helium's noblest family.  Tars Tarkas, Jeddak
of Thark, is Tardos Mors' best beloved ally.  The other is a friend
and companion of the Prince of Helium--that is enough for me to
know."

"It is not enough for me, however," retorted Zat Arras.  "More must
I hear from those who have taken the pilgrimage than their names.
Where have you been, John Carter?"

"I have just come from the Valley Dor and the Land of the First
Born, Zat Arras," I replied.

"Ah!" he exclaimed in evident pleasure, "you do not deny it, then?
You have returned from the bosom of Iss?"

"I have come back from a land of false hope, from a valley
of torture and death; with my companions I have escaped from the
hideous clutches of lying fiends.  I have come back to the Barsoom
that I saved from a painless death to again save her, but this time
from death in its most frightful form."

"Cease, blasphemer!" cried Zat Arras.  "Hope not to save thy cowardly
carcass by inventing horrid lies to--" But he got no further.  One
does not call John Carter "coward" and "liar" thus lightly, and
Zat Arras should have known it.  Before a hand could be raised to
stop me, I was at his side and one hand grasped his throat.

"Come I from heaven or hell, Zat Arras, you will find me still the
same John Carter that I have always been; nor did ever man call me
such names and live--without apologizing." And with that I commenced
to bend him back across my knee and tighten my grip upon his throat.

"Seize him!" cried Zat Arras, and a dozen officers sprang forward
to assist him.

Kantos Kan came close and whispered to me.

"Desist, I beg of you.  It will but involve us all, for I cannot
see these men lay hands upon you without aiding you.  My officers
and men will join me and we shall have a mutiny then that may lead
to the revolution.  For the sake of Tardos Mors and Helium, desist."

At his words I released Zat Arras and, turning my back upon him,
walked toward the ship's rail.

"Come, Kantos Kan," I said, "the Prince of Helium would return to
the Xavarian."

None interfered.  Zat Arras stood white and trembling amidst his
officers.  Some there were who looked upon him with scorn and drew
toward me, while one, a man long in the service and confidence of
Tardos Mors, spoke to me in a low tone as I passed him.

"You may count my metal among your fighting-men, John Carter," he
said.

I thanked him and passed on.  In silence we embarked, and shortly
after stepped once more upon the deck of the Xavarian.  Fifteen
minutes later we received orders from the flagship to proceed toward
Helium.

Our journey thither was uneventful.  Carthoris and I were wrapped
in the gloomiest of thoughts.  Kantos Kan was sombre in contemplation
of the further calamity that might fall upon Helium should Zat Arras
attempt to follow the age-old precedent that allotted a terrible
death to fugitives from the Valley Dor.  Tars Tarkas grieved for
the loss of his daughter.  Xodar alone was care-free--a fugitive
and outlaw, he could be no worse off in Helium than elsewhere.

"Let us hope that we may at least go out with good red blood upon
our blades," he said.  It was a simple wish and one most likely to
be gratified.

Among the officers of the Xavarian I thought I could discern
division into factions ere we had reached Helium.  There were those
who gathered about Carthoris and myself whenever the opportunity
presented, while about an equal number held aloof from us.  They
offered us only the most courteous treatment, but were evidently
bound by their superstitious belief in the doctrine of Dor and Iss
and Korus.  I could not blame them, for I knew how strong a hold
a creed, however ridiculous it may be, may gain upon an otherwise
intelligent people.

By returning from Dor we had committed a sacrilege; by recounting
our adventures there, and stating the facts as they existed we had
outraged the religion of their fathers.  We were blasphemers--lying
heretics.  Even those who still clung to us from personal love and
loyalty I think did so in the face of the fact that at heart they
questioned our veracity--it is very hard to accept a new religion
for an old, no matter how alluring the promises of the new may
be; but to reject the old as a tissue of falsehoods without being
offered anything in its stead is indeed a most difficult thing to
ask of any people.

Kantos Kan would not talk of our experiences among the therns and
the First Born.

"It is enough," he said, "that I jeopardize my life here and
hereafter by countenancing you at all--do not ask me to add still
further to my sins by listening to what I have always been taught
was the rankest heresy."

I knew that sooner or later the time must come when our friends
and enemies would be forced to declare themselves openly.  When
we reached Helium there must be an accounting, and if Tardos Mors
had not returned I feared that the enmity of Zat Arras might weigh
heavily against us, for he represented the government of Helium.
To take sides against him were equivalent to treason.  The majority
of the troops would doubtless follow the lead of their officers,
and I knew that many of the highest and most powerful men of both
land and air forces would cleave to John Carter in the face of god,
man, or devil.

On the other hand, the majority of the populace unquestionably
would demand that we pay the penalty of our sacrilege.  The outlook
seemed dark from whatever angle I viewed it, but my mind was so
torn with anguish at the thought of Dejah Thoris that I realize
now that I gave the terrible question of Helium's plight but scant
attention at that time.

There was always before me, day and night, a horrible nightmare of
the frightful scenes through which I knew my Princess might even
then be passing--the horrid plant men--the ferocious white apes.
At times I would cover my face with my hands in a vain effort to
shut out the fearful thing from my mind.

It was in the forenoon that we arrived above the mile-high scarlet
tower which marks greater Helium from her twin city.  As we descended
in great circles toward the navy docks a mighty multitude could be
seen surging in the streets beneath.  Helium had been notified by
radio-aerogram of our approach.

From the deck of the Xavarian we four, Carthoris, Tars Tarkas,
Xodar, and I, were transferred to a lesser flier to be transported
to quarters within the Temple of Reward.  It is here that Martian
justice is meted to benefactor and malefactor.  Here the hero is
decorated.  Here the felon is condemned.  We were taken into the
temple from the landing stage upon the roof, so that we did not
pass among the people at all, as is customary.  Always before I had
seen prisoners of note, or returned wanderers of eminence, paraded
from the Gate of Jeddaks to the Temple of Reward up the broad Avenue
of Ancestors through dense crowds of jeering or cheering citizens.

I knew that Zat Arras dared not trust the people near to us, for
he feared that their love for Carthoris and myself might break into
a demonstration which would wipe out their superstitious horror of
the crime we were to be charged with.  What his plans were I could
only guess, but that they were sinister was evidenced by the fact
that only his most trusted servitors accompanied us upon the flier
to the Temple of Reward.

We were lodged in a room upon the south side of the temple,
overlooking the Avenue of Ancestors down which we could see the
full length to the Gate of Jeddaks, five miles away.  The people in
the temple plaza and in the streets for a distance of a full mile
were standing as close packed as it was possible for them to get.
They were very orderly--there were neither scoffs nor plaudits,
and when they saw us at the window above them there were many who
buried their faces in their arms and wept.

Late in the afternoon a messenger arrived from Zat Arras to inform
us that we would be tried by an impartial body of nobles in the
great hall of the temple at the 1st zode* on the following day, or
about 8:40 A.M. Earth time.


*Wherever Captain Carter has used Martian measurements of
time, distance, weight, and the like I have translated them into
as nearly their equivalent in earthly values as is possible.  His
notes contain many Martian tables, and a great volume of scientific
data, but since the International Astronomic Society is at present
engaged in classifying, investigating, and verifying this vast fund
of remarkable and valuable information, I have felt that it will
add nothing to the interest of Captain Carter's story or to the
sum total of human knowledge to maintain a strict adherence to
the original manuscript in these matters, while it might readily
confuse the reader and detract from the interest of the history.
For those who may be interested, however, I will explain that the
Martian day is a trifle over 24 hours 37 minutes duration (Earth
time).  This the Martians divide into ten equal parts, commencing
the day at about 6 A.M.  Earth time.  The zodes are divided into
fifty shorter periods, each of which in turn is composed of 200
brief periods of time, about equivalent to the earthly second.  The
Barsoomian Table of Time as here given is but a part of the full
table appearing in Captain Carter's notes.

                 TABLE

   200 tals . . . . . . . . . 1 xat

    50 xats . . . . . . . . . 1 zode

    10 zodes  . . . . . . . . 1 revolution of Mars upon its axis.





CHAPTER XVII

THE DEATH SENTENCE




A few moments before the appointed time on the following morning
a strong guard of Zat Arras' officers appeared at our quarters to
conduct us to the great hall of the temple.

In twos we entered the chamber and marched down the broad Aisle of
Hope, as it is called, to the platform in the centre of the hall.
Before and behind us marched armed guards, while three solid ranks
of Zodangan soldiery lined either side of the aisle from the entrance
to the rostrum.

As we reached the raised enclosure I saw our judges.  As is the
custom upon Barsoom there were thirty-one, supposedly selected by
lot from men of the noble class, for nobles were on trial.  But to
my amazement I saw no single friendly face among them.  Practically
all were Zodangans, and it was I to whom Zodanga owed her defeat
at the hands of the green hordes and her subsequent vassalage to
Helium.  There could be little justice here for John Carter, or his
son, or for the great Thark who had commanded the savage tribesmen
who overran Zodanga's broad avenues, looting, burning, and murdering.

About us the vast circular coliseum was packed to its full capacity.
All classes were represented--all ages, and both sexes.  As we
entered the hall the hum of subdued conversation ceased until as we
halted upon the platform, or Throne of Righteousness, the silence
of death enveloped the ten thousand spectators.

The judges were seated in a great circle about the periphery of the
circular platform.  We were assigned seats with our backs toward a
small platform in the exact centre of the larger one.  This placed
us facing the judges and the audience.  Upon the smaller platform
each would take his place while his case was being heard.

Zat Arras himself sat in the golden chair of the presiding
magistrate.  As we were seated and our guards retired to the foot
of the stairway leading to the platform, he arose and called my
name.

"John Carter," he cried, "take your place upon the Pedestal of
Truth to be judged impartially according to your acts and here to
know the reward you have earned thereby." Then turning to and fro
toward the audience he narrated the acts upon the value of which
my reward was to be determined.

"Know you, O judges and people of Helium," he said, "that John Carter,
one time Prince of Helium, has returned by his own statement from
the Valley Dor and even from the Temple of Issus itself.  That, in
the presence of many men of Helium he has blasphemed against the
Sacred Iss, and against the Valley Dor, and the Lost Sea of Korus,
and the Holy Therns themselves, and even against Issus, Goddess
of Death, and of Life Eternal.  And know you further by witness
of thine own eyes that see him here now upon the Pedestal of Truth
that he has indeed returned from these sacred precincts in the
face of our ancient customs, and in violation of the sanctity of
our ancient religion.

"He who be once dead may not live again.  He who attempts it must
be made dead for ever.  Judges, your duty lies plain before you--here
can be no testimony in contravention of truth.  What reward shall
be meted to John Carter in accordance with the acts he has committed?"

"Death!" shouted one of the judges.

And then a man sprang to his feet in the audience, and raising his
hand on high, cried: "Justice!  Justice!  Justice!" It was Kantos
Kan, and as all eyes turned toward him he leaped past the Zodangan
soldiery and sprang upon the platform.

"What manner of justice be this?" he cried to Zat Arras.  "The
defendant has not been heard, nor has he had an opportunity to
call others in his behalf.  In the name of the people of Helium I
demand fair and impartial treatment for the Prince of Helium."

A great cry arose from the audience then: "Justice!  Justice!
Justice!" and Zat Arras dared not deny them.

"Speak, then," he snarled, turning to me; "but blaspheme not against
the things that are sacred upon Barsoom."

"Men of Helium," I cried, turning to the spectators, and speaking
over the heads of my judges, "how can John Carter expect justice
from the men of Zodanga?  He cannot nor does he ask it.  It is to
the men of Helium that he states his case; nor does he appeal for
mercy to any.  It is not in his own cause that he speaks now--it is
in thine.  In the cause of your wives and daughters, and of wives
and daughters yet unborn.  It is to save them from the unthinkably
atrocious indignities that I have seen heaped upon the fair women
of Barsoom in the place men call the Temple of Issus.  It is to save
them from the sucking embrace of the plant men, from the fangs of
the great white apes of Dor, from the cruel lust of the Holy Therns,
from all that the cold, dead Iss carries them to from homes of love
and life and happiness.

"Sits there no man here who does not know the history of John
Carter.  How he came among you from another world and rose from a
prisoner among the green men, through torture and persecution, to
a place high among the highest of Barsoom.  Nor ever did you know
John Carter to lie in his own behalf, or to say aught that might
harm the people of Barsoom, or to speak lightly of the strange
religion which he respected without understanding.

"There be no man here, or elsewhere upon Barsoom to-day who does
not owe his life directly to a single act of mine, in which I
sacrificed myself and the happiness of my Princess that you might
live.  And so, men of Helium, I think that I have the right to
demand that I be heard, that I be believed, and that you let me
serve you and save you from the false hereafter of Dor and Issus
as I saved you from the real death that other day.

"It is to you of Helium that I speak now.  When I am done let the
men of Zodanga have their will with me.  Zat Arras has taken my
sword from me, so the men of Zodanga no longer fear me.  Will you
listen?"

"Speak, John Carter, Prince of Helium," cried a great noble from
the audience, and the multitude echoed his permission, until the
building rocked with the noise of their demonstration.

Zat Arras knew better than to interfere with such a sentiment
as was expressed that day in the Temple of Reward, and so for two
hours I talked with the people of Helium.

But when I had finished, Zat Arras arose and, turning to the judges,
said in a low tone: "My nobles, you have heard John Carter's plea;
every opportunity has been given him to prove his innocence if he
be not guilty; but instead he has but utilized the time in further
blasphemy.  What, gentlemen, is your verdict?"

"Death to the blasphemer!" cried one, springing to his feet, and
in an instant the entire thirty-one judges were on their feet with
upraised swords in token of the unanimity of their verdict.

If the people did not hear Zat Arras' charge, they certainly did
hear the verdict of the tribunal.  A sullen murmur rose louder
and louder about the packed coliseum, and then Kantos Kan, who had
not left the platform since first he had taken his place near me,
raised his hand for silence.  When he could be heard he spoke to
the people in a cool and level voice.

"You have heard the fate that the men of Zodanga would mete to
Helium's noblest hero.  It may be the duty of the men of Helium
to accept the verdict as final.  Let each man act according to his
own heart.  Here is the answer of Kantos Kan, head of the navy of
Helium, to Zat Arras and his judges," and with that he unbuckled
his scabbard and threw his sword at my feet.

In an instant soldiers and citizens, officers and nobles were
crowding past the soldiers of Zodanga and forcing their way to the
Throne of Righteousness.  A hundred men surged upon the platform,
and a hundred blades rattled and clanked to the floor at my feet.
Zat Arras and his officers were furious, but they were helpless.
One by one I raised the swords to my lips and buckled them again
upon their owners.

"Come," sand Kantos Kan, "we will escort John Carter and his party
to his own palace," and they formed about us and started toward
the stairs leading to the Aisle of Hope.

"Stop!" cried Zat Arras.  "Soldiers of Helium, let no prisoner
leave the Throne of Righteousness."

The soldiery from Zodanga were the only organized body of Heliumetic
troops within the temple, so Zat Arras was confident that his
orders would be obeyed, but I do not think that he looked for the
opposition that was raised the moment the soldiers advanced toward
the throne.

From every quarter of the coliseum swords flashed and men rushed
threateningly upon the Zodangans.  Some one raised a cry: "Tardos
Mors is dead--a thousand years to John Carter, Jeddak of Helium."
As I heard that and saw the ugly attitude of the men of Helium
toward the soldiers of Zat Arras, I knew that only a miracle could
avert a clash that would end in civil war.

"Hold!" I cried, leaping to the Pedestal of Truth once more.  "Let
no man move till I am done.  A single sword thrust here to-day may
plunge Helium into a bitter and bloody war the results of which
none can foresee.  It will turn brother against brother and father
against son.  No man's life is worth that sacrifice.  Rather would
I submit to the biased judgment of Zat Arras than be the cause of
civil strife in Helium.

"Let us each give in a point to the other, and let this entire
matter rest until Tardos Mors returns, or Mors Kajak, his son.  If
neither be back at the end of a year a second trial may be held--the
thing has a precedent."  And then turning to Zat Arras, I said in
a low voice: "Unless you be a bigger fool than I take you to be,
you will grasp the chance I am offering you ere it is too late.
Once that multitude of swords below is drawn against your soldiery
no man upon Barsoom--not even Tardos Mors himself--can avert the
consequences.  What say you?  Speak quickly."

The Jed of Zodangan Helium raised his voice to the angry sea beneath
us.

"Stay your hands, men of Helium," he shouted, his voice trembling
with rage.  "The sentence of the court is passed, but the day
of retribution has not been set.  I, Zat Arras, Jed of Zodanga,
appreciating the royal connections of the prisoner and his past
services to Helium and Barsoom, grant a respite of one year, or
until the return of Mors Kajak, or Tardos Mors to Helium.  Disperse
quietly to your houses.  Go."

No one moved.  Instead, they stood in tense silence with their eyes
fastened upon me, as though waiting for a signal to attack.

"Clear the temple," commanded Zat Arras, in a low tone to one of
his officers.

Fearing the result of an attempt to carry out this order by force,
I stepped to the edge of the platform and, pointing toward the main
entrance, bid them pass out.  As one man they turned at my request
and filed, silent and threatening, past the soldiers of Zat Arras,
Jed of Zodanga, who stood scowling in impotent rage.

Kantos Kan with the others who had sworn allegiance to me still
stood upon the Throne of Righteousness with me.

"Come," said Kantos Kan to me, "we will escort you to your palace,
my Prince.  Come, Carthoris and Xodar.  Come, Tars Tarkas."  And
with a haughty sneer for Zat Arras upon his handsome lips, he turned
and strode to the throne steps and up the Aisle of Hope.  We four
and the hundred loyal ones followed behind him, nor was a hand
raised to stay us, though glowering eyes followed our triumphal
march through the temple.

In the avenues we found a press of people, but they opened a pathway
for us, and many were the swords that were flung at my feet as I
passed through the city of Helium toward my palace upon the outskirts.
Here my old slaves fell upon their knees and kissed my hands as I
greeted them.  They cared not where I had been.  It was enough that
I had returned to them.

"Ah, master," cried one, "if our divine Princess were but here this
would be a day indeed."

Tears came to my eyes, so that I was forced to turn away that I
might hide my emotions.  Carthoris wept openly as the slaves pressed
about him with expressions of affection, and words of sorrow for
our common loss.  It was now that Tars Tarkas for the first time
learned that his daughter, Sola, had accompanied Dejah Thoris upon
the last long pilgrimage.  I had not had the heart to tell him what
Kantos Kan had told me.  With the stoicism of the green Martian
he showed no sign of suffering, yet I knew that his grief was
as poignant as my own.  In marked contrast to his kind, he had in
well-developed form the kindlier human characteristics of love,
friendship, and charity.

It was a sad and sombre party that sat at the feast of welcome in
the great dining hall of the palace of the Prince of Helium that
day.  We were over a hundred strong, not counting the members of
my little court, for Dejah Thoris and I had maintained a household
consistent with our royal rank.

The board, according to red Martian custom, was triangular, for
there were three in our family.  Carthoris and I presided in the
centre of our sides of the table--midway of the third side Dejah
Thoris' high-backed, carven chair stood vacant except for her
gorgeous wedding trappings and jewels which were draped upon it.
Behind stood a slave as in the days when his mistress had occupied
her place at the board, ready to do her bidding.  It was the way
upon Barsoom, so I endured the anguish of it, though it wrung my
heart to see that silent chair where should have been my laughing
and vivacious Princess keeping the great hall ringing with her
merry gaiety.

At my right sat Kantos Kan, while to the right of Dejah Thoris'
empty place Tars Tarkas sat in a huge chair before a raised section
of the board which years ago I had had constructed to meet the
requirements of his mighty bulk.  The place of honour at a Martian
hoard is always at the hostess's right, and this place was ever
reserved by Dejah Thoris for the great Thark upon the occasions
that he was in Helium.

Hor Vastus sat in the seat of honour upon Carthoris' side of the
table.  There was little general conversation.  It was a quiet and
saddened party.  The loss of Dejah Thoris was still fresh in the
minds of all, and to this was added fear for the safety of Tardos
Mors and Mors Kajak, as well as doubt and uncertainty as to the fate
of Helium, should it prove true that she was permanently deprived
of her great Jeddak.

Suddenly our attention was attracted by the sound of distant shouting,
as of many people raising their voices at once, but whether in
anger or rejoicing, we could not tell.  Nearer and nearer came the
tumult.  A slave rushed into the dining hall to cry that a great
concourse of people was swarming through the palace gates.  A
second burst upon the heels of the first alternately laughing and
shrieking as a madman.

"Dejah Thoris is found!" he cried.  "A messenger from Dejah Thoris!"

I waited to hear no more.  The great windows of the dining hall
overlooked the avenue leading to the main gates--they were upon
the opposite side of the hall from me with the table intervening.
I did not waste time in circling the great board--with a single
leap I cleared table and diners and sprang upon the balcony beyond.
Thirty feet below lay the scarlet sward of the lawn and beyond were
many people crowding about a great thoat which bore a rider headed
toward the palace.  I vaulted to the ground below and ran swiftly
toward the advancing party.

As I came near to them I saw that the figure on the thoat was Sola.

"Where is the Princess of Helium?" I cried.

The green girl slid from her mighty mount and ran toward me.

"O my Prince!  My Prince!" she cried.  "She is gone for ever.  Even
now she may be a captive upon the lesser moon.  The black pirates
of Barsoom have stolen her."





CHAPTER XVIII

SOLA'S STORY




Once within the palace, I drew Sola to the dining hall, and, when
she had greeted her father after the formal manner of the green men,
she told the story of the pilgrimage and capture of Dejah Thoris.

"Seven days ago, after her audience with Zat Arras, Dejah Thoris
attempted to slip from the palace in the dead of night.  Although
I had not heard the outcome of her interview with Zat Arras I knew
that something had occurred then to cause her the keenest mental
agony, and when I discovered her creeping from the palace I did
not need to be told her destination.

"Hastily arousing a dozen of her most faithful guards, I explained
my fears to them, and as one they enlisted with me to follow our
beloved Princess in her wanderings, even to the Sacred Iss and the
Valley Dor.  We came upon her but a short distance from the palace.
With her was faithful Woola the hound, but none other.  When we
overtook her she feigned anger, and ordered us back to the palace,
but for once we disobeyed her, and when she found that we would
not let her go upon the last long pilgrimage alone, she wept and
embraced us, and together we went out into the night toward the
south.

"The following day we came upon a herd of small thoats, and
thereafter we were mounted and made good time.  We travelled very
fast and very far due south until the morning of the fifth day
we sighted a great fleet of battleships sailing north.  They saw
us before we could seek shelter, and soon we were surrounded by a
horde of black men.  The Princess's guard fought nobly to the end,
but they were soon overcome and slain.  Only Dejah Thoris and I
were spared.

"When she realized that she was in the clutches of the black pirates,
she attempted to take her own life, but one of the blacks tore her
dagger from her, and then they bound us both so that we could not
use our hands.

"The fleet continued north after capturing us.  There were about
twenty large battleships in all, besides a number of small swift
cruisers.  That evening one of the smaller cruisers that had been
far in advance of the fleet returned with a prisoner--a young red
woman whom they had picked up in a range of hills under the very
noses, they said, of a fleet of three red Martian battleships.

"From scraps of conversation which we overheard it was evident that
the black pirates were searching for a party of fugitives that had
escaped them several days prior.  That they considered the capture
of the young woman important was evident from the long and earnest
interview the commander of the fleet held with her when she was
brought to him.  Later she was bound and placed in the compartment
with Dejah Thoris and myself.

"The new captive was a very beautiful girl.  She told Dejah Thoris
that many years ago she had taken the voluntary pilgrimage from
the court of her father, the Jeddak of Ptarth.  She was Thuvia,
the Princess of Ptarth.  And then she asked Dejah Thoris who she
might be, and when she heard she fell upon her knees and kissed
Dejah Thoris' fettered hands, and told her that that very morning
she had been with John Carter, Prince of Helium, and Carthoris,
her son.

"Dejah Thoris could not believe her at first, but finally when
the girl had narrated all the strange adventures that had befallen
her since she had met John Carter, and told her of the things John
Carter, and Carthoris, and Xodar had narrated of their adventures
in the Land of the First Born, Dejah Thoris knew that it could be
none other than the Prince of Helium; 'For who,' she said, 'upon
all Barsoom other than John Carter could have done the deeds you
tell of.' And when Thuvia told Dejah Thoris of her love for John
Carter, and his loyalty and devotion to the Princess of his choice,
Dejah Thoris broke down and wept--cursing Zat Arras and the cruel
fate that had driven her from Helium but a few brief days before
the return of her beloved lord.

"'I do not blame you for loving him, Thuvia,' she said; 'and that
your affection for him is pure and sincere I can well believe from
the candour of your avowal of it to me.'

"The fleet continued north nearly to Helium, but last night they
evidently realized that John Carter had indeed escaped them and
so they turned toward the south once more.  Shortly thereafter a
guard entered our compartment and dragged me to the deck.

"'There is no place in the Land of the First Born for a green one,'
he said, and with that he gave me a terrific shove that carried me
toppling from the deck of the battleship.  Evidently this seemed
to him the easiest way of ridding the vessel of my presence and
killing me at the same time.

"But a kind fate intervened, and by a miracle I escaped with but
slight bruises.  The ship was moving slowly at the time, and as I
lunged overboard into the darkness beneath I shuddered at the awful
plunge I thought awaited me, for all day the fleet had sailed thousands
of feet above the ground; but to my utter surprise I struck upon a
soft mass of vegetation not twenty feet from the deck of the ship.
In fact, the keel of the vessel must have been grazing the surface
of the ground at the time.

"I lay all night where I had fallen and the next morning brought
an explanation of the fortunate coincidence that had saved me from
a terrible death.  As the sun rose I saw a vast panorama of sea
bottom and distant hills lying far below me.  I was upon the highest
peak of a lofty range.  The fleet in the darkness of the preceding
night had barely grazed the crest of the hills, and in the brief
span that they hovered close to the surface the black guard had
pitched me, as he supposed, to my death.

"A few miles west of me was a great waterway.  When I reached it I
found to my delight that it belonged to Helium.  Here a thoat was
procured for me--the rest you know."

For many minutes none spoke.  Dejah Thoris in the clutches of the
First Born!  I shuddered at the thought, but of a sudden the old
fire of unconquerable self-confidence surged through me.  I sprang
to my feet, and with back-thrown shoulders and upraised sword took
a solemn vow to reach, rescue, and revenge my Princess.

A hundred swords leaped from a hundred scabbards, and a hundred
fighting-men sprang to the table-top and pledged me their lives and
fortunes to the expedition.  Already my plans were formulated.  I
thanked each loyal friend, and leaving Carthoris to entertain them,
withdrew to my own audience chamber with Kantos Kan, Tars Tarkas,
Xodar, and Hor Vastus.

Here we discussed the details of our expedition until long after
dark.  Xodar was positive that Issus would choose both Dejah Thoris
and Thuvia to serve her for a year.

"For that length of time at least they will be comparatively safe,"
he said, "and we will at least know where to look for them."

In the matter of equipping a fleet to enter Omean the details
were left to Kantos Kan and Xodar.  The former agreed to take such
vessels as we required into dock as rapidly as possible, where
Xodar would direct their equipment with water propellers.

For many years the black had been in charge of the refitting of
captured battleships that they might navigate Omean, and so was
familiar with the construction of the propellers, housings, and
the auxiliary gearing required.

It was estimated that it would require six months to complete our
preparations in view of the fact that the utmost secrecy must be
maintained to keep the project from the ears of Zat Arras.  Kantos
Kan was confident now that the man's ambitions were fully aroused
and that nothing short of the title of Jeddak of Helium would
satisfy him.

"I doubt," he said, "if he would even welcome Dejah Thoris' return,
for it would mean another nearer the throne than he.  With you and
Carthoris out of the way there would be little to prevent him from
assuming the title of Jeddak, and you may rest assured that so long
as he is supreme here there is no safety for either of you."

"There is a way," cried Hor Vastus, "to thwart him effectually and
for ever."

"What?" I asked.

He smiled.

"I shall whisper it here, but some day I shall stand upon the dome
of the Temple of Reward and shout it to cheering multitudes below."

"What do you mean?" asked Kantos Kan.

"John Carter, Jeddak of Helium," said Hor Vastus in a low voice.

The eyes of my companions lighted, and grim smiles of pleasure and
anticipation overspread their faces, as each eye turned toward me
questioningly.  But I shook my head.

"No, my friends," I said, smiling, "I thank you, but it cannot be.
Not yet, at least.  When we know that Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak
are gone to return no more; if I be here, then I shall join you
all to see that the people of Helium are permitted to choose fairly
their next Jeddak.  Whom they choose may count upon the loyalty
of my sword, nor shall I seek the honour for myself.  Until then
Tardos Mors is Jeddak of Helium, and Zat Arras is his representative."

"As you will, John Carter," said Hor Vastus, "but--What was that?"
he whispered, pointing toward the window overlooking the gardens.

The words were scarce out of his mouth ere he had sprung to the
balcony without.

"There he goes!" he cried excitedly.  "The guards!  Below there!
The guards!"

We were close behind him, and all saw the figure of a man run
quickly across a little piece of sward and disappear in the shrubbery
beyond.

"He was on the balcony when I first saw him," cried Hor Vastus.
"Quick!  Let us follow him!"

Together we ran to the gardens, but even though we scoured the
grounds with the entire guard for hours, no trace could we find of
the night marauder.

"What do you make of it, Kantos Kan?" asked Tars Tarkas.

"A spy sent by Zat Arras," he replied.  "It was ever his way."

"He will have something interesting to report to his master then,"
laughed Hor Vastus.

"I hope he heard only our references to a new Jeddak," I said.  "If
he overheard our plans to rescue Dejah Thoris, it will mean civil
war, for he will attempt to thwart us, and in that I will not be
thwarted.  There would I turn against Tardos Mors himself, were
it necessary.  If it throws all Helium into a bloody conflict, I
shall go on with these plans to save my Princess.  Nothing shall
stay me now short of death, and should I die, my friends, will you
take oath to prosecute the search for her and bring her back in
safety to her grandfather's court?"

Upon the hilt of his sword each of them swore to do as I had asked.

It was agreed that the battleships that were to be remodelled
should be ordered to Hastor, another Heliumetic city, far to the
south-west.  Kantos Kan thought that the docks there, in addition
to their regular work, would accommodate at least six battleships
at a time.  As he was commander-in-chief of the navy, it would be
a simple matter for him to order the vessels there as they could be
handled, and thereafter keep the remodelled fleet in remote parts
of the empire until we should be ready to assemble it for the dash
upon Omean.

It was late that night before our conference broke up, but each
man there had his particular duties outlined, and the details of
the entire plan had been mapped out.

Kantos Kan and Xodar were to attend to the remodelling of the ships.
Tars Tarkas was to get into communication with Thark and learn the
sentiments of his people toward his return from Dor.  If favourable,
he was to repair immediately to Thark and devote his time to the
assembling of a great horde of green warriors whom it was our plan
to send in transports directly to the Valley Dor and the Temple of
Issus, while the fleet entered Omean and destroyed the vessels of
the First Born.

Upon Hor Vastus devolved the delicate mission of organising a
secret force of fighting-men sworn to follow John Carter wherever
he might lead.  As we estimated that it would require over a million
men to man the thousand great battleships we intended to use on
Omean and the transports for the green men as well as the ships
that were to convoy the transports, it was no trifling job that
Hor Vastus had before him.

After they had left I bid Carthoris good-night, for I was very
tired, and going to my own apartments, bathed and lay down upon my
sleeping silks and furs for the first good night's sleep I had had
an opportunity to look forward to since I had returned to Barsoom.
But even now I was to be disappointed.

How long I slept I do not know.  When I awoke suddenly it was to
find a half-dozen powerful men upon me, a gag already in my mouth,
and a moment later my arms and legs securely bound.  So quickly
had they worked and to such good purpose, that I was utterly beyond
the power to resist them by the time I was fully awake.

Never a word spoke they, and the gag effectually prevented me
speaking.  Silently they lifted me and bore me toward the door of
my chamber.  As they passed the window through which the farther
moon was casting its brilliant beams, I saw that each of the party
had his face swathed in layers of silk--I could not recognize one
of them.

When they had come into the corridor with me, they turned toward a
secret panel in the wall which led to the passage that terminated
in the pits beneath the palace.  That any knew of this panel outside
my own household, I was doubtful.  Yet the leader of the band did
not hesitate a moment.  He stepped directly to the panel, touched
the concealed button, and as the door swung open he stood aside
while his companions entered with me.  Then he closed the panel
behind him and followed us.

Down through the passageways to the pits we went.  The leader
rapped upon it with the hilt of his sword--three quick, sharp blows,
a pause, then three more, another pause, and then two.  A second
later the wall swung in, and I was pushed within a brilliantly
lighted chamber in which sat three richly trapped men.

One of them turned toward me with a sardonic smile upon his thin,
cruel lips--it was Zat Arras.





CHAPTER XIX

BLACK DESPAIR




"Ah," said Zat Arras, "to what kindly circumstance am I indebted
for the pleasure of this unexpected visit from the Prince of Helium?"

While he was speaking, one of my guards had removed the gag from
my mouth, but I made no reply to Zat Arras: simply standing there
in silence with level gaze fixed upon the Jed of Zodanga.  And I
doubt not that my expression was coloured by the contempt I felt
for the man.

The eyes of those within the chamber were fixed first upon me and
then upon Zat Arras, until finally a flush of anger crept slowly
over his face.

"You may go," he said to those who had brought me, and when only
his two companions and ourselves were left in the chamber, he spoke
to me again in a voice of ice--very slowly and deliberately, with
many pauses, as though he would choose his words cautiously.

"John Carter," he said, "by the edict of custom, by the law of
our religion, and by the verdict of an impartial court, you are
condemned to die.  The people cannot save you--I alone may accomplish
that.  You are absolutely in my power to do with as I wish--I may
kill you, or I may free you, and should I elect to kill you, none
would be the wiser.

"Should you go free in Helium for a year, in accordance with the
conditions of your reprieve, there is little fear that the people
would ever insist upon the execution of the sentence imposed upon
you.

"You may go free within two minutes, upon one condition.  Tardos
Mors will never return to Helium.  Neither will Mors Kajak, nor
Dejah Thoris.  Helium must select a new Jeddak within the year.
Zat Arras would be Jeddak of Helium.  Say that you will espouse my
cause.  This is the price of your freedom.  I am done."

I knew it was within the scope of Zat Arras' cruel heart to destroy
me, and if I were dead I could see little reason to doubt that he
might easily become Jeddak of Helium.  Free, I could prosecute the
search for Dejah Thoris.  Were I dead, my brave comrades might not
be able to carry out our plans.  So, by refusing to accede to his
request, it was quite probable that not only would I not prevent
him from becoming Jeddak of Helium, but that I would be the means
of sealing Dejah Thoris' fate--of consigning her, through my refusal,
to the horrors of the arena of Issus.

For a moment I was perplexed, but for a moment only.  The proud
daughter of a thousand Jeddaks would choose death to a dishonorable
alliance such as this, nor could John Carter do less for Helium
than his Princess would do.

Then I turned to Zat Arras.

"There can be no alliance," I said, "between a traitor to Helium
and a prince of the House of Tardos Mors.  I do not believe, Zat
Arras, that the great Jeddak is dead."

Zat Arras shrugged his shoulders.

"It will not be long, John Carter," he said, "that your opinions
will be of interest even to yourself, so make the best of them
while you can.  Zat Arras will permit you in due time to reflect
further upon the magnanimous offer he has made you.  Into the silence
and darkness of the pits you will enter upon your reflection this
night with the knowledge that should you fail within a reasonable
time to agree to the alternative which has been offered you, never
shall you emerge from the darkness and the silence again.  Nor
shall you know at what minute the hand will reach out through the
darkness and the silence with the keen dagger that shall rob you
of your last chance to win again the warmth and the freedom and
joyousness of the outer world."

Zat Arras clapped his hands as he ceased speaking.  The guards
returned.

Zat Arras waved his hand in my direction.

"To the pits," he said.  That was all.  Four men accompanied me
from the chamber, and with a radium hand-light to illumine the way,
escorted me through seemingly interminable tunnels, down, ever down
beneath the city of Helium.

At length they halted within a fair-sized chamber.  There were rings
set in the rocky walls.  To them chains were fastened, and at the
ends of many of the chains were human skeletons.  One of these
they kicked aside, and, unlocking the huge padlock that had held
a chain about what had once been a human ankle, they snapped the
iron band about my own leg.  Then they left me, taking the light
with them.

Utter darkness prevailed.  For a few minutes I could hear the
clanking of accoutrements, but even this grew fainter and fainter,
until at last the silence was as complete as the darkness.  I was
alone with my gruesome companions--with the bones of dead men whose
fate was likely but the index of my own.

How long I stood listening in the darkness I do not know, but the
silence was unbroken, and at last I sunk to the hard floor of my
prison, where, leaning my head against the stony wall, I slept.

It must have been several hours later that I awakened to find
a young man standing before me.  In one hand he bore a light, in
the other a receptacle containing a gruel-like mixture--the common
prison fare of Barsoom.

"Zat Arras sends you greetings," said the young man, "and commands
me to inform you that though he is fully advised of the plot to
make you Jeddak of Helium, he is, however, not inclined to withdraw
the offer which he has made you.  To gain your freedom you have
but to request me to advise Zat Arras that you accept the terms of
his proposition."

I but shook my head.  The youth said no more, and, after placing
the food upon the floor at my side, returned up the corridor, taking
the light with him.

Twice a day for many days this youth came to my cell with food, and
ever the same greetings from Zat Arras.  For a long time I tried
to engage him in conversation upon other matters, but he would not
talk, and so, at length, I desisted.

For months I sought to devise methods to inform Carthoris of my
whereabouts.  For months I scraped and scraped upon a single link
of the massive chain which held me, hoping eventually to wear it
through, that I might follow the youth back through the winding
tunnels to a point where I could make a break for liberty.

I was beside myself with anxiety for knowledge of the progress
of the expedition which was to rescue Dejah Thoris.  I felt that
Carthoris would not let the matter drop, were he free to act, but
in so far as I knew, he also might be a prisoner in Zat Arras'
pits.

That Zat Arras' spy had overheard our conversation relative to
the selection of a new Jeddak, I knew, and scarcely a half-dozen
minutes prior we had discussed the details of the plan to rescue
Dejah Thoris.  The chances were that that matter, too, was well
known to him.  Carthoris, Kantos Kan, Tars Tarkas, Hor Vastus, and
Xodar might even now be the victims of Zat Arras' assassins, or
else his prisoners.

I determined to make at least one more effort to learn something,
and to this end I adopted strategy when next the youth came to
my cell.  I had noticed that he was a handsome fellow, about the
size and age of Carthoris.  And I had also noticed that his shabby
trappings but illy comported with his dignified and noble bearing.

It was with these observations as a basis that I opened my negotiations
with him upon his next subsequent visit.

"You have been very kind to me during my imprisonment here," I
said to him, "and as I feel that I have at best but a very short
time to live, I wish, ere it is too late, to furnish substantial
testimony of my appreciation of all that you have done to render
my imprisonment bearable.

"Promptly you have brought my food each day, seeing that it was
pure and of sufficient quantity.  Never by word or deed have you
attempted to take advantage of my defenceless condition to insult
or torture me.  You have been uniformly courteous and considerate--it
is this more than any other thing which prompts my feeling of
gratitude and my desire to give you some slight token of it.

"In the guard-room of my palace are many fine trappings.  Go thou
there and select the harness which most pleases you--it shall be
yours.  All I ask is that you wear it, that I may know that my wish
has been realized.  Tell me that you will do it."

The boy's eyes had lighted with pleasure as I spoke, and I saw him
glance from his rusty trappings to the magnificence of my own.  For
a moment he stood in thought before he spoke, and for that moment
my heart fairly ceased beating--so much for me there was which
hung upon the substance of his answer.

"And I went to the palace of the Prince of Helium with any such
demand, they would laugh at me and, into the bargain, would more
than likely throw me headforemost into the avenue.  No, it cannot
be, though I thank you for the offer.  Why, if Zat Arras even dreamed
that I contemplated such a thing he would have my heart cut out of
me."

"There can be no harm in it, my boy," I urged.  "By night you may
go to my palace with a note from me to Carthoris, my son.  You
may read the note before you deliver it, that you may know that it
contains nothing harmful to Zat Arras.  My son will be discreet,
and so none but us three need know.  It is very simple, and such
a harmless act that it could be condemned by no one."

Again he stood silently in deep thought.

"And there is a jewelled short-sword which I took from the body of
a northern Jeddak.  When you get the harness, see that Carthoris
gives you that also.  With it and the harness which you may select
there will be no more handsomely accoutred warrior in all Zodanga.

"Bring writing materials when you come next to my cell, and within
a few hours we shall see you garbed in a style befitting your birth
and carriage."

Still in thought, and without speaking, he turned and left me.  I
could not guess what his decision might be, and for hours I sat
fretting over the outcome of the matter.

If he accepted a message to Carthoris it would mean to me that
Carthoris still lived and was free.  If the youth returned wearing
the harness and the sword, I would know that Carthoris had received
my note and that he knew that I still lived.  That the bearer of
the note was a Zodangan would be sufficient to explain to Carthoris
that I was a prisoner of Zat Arras.

It was with feelings of excited expectancy which I could scarce
hide that I heard the youth's approach upon the occasion of his
next regular visit.  I did not speak beyond my accustomed greeting
of him.  As he placed the food upon the floor by my side he also
deposited writing materials at the same time.

My heart fairly bounded for joy.  I had won my point.  For a moment
I looked at the materials in feigned surprise, but soon I permitted
an expression of dawning comprehension to come into my face,
and then, picking them up, I penned a brief order to Carthoris to
deliver to Parthak a harness of his selection and the short-sword
which I described.  That was all.  But it meant everything to me
and to Carthoris.

I laid the note open upon the floor.  Parthak picked it up and,
without a word, left me.

As nearly as I could estimate, I had at this time been in the pits
for three hundred days.  If anything was to be done to save Dejah
Thoris it must be done quickly, for, were she not already dead,
her end must soon come, since those whom Issus chose lived but a
single year.

The next time I heard approaching footsteps I could scarce await
to see if Parthak wore the harness and the sword, but judge, if you
can, my chagrin and disappointment when I saw that he who bore my
food was not Parthak.

"What has become of Parthak?" I asked, but the fellow would not
answer, and as soon as he had deposited my food, turned and retraced
his steps to the world above.

Days came and went, and still my new jailer continued his duties,
nor would he ever speak a word to me, either in reply to the simplest
question or of his own initiative.

I could only speculate on the cause of Parthak's removal, but that
it was connected in some way directly with the note I had given him
was most apparent to me.  After all my rejoicing, I was no better
off than before, for now I did not even know that Carthoris lived,
for if Parthak had wished to raise himself in the estimation of
Zat Arras he would have permitted me to go on precisely as I did,
so that he could carry my note to his master, in proof of his own
loyalty and devotion.

Thirty days had passed since I had given the youth the note.  Three
hundred and thirty days had passed since my incarceration.  As
closely as I could figure, there remained a bare thirty days ere
Dejah Thoris would be ordered to the arena for the rites of Issus.

As the terrible picture forced itself vividly across my imagination,
I buried my face in my arms, and only with the greatest difficulty
was it that I repressed the tears that welled to my eyes despite my
every effort.  To think of that beautiful creature torn and rended
by the cruel fangs of the hideous white apes!  It was unthinkable.
Such a horrid fact could not be; and yet my reason told me that
within thirty days my incomparable Princess would be fought over
in the arena of the First Born by those very wild beasts; that her
bleeding corpse would be dragged through the dirt and the dust,
until at last a part of it would be rescued to be served as food
upon the tables of the black nobles.

I think that I should have gone crazy but for the sound of my
approaching jailer.  It distracted my attention from the terrible
thoughts that had been occupying my entire mind.  Now a new and grim
determination came to me.  I would make one super-human effort to
escape.  Kill my jailer by a ruse, and trust to fate to lead me to
the outer world in safety.

With the thought came instant action.  I threw myself upon the floor
of my cell close by the wall, in a strained and distorted posture,
as though I were dead after a struggle or convulsions.  When he
should stoop over me I had but to grasp his throat with one hand
and strike him a terrific blow with the slack of my chain, which
I gripped firmly in my right hand for the purpose.

Nearer and nearer came the doomed man.  Now I heard him halt before
me.  There was a muttered exclamation, and then a step as he came
to my side.  I felt him kneel beside me.  My grip tightened upon
the chain.  He leaned close to me.  I must open my eyes to find
his throat, grasp it, and strike one mighty final blow all at the
same instant.

The thing worked just as I had planned.  So brief was the interval
between the opening of my eyes and the fall of the chain that
I could not check it, though it that minute interval I recognized
the face so close to mine as that of my son, Carthoris.

God!  What cruel and malign fate had worked to such a frightful
end!  What devious chain of circumstances had led my boy to my side
at this one particular minute of our lives when I could strike him
down and kill him, in ignorance of his identity!  A benign though
tardy Providence blurred my vision and my mind as I sank into
unconsciousness across the lifeless body of my only son.

When I regained consciousness it was to feel a cool, firm hand
pressed upon my forehead.  For an instant I did not open my eyes.
I was endeavouring to gather the loose ends of many thoughts and
memories which flitted elusively through my tired and overwrought
brain.

At length came the cruel recollection of the thing that I had done
in my last conscious act, and then I dared not to open my eyes
for fear of what I should see lying beside me.  I wondered who it
could be who ministered to me.  Carthoris must have had a companion
whom I had not seen.  Well, I must face the inevitable some time,
so why not now, and with a sigh I opened my eyes.

Leaning over me was Carthoris, a great bruise upon his forehead
where the chain had struck, but alive, thank God, alive!  There
was no one with him.  Reaching out my arms, I took my boy within
them, and if ever there arose from any planet a fervent prayer of
gratitude, it was there beneath the crust of dying Mars as I thanked
the Eternal Mystery for my son's life.

The brief instant in which I had seen and recognized Carthoris
before the chain fell must have been ample to check the force of
the blow.  He told me that he had lain unconscious for a time--how
long he did not know.

"How came you here at all?" I asked, mystified that he had found
me without a guide.

"It was by your wit in apprising me of your existence and imprisonment
through the youth, Parthak.  Until he came for his harness and his
sword, we had thought you dead.  When I had read your note I did
as you had bid, giving Parthak his choice of the harnesses in the
guardroom, and later bringing the jewelled short-sword to him; but
the minute that I had fulfilled the promise you evidently had made
him, my obligation to him ceased.  Then I commenced to question
him, but he would give me no information as to your whereabouts.
He was intensely loyal to Zat Arras.

"Finally I gave him a fair choice between freedom and the pits
beneath the palace--the price of freedom to be full information as
to where you were imprisoned and directions which would lead us to
you; but still he maintained his stubborn partisanship.  Despairing,
I had him removed to the pits, where he still is.

"No threats of torture or death, no bribes, however fabulous,
would move him.  His only reply to all our importunities was that
whenever Parthak died, were it to-morrow or a thousand years hence,
no man could truly say, 'A traitor is gone to his deserts.'

"Finally, Xodar, who is a fiend for subtle craftiness, evolved
a plan whereby we might worm the information from him.  And so I
caused Hor Vastus to be harnessed in the metal of a Zodangan soldier
and chained in Parthak's cell beside him.  For fifteen days the
noble Hor Vastus has languished in the darkness of the pits, but
not in vain.  Little by little he won the confidence and friendship
of the Zodangan, until only to-day Parthak, thinking that he was
speaking not only to a countryman, but to a dear friend, revealed
that Hor Vastus the exact cell in which you lay.

"It took me but a short time to locate the plans of the pits
of Helium among thy official papers.  To come to you, though, was
a trifle more difficult matter.  As you know, while all the pits
beneath the city are connected, there are but single entrances
from those beneath each section and its neighbour, and that at the
upper level just underneath the ground.

"Of course, these openings which lead from contiguous pits to those
beneath government buildings are always guarded, and so, while I
easily came to the entrance to the pits beneath the palace which
Zat Arras is occupying, I found there a Zodangan soldier on guard.
There I left him when I had gone by, but his soul was no longer
with him.

"And here I am, just in time to be nearly killed by you," he ended,
laughing.

As he talked Carthoris had been working at the lock which held my
fetters, and now, with an exclamation of pleasure, he dropped the
end of the chain to the floor, and I stood up once more, freed from
the galling irons I had chafed in for almost a year.

He had brought a long-sword and a dagger for me, and thus armed we
set out upon the return journey to my palace.

At the point where we left the pits of Zat Arras we found the body
of the guard Carthoris had slain.  It had not yet been discovered,
and, in order to still further delay search and mystify the jed's
people, we carried the body with us for a short distance, hiding
it in a tiny cell off the main corridor of the pits beneath an
adjoining estate.

Some half-hour later we came to the pits beneath our own palace,
and soon thereafter emerged into the audience chamber itself, where
we found Kantos Kan, Tars Tarkas, Hor Vastus, and Xodar awaiting
us most impatiently.

No time was lost in fruitless recounting of my imprisonment.  What
I desired to know was how well the plans we had laid nearly a year
ago and had been carried out.

"It has taken much longer than we had expected," replied Kantos
Kan.  "The fact that we were compelled to maintain utter secrecy
has handicapped us terribly.  Zat Arras' spies are everywhere.  Yet,
to the best of my knowledge, no word of our real plans has reached
the villain's ear.

"To-night there lies about the great docks at Hastor a fleet of a
thousand of the mightiest battleships that ever sailed above Barsoom,
and each equipped to navigate the air of Omean and the waters of
Omean itself.  Upon each battleship there are five ten-man cruisers,
and ten five-man scouts, and a hundred one-man scouts; in all, one
hundred and sixteen thousand craft fitted with both air and water
propellers.

"At Thark lie the transports for the green warriors of Tars Tarkas,
nine hundred large troopships, and with them their convoys.  Seven
days ago all was in readiness, but we waited in the hope that by so
doing your rescue might be encompassed in time for you to command
the expedition.  It is well we waited, my Prince."

"How is it, Tars Tarkas," I asked, "that the men of Thark take not
the accustomed action against one who returns from the bosom of
Iss?"

"They sent a council of fifty chieftains to talk with me here,"
replied the Thark.  "We are a just people, and when I had told
them the entire story they were as one man in agreeing that their
action toward me would be guided by the action of Helium toward
John Carter.  In the meantime, at their request, I was to resume my
throne as Jeddak of Thark, that I might negotiate with neighboring
hordes for warriors to compose the land forces of the expedition.
I have done that which I agreed.  Two hundred and fifty thousand
fighting men, gathered from the ice cap at the north to the ice cap
at the south, and representing a thousand different communities,
from a hundred wild and warlike hordes, fill the great city of
Thark to-night.  They are ready to sail for the Land of the First
Born when I give the word and fight there until I bid them stop.
All they ask is the loot they take and transportation to their own
territories when the fighting and the looting are over.  I am done."

"And thou, Hor Vastus," I asked, "what has been thy success?"

"A million veteran fighting-men from Helium's thin waterways man the
battleships, the transports, and the convoys," he replied.  "Each
is sworn to loyalty and secrecy, nor were enough recruited from a
single district to cause suspicion."

"Good!" I cried.  "Each has done his duty, and now, Kantos Kan, may
we not repair at once to Hastor and get under way before to-morrow's
sun?"

"We should lose no time, Prince," replied Kantos Kan.  "Already the
people of Hastor are questioning the purpose of so great a fleet
fully manned with fighting-men.  I wonder much that word of it
has not before reached Zat Arras.  A cruiser awaits above at your
own dock; let us leave at--" A fusillade of shots from the palace
gardens just without cut short his further words.

Together we rushed to the balcony in time to see a dozen members of
my palace guard disappear in the shadows of some distant shrubbery as
in pursuit of one who fled.  Directly beneath us upon the scarlet
sward a handful of guardsmen were stooping above a still and
prostrate form.

While we watched they lifted the figure in their arms and at
my command bore it to the audience chamber where we had been in
council.  When they stretched the body at our feet we saw that it
was that of a red man in the prime of life--his metal was plain,
such as common soldiers wear, or those who wish to conceal their
identity.

"Another of Zat Arras' spies," said Hor Vastus.

"So it would seem," I replied, and then to the guard: "You may
remove the body."

"Wait!" said Xodar.  "If you will, Prince, ask that a cloth and a
little thoat oil be brought."

I nodded to one of the soldiers, who left the chamber, returning
presently with the things that Xodar had requested.  The black
kneeled beside the body and, dipping a corner of the cloth in the
thoat oil, rubbed for a moment on the dead face before him,  Then
he turned to me with a smile, pointing to his work.  I looked and
saw that where Xodar had applied the thoat oil the face was white,
as white as mine, and then Xodar seized the black hair of the corpse
and with a sudden wrench tore it all away, revealing a hairless
pate beneath.

Guardsmen and nobles pressed close about the silent witness upon
the marble floor.  Many were the exclamations of astonishment and
questioning wonder as Xodar's acts confirmed the suspicion which
he had held.

"A thern!" whispered Tars Tarkas.

"Worse than that, I fear," replied Xodar.  "But let us see."

With that he drew his dagger and cut open a locked pouch which had
dangled from the thern's harness, and from it he brought forth a
circlet of gold set with a large gem--it was the mate to that which
I had taken from Sator Throg.

"He was a Holy Thern," said Xodar.  "Fortunate indeed it is for us
that he did not escape."

The officer of the guard entered the chamber at this juncture.

"My Prince," he said, "I have to report that this fellow's companion
escaped us.  I think that it was with the connivance of one or more
of the men at the gate.  I have ordered them all under arrest."

Xodar handed him the thoat oil and cloth.

"With this you may discover the spy among you," he said.

I at once ordered a secret search within the city, for every Martian
noble maintains a secret service of his own.

A half-hour later the officer of the guard came again to report.
This time it was to confirm our worst fears--half the guards at
the gate that night had been therns disguised as red men.

"Come!" I cried.  "We must lose no time.  On to Hastor at once.
Should the therns attempt to check us at the southern verge of
the ice cap it may result in the wrecking of all our plans and the
total destruction of the expedition."

Ten minutes later we were speeding through the night toward Hastor,
prepared to strike the first blow for the preservation of Dejah
Thoris.





CHAPTER XX

THE AIR BATTLE




Two hours after leaving my palace at Helium, or about midnight,
Kantos Kan, Xodar, and I arrived at Hastor.  Carthoris, Tars Tarkas,
and Hor Vastus had gone directly to Thark upon another cruiser.

The transports were to get under way immediately and move slowly
south.  The fleet of battleships would overtake them on the morning
of the second day.

At Hastor we found all in readiness, and so perfectly had Kantos
Kan planned every detail of the campaign that within ten minutes
of our arrival the first of the fleet had soared aloft from its
dock, and thereafter, at the rate of one a second, the great ships
floated gracefully out into the night to form a long, thin line
which stretched for miles toward the south.

It was not until after we had entered the cabin of Kantos Kan that
I thought to ask the date, for up to now I was not positive how
long I had lain in the pits of Zat Arras.  When Kantos Kan told me,
I realized with a pang of dismay that I had misreckoned the time
while I lay in the utter darkness of my cell.  Three hundred and
sixty-five days had passed--it was too late to save Dejah Thoris.

The expedition was no longer one of rescue but of revenge.  I did
not remind Kantos Kan of the terrible fact that ere we could hope
to enter the Temple of Issus, the Princess of Helium would be no
more.  In so far as I knew she might be already dead, for I did
not know the exact date on which she first viewed Issus.

What now the value of burdening my friends with my added personal
sorrows--they had shared quite enough of them with me in the past.
Hereafter I would keep my grief to myself, and so I said nothing
to any other of the fact that we were too late.  The expedition
could yet do much if it could but teach the people of Barsoom the
facts of the cruel deception that had been worked upon them for
countless ages, and thus save thousands each year from the horrid
fate that awaited them at the conclusion of the voluntary pilgrimage.

If it could open to the red men the fair Valley Dor it would
have accomplished much, and in the Land of Lost Souls between the
Mountains of Otz and the ice barrier were many broad acres that
needed no irrigation to bear rich harvests.

Here at the bottom of a dying world was the only naturally productive
area upon its surface.  Here alone were dews and rains, here alone
was an open sea, here was water in plenty; and all this was but
the stamping ground of fierce brutes and from its beauteous and
fertile expanse the wicked remnants of two once mighty races barred
all the other millions of Barsoom.  Could I but succeed in once
breaking down the barrier of religious superstition which had kept
the red races from this El Dorado it would be a fitting memorial
to the immortal virtues of my Princess--I should have again served
Barsoom and Dejah Thoris' martyrdom would not have been in vain.

On the morning of the second day we raised the great fleet of
transports and their consorts at the first flood of dawn, and soon
were near enough to exchange signals.  I may mention here that
radio-aerograms are seldom if ever used in war time, or for the
transmission of secret dispatches at any time, for as often as
one nation discovers a new cipher, or invents a new instrument for
wireless purposes its neighbours bend every effort until they are
able to intercept and translate the messages.  For so long a time
has this gone on that practically every possibility of wireless
communication has been exhausted and no nation dares transmit
dispatches of importance in this way.

Tars Tarkas reported all well with the transports.  The battleships
passed through to take an advanced position, and the combined
fleets moved slowly over the ice cap, hugging the surface closely
to prevent detection by the therns whose land we were approaching.

Far in advance of all a thin line of one-man air scouts protected us
from surprise, and on either side they flanked us, while a smaller
number brought up the rear some twenty miles behind the transports.
In this formation we had progressed toward the entrance to Omean
for several hours when one of our scouts returned from the front
to report that the cone-like summit of the entrance was in sight.
At almost the same instant another scout from the left flank came
racing toward the flagship.

His very speed bespoke the importance of his information.  Kantos
Kan and I awaited him upon the little forward deck which corresponds
with the bridge of earthly battleships.  Scarcely had his tiny
flier come to rest upon the broad landing-deck of the flagship ere
he was bounding up the stairway to the deck where we stood.

"A great fleet of battleships south-south-east, my Prince," he
cried.  "There must be several thousands and they are bearing down
directly upon us."

"The thern spies were not in the palace of John Carter for nothing,"
said Kantos Kan to me.  "Your orders, Prince."

"Dispatch ten battleships to guard the entrance to Omean, with orders
to let no hostile enter or leave the shaft.  That will bottle up
the great fleet of the First Born.

"Form the balance of the battleships into a great V with the apex
pointing directly south-south-east.  Order the transports, surrounded
by their convoys, to follow closely in the wake of the battleships
until the point of the V has entered the enemies' line, then the V
must open outward at the apex, the battleships of each leg engage
the enemy fiercely and drive him back to form a lane through his
line into which the transports with their convoys must race at top
speed that they may gain a position above the temples and gardens
of the therns.

"Here let them land and teach the Holy Therns such a lesson in
ferocious warfare as they will not forget for countless ages.  It
had not been my intention to be distracted from the main issue of
the campaign, but we must settle this attack with the therns once
and for all, or there will be no peace for us while our fleet
remains near Dor, and our chances of ever returning to the outer
world will be greatly minimized."

Kantos Kan saluted and turned to deliver my instructions to his
waiting aides.  In an incredibly short space of time the formation
of the battleships changed in accordance with my commands, the
ten that were to guard the way to Omean were speeding toward their
destination, and the troopships and convoys were closing up in
preparation for the spurt through the lane.

The order of full speed ahead was given, the fleet sprang through
the air like coursing greyhounds, and in another moment the ships
of the enemy were in full view.  They formed a ragged line as far
as the eye could reach in either direction and about three ships
deep.  So sudden was our onslaught that they had no time to prepare
for it.  It was as unexpected as lightning from a clear sky.

Every phase of my plan worked splendidly.  Our huge ships mowed
their way entirely through the line of thern battlecraft; then the
V opened up and a broad lane appeared through which the transports
leaped toward the temples of the therns which could now be plainly
seen glistening in the sunlight.  By the time the therns had rallied
from the attack a hundred thousand green warriors were already
pouring through their courts and gardens, while a hundred and fifty
thousand others leaned from low swinging transports to direct their
almost uncanny marksmanship upon the thern soldiery that manned
the ramparts, or attempted to defend the temples.

Now the two great fleets closed in a titanic struggle far above
the fiendish din of battle in the gorgeous gardens of the therns.
Slowly the two lines of Helium's battleships joined their ends, and
then commenced the circling within the line of the enemy which is
so marked a characteristic of Barsoomian naval warfare.

Around and around in each other's tracks moved the ships under
Kantos Kan, until at length they formed nearly a perfect circle.
By this time they were moving at high speed so that they presented
a difficult target for the enemy.  Broadside after broadside they
delivered as each vessel came in line with the ships of the therns.
The latter attempted to rush in and break up the formation, but it
was like stopping a buzz saw with the bare hand.

From my position on the deck beside Kantos Kan I saw ship after
ship of the enemy take the awful, sickening dive which proclaims
its total destruction.  Slowly we manoeuvered our circle of death
until we hung above the gardens where our green warriors were
engaged.  The order was passed down for them to embark.  Then they
rose slowly to a position within the centre of the circle.

In the meantime the therns' fire had practically ceased.  They had
had enough of us and were only too glad to let us go on our way in
peace.  But our escape was not to be encompassed with such ease,
for scarcely had we gotten under way once more in the direction of
the entrance to Omean than we saw far to the north a great black
line topping the horizon.  It could be nothing other than a fleet
of war.

Whose or whither bound, we could not even conjecture.  When they
had come close enough to make us out at all, Kantos Kan's operator
received a radio-aerogram, which he immediately handed to my
companion.  He read the thing and handed it to me.

"Kantos Kan:" it read.  "Surrender, in the name of the Jeddak of
Helium, for you cannot escape," and it was signed, "Zat Arras."

The therns must have caught and translated the message almost as
soon as did we, for they immediately renewed hostilities when they
realized that we were soon to be set upon by other enemies.

Before Zat Arras had approached near enough to fire a shot we were
again hotly engaged with the thern fleet, and as soon as he drew
near he too commenced to pour a terrific fusillade of heavy shot
into us.  Ship after ship reeled and staggered into uselessness
beneath the pitiless fire that we were undergoing.

The thing could not last much longer.  I ordered the transports to
descend again into the gardens of the therns.

"Wreak your vengeance to the utmost," was my message to the green
allies, "for by night there will be none left to avenge your wrongs."

Presently I saw the ten battleships that had been ordered to hold
the shaft of Omean.  They were returning at full speed, firing
their stern batteries almost continuously.  There could be but one
explanation.  They were being pursued by another hostile fleet.
Well, the situation could be no worse.  The expedition already was
doomed.  No man that had embarked upon it would return across that
dreary ice cap.  How I wished that I might face Zat Arras with my
longsword for just an instant before I died!  It was he who had
caused our failure.

As I watched the oncoming ten I saw their pursuers race swiftly
into sight.  It was another great fleet; for a moment I could not
believe my eyes, but finally I was forced to admit that the most
fatal calamity had overtaken the expedition, for the fleet I saw
was none other than the fleet of the First Born, that should have
been safely bottled up in Omean.  What a series of misfortunes and
disasters!  What awful fate hovered over me, that I should have been
so terribly thwarted at every angle of my search for my lost love!
Could it be possible that the curse of Issus was upon me!  That
there was, indeed, some malign divinity in that hideous carcass!
I would not believe it, and, throwing back my shoulders, I ran to
the deck below to join my men in repelling boarders from one of
the thern craft that had grappled us broadside.  In the wild lust
of hand-to-hand combat my old dauntless hopefulness returned.  And
as thern after thern went down beneath my blade, I could almost feel
that we should win success in the end, even from apparent failure.

My presence among the men so greatly inspirited them that they fell
upon the luckless whites with such terrible ferocity that within a
few moments we had turned the tables upon them and a second later
as we swarmed their own decks I had the satisfaction of seeing
their commander take the long leap from the bows of his vessel in
token of surrender and defeat.

Then I joined Kantos Kan.  He had been watching what had taken place
on the deck below, and it seemed to have given him a new thought.
Immediately he passed an order to one of his officers, and presently
the colours of the Prince of Helium broke from every point of the
flagship.  A great cheer arose from the men of our own ship, a cheer
that was taken up by every other vessel of our expedition as they
in turn broke my colours from their upper works.

Then Kantos Kan sprang his coup.  A signal legible to every sailor
of all the fleets engaged in that fierce struggle was strung aloft
upon the flagship.

"Men of Helium for the Prince of Helium against all his enemies,"
it read.  Presently my colours broke from one of Zat Arras' ships.
Then from another and another.  On some we could see fierce battles
waging between the Zodangan soldiery and the Heliumetic crews, but
eventually the colours of the Prince of Helium floated above every
ship that had followed Zat Arras upon our trail--only his flagship
flew them not.

Zat Arras had brought five thousand ships.  The sky was black with
the three enormous fleets.  It was Helium against the field now, and
the fight had settled to countless individual duels.  There could
be little or no manoeuvering of fleets in that crowded, fire-split
sky.

Zat Arras' flagship was close to my own.  I could see the thin
features of the man from where I stood.  His Zodangan crew was
pouring broadside after broadside into us and we were returning
their fire with equal ferocity.  Closer and closer came the two
vessels until but a few yards intervened.  Grapplers and boarders
lined the contiguous rails of each.  We were preparing for the
death struggle with our hated enemy.

There was but a yard between the two mighty ships as the first
grappling irons were hurled.  I rushed to the deck to be with my men
as they boarded.  Just as the vessels came together with a slight
shock, I forced my way through the lines and was the first to
spring to the deck of Zat Arras' ship.  After me poured a yelling,
cheering, cursing throng of Helium's best fighting-men.  Nothing
could withstand them in the fever of battle lust which enthralled
them.

Down went the Zodangans before that surging tide of war, and as
my men cleared the lower decks I sprang to the forward deck where
stood Zat Arras.

"You are my prisoner, Zat Arras," I cried.  "Yield and you shall
have quarter."

For a moment I could not tell whether he contemplated acceding to
my demand or facing me with drawn sword.  For an instant he stood
hesitating, and then throwing down his arms he turned and rushed
to the opposite side of the deck.  Before I could overtake him he
had sprung to the rail and hurled himself headforemost into the
awful depths below.

And thus came Zat Arras, Jed of Zodanga, to his end.

On and on went that strange battle.  The therns and blacks had not
combined against us.  Wherever thern ship met ship of the First
Born was a battle royal, and in this I thought I saw our salvation.
Wherever messages could be passed between us that could not be
intercepted by our enemies I passed the word that all our vessels
were to withdraw from the fight as rapidly as possible, taking a
position to the west and south of the combatants.  I also sent an
air scout to the fighting green men in the gardens below to re-embark,
and to the transports to join us.

My commanders were further instructed than when engaged with an enemy
to draw him as rapidly as possible toward a ship of his hereditary
foeman, and by careful manoeuvring to force the two to engage,
thus leaving him-self free to withdraw.  This stratagem worked to
perfection, and just before the sun went down I had the satisfaction
of seeing all that was left of my once mighty fleet gathered nearly
twenty miles southwest of the still terrific battle between the
blacks and whites.

I now transferred Xodar to another battleship and sent him with all
the transports and five thousand battleships directly overhead to
the Temple of Issus.  Carthoris and I, with Kantos Kan, took the
remaining ships and headed for the entrance to Omean.

Our plan now was to attempt to make a combined assault upon Issus
at dawn of the following day.  Tars Tarkas with his green warriors
and Hor Vastus with the red men, guided by Xodar, were to land within
the garden of Issus or the surrounding plains; while Carthoris,
Kantos Kan, and I were to lead our smaller force from the sea of
Omean through the pits beneath the temple, which Carthoris knew so
well.

I now learned for the first time the cause of my ten ships' retreat
from the mouth of the shaft.  It seemed that when they had come
upon the shaft the navy of the First Born were already issuing from
its mouth.  Fully twenty vessels had emerged, and though they gave
battle immediately in an effort to stem the tide that rolled from
the black pit, the odds against them were too great and they were
forced to flee.

With great caution we approached the shaft, under cover of darkness.
At a distance of several miles I caused the fleet to be halted,
and from there Carthoris went ahead alone upon a one-man flier to
reconnoitre.  In perhaps half an hour he returned to report that
there was no sign of a patrol boat or of the enemy in any form, and
so we moved swiftly and noiselessly forward once more toward Omean.

At the mouth of the shaft we stopped again for a moment for all
the vessels to reach their previously appointed stations, then with
the flagship I dropped quickly into the black depths, while one by
one the other vessels followed me in quick succession.

We had decided to stake all on the chance that we would be able to
reach the temple by the subterranean way and so we left no guard
of vessels at the shaft's mouth.  Nor would it have profited us any
to have done so, for we did not have sufficient force all told to
have withstood the vast navy of the First Born had they returned
to engage us.

For the safety of our entrance upon Omean we depended largely upon
the very boldness of it, believing that it would be some little time
before the First Born on guard there would realize that it was an
enemy and not their own returning fleet that was entering the vault
of the buried sea.

And such proved to be the case.  In fact, four hundred of my fleet
of five hundred rested safely upon the bosom of Omean before the
first shot was fired.  The battle was short and hot, but there could
have been but one outcome, for the First Born in the carelessness
of fancied security had left but a handful of ancient and obsolete
hulks to guard their mighty harbour.

It was at Carthoris' suggestion that we landed our prisoners under
guard upon a couple of the larger islands, and then towed the ships
of the First Born to the shaft, where we managed to wedge a number
of them securely in the interior of the great well.  Then we turned

on the buoyance rays in the balance of them and let them rise by
themselves to further block the passage to Omean as they came into
contact with the vessels already lodged there.

We now felt that it would be some time at least before the returning
First Born could reach the surface of Omean, and that we would have
ample opportunity to make for the subterranean passages which lead
to Issus.  One of the first steps I took was to hasten personally
with a good-sized force to the island of the submarine, which I
took without resistance on the part of the small guard there.

I found the submarine in its pool, and at once placed a strong
guard upon it and the island, where I remained to wait the coming
of Carthoris and the others.

Among the prisoners was Yersted, commander of the submarine.  He
recognized me from the three trips that I had taken with him during
my captivity among the First Born.

"How does it seem," I asked him, "to have the tables turned?  To
be prisoner of your erstwhile captive?"

He smiled, a very grim smile pregnant with hidden meaning.

"It will not be for long, John Carter," he replied.  "We have been
expecting you and we are prepared."

"So it would appear," I answered, "for you were all ready to become
my prisoners with scarce a blow struck on either side."

"The fleet must have missed you," he said, "but it will return
to Omean, and then that will be a very different matter--for John
Carter."

"I do not know that the fleet has missed me as yet," I said, but
of course he did not grasp my meaning, and only looked puzzled.

"Many prisoners travel to Issus in your grim craft, Yersted?" I
asked.

"Very many," he assented.

"Might you remember one whom men called Dejah Thoris?"

"Well, indeed, for her great beauty, and then, too, for the fact
that she was wife to the first mortal that ever escaped from Issus
through all the countless ages of her godhood.  And the way that
Issus remembers her best as the wife of one and the mother of
another who raised their hands against the Goddess of Life Eternal."

I shuddered for fear of the cowardly revenge that I knew Issus
might have taken upon the innocent Dejah Thoris for the sacrilege
of her son and her husband.

"And where is Dejah Thoris now?" I asked, knowing that he would
say the words I most dreaded, but yet I loved her so that I could
not refrain from hearing even the worst about her fate so that it
fell from the lips of one who had seen her but recently.  It was
to me as though it brought her closer to me.

"Yesterday the monthly rites of Issus were held," replied Yersted,
"and I saw her then sitting in her accustomed place at the foot of
Issus."

"What," I cried, "she is not dead, then?"

"Why, no," replied the black, "it has been no year since she gazed
upon the divine glory of the radiant face of--"

"No year?" I interrupted.

"Why, no," insisted Yersted.  "It cannot have been upward of three
hundred and seventy or eighty days."

A great light burst upon me.  How stupid I had been!  I could
scarcely retain an outward exhibition of my great joy.  Why had I
forgotten the great difference in the length of Martian and Earthly
years!  The ten Earth years I had spent upon Barsoom had encompassed
but five years and ninety-six days of Martian time, whose days
are forty-one minutes longer than ours, and whose years number six
hundred and eighty-seven days.

I am in time!  I am in time!  The words surged through my brain
again and again, until at last I must have voiced them audibly,
for Yersted shook his head.

"In time to save your Princess?" he asked, and then without waiting
for my reply, "No, John Carter, Issus will not give up her own.
She knows that you are coming, and ere ever a vandal foot is set
within the precincts of the Temple of Issus, if such a calamity
should befall, Dejah Thoris will be put away for ever from the last
faint hope of rescue."

"You mean that she will be killed merely to thwart me?" I asked.

"Not that, other than as a last resort," he replied.  "Hast ever
heard of the Temple of the Sun?  It is there that they will put
her.  It lies far within the inner court of the Temple of Issus,
a little temple that raises a thin spire far above the spires and
minarets of the great temple that surrounds it.  Beneath it, in
the ground, there lies the main body of the temple consisting in
six hundred and eighty-seven circular chambers, one below another.
To each chamber a single corridor leads through solid rock from
the pits of Issus.

"As the entire Temple of the Sun revolves once with each revolution
of Barsoom about the sun, but once each year does the entrance to
each separate chamber come opposite the mouth of the corridor which
forms its only link to the world without.

"Here Issus puts those who displease her, but whom she does not
care to execute forthwith.  Or to punish a noble of the First Born
she may cause him to be placed within a chamber of the Temple of
the Sun for a year.  Ofttimes she imprisons an executioner with
the condemned, that death may come in a certain horrible form upon
a given day, or again but enough food is deposited in the chamber
to sustain life but the number of days that Issus has allotted for
mental anguish.

"Thus will Dejah Thoris die, and her fate will be sealed by the
first alien foot that crosses the threshold of Issus."

So I was to be thwarted in the end, although I had performed the
miraculous and come within a few short moments of my divine Princess,
yet was I as far from her as when I stood upon the banks of the
Hudson forty-eight million miles away.





CHAPTER XXI

THROUGH FLOOD AND FLAME




Yersted's information convinced me that there was no time to be
lost.  I must reach the Temple of Issus secretly before the forces
under Tars Tarkas assaulted at dawn.  Once within its hated walls
I was positive that I could overcome the guards of Issus and bear
away my Princess, for at my back I would have a force ample for
the occasion.

No sooner had Carthoris and the others joined me than we commenced
the transportation of our men through the submerged passage to the
mouth of the gangways which lead from the submarine pool at the
temple end of the watery tunnel to the pits of Issus.

Many trips were required, but at last all stood safely together
again at the beginning of the end of our quest.  Five thousand
strong we were, all seasoned fighting-men of the most warlike race
of the red men of Barsoom.

As Carthoris alone knew the hidden ways of the tunnels we could not
divide the party and attack the temple at several points at once
as would have been most desirable, and so it was decided that he
lead us all as quickly as possible to a point near the temple's
centre.

As we were about to leave the pool and enter the corridor, an
officer called my attention to the waters upon which the submarine
floated.  At first they seemed to be merely agitated as from the
movement of some great body beneath the surface, and I at once
conjectured that another submarine was rising to the surface in
pursuit of us; but presently it became apparent that the level of
the waters was rising, not with extreme rapidity, but very surely,
and that soon they would overflow the sides of the pool and submerge
the floor of the chamber.

For a moment I did not fully grasp the terrible import of the slowly
rising water.  It was Carthoris who realized the full meaning of
the thing--its cause and the reason for it.

"Haste!" he cried.  "If we delay, we all are lost.  The pumps of
Omean have been stopped.  They would drown us like rats in a trap.
We must reach the upper levels of the pits in advance of the flood
or we shall never reach them.  Come."

"Lead the way, Carthoris," I cried.  "We will follow."

At my command, the youth leaped into one of the corridors, and in
column of twos the soldiers followed him in good order, each company
entering the corridor only at the command of its dwar, or captain.

Before the last company filed from the chamber the water was ankle
deep, and that the men were nervous was quite evident.  Entirely
unaccustomed to water except in quantities sufficient for drinking
and bathing purposes the red Martians instinctively shrank from it
in such formidable depths and menacing activity.  That they were
undaunted while it swirled and eddied about their ankles, spoke
well for their bravery and their discipline.

I was the last to leave the chamber of the submarine, and as I followed
the rear of the column toward the corridor, I moved through water
to my knees.  The corridor, too, was flooded to the same depth, for
its floor was on a level with the floor of the chamber from which
it led, nor was there any perceptible rise for many yards.

The march of the troops through the corridor was as rapid as was
consistent with the number of men that moved through so narrow a
passage, but it was not ample to permit us to gain appreciably on
the pursuing tide.  As the level of the passage rose, so, too, did
the waters rise until it soon became apparent to me, who brought
up the rear, that they were gaining rapidly upon us.  I could
understand the reason for this, as with the narrowing expanse of
Omean as the waters rose toward the apex of its dome, the rapidity
of its rise would increase in inverse ratio to the ever-lessening
space to be filled.

Long ere the last of the column could hope to reach the upper pits
which lay above the danger point I was convinced that the waters
would surge after us in overwhelming volume, and that fully half
the expedition would be snuffed out.

As I cast about for some means of saving as many as possible of the
doomed men, I saw a diverging corridor which seemed to rise at a
steep angle at my right.  The waters were now swirling about my waist.
The men directly before me were quickly becoming panic-stricken.
Something must be done at once or they would rush forward upon
their fellows in a mad stampede that would result in trampling
down hundreds beneath the flood and eventually clogging the passage
beyond any hope of retreat for those in advance.

Raising my voice to its utmost, I shouted my command to the dwars
ahead of me.

"Call back the last twenty-five utans," I shouted.  "Here seems a
way of escape.  Turn back and follow me."

My orders were obeyed by nearer thirty utans, so that some three
thousand men came about and hastened into the teeth of the flood
to reach the corridor up which I directed them.

As the first dwar passed in with his utan I cautioned him to listen
closely for my commands, and under no circumstances to venture into
the open, or leave the pits for the temple proper until I should
have come up with him, "or you know that I died before I could
reach you."

The officer saluted and left me.  The men filed rapidly past me and
entered the diverging corridor which I hoped would lead to safety.
The water rose breast high.  Men stumbled, floundered, and went
down.  Many I grasped and set upon their feet again, but alone
the work was greater than I could cope with.  Soldiers were being
swept beneath the boiling torrent, never to rise.  At length the
dwar of the 10th utan took a stand beside me.  He was a valorous
soldier, Gur Tus by name, and together we kept the now thoroughly
frightened troops in the semblance of order and rescued many that
would have drowned otherwise.

Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan, and a padwar of the fifth utan
joined us when his utan reached the opening through which the men
were fleeing.  Thereafter not a man was lost of all the hundreds
that remained to pass from the main corridor to the branch.

As the last utan was filing past us the waters had risen until they
surged about our necks, but we clasped hands and stood our ground
until the last man had passed to the comparative safety of the new
passageway.  Here we found an immediate and steep ascent, so that
within a hundred yards we had reached a point above the waters.

For a few minutes we continued rapidly up the steep grade, which I
hoped would soon bring us quickly to the upper pits that let into
the Temple of Issus.  But I was to meet with a cruel disappointment.

Suddenly I heard a cry of "fire" far ahead, followed almost at once
by cries of terror and the loud commands of dwars and padwars who
were evidently attempting to direct their men away from some grave
danger.  At last the report came back to us.  "They have fired the
pits ahead." "We are hemmed in by flames in front and flood behind."
"Help, John Carter; we are suffocating," and then there swept back
upon us at the rear a wave of dense smoke that sent us, stumbling
and blinded, into a choking retreat.

There was naught to do other than seek a new avenue of escape.  The
fire and smoke were to be feared a thousand times over the water,
and so I seized upon the first gallery which led out of and up from
the suffocating smoke that was engulfing us.

Again I stood to one side while the soldiers hastened through on the
new way.  Some two thousand must have passed at a rapid run, when
the stream ceased, but I was not sure that all had been rescued who
had not passed the point of origin of the flames, and so to assure
myself that no poor devil was left behind to die a horrible death,
unsuccoured, I ran quickly up the gallery in the direction of the
flames which I could now see burning with a dull glow far ahead.

It was hot and stifling work, but at last I reached a point where
the fire lit up the corridor sufficiently for me to see that no
soldier of Helium lay between me and the conflagration--what was
in it or upon the far side I could not know, nor could any man have
passed through that seething hell of chemicals and lived to learn.

Having satisfied my sense of duty, I turned and ran rapidly back
to the corridor through which my men had passed.  To my horror,
however, I found that my retreat in this direction had been
blocked--across the mouth of the corridor stood a massive steel
grating that had evidently been lowered from its resting-place
above for the purpose of effectually cutting off my escape.

That our principal movements were known to the First Born I could
not have doubted, in view of the attack of the fleet upon us the
day before, nor could the stopping of the pumps of Omean at the
psychological moment have been due to chance, nor the starting
of a chemical combustion within the one corridor through which
we were advancing upon the Temple of Issus been due to aught than
well-calculated design.

And now the dropping of the steel gate to pen me effectually between
fire and flood seemed to indicate that invisible eyes were upon us
at every moment.  What chance had I, then, to rescue Dejah Thoris
were I to be compelled to fight foes who never showed themselves.
A thousand times I berated myself for being drawn into such a trap
as I might have known these pits easily could be.  Now I saw that
it would have been much better to have kept our force intact and made
a concerted attack upon the temple from the valley side, trusting
to chance and our great fighting ability to have overwhelmed the
First Born and compelled the safe delivery of Dejah Thoris to me.

The smoke from the fire was forcing me further and further back down
the corridor toward the waters which I could hear surging through
the darkness.  With my men had gone the last torch, nor was this
corridor lighted by the radiance of phosphorescent rock as were
those of the lower levels.  It was this fact that assured me that
I was not far from the upper pits which lie directly beneath the
temple.

Finally I felt the lapping waters about my feet.  The smoke was
thick behind me.  My suffering was intense.  There seemed but one
thing to do, and that to choose the easier death which confronted
me, and so I moved on down the corridor until the cold waters of Omean
closed about me, and I swam on through utter blackness toward--what?

The instinct of self-preservation is strong even when one, unafraid
and in the possession of his highest reasoning faculties, knows
that death--positive and unalterable--lies just ahead.  And so I
swam slowly on, waiting for my head to touch the top of the corridor,
which would mean that I had reached the limit of my flight and the
point where I must sink for ever to an unmarked grave.

But to my surprise I ran against a blank wall before I reached a
point where the waters came to the roof of the corridor.  Could I
be mistaken?  I felt around.  No, I had come to the main corridor,
and still there was a breathing space between the surface of the
water and the rocky ceiling above.  And then I turned up the main
corridor in the direction that Carthoris and the head of the column
had passed a half-hour before.  On and on I swam, my heart growing
lighter at every stroke, for I knew that I was approaching closer
and closer to the point where there would be no chance that the
waters ahead could be deeper than they were about me.  I was positive
that I must soon feel the solid floor beneath my feet again and
that once more my chance would come to reach the Temple of Issus
and the side of the fair prisoner who languished there.

But even as hope was at its highest I felt the sudden shock of
contact as my head struck the rocks above.  The worst, then, had
come to me.  I had reached one of those rare places where a Martian
tunnel dips suddenly to a lower level.  Somewhere beyond I knew
that it rose again, but of what value was that to me, since I did
not know how great the distance that it maintained a level entirely
beneath the surface of the water!

There was but a single forlorn hope, and I took it.  Filling my
lungs with air, I dived beneath the surface and swam through the
inky, icy blackness on and on along the submerged gallery.  Time
and time again I rose with upstretched hand, only to feel the
disappointing rocks close above me.

Not for much longer would my lungs withstand the strain upon them.
I felt that I must soon succumb, nor was there any retreating now
that I had gone this far.  I knew positively that I could never
endure to retrace my path now to the point from which I had felt
the waters close above my head.  Death stared me in the face, nor
ever can I recall a time that I so distinctly felt the icy breath
from his dead lips upon my brow.

One more frantic effort I made with my fast ebbing strength.  Weakly
I rose for the last time--my tortured lungs gasped for the breath
that would fill them with a strange and numbing element, but instead
I felt the revivifying breath of life-giving air surge through my
starving nostrils into my dying lungs.  I was saved.

A few more strokes brought me to a point where my feet touched the
floor, and soon thereafter I was above the water level entirely,
and racing like mad along the corridor searching for the first
doorway that would lead me to Issus.  If I could not have Dejah
Thoris again I was at least determined to avenge her death, nor
would any life satisfy me other than that of the fiend incarnate
who was the cause of such immeasurable suffering upon Barsoom.

Sooner than I had expected I came to what appeared to me to be
a sudden exit into the temple above.  It was at the right side of
the corridor, which ran on, probably, to other entrances to the
pile above.

To me one point was as good as another.  What knew I where any
of them led!  And so without waiting to be again discovered and
thwarted, I ran quickly up the short, steep incline and pushed open
the doorway at its end.

The portal swung slowly in, and before it could be slammed against
me I sprang into the chamber beyond.  Although not yet dawn, the
room was brilliantly lighted.  Its sole occupant lay prone upon
a low couch at the further side, apparently in sleep.  From the
hangings and sumptuous furniture of the room I judged it to be a
living-room of some priestess, possibly of Issus herself.

At the thought the blood tingled through my veins.  What, indeed,
if fortune had been kind enough to place the hideous creature alone
and unguarded in my hands.  With her as hostage I could force
acquiescence to my every demand.  Cautiously I approached the
recumbent figure, on noiseless feet.  Closer and closer I came to
it, but I had crossed but little more than half the chamber when
the figure stirred, and, as I sprang, rose and faced me.

At first an expression of terror overspread the features of the
woman who confronted me--then startled incredulity--hope--thanksgiving.

My heart pounded within my breast as I advanced toward her--tears
came to my eyes--and the words that would have poured forth in a
perfect torrent choked in my throat as I opened my arms and took
into them once more the woman I loved--Dejah Thoris, Princess of
Helium.





CHAPTER XXII

VICTORY AND DEFEAT




"John Carter, John Carter," she sobbed, with her dear head upon
my shoulder; "even now I can scarce believe the witness of my own
eyes.  When the girl, Thuvia, told me that you had returned to
Barsoom, I listened, but I could not understand, for it seemed that
such happiness would be impossible for one who had suffered so in
silent loneliness for all these long years.  At last, when I realized
that it was truth, and then came to know the awful place in which
I was held prisoner, I learned to doubt that even you could reach
me here.

"As the days passed, and moon after moon went by without bringing
even the faintest rumour of you, I resigned myself to my fate.
And now that you have come, scarce can I believe it.  For an hour
I have heard the sounds of conflict within the palace.  I knew not
what they meant, but I have hoped against hope that it might be
the men of Helium headed by my Prince.

"And tell me, what of Carthoris, our son?"

"He was with me less than an hour since, Dejah Thoris," I replied.
"It must have been he whose men you have heard battling within the
precincts of the temple.

"Where is Issus?" I asked suddenly.

Dejah Thoris shrugged her shoulders.

"She sent me under guard to this room just before the fighting
began within the temple halls.  She said that she would send for
me later.  She seemed very angry and somewhat fearful.  Never have
I seen her act in so uncertain and almost terrified a manner.  Now
I know that it must have been because she had learned that John
Carter, Prince of Helium, was approaching to demand an accounting
of her for the imprisonment of his Princess."

The sounds of conflict, the clash of arms, the shouting and the
hurrying of many feet came to us from various parts of the temple.
I knew that I was needed there, but I dared not leave Dejah Thoris,
nor dared I take her with me into the turmoil and danger of battle.

At last I bethought me of the pits from which I had just emerged.
Why not secrete her there until I could return and fetch her away
in safety and for ever from this awful place.  I explained my plan
to her.

For a moment she clung more closely to me.

"I cannot bear to be parted from you now, even for a moment, John
Carter," she said.  "I shudder at the thought of being alone again
where that terrible creature might discover me.  You do not know
her.  None can imagine her ferocious cruelty who has not witnessed
her daily acts for over half a year.  It has taken me nearly all
this time to realize even the things that I have seen with my own
eyes."

"I shall not leave you, then, my Princess," I replied.

She was silent for a moment, then she drew my face to hers and
kissed me.

"Go, John Carter," she said.  "Our son is there, and the soldiers
of Helium, fighting for the Princess of Helium.  Where they are you
should be.  I must not think of myself now, but of them and of my
husband's duty.  I may not stand in the way of that.  Hide me in
the pits, and go."

I led her to the door through which I had entered the chamber from
below.  There I pressed her dear form to me, and then, though it
tore my heart to do it, and filled me only with the blackest shadows
of terrible foreboding, I guided her across the threshold, kissed
her once again, and closed the door upon her.

Without hesitating longer, I hurried from the chamber in the
direction of the greatest tumult.  Scarce half a dozen chambers had
I traversed before I came upon the theatre of a fierce struggle.
The blacks were massed at the entrance to a great chamber where
they were attempting to block the further progress of a body of
red men toward the inner sacred precincts of the temple.

Coming from within as I did, I found myself behind the blacks, and,
without waiting to even calculate their numbers or the foolhardiness
of my venture, I charged swiftly across the chamber and fell upon
them from the rear with my keen long-sword.

As I struck the first blow I cried aloud, "For Helium!" And then
I rained cut after cut upon the surprised warriors, while the reds
without took heart at the sound of my voice, and with shouts of
"John Carter!  John Carter!" redoubled their efforts so effectually
that before the blacks could recover from their temporary demoralization
their ranks were broken and the red men had burst into the chamber.

The fight within that room, had it had but a competent chronicler,
would go down in the annals of Barsoom as a historic memorial to
the grim ferocity of her warlike people.  Five hundred men fought
there that day, the black men against the red.  No man asked quarter
or gave it.  As though by common assent they fought, as though to
determine once and for all their right to live, in accordance with
the law of the survival of the fittest.

I think we all knew that upon the outcome of this battle would hinge
for ever the relative positions of these two races upon Barsoom.
It was a battle between the old and the new, but not for once did
I question the outcome of it.  With Carthoris at my side I fought
for the red men of Barsoom and for their total emancipation from
the throttling bondage of a hideous superstition.

Back and forth across the room we surged, until the floor was ankle
deep in blood, and dead men lay so thickly there that half the
time we stood upon their bodies as we fought.  As we swung toward
the great windows which overlooked the gardens of Issus a sight
met my gaze which sent a wave of exultation over me.

"Look!" I cried.  "Men of the First Born, look!"

For an instant the fighting ceased, and with one accord every eye
turned in the direction I had indicated, and the sight they saw
was one no man of the First Born had ever imagined could be.

Across the gardens, from side to side, stood a wavering line of
black warriors, while beyond them and forcing them ever back was a
great horde of green warriors astride their mighty thoats.  And as
we watched, one, fiercer and more grimly terrible than his fellows,
rode forward from the rear, and as he came he shouted some fierce
command to his terrible legion.

It was Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and as he couched his great
forty-foot metal-shod lance we saw his warriors do likewise.  Then
it was that we interpreted his command.  Twenty yards now separated the
green men from the black line.  Another word from the great Thark,
and with a wild and terrifying battle-cry the green warriors charged.
For a moment the black line held, but only for a moment--then the
fearsome beasts that bore equally terrible riders passed completely
through it.

After them came utan upon utan of red men.  The green horde broke
to surround the temple.  The red men charged for the interior, and
then we turned to continue our interrupted battle; but our foes
had vanished.

My first thought was of Dejah Thoris.  Calling to Carthoris that I
had found his mother, I started on a run toward the chamber where
I had left her, with my boy close beside me.  After us came those
of our little force who had survived the bloody conflict.

The moment I entered the room I saw that some one had been there
since I had left.  A silk lay upon the floor.  It had not been
there before.  There were also a dagger and several metal ornaments
strewn about as though torn from their wearer in a struggle.  But
worst of all, the door leading to the pits where I had hidden my
Princess was ajar.

With a bound I was before it, and, thrusting it open, rushed
within.  Dejah Thoris had vanished.  I called her name aloud again
and again, but there was no response.  I think in that instant I
hovered upon the verge of insanity.  I do not recall what I said
or did, but I know that for an instant I was seized with the rage
of a maniac.

"Issus!" I cried.  "Issus!  Where is Issus?  Search the temple for
her, but let no man harm her but John Carter.  Carthoris, where
are the apartments of Issus?"

"This way," cried the boy, and, without waiting to know that I
had heard him, he dashed off at breakneck speed, further into the
bowels of the temple.  As fast as he went, however, I was still
beside him, urging him on to greater speed.

At last we came to a great carved door, and through this Carthoris
dashed, a foot ahead of me.  Within, we came upon such a scene as
I had witnessed within the temple once before--the throne of Issus,
with the reclining slaves, and about it the ranks of soldiery.

We did not even give the men a chance to draw, so quickly were we
upon them.  With a single cut I struck down two in the front rank.
And then by the mere weight and momentum of my body, I rushed
completely through the two remaining ranks and sprang upon the dais
beside the carved sorapus throne.

The repulsive creature, squatting there in terror, attempted to
escape me and leap into a trap behind her.  But this time I was
not to be outwitted by any such petty subterfuge.  Before she had
half arisen I had grasped her by the arm, and then, as I saw the
guard starting to make a concerted rush upon me from all sides, I
whipped out my dagger and, holding it close to that vile breast,
ordered them to halt.

"Back!" I cried to them.  "Back!  The first black foot that is
planted upon this platform sends my dagger into Issus' heart."

For an instant they hesitated.  Then an officer ordered them back,
while from the outer corridor there swept into the throne room at
the heels of my little party of survivors a full thousand red men
under Kantos Kan, Hor Vastus, and Xodar.

"Where is Dejah Thoris?" I cried to the thing within my hands.

For a moment her eyes roved wildly about the scene beneath her.
I think that it took a moment for the true condition to make any
impression upon her--she could not at first realize that the temple
had fallen before the assault of men of the outer world.  When she
did, there must have come, too, a terrible realization of what it
meant to her--the loss of power--humiliation--the exposure of the
fraud and imposture which she had for so long played upon her own
people.

There was just one thing needed to complete the reality of the
picture she was seeing, and that was added by the highest noble of
her realm--the high priest of her religion--the prime minister of
her government.

"Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal," he cried, "arise
in the might of thy righteous wrath and with one single wave of thy
omnipotent hand strike dead thy blasphemers!  Let not one escape.
Issus, thy people depend upon thee.  Daughter of the Lesser Moon,
thou only art all-powerful.  Thou only canst save thy people.  I
am done.  We await thy will.  Strike!"

And then it was that she went mad.  A screaming, gibbering maniac
writhed in my grasp.  It bit and clawed and scratched in impotent
fury.  And then it laughed a weird and terrible laughter that froze
the blood.  The slave girls upon the dais shrieked and cowered
away.  And the thing jumped at them and gnashed its teeth and then
spat upon them from frothing lips.  God, but it was a horrid sight.

Finally, I shook the thing, hoping to recall it for a moment to
rationality.

"Where is Dejah Thoris?" I cried again.

The awful creature in my grasp mumbled inarticulately for a moment,
then a sudden gleam of cunning shot into those hideous, close-set
eyes.

"Dejah Thoris?  Dejah Thoris?" and then that shrill, unearthly
laugh pierced our ears once more.

"Yes, Dejah Thoris--I know.  And Thuvia, and Phaidor, daughter of
Matai Shang.  They each love John Carter.  Ha-ah!  but it is droll.
Together for a year they will meditate within the Temple of the
Sun, but ere the year is quite gone there will be no more food for
them.  Ho-oh! what divine entertainment," and she licked the froth
from her cruel lips.  "There will be no more food--except each
other.  Ha-ah!  Ha-ah!"

The horror of the suggestion nearly paralysed me.  To this awful
fate the creature within my power had condemned my Princess.  I
trembled in the ferocity of my rage.  As a terrier shakes a rat I
shook Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal.

"Countermand your orders!" I cried.  "Recall the condemned.
Haste, or you die!"

"It is too late.  Ha-ah!  Ha-ah!" and then she commenced her
gibbering and shrieking again.

Almost of its own volition, my dagger flew up above that putrid
heart.  But something stayed my hand, and I am now glad that it
did.  It were a terrible thing to have struck down a woman with
one's own hand.  But a fitter fate occurred to me for this false
deity.

"First Born," I cried, turning to those who stood within the
chamber, "you have seen to-day the impotency of Issus--the gods are
impotent.  Issus is no god.  She is a cruel and wicked old woman,
who has deceived and played upon you for ages.  Take her.  John
Carter, Prince of Helium, would not contaminate his hand with
her blood," and with that I pushed the raving beast, whom a short
half-hour before a whole world had worshipped as divine, from the
platform of her throne into the waiting clutches of her betrayed
and vengeful people.

Spying Xodar among the officers of the red men, I called him to
lead me quickly to the Temple of the Sun, and, without waiting to
learn what fate the First Born would wreak upon their goddess, I
rushed from the chamber with Xodar, Carthoris, Hor Vastus, Kantos
Kan, and a score of other red nobles.

The black led us rapidly through the inner chambers of the temple,
until we stood within the central court--a great circular space
paved with a transparent marble of exquisite whiteness.  Before
us rose a golden temple wrought in the most wondrous and fanciful
designs, inlaid with diamond, ruby, sapphire, turquoise, emerald,
and the thousand nameless gems of Mars, which far transcend in
loveliness and purity of ray the most priceless stones of Earth.

"This way," cried Xodar, leading us toward the entrance to a tunnel
which opened in the courtyard beside the temple.  Just as we were
on the point of descending we heard a deep-toned roar burst from
the Temple of Issus, which we had but just quitted, and then a red
man, Djor Kantos, padwar of the fifth utan, broke from a nearby
gate, crying to us to return.

"The blacks have fired the temple," he cried.  "In a thousand places
it is burning now.  Haste to the outer gardens, or you are lost."

As he spoke we saw smoke pouring from a dozen windows looking out
upon the courtyard of the Temple of the Sun, and far above the
highest minaret of Issus hung an ever-growing pall of smoke.

"Go back!  Go back!" I cried to those who had accompanied me.  "The
way!  Xodar; point the way and leave me.  I shall reach my Princess
yet."

"Follow me, John Carter," replied Xodar, and without waiting for
my reply he dashed down into the tunnel at our feet.  At his heels
I ran down through a half-dozen tiers of galleries, until at last
he led me along a level floor at the end of which I discerned a
lighted chamber.

Massive bars blocked our further progress, but beyond I saw her--my
incomparable Princess, and with her were Thuvia and Phaidor.  When
she saw me she rushed toward the bars that separated us.  Already
the chamber had turned upon its slow way so far that but a portion
of the opening in the temple wall was opposite the barred end of
the corridor.  Slowly the interval was closing.  In a short time
there would be but a tiny crack, and then even that would be closed,
and for a long Barsoomian year the chamber would slowly revolve
until once more for a brief day the aperture in its wall would pass
the corridor's end.

But in the meantime what horrible things would go on within that
chamber!

"Xodar!" I cried.  "Can no power stop this awful revolving thing?
Is there none who holds the secret of these terrible bars?"

"None, I fear, whom we could fetch in time, though I shall go and
make the attempt.  Wait for me here."

After he had left I stood and talked with Dejah Thoris, and she
stretched her dear hand through those cruel bars that I might hold
it until the last moment.

Thuvia and Phaidor came close also, but when Thuvia saw that we
would be alone she withdrew to the further side of the chamber.
Not so the daughter of Matai Shang.

"John Carter," she said, "this be the last time that you shall see
any of us.  Tell me that you love me, that I may die happy."

"I love only the Princess of Helium," I replied quietly.  "I am
sorry, Phaidor, but it is as I have told you from the beginning."

She bit her lip and turned away, but not before I saw the black
and ugly scowl she turned upon Dejah Thoris.  Thereafter she stood
a little way apart, but not so far as I should have desired, for
I had many little confidences to impart to my long-lost love.

For a few minutes we stood thus talking in low tones.  Ever smaller
and smaller grew the opening.  In a short time now it would be too
small even to permit the slender form of my Princess to pass.  Oh,
why did not Xodar haste.  Above we could hear the faint echoes of
a great tumult.  It was the multitude of black and red and green
men fighting their way through the fire from the burning Temple of
Issus.

A draught from above brought the fumes of smoke to our nostrils.
As we stood waiting for Xodar the smoke became thicker and thicker.
Presently we heard shouting at the far end of the corridor, and
hurrying feet.

"Come back, John Carter, come back!" cried a voice, "even the pits
are burning."

In a moment a dozen men broke through the now blinding smoke to
my side.  There was Carthoris, and Kantos Kan, and Hor Vastus, and
Xodar, with a few more who had followed me to the temple court.

"There is no hope, John Carter," cried Xodar.  "The keeper of the
keys is dead and his keys are not upon his carcass.  Our only hope
is to quench this conflagration and trust to fate that a year will
find your Princess alive and well.  I have brought sufficient food
to last them.  When this crack closes no smoke can reach them, and
if we hasten to extinguish the flames I believe they will be safe."

"Go, then, yourself and take these others with you," I replied.
"I shall remain here beside my Princess until a merciful death
releases me from my anguish.  I care not to live."

As I spoke Xodar had been tossing a great number of tiny cans
within the prison cell.  The remaining crack was not over an inch
in width a moment later.  Dejah Thoris stood as close to it as she
could, whispering words of hope and courage to me, and urging me
to save myself.

Suddenly beyond her I saw the beautiful face of Phaidor contorted
into an expression of malign hatred.  As my eyes met hers she spoke.

"Think not, John Carter, that you may so lightly cast aside the
love of Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang.  Nor ever hope to hold
thy Dejah Thoris in thy arms again.  Wait you the long, long year;
but know that when the waiting is over it shall be Phaidor's arms
which shall welcome you--not those of the Princess of Helium.
Behold, she dies!"

And as she finished speaking I saw her raise a dagger on high, and
then I saw another figure.  It was Thuvia's.  As the dagger fell
toward the unprotected breast of my love, Thuvia was almost between
them.  A blinding gust of smoke blotted out the tragedy within that
fearsome cell--a shriek rang out, a single shriek, as the dagger
fell.

The smoke cleared away, but we stood gazing upon a blank wall.  The
last crevice had closed, and for a long year that hideous chamber
would retain its secret from the eyes of men.

They urged me to leave.

"In a moment it will be too late," cried Xodar.  "There is, in fact,
but a bare chance that we can come through to the outer garden alive
even now.  I have ordered the pumps started, and in five minutes
the pits will be flooded.  If we would not drown like rats in a
trap we must hasten above and make a dash for safety through the
burning temple."

"Go," I urged them.  "Let me die here beside my Princess--there is
no hope or happiness elsewhere for me.  When they carry her dear
body from that terrible place a year hence let them find the body
of her lord awaiting her."

Of what happened after that I have only a confused recollection.
It seems as though I struggled with many men, and then that I was
picked bodily from the ground and borne away.  I do not know.  I
have never asked, nor has any other who was there that day intruded
on my sorrow or recalled to my mind the occurrences which they know
could but at best reopen the terrible wound within my heart.

Ah!  If I could but know one thing, what a burden of suspense would
be lifted from my shoulders!  But whether the assassin's dagger
reached one fair bosom or another, only time will divulge.






John Carter, WARLORD OF MARS

as told By EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS





CONTENTS




On the River Iss
Under the Mountains
The Temple of the Sun
The Secret Tower
On the Kaolian Road
A Hero in Kaol
New Allies
Through the Carrion Caves
With the Yellow Men
In Durance
The Pity of Plenty
"Follow the Rope!"
The Magnet Switch
The Tide of Battle
Rewards
The New Ruler





ON THE RIVER ISS




In the shadows of the forest that flanks the crimson plain by the
side of the Lost Sea of Korus in the Valley Dor, beneath the hurtling
moons of Mars, speeding their meteoric way close above the bosom of
the dying planet, I crept stealthily along the trail of a shadowy
form that hugged the darker places with a persistency that proclaimed
the sinister nature of its errand.

For six long Martian months I had haunted the vicinity of the
hateful Temple of the Sun, within whose slow-revolving shaft, far
beneath the surface of Mars, my princess lay entombed--but whether
alive or dead I knew not.  Had Phaidor's slim blade found that
beloved heart?  Time only would reveal the truth.

Six hundred and eighty-seven Martian days must come and go before
the cell's door would again come opposite the tunnel's end where
last I had seen my ever-beautiful Dejah Thoris.

Half of them had passed, or would on the morrow, yet vivid in my
memory, obliterating every event that had come before or after,
there remained the last scene before the gust of smoke blinded my
eyes and the narrow slit that had given me sight of the interior
of her cell closed between me and the Princess of Helium for a long
Martian year.

As if it were yesterday, I still saw the beautiful face of Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, distorted with jealous rage and hatred as
she sprang forward with raised dagger upon the woman I loved.

I saw the red girl, Thuvia of Ptarth, leap forward to prevent the
hideous deed.

The smoke from the burning temple had come then to blot out the
tragedy, but in my ears rang the single shriek as the knife fell.
Then silence, and when the smoke had cleared, the revolving temple
had shut off all sight or sound from the chamber in which the three
beautiful women were imprisoned.

Much there had been to occupy my attention since that terrible moment;
but never for an instant had the memory of the thing faded, and
all the time that I could spare from the numerous duties that had
devolved upon me in the reconstruction of the government of the
First Born since our victorious fleet and land forces had overwhelmed
them, had been spent close to the grim shaft that held the mother
of my boy, Carthoris of Helium.

The race of blacks that for ages had worshiped Issus, the false
deity of Mars, had been left in a state of chaos by my revealment
of her as naught more than a wicked old woman.  In their rage they
had torn her to pieces.

From the high pinnacle of their egotism the First Born had been
plunged to the depths of humiliation.  Their deity was gone, and
with her the whole false fabric of their religion.  Their vaunted
navy had fallen in defeat before the superior ships and fighting
men of the red men of Helium.

Fierce green warriors from the ocher sea bottoms of outer Mars had
ridden their wild thoats across the sacred gardens of the Temple
of Issus, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, fiercest of them all,
had sat upon the throne of Issus and ruled the First Born while
the allies were deciding the conquered nation's fate.

Almost unanimous was the request that I ascend the ancient throne
of the black men, even the First Born themselves concurring in it;
but I would have none of it.  My heart could never be with the race
that had heaped indignities upon my princess and my son.

At my suggestion Xodar became Jeddak of the First Born.  He had
been a dator, or prince, until Issus had degraded him, so that his
fitness for the high office bestowed was unquestioned.

The peace of the Valley Dor thus assured, the green warriors dispersed
to their desolate sea bottoms, while we of Helium returned to our
own country.  Here again was a throne offered me, since no word
had been received from the missing Jeddak of Helium, Tardos Mors,
grandfather of Dejah Thoris, or his son, Mors Kajak, Jed of Helium,
her father.

Over a year had elapsed since they had set out to explore the northern
hemisphere in search of Carthoris, and at last their disheartened
people had accepted as truth the vague rumors of their death that
had filtered in from the frozen region of the pole.

Once again I refused a throne, for I would not believe that the
mighty Tardos Mors, or his no less redoubtable son, was dead.

"Let one of their own blood rule you until they return," I said
to the assembled nobles of Helium, as I addressed them from the
Pedestal of Truth beside the Throne of Righteousness in the Temple
of Reward, from the very spot where I had stood a year before when
Zat Arras pronounced the sentence of death upon me.

As I spoke I stepped forward and laid my hand upon the shoulder of
Carthoris where he stood in the front rank of the circle of nobles
about me.

As one, the nobles and the people lifted their voices in a long
cheer of approbation.  Ten thousand swords sprang on high from as
many scabbards, and the glorious fighting men of ancient Helium
hailed Carthoris Jeddak of Helium.

His tenure of office was to be for life or until his great-grandfather,
or grandfather, should return.  Having thus satisfactorily arranged
this important duty for Helium, I started the following day for
the Valley Dor that I might remain close to the Temple of the Sun
until the fateful day that should see the opening of the prison
cell where my lost love lay buried.

Hor Vastus and Kantos Kan, with my other noble lieutenants, I left
with Carthoris at Helium, that he might have the benefit of their
wisdom, bravery, and loyalty in the performance of the arduous
duties which had devolved upon him.  Only Woola, my Martian hound,
accompanied me.

At my heels tonight the faithful beast moved softly in my tracks.
As large as a Shetland pony, with hideous head and frightful fangs,
he was indeed an awesome spectacle, as he crept after me on his
ten short, muscular legs; but to me he was the embodiment of love
and loyalty.

The figure ahead was that of the black dator of the First Born,
Thurid, whose undying enmity I had earned that time I laid him low
with my bare hands in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus, and
bound him with his own harness before the noble men and women who
had but a moment before been extolling his prowess.

Like many of his fellows, he had apparently accepted the new order
of things with good grace, and had sworn fealty to Xodar, his new
ruler; but I knew that he hated me, and I was sure that in his heart
he envied and hated Xodar, so I had kept a watch upon his comings
and goings, to the end that of late I had become convinced that he
was occupied with some manner of intrigue.

Several times I had observed him leaving the walled city of the
First Born after dark, taking his way out into the cruel and horrible
Valley Dor, where no honest business could lead any man.

Tonight he moved quickly along the edge of the forest until well
beyond sight or sound of the city, then he turned across the crimson
sward toward the shore of the Lost Sea of Korus.

The rays of the nearer moon, swinging low across the valley, touched
his jewel-incrusted harness with a thousand changing lights and
glanced from the glossy ebony of his smooth hide.  Twice he turned
his head back toward the forest, after the manner of one who is upon
an evil errand, though he must have felt quite safe from pursuit.

I did not dare follow him there beneath the moonlight, since it
best suited my plans not to interrupt his--I wished him to reach
his destination unsuspecting, that I might learn just where that
destination lay and the business that awaited the night prowler
there.

So it was that I remained hidden until after Thurid had disappeared
over the edge of the steep bank beside the sea a quarter of a mile
away.  Then, with Woola following, I hastened across the open after
the black dator.

The quiet of the tomb lay upon the mysterious valley of death,
crouching deep in its warm nest within the sunken area at the south
pole of the dying planet.  In the far distance the Golden Cliffs
raised their mighty barrier faces far into the starlit heavens,
the precious metals and scintillating jewels that composed them
sparkling in the brilliant light of Mars's two gorgeous moons.

At my back was the forest, pruned and trimmed like the sward to
parklike symmetry by the browsing of the ghoulish plant men.

Before me lay the Lost Sea of Korus, while farther on I caught the
shimmering ribbon of Iss, the River of Mystery, where it wound out
from beneath the Golden Cliffs to empty into Korus, to which for
countless ages had been borne the deluded and unhappy Martians of
the outer world upon the voluntary pilgrimage to this false heaven.

The plant men, with their blood-sucking hands, and the monstrous
white apes that make Dor hideous by day, were hidden in their lairs
for the night.

There was no longer a Holy Thern upon the balcony in the Golden
Cliffs above the Iss to summon them with weird cry to the victims
floating down to their maws upon the cold, broad bosom of ancient
Iss.

The navies of Helium and the First Born had cleared the fortresses
and the temples of the therns when they had refused to surrender and
accept the new order of things that had swept their false religion
from long-suffering Mars.

In a few isolated countries they still retained their age-old power;
but Matai Shang, their hekkador, Father of Therns, had been driven
from his temple.  Strenuous had been our endeavors to capture
him; but with a few of the faithful he had escaped, and was in
hiding--where we knew not.

As I came cautiously to the edge of the low cliff overlooking the
Lost Sea of Korus I saw Thurid pushing out upon the bosom of the
shimmering water in a small skiff--one of those strangely wrought craft
of unthinkable age which the Holy Therns, with their organization
of priests and lesser therns, were wont to distribute along the
banks of the Iss, that the long journey of their victims might be
facilitated.

Drawn up on the beach below me were a score of similar boats, each
with its long pole, at one end of which was a pike, at the other
a paddle.  Thurid was hugging the shore, and as he passed out of
sight round a near-by promontory I shoved one of the boats into
the water and, calling Woola into it, pushed out from shore.

The pursuit of Thurid carried me along the edge of the sea toward
the mouth of the Iss.  The farther moon lay close to the horizon,
casting a dense shadow beneath the cliffs that fringed the water.
Thuria, the nearer moon, had set, nor would it rise again for near
four hours, so that I was ensured concealing darkness for that
length of time at least.

On and on went the black warrior.  Now he was opposite the mouth
of the Iss.  Without an instant's hesitation he turned up the grim
river, paddling hard against the strong current.

After him came Woola and I, closer now, for the man was too intent
upon forcing his craft up the river to have any eyes for what might
be transpiring behind him.  He hugged the shore where the current
was less strong.

Presently he came to the dark cavernous portal in the face of the
Golden Cliffs, through which the river poured.  On into the Stygian
darkness beyond he urged his craft.

It seemed hopeless to attempt to follow him here where I could not
see my hand before my face, and I was almost on the point of giving
up the pursuit and drifting back to the mouth of the river, there
to await his return, when a sudden bend showed a faint luminosity
ahead.

My quarry was plainly visible again, and in the increasing light
from the phosphorescent rock that lay embedded in great patches
in the roughly arched roof of the cavern I had no difficulty in
following him.

It was my first trip upon the bosom of Iss, and the things I saw
there will live forever in my memory.

Terrible as they were, they could not have commenced to approximate
the horrible conditions which must have obtained before Tars Tarkas,
the great green warrior, Xodar, the black dator, and I brought
the light of truth to the outer world and stopped the mad rush of
millions upon the voluntary pilgrimage to what they believed would
end in a beautiful valley of peace and happiness and love.

Even now the low islands which dotted the broad stream were choked
with the skeletons and half devoured carcasses of those who, through
fear or a sudden awakening to the truth, had halted almost at the
completion of their journey.

In the awful stench of these frightful charnel isles haggard maniacs
screamed and gibbered and fought among the torn remnants of their
grisly feasts; while on those which contained but clean-picked
bones they battled with one another, the weaker furnishing sustenance
for the stronger; or with clawlike hands clutched at the bloated
bodies that drifted down with the current.

Thurid paid not the slightest attention to the screaming things
that either menaced or pleaded with him as the mood directed
them--evidently he was familiar with the horrid sights that
surrounded him.  He continued up the river for perhaps a mile; and
then, crossing over to the left bank, drew his craft up on a low
ledge that lay almost on a level with the water.

I dared not follow across the stream, for he most surely would have
seen me.  Instead I stopped close to the opposite wall beneath an
overhanging mass of rock that cast a dense shadow beneath it.  Here
I could watch Thurid without danger of discovery.

The black was standing upon the ledge beside his boat, looking up
the river, as though he were awaiting one whom he expected from
that direction.

As I lay there beneath the dark rocks I noticed that a strong
current seemed to flow directly toward the center of the river, so
that it was difficult to hold my craft in its position.  I edged
farther into the shadow that I might find a hold upon the bank;
but, though I proceeded several yards, I touched nothing; and
then, finding that I would soon reach a point from where I could
no longer see the black man, I was compelled to remain where I was,
holding my position as best I could by paddling strongly against
the current which flowed from beneath the rocky mass behind me.

I could not imagine what might cause this strong lateral flow, for
the main channel of the river was plainly visible to me from where
I sat, and I could see the rippling junction of it and the mysterious
current which had aroused my curiosity.

While I was still speculating upon the phenomenon, my attention
was suddenly riveted upon Thurid, who had raised both palms forward
above his head in the universal salute of Martians, and a moment
later his "Kaor!" the Barsoomian word of greeting, came in low but
distinct tones.

I turned my eyes up the river in the direction that his were bent,
and presently there came within my limited range of vision a long
boat, in which were six men.  Five were at the paddles, while the
sixth sat in the seat of honor.

The white skins, the flowing yellow wigs which covered their bald
pates, and the gorgeous diadems set in circlets of gold about their
heads marked them as Holy Therns.

As they drew up beside the ledge upon which Thurid awaited them,
he in the bow of the boat arose to step ashore, and then I saw that
it was none other than Matai Shang, Father of Therns.

The evident cordiality with which the two men exchanged greetings
filled me with wonder, for the black and white men of Barsoom were
hereditary enemies--nor ever before had I known of two meeting
other than in battle.

Evidently the reverses that had recently overtaken both peoples had
resulted in an alliance between these two individuals--at least
against the common enemy--and now I saw why Thurid had come so
often out into the Valley Dor by night, and that the nature of his
conspiring might be such as to strike very close to me or to my
friends.

I wished that I might have found a point closer to the two men
from which to have heard their conversation; but it was out of the
question now to attempt to cross the river, and so I lay quietly
watching them, who would have given so much to have known how close
I lay to them, and how easily they might have overcome and killed
me with their superior force.

Several times Thurid pointed across the river in my direction, but
that his gestures had any reference to me I did not for a moment
believe.  Presently he and Matai Shang entered the latter's boat,
which turned out into the river and, swinging round, forged steadily
across in my direction.

As they advanced I moved my boat farther and farther in beneath the
overhanging wall, but at last it became evident that their craft
was holding the same course.  The five paddlers sent the larger
boat ahead at a speed that taxed my energies to equal.

Every instant I expected to feel my prow crash against solid rock.
The light from the river was no longer visible, but ahead I saw
the faint tinge of a distant radiance, and still the water before
me was open.

At last the truth dawned upon me--I was following a subterranean
river which emptied into the Iss at the very point where I had
hidden.

The rowers were now quite close to me.  The noise of their
own paddles drowned the sound of mine, but in another instant the
growing light ahead would reveal me to them.

There was no time to be lost.  Whatever action I was to take must
be taken at once.  Swinging the prow of my boat toward the right,
I sought the river's rocky side, and there I lay while Matai Shang
and Thurid approached up the center of the stream, which was much
narrower than the Iss.

As they came nearer I heard the voices of Thurid and the Father of
Therns raised in argument.

"I tell you, Thern," the black dator was saying, "that I wish only
vengeance upon John Carter, Prince of Helium.  I am leading you
into no trap.  What could I gain by betraying you to those who have
ruined my nation and my house?"

"Let us stop here a moment that I may hear your plans," replied the
hekkador, "and then we may proceed with a better understanding of
our duties and obligations."

To the rowers he issued the command that brought their boat in
toward the bank not a dozen paces beyond the spot where I lay.

Had they pulled in below me they must surely have seen me against
the faint glow of light ahead, but from where they finally came to
rest I was as secure from detection as though miles separated us.

The few words I had already overheard whetted my curiosity, and I
was anxious to learn what manner of vengeance Thurid was planning
against me.  Nor had I long to wait.  I listened intently.

"There are no obligations, Father of Therns," continued the First
Born.  "Thurid, Dator of Issus, has no price.  When the thing has
been accomplished I shall be glad if you will see to it that I am
well received, as is befitting my ancient lineage and noble rank,
at some court that is yet loyal to thy ancient faith, for I cannot
return to the Valley Dor or elsewhere within the power of the Prince
of Helium; but even that I do not demand--it shall be as your own
desire in the matter directs."

"It shall be as you wish, Dator," replied Matai Shang; "nor is that
all--power and riches shall be yours if you restore my daughter,
Phaidor, to me, and place within my power Dejah Thoris, Princess
of Helium.

"Ah," he continued with a malicious snarl, "but the Earth man shall
suffer for the indignities he has put upon the holy of holies, nor
shall any vileness be too vile to inflict upon his princess.  Would
that it were in my power to force him to witness the humiliation
and degradation of the red woman."

"You shall have your way with her before another day has passed,
Matai Shang," said Thurid, "if you but say the word."

"I have heard of the Temple of the Sun, Dator," replied Matai Shang,
"but never have I heard that its prisoners could be released before
the allotted year of their incarceration had elapsed.  How, then,
may you accomplish the impossible?"

"Access may be had to any cell of the temple at any time," replied
Thurid.  "Only Issus knew this; nor was it ever Issus' way to
divulge more of her secrets than were necessary.  By chance, after
her death, I came upon an ancient plan of the temple, and there I
found, plainly writ, the most minute directions for reaching the
cells at any time.

"And more I learned--that many men had gone thither for Issus in the
past, always on errands of death and torture to the prisoners; but
those who thus learned the secret way were wont to die mysteriously
immediately they had returned and made their reports to cruel
Issus."

"Let us proceed, then," said Matai Shang at last.  "I must trust
you, yet at the same time you must trust me, for we are six to your
one."

"I do not fear," replied Thurid, "nor need you.  Our hatred of
the common enemy is sufficient bond to insure our loyalty to each
other, and after we have defiled the Princess of Helium there will
be still greater reason for the maintenance of our allegiance--unless
I greatly mistake the temper of her lord."

Matai Shang spoke to the paddlers.  The boat moved on up the
tributary.

It was with difficulty that I restrained myself from rushing upon
them and slaying the two vile plotters; but quickly I saw the mad
rashness of such an act, which would cut down the only man who could
lead the way to Dejah Thoris' prison before the long Martian year
had swung its interminable circle.

If he should lead Matai Shang to that hollowed spot, then, too,
should he lead John Carter, Prince of Helium.

With silent paddle I swung slowly into the wake of the larger craft.





UNDER THE MOUNTAINS




As we advanced up the river which winds beneath the Golden Cliffs
out of the bowels of the Mountains of Otz to mingle its dark waters
with the grim and mysterious Iss the faint glow which had appeared
before us grew gradually into an all-enveloping radiance.

The river widened until it presented the aspect of a large lake
whose vaulted dome, lighted by glowing phosphorescent rock, was
splashed with the vivid rays of the diamond, the sapphire, the ruby,
and the countless, nameless jewels of Barsoom which lay incrusted
in the virgin gold which forms the major portion of these magnificent
cliffs.

Beyond the lighted chamber of the lake was darkness--what lay behind
the darkness I could not even guess.

To have followed the thern boat across the gleaming water would
have been to invite instant detection, and so, though I was loath
to permit Thurid to pass even for an instant beyond my sight, I
was forced to wait in the shadows until the other boat had passed
from my sight at the far extremity of the lake.

Then I paddled out upon the brilliant surface in the direction they
had taken.

When, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the shadows at the
upper end of the lake I found that the river issued from a low
aperture, to pass beneath which it was necessary that I compel
Woola to lie flat in the boat, and I, myself, must need bend double
before the low roof cleared my head.

Immediately the roof rose again upon the other side, but no longer was
the way brilliantly lighted.  Instead only a feeble glow emanated
from small and scattered patches of phosphorescent rock in wall
and roof.

Directly before me the river ran into this smaller chamber through
three separate arched openings.

Thurid and the therns were nowhere to be seen--into which of the
dark holes had they disappeared?  There was no means by which I
might know, and so I chose the center opening as being as likely
to lead me in the right direction as another.

Here the way was through utter darkness.  The stream was narrow--so
narrow that in the blackness I was constantly bumping first one
rock wall and then another as the river wound hither and thither
along its flinty bed.

Far ahead I presently heard a deep and sullen roar which increased
in volume as I advanced, and then broke upon my ears with all the
intensity of its mad fury as I swung round a sharp curve into a
dimly lighted stretch of water.

Directly before me the river thundered down from above in a mighty
waterfall that filled the narrow gorge from side to side, rising
far above me several hundred feet--as magnificent a spectacle as
I ever had seen.

But the roar--the awful, deafening roar of those tumbling waters
penned in the rocky, subterranean vault!  Had the fall not entirely
blocked my further passage and shown me that I had followed the
wrong course I believe that I should have fled anyway before the
maddening tumult.

Thurid and the therns could not have come this way.  By stumbling
upon the wrong course I had lost the trail, and they had gained so
much ahead of me that now I might not be able to find them before
it was too late, if, in fact, I could find them at all.

It had taken several hours to force my way up to the falls against
the strong current, and other hours would be required for the
descent, although the pace would be much swifter.

With a sigh I turned the prow of my craft down stream, and with
mighty strokes hastened with reckless speed through the dark and
tortuous channel until once again I came to the chamber into which
flowed the three branches of the river.

Two unexplored channels still remained from which to choose; nor
was there any means by which I could judge which was the more likely
to lead me to the plotters.

Never in my life, that I can recall, have I suffered such an agony
of indecision.  So much depended upon a correct choice; so much
depended upon haste.

The hours that I had already lost might seal the fate of the
incomparable Dejah Thoris were she not already dead--to sacrifice
other hours, and maybe days in a fruitless exploration of another
blind lead would unquestionably prove fatal.

Several times I essayed the right-hand entrance only to turn back
as though warned by some strange intuitive sense that this was not
the way.  At last, convinced by the oft-recurring phenomenon, I
cast my all upon the left-hand archway; yet it was with a lingering
doubt that I turned a parting look at the sullen waters which
rolled, dark and forbidding, from beneath the grim, low archway on
the right.

And as I looked there came bobbing out upon the current from the
Stygian darkness of the interior the shell of one of the great,
succulent fruits of the sorapus tree.

I could scarce restrain a shout of elation as this silent, insensate
messenger floated past me, on toward the Iss and Korus, for it told
me that journeying Martians were above me on that very stream.

They had eaten of this marvelous fruit which nature concentrates
within the hard shell of the sorapus nut, and having eaten had
cast the husk overboard.  It could have come from no others than
the party I sought.

Quickly I abandoned all thought of the left-hand passage, and a
moment later had turned into the right.  The stream soon widened,
and recurring areas of phosphorescent rock lighted my way.

I made good time, but was convinced that I was nearly a day behind
those I was tracking.  Neither Woola nor I had eaten since the
previous day, but in so far as he was concerned it mattered but
little, since practically all the animals of the dead sea bottoms
of Mars are able to go for incredible periods without nourishment.

Nor did I suffer.  The water of the river was sweet and cold, for
it was unpolluted by decaying bodies--like the Iss--and as for
food, why the mere thought that I was nearing my beloved princess
raised me above every material want.

As I proceeded, the river became narrower and the current swift
and turbulent--so swift in fact that it was with difficulty that
I forced my craft upward at all.  I could not have been making to
exceed a hundred yards an hour when, at a bend, I was confronted
by a series of rapids through which the river foamed and boiled at
a terrific rate.

My heart sank within me.  The sorapus nutshell had proved a false
prophet, and, after all, my intuition had been correct--it was the
left-hand channel that I should have followed.

Had I been a woman I should have wept.  At my right was a great,
slow-moving eddy that circled far beneath the cliff's overhanging
side, and to rest my tired muscles before turning back I let my
boat drift into its embrace.

I was almost prostrated by disappointment.  It would mean another
half-day's loss of time to retrace my way and take the only passage
that yet remained unexplored.  What hellish fate had led me to
select from three possible avenues the two that were wrong?

As the lazy current of the eddy carried me slowly about the periphery
of the watery circle my boat twice touched the rocky side of the
river in the dark recess beneath the cliff.  A third time it struck,
gently as it had before, but the contact resulted in a different
sound--the sound of wood scraping upon wood.

In an instant I was on the alert, for there could be no wood
within that buried river that had not been man brought.  Almost
coincidentally with my first apprehension of the noise, my hand shot
out across the boat's side, and a second later I felt my fingers
gripping the gunwale of another craft.

As though turned to stone I sat in tense and rigid silence, straining
my eyes into the utter darkness before me in an effort to discover
if the boat were occupied.

It was entirely possible that there might be men on board it
who were still ignorant of my presence, for the boat was scraping
gently against the rocks upon one side, so that the gentle touch
of my boat upon the other easily could have gone unnoticed.

Peer as I would I could not penetrate the darkness, and then I
listened intently for the sound of breathing near me; but except
for the noise of the rapids, the soft scraping of the boats, and the
lapping of the water at their sides I could distinguish no sound.
As usual, I thought rapidly.

A rope lay coiled in the bottom of my own craft.  Very softly I
gathered it up, and making one end fast to the bronze ring in the
prow I stepped gingerly into the boat beside me.  In one hand I
grasped the rope, in the other my keen long-sword.

For a full minute, perhaps, I stood motionless after entering the
strange craft.  It had rocked a trifle beneath my weight, but it
had been the scraping of its side against the side of my own boat
that had seemed most likely to alarm its occupants, if there were
any.

But there was no answering sound, and a moment later I had felt
from stem to stern and found the boat deserted.

Groping with my hands along the face of the rocks to which the
craft was moored, I discovered a narrow ledge which I knew must be
the avenue taken by those who had come before me.  That they could
be none other than Thurid and his party I was convinced by the size
and build of the boat I had found.

Calling to Woola to follow me I stepped out upon the ledge.  The
great, savage brute, agile as a cat, crept after me.

As he passed through the boat that had been occupied by Thurid and
the therns he emitted a single low growl, and when he came beside
me upon the ledge and my hand rested upon his neck I felt his short
mane bristling with anger.  I think he sensed telepathically the
recent presence of an enemy, for I had made no effort to impart to
him the nature of our quest or the status of those we tracked.

This omission I now made haste to correct, and, after the manner
of green Martians with their beasts, I let him know partially by
the weird and uncanny telepathy of Barsoom and partly by word of
mouth that we were upon the trail of those who had recently occupied
the boat through which we had just passed.

A soft purr, like that of a great cat, indicated that Woola
understood, and then, with a word to him to follow, I turned to
the right along the ledge, but scarcely had I done so than I felt
his mighty fangs tugging at my leathern harness.

As I turned to discover the cause of his act he continued to pull
me steadily in the opposite direction, nor would he desist until
I had turned about and indicated that I would follow him voluntarily.

Never had I known him to be in error in a matter of tracking, so
it was with a feeling of entire security that I moved cautiously in
the huge beast's wake.  Through Cimmerian darkness he moved along
the narrow ledge beside the boiling rapids.

As we advanced, the way led from beneath the overhanging cliffs
out into a dim light, and then it was that I saw that the trail
had been cut from the living rock, and that it ran up along the
river's side beyond the rapids.

For hours we followed the dark and gloomy river farther and farther
into the bowels of Mars.  From the direction and distance I knew
that we must be well beneath the Valley Dor, and possibly beneath
the Sea of Omean as well--it could not be much farther now to the
Temple of the Sun.

Even as my mind framed the thought, Woola halted suddenly before a
narrow, arched doorway in the cliff by the trail's side.  Quickly
he crouched back away from the entrance, at the same time turning
his eyes toward me.

Words could not have more plainly told me that danger of some sort
lay near by, and so I pressed quietly forward to his side, and
passing him looked into the aperture at our right.

Before me was a fair-sized chamber that, from its appointments, I
knew must have at one time been a guardroom.  There were racks for
weapons, and slightly raised platforms for the sleeping silks and
furs of the warriors, but now its only occupants were two of the
therns who had been of the party with Thurid and Matai Shang.

The men were in earnest conversation, and from their tones it was
apparent that they were entirely unaware that they had listeners.

"I tell you," one of them was saying, "I do not trust the black
one.  There was no necessity for leaving us here to guard the way.
Against what, pray, should we guard this long-forgotten, abysmal
path?  It was but a ruse to divide our numbers.

"He will have Matai Shang leave others elsewhere on some pretext or
other, and then at last he will fall upon us with his confederates
and slay us all."

"I believe you, Lakor," replied the other, "there can never be
aught else than deadly hatred between thern and First Born.  And
what think you of the ridiculous matter of the light?  `Let the
light shine with the intensity of three radium units for fifty
tals, and for one xat let it shine with the intensity of one radium
unit, and then for twenty-five tals with nine units.'  Those were
his very words, and to think that wise old Matai Shang should listen
to such foolishness."

"Indeed, it is silly," replied Lakor.  "It will open nothing other
than the way to a quick death for us all.  He had to make some
answer when Matai Shang asked him flatly what he should do when he
came to the Temple of the Sun, and so he made his answer quickly
from his imagination--I would wager a hekkador's diadem that he
could not now repeat it himself."

"Let us not remain here longer, Lakor," spoke the other thern.
"Perchance if we hasten after them we may come in time to rescue
Matai Shang, and wreak our own vengeance upon the black dator.
What say you?"

"Never in a long life," answered Lakor, "have I disobeyed a single
command of the Father of Therns.  I shall stay here until I rot if
he does not return to bid me elsewhere."

Lakor's companion shook his head.

"You are my superior," he said; "I cannot do other than you sanction,
though I still believe that we are foolish to remain."

I, too, thought that they were foolish to remain, for I saw from
Woola's actions that the trail led through the room where the two
therns held guard.  I had no reason to harbor any considerable love
for this race of self-deified demons, yet I would have passed them
by were it possible without molesting them.

It was worth trying anyway, for a fight might delay us considerably,
or even put an end entirely to my search--better men than I have
gone down before fighters of meaner ability than that possessed by
the fierce thern warriors.

Signaling Woola to heel I stepped suddenly into the room before the
two men.  At sight of me their long-swords flashed from the harness
at their sides, but I raised my hand in a gesture of restraint.

"I seek Thurid, the black dator," I said.  "My quarrel is with him,
not with you.  Let me pass then in peace, for if I mistake not he
is as much your enemy as mine, and you can have no cause to protect
him."

They lowered their swords and Lakor spoke.

"I know not whom you may be, with the white skin of a thern and
the black hair of a red man; but were it only Thurid whose safety
were at stake you might pass, and welcome, in so far as we be
concerned.

"Tell us who you be, and what mission calls you to this unknown
world beneath the Valley Dor, then maybe we can see our way to let
you pass upon the errand which we should like to undertake would
our orders permit."

I was surprised that neither of them had recognized me, for I
thought that I was quite sufficiently well known either by personal
experience or reputation to every thern upon Barsoom as to make my
identity immediately apparent in any part of the planet.  In fact,
I was the only white man upon Mars whose hair was black and whose
eyes were gray, with the exception of my son, Carthoris.

To reveal my identity might be to precipitate an attack, for every
thern upon Barsoom knew that to me they owed the fall of their
age-old spiritual supremacy.  On the other hand my reputation as
a fighting man might be sufficient to pass me by these two were
their livers not of the right complexion to welcome a battle to
the death.

To be quite candid I did not attempt to delude myself with any such
sophistry, since I knew well that upon war-like Mars there are few
cowards, and that every man, whether prince, priest, or peasant,
glories in deadly strife.  And so I gripped my long-sword the
tighter as I replied to Lakor.

"I believe that you will see the wisdom of permitting me to pass
unmolested," I said, "for it would avail you nothing to die uselessly
in the rocky bowels of Barsoom merely to protect a hereditary enemy,
such as Thurid, Dator of the First Born.

"That you shall die should you elect to oppose me is evidenced by
the moldering corpses of all the many great Barsoomian warriors
who have gone down beneath this blade--I am John Carter, Prince of
Helium."

For a moment that name seemed to paralyze the two men; but only
for a moment, and then the younger of them, with a vile name upon
his lips, rushed toward me with ready sword.

He had been standing a little behind his companion, Lakor, during
our parley, and now, ere he could engage me, the older man grasped
his harness and drew him back.

"Hold!" commanded Lakor.  "There will be plenty of time to fight if
we find it wise to fight at all.  There be good reasons why every
thern upon Barsoom should yearn to spill the blood of the blasphemer,
the sacrilegist; but let us mix wisdom with our righteous hate.
The Prince of Helium is bound upon an errand which we ourselves,
but a moment since, were wishing that we might undertake.

"Let him go then and slay the black.  When he returns we shall still
be here to bar his way to the outer world, and thus we shall have
rid ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the displeasure of
the Father of Therns."

As he spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in his evil
eyes, and while I saw the apparent logic of his reasoning I felt,
subconsciously perhaps, that his words did but veil some sinister
intent.  The other thern turned toward him in evident surprise, but
when Lakor had whispered a few brief words into his ear he, too,
drew back and nodded acquiescence to his superior's suggestion.

"Proceed, John Carter," said Lakor; "but know that if Thurid does
not lay you low there will be those awaiting your return who will
see that you never pass again into the sunlight of the upper world.
Go!"

During our conversation Woola had been growling and bristling
close to my side.  Occasionally he would look up into my face with
a low, pleading whine, as though begging for the word that would
send him headlong at the bare throats before him.  He, too, sensed
the villainy behind the smooth words.

Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom, and
toward the one upon the extreme right Lakor motioned.

"That way leads to Thurid," he said.

But when I would have called Woola to follow me there the beast
whined and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first opening
at the left, where he stood emitting his coughing bark, as though
urging me to follow him upon the right way.

I turned a questioning look upon Lakor.

"The brute is seldom wrong," I said, "and while I do not doubt your
superior knowledge, Thern, I think that I shall do well to listen
to the voice of instinct that is backed by love and loyalty."

As I spoke I smiled grimly that he might know without words that
I distrusted him.

"As you will," the fellow replied with a shrug.  "In the end it
shall be all the same."

I turned and followed Woola into the left-hand passage, and though
my back was toward my enemies, my ears were on the alert; yet
I heard no sound of pursuit.  The passageway was dimly lighted by
occasional radium bulbs, the universal lighting medium of Barsoom.

These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in these
subterranean chambers for ages, since they require no attention
and are so compounded that they give off but the minutest of their
substance in the generation of years of luminosity.

We had proceeded for but a short distance when we commenced to pass
the mouths of diverging corridors, but not once did Woola hesitate.
It was at the opening to one of these corridors upon my right that
I presently heard a sound that spoke more plainly to John Carter,
fighting man, than could the words of my mother tongue--it was the
clank of metal--the metal of a warrior's harness--and it came from
a little distance up the corridor upon my right.

Woola heard it, too, and like a flash he had wheeled and stood
facing the threatened danger, his mane all abristle and all his
rows of glistening fangs bared by snarling, backdrawn lips.  With
a gesture I silenced him, and together we drew aside into another
corridor a few paces farther on.

Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we saw
the shadows of two men fall upon the floor of the main corridor
athwart the doorway of our hiding place.  Very cautiously they
were moving now--the accidental clank that had alarmed me was not
repeated.

Presently they came opposite our station; nor was I surprised to
see that the two were Lakor and his companion of the guardroom.

They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed a
keen long-sword.  They halted quite close to the entrance of our
retreat, whispering to each other.

"Can it be that we have distanced them already?" said Lakor.

"Either that or the beast has led the man upon a wrong trail,"
replied the other, "for the way which we took is by far the shorter
to this point--for him who knows it.  John Carter would have found
it a short road to death had he taken it as you suggested to him."

"Yes," said Lakor, "no amount of fighting ability would have saved
him from the pivoted flagstone.  He surely would have stepped upon
it, and by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom, which Thurid
denies, he should have been rapidly approaching it.  Curses on that
calot of his that warned him toward the safer avenue!"

"There be other dangers ahead of him, though," spoke Lakor's fellow,
"which he may not so easily escape--should he succeed in escaping
our two good swords.  Consider, for example, what chance he will
have, coming unexpectedly into the chamber of--"

I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversation
that I might have been warned of the perils that lay ahead, but
fate intervened, and just at the very instant of all other instants
that I would not have elected to do it, I sneezed.





THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN




There was nothing for it now other than to fight; nor did I have
any advantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor before
the two therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presence
and they were ready for me.

There were no words, for they would have been a waste of breath.
The very presence of the two proclaimed their treachery.  That
they were following to fall upon me unawares was all too plain,
and they, of course, must have known that I understood their plan.

In an instant I was engaged with both, and though I loathe the very
name of thern, I must in all fairness admit that they are mighty
swordsmen; and these two were no exception, unless it were that
they were even more skilled and fearless than the average among
their race.

While it lasted it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever had
experienced.  Twice at least I saved my breast from the mortal
thrust of piercing steel only by the wondrous agility with which
my earthly muscles endow me under the conditions of lesser gravity
and air pressure upon Mars.

Yet even so I came near to tasting death that day in the gloomy
corridor beneath Mars's southern pole, for Lakor played a trick
upon me that in all my experience of fighting upon two planets I
never before had witnessed the like of.

The other thern was engaging me at the time, and I was forcing
him back--touching him here and there with my point until he was
bleeding from a dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate his
marvelous guard to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instant
that would have been sufficient to send him to his ancestors.

It was then that Lakor quickly unslung a belt from his harness,
and as I stepped back to parry a wicked thrust he lashed one end
of it about my left ankle so that it wound there for an instant,
while he jerked suddenly upon the other end, throwing me heavily
upon my back.

Then, like leaping panthers, they were upon me; but they
had reckoned without Woola, and before ever a blade touched me, a
roaring embodiment of a thousand demons hurtled above my prostrate
form and my loyal Martian calot was upon them.

Imagine, if you can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mighty
talons and an enormous froglike mouth splitting his head from ear
to ear, exposing three rows of long, white tusks.  Then endow this
creature of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of a
half-starved Bengal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, and
you will have some faint conception of Woola in action.

Before I could call him off he had crushed Lakor into a jelly with
a single blow of one mighty paw, and had literally torn the other
thern to ribbons; yet when I spoke to him sharply he cowed sheepishly
as though he had done a thing to deserve censure and chastisement.

Never had I had the heart to punish Woola during the long years
that had passed since that first day upon Mars when the green jed
of the Tharks had placed him on guard over me, and I had won his
love and loyalty from the cruel and loveless masters of his former
life, yet I believe he would have submitted to any cruelty that I
might have inflicted upon him, so wondrous was his affection for
me.

The diadem in the center of the circlet of gold upon the brow of
Lakor proclaimed him a Holy Thern, while his companion, not thus
adorned, was a lesser thern, though from his harness I gleaned that
he had reached the Ninth Cycle, which is but one below that of the
Holy Therns.

As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woola had
wrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasion
upon which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of
Sator Throg, the Holy Thern whom Thuvia of Ptarth had slain, and now
it occurred to me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakor's
trappings for the same purpose.

A moment later I had torn his yellow wig from his bald pate and
transferred it and the circlet, as well as all his harness, to my
own person.

Woola did not approve of the metamorphosis.  He sniffed at me and
growled ominously, but when I spoke to him and patted his huge head
he at length became reconciled to the change, and at my command
trotted off along the corridor in the direction we had been going
when our progress had been interrupted by the therns.

We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversation
I had overheard.  I kept abreast of Woola that we might have the
benefit of all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead to
menace us, and well it was that we were forewarned.

At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply
back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original
direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S,
the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy
lighted, and the floor of which was completely covered by venomous
snakes and loathsome reptiles.

To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court
instant death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged.
Then it occurred to me that Thurid and Matai Shang with their party
must have crossed it, and so there was a way.

Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheard
even so small a portion of the therns' conversation we should
have blundered at least a step or two into that wriggling mass of
destruction, and a single step would have been all-sufficient to
have sealed our doom.

These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but I
knew from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedly
extinct species I had seen in the museums of Helium that they
comprised many of the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as well
as others undiscovered.

A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed my
vision.  It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earth
men, since substance is the only thing which they possess in
common with any creature of the past or present with which you are
familiar--even their venom is of an unearthly virulence that, by
comparison, would make the cobra de capello seem quite as harmless
as an angleworm.

As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest the
entrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along the
threshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt--evidently
they dared not cross that line of light.

I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the room
in which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at what
deterred them.  The simple fact that we had found no reptiles in
the corridor through which we had just come was sufficient assurance
that they did not venture there.

I drew Woola out of harm's way, and then began a careful survey
of as much of the Chamber of Reptiles as I could see from where
I stood.  As my eyes became accustomed to the dim light of its
interior I gradually made out a low gallery at the far end of the
apartment from which opened several exits.

Coming as close to the threshold as I dared, I followed this
gallery with my eyes, discovering that it circled the room as far
as I could see.  Then I glanced above me along the upper edge of
the entrance to which we had come, and there, to my delight, I saw
an end of the gallery not a foot above my head.  In an instant I
had leaped to it and called Woola after me.

Here there were no reptiles--the way was clear to the opposite side
of the hideous chamber--and a moment later Woola and I dropped down
to safety in the corridor beyond.

Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartment
of white marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in the
strange hieroglyphics of the First Born.

From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column
extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly
revolved.

I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!

Somewhere above me lay Dejah Thoris, and with her were Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, and Thuvia of Ptarth.  But how to reach
them, now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty
prison, was still a baffling riddle.

Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress.
Part way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined
it in mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost
inaccessible and unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia
of the house of Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case.

I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into
the pocket-pouch which hung from my harness.  Then I continued
my search for the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about;
nor had I long to search, for almost immediately thereafter I came
upon a small door so cunningly inlaid in the shaft's base that it
might have passed unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.

There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but where
was the means to open it?  No button or lock were visible.  Again
and again I went carefully over every square inch of its surface,
but the most that I could find was a tiny pinhole a little above
and to the right of the door's center--a pinhole that seemed only
an accident of manufacture or an imperfection of material.

Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it was
but a fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the door
I could not tell--at least no light showed beyond it.  I put my ear
to it next and listened, but again my efforts brought negligible
results.

During these experiments Woola had been standing at my side gazing
intently at the door, and as my glance fell upon him it occurred
to me to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal
had been the means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the
black dator, and Matai Shang, Father of Therns.

Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me.  For a moment
he hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at my
harness to draw me back.  I walked on, however, some distance from
the door before I let him have his way, that I might see precisely
what he would do.  Then I permitted him to lead me wherever he
would.

Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again taking
up his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its
shining surface.  For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of the
combination that would open the way before me.

Carefully I recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid,
and my conclusion was identical with my original belief--that Thurid
had come this way without other assistance than his own knowledge
and passed through the door that barred my progress, unaided from
within.  But how had he accomplished it?

I recalled the incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden
Cliffs that time I had freed Thuvia of Ptarth from the dungeon of
the therns, and she had taken a slender, needle-like key from the
keyring of her dead jailer to open the door leading back into the
Chamber of Mystery where Tars Tarkas fought for his life with the
great banths.  Such a tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened the
way to the intricate lock in that other door.

Hastily I dumped the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the ground
before me.  Could I but find a slender bit of steel I might yet
fashion a key that would give me ingress to the temple prison.

As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that
is always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my
hand fell upon the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator.

As I was about to lay the thing aside as of no value in my present
predicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughly
and freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case.

Casual curiosity prompted me to decipher them, but what I read
carried no immediate meaning to my mind.  There were three sets of
characters, one below another:


                         3 |--| 50 T
                         1 |--|  1 X
                         9 |--| 25 T


For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I replaced
the torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not unclasped

from it when there rushed to my memory the recollection of the
conversation between Lakor and his companion when the lesser thern
had quoted the words of Thurid and scoffed at them:  "And what
think you of the ridiculous matter of the light?  Let the light
shine with the intensity of three radium units for fifty tals"--ah,
there was the first line of characters upon the torch's metal
case--3--50 T; "and for one xat let it shine with the intensity
of one radium unit"--there was the second line; "and then for
twenty-five tals with nine units."

The formula was complete; but--what did it mean?

I thought I knew, and, seizing a powerful magnifying glass from the
litter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful examination
of the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door.  I could
have cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny disclosed the almost
invisible incrustation of particles of carbonized electrons which
are thrown off by these Martian torches.

It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had been
applied to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be but
a single answer--the mechanism of the lock was actuated by light
rays; and I, John Carter, Prince of Helium, held the combination
in my hand--scratched by the hand of my enemy upon his own torch
case.

In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian
chronometer--a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats
and zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong
crystal much after the manner of an earthly odometer.

Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperture
in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of the
thumb-lever upon the side of the case.

For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole,
then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units.
Those last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds
of my life.  Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly
interminable intervals of time?

Twenty-three!  Twenty-four!  Twenty-five!

I shut off the light with a snap.  For seven tals I waited--there
had been no appreciable effect upon the lock's mechanism.  Could
it be that my theory was entirely wrong?

Hold!  Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did
the door really move?  Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back
into the wall--there was no hallucination here.

Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its
right a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that
paralleled the outer wall.  Scarcely was the entrance uncovered
than Woola and I had leaped through--then the door slipped quietly
back into place.

Down the corridor at some distance I saw the faint reflection of
a light, and toward this we made our way.  At the point where the
light shone was a sharp turn, and a little distance beyond this a
brilliantly lighted chamber.

Here we discovered a spiral stairway leading up from the center of
the circular room.

Immediately I knew that we had reached the center of the base of
the Temple of the Sun--the spiral runway led upward past the inner
walls of the prison cells.  Somewhere above me was Dejah Thoris,
unless Thurid and Matai Shang had already succeeded in stealing
her.

We had scarcely started up the runway when Woola suddenly displayed
the wildest excitement.  He leaped back and forth, snapping at my
legs and harness, until I thought that he was mad, and finally when
I pushed him from me and started once more to ascend he grasped my
sword arm between his jaws and dragged me back.

No amount of scolding or cuffing would suffice to make him release
me, and I was entirely at the mercy of his brute strength unless
I cared to use my dagger upon him with my left hand; but, mad or
no, I had not the heart to run the sharp blade into that faithful
body.

Down into the chamber he dragged me, and across it to the side
opposite that at which we had entered.  Here was another doorway
leading into a corridor which ran directly down a steep incline.
Without a moment's hesitation Woola jerked me along this rocky
passage.

Presently he stopped and released me, standing between me and the
way we had come, looking up into my face as though to ask if I would
now follow him voluntarily or if he must still resort to force.

Looking ruefully at the marks of his great teeth upon my bare arm
I decided to do as he seemed to wish me to do.  After all, his strange
instinct might be more dependable than my faulty human judgment.

And well it was that I had been forced to follow him.  But a
short distance from the circular chamber we came suddenly into a
brilliantly lighted labyrinth of crystal glass partitioned passages.

At first I thought it was one vast, unbroken chamber, so clear and
transparent were the walls of the winding corridors, but after I
had nearly brained myself a couple of times by attempting to pass
through solid vitreous walls I went more carefully.

We had proceeded but a few yards along the corridor that had given
us entrance to this strange maze when Woola gave mouth to a most
frightful roar, at the same time dashing against the clear partition
at our left.

The resounding echoes of that fearsome cry were still reverberating
through the subterranean chambers when I saw the thing that had
startled it from the faithful beast.

Far in the distance, dimly through the many thicknesses of intervening
crystal, as in a haze that made them seem unreal and ghostly, I
discerned the figures of eight people--three females and five men.

At the same instant, evidently startled by Woola's fierce cry, they
halted and looked about.  Then, of a sudden, one of them, a woman,
held her arms out toward me, and even at that great distance I could
see that her lips moved--it was Dejah Thoris, my ever beautiful
and ever youthful Princess of Helium.

With her were Thuvia of Ptarth, Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang,
and Thurid, and the Father of Therns, and the three lesser therns
that had accompanied them.

Thurid shook his fist at me, and then two of the therns grasped
Dejah Thoris and Thuvia roughly by their arms and hurried them on.
A moment later they had disappeared into a stone corridor beyond
the labyrinth of glass.

They say that love is blind; but so great a love as that of Dejah
Thoris that knew me even beneath the thern disguise I wore and across
the misty vista of that crystal maze must indeed be far from blind.





THE SECRET TOWER




I have no stomach to narrate the monotonous events of the tedious
days that Woola and I spent ferreting our way across the labyrinth
of glass, through the dark and devious ways beyond that led beneath
the Valley Dor and Golden Cliffs to emerge at last upon the flank
of the Otz Mountains just above the Valley of Lost Souls--that
pitiful purgatory peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare not
continue their abandoned pilgrimage to Dor, or return to the various
lands of the outer world from whence they came.

Here the trail of Dejah Thoris' abductors led along the mountains'
base, across steep and rugged ravines, by the side of appalling
precipices, and sometimes out into the valley, where we found
fighting aplenty with the members of the various tribes that make
up the population of this vale of hopelessness.

But through it all we came at last to where the way led up a narrow
gorge that grew steeper and more impracticable at every step until
before us loomed a mighty fortress buried beneath the side of an
overhanging cliff.

Here was the secret hiding place of Matai Shang, Father of Therns.
Here, surrounded by a handful of the faithful, the hekkador of
the ancient faith, who had once been served by millions of vassals
and dependents, dispensed the spiritual words among the half dozen
nations of Barsoom that still clung tenaciously to their false and
discredited religion.

Darkness was just falling as we came in sight of the seemingly
impregnable walls of this mountain stronghold, and lest we be seen
I drew back with Woola behind a jutting granite promontory, into
a clump of the hardy, purple scrub that thrives upon the barren
sides of Otz.

Here we lay until the quick transition from daylight to darkness
had passed.  Then I crept out to approach the fortress walls in
search of a way within.

Either through carelessness or over-confidence in the supposed
inaccessibility of their hiding place, the triple-barred gate stood
ajar.  Beyond were a handful of guards, laughing and talking over
one of their incomprehensible Barsoomian games.

I saw that none of the guardsmen had been of the party that
accompanied Thurid and Matai Shang; and so, relying entirely upon
my disguise, I walked boldly through the gateway and up to the
thern guard.

The men stopped their game and looked up at me, but there was no
sign of suspicion.  Similarly they looked at Woola, growling at my
heel.

"Kaor!" I said in true Martian greeting, and the warriors arose and
saluted me.  "I have but just found my way hither from the Golden
Cliffs," I continued, "and seek audience with the hekkador, Matai
Shang, Father of Therns.  Where may he be found?"

"Follow me," said one of the guard, and, turning, led me across
the outer courtyard toward a second buttressed wall.

Why the apparent ease with which I seemingly deceived them did
not rouse my suspicions I know not, unless it was that my mind was
still so full of that fleeting glimpse of my beloved princess that
there was room in it for naught else.  Be that as it may, the fact
is that I marched buoyantly behind my guide straight into the jaws
of death.

Afterward I learned that thern spies had been aware of my coming
for hours before I reached the hidden fortress.

The gate had been purposely left ajar to tempt me on.  The guards
had been schooled well in their part of the conspiracy; and I,
more like a schoolboy than a seasoned warrior, ran headlong into
the trap.

At the far side of the outer court a narrow door let into the
angle made by one of the buttresses with the wall.  Here my guide
produced a key and opened the way within; then, stepping back, he
motioned me to enter.

"Matai Shang is in the temple court beyond," he said; and as Woola
and I passed through, the fellow closed the door quickly upon us.

The nasty laugh that came to my ears through the heavy planking of
the door after the lock clicked was my first intimation that all
was not as it should be.

I found myself in a small, circular chamber within the buttress.
Before me a door opened, presumably, upon the inner court beyond.
For a moment I hesitated, all my suspicions now suddenly, though
tardily, aroused; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, I opened the
door and stepped out into the glare of torches that lighted the
inner court.

Directly opposite me a massive tower rose to a height of three
hundred feet.  It was of the strangely beautiful modern Barsoomian
style of architecture, its entire surface hand carved in bold
relief with intricate and fanciful designs.  Thirty feet above
the courtyard and overlooking it was a broad balcony, and there,
indeed, was Matai Shang, and with him were Thurid and Phaidor,
Thuvia, and Dejah Thoris--the last two heavily ironed.  A handful
of thern warriors stood just behind the little party.

As I entered the enclosure the eyes of those in the balcony were
full upon me.

An ugly smile distorted the cruel lips of Matai Shang.  Thurid
hurled a taunt at me and placed a familiar hand upon the shoulder
of my princess.  Like a tigress she turned upon him, striking the
beast a heavy blow with the manacles upon her wrist.

He would have struck back had not Matai Shang interfered, and then
I saw that the two men were not over-friendly; for the manner of
the thern was arrogant and domineering as he made it plain to the
First Born that the Princess of Helium was the personal property
of the Father of Therns.  And Thurid's bearing toward the ancient
hekkador savored not at all of liking or respect.

When the altercation in the balcony had subsided Matai Shang turned
again to me.

"Earth man," he cried, "you have earned a more ignoble death than
now lies within our weakened power to inflict upon you; but that the
death you die tonight may be doubly bitter, know you that when you
have passed, your widow becomes the wife of Matai Shang, Hekkador
of the Holy Therns, for a Martian year.

"At the end of that time, as you know, she shall be discarded,
as is the law among us, but not, as is usual, to lead a quiet and
honored life as high priestess of some hallowed shrine.  Instead,
Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, shall become the plaything of
my lieutenants--perhaps of thy most hated enemy, Thurid, the black
dator."

As he ceased speaking he awaited in silence evidently for some
outbreak of rage upon my part--something that would have added to
the spice of his revenge.  But I did not give him the satisfaction
that he craved.

Instead, I did the one thing of all others that might rouse his
anger and increase his hatred of me; for I knew that if I died
Dejah Thoris, too, would find a way to die before they could heap
further tortures or indignities upon her.

Of all the holy of holies which the thern venerates and worships
none is more revered than the yellow wig which covers his bald pate,
and next thereto comes the circlet of gold and the great diadem,
whose scintillant rays mark the attainment of the Tenth Cycle.

And, knowing this, I removed the wig and circlet from my head,
tossing them carelessly upon the flagging of the court.  Then I
wiped my feet upon the yellow tresses; and as a groan of rage arose
from the balcony I spat full upon the holy diadem.

Matai Shang went livid with anger, but upon the lips of Thurid I
could see a grim smile of amusement, for to him these things were
not holy; so, lest he should derive too much amusement from my
act, I cried:  "And thus did I with the holies of Issus, Goddess
of Life Eternal, ere I threw Issus herself to the mob that once
had worshiped her, to be torn to pieces in her own temple."

That put an end to Thurid's grinning, for he had been high in the
favor of Issus.

"Let us have an end to this blaspheming!" he cried, turning to the
Father of Therns.

Matai Shang rose and, leaning over the edge of the balcony, gave
voice to the weird call that I had heard from the lips of the
priests upon the tiny balcony upon the face of the Golden Cliffs
overlooking the Valley Dor, when, in times past, they called
the fearsome white apes and the hideous plant men to the feast of
victims floating down the broad bosom of the mysterious Iss toward
the silian-infested waters of the Lost Sea of Korus.  "Let loose
the death!" he cried, and immediately a dozen doors in the base of
the tower swung open, and a dozen grim and terrible banths sprang
into the arena.

This was not the first time that I had faced the ferocious Barsoomian
lion, but never had I been pitted, single-handed, against a full
dozen of them.  Even with the assistance of the fierce Woola, there
could be but a single outcome to so unequal a struggle.

For a moment the beasts hesitated beneath the brilliant glare
of the torches; but presently their eyes, becoming accustomed to
the light, fell upon Woola and me, and with bristling manes and
deep-throated roars they advanced, lashing their tawny sides with
their powerful tails.

In the brief interval of life that was left me I shot a last,
parting glance toward my Dejah Thoris.  Her beautiful face was set
in an expression of horror; and as my eyes met hers she extended
both arms toward me as, struggling with the guards who now held
her, she endeavored to cast herself from the balcony into the pit
beneath, that she might share my death with me.  Then, as the banths
were about to close upon me, she turned and buried her dear face
in her arms.

Suddenly my attention was drawn toward Thuvia of Ptarth.  The
beautiful girl was leaning far over the edge of the balcony, her
eyes bright with excitement.

In another instant the banths would be upon me, but I could not
force my gaze from the features of the red girl, for I knew that
her expression meant anything but the enjoyment of the grim tragedy
that would so soon be enacted below her; there was some deeper,
hidden meaning which I sought to solve.

For an instant I thought of relying on my earthly muscles and
agility to escape the banths and reach the balcony, which I could
easily have done, but I could not bring myself to desert the
faithful Woola and leave him to die alone beneath the cruel fangs
of the hungry banths; that is not the way upon Barsoom, nor was it
ever the way of John Carter.

Then the secret of Thuvia's excitement became apparent as from her
lips there issued the purring sound I had heard once before; that
time that, within the Golden Cliffs, she called the fierce banths
about her and led them as a shepherdess might lead her flock of
meek and harmless sheep.

At the first note of that soothing sound the banths halted in their
tracks, and every fierce head went high as the beasts sought the
origin of the familiar call.  Presently they discovered the red
girl in the balcony above them, and, turning, roared out their
recognition and their greeting.

Guards sprang to drag Thuvia away, but ere they had succeeded she
had hurled a volley of commands at the listening brutes, and as
one they turned and marched back into their dens.

"You need not fear them now, John Carter!" cried Thuvia, before
they could silence her.  "Those banths will never harm you now,
nor Woola, either."

It was all I cared to know.  There was naught to keep me from that
balcony now, and with a long, running leap I sprang far aloft until
my hands grasped its lowest sill.

In an instant all was wild confusion.  Matai Shang shrank back.
Thurid sprang forward with drawn sword to cut me down.

Again Dejah Thoris wielded her heavy irons and fought him back.
Then Matai Shang grasped her about the waist and dragged her away
through a door leading within the tower.

For an instant Thurid hesitated, and then, as though fearing that
the Father of Therns would escape him with the Princess of Helium,
he, too, dashed from the balcony in their wake.

Phaidor alone retained her presence of mind.  Two of the guards she
ordered to bear away Thuvia of Ptarth; the others she commanded to
remain and prevent me from following.  Then she turned toward me.

"John Carter," she cried, "for the last time I offer you the love
of Phaidor, daughter of the Holy Hekkador.  Accept and your princess
shall be returned to the court of her grandfather, and you shall
live in peace and happiness.  Refuse and the fate that my father
has threatened shall fall upon Dejah Thoris.

"You cannot save her now, for by this time they have reached a
place where even you may not follow.  Refuse and naught can save
you; for, though the way to the last stronghold of the Holy Therns
was made easy for you, the way hence hath been made impossible.
What say you?"

"You knew my answer, Phaidor," I replied, "before ever you spoke.
Make way," I cried to the guards, "for John Carter, Prince of
Helium, would pass!"

With that I leaped over the low baluster that surrounded the balcony,
and with drawn long-sword faced my enemies.

There were three of them; but Phaidor must have guessed what the
outcome of the battle would be, for she turned and fled from the
balcony the moment she saw that I would have none of her proposition.

The three guardsmen did not wait for my attack.  Instead, they
rushed me--the three of them simultaneously; and it was that which
gave me an advantage, for they fouled one another in the narrow
precincts of the balcony, so that the foremost of them stumbled
full upon my blade at the first onslaught.

The red stain upon my point roused to its full the old blood-lust
of the fighting man that has ever been so strong within my breast,
so that my blade flew through the air with a swiftness and deadly
accuracy that threw the two remaining therns into wild despair.

When at last the sharp steel found the heart of one of them the
other turned to flee, and, guessing that his steps would lead him
along the way taken by those I sought, I let him keep ever far
enough ahead to think that he was safely escaping my sword.

Through several inner chambers he raced until he came to a spiral
runway.  Up this he dashed, I in close pursuit.  At the upper end
we came out into a small chamber, the walls of which were plank
except for a single window overlooking the slopes of Otz and the
Valley of Lost Souls beyond.

Here the fellow tore frantically at what appeared to be but a
piece of the blank wall opposite the single window.  In an instant
I guessed that it was a secret exit from the room, and so I paused
that he might have an opportunity to negotiate it, for I cared
nothing to take the life of this poor servitor--all I craved was
a clear road in pursuit of Dejah Thoris, my long-lost princess.

But, try as he would, the panel would yield neither to cunning nor
force, so that eventually he gave it up and turned to face me.

"Go thy way, Thern," I said to him, pointing toward the entrance
to the runway up which we had but just come.  "I have no quarrel
with you, nor do I crave your life.  Go!"

For answer he sprang upon me with his sword, and so suddenly, at
that, that I was like to have gone down before his first rush.  So
there was nothing for it but to give him what he sought, and that
as quickly as might be, that I might not be delayed too long in
this chamber while Matai Shang and Thurid made way with Dejah Thoris
and Thuvia of Ptarth.

The fellow was a clever swordsman--resourceful and extremely
tricky.  In fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existed
such a thing as a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozen
Barsoomian fighting customs that an honorable man would rather die
than ignore.

He even went so far as to snatch his holy wig from his head and
throw it in my face, so as to blind me for a moment while he thrust
at my unprotected breast.

When he thrust, however, I was not there, for I had fought with
therns before; and while none had ever resorted to precisely that
same expedient, I knew them to be the least honorable and most
treacherous fighters upon Mars, and so was ever on the alert for
some new and devilish subterfuge when I was engaged with one of
their race.

But at length he overdid the thing; for, drawing his shortsword,
he hurled it, javelinwise, at my body, at the same instant rushing
upon me with his long-sword.  A single sweeping circle of my own
blade caught the flying weapon and hurled it clattering against
the far wall, and then, as I sidestepped my antagonist's impetuous
rush, I let him have my point full in the stomach as he hurtled
by.

Clear to the hilt my weapon passed through his body, and with a
frightful shriek he sank to the floor, dead.

Halting only for the brief instant that was required to wrench
my sword from the carcass of my late antagonist, I sprang across
the chamber to the blank wall beyond, through which the thern had
attempted to pass.  Here I sought for the secret of its lock, but
all to no avail.

In despair I tried to force the thing, but the cold, unyielding
stone might well have laughed at my futile, puny endeavors.  In fact,
I could have sworn that I caught the faint suggestion of taunting
laughter from beyond the baffling panel.

In disgust I desisted from my useless efforts and stepped to the
chamber's single window.

The slopes of Otz and the distant Valley of Lost Souls held nothing
to compel my interest then; but, towering far above me, the tower's
carved wall riveted my keenest attention.

Somewhere within that massive pile was Dejah Thoris.  Above me I
could see windows.  There, possibly, lay the only way by which I
could reach her.  The risk was great, but not too great when the
fate of a world's most wondrous woman was at stake.

I glanced below.  A hundred feet beneath lay jagged granite boulders
at the brink of a frightful chasm upon which the tower abutted; and
if not upon the boulders, then at the chasm's bottom, lay death,
should a foot slip but once, or clutching fingers loose their hold
for the fraction of an instant.

But there was no other way and with a shrug, which I must admit
was half shudder, I stepped to the window's outer sill and began
my perilous ascent.

To my dismay I found that, unlike the ornamentation upon most
Heliumetic structures, the edges of the carvings were quite generally
rounded, so that at best my every hold was most precarious.

Fifty feet above me commenced a series of projecting cylindrical
stones some six inches in diameter.  These apparently circled the
tower at six-foot intervals, in bands six feet apart; and as each
stone cylinder protruded some four or five inches beyond the surface
of the other ornamentation, they presented a comparatively easy
mode of ascent could I but reach them.

Laboriously I climbed toward them by way of some windows which
lay below them, for I hoped that I might find ingress to the tower
through one of these, and thence an easier avenue along which to
prosecute my search.

At times so slight was my hold upon the rounded surfaces of the
carving's edges that a sneeze, a cough, or even a slight gust of
wind would have dislodged me and sent me hurtling to the depths
below.

But finally I reached a point where my fingers could just clutch
the sill of the lowest window, and I was on the point of breathing
a sigh of relief when the sound of voices came to me from above
through the open window.

"He can never solve the secret of that lock."  The voice was Matai
Shang's.  "Let us proceed to the hangar above that we may be far
to the south before he finds another way--should that be possible."

"All things seem possible to that vile calot," replied another
voice, which I recognized as Thurid's.

"Then let us haste," said Matai Shang.  "But to be doubly sure, I
will leave two who shall patrol this runway.  Later they may follow
us upon another flier--overtaking us at Kaol."

My upstretched fingers never reached the window's sill.  At the
first sound of the voices I drew back my hand and clung there to
my perilous perch, flattened against the perpendicular wall, scarce
daring to breathe.

What a horrible position, indeed, in which to be discovered by
Thurid!  He had but to lean from the window to push me with his
sword's point into eternity.

Presently the sound of the voices became fainter, and once again
I took up my hazardous ascent, now more difficult, since more
circuitous, for I must climb so as to avoid the windows.

Matai Shang's reference to the hangar and the fliers indicated
that my destination lay nothing short of the roof of the tower,
and toward this seemingly distant goal I set my face.

The most difficult and dangerous part of the journey was accomplished
at last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close about
the lowest of the stone cylinders.

It is true that these projections were too far apart to make the
balance of the ascent anything of a sinecure, but I at least had
always within my reach a point of safety to which I might cling in
case of accident.

Some ten feet below the roof, the wall inclined slightly inward
possibly a foot in the last ten feet, and here the climbing was
indeed immeasurably easier, so that my fingers soon clutched the
eaves.

As I drew my eyes above the level of the tower's top I saw a flier
all but ready to rise.

Upon her deck were Matai Shang, Phaidor, Dejah Thoris, Thuvia of
Ptarth, and a few thern warriors, while near her was Thurid in the
act of clambering aboard.

He was not ten paces from me, facing in the opposite direction;
and what cruel freak of fate should have caused him to turn about
just as my eyes topped the roof's edge I may not even guess.

But turn he did; and when his eyes met mine his wicked face lighted
with a malignant smile as he leaped toward me, where I was hastening
to scramble to the secure footing of the roof.

Dejah Thoris must have seen me at the same instant, for she screamed
a useless warning just as Thurid's foot, swinging in a mighty kick,
landed full in my face.

Like a felled ox, I reeled and tumbled backward over the tower's
side.





ON THE KAOLIAN ROAD




If there be a fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surely is
a kind and merciful Providence which watches over me.

As I toppled from the tower into the horrid abyss below I counted
myself already dead; and Thurid must have done likewise, for he
evidently did not even trouble himself to look after me, but must
have turned and mounted the waiting flier at once.

Ten feet only I fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harness
caught upon one of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower's
surface--and held.  Even when I had ceased to fall I could not
believe the miracle that had preserved me from instant death, and
for a moment I hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore of
my body.

But when at last I had worked myself back to a firm position
I hesitated to ascend, since I could not know that Thurid was not
still awaiting me above.

Presently, however, there came to my ears the whirring of the
propellers of a flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainter
I realized that the party had proceeded toward the south without
assuring themselves as to my fate.

Cautiously I retraced my way to the roof, and I must admit that
it was with no pleasant sensation that I raised my eyes once more
above its edge; but, to my relief, there was no one in sight, and
a moment later I stood safely upon its broad surface.

To reach the hangar and drag forth the only other flier which it
contained was the work of but an instant; and just as the two thern
warriors whom Matai Shang had left to prevent this very contingency
emerged upon the roof from the tower's interior, I rose above them
with a taunting laugh.

Then I dived rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woola,
and to my immense relief found the faithful beast still there.

The twelve great banths lay in the doorways of their lairs, eyeing
him and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyed Thuvia's
injunction; and I thanked the fate that had made her their keeper
within the Golden Cliffs, and endowed her with the kind and
sympathetic nature that had won the loyalty and affection of these
fierce beasts for her.

Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as the flier
touched the pavement of the court for a brief instant he bounded
to the deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation of his
exuberant happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel against
the courtyard's rocky wall.

Amid the angry shouting of thern guardsmen we rose high above the
last fortress of the Holy Therns, and then raced straight toward
the northeast and Kaol, the destination which I had heard from the
lips of Matai Shang.

Far ahead, a tiny speck in the distance, I made out another flier
late in the afternoon.  It could be none other than that which bore
my lost love and my enemies.

I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then, knowing
that they must have sighted me and would show no lights after
dark, I set my destination compass upon her--that wonderful little
Martian mechanism which, once attuned to the object of destination,
points away toward it, irrespective of every change in its location.

All that night we raced through the Barsoomian void, passing over
low hills and dead sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities and
populous centers of red Martian habitation upon the ribbon-like
lines of cultivated land which border the globe-encircling waterways,
which Earth men call the canals of Mars.

Dawn showed that I had gained appreciably upon the flier ahead of
me.  It was a larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but even
so, it had covered an immense distance since the flight began.

The change in vegetation below showed me that we were rapidly
nearing the equator.  I was now near enough to my quarry to have
used my bow gun; but, though I could see that Dejah Thoris was not
on deck, I feared to fire upon the craft which bore her.

Thurid was deterred by no such scruples; and though it must have
been difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed
them, he could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes;
and so he trained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, and
an instant later an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously
close above my deck.

The black's next shot was more accurate, striking my flier full
upon the prow and exploding with the instant of contact, ripping
wide open the bow buoyancy tanks and disabling the engine.

So quickly did my bow drop after the shot that I scarce had time
to lash Woola to the deck and buckle my own harness to a gunwale
ring before the craft was hanging stern up and making her last long
drop to ground.

Her stern buoyancy tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity;
but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these
also, that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would
instantly follow a successful shot.

Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neither
Woola nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured.  This
good fortune could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid
would not again leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next
shell that hit; and then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go
my hold and crumpled, limp and inert, dangling in my harness like
a corpse.

The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us.  Presently I heard
the diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized that
again I was safe.

Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freed
myself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we were
upon the verge of a natural forest--so rare a thing upon the bosom
of dying Mars that, outside of the forest in the Valley Dor beside
the Lost Sea of Korus, I never before had seen its like upon the
planet.

From books and travelers I had learned something of the little-known
land of Kaol, which lies along the equator almost halfway round
the planet to the east of Helium.

It comprises a sunken area of extreme tropical heat, and is inhabited
by a nation of red men varying but little in manners, customs, and
appearance from the balance of the red men of Barsoom.

I knew that they were among those of the outer world who still
clung tenaciously to the discredited religion of the Holy Therns,
and that Matai Shang would find a ready welcome and safe refuge
among them; while John Carter could look for nothing better than
an ignoble death at their hands.

The isolation of the Kaolians is rendered almost complete by the
fact that no waterway connects their land with that of any other
nation, nor have they any need of a waterway since the low, swampy
land which comprises the entire area of their domain self-waters
their abundant tropical crops.

For great distances in all directions rugged hills and arid
stretches of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them, and
since there is practically no such thing as foreign commerce upon
warlike Barsoom, where each nation is sufficient to itself, really
little has been known relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaol
and the numerous strange, but interesting, people over whom he
rules.

Occasional hunting parties have traveled to this out-of-the-way
corner of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usually
brought disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting the
strange and savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnesses of
Kaol has of later years proved insufficient lure even to the most
intrepid warriors.

It was upon the verge of the land of the Kaols that I now knew
myself to be, but in what direction to search for Dejah Thoris, or
how far into the heart of the great forest I might have to penetrate
I had not the faintest idea.

But not so Woola.

Scarcely had I disentangled him than he raised his head high in air
and commenced circling about at the edge of the forest.  Presently
he halted, and, turning to see if I were following, set off straight
into the maze of trees in the direction we had been going before
Thurid's shot had put an end to our flier.

As best I could, I stumbled after him down a steep declivity
beginning at the forest's edge.

Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broad
fronds completely shutting off the slightest glimpse of the sky.
It was easy to see why the Kaolians needed no navy; their cities,
hidden in the midst of this towering forest, must be entirely
invisible from above, nor could a landing be made by any but the
smallest fliers, and then only with the greatest risk of accident.

How Thurid and Matai Shang were to land I could not imagine, though
later I was to learn that to the level of the forest top there rises
in each city of Kaol a slender watchtower which guards the Kaolians
by day and by night against the secret approach of a hostile fleet.
To one of these the hekkador of the Holy Therns had no difficulty
in approaching, and by its means the party was safely lowered to
the ground.

As Woola and I approached the bottom of the declivity the ground
became soft and mushy, so that it was with the greatest difficulty
that we made any headway whatever.

Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like fronds
grew rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my
head.

Myriad creepers hung festooned in graceful loops from tree to tree,
and among them were several varieties of the Martian "man-flower,"
whose blooms have eyes and hands with which to see and seize the
insects which form their diet.

The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence.  It is a
carnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sage-brush such
as dots our western plains.  Each branch ends in a set of strong
jaws, which have been known to drag down and devour large and
formidable beasts of prey.

Both Woola and I had several narrow escapes from these greedy,
arboreous monsters.

Occasional areas of firm sod gave us intervals of rest from the
arduous labor of traversing this gorgeous, twilight swamp, and it
was upon one of these that I finally decided to make camp for the
night which my chronometer warned me would soon be upon us.

Many varieties of fruit grew in abundance about us; and as Martian
calots are omnivorous, Woola had no difficulty in making a square
meal after I had brought down the viands for him.  Then, having
eaten, too, I lay down with my back to that of my faithful hound,
and dropped into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The forest was shrouded in impenetrable darkness when a low growl
from Woola awakened me.  All about us I could hear the stealthy
movement of great, padded feet, and now and then the wicked gleam
of green eyes upon us.  Arising, I drew my long-sword and waited.

Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savage throat
almost at my side.  What a fool I had been not to have found safer
lodgings for myself and Woola among the branches of one of the
countless trees that surrounded us!

By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoisted
Woola aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late.  There
was nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine,
though, from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, and
for which that first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judged
that we must be in the midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
the fierce, man-eating denizens of the Kaolian jungle.

All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din, but
why they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure to this
day, unless it is that none of them ever venture upon the patches
of scarlet sward which dot the swamp.

When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in
a circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward.  A more
terrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it
would be difficult to imagine.

Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungle
shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woola
and I resumed our journey.

Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the
day; but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and
when they saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the
solid sod.

Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road running
in the general direction we had been pursuing.  Everything about
this highway marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I was
confident, from the indications of antiquity which it bore, as well
as from the very evident signs of its being still in everyday use,
that it must lead to one of the principal cities of Kaol.

Just as we entered it from one side a huge monster emerged from
the jungle upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in our
direction.

Imagine, if you can, a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experience
grown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have some
faint conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidability
of the winged monster that bore down upon me.

Frightful jaws in front and mighty, poisoned sting behind made my
relatively puny long-sword seem a pitiful weapon of defense indeed.
Nor could I hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hide
from those myriad facet eyes which covered three-fourths of the
hideous head, permitting the creature to see in all directions at
one and the same time.

Even my powerful and ferocious Woola was as helpless as a kitten
before that frightful thing.  But to flee were useless, even had
it ever been to my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stood
my ground, Woola snarling at my side, my only hope to die as I had
always lived--fighting.

The creature was upon us now, and at the instant there seemed to
me a single slight chance for victory.  If I could but remove the
terrible menace of certain death hidden in the poison sacs that
fed the sting the struggle would be less unequal.

At the thought I called to Woola to leap upon the creature's head
and hang there, and as his mighty jaws closed upon that fiendish
face, and glistening fangs buried themselves in the bone and
cartilage and lower part of one of the huge eyes, I dived beneath
the great body as the creature rose, dragging Woola from the ground,
that it might bring its sting beneath and pierce the body of the
thing hanging to its head.

To put myself in the path of that poison-laden lance was to court
instant death, but it was the only way; and as the thing shot
lightning-like toward me I swung my long-sword in a terrific cut
that severed the deadly member close to the gorgeously marked body.

Then, like a battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caught
me full in the chest and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded,
clear across the broad highway and into the underbrush of the jungle
that fringes it.

Fortunately, I passed between the boles of trees; had I struck one
of them I should have been badly injured, if not killed, so swiftly
had I been catapulted by that enormous hind leg.

Dazed though I was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back to
Woola's assistance, to find his savage antagonist circling ten feet
above the ground, beating madly at the clinging calot with all six
powerful legs.

Even during my sudden flight through the air I had not once released
my grip upon my long-sword, and now I ran beneath the two battling
monsters, jabbing the winged terror repeatedly with its sharp point.

The thing might easily have risen out of my reach, but evidently it
knew as little concerning retreat in the face of danger as either
Woola or I, for it dropped quickly toward me, and before I could
escape had grasped my shoulder between its powerful jaws.

Time and again the now useless stub of its giant sting struck futilely
against my body, but the blows alone were almost as effective as
the kick of a horse; so that when I say futilely, I refer only to
the natural function of the disabled member--eventually the thing
would have hammered me to a pulp.  Nor was it far from accomplishing
this when an interruption occurred that put an end forever to its
hostilities.

From where I hung a few feet above the road I could see along the
highway a few hundred yards to where it turned toward the east,
and just as I had about given up all hope of escaping the perilous
position in which I now was I saw a red warrior come into view from
around the bend.

He was mounted on a splendid thoat, one of the smaller species used
by red men, and in his hand was a wondrous long, light lance.

His mount was walking sedately when I first perceived them, but the
instant that the red man's eyes fell upon us a word to the thoat
brought the animal at full charge down upon us.  The long lance
of the warrior dipped toward us, and as thoat and rider hurtled
beneath, the point passed through the body of our antagonist.

With a convulsive shudder the thing stiffened, the jaws relaxed,
dropping me to the ground, and then, careening once in mid air,
the creature plunged headforemost to the road, full upon Woola,
who still clung tenaciously to its gory head.

By the time I had regained my feet the red man had turned and ridden
back to us.  Woola, finding his enemy inert and lifeless, released
his hold at my command and wriggled from beneath the body that had
covered him, and together we faced the warrior looking down upon
us.

I started to thank the stranger for his timely assistance, but he
cut me off peremptorily.

"Who are you," he asked, "who dare enter the land of Kaol and hunt
in the royal forest of the jeddak?"

Then, as he noted my white skin through the coating of grime and
blood that covered me, his eyes went wide and in an altered tone
he whispered:  "Can it be that you are a Holy Thern?"

I might have deceived the fellow for a time, as I had deceived
others, but I had cast away the yellow wig and the holy diadem in
the presence of Matai Shang, and I knew that it would not be long
ere my new acquaintance discovered that I was no thern at all.

"I am not a thern," I replied, and then, flinging caution to the
winds, I said:  "I am John Carter, Prince of Helium, whose name
may not be entirely unknown to you."

If his eyes had gone wide when he thought that I was a Holy Thern,
they fairly popped now that he knew that I was John Carter.  I
grasped my long-sword more firmly as I spoke the words which I was
sure would precipitate an attack, but to my surprise they precipitated
nothing of the kind.

"John Carter, Prince of Helium," he repeated slowly, as though he
could not quite grasp the truth of the statement.  "John Carter,
the mightiest warrior of Barsoom!"

And then he dismounted and placed his hand upon my shoulder after
the manner of most friendly greeting upon Mars.

"It is my duty, and it should be my pleasure, to kill you, John
Carter," he said, "but always in my heart of hearts have I admired
your prowess and believed in your sincerity the while I have
questioned and disbelieved the therns and their religion.

"It would mean my instant death were my heresy to be suspected in
the court of Kulan Tith, but if I may serve you, Prince, you have
but to command Torkar Bar, Dwar of the Kaolian Road."

Truth and honesty were writ large upon the warrior's noble countenance,
so that I could not but have trusted him, enemy though he should
have been.  His title of Captain of the Kaolian Road explained
his timely presence in the heart of the savage forest, for every
highway upon Barsoom is patrolled by doughty warriors of the noble
class, nor is there any service more honorable than this lonely
and dangerous duty in the less frequented sections of the domains
of the red men of Barsoom.

"Torkar Bar has already placed a great debt of gratitude upon my
shoulders," I replied, pointing to the carcass of the creature from
whose heart he was dragging his long spear.

The red man smiled.

"It was fortunate that I came when I did," he said.  "Only this
poisoned spear pricking the very heart of a sith can kill it quickly
enough to save its prey.  In this section of Kaol we are all armed
with a long sith spear, whose point is smeared with the poison of
the creature it is intended to kill; no other virus acts so quickly
upon the beast as its own.

"Look," he continued, drawing his dagger and making an incision
in the carcass a foot above the root of the sting, from which he
presently drew forth two sacs, each of which held fully a gallon
of the deadly liquid.

"Thus we maintain our supply, though were it not for certain commercial
uses to which the virus is put, it would scarcely be necessary to
add to our present store, since the sith is almost extinct.

"Only occasionally do we now run upon one.  Of old, however, Kaol
was overrun with the frightful monsters that often came in herds
of twenty or thirty, darting down from above into our cities and
carrying away women, children, and even warriors."

As he spoke I had been wondering just how much I might safely tell
this man of the mission which brought me to his land, but his next
words anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, and
rendered me thankful that I had not spoken too soon.

"And now as to yourself, John Carter," he said, "I shall not ask
your business here, nor do I wish to hear it.  I have eyes and ears
and ordinary intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw the party
that came to the city of Kaol from the north in a small flier.  But
one thing I ask of you, and that is: the word of John Carter that
he contemplates no overt act against either the nation of Kaol or
its jeddak."

"You may have my word as to that, Torkar Bar," I replied.

"My way leads along the Kaolian road, away from the city of Kaol,"
he continued.  "I have seen no one--John Carter least of all.  Nor
have you seen Torkar Bar, nor ever heard of him.  You understand?"

"Perfectly," I replied.

He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

"This road leads directly into the city of Kaol," he said.  "I wish
you fortune," and vaulting to the back of his thoat he trotted away
without even a backward glance.

It was after dark when Woola and I spied through the mighty forest
the great wall which surrounds the city of Kaol.

We had traversed the entire way without mishap or adventure, and
though the few we had met had eyed the great calot wonderingly,
none had pierced the red pigment with which I had smoothly smeared
every square inch of my body.

But to traverse the surrounding country, and to enter the guarded
city of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, were two very different things.
No man enters a Martian city without giving a very detailed and
satisfactory account of himself, nor did I delude myself with the
belief that I could for a moment impose upon the acumen of the
officers of the guard to whom I should be taken the moment I applied
at any one of the gates.

My only hope seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiously
under cover of the darkness, and once in, trust to my own wits to
hide myself in some crowded quarter where detection would be less
liable to occur.

With this idea in view I circled the great wall, keeping within the
fringe of the forest, which is cut away for a short distance from
the wall all about the city, that no enemy may utilize the trees
as a means of ingress.

Several times I attempted to scale the barrier at different points,
but not even my earthly muscles could overcome that cleverly
constructed rampart.  To a height of thirty feet the face of the
wall slanted outward, and then for almost an equal distance it was
perpendicular, above which it slanted in again for some fifteen
feet to the crest.

And smooth!  Polished glass could not be more so.  Finally I had
to admit that at last I had discovered a Barsoomian fortification
which I could not negotiate.

Discouraged, I withdrew into the forest beside a broad highway which
entered the city from the east, and with Woola beside me lay down
to sleep.





A HERO IN KAOL




It was daylight when I was awakened by the sound of stealthy movement
near by.

As I opened my eyes Woola, too, moved and, coming up to his haunches,
stared through the intervening brush toward the road, each hair
upon his neck stiffly erect.

At first I could see nothing, but presently I caught a glimpse of
a bit of smooth and glossy green moving among the scarlet and purple
and yellow of the vegetation.

Motioning Woola to remain quietly where he was, I crept forward to
investigate, and from behind the bole of a great tree I saw a long
line of the hideous green warriors of the dead sea bottoms hiding
in the dense jungle beside the road.

As far as I could see, the silent line of destruction and death
stretched away from the city of Kaol.  There could be but one
explanation.  The green men were expecting an exodus of a body of
red troops from the nearest city gate, and they were lying there
in ambush to leap upon them.

I owed no fealty to the Jeddak of Kaol, but he was of the same race
of noble red men as my own princess, and I would not stand supinely
by and see his warriors butchered by the cruel and heartless demons
of the waste places of Barsoom.

Cautiously I retraced my steps to where I had left Woola, and warning
him to silence, signaled him to follow me.  Making a considerable
detour to avoid the chance of falling into the hands of the green
men, I came at last to the great wall.

A hundred yards to my right was the gate from which the troops
were evidently expected to issue, but to reach it I must pass the
flank of the green warriors within easy sight of them, and, fearing
that my plan to warn the Kaolians might thus be thwarted, I decided
upon hastening toward the left, where another gate a mile away
would give me ingress to the city.

I knew that the word I brought would prove a splendid passport to
Kaol, and I must admit that my caution was due more to my ardent
desire to make my way into the city than to avoid a brush with the
green men.  As much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge
myself, and just now I had more weighty matters to occupy my time
than spilling the blood of strange warriors.

Could I but win beyond the city's wall, there might be opportunity
in the confusion and excitement which were sure to follow my
announcement of an invading force of green warriors to find my way
within the palace of the jeddak, where I was sure Matai Shang and
his party would be quartered.

But scarcely had I taken a hundred steps in the direction of the
farther gate when the sound of marching troops, the clank of metal,
and the squealing of thoats just within the city apprised me of the
fact that the Kaolians were already moving toward the other gate.

There was no time to be lost.  In another moment the gate would be
opened and the head of the column pass out upon the death-bordered
highway.

Turning back toward the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edge
of the clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that had
first made me famous upon Barsoom.  Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet
at a bound are nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth man
upon Mars.

As I passed the flank of the waiting green men they saw my eyes
turned upon them, and in an instant, knowing that all secrecy was
at an end, those nearest me sprang to their feet in an effort to
cut me off before I could reach the gate.

At the same instant the mighty portal swung wide and the head of
the Kaolian column emerged.  A dozen green warriors had succeeded
in reaching a point between me and the gate, but they had but little
idea who it was they had elected to detain.

I did not slacken my speed an iota as I dashed among them, and as
they fell before my blade I could not but recall the happy memory
of those other battles when Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, mightiest
of Martian green men, had stood shoulder to shoulder with me through
long, hot Martian days, as together we hewed down our enemies until
the pile of corpses about us rose higher than a tall man's head.

When several pressed me too closely, there before the carved gateway
of Kaol, I leaped above their heads, and fashioning my tactics
after those of the hideous plant men of Dor, struck down upon my
enemies' heads as I passed above them.

From the city the red warriors were rushing toward us, and from
the jungle the savage horde of green men were coming to meet them.
In a moment I was in the very center of as fierce and bloody a
battle as I had ever passed through.

These Kaolians are most noble fighters, nor are the green men of
the equator one whit less warlike than their cold, cruel cousins of
the temperate zone.  There were many times when either side might
have withdrawn without dishonor and thus ended hostilities, but
from the mad abandon with which each invariably renewed hostilities
I soon came to believe that what need not have been more than a
trifling skirmish would end only with the complete extermination
of one force or the other.

With the joy of battle once roused within me, I took keen delight
in the fray, and that my fighting was noted by the Kaolians was
often evidenced by the shouts of applause directed at me.

If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting ability, it
must be remembered that fighting is my vocation.  If your vocation
be shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one or
the other better than your fellows, then you are a fool if you are
not proud of your ability.  And so I am very proud that upon two
planets no greater fighter has ever lived than John Carter, Prince
of Helium.

And I outdid myself that day to impress the fact upon the natives
of Kaol, for I wished to win a way into their hearts--and their
city.  Nor was I to be disappointed in my desire.

All day we fought, until the road was red with blood and clogged
with corpses.  Back and forth along the slippery highway the tide
of battle surged, but never once was the gateway to Kaol really in
danger.

There were breathing spells when I had a chance to converse with
the red men beside whom I fought, and once the jeddak, Kulan Tith
himself, laid his hand upon my shoulder and asked my name.

"I am Dotar Sojat," I replied, recalling a name given me by the
Tharks many years before, from the surnames of the first two of
their warriors I had killed, which is the custom among them.

"You are a mighty warrior, Dotar Sojat," he replied, "and when
this day is done I shall speak with you again in the great audience
chamber."

And then the fight surged upon us once more and we were separated,
but my heart's desire was attained, and it was with renewed vigor
and a joyous soul that I laid about me with my long-sword until
the last of the green men had had enough and had withdrawn toward
their distant sea bottom.

Not until the battle was over did I learn why the red troops had
sallied forth that day.  It seemed that Kulan Tith was expecting
a visit from a mighty jeddak of the north--a powerful and the only
ally of the Kaolians, and it had been his wish to meet his guest
a full day's journey from Kaol.

But now the march of the welcoming host was delayed until the
following morning, when the troops again set out from Kaol.  I had
not been bidden to the presence of Kulan Tith after the battle,
but he had sent an officer to find me and escort me to comfortable
quarters in that part of the palace set aside for the officers of
the royal guard.

There, with Woola, I had spent a comfortable night, and rose much
refreshed after the arduous labors of the past few days.  Woola
had fought with me through the battle of the previous day, true to
the instincts and training of a Martian war dog, great numbers of
which are often to be found with the savage green hordes of the
dead sea bottoms.

Neither of us had come through the conflict unscathed, but the
marvelous, healing salves of Barsoom had sufficed, overnight, to
make us as good as new.

I breakfasted with a number of the Kaolian officers, whom I found
as courteous and delightful hosts as even the nobles of Helium, who
are renowned for their ease of manners and excellence of breeding.
The meal was scarcely concluded when a messenger arrived from Kulan
Tith summoning me before him.

As I entered the royal presence the jeddak rose, and stepping from
the dais which supported his magnificent throne, came forward to
meet me--a mark of distinction that is seldom accorded to other
than a visiting ruler.

"Kaor, Dotar Sojat!" he greeted me.  "I have summoned you to receive
the grateful thanks of the people of Kaol, for had it not been for
your heroic bravery in daring fate to warn us of the ambuscade we
must surely have fallen into the well-laid trap.  Tell me more of
yourself--from what country you come, and what errand brings you
to the court of Kulan Tith."

"I am from Hastor," I said, for in truth I had a small palace in
that southern city which lies within the far-flung dominions of
the Heliumetic nation.

"My presence in the land of Kaol is partly due to accident, my
flier being wrecked upon the southern fringe of your great forest.
It was while seeking entrance to the city of Kaol that I discovered
the green horde lying in wait for your troops."

If Kulan Tith wondered what business brought me in a flier to the
very edge of his domain he was good enough not to press me further
for an explanation, which I should indeed have had difficulty in
rendering.

During my audience with the jeddak another party entered the
chamber from behind me, so that I did not see their faces until
Kulan Tith stepped past me to greet them, commanding me to follow
and be presented.

As I turned toward them it was with difficulty that I controlled
my features, for there, listening to Kulan Tith's eulogistic words
concerning me, stood my arch-enemies, Matai Shang and Thurid.

"Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns," the jeddak was saying, "shower
thy blessings upon Dotar Sojat, the valorous stranger from distant
Hastor, whose wondrous heroism and marvelous ferocity saved the
day for Kaol yesterday."

Matai Shang stepped forward and laid his hand upon my shoulder.
No slightest indication that he recognized me showed upon his
countenance--my disguise was evidently complete.

He spoke kindly to me and then presented me to Thurid.  The black,
too, was evidently entirely deceived.  Then Kulan Tith regaled
them, much to my amusement, with details of my achievements upon
the field of battle.

The thing that seemed to have impressed him most was my remarkable
agility, and time and again he described the wondrous way in which
I had leaped completely over an antagonist, cleaving his skull wide
open with my long-sword as I passed above him.

I thought that I saw Thurid's eyes widen a bit during the narrative,
and several times I surprised him gazing intently into my face
through narrowed lids.  Was he commencing to suspect?  And then
Kulan Tith told of the savage calot that fought beside me, and
after that I saw suspicion in the eyes of Matai Shang--or did I
but imagine it?

At the close of the audience Kulan Tith announced that he would
have me accompany him upon the way to meet his royal guest, and
as I departed with an officer who was to procure proper trappings
and a suitable mount for me, both Matai Shang and Thurid seemed most
sincere in professing their pleasure at having had an opportunity
to know me.  It was with a sigh of relief that I quitted the chamber,
convinced that nothing more than a guilty conscience had prompted
my belief that either of my enemies suspected my true identity.

A half-hour later I rode out of the city gate with the column that
accompanied Kulan Tith upon the way to meet his friend and ally.
Though my eyes and ears had been wide open during my audience with
the jeddak and my various passages through the palace, I had seen
or heard nothing of Dejah Thoris or Thuvia of Ptarth.  That they
must be somewhere within the great rambling edifice I was positive,
and I should have given much to have found a way to remain behind
during Kulan Tith's absence, that I might search for them.

Toward noon we came in touch with the head of the column we had
set out to meet.

It was a gorgeous train that accompanied the visiting jeddak, and
for miles it stretched along the wide, white road to Kaol.  Mounted
troops, their trappings of jewel and metal-incrusted leather
glistening in the sunlight, formed the vanguard of the body, and
then came a thousand gorgeous chariots drawn by huge zitidars.

These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either side
of them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in the chariots
were the women and children of the royal court.  Upon the back
of each monster zitidar rode a Martian youth, and the whole scene
carried me back to my first days upon Barsoom, now twenty-two years
in the past, when I had first beheld the gorgeous spectacle of a
caravan of the green horde of Tharks.

Never before today had I seen zitidars in the service of red men.
These brutes are huge mastodonian animals that tower to an immense
height even beside the giant green men and their giant thoats;
but when compared to the relatively small red man and his breed
of thoats they assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are truly
appalling.

The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of gay
silk, embroidered in fanciful designs with strings of diamonds,
pearls, rubies, emeralds, and the countless unnamed jewels of Mars,
while from each chariot rose a dozen standards from which streamers,
flags, and pennons fluttered in the breeze.

Just in front of the chariots the visiting jeddak rode alone upon
a pure white thoat--another unusual sight upon Barsoom--and after
them came interminable ranks of mounted spearmen, riflemen, and
swordsmen.  It was indeed a most imposing sight.

Except for the clanking of accouterments and the occasional squeal
of an angry thoat or the low guttural of a zitidar, the passage of
the cavalcade was almost noiseless, for neither thoat nor zitidar
is a hoofed animal, and the broad tires of the chariots are of an
elastic composition, which gives forth no sound.

Now and then the gay laughter of a woman or the chatter of children
could be heard, for the red Martians are a social, pleasure-loving
people--in direct antithesis to the cold and morbid race of green
men.

The forms and ceremonials connected with the meeting of the two
jeddaks consumed an hour, and then we turned and retraced our way
toward the city of Kaol, which the head of the column reached just
before dark, though it must have been nearly morning before the
rear guard passed through the gateway.

Fortunately, I was well up toward the head of the column, and after
the great banquet, which I attended with the officers of the royal
guard, I was free to seek repose.  There was so much activity and
bustle about the palace all during the night with the constant
arrival of the noble officers of the visiting jeddak's retinue
that I dared not attempt to prosecute a search for Dejah Thoris,
and so, as soon as it was seemly for me to do so, I returned to my
quarters.

As I passed along the corridors between the banquet hall and the
apartments that had been allotted me, I had a sudden feeling that
I was under surveillance, and, turning quickly in my tracks, caught
a glimpse of a figure which darted into an open doorway the instant
I wheeled about.

Though I ran quickly back to the spot where the shadower had
disappeared I could find no trace of him, yet in the brief glimpse
that I had caught I could have sworn that I had seen a white face
surmounted by a mass of yellow hair.

The incident gave me considerable food for speculation, since if I
were right in the conclusion induced by the cursory glimpse I had
had of the spy, then Matai Shang and Thurid must suspect my identity,
and if that were true not even the service I had rendered Kulan
Tith could save me from his religious fanaticism.

But never did vague conjecture or fruitless fears for the future
lie with sufficient weight upon my mind to keep me from my rest,
and so tonight I threw myself upon my sleeping silks and furs and
passed at once into dreamless slumber.

Calots are not permitted within the walls of the palace proper,
and so I had had to relegate poor Woola to quarters in the stables
where the royal thoats are kept.  He had comfortable, even luxurious
apartments, but I would have given much to have had him with me;
and if he had been, the thing which happened that night would not
have come to pass.

I could not have slept over a quarter of an hour when I was suddenly
awakened by the passing of some cold and clammy thing across my
forehead.  Instantly I sprang to my feet, clutching in the direction I
thought the presence lay.  For an instant my hand touched against
human flesh, and then, as I lunged headforemost through the
darkness to seize my nocturnal visitor, my foot became entangled
in my sleeping silks and I fell sprawling to the floor.

By the time I had resumed my feet and found the button which
controlled the light my caller had disappeared.  Careful search of
the room revealed nothing to explain either the identity or business
of the person who had thus secretly sought me in the dead of night.

That the purpose might be theft I could not believe, since thieves
are practically unknown upon Barsoom.  Assassination, however, is
rampant, but even this could not have been the motive of my stealthy
friend, for he might easily have killed me had he desired.

I had about given up fruitless conjecture and was on the point
of returning to sleep when a dozen Kaolian guardsmen entered my
apartment.  The officer in charge was one of my genial hosts of
the morning, but now upon his face was no sign of friendship.

"Kulan Tith commands your presence before him," he said.  "Come!"





NEW ALLIES




Surrounded by guardsmen I marched back along the corridors of the
palace of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, to the great audience chamber
in the center of the massive structure.

As I entered the brilliantly lighted apartment, filled with the
nobles of Kaol and the officers of the visiting jeddak, all eyes
were turned upon me.  Upon the great dais at the end of the chamber
stood three thrones, upon which sat Kulan Tith and his two guests,
Matai Shang, and the visiting jeddak.

Up the broad center aisle we marched beneath deadly silence, and
at the foot of the thrones we halted.

"Prefer thy charge," said Kulan Tith, turning to one who stood
among the nobles at his right; and then Thurid, the black dator of
the First Born, stepped forward and faced me.

"Most noble Jeddak," he said, addressing Kulan Tith, "from the first
I suspected this stranger within thy palace.  Your description of
his fiendish prowess tallied with that of the arch-enemy of truth
upon Barsoom.

"But that there might be no mistake I despatched a priest of your
own holy cult to make the test that should pierce his disguise and
reveal the truth.  Behold the result!" and Thurid pointed a rigid
finger at my forehead.

All eyes followed the direction of that accusing digit--I alone
seemed at a loss to guess what fatal sign rested upon my brow.

The officer beside me guessed my perplexity; and as the brows of
Kulan Tith darkened in a menacing scowl as his eyes rested upon
me, the noble drew a small mirror from his pocket-pouch and held
it before my face.

One glance at the reflection it gave back to me was sufficient.

From my forehead the hand of the sneaking thern had reached out
through the concealing darkness of my bed-chamber and wiped away a
patch of the disguising red pigment as broad as my palm.  Beneath
showed the tanned texture of my own white skin.

For a moment Thurid ceased speaking, to enhance, I suspect, the
dramatic effect of his disclosure.  Then he resumed.

"Here, O Kulan Tith," he cried, "is he who has desecrated the temples of
the Gods of Mars, who has violated the persons of the Holy Therns
themselves and turned a world against its age-old religion.  Before
you, in your power, Jeddak of Kaol, Defender of the Holies, stands
John Carter, Prince of Helium!"

Kulan Tith looked toward Matai Shang as though for corroboration
of these charges.  The Holy Thern nodded his head.

"It is indeed the arch-blasphemer," he said.  "Even now he has
followed me to the very heart of thy palace, Kulan Tith, for the
sole purpose of assassinating me.  He--"

"He lies!" I cried.  "Kulan Tith, listen that you may know the
truth.  Listen while I tell you why John Carter has followed Matai
Shang to the heart of thy palace.  Listen to me as well as to them,
and then judge if my acts be not more in accord with true Barsoomian
chivalry and honor than those of these revengeful devotees of the
spurious creeds from whose cruel bonds I have freed your planet."

"Silence!" roared the jeddak, leaping to his feet and laying his
hand upon the hilt of his sword.  "Silence, blasphemer!  Kulan Tith
need not permit the air of his audience chamber to be defiled by
the heresies that issue from your polluted throat to judge you.

"You stand already self-condemned.  It but remains to determine
the manner of your death.  Even the service that you rendered the
arms of Kaol shall avail you naught; it was but a base subterfuge
whereby you might win your way into my favor and reach the side
of this holy man whose life you craved.  To the pits with him!" he
concluded, addressing the officer of my guard.

Here was a pretty pass, indeed!  What chance had I against a whole
nation?  What hope for me of mercy at the hands of the fanatical
Kulan Tith with such advisers as Matai Shang and Thurid.  The black
grinned malevolently in my face.

"You shall not escape this time, Earth man," he taunted.

The guards closed toward me.  A red haze blurred my vision.  The
fighting blood of my Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins.
The lust of battle in all its mad fury was upon me.

With a leap I was beside Thurid, and ere the devilish smirk had
faded from his handsome face I had caught him full upon the mouth
with my clenched fist; and as the good, old American blow landed,
the black dator shot back a dozen feet, to crumple in a heap at
the foot of Kulan Tith's throne, spitting blood and teeth from his
hurt mouth.

Then I drew my sword and swung round, on guard, to face a nation.

In an instant the guardsmen were upon me, but before a blow had
been struck a mighty voice rose above the din of shouting warriors,
and a giant figure leaped from the dais beside Kulan Tith and, with
drawn long-sword, threw himself between me and my adversaries.

It was the visiting jeddak.

"Hold!" he cried.  "If you value my friendship, Kulan Tith, and the
age-old peace that has existed between our peoples, call off your
swordsmen; for wherever or against whomsoever fights John Carter,
Prince of Helium, there beside him and to the death fights Thuvan
Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth."

The shouting ceased and the menacing points were lowered as a
thousand eyes turned first toward Thuvan Dihn in surprise and then
toward Kulan Tith in question.  At first the Jeddak of Kaol went
white in rage, but before he spoke he had mastered himself, so
that his tone was calm and even as befitted intercourse between
two great jeddaks.

"Thuvan Dihn," he said slowly, "must have great provocation thus
to desecrate the ancient customs which inspire the deportment of
a guest within the palace of his host.  Lest I, too, should forget
myself as has my royal friend, I should prefer to remain silent
until the Jeddak of Ptarth has won from me applause for his action
by relating the causes which provoked it."

I could see that the Jeddak of Ptarth was of half a mind to throw
his metal in Kulan Tith's face, but he controlled himself even as
well as had his host.

"None knows better than Thuvan Dihn," he said, "the laws which govern
the acts of men in the domains of their neighbors; but Thuvan Dihn
owes allegiance to a higher law than these--the law of gratitude.
Nor to any man upon Barsoom does he owe a greater debt of gratitude
than to John Carter, Prince of Helium.

"Years ago, Kulan Tith," he continued, "upon the occasion of your
last visit to me, you were greatly taken with the charms and graces
of my only daughter, Thuvia.  You saw how I adored her, and later
you learned that, inspired by some unfathomable whim, she had
taken the last, long, voluntary pilgrimage upon the cold bosom of
the mysterious Iss, leaving me desolate.

"Some months ago I first heard of the expedition which John Carter
had led against Issus and the Holy Therns.  Faint rumors of the
atrocities reported to have been committed by the therns upon those
who for countless ages have floated down the mighty Iss came to my
ears.

"I heard that thousands of prisoners had been released, few of
whom dared to return to their own countries owing to the mandate of
terrible death which rests against all who return from the Valley
Dor.

"For a time I could not believe the heresies which I heard, and
I prayed that my daughter Thuvia might have died before she ever
committed the sacrilege of returning to the outer world.  But then
my father's love asserted itself, and I vowed that I would prefer
eternal damnation to further separation from her if she could be
found.

"So I sent emissaries to Helium, and to the court of Xodar, Jeddak
of the First Born, and to him who now rules those of the thern
nation that have renounced their religion; and from each and all
I heard the same story of unspeakable cruelties and atrocities
perpetrated upon the poor defenseless victims of their religion by
the Holy Therns.

"Many there were who had seen or known my daughter, and from therns
who had been close to Matai Shang I learned of the indignities that
he personally heaped upon her; and I was glad when I came here to
find that Matai Shang was also your guest, for I should have sought
him out had it taken a lifetime.

"More, too, I heard, and that of the chivalrous kindness that John
Carter had accorded my daughter.  They told me how he fought for
her and rescued her, and how he spurned escape from the savage
Warhoons of the south, sending her to safety upon his own thoat
and remaining upon foot to meet the green warriors.

"Can you wonder, Kulan Tith, that I am willing to jeopardize
my life, the peace of my nation, or even your friendship, which I
prize more than aught else, to champion the Prince of Helium?"

For a moment Kulan Tith was silent.  I could see by the expression
of his face that he was sore perplexed.  Then he spoke.

"Thuvan Dihn," he said, and his tone was friendly though sad,
"who am I to judge my fellow-man?  In my eyes the Father of Therns
is still holy, and the religion which he teaches the only true
religion, but were I faced by the same problem that has vexed you
I doubt not that I should feel and act precisely as you have.

"In so far as the Prince of Helium is concerned I may act, but between
you and Matai Shang my only office can be one of conciliation.  The
Prince of Helium shall be escorted in safety to the boundary of
my domain ere the sun has set again, where he shall be free to go
whither he will; but upon pain of death must he never again enter
the land of Kaol.

"If there be a quarrel between you and the Father of Therns, I
need not ask that the settlement of it be deferred until both have
passed beyond the limits of my power.  Are you satisfied, Thuvan
Dihn?"

The Jeddak of Ptarth nodded his assent, but the ugly scowl that he
bent upon Matai Shang harbored ill for that pasty-faced godling.

"The Prince of Helium is far from satisfied," I cried, breaking
rudely in upon the beginnings of peace, for I had no stomach for
peace at the price that had been named.

"I have escaped death in a dozen forms to follow Matai Shang and
overtake him, and I do not intend to be led, like a decrepit thoat
to the slaughter, from the goal that I have won by the prowess of
my sword arm and the might of my muscles.

"Nor will Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, be satisfied when he has
heard me through.  Do you know why I have followed Matai Shang and
Thurid, the black dator, from the forests of the Valley Dor across
half a world through almost insurmountable difficulties?

"Think you that John Carter, Prince of Helium, would stoop to
assassination?  Can Kulan Tith be such a fool as to believe that
lie, whispered in his ear by the Holy Thern or Dator Thurid?

"I do not follow Matai Shang to kill him, though the God of mine
own planet knows that my hands itch to be at his throat.  I follow
him, Thuvan Dihn, because with him are two prisoners--my wife, Dejah
Thoris, Princess of Helium, and your daughter, Thuvia of Ptarth.

"Now think you that I shall permit myself to be led beyond the
walls of Kaol unless the mother of my son accompanies me, and thy
daughter be restored?"

Thuvan Dihn turned upon Kulan Tith.  Rage flamed in his keen eyes;
but by the masterfulness of his self-control he kept his tones
level as he spoke.

"Knew you this thing, Kulan Tith?" he asked.  "Knew you that my
daughter lay a prisoner in your palace?"

"He could not know it," interrupted Matai Shang, white with what
I am sure was more fear than rage.  "He could not know it, for it
is a lie."

I would have had his life for that upon the spot, but even as I
sprang toward him Thuvan Dihn laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder.

"Wait," he said to me, and then to Kulan Tith.  "It is not a lie.
This much have I learned of the Prince of Helium--he does not lie.
Answer me, Kulan Tith--I have asked you a question."

"Three women came with the Father of Therns," replied Kulan Tith.
"Phaidor, his daughter, and two who were reported to be her slaves.
If these be Thuvia of Ptarth and Dejah Thoris of Helium I did not
know it--I have seen neither.  But if they be, then shall they be
returned to you on the morrow."

As he spoke he looked straight at Matai Shang, not as a devotee
should look at a high priest, but as a ruler of men looks at one
to whom he issues a command.

It must have been plain to the Father of Therns, as it was to me,
that the recent disclosures of his true character had done much
already to weaken the faith of Kulan Tith, and that it would require
but little more to turn the powerful jeddak into an avowed enemy;
but so strong are the seeds of superstition that even the great
Kaolian still hesitated to cut the final strand that bound him to
his ancient religion.

Matai Shang was wise enough to seem to accept the mandate of his
follower, and promised to bring the two slave women to the audience
chamber on the morrow.

"It is almost morning now," he said, "and I should dislike to break
in upon the slumber of my daughter, or I would have them fetched
at once that you might see that the Prince of Helium is mistaken,"
and he emphasized the last word in an effort to affront me so
subtlety that I could not take open offense.

I was about to object to any delay, and demand that the Princess
of Helium be brought to me forthwith, when Thuvan Dihn made such
insistence seem unnecessary.

"I should like to see my daughter at once," he said, "but if Kulan
Tith will give me his assurance that none will be permitted to
leave the palace this night, and that no harm shall befall either
Dejah Thoris or Thuvia of Ptarth between now and the moment they
are brought into our presence in this chamber at daylight I shall
not insist."

"None shall leave the palace tonight," replied the Jeddak of Kaol,
"and Matai Shang will give us assurance that no harm will come to
the two women?"

The thern assented with a nod.  A few moments later Kulan Tith
indicated that the audience was at an end, and at Thuvan Dihn's
invitation I accompanied the Jeddak of Ptarth to his own apartments,
where we sat until daylight, while he listened to the account of
my experiences upon his planet and to all that had befallen his
daughter during the time that we had been together.

I found the father of Thuvia a man after my own heart, and that
night saw the beginning of a friendship which has grown until it
is second only to that which obtains between Tars Tarkas, the green
Jeddak of Thark, and myself.

The first burst of Mars's sudden dawn brought messengers from Kulan
Tith, summoning us to the audience chamber where Thuvan Dihn was
to receive his daughter after years of separation, and I was to
be reunited with the glorious daughter of Helium after an almost
unbroken separation of twelve years.

My heart pounded within my bosom until I looked about me in
embarrassment, so sure was I that all within the room must hear.
My arms ached to enfold once more the divine form of her whose
eternal youth and undying beauty were but outward manifestations
of a perfect soul.

At last the messenger despatched to fetch Matai Shang returned.  I
craned my neck to catch the first glimpse of those who should be
following, but the messenger was alone.

Halting before the throne he addressed his jeddak in a voice that
was plainly audible to all within the chamber.

"O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks," he cried, after the fashion
of the court, "your messenger returns alone, for when he reached
the apartments of the Father of Therns he found them empty, as were
those occupied by his suite."

Kulan Tith went white.

A low groan burst from the lips of Thuvan Dihn who stood next me,
not having ascended the throne which awaited him beside his host.
For a moment the silence of death reigned in the great audience
chamber of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol.  It was he who broke the
spell.

Rising from his throne he stepped down from the dais to the side
of Thuvan Dihn.  Tears dimmed his eyes as he placed both his hands
upon the shoulders of his friend.

"O Thuvan Dihn," he cried, "that this should have happened in the
palace of thy best friend!  With my own hands would I have wrung
the neck of Matai Shang had I guessed what was in his foul heart.
Last night my life-long faith was weakened--this morning it has
been shattered; but too late, too late.

"To wrest your daughter and the wife of this royal warrior from the
clutches of these archfiends you have but to command the resources
of a mighty nation, for all Kaol is at your disposal.  What may be
done?  Say the word!"

"First," I suggested, "let us find those of your people who
be responsible for the escape of Matai Shang and his followers.
Without assistance on the part of the palace guard this thing could
not have come to pass.  Seek the guilty, and from them force an
explanation of the manner of their going and the direction they
have taken."

Before Kulan Tith could issue the commands that would initiate the
investigation a handsome young officer stepped forward and addressed
his jeddak.

"O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks," he said, "I alone be responsible
for this grievous error.  Last night it was I who commanded the
palace guard.  I was on duty in other parts of the palace during the
audience of the early morning, and knew nothing of what transpired
then, so that when the Father of Therns summoned me and explained
that it was your wish that his party be hastened from the city
because of the presence here of a deadly enemy who sought the Holy
Hekkador's life I did only what a lifetime of training has taught
me was the proper thing to do--I obeyed him whom I believed to be
the ruler of us all, mightier even than thou, mightiest of jeddaks.

"Let the consequences and the punishment fall on me alone, for I
alone am guilty.  Those others of the palace guard who assisted in
the flight did so under my instructions."

Kulan Tith looked first at me and then at Thuvan Dihn, as though
to ask our judgment upon the man, but the error was so evidently
excusable that neither of us had any mind to see the young officer
suffer for a mistake that any might readily have made.

"How left they," asked Thuvan Dihn, "and what direction did they
take?"

"They left as they came," replied the officer, "upon their own
flier.  For some time after they had departed I watched the vessel's
lights, which vanished finally due north."

"Where north could Matai Shang find an asylum?" asked Thuvan Dihn
of Kulan Tith.

For some moments the Jeddak of Kaol stood with bowed head, apparently
deep in thought.  Then a sudden light brightened his countenance.

"I have it!" he cried.  "Only yesterday Matai Shang let drop a hint
of his destination, telling me of a race of people unlike ourselves
who dwell far to the north.  They, he said, had always been known
to the Holy Therns and were devout and faithful followers of the
ancient cult.  Among them would he find a perpetual haven of refuge,
where no `lying heretics' might seek him out.  It is there that
Matai Shang has gone."

"And in all Kaol there be no flier wherein to follow," I cried.

"Nor nearer than Ptarth," replied Thuvan Dihn.

"Wait!" I exclaimed, "beyond the southern fringe of this great
forest lies the wreck of the thern flier which brought me that far
upon my way.  If you will loan me men to fetch it, and artificers
to assist me, I can repair it in two days, Kulan Tith."

I had been more than half suspicious of the seeming sincerity of
the Kaolian jeddak's sudden apostasy, but the alacrity with which
he embraced my suggestion, and the despatch with which a force of
officers and men were placed at my disposal entirely removed the
last vestige of my doubts.

Two days later the flier rested upon the top of the watchtower,
ready to depart.  Thuvan Dihn and Kulan Tith had offered me the
entire resources of two nations--millions of fighting men were at
my disposal; but my flier could hold but one other than myself and
Woola.

As I stepped aboard her, Thuvan Dihn took his place beside me.  I
cast a look of questioning surprise upon him.  He turned to the
highest of his own officers who had accompanied him to Kaol.

"To you I entrust the return of my retinue to Ptarth," he said.
"There my son rules ably in my absence.  The Prince of Helium shall
not go alone into the land of his enemies.  I have spoken.  Farewell!"





THROUGH THE CARRION CAVES




Straight toward the north, day and night, our destination compass
led us after the fleeing flier upon which it had remained set since
I first attuned it after leaving the thern fortress.

Early in the second night we noticed the air becoming perceptibly
colder, and from the distance we had come from the equator were
assured that we were rapidly approaching the north arctic region.

My knowledge of the efforts that had been made by countless
expeditions to explore that unknown land bade me to caution, for
never had flier returned who had passed to any considerable distance
beyond the mighty ice-barrier that fringes the southern hem of the
frigid zone.

What became of them none knew--only that they passed forever out
of the sight of man into that grim and mysterious country of the
pole.

The distance from the barrier to the pole was no more than a swift
flier should cover in a few hours, and so it was assumed that some
frightful catastrophe awaited those who reached the "forbidden land,"
as it had come to be called by the Martians of the outer world.

Thus it was that I went more slowly as we approached the barrier,
for it was my intention to move cautiously by day over the ice-pack
that I might discover, before I had run into a trap, if there
really lay an inhabited country at the north pole, for there only
could I imagine a spot where Matai Shang might feel secure from
John Carter, Prince of Helium.

We were flying at a snail's pace but a few feet above the
ground--literally feeling our way along through the darkness, for
both moons had set, and the night was black with the clouds that
are to be found only at Mars's two extremities.

Suddenly a towering wall of white rose directly in our path, and
though I threw the helm hard over, and reversed our engine, I was
too late to avoid collision. With a sickening crash we struck the
high looming obstacle three-quarters on.

The flier reeled half over; the engine stopped; as one, the patched
buoyancy tanks burst, and we plunged, headforemost, to the ground
twenty feet beneath.

Fortunately none of us was injured, and when we had disentangled
ourselves from the wreckage, and the lesser moon had burst again from
below the horizon, we found that we were at the foot of a mighty
ice-barrier, from which outcropped great patches of the granite
hills which hold it from encroaching farther toward the south.

What fate!  With the journey all but completed to be thus wrecked
upon the wrong side of that precipitous and unscalable wall of rock
and ice!

I looked at Thuvan Dihn.  He but shook his head dejectedly.

The balance of the night we spent shivering in our inadequate
sleeping silks and furs upon the snow that lies at the foot of the
ice-barrier.

With daylight my battered spirits regained something of their
accustomed hopefulness, though I must admit that there was little
enough for them to feed upon.

"What shall we do?" asked Thuvan Dihn.  "How may we pass that which
is impassable?"

"First we must disprove its impassability," I replied.  "Nor shall
I admit that it is impassable before I have followed its entire
circle and stand again upon this spot, defeated.  The sooner we
start, the better, for I see no other way, and it will take us more
than a month to travel the weary, frigid miles that lie before us."

For five days of cold and suffering and privation we traversed the
rough and frozen way which lies at the foot of the ice-barrier.
Fierce, fur-bearing creatures attacked us by daylight and by dark.
Never for a moment were we safe from the sudden charge of some huge
demon of the north.

The apt was our most consistent and dangerous foe.

It is a huge, white-furred creature with six limbs, four of which,
short and heavy, carry it swiftly over the snow and ice; while the
other two, growing forward from its shoulders on either side of
its long, powerful neck, terminate in white, hairless hands, with
which it seizes and holds its prey.

Its head and mouth are more similar in appearance to those of a
hippopotamus than to any other earthly animal, except that from
the sides of the lower jawbone two mighty horns curve slightly
downward toward the front.

Its two huge eyes inspired my greatest curiosity.  They extend in
two vast, oval patches from the center of the top of the cranium
down either side of the head to below the roots of the horns, so
that these weapons really grow out from the lower part of the eyes,
which are composed of several thousand ocelli each.

This eye structure seemed remarkable in a beast whose haunts were
upon a glaring field of ice and snow, and though I found upon
minute examination of several that we killed that each ocellus is
furnished with its own lid, and that the animal can at will close
as many of the facets of his huge eyes as he chooses, yet I was
positive that nature had thus equipped him because much of his life
was to be spent in dark, subterranean recesses.

Shortly after this we came upon the hugest apt that we had seen.
The creature stood fully eight feet at the shoulder, and was so
sleek and clean and glossy that I could have sworn that he had but
recently been groomed.

He stood head-on eyeing us as we approached him, for we had found
it a waste of time to attempt to escape the perpetual bestial rage
which seems to possess these demon creatures, who rove the dismal
north attacking every living thing that comes within the scope of
their far-seeing eyes.

Even when their bellies are full and they can eat no more, they
kill purely for the pleasure which they derive from taking life,
and so when this particular apt failed to charge us, and instead
wheeled and trotted away as we neared him, I should have been greatly
surprised had I not chanced to glimpse the sheen of a golden collar
about its neck.

Thuvan Dihn saw it, too, and it carried the same message of hope
to us both.  Only man could have placed that collar there, and as
no race of Martians of which we knew aught ever had attempted to
domesticate the ferocious apt, he must belong to a people of the
north of whose very existence we were ignorant--possibly to the
fabled yellow men of Barsoom; that once powerful race which was
supposed to be extinct, though sometimes, by theorists, thought
still to exist in the frozen north.

Simultaneously we started upon the trail of the great beast.
Woola was quickly made to understand our desires, so that it was
unnecessary to attempt to keep in sight of the animal whose swift
flight over the rough ground soon put him beyond our vision.

For the better part of two hours the trail paralleled the barrier,
and then suddenly turned toward it through the roughest and seemingly
most impassable country I ever had beheld.

Enormous granite boulders blocked the way on every hand; deep rifts
in the ice threatened to engulf us at the least misstep; and from
the north a slight breeze wafted to our nostrils an unspeakable
stench that almost choked us.

For another two hours we were occupied in traversing a few hundred
yards to the foot of the barrier.

Then, turning about the corner of a wall-like outcropping of granite,
we came upon a smooth area of two or three acres before the base
of the towering pile of ice and rock that had baffled us for days,
and before us beheld the dark and cavernous mouth of a cave.

From this repelling portal the horrid stench was emanating, and
as Thuvan Dihn espied the place he halted with an exclamation of
profound astonishment.

"By all my ancestors!" he ejaculated.  "That I should have lived to
witness the reality of the fabled Carrion Caves!  If these indeed
be they, we have found a way beyond the ice-barrier.

"The ancient chronicles of the first historians of Barsoom--so
ancient that we have for ages considered them mythology--record
the passing of the yellow men from the ravages of the green hordes
that overran Barsoom as the drying up of the great oceans drove
the dominant races from their strongholds.

"They tell of the wanderings of the remnants of this once powerful
race, harassed at every step, until at last they found a way through
the ice-barrier of the north to a fertile valley at the pole.

"At the opening to the subterranean passage that led to their haven
of refuge a mighty battle was fought in which the yellow men were
victorious, and within the caves that gave ingress to their new
home they piled the bodies of the dead, both yellow and green, that
the stench might warn away their enemies from further pursuit.

"And ever since that long-gone day have the dead of this fabled
land been carried to the Carrion Caves, that in death and decay they
might serve their country and warn away invading enemies.  Here,
too, is brought, so the fable runs, all the waste stuff of the
nation--everything that is subject to rot, and that can add to the
foul stench that assails our nostrils.

"And death lurks at every step among rotting dead, for here the fierce
apts lair, adding to the putrid accumulation with the fragments of
their own prey which they cannot devour.  It is a horrid avenue to
our goal, but it is the only one."

"You are sure, then, that we have found the way to the land of the
yellow men?" I cried.

"As sure as may be," he replied; "having only ancient legend to
support my belief.  But see how closely, so far, each detail tallies
with the world-old story of the hegira of the yellow race.  Yes,
I am sure that we have discovered the way to their ancient hiding
place."

"If it be true, and let us pray that such may be the case," I said,
"then here may we solve the mystery of the disappearance of Tardos
Mors, Jeddak of Helium, and Mors Kajak, his son, for no other spot
upon Barsoom has remained unexplored by the many expeditions and
the countless spies that have been searching for them for nearly
two years.  The last word that came from them was that they sought
Carthoris, my own brave son, beyond the ice-barrier."

As we talked we had been approaching the entrance to the cave, and
as we crossed the threshold I ceased to wonder that the ancient
green enemies of the yellow men had been halted by the horrors of
that awful way.

The bones of dead men lay man high upon the broad floor of the first
cave, and over all was a putrid mush of decaying flesh, through
which the apts had beaten a hideous trail toward the entrance to
the second cave beyond.

The roof of this first apartment was low, like all that we traversed
subsequently, so that the foul odors were confined and condensed
to such an extent that they seemed to possess tangible substance.
One was almost tempted to draw his short-sword and hew his way
through in search of pure air beyond.

"Can man breathe this polluted air and live?" asked Thuvan Dihn,
choking.

"Not for long, I imagine," I replied; "so let us make haste.  I
will go first, and you bring up the rear, with Woola between.
Come," and with the words I dashed forward, across the fetid mass
of putrefaction.

It was not until we had passed through seven caves of different sizes
and varying but little in the power and quality of their stenches
that we met with any physical opposition.  Then, within the eighth
cave, we came upon a lair of apts.

A full score of the mighty beasts were disposed about the chamber.
Some were sleeping, while others tore at the fresh-killed carcasses
of new-brought prey, or fought among themselves in their love-making.

Here in the dim light of their subterranean home the value of
their great eyes was apparent, for these inner caves are shrouded
in perpetual gloom that is but little less than utter darkness.

To attempt to pass through the midst of that fierce herd seemed,
even to me, the height of folly, and so I proposed to Thuvan Dihn
that he return to the outer world with Woola, that the two might
find their way to civilization and come again with a sufficient
force to overcome not only the apts, but any further obstacles that
might lie between us and our goal.

"In the meantime," I continued, "I may discover some means of
winning my way alone to the land of the yellow men, but if I am
unsuccessful one life only will have been sacrificed.  Should we
all go on and perish, there will be none to guide a succoring party
to Dejah Thoris and your daughter."

"I shall not return and leave you here alone, John Carter," replied
Thuvan Dihn.  "Whether you go on to victory or death, the Jeddak
of Ptarth remains at your side.  I have spoken."

I knew from his tone that it were useless to attempt to argue the
question, and so I compromised by sending Woola back with a hastily
penned note enclosed in a small metal case and fastened about
his neck.  I commanded the faithful creature to seek Carthoris at
Helium, and though half a world and countless dangers lay between
I knew that if the thing could be done Woola would do it.

Equipped as he was by nature with marvelous speed and endurance,
and with frightful ferocity that made him a match for any single
enemy of the way, his keen intelligence and wondrous instinct
should easily furnish all else that was needed for the successful
accomplishment of his mission.

It was with evident reluctance that the great beast turned to leave
me in compliance with my command, and ere he had gone I could not
resist the inclination to throw my arms about his great neck in a
parting hug.  He rubbed his cheek against mine in a final caress,
and a moment later was speeding through the Carrion Caves toward
the outer world.

In my note to Carthoris I had given explicit directions for locating
the Carrion Caves, impressing upon him the necessity for making
entrance to the country beyond through this avenue, and not to attempt
under any circumstances to cross the ice-barrier with a fleet.  I
told him that what lay beyond the eighth cave I could not even
guess; but I was sure that somewhere upon the other side of the
ice-barrier his mother lay in the power of Matai Shang, and that
possibly his grandfather and great-grandfather as well, if they
lived.

Further, I advised him to call upon Kulan Tith and the son of
Thuvan Dihn for warriors and ships that the expedition might be
sufficiently strong to insure success at the first blow.

"And," I concluded, "if there be time bring Tars Tarkas with you,
for if I live until you reach me I can think of few greater pleasures
than to fight once more, shoulder to shoulder, with my old friend."

When Woola had left us Thuvan Dihn and I, hiding in the seventh
cave, discussed and discarded many plans for crossing the eighth
chamber.  From where we stood we saw that the fighting among the
apts was growing less, and that many that had been feeding had
ceased and lain down to sleep.

Presently it became apparent that in a short time all the ferocious
monsters might be peacefully slumbering, and thus a hazardous
opportunity be presented to us to cross through their lair.

One by one the remaining brutes stretched themselves upon the
bubbling decomposition that covered the mass of bones upon the
floor of their den, until but a single apt remained awake.  This
huge fellow roamed restlessly about, nosing among his companion
and the abhorrent litter of the cave.

Occasionally he would stop to peer intently toward first one of
the exits from the chamber and then the other.  His whole demeanor
was as of one who acts as sentry.

We were at last forced to the belief that he would not sleep
while the other occupants of the lair slept, and so cast about in
our minds for some scheme whereby we might trick him.  Finally I
suggested a plan to Thuvan Dihn, and as it seemed as good as any
that we had discussed we decided to put it to the test.

To this end Thuvan Dihn placed himself close against the cave's
wall, beside the entrance to the eighth chamber, while I deliberately
showed myself to the guardian apt as he looked toward our retreat.
Then I sprang to the opposite side of the entrance, flattening my
body close to the wall.

Without a sound the great beast moved rapidly toward the seventh
cave to see what manner of intruder had thus rashly penetrated so
far within the precincts of his habitation.

As he poked his head through the narrow aperture that connects the
two caves a heavy long-sword was awaiting him upon either hand,
and before he had an opportunity to emit even a single growl his
severed head rolled at our feet.

Quickly we glanced into the eighth chamber--not an apt had moved.
Crawling over the carcass of the huge beast that blocked the doorway
Thuvan Dihn and I cautiously entered the forbidding and dangerous
den.

Like snails we wound our silent and careful way among the huge,
recumbent forms.  The only sound above our breathing was the sucking
noise of our feet as we lifted them from the ooze of decaying flesh
through which we crept.

Halfway across the chamber and one of the mighty beasts directly
before me moved restlessly at the very instant that my foot was
poised above his head, over which I must step.

Breathlessly I waited, balancing upon one foot, for I did not dare
move a muscle.  In my right hand was my keen short-sword, the point
hovering an inch above the thick fur beneath which beat the savage
heart.

Finally the apt relaxed, sighing, as with the passing of a bad dream,
and resumed the regular respiration of deep slumber.  I planted my
raised foot beyond the fierce head and an instant later had stepped
over the beast.

Thuvan Dihn followed directly after me, and another moment found
us at the further door, undetected.

The Carrion Caves consist of a series of twenty-seven connecting
chambers, and present the appearance of having been eroded by
running water in some far-gone age when a mighty river found its
way to the south through this single breach in the barrier of rock
and ice that hems the country of the pole.

Thuvan Dihn and I traversed the remaining nineteen caverns without
adventure or mishap.

We were afterward to learn that but once a month is it possible to
find all the apts of the Carrion Caves in a single chamber.

At other times they roam singly or in pairs in and out of the
caves, so that it would have been practically impossible for two
men to have passed through the entire twenty-seven chambers without
encountering an apt in nearly every one of them.  Once a month
they sleep for a full day, and it was our good fortune to stumble
by accident upon one of these occasions.

Beyond the last cave we emerged into a desolate country of snow
and ice, but found a well-marked trail leading north.  The way was
boulder-strewn, as had been that south of the barrier, so that we
could see but a short distance ahead of us at any time.

After a couple of hours we passed round a huge boulder to come to
a steep declivity leading down into a valley.

Directly before us we saw a half dozen men--fierce, black-bearded
fellows, with skins the color of a ripe lemon.

"The yellow men of Barsoom!" ejaculated Thuvan Dihn, as though
even now that he saw them he found it scarce possible to believe
that the very race we expected to find hidden in this remote and
inaccessible land did really exist.

We withdrew behind an adjacent boulder to watch the actions of
the little party, which stood huddled at the foot of another huge
rock, their backs toward us.

One of them was peering round the edge of the granite mass as though
watching one who approached from the opposite side.

Presently the object of his scrutiny came within the range of my
vision and I saw that it was another yellow man.  All were clothed
in magnificent furs--the six in the black and yellow striped hide
of the orluk, while he who approached alone was resplendent in the
pure white skin of an apt.

The yellow men were armed with two swords, and a short javelin
was slung across the back of each, while from their left arms hung
cuplike shields no larger than a dinner plate, the concave sides
of which turned outward toward an antagonist.

They seemed puny and futile implements of safety against an even
ordinary swordsman, but I was later to see the purpose of them and
with what wondrous dexterity the yellow men manipulate them.

One of the swords which each of the warriors carried caught
my immediate attention.  I call it a sword, but really it was a
sharp-edged blade with a complete hook at the far end.

The other sword was of about the same length as the hooked instrument,
and somewhere between that of my long-sword and my short-sword.
It was straight and two-edged.  In addition to the weapons I have
enumerated each man carried a dagger in his harness.

As the white-furred one approached, the six grasped their swords
more firmly--the hooked instrument in the left hand, the straight
sword in the right, while above the left wrist the small shield
was held rigid upon a metal bracelet.

As the lone warrior came opposite them the six rushed out upon him
with fiendish yells that resembled nothing more closely than the
savage war cry of the Apaches of the South-west.

Instantly the attacked drew both his swords, and as the six fell
upon him I witnessed as pretty fighting as one might care to see.

With their sharp hooks the combatants attempted to take hold of
an adversary, but like lightning the cupshaped shield would spring
before the darting weapon and into its hollow the hook would plunge.

Once the lone warrior caught an antagonist in the side with his
hook, and drawing him close ran his sword through him.

But the odds were too unequal, and, though he who fought alone was
by far the best and bravest of them all, I saw that it was but a
question of time before the remaining five would find an opening
through his marvelous guard and bring him down.

Now my sympathies have ever been with the weaker side of an argument,
and though I knew nothing of the cause of the trouble I could not
stand idly by and see a brave man butchered by superior numbers.

As a matter of fact I presume I gave little attention to seeking an
excuse, for I love a good fight too well to need any other reason
for joining in when one is afoot.

So it was that before Thuvan Dihn knew what I was about he saw me
standing by the side of the white-clad yellow man, battling like
mad with his five adversaries.





WITH THE YELLOW MEN




Thuvan Dihn was not long in joining me; and, though we found the
hooked weapon a strange and savage thing with which to deal, the
three of us soon despatched the five black-bearded warriors who
opposed us.

When the battle was over our new acquaintance turned to me, and
removing the shield from his wrist, held it out.  I did not know
the significance of his act, but judged that it was but a form of
expressing his gratitude to me.

I afterward learned that it symbolized the offering of a man's life
in return for some great favor done him; and my act of refusing,
which I had immediately done, was what was expected of me.

"Then accept from Talu, Prince of Marentina," said the yellow man,
"this token of my gratitude," and reaching beneath one of his wide
sleeves he withdrew a bracelet and placed it upon my arm.  He then
went through the same ceremony with Thuvan Dihn.

Next he asked our names, and from what land we hailed.  He seemed
quite familiar with the geography of the outerworld, and when I
said I was from Helium he raised his brows.

"Ah," he said, "you seek your ruler and his company?"

"Know you of them?" I asked.

"But little more than that they were captured by my uncle, Salensus
Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks, Ruler of Okar, land of the yellow men of
Barsoom.  As to their fate I know nothing, for I am at war with my
uncle, who would crush my power in the principality of Marentina.

"These from whom you have just saved me are warriors he has sent
out to find and slay me, for they know that often I come alone to
hunt and kill the sacred apt which Salensus Oll so much reveres.
It is partly because I hate his religion that Salensus Oll hates
me; but mostly does he fear my growing power and the great faction
which has arisen throughout Okar that would be glad to see me ruler
of Okar and Jeddak of Jeddaks in his place.

"He is a cruel and tyrannous master whom all hate, and were it not
for the great fear they have of him I could raise an army overnight
that would wipe out the few that might remain loyal to him.  My
own people are faithful to me, and the little valley of Marentina
has paid no tribute to the court of Salensus Oll for a year.

"Nor can he force us, for a dozen men may hold the narrow way to
Marentina against a million.  But now, as to thine own affairs.
How may I aid you?  My palace is at your disposal, if you wish to
honor me by coming to Marentina."

"When our work is done we shall be glad to accept your invitation,"
I replied.  "But now you can assist us most by directing us to the
court of Salensus Oll, and suggesting some means by which we may
gain admission to the city and the palace, or whatever other place
we find our friends to be confined."

Talu gazed ruefully at our smooth faces and at Thuvan Dihn's red
skin and my white one.

"First you must come to Marentina," he said, "for a great change
must be wrought in your appearance before you can hope to enter
any city in Okar.  You must have yellow faces and black beards,
and your apparel and trappings must be those least likely to arouse
suspicion.  In my palace is one who can make you appear as truly
yellow men as does Salensus Oll himself."

His counsel seemed wise; and as there was apparently no other way
to insure a successful entry to Kadabra, the capital city of Okar,
we set out with Talu, Prince of Marentina, for his little, rock-bound
country.

The way was over some of the worst traveling I have ever seen, and
I do not wonder that in this land where there are neither thoats
nor fliers that Marentina is in little fear of invasion; but at
last we reached our destination, the first view of which I had from
a slight elevation a half-mile from the city.

Nestled in a deep valley lay a city of Martian concrete, whose
every street and plaza and open space was roofed with glass.  All
about lay snow and ice, but there was none upon the rounded,
domelike, crystal covering that enveloped the whole city.

Then I saw how these people combated the rigors of the arctic, and
lived in luxury and comfort in the midst of a land of perpetual
ice.  Their cities were veritable hothouses, and when I had come
within this one my respect and admiration for the scientific and
engineering skill of this buried nation was unbounded.

The moment we entered the city Talu threw off his outer garments
of fur, as did we, and I saw that his apparel differed but little
from that of the red races of Barsoom.  Except for his leathern
harness, covered thick with jewels and metal, he was naked, nor could
one have comfortably worn apparel in that warm and humid atmosphere.

For three days we remained the guests of Prince Talu, and during
that time he showered upon us every attention and courtesy within
his power.  He showed us all that was of interest in his great
city.

The Marentina atmosphere plant will maintain life indefinitely in
the cities of the north pole after all life upon the balance of
dying Mars is extinct through the failure of the air supply, should
the great central plant again cease functioning as it did upon that
memorable occasion that gave me the opportunity of restoring life
and happiness to the strange world that I had already learned to
love so well.

He showed us the heating system that stores the sun's rays in great
reservoirs beneath the city, and how little is necessary to maintain
the perpetual summer heat of the glorious garden spot within this
arctic paradise.

Broad avenues of sod sewn with the seed of the ocher vegetation
of the dead sea bottoms carried the noiseless traffic of light and
airy ground fliers that are the only form of artificial transportation
used north of the gigantic ice-barrier.

The broad tires of these unique fliers are but rubber-like gas bags
filled with the eighth Barsoomian ray, or ray of propulsion--that
remarkable discovery of the Martians that has made possible the
great fleets of mighty airships that render the red man of the
outer world supreme.  It is this ray which propels the inherent
or reflected light of the planet off into space, and when confined
gives to the Martian craft their airy buoyancy.

The ground fliers of Marentina contain just sufficient buoyancy in
their automobile-like wheels to give the cars traction for steering
purposes; and though the hind wheels are geared to the engine, and
aid in driving the machine, the bulk of this work is carried by a
small propeller at the stern.

I know of no more delightful sensation than that of riding in one
of these luxuriously appointed cars which skim, light and airy as
feathers, along the soft, mossy avenues of Marentina.  They move
with absolute noiselessness between borders of crimson sward and
beneath arching trees gorgeous with the wondrous blooms that mark
so many of the highly cultivated varieties of Barsoomian vegetation.

By the end of the third day the court barber--I can think of no
other earthly appellation by which to describe him--had wrought
so remarkable a transformation in both Thuvan Dihn and myself that
our own wives would never have known us.  Our skins were of the
same lemon color as his own, and great, black beards and mustaches
had been deftly affixed to our smooth faces.  The trappings of
warriors of Okar aided in the deception; and for wear beyond the
hothouse cities we each had suits of the black- and yellow-striped
orluk.

Talu gave us careful directions for the journey to Kadabra, the
capital city of the Okar nation, which is the racial name of the
yellow men.  This good friend even accompanied us part way, and
then, promising to aid us in any way that he found possible, bade
us adieu.

On parting he slipped upon my finger a curiously wrought ring set
with a dead-black, lusterless stone, which appeared more like a
bit of bituminous coal than the priceless Barsoomian gem which in
reality it is.

"There had been but three others cut from the mother stone," he
said, "which is in my possession.  These three are worn by nobles
high in my confidence, all of whom have been sent on secret missions
to the court of Salensus Oll.

"Should you come within fifty feet of any of these three you will
feel a rapid, pricking sensation in the finger upon which you wear
this ring.  He who wears one of its mates will experience the same
feeling; it is caused by an electrical action that takes place the
moment two of these gems cut from the same mother stone come within
the radius of each other's power.  By it you will know that a friend
is at hand upon whom you may depend for assistance in time of need.

"Should another wearer of one of these gems call upon you for aid
do not deny him, and should death threaten you swallow the ring
rather than let it fall into the hands of enemies.  Guard it with
your life, John Carter, for some day it may mean more than life to
you."

With this parting admonition our good friend turned back toward
Marentina, and we set our faces in the direction of the city of
Kadabra and the court of Salensus Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks.

That very evening we came within sight of the walled and glass-roofed
city of Kadabra.  It lies in a low depression near the pole,
surrounded by rocky, snow-clad hills.  From the pass through which
we entered the valley we had a splendid view of this great city of
the north.  Its crystal domes sparkled in the brilliant sunlight
gleaming above the frost-covered outer wall that circles the entire
one hundred miles of its circumference.

At regular intervals great gates give entrance to the city; but
even at the distance from which we looked upon the massive pile
we could see that all were closed, and, in accordance with Talu's
suggestion, we deferred attempting to enter the city until the
following morning.

As he had said, we found numerous caves in the hillsides about
us, and into one of these we crept for the night.  Our warm orluk
skins kept us perfectly comfortable, and it was only after a
most refreshing sleep that we awoke shortly after daylight on the
following morning.

Already the city was astir, and from several of the gates we saw
parties of yellow men emerging.  Following closely each detail
of the instructions given us by our good friend of Marentina, we
remained concealed for several hours until one party of some half
dozen warriors had passed along the trail below our hiding place
and entered the hills by way of the pass along which we had come
the previous evening.

After giving them time to get well out of sight of our cave, Thuvan
Dihn and I crept out and followed them, overtaking them when they
were well into the hills.

When we had come almost to them I called aloud to their leader, when
the whole party halted and turned toward us.  The crucial test had
come.  Could we but deceive these men the rest would be comparatively
easy.

"Kaor!" I cried as I came closer to them.

"Kaor!" responded the officer in charge of the party.

"We be from Illall," I continued, giving the name of the most remote
city of Okar, which has little or no intercourse with Kadabra.
"Only yesterday we arrived, and this morning the captain of the
gate told us that you were setting out to hunt orluks, which is
a sport we do not find in our own neighborhood.  We have hastened
after you to pray that you allow us to accompany you."

The officer was entirely deceived, and graciously permitted us to
go with them for the day.  The chance guess that they were bound
upon an orluk hunt proved correct, and Talu had said that the
chances were ten to one that such would be the mission of any party
leaving Kadabra by the pass through which we entered the valley,
since that way leads directly to the vast plains frequented by this
elephantine beast of prey.

In so far as the hunt was concerned, the day was a failure, for
we did not see a single orluk; but this proved more than fortunate
for us, since the yellow men were so chagrined by their misfortune
that they would not enter the city by the same gate by which they
had left it in the morning, as it seemed that they had made great
boasts to the captain of that gate about their skill at this
dangerous sport.

We, therefore, approached Kadabra at a point several miles from
that at which the party had quitted it in the morning, and so were
relieved of the danger of embarrassing questions and explanations
on the part of the gate captain, whom we had said had directed us
to this particular hunting party.

We had come quite close to the city when my attention was attracted
toward a tall, black shaft that reared its head several hundred
feet into the air from what appeared to be a tangled mass of junk
or wreckage, now partially snow-covered.

I did not dare venture an inquiry for fear of arousing suspicion
by evident ignorance of something which as a yellow man I should
have known; but before we reached the city gate I was to learn the
purpose of that grim shaft and the meaning of the mighty accumulation
beneath it.

We had come almost to the gate when one of the party called to
his fellows, at the same time pointing toward the distant southern
horizon.  Following the direction he indicated, my eyes descried
the hull of a large flier approaching rapidly from above the crest
of the encircling hills.

"Still other fools who would solve the mysteries of the forbidden
north," said the officer, half to himself.  "Will they never cease
their fatal curiosity?"

"Let us hope not," answered one of the warriors, "for then what
should we do for slaves and sport?"

"True; but what stupid beasts they are to continue to come to a
region from whence none of them ever has returned."

"Let us tarry and watch the end of this one," suggested one of the
men.

The officer looked toward the city.

"The watch has seen him," he said; "we may remain, for we may be
needed."

I looked toward the city and saw several hundred warriors issuing
from the nearest gate.  They moved leisurely, as though there were
no need for haste--nor was there, as I was presently to learn.

Then I turned my eyes once more toward the flier.  She was moving
rapidly toward the city, and when she had come close enough I was
surprised to see that her propellers were idle.

Straight for that grim shaft she bore.  At the last minute I saw
the great blades move to reverse her, yet on she came as though
drawn by some mighty, irresistible power.

Intense excitement prevailed upon her deck, where men were running
hither and thither, manning the guns and preparing to launch the
small, one-man fliers, a fleet of which is part of the equipment
of every Martian war vessel.  Closer and closer to the black shaft
the ship sped.  In another instant she must strike, and then I saw
the familiar signal flown that sends the lesser boats in a great
flock from the deck of the mother ship.

Instantly a hundred tiny fliers rose from her deck, like a swarm of
huge dragon flies; but scarcely were they clear of the battleship
than the nose of each turned toward the shaft, and they, too, rushed
on at frightful speed toward the same now seemingly inevitable end
that menaced the larger vessel.

A moment later the collision came.  Men were hurled in every
direction from the ship's deck, while she, bent and crumpled, took
the last, long plunge to the scrap-heap at the shaft's base.

With her fell a shower of her own tiny fliers, for each of them
had come in violent collision with the solid shaft.

I noticed that the wrecked fliers scraped down the shaft's side,
and that their fall was not as rapid as might have been expected;
and then suddenly the secret of the shaft burst upon me, and with
it an explanation of the cause that prevented a flier that passed
too far across the ice-barrier ever returning.

The shaft was a mighty magnet, and when once a vessel came within
the radius of its powerful attraction for the aluminum steel that
enters so largely into the construction of all Barsoomian craft,
no power on earth could prevent such an end as we had just witnessed.

I afterward learned that the shaft rests directly over the magnetic
pole of Mars, but whether this adds in any way to its incalculable
power of attraction I do not know.  I am a fighting man, not a
scientist.

Here, at last, was an explanation of the long absence of Tardos Mors
and Mors Kajak.  These valiant and intrepid warriors had dared the
mysteries and dangers of the frozen north to search for Carthoris,
whose long absence had bowed in grief the head of his beautiful
mother, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.

The moment that the last of the fliers came to rest at the base of
the shaft the black-bearded, yellow warriors swarmed over the mass
of wreckage upon which they lay, making prisoners of those who were
uninjured and occasionally despatching with a sword-thrust one of
the wounded who seemed prone to resent their taunts and insults.

A few of the uninjured red men battled bravely against their cruel
foes, but for the most part they seemed too overwhelmed by the
horror of the catastrophe that had befallen them to do more than
submit supinely to the golden chains with which they were manacled.

When the last of the prisoners had been confined, the party
returned to the city, at the gate of which we met a pack of fierce,
gold-collared apts, each of which marched between two warriors,
who held them with strong chains of the same metal as their collars.

Just beyond the gate the attendants loosened the whole terrible
herd, and as they bounded off toward the grim, black shaft I did
not need to ask to know their mission.  Had there not been those
within the cruel city of Kadabra who needed succor far worse than
the poor unfortunate dead and dying out there in the cold upon the
bent and broken carcasses of a thousand fliers I could not have
restrained my desire to hasten back and do battle with those horrid
creatures that had been despatched to rend and devour them.

As it was I could but follow the yellow warriors, with bowed head,
and give thanks for the chance that had given Thuvan Dihn and me
such easy ingress to the capital of Salensus Oll.

Once within the gates, we had no difficulty in eluding our friends
of the morning, and presently found ourselves in a Martian hostelry.





IN DURANCE




The public houses of Barsoom, I have found, vary but little.  There
is no privacy for other than married couples.

Men without their wives are escorted to a large chamber, the floor
of which is usually of white marble or heavy glass, kept scrupulously
clean.  Here are many small, raised platforms for the guest's sleeping
silks and furs, and if he have none of his own clean, fresh ones
are furnished at a nominal charge.

Once a man's belongings have been deposited upon one of these
platforms he is a guest of the house, and that platform his own
until he leaves.  No one will disturb or molest his belongings, as
there are no thieves upon Mars.

As assassination is the one thing to be feared, the proprietors
of the hostelries furnish armed guards, who pace back and forth
through the sleeping-rooms day and night.  The number of guards and
gorgeousness of their trappings quite usually denote the status of
the hotel.

No meals are served in these houses, but generally a public eating
place adjoins them.  Baths are connected with the sleeping chambers,
and each guest is required to bathe daily or depart from the hotel.

Usually on a second or third floor there is a large sleeping-room
for single women guests, but its appointments do not vary materially
from the chamber occupied by men.  The guards who watch the women
remain in the corridor outside the sleeping chamber, while female
slaves pace back and forth among the sleepers within, ready to
notify the warriors should their presence be required.

I was surprised to note that all the guards with the hotel at which
we stopped were red men, and on inquiring of one of them I learned
that they were slaves purchased by the proprietors of the hotels from
the government.  The man whose post was past my sleeping platform
had been commander of the navy of a great Martian nation; but fate
had carried his flagship across the ice-barrier within the radius
of power of the magnetic shaft, and now for many tedious years he
had been a slave of the yellow men.

He told me that princes, jeds, and even jeddaks of the outer
world, were among the menials who served the yellow race; but when
I asked him if he had heard of the fate of Mors Kajak or Tardos Mors
he shook his head, saying that he never had heard of their being
prisoners here, though he was very familiar with the reputations
and fame they bore in the outer world.

Neither had he heard any rumor of the coming of the Father of Therns
and the black dator of the First Born, but he hastened to explain
that he knew little of what took place within the palace.  I could
see that he wondered not a little that a yellow man should be so
inquisitive about certain red prisoners from beyond the ice-barrier,
and that I should be so ignorant of customs and conditions among
my own race.

In fact, I had forgotten my disguise upon discovering a red man
pacing before my sleeping platform; but his growing expression of
surprise warned me in time, for I had no mind to reveal my identity
to any unless some good could come of it, and I did not see how
this poor fellow could serve me yet, though I had it in my mind
that later I might be the means of serving him and all the other
thousands of prisoners who do the bidding of their stern masters
in Kadabra.

Thuvan Dihn and I discussed our plans as we sat together among our
sleeping silks and furs that night in the midst of the hundreds
of yellow men who occupied the apartment with us.  We spoke in low
whispers, but, as that is only what courtesy demands in a public
sleeping place, we roused no suspicion.

At last, determining that all must be but idle speculation until
after we had had a chance to explore the city and attempt to put
into execution the plan Talu had suggested, we bade each other good
night and turned to sleep.

After breakfasting the following morning we set out to see Kadabra,
and as, through the generosity of the prince of Marentina, we were
well supplied with the funds current in Okar we purchased a handsome
ground flier.  Having learned to drive them while in Marentina, we
spent a delightful and profitable day exploring the city, and late
in the afternoon at the hour Talu told us we would find government
officials in their offices, we stopped before a magnificent building
on the plaza opposite the royal grounds and the palace.

Here we walked boldly in past the armed guard at the door, to be
met by a red slave within who asked our wishes.

"Tell Sorav, your master, that two warriors from Illall wish to
take service in the palace guard," I said.

Sorav, Talu had told us, was the commander of the forces of the
palace, and as men from the further cities of Okar--and especially
Illall--were less likely to be tainted with the germ of intrigue
which had for years infected the household of Salensus Oll, he was
sure that we would be welcomed and few questions asked us.

He had primed us with such general information as he thought would
be necessary for us to pass muster before Sorav, after which we would
have to undergo a further examination before Salensus Oll that he
might determine our physical fitness and our ability as warriors.

The little experience we had had with the strange hooked sword of
the yellow man and his cuplike shield made it seem rather unlikely
that either of us could pass this final test, but there was the
chance that we might be quartered in the palace of Salensus Oll
for several days after being accepted by Sorav before the Jeddak
of Jeddaks would find time to put us to the final test.

After a wait of several minutes in an ante-chamber we were summoned
into the private office of Sorav, where we were courteously greeted
by this ferocious-appearing, black-bearded officer.  He asked us
our names and stations in our own city, and having received replies
that were evidently satisfactory to him, he put certain questions
to us that Talu had foreseen and prepared us for.

The interview could not have lasted over ten minutes when Sorav
summoned an aid whom he instructed to record us properly, and then
escort us to the quarters in the palace which are set aside for
aspirants to membership in the palace guard.

The aid took us to his own office first, where he measured and
weighed and photographed us simultaneously with a machine ingeniously
devised for that purpose, five copies being instantly reproduced in
five different offices of the government, two of which are located
in other cities miles distant.  Then he led us through the palace
grounds to the main guardroom of the palace, there turning us over
to the officer in charge.

This individual again questioned us briefly, and finally despatched
a soldier to guide us to our quarters.  These we found located upon
the second floor of the palace in a semi-detached tower at the rear
of the edifice.

When we asked our guide why we were quartered so far from the
guardroom he replied that the custom of the older members of the
guard of picking quarrels with aspirants to try their metal had
resulted in so many deaths that it was found difficult to maintain
the guard at its full strength while this custom prevailed.  Salensus
Oll had, therefore, set apart these quarters for aspirants, and here
they were securely locked against the danger of attack by members
of the guard.

This unwelcome information put a sudden check to all our well-laid
plans, for it meant that we should virtually be prisoners in the
palace of Salensus Oll until the time that he should see fit to
give us the final examination for efficiency.

As it was this interval upon which we had banked to accomplish
so much in our search for Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth, our
chagrin was unbounded when we heard the great lock click behind our
guide as he had quitted us after ushering us into the chambers we
were to occupy.

With a wry face I turned to Thuvan Dihn.  My companion but shook
his head disconsolately and walked to one of the windows upon the
far side of the apartment.

Scarcely had he gazed beyond them than he called to me in a tone
of suppressed excitement and surprise.  In an instant I was by his
side.

"Look!" said Thuvan Dihn, pointing toward the courtyard below.

As my eyes followed the direction indicated I saw two women pacing
back and forth in an enclosed garden.

At the same moment I recognized them--they were Dejah Thoris and
Thuvia of Ptarth!

There were they whom I had trailed from one pole to another, the
length of a world.  Only ten feet of space and a few metal bars
separated me from them.

With a cry I attracted their attention, and as Dejah Thoris looked
up full into my eyes I made the sign of love that the men of Barsoom
make to their women.

To my astonishment and horror her head went high, and as a look
of utter contempt touched her finely chiseled features she turned
her back full upon me.  My body is covered with the scars of a
thousand conflicts, but never in all my long life have I suffered
such anguish from a wound, for this time the steel of a woman's
look had entered my heart.

With a groan I turned away and buried my face in my arms.  I
heard Thuvan Dihn call aloud to Thuvia, but an instant later his
exclamation of surprise betokened that he, too, had been repulsed
by his own daughter.

"They will not even listen," he cried to me.  "They have put their
hands over their ears and walked to the farther end of the garden.
Ever heard you of such mad work, John Carter?  The two must be
bewitched."

Presently I mustered the courage to return to the window, for
even though she spurned me I loved her, and could not keep my eyes
from feasting upon her divine face and figure, but when she saw me
looking she again turned away.

I was at my wit's end to account for her strange actions, and that
Thuvia, too, had turned against her father seemed incredible.  Could
it be that my incomparable princess still clung to the hideous faith
from which I had rescued her world?  Could it be that she looked
upon me with loathing and contempt because I had returned from the
Valley Dor, or because I had desecrated the temples and persons of
the Holy Therns?

To naught else could I ascribe her strange deportment, yet it seemed
far from possible that such could be the case, for the love of
Dejah Thoris for John Carter had been a great and wondrous love--far
above racial distinctions, creed, or religion.

As I gazed ruefully at the back of her haughty, royal head a gate
at the opposite end of the garden opened and a man entered.  As he
did so he turned and slipped something into the hand of the yellow
guardsman beyond the gate, nor was the distance too great that I
might not see that money had passed between them.

Instantly I knew that this newcomer had bribed his way within the
garden.  Then he turned in the direction of the two women, and
I saw that he was none other than Thurid, the black dator of the
First Born.

He approached quite close to them before he spoke, and as they turned
at the sound of his voice I saw Dejah Thoris shrink from him.

There was a nasty leer upon his face as he stepped close to her
and spoke again.  I could not hear his words, but her answer came
clearly.

"The granddaughter of Tardos Mors can always die," she said, "but
she could never live at the price you name."

Then I saw the black scoundrel go upon his knees beside her, fairly
groveling in the dirt, pleading with her.  Only part of what he said
came to me, for though he was evidently laboring under the stress
of passion and excitement, it was equally apparent that he did not
dare raise his voice for fear of detection.

"I would save you from Matai Shang," I heard him say.  "You know
the fate that awaits you at his hands.  Would you not choose me
rather than the other?"

"I would choose neither," replied Dejah Thoris, "even were I free
to choose, as you know well I am not."

"You ARE free!" he cried.  "John Carter, Prince of Helium, is dead."

"I know better than that; but even were he dead, and I must needs
choose another mate, it should be a plant man or a great white
ape in preference to either Matai Shang or you, black calot," she
answered with a sneer of contempt.

Of a sudden the vicious beast lost all control of himself, as with
a vile oath he leaped at the slender woman, gripping her tender
throat in his brute clutch.  Thuvia screamed and sprang to aid her
fellow-prisoner, and at the same instant I, too, went mad, and
tearing at the bars that spanned my window I ripped them from their
sockets as they had been but copper wire.

Hurling myself through the aperture I reached the garden, but a
hundred feet from where the black was choking the life from my Dejah
Thoris, and with a single great bound I was upon him.  I spoke no
word as I tore his defiling fingers from that beautiful throat,
nor did I utter a sound as I hurled him twenty feet from me.

Foaming with rage, Thurid regained his feet and charged me like a
mad bull.

"Yellow man," he shrieked, "you knew not upon whom you had laid
your vile hands, but ere I am done with you, you will know well
what it means to offend the person of a First Born."

Then he was upon me, reaching for my throat, and precisely as I had
done that day in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus I did here
in the garden of the palace of Salensus Oll.  I ducked beneath his
outstretched arms, and as he lunged past me I planted a terrific
right upon the side of his jaw.

Just as he had done upon that other occasion he did now.  Like a
top he spun round, his knees gave beneath him, and he crumpled to
the ground at my feet.  Then I heard a voice behind me.

It was the deep voice of authority that marks the ruler of men,
and when I turned to face the resplendent figure of a giant yellow
man I did not need to ask to know that it was Salensus Oll.  At
his right stood Matai Shang, and behind them a score of guardsmen.

"Who are you," he cried, "and what means this intrusion within the
precincts of the women's garden?  I do not recall your face.  How
came you here?"

But for his last words I should have forgotten my disguise entirely
and told him outright that I was John Carter, Prince of Helium;
but his question recalled me to myself.  I pointed to the dislodged
bars of the window above.

"I am an aspirant to membership in the palace guard," I said, "and
from yonder window in the tower where I was confined awaiting the
final test for fitness I saw this brute attack the this woman.  I
could not stand idly by, O Jeddak, and see this thing done within
the very palace grounds, and yet feel that I was fit to serve and
guard your royal person."

I had evidently made an impression upon the ruler of Okar by my
fair words, and when he had turned to Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of
Ptarth, and both had corroborated my statements it began to look
pretty dark for Thurid.

I saw the ugly gleam in Matai Shang's evil eyes as Dejah Thoris
narrated all that had passed between Thurid and herself, and when
she came to that part which dealt with my interference with the
dator of the First Born her gratitude was quite apparent, though
I could see by her eyes that something puzzled her strangely.

I did not wonder at her attitude toward me while others were present;
but that she should have denied me while she and Thuvia were the
only occupants of the garden still cut me sorely.

As the examination proceeded I cast a glance at Thurid and startled
him looking wide-eyed and wonderingly at me, and then of a sudden
he laughed full in my face.

A moment later Salensus Oll turned toward the black.

"What have you to say in explanation of these charges?" he asked
in a deep and terrible voice.  "Dare you aspire to one whom the
Father of Therns has chosen--one who might even be a fit mate for
the Jeddak of Jeddaks himself?"

And then the black-bearded tyrant turned and cast a sudden greedy
look upon Dejah Thoris, as though with the words a new thought and
a new desire had sprung up within his mind and breast.

Thurid had been about to reply and, with a malicious grin upon his
face, was pointing an accusing finger at me, when Salensus Oll's
words and the expression of his face cut him short.

A cunning look crept into his eyes, and I knew from the expression
of his face that his next words were not the ones he had intended
to speak.

"O Mightiest of Jeddaks," he said, "the man and the women do not
speak the truth.  The fellow had come into the garden to assist
them to escape.  I was beyond and overheard their conversation,
and when I entered, the woman screamed and the man sprang upon me
and would have killed me.

"What know you of this man?  He is a stranger to you, and I dare
say that you will find him an enemy and a spy.  Let him be put on
trial, Salensus Oll, rather than your friend and guest, Thurid,
Dator of the First Born."

Salensus Oll looked puzzled.  He turned again and looked upon Dejah
Thoris, and then Thurid stepped quite close to him and whispered
something in his ear--what, I know not.

Presently the yellow ruler turned to one of his officers.

"See that this man be securely confined until we have time to go
deeper into this affair," he commanded, "and as bars alone seem
inadequate to restrain him, let chains be added."

Then he turned and left the garden, taking Dejah Thoris with him--his
hand upon her shoulder.  Thurid and Matai Shang went also, and as
they reached the gateway the black turned and laughed again aloud
in my face.

What could be the meaning of his sudden change toward me?  Could
he suspect my true identity?  It must be that, and the thing that
had betrayed me was the trick and blow that had laid him low for
the second time.

As the guards dragged me away my heart was very sad and bitter
indeed, for now to the two relentless enemies that had hounded her
for so long another and a more powerful one had been added, for
I would have been but a fool had I not recognized the sudden love
for Dejah Thoris that had just been born in the terrible breast of
Salensus Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks, ruler of Okar.





THE PIT OF PLENTY




I did not languish long within the prison of Salensus Oll.  During
the short time that I lay there, fettered with chains of gold, I
often wondered as to the fate of Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth.

My brave companion had followed me into the garden as I attacked
Thurid, and when Salensus Oll had left with Dejah Thoris and the
others, leaving Thuvia of Ptarth behind, he, too, had remained
in the garden with his daughter, apparently unnoticed, for he was
appareled similarly to the guards.

The last I had seen of him he stood waiting for the warriors who
escorted me to close the gate behind them, that he might be alone
with Thuvia.  Could it be possible that they had escaped?  I doubted
it, and yet with all my heart I hoped that it might be true.

The third day of my incarceration brought a dozen warriors to escort
me to the audience chamber, where Salensus Oll himself was to try
me.  A great number of nobles crowded the room, and among them I
saw Thurid, but Matai Shang was not there.

Dejah Thoris, as radiantly beautiful as ever, sat upon a small throne
beside Salensus Oll.  The expression of sad hopelessness upon her
dear face cut deep into my heart.

Her position beside the Jeddak of Jeddaks boded ill for her and me,
and on the instant that I saw her there, there sprang to my mind
the firm intention never to leave that chamber alive if I must
leave her in the clutches of this powerful tyrant.

I had killed better men than Salensus Oll, and killed them with my
bare hands, and now I swore to myself that I should kill him if I
found that the only way to save the Princess of Helium.  That it
would mean almost instant death for me I cared not, except that
it would remove me from further efforts in behalf of Dejah Thoris,
and for this reason alone I would have chosen another way, for
even though I should kill Salensus Oll that act would not restore
my beloved wife to her own people.  I determined to wait the final
outcome of the trial, that I might learn all that I could of the
Okarian ruler's intentions, and then act accordingly.

Scarcely had I come before him than Salensus Oll summoned Thurid
also.

"Dator Thurid," he said, "you have made a strange request of me;
but, in accordance with your wishes and your promise that it will
result only to my interests, I have decided to accede.

"You tell me that a certain announcement will be the means of
convicting this prisoner and, at the same time, open the way to
the gratification of my dearest wish."

Thurid nodded.

"Then shall I make the announcement here before all my nobles,"
continued Salensus Oll.  "For a year no queen has sat upon the
throne beside me, and now it suits me to take to wife one who is
reputed the most beautiful woman upon Barsoom.  A statement which
none may truthfully deny.

"Nobles of Okar, unsheathe your swords and do homage to Dejah Thoris,
Princess of Helium and future Queen of Okar, for at the end of the
allotted ten days she shall become the wife of Salensus Oll."

As the nobles drew their blades and lifted them on high, in
accordance with the ancient custom of Okar when a jeddak announces
his intention to wed, Dejah Thoris sprang to her feet and, raising
her hand aloft, cried in a loud voice that they desist.

"I may not be the wife of Salensus Oll," she pleaded, "for already I
be a wife and mother.  John Carter, Prince of Helium, still lives.
I know it to be true, for I overheard Matai Shang tell his daughter
Phaidor that he had seen him in Kaor, at the court of Kulan Tith,
Jeddak.  A jeddak does not wed a married woman, nor will Salensus
Oll thus violate the bonds of matrimony."

Salensus Oll turned upon Thurid with an ugly look.

"Is this the surprise you held in store for me?" he cried.  "You
assured me that no obstacle which might not be easily overcome stood
between me and this woman, and now I find that the one insuperable
obstacle intervenes.  What mean you, man?  What have you to say?"

"And should I deliver John Carter into your hands, Salensus Oll,
would you not feel that I had more than satisfied the promise that
I made you?" answered Thurid.

"Talk not like a fool," cried the enraged jeddak.  "I am no child
to be thus played with."

"I am talking only as a man who knows," replied Thurid.  "Knows
that he can do all that he claims."

"Then turn John Carter over to me within ten days or yourself
suffer the end that I should mete out to him were he in my power!"
snapped the Jeddak of Jeddaks, with an ugly scowl.

"You need not wait ten days, Salensus Oll," replied Thurid; and
then, turning suddenly upon me as he extended a pointing finger,
he cried:  "There stands John Carter, Prince of Helium!"

"Fool!" shrieked Salensus Oll.  "Fool!  John Carter is a white
man.  This fellow be as yellow as myself.  John Carter's face is
smooth--Matai Shang has described him to me.  This prisoner has
a beard and mustache as large and black as any in Okar.  Quick,
guardsmen, to the pits with the black maniac who wishes to throw
his life away for a poor joke upon your ruler!"

"Hold!" cried Thurid, and springing forward before I could guess
his intention, he had grasped my beard and ripped the whole false
fabric from my face and head, revealing my smooth, tanned skin
beneath and my close-cropped black hair.

Instantly pandemonium reigned in the audience chamber of Salensus
Oll.  Warriors pressed forward with drawn blades, thinking that I
might be contemplating the assassination of the Jeddak of Jeddaks;
while others, out of curiosity to see one whose name was familiar
from pole to pole, crowded behind their fellows.

As my identity was revealed I saw Dejah Thoris spring to her
feet--amazement writ large upon her face--and then through that
jam of armed men she forced her way before any could prevent.  A
moment only and she was before me with outstretched arms and eyes
filled with the light of her great love.

"John Carter!  John Carter!" she cried as I folded her to my breast,
and then of a sudden I knew why she had denied me in the garden
beneath the tower.

What a fool I had been!  Expecting that she would penetrate the
marvelous disguise that had been wrought for me by the barber of
Marentina!  She had not known me, that was all; and when she saw
the sign of love from a stranger she was offended and righteously
indignant.  Indeed, but I had been a fool.

"And it was you," she cried, "who spoke to me from the tower!  How
could I dream that my beloved Virginian lay behind that fierce
beard and that yellow skin?"

She had been wont to call me her Virginian as a term of endearment,
for she knew that I loved the sound of that beautiful name, made a
thousand times more beautiful and hallowed by her dear lips, and as
I heard it again after all those long years my eyes became dimmed
with tears and my voice choked with emotion.

But an instant did I crush that dear form to me ere Salensus Oll,
trembling with rage and jealousy, shouldered his way to us.

"Seize the man," he cried to his warriors, and a hundred ruthless
hands tore us apart.

Well it was for the nobles of the court of Okar that John Carter
had been disarmed.  As it was, a dozen of them felt the weight of
my clenched fists, and I had fought my way half up the steps before
the throne to which Salensus Oll had carried Dejah Thoris ere ever
they could stop me.

Then I went down, fighting, beneath a half-hundred warriors; but
before they had battered me into unconsciousness I heard that from
the lips of Dejah Thoris that made all my suffering well worth
while.

Standing there beside the great tyrant, who clutched her by the
arm, she pointed to where I fought alone against such awful odds.

"Think you, Salensus Oll, that the wife of such as he is," she
cried, "would ever dishonor his memory, were he a thousand times
dead, by mating with a lesser mortal?  Lives there upon any world
such another as John Carter, Prince of Helium?  Lives there another
man who could fight his way back and forth across a warlike planet,
facing savage beasts and hordes of savage men, for the love of a
woman?

"I, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, am his.  He fought for me
and won me.  If you be a brave man you will honor the bravery that
is his, and you will not kill him.  Make him a slave if you will,
Salensus Oll; but spare his life.  I would rather be a slave with
such as he than be Queen of Okar."

"Neither slave nor queen dictates to Salensus Oll," replied the
Jeddak of Jeddaks.  "John Carter shall die a natural death in the
Pit of Plenty, and the day he dies Dejah Thoris shall become my
queen."

I did not hear her reply, for it was then that a blow upon my
head brought unconsciousness, and when I recovered my senses only
a handful of guardsmen remained in the audience chamber with me.
As I opened my eyes they goaded me with the points of their swords
and bade me rise.

Then they led me through long corridors to a court far toward the
center of the palace.

In the center of the court was a deep pit, near the edge of which
stood half a dozen other guardsmen, awaiting me.  One of them
carried a long rope in his hands, which he commenced to make ready
as we approached.

We had come to within fifty feet of these men when I felt a sudden
strange and rapid pricking sensation in one of my fingers.

For a moment I was nonplused by the odd feeling, and then there
came to me recollection of that which in the stress of my adventure
I had entirely forgotten--the gift ring of Prince Talu of Marentina.

Instantly I looked toward the group we were nearing, at the same
time raising my left hand to my forehead, that the ring might be
visible to one who sought it.  Simultaneously one of the waiting
warriors raised his left hand, ostensibly to brush back his hair,
and upon one of his fingers I saw the duplicate of my own ring.

A quick look of intelligence passed between us, after which I kept
my eyes turned away from the warrior and did not look at him again,
for fear that I might arouse the suspicion of the Okarians.  When
we reached the edge of the pit I saw that it was very deep, and
presently I realized I was soon to judge just how far it extended
below the surface of the court, for he who held the rope passed it
about my body in such a way that it could be released from above
at any time; and then, as all the warriors grasped it, he pushed
me forward, and I fell into the yawning abyss.

After the first jerk as I reached the end of the rope that had
been paid out to let me fall below the pit's edge they lowered me
quickly but smoothly.  The moment before the plunge, while two or
three of the men had been assisting in adjusting the rope about
me, one of them had brought his mouth close to my cheek, and in
the brief interval before I was cast into the forbidding hole he
breathed a single word into my ear:

"Courage!"

The pit, which my imagination had pictured as bottomless, proved
to be not more than a hundred feet in depth; but as its walls were
smoothly polished it might as well have been a thousand feet, for
I could never hope to escape without outside assistance.

For a day I was left in darkness; and then, quite suddenly, a
brilliant light illumined my strange cell.  I was reasonably hungry
and thirsty by this time, not having tasted food or drink since
the day prior to my incarceration.

To my amazement I found the sides of the pit, that I had thought
smooth, lined with shelves, upon which were the most delicious
viands and liquid refreshments that Okar afforded.

With an exclamation of delight I sprang forward to partake of
some of the welcome food, but ere ever I reached it the light was
extinguished, and, though I groped my way about the chamber, my
hands came in contact with nothing beside the smooth, hard wall
that I had felt on my first examination of my prison.

Immediately the pangs of hunger and thirst began to assail me.
Where before I had had but a mild craving for food and drink, I now
actually suffered for want of it, and all because of the tantalizing
sight that I had had of food almost within my grasp.

Once more darkness and silence enveloped me, a silence that was
broken only by a single mocking laugh.

For another day nothing occurred to break the monotony of my
imprisonment or relieve the suffering superinduced by hunger and
thirst.  Slowly the pangs became less keen, as suffering deadened
the activity of certain nerves; and then the light flashed on once
again, and before me stood an array of new and tempting dishes,
with great bottles of clear water and flagons of refreshing wine,
upon the outside of which the cold sweat of condensation stood.

Again, with the hunger madness of a wild beast, I sprang forward
to seize those tempting dishes; but, as before, the light went out
and I came to a sudden stop against a hard wall.

Then the mocking laugh rang out for a second time.

The Pit of Plenty!

Ah, what a cruel mind must have devised this exquisite, hellish
torture!  Day after day was the thing repeated, until I was on
the verge of madness; and then, as I had done in the pits of the
Warhoons, I took a new, firm hold upon my reason and forced it back
into the channels of sanity.

By sheer will-power I regained control over my tottering mentality,
and so successful was I that the next time that the light came I
sat quite still and looked indifferently at the fresh and tempting
food almost within my reach.  Glad I was that I had done so, for
it gave me an opportunity to solve the seeming mystery of those
vanishing banquets.

As I made no move to reach the food, the torturers left the light
turned on in the hope that at last I could refrain no longer from
giving them the delicious thrill of enjoyment that my former futile
efforts to obtain it had caused.

And as I sat scrutinizing the laden shelves I presently saw how
the thing was accomplished, and so simple was it that I wondered I
had not guessed it before.  The wall of my prison was of clearest
glass--behind the glass were the tantalizing viands.

After nearly an hour the light went out, but this time there was
no mocking laughter--at least not upon the part of my tormentors;
but I, to be at quits with them, gave a low laugh that none might
mistake for the cackle of a maniac.

Nine days passed, and I was weak from hunger and thirst, but no
longer suffering--I was past that.  Then, down through the darkness
above, a little parcel fell to the floor at my side.

Indifferently I groped for it, thinking it but some new invention
of my jailers to add to my sufferings.

At last I found it--a tiny package wrapped in paper, at the end of
a strong and slender cord.  As I opened it a few lozenges fell to
the floor.  As I gathered them up, feeling of them and smelling
of them, I discovered that they were tablets of concentrated food
such as are quite common in all parts of Barsoom.

Poison! I thought.

Well, what of it?  Why not end my misery now rather than drag out
a few more wretched days in this dark pit?  Slowly I raised one of
the little pellets to my lips.

"Good-bye, my Dejah Thoris!" I breathed.  "I have lived for you
and fought for you, and now my next dearest wish is to be realized,
for I shall die for you," and, taking the morsel in my mouth, I
devoured it.

One by one I ate them all, nor ever did anything taste better than
those tiny bits of nourishment, within which I knew must lie the
seeds of death--possibly of some hideous, torturing death.

As I sat quietly upon the floor of my prison, waiting for the end,
my fingers by accident came in contact with the bit of paper in
which the things had been wrapped; and as I idly played with it,
my mind roaming far back into the past, that I might live again for
a few brief moments before I died some of the many happy moments
of a long and happy life, I became aware of strange protuberances
upon the smooth surface of the parchment-like substance in my hands.

For a time they carried no special significance to my mind--I merely
was mildly wondrous that they were there; but at last they seemed
to take form, and then I realized that there was but a single line
of them, like writing.

Now, more interestedly, my fingers traced and retraced them.  There
were four separate and distinct combinations of raised lines.  Could
it be that these were four words, and that they were intended to
carry a message to me?

The more I thought of it the more excited I became, until my fingers
raced madly back and forth over those bewildering little hills and
valleys upon that bit of paper.

But I could make nothing of them, and at last I decided that my very
haste was preventing me from solving the mystery.  Then I took it
more slowly.  Again and again my forefinger traced the first of
those four combinations.

Martian writing is rather difficult to explain to an Earth man--it
is something of a cross between shorthand and picture-writing, and
is an entirely different language from the spoken language of Mars.

Upon Barsoom there is but a single oral language.

It is spoken today by every race and nation, just as it was at
the beginning of human life upon Barsoom.  It has grown with the
growth of the planet's learning and scientific achievements, but
so ingenious a thing it is that new words to express new thoughts
or describe new conditions or discoveries form themselves--no other
word could explain the thing that a new word is required for other
than the word that naturally falls to it, and so, no matter how far
removed two nations or races, their spoken languages are identical.

Not so their written languages, however.  No two nations have the
same written language, and often cities of the same nation have a
written language that differs greatly from that of the nation to
which they belong.

Thus it was that the signs upon the paper, if in reality they were
words, baffled me for some time; but at last I made out the first
one.

It was "courage," and it was written in the letters of Marentina.

Courage!

That was the word the yellow guardsman had whispered in my ear as
I stood upon the verge of the Pit of Plenty.

The message must be from him, and he I knew was a friend.

With renewed hope I bent my every energy to the deciphering of the
balance of the message, and at last success rewarded my endeavor--I
had read the four words:

"Courage!  Follow the rope."





"FOLLOW THE ROPE"




What could it mean?

"Follow the rope."  What rope?

Presently I recalled the cord that had been attached to the parcel
when it fell at my side, and after a little groping my hand came in
contact with it again.  It depended from above, and when I pulled
upon it I discovered that it was rigidly fastened, possibly at the
pit's mouth.

Upon examination I found that the cord, though small, was amply
able to sustain the weight of several men.  Then I made another
discovery--there was a second message knotted in the rope at about
the height of my head.  This I deciphered more easily, now that
the key was mine.

"Bring the rope with you.  Beyond the knots lies danger."

That was all there was to this message.  It was evidently hastily
formed--an afterthought.

I did not pause longer than to learn the contents of the second
message, and, though I was none too sure of the meaning of the
final admonition, "Beyond the knots lies danger," yet I was sure
that here before me lay an avenue of escape, and that the sooner
I took advantage of it the more likely was I to win to liberty.

At least, I could be but little worse off than I had been in the
Pit of Plenty.

I was to find, however, ere I was well out of that damnable hole
that I might have been very much worse off had I been compelled to
remain there another two minutes.

It had taken me about that length of time to ascend some fifty feet
above the bottom when a noise above attracted my attention.  To my
chagrin I saw that the covering of the pit was being removed far
above me, and in the light of the courtyard beyond I saw a number
of yellow warriors.

Could it be that I was laboriously working my way into some new
trap?  Were the messages spurious, after all?  And then, just as
my hope and courage had ebbed to their lowest, I saw two things.

One was the body of a huge, struggling, snarling apt being lowered
over the side of the pit toward me, and the other was an aperture
in the side of the shaft--an aperture larger than a man's body,
into which my rope led.

Just as I scrambled into the dark hole before me the apt passed
me, reaching out with his mighty hands to clutch me, and snapping,
growling, and roaring in a most frightful manner.

Plainly now I saw the end for which Salensus Oll had destined me.
After first torturing me with starvation he had caused this fierce
beast to be lowered into my prison to finish the work that the
jeddak's hellish imagination had conceived.

And then another truth flashed upon me--I had lived nine days of
the allotted ten which must intervene before Salensus Oll could
make Dejah Thoris his queen.  The purpose of the apt was to insure
my death before the tenth day.

I almost laughed aloud as I thought how Salensus Oll's measure of
safety was to aid in defeating the very end he sought, for when
they discovered that the apt was alone in the Pit of Plenty they
could not know but that he had completely devoured me, and so no
suspicion of my escape would cause a search to be made for me.

Coiling the rope that had carried me thus far upon my strange
journey, I sought for the other end, but found that as I followed
it forward it extended always before me.  So this was the meaning
of the words:  "Follow the rope."

The tunnel through which I crawled was low and dark.  I had followed
it for several hundred yards when I felt a knot beneath my fingers.
"Beyond the knots lies danger."

Now I went with the utmost caution, and a moment later a sharp turn
in the tunnel brought me to an opening into a large, brilliantly
lighted chamber.

The trend of the tunnel I had been traversing had been slightly
upward, and from this I judged that the chamber into which I now
found myself looking must be either on the first floor of the palace
or directly beneath the first floor.

Upon the opposite wall were many strange instruments and devices,
and in the center of the room stood a long table, at which two men
were seated in earnest conversation.

He who faced me was a yellow man--a little, wizened-up, pasty-faced
old fellow with great eyes that showed the white round the entire
circumference of the iris.

His companion was a black man, and I did not need to see his face
to know that it was Thurid, for there was no other of the First
Born north of the ice-barrier.

Thurid was speaking as I came within hearing of the men's voices.

"Solan," he was saying, "there is no risk and the reward is great.
You know that you hate Salensus Oll and that nothing would please
you more than to thwart him in some cherished plan.  There be
nothing that he more cherishes today than the idea of wedding the
beautiful Princess of Helium; but I, too, want her, and with your
help I may win her.

"You need not more than step from this room for an instant when
I give you the signal.  I will do the rest, and then, when I am
gone, you may come and throw the great switch back into its place,
and all will be as before.  I need but an hour's start to be safe
beyond the devilish power that you control in this hidden chamber
beneath the palace of your master.  See how easy," and with the
words the black dator rose from his seat and, crossing the room,
laid his hand upon a large, burnished lever that protruded from
the opposite wall.

"No! No!" cried the little old man, springing after him, with a wild
shriek.  "Not that one!  Not that one!  That controls the sunray
tanks, and should you pull it too far down, all Kadabra would be
consumed by heat before I could replace it.  Come away!  Come away!
You know not with what mighty powers you play.  This is the lever
that you seek.  Note well the symbol inlaid in white upon its ebon
surface."

Thurid approached and examined the handle of the lever.

"Ah, a magnet," he said.  "I will remember.  It is settled then I
take it," he continued.

The old man hesitated.  A look of combined greed and apprehension
overspread his none too beautiful features.

"Double the figure," he said.  "Even that were all too small an amount
for the service you ask.  Why, I risk my life by even entertaining
you here within the forbidden precincts of my station.  Should
Salensus Oll learn of it he would have me thrown to the apts before
the day was done."

"He dare not do that, and you know it full well, Solan," contradicted
the black.  "Too great a power of life and death you hold over the
people of Kadabra for Salensus Oll ever to risk threatening you
with death.  Before ever his minions could lay their hands upon you,
you might seize this very lever from which you have just warned me
and wipe out the entire city."

"And myself into the bargain," said Solan, with a shudder.

"But if you were to die, anyway, you would find the nerve to do
it," replied Thurid.

"Yes," muttered Solan, "I have often thought upon that very thing.
Well, First Born, is your red princess worth the price I ask for
my services, or will you go without her and see her in the arms of
Salensus Oll tomorrow night?"

"Take your price, yellow man," replied Thurid, with an oath.  "Half
now and the balance when you have fulfilled your contract."

With that the dator threw a well-filled money-pouch upon the table.

Solan opened the pouch and with trembling fingers counted its contents.
His weird eyes assumed a greedy expression, and his unkempt beard
and mustache twitched with the muscles of his mouth and chin.  It
was quite evident from his very mannerism that Thurid had keenly
guessed the man's weakness--even the clawlike, clutching movement
of the fingers betokened the avariciousness of the miser.

Having satisfied himself that the amount was correct, Solan replaced
the money in the pouch and rose from the table.

"Now," he said, "are you quite sure that you know the way to your
destination?  You must travel quickly to cover the ground to the
cave and from thence beyond the Great Power, all within a brief
hour, for no more dare I spare you."

"Let me repeat it to you," said Thurid, "that you may see if I be
letter-perfect."

"Proceed," replied Solan.

"Through yonder door," he commenced, pointing to a door at the far
end of the apartment, "I follow a corridor, passing three diverging
corridors upon my right; then into the fourth right-hand corridor
straight to where three corridors meet; here again I follow to the
right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid the pit.

"At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway, which
I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but
a single branchless corridor.  Am I right?"

"Quite right, Dator," answered Solan; "and now begone.  Already
have you tempted fate too long within this forbidden place."

"Tonight, or tomorrow, then, you may expect the signal," said
Thurid, rising to go.

"Tonight, or tomorrow," repeated Solan, and as the door closed
behind his guest the old man continued to mutter as he turned back
to the table, where he again dumped the contents of the money-pouch,
running his fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling the
coins into little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling the
wealth the while he muttered on and on in a crooning undertone.

Presently his fingers ceased their play; his eyes popped wider
than ever as they fastened upon the door through which Thurid
had disappeared.  The croon changed to a querulous muttering, and
finally to an ugly growl.

Then the old man rose from the table, shaking his fist at the closed
door.  Now he raised his voice, and his words came distinctly.

"Fool!" he muttered.  "Think you that for your happiness Solan will
give up his life?  If you escaped, Salensus Oll would know that
only through my connivance could you have succeeded.  Then would
he send for me.  What would you have me do?  Reduce the city and
myself to ashes?  No, fool, there is a better way--a better way
for Solan to keep thy money and be revenged upon Salensus Oll."

He laughed in a nasty, cackling note.

"Poor fool!  You may throw the great switch that will give you
the freedom of the air of Okar, and then, in fatuous security, go
on with thy red princess to the freedom of--death.  When you have
passed beyond this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Solan
replacing the switch as it was before your vile hand touched it?
Nothing; and then the Guardian of the North will claim you and
your woman, and Salensus Oll, when he sees your dead bodies, will
never dream that the hand of Solan had aught to do with the thing."

Then his voice dropped once more into mutterings that I could not
translate, but I had heard enough to cause me to guess a great deal
more, and I thanked the kind Providence that had led me to this
chamber at a time so filled with importance to Dejah Thoris and
myself as this.

But how to pass the old man now!  The cord, almost invisible upon
the floor, stretched straight across the apartment to a door upon
the far side.

There was no other way of which I knew, nor could I afford to
ignore the advice to "follow the rope."  I must cross this room,
but however I should accomplish it undetected with that old man in
the very center of it baffled me.

Of course I might have sprung in upon him and with my bare hands
silenced him forever, but I had heard enough to convince me that
with him alive the knowledge that I had gained might serve me at
some future moment, while should I kill him and another be stationed
in his place Thurid would not come hither with Dejah Thoris, as
was quite evidently his intention.

As I stood in the dark shadow of the tunnel's end racking my brain
for a feasible plan the while I watched, catlike, the old man's
every move, he took up the money-pouch and crossed to one end of
the apartment, where, bending to his knees, he fumbled with a panel
in the wall.

Instantly I guessed that here was the hiding place in which he
hoarded his wealth, and while he bent there, his back toward me,
I entered the chamber upon tiptoe, and with the utmost stealth
essayed to reach the opposite side before he should complete his
task and turn again toward the room's center.

Scarcely thirty steps, all told, must I take, and yet it seemed to
my overwrought imagination that that farther wall was miles away;
but at last I reached it, nor once had I taken my eyes from the
back of the old miser's head.

He did not turn until my hand was upon the button that controlled
the door through which my way led, and then he turned away from me
as I passed through and gently closed the door.

For an instant I paused, my ear close to the panel, to learn if he
had suspected aught, but as no sound of pursuit came from within
I wheeled and made my way along the new corridor, following the
rope, which I coiled and brought with me as I advanced.

But a short distance farther on I came to the rope's end at a point
where five corridors met.  What was I to do?  Which way should I
turn?  I was nonplused.

A careful examination of the end of the rope revealed the fact that
it had been cleanly cut with some sharp instrument.  This fact and
the words that had cautioned me that danger lay beyond the KNOTS
convinced me that the rope had been severed since my friend had
placed it as my guide, for I had but passed a single knot, whereas
there had evidently been two or more in the entire length of the
cord.

Now, indeed, was I in a pretty fix, for neither did I know which
avenue to follow nor when danger lay directly in my path; but there
was nothing else to be done than follow one of the corridors, for
I could gain nothing by remaining where I was.

So I chose the central opening, and passed on into its gloomy depths
with a prayer upon my lips.

The floor of the tunnel rose rapidly as I advanced, and a moment
later the way came to an abrupt end before a heavy door.

I could hear nothing beyond, and, with my accustomed rashness, pushed
the portal wide to step into a room filled with yellow warriors.

The first to see me opened his eyes wide in astonishment, and at
the same instant I felt the tingling sensation in my finger that
denoted the presence of a friend of the ring.

Then others saw me, and there was a concerted rush to lay hands upon
me, for these were all members of the palace guard--men familiar
with my face.

The first to reach me was the wearer of the mate to my strange
ring, and as he came close he whispered:  "Surrender to me!" then
in a loud voice shouted:  "You are my prisoner, white man," and
menaced me with his two weapons.

And so John Carter, Prince of Helium, meekly surrendered to a
single antagonist.  The others now swarmed about us, asking many
questions, but I would not talk to them, and finally my captor
announced that he would lead me back to my cell.

An officer ordered several other warriors to accompany him, and a
moment later we were retracing the way I had just come.  My friend
walked close beside me, asking many silly questions about the
country from which I had come, until finally his fellows paid no
further attention to him or his gabbling.

Gradually, as he spoke, he lowered his voice, so that presently
he was able to converse with me in a low tone without attracting
attention.  His ruse was a clever one, and showed that Talu had
not misjudged the man's fitness for the dangerous duty upon which
he was detailed.

When he had fully assured himself that the other guardsmen were not
listening, he asked me why I had not followed the rope, and when
I told him that it had ended at the five corridors he said that it
must have been cut by someone in need of a piece of rope, for he
was sure that "the stupid Kadabrans would never have guessed its
purpose."

Before we had reached the spot from which the five corridors diverge
my Marentinian friend had managed to drop to the rear of the little
column with me, and when we came in sight of the branching ways he
whispered:

"Run up the first upon the right.  It leads to the watchtower upon
the south wall.  I will direct the pursuit up the next corridor,"
and with that he gave me a great shove into the dark mouth of the
tunnel, at the same time crying out in simulated pain and alarm as
he threw himself upon the floor as though I had felled him with a
blow.

From behind the voices of the excited guardsmen came reverberating
along the corridor, suddenly growing fainter as Talu's spy led them
up the wrong passageway in fancied pursuit.

As I ran for my life through the dark galleries beneath the palace of
Salensus Oll I must indeed have presented a remarkable appearance
had there been any to note it, for though death loomed large
about me, my face was split by a broad grin as I thought of the
resourcefulness of the nameless hero of Marentina to whom I owed
my life.

Of such stuff are the men of my beloved Helium, and when I meet
another of their kind, of whatever race or color, my heart goes
out to him as it did now to my new friend who had risked his life
for me simply because I wore the mate to the ring his ruler had
put upon his finger.

The corridor along which I ran led almost straight for a considerable
distance, terminating at the foot of a spiral runway, up which
I proceeded to emerge presently into a circular chamber upon the
first floor of a tower.

In this apartment a dozen red slaves were employed polishing or
repairing the weapons of the yellow men.  The walls of the room
were lined with racks in which were hundreds of straight and hooked
swords, javelins, and daggers.  It was evidently an armory.  There
were but three warriors guarding the workers.

My eyes took in the entire scene at a glance.  Here were weapons
in plenty!  Here were sinewy red warriors to wield them!

And here now was John Carter, Prince of Helium, in need both of
weapons and warriors!

As I stepped into the apartment, guards and prisoners saw me
simultaneously.

Close to the entrance where I stood was a rack of straight swords,
and as my hand closed upon the hilt of one of them my eyes fell
upon the faces of two of the prisoners who worked side by side.

One of the guards started toward me.  "Who are you?" he demanded.
"What do you here?"

"I come for Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, and his son, Mors Kajak,"
I cried, pointing to the two red prisoners, who had now sprung to
their feet, wide-eyed in astonished recognition.

"Rise, red men!  Before we die let us leave a memorial in the palace
of Okar's tyrant that will stand forever in the annals of Kadabra
to the honor and glory of Helium," for I had seen that all the
prisoners there were men of Tardos Mors's navy.

Then the first guardsman was upon me and the fight was on, but
scarce did we engage ere, to my horror, I saw that the red slaves
were shackled to the floor.





THE MAGNET SWITCH




The guardsmen paid not the slightest attention to their wards, for
the red men could not move over two feet from the great rings to
which they were padlocked, though each had seized a weapon upon
which he had been engaged when I entered the room, and stood ready
to join me could they have but done so.

The yellow men devoted all their attention to me, nor were they
long in discovering that the three of them were none too many to
defend the armory against John Carter.  Would that I had had my own
good long-sword in my hand that day; but, as it was, I rendered a
satisfactory account of myself with the unfamiliar weapon of the
yellow man.

At first I had a time of it dodging their villainous hook-swords,
but after a minute or two I had succeeded in wresting a second
straight sword from one of the racks along the wall, and thereafter,
using it to parry the hooks of my antagonists, I felt more evenly
equipped.

The three of them were on me at once, and but for a lucky circumstance
my end might have come quickly.  The foremost guardsman made
a vicious lunge for my side with his hook after the three of them
had backed me against the wall, but as I sidestepped and raised my
arm his weapon but grazed my side, passing into a rack of javelins,
where it became entangled.

Before he could release it I had run him through, and then, falling
back upon the tactics that have saved me a hundred times in tight
pinches, I rushed the two remaining warriors, forcing them back
with a perfect torrent of cuts and thrusts, weaving my sword in
and out about their guards until I had the fear of death upon them.

Then one of them commenced calling for help, but it was too late
to save them.

They were as putty in my hands now, and I backed them about the
armory as I would until I had them where I wanted them--within reach
of the swords of the shackled slaves.  In an instant both lay dead
upon the floor.  But their cries had not been entirely fruitless,
for now I heard answering shouts and the footfalls of many men
running and the clank of accouterments and the commands of officers.

"The door!  Quick, John Carter, bar the door!" cried Tardos Mors.

Already the guard was in sight, charging across the open court that
was visible through the doorway.

A dozen seconds would bring them into the tower.  A single leap
carried me to the heavy portal.  With a resounding bang I slammed
it shut.

"The bar!" shouted Tardos Mors.

I tried to slip the huge fastening into place, but it defied my
every attempt.

"Raise it a little to release the catch," cried one of the red men.

I could hear the yellow warriors leaping along the flagging just
beyond the door.  I raised the bar and shot it to the right just
as the foremost of the guardsmen threw himself against the opposite
side of the massive panels.

The barrier held--I had been in time, but by the fraction of a
second only.

Now I turned my attention to the prisoners.  To Tardos Mors I went
first, asking where the keys might be which would unfasten their
fetters.

"The officer of the guard has them," replied the Jeddak of Helium,
"and he is among those without who seek entrance.  You will have
to force them."

Most of the prisoners were already hacking at their bonds with the
swords in their hands.  The yellow men were battering at the door
with javelins and axes.

I turned my attention to the chains that held Tardos Mors.  Again
and again I cut deep into the metal with my sharp blade, but ever
faster and faster fell the torrent of blows upon the portal.

At last a link parted beneath my efforts, and a moment later Tardos
Mors was free, though a few inches of trailing chain still dangled
from his ankle.

A splinter of wood falling inward from the door announced the
headway that our enemies were making toward us.

The mighty panels trembled and bent beneath the furious onslaught
of the enraged yellow men.

What with the battering upon the door and the hacking of the red
men at their chains the din within the armory was appalling.  No
sooner was Tardos Mors free than he turned his attention to another
of the prisoners, while I set to work to liberate Mors Kajak.

We must work fast if we would have all those fetters cut before
the door gave way.  Now a panel crashed inward upon the floor, and
Mors Kajak sprang to the opening to defend the way until we should
have time to release the others.

With javelins snatched from the wall he wrought havoc among the
foremost of the Okarians while we battled with the insensate metal
that stood between our fellows and freedom.

At length all but one of the prisoners were freed, and then the door
fell with a mighty crash before a hastily improvised battering-ram,
and the yellow horde was upon us.

"To the upper chambers!" shouted the red man who was still fettered
to the floor.  "To the upper chambers!  There you may defend the
tower against all Kadabra.  Do not delay because of me, who could
pray for no better death than in the service of Tardos Mors and
the Prince of Helium."

But I would have sacrificed the life of every man of us rather
than desert a single red man, much less the lion-hearted hero who
begged us to leave him.

"Cut his chains," I cried to two of the red men, "while the balance
of us hold off the foe."

There were ten of us now to do battle with the Okarian guard, and I
warrant that that ancient watchtower never looked down upon a more
hotly contested battle than took place that day within its own grim
walls.

The first inrushing wave of yellow warriors recoiled from the
slashing blades of ten of Helium's veteran fighting men.  A dozen
Okarian corpses blocked the doorway, but over the gruesome barrier
a score more of their fellows dashed, shouting their hoarse and
hideous war-cry.

Upon the bloody mound we met them, hand to hand, stabbing where
the quarters were too close to cut, thrusting when we could push
a foeman to arm's length; and mingled with the wild cry of the
Okarian there rose and fell the glorious words:  "For Helium!  For
Helium!" that for countless ages have spurred on the bravest of the
brave to those deeds of valor that have sent the fame of Helium's
heroes broadcast throughout the length and breadth of a world.

Now were the fetters struck from the last of the red men, and
thirteen strong we met each new charge of the soldiers of Salensus
Oll.  Scarce one of us but bled from a score of wounds, yet none
had fallen.

From without we saw hundreds of guardsmen pouring into the courtyard,
and along the lower corridor from which I had found my way to the
armory we could hear the clank of metal and the shouting of men.

In a moment we should be attacked from two sides, and with all
our prowess we could not hope to withstand the unequal odds which
would thus divide our attention and our small numbers.

"To the upper chambers!" cried Tardos Mors, and a moment later we
fell back toward the runway that led to the floors above.

Here another bloody battle was waged with the force of yellow men
who charged into the armory as we fell back from the doorway.  Here
we lost our first man, a noble fellow whom we could ill spare; but
at length all had backed into the runway except myself, who remained
to hold back the Okarians until the others were safe above.

In the mouth of the narrow spiral but a single warrior could attack
me at a time, so that I had little difficulty in holding them all
back for the brief moment that was necessary.  Then, backing slowly
before them, I commenced the ascent of the spiral.

All the long way to the tower's top the guardsmen pressed me closely.
When one went down before my sword another scrambled over the dead
man to take his place; and thus, taking an awful toll with each
few feet gained, I came to the spacious glass-walled watchtower of
Kadabra.

Here my companions clustered ready to take my place, and for a
moment's respite I stepped to one side while they held the enemy
off.

From the lofty perch a view could be had for miles in every direction.
Toward the south stretched the rugged, ice-clad waste to the edge
of the mighty barrier.  Toward the east and west, and dimly toward
the north I descried other Okarian cities, while in the immediate
foreground, just beyond the walls of Kadabra, the grim guardian
shaft reared its somber head.

Then I cast my eyes down into the streets of Kadabra, from which
a sudden tumult had arisen, and there I saw a battle raging, and
beyond the city's walls I saw armed men marching in great columns
toward a near-by gate.

Eagerly I pressed forward against the glass wall of the observatory,
scarce daring to credit the testimony of my own  eyes.  But at
last I could doubt no longer, and with a shout of joy that rose
strangely in the midst of the cursing and groaning of the battling
men at the entrance to the chamber, I called to Tardos Mors.

As he joined me I pointed down into the streets of Kadabra and to
the advancing columns beyond, above which floated bravely in the
arctic air the flags and banners of Helium.

An instant later every red man in the lofty chamber had seen the
inspiring sight, and such a shout of thanksgiving arose as I warrant
never before echoed through that age-old pile of stone.

But still we must fight on, for though our troops had entered
Kadabra, the city was yet far from capitulation, nor had the palace
been even assaulted.  Turn and turn about we held the top of the
runway while the others feasted their eyes upon the sight of our
valiant countrymen battling far beneath us.

Now they have rushed the palace gate!  Great battering-rams are
dashed against its formidable surface.  Now they are repulsed by
a deadly shower of javelins from the wall's top!

Once again they charge, but a sortie by a large force of Okarians
from an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, and
the men of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an overwhelming force.

The palace gate flies open and a force of the jeddak's own guard,
picked men from the flower of the Okarian army, sallies forth
to shatter the broken regiments.  For a moment it looks as though
nothing could avert defeat, and then I see a noble figure upon
a mighty thoat--not the tiny thoat of the red man, but one of his
huge cousins of the dead sea bottoms.

The warrior hews his way to the front, and behind him rally the
disorganized soldiers of Helium.  As he raises his head aloft to
fling a challenge at the men upon the palace walls I see his face,
and my heart swells in pride and happiness as the red warriors leap
to the side of their leader and win back the ground that they had
but just lost--the face of him upon the mighty thoat is the face
of my son--Carthoris of Helium.

At his side fights a huge Martian war-hound, nor did I need a
second look to know that it was Woola--my faithful Woola who had
thus well performed his arduous task and brought the succoring
legions in the nick of time.

"In the nick of time?"

Who yet might say that they were not too late to save, but surely
they could avenge!  And such retribution as that unconquered army
would deal out to the hateful Okarians!  I sighed to think that I
might not be alive to witness it.

Again I turned to the windows.  The red men had not yet forced the
outer palace wall, but they were fighting nobly against the best
that Okar afforded--valiant warriors who contested every inch of
the way.

Now my attention was caught by a new element without the city wall--a
great body of mounted warriors looming large above the red men.
They were the huge green allies of Helium--the savage hordes from
the dead sea bottoms of the far south.

In grim and terrible silence they sped on toward the gate, the
padded hoofs of their frightful mounts giving forth no sound.  Into
the doomed city they charged, and as they wheeled across the wide
plaza before the palace of the Jeddak of Jeddaks I saw, riding at
their head, the mighty figure of their mighty leader--Tars Tarkas,
Jeddak of Thark.

My wish, then, was to be gratified, for I was to see my old friend
battling once again, and though not shoulder to shoulder with him,
I, too, would be fighting in the same cause here in the high tower
of Okar.

Nor did it seem that our foes would ever cease their stubborn
attacks, for still they came, though the way to our chamber was
often clogged with the bodies of their dead.  At times they would
pause long enough to drag back the impeding corpses, and then fresh
warriors would forge upward to taste the cup of death.

I had been taking my turn with the others in defending the approach
to our lofty retreat when Mors Kajak, who had been watching the
battle in the street below, called aloud in sudden excitement.
There was a note of apprehension in his voice that brought me to
his side the instant that I could turn my place over to another,
and as I reached him he pointed far out across the waste of snow
and ice toward the southern horizon.

"Alas!" he cried, "that I should be forced to witness cruel fate
betray them without power to warn or aid; but they be past either
now."

As I looked in the direction he indicated I saw the cause of his
perturbation.  A mighty fleet of fliers was approaching majestically
toward Kadabra from the direction of the ice-barrier.  On and on
they came with ever increasing velocity.

"The grim shaft that they call the Guardian of the North is beckoning
to them," said Mors Kajak sadly, "just as it beckoned to Tardos
Mors and his great fleet; see where they lie, crumpled and broken,
a grim and terrible monument to the mighty force of destruction
which naught can resist."

I, too, saw; but something else I saw that Mors Kajak did not; in
my mind's eye I saw a buried chamber whose walls were lined with
strange instruments and devices.

In the center of the chamber was a long table, and before it sat a
little, pop-eyed old man counting his money; but, plainest of all,
I saw upon the wall a great switch with a small magnet inlaid within
the surface of its black handle.

Then I glanced out at the fast-approaching fleet.  In five minutes
that mighty armada of the skies would be bent and worthless scrap,
lying at the base of the shaft beyond the city's wall, and yellow
hordes would be loosed from another gate to rush out upon the few
survivors stumbling blindly down through the mass of wreckage;
then the apts would come.  I shuddered at the thought, for I could
vividly picture the whole horrible scene.

Quick have I always been to decide and act.  The impulse that moves
me and the doing of the thing seem simultaneous; for if my mind
goes through the tedious formality of reasoning, it must be a
subconscious act of which I am not objectively aware.  Psychologists
tell me that, as the subconscious does not reason, too close a
scrutiny of my mental activities might prove anything but flattering;
but be that as it may, I have often won success while the thinker
would have been still at the endless task of comparing various
judgments.

And now celerity of action was the prime essential to the success
of the thing that I had decided upon.

Grasping my sword more firmly in my hand, I called to the red man
at the opening to the runway to stand aside.

"Way for the Prince of Helium!" I shouted; and before the astonished
yellow man whose misfortune it was to be at the fighting end of
the line at that particular moment could gather his wits together
my sword had decapitated him, and I was rushing like a mad bull
down upon those behind him.

"Way for the Prince of Helium!" I shouted as I cut a path through
the astonished guardsmen of Salensus Oll.

Hewing to right and left, I beat my way down that warrior-choked
spiral until, near the bottom, those below, thinking that an army
was descending upon them, turned and fled.

The armory at the first floor was vacant when I entered it, the
last of the Okarians having fled into the courtyard, so none saw
me continue down the spiral toward the corridor beneath.

Here I ran as rapidly as my legs would carry me toward the five
corners, and there plunged into the passageway that led to the
station of the old miser.

Without the formality of a knock, I burst into the room.  There sat
the old man at his table; but as he saw me he sprang to his feet,
drawing his sword.

With scarce more than a glance toward him I leaped for the great
switch; but, quick as I was, that wiry old fellow was there before
me.

How he did it I shall never know, nor does it seem credible that
any Martian-born creature could approximate the marvelous speed of
my earthly muscles.

Like a tiger he turned upon me, and I was quick to see why Solan
had been chosen for this important duty.

Never in all my life have I seen such wondrous swordsmanship and
such uncanny agility as that ancient bag of bones displayed.  He was
in forty places at the same time, and before I had half a chance
to awaken to my danger he was like to have made a monkey of me,
and a dead monkey at that.

It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed
ability to meet them.

That day in the buried chamber beneath the palace of Salensus Oll
I learned what swordsmanship meant, and to what heights of sword
mastery I could achieve when pitted against such a wizard of the
blade as Solan.

For a time he liked to have bested me; but presently the latent
possibilities that must have been lying dormant within me for a
lifetime came to the fore, and I fought as I had never dreamed a
human being could fight.

That that duel-royal should have taken place in the dark recesses
of a cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it has
always seemed to me almost a world calamity--at least from the
viewpoint Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatest
consideration of individuals, nations, and races.

I was fighting to reach the switch, Solan to prevent me; and, though
we stood not three feet from it, I could not win an inch toward
it, for he forced me back an inch for the first five minutes of
our battle.

I knew that if I were to throw it in time to save the oncoming
fleet it must be done in the next few seconds, and so I tried my
old rushing tactics; but I might as well have rushed a brick wall
for all that Solan gave way.

In fact, I came near to impaling myself upon his point for my
pains; but right was on my side, and I think that that must give a
man greater confidence than though he knew himself to be battling
in a wicked cause.

At least, I did not want in confidence; and when I next rushed Solan
it was to one side with implicit confidence that he must turn to
meet my new line of attack, and turn he did, so that now we fought
with our sides towards the coveted goal--the great switch stood
within my reach upon my right hand.

To uncover my breast for an instant would have been to court sudden
death, but I saw no other way than to chance it, if by so doing I
might rescue that oncoming, succoring fleet; and so, in the face
of a wicked sword-thrust, I reached out my point and caught the
great switch a sudden blow that released it from its seating.

So surprised and horrified was Solan that he forgot to finish his
thrust; instead, he wheeled toward the switch with a loud shriek--a
shriek which was his last, for before his hand could touch the
lever it sought, my sword's point had passed through his heart.





THE TIDE OF BATTLE




But solan's last loud cry had not been without effect, for a moment
later a dozen guardsmen burst into the chamber, though not before
I had so bent and demolished the great switch that it could not be
again used to turn the powerful current into the mighty magnet of
destruction it controlled.

The result of the sudden coming of the guardsmen had been to compel
me to seek seclusion in the first passageway that I could find,
and that to my disappointment proved to be not the one with which
I was familiar, but another upon its left.

They must have either heard or guessed which way I went, for I had
proceeded but a short distance when I heard the sound of pursuit.
I had no mind to stop and fight these men here when there was
fighting aplenty elsewhere in the city of Kadabra--fighting that
could be of much more avail to me and mine than useless life-taking
far below the palace.

But the fellows were pressing me; and as I did not know the way at
all, I soon saw that they would overtake me unless I found a place
to conceal myself until they had passed, which would then give me
an opportunity to return the way I had come and regain the tower,
or possibly find a way to reach the city streets.

The passageway had risen rapidly since leaving the apartment of
the switch, and now ran level and well lighted straight into the
distance as far as I could see.  The moment that my pursuers reached
this straight stretch I would be in plain sight of them, with no
chance to escape from the corridor undetected.

Presently I saw a series of doors opening from either side of the
corridor, and as they all looked alike to me I tried the first
one that I reached.  It opened into a small chamber, luxuriously
furnished, and was evidently an ante-chamber off some office or
audience chamber of the palace.

On the far side was a heavily curtained doorway beyond which I
heard the hum of voices.  Instantly I crossed the small chamber,
and, parting the curtains, looked within the larger apartment.

Before me were a party of perhaps fifty gorgeously clad nobles of
the court, standing before a throne upon which sat Salensus Oll.
The Jeddak of Jeddaks was addressing them.

"The allotted hour has come," he was saying as I entered the
apartment; "and though the enemies of Okar be within her gates,
naught may stay the will of Salensus Oll.  The great ceremony must
be omitted that no single man may be kept from his place in the
defenses other than the fifty that custom demands shall witness
the creation of a new queen in Okar.

"In a moment the thing shall have been done and we may return to
the battle, while she who is now the Princess of Helium looks down
from the queen's tower upon the annihilation of her former countrymen
and witnesses the greatness which is her husband's."

Then, turning to a courtier, he issued some command in a low voice.

The addressed hastened to a small door at the far end of the chamber
and, swinging it wide, cried:  "Way for Dejah Thoris, future Queen
of Okar!"

Immediately two guardsmen appeared dragging the unwilling bride toward
the altar.  Her hands were still manacled behind her, evidently to
prevent suicide.

Her disheveled hair and panting bosom betokened that, chained though
she was, still had she fought against the thing that they would do
to her.

At sight of her Salensus Oll rose and drew his sword, and the sword
of each of the fifty nobles was raised on high to form an arch,
beneath which the poor, beautiful creature was dragged toward her
doom.

A grim smile forced itself to my lips as I thought of the rude
awakening that lay in store for the ruler of Okar, and my itching
fingers fondled the hilt of my bloody sword.

As I watched the procession that moved slowly toward the throne--a
procession which consisted of but a handful of priests, who followed
Dejah Thoris and the two guardsmen--I caught a fleeting glimpse
of a black face peering from behind the draperies that covered the
wall back of the dais upon which stood Salensus Oll awaiting his
bride.

Now the guardsmen were forcing the Princess of Helium up the few
steps to the side of the tyrant of Okar, and I had no eyes and no
thoughts for aught else.  A priest opened a book and, raising his
hand, commenced to drone out a sing-song ritual.  Salensus Oll
reached for the hand of his bride.

I had intended waiting until some circumstance should give me a
reasonable hope of success; for, even though the entire ceremony
should be completed, there could be no valid marriage while I
lived.  What I was most concerned in, of course, was the rescuing
of Dejah Thoris--I wished to take her from the palace of Salensus
Oll, if such a thing were possible; but whether it were accomplished
before or after the mock marriage was a matter of secondary import.

When, however, I saw the vile hand of Salensus Oll reach out for
the hand of my beloved princess I could restrain myself no longer,
and before the nobles of Okar knew that aught had happened I had
leaped through their thin line and was upon the dais beside Dejah
Thoris and Salensus Oll.

With the flat of my sword I struck down his polluting hand; and
grasping Dejah Thoris round the waist, I swung her behind me as,
with my back against the draperies of the dais, I faced the tyrant
of the north and his roomful of noble warriors.

The Jeddak of Jeddaks was a great mountain of a man--a coarse,
brutal beast of a man--and as he towered above me there, his fierce
black whiskers and mustache bristling in rage, I can well imagine
that a less seasoned warrior might have trembled before him.

With a snarl he sprang toward me with naked sword, but whether
Salensus Oll was a good swordsman or a poor I never learned; for
with Dejah Thoris at my back I was no longer human--I was a superman,
and no man could have withstood me then.

With a single, low:  "For the Princess of Helium!" I ran my blade
straight through the rotten heart of Okar's rotten ruler, and before
the white, drawn faces of his nobles Salensus Oll rolled, grinning
in horrible death, to the foot of the steps below his marriage
throne.

For a moment tense silence reigned in the nuptial-room.  Then the
fifty nobles rushed upon me.  Furiously we fought, but the advantage
was mine, for I stood upon a raised platform above them, and I
fought for the most glorious woman of a glorious race, and I fought
for a great love and for the mother of my boy.

And from behind my shoulder, in the silvery cadence of that dear
voice, rose the brave battle anthem of Helium which the nation's
women sing as their men march out to victory.

That alone was enough to inspire me to victory over even greater
odds, and I verily believe that I should have bested the entire
roomful of yellow warriors that day in the nuptial chamber of the
palace at Kadabra had not interruption come to my aid.

Fast and furious was the fighting as the nobles of Salensus Oll
sprang, time and again, up the steps before the throne only to fall
back before a sword hand that seemed to have gained a new wizardry
from its experience with the cunning Solan.

Two were pressing me so closely that I could not turn when I heard
a movement behind me, and noted that the sound of the battle anthem
had ceased.  Was Dejah Thoris preparing to take her place beside
me?

Heroic daughter of a heroic world!  It would not be unlike her to
have seized a sword and fought at my side, for, though the women
of Mars are not trained in the arts of war, the spirit is theirs,
and they have been known to do that very thing upon countless
occasions.

But she did not come, and glad I was, for it would have doubled my
burden in protecting her before I should have been able to force
her back again out of harm's way.  She must be contemplating some
cunning strategy, I thought, and so I fought on secure in the belief
that my divine princess stood close behind me.

For half an hour at least I must have fought there against the
nobles of Okar ere ever a one placed a foot upon the dais where I
stood, and then of a sudden all that remained of them formed below
me for a last, mad, desperate charge; but even as they advanced
the door at the far end of the chamber swung wide and a wild-eyed
messenger sprang into the room.

"The Jeddak of Jeddaks!" he cried.  "Where is the Jeddak of Jeddaks?
The city has fallen before the hordes from beyond the barrier, and
but now the great gate of the palace itself has been forced and
the warriors of the south are pouring into its sacred precincts.

"Where is Salensus Oll?  He alone may revive the flagging courage
of our warriors.  He alone may save the day for Okar.  Where is
Salensus Oll?"

The nobles stepped back from about the dead body of their ruler,
and one of them pointed to the grinning corpse.

The messenger staggered back in horror as though from a blow in
the face.

"Then fly, nobles of Okar!" he cried, "for naught can save you.
Hark!  They come!"

As he spoke we heard the deep roar of angry men from the corridor
without, and the clank of metal and the clang of swords.

Without another glance toward me, who had stood a spectator of
the tragic scene, the nobles wheeled and fled from the apartment
through another exit.

Almost immediately a force of yellow warriors appeared in the
doorway through which the messenger had come.  They were backing
toward the apartment, stubbornly resisting the advance of a handful
of red men who faced them and forced them slowly but inevitably
back.

Above the heads of the contestants I could see from my elevated
station upon the dais the face of my old friend Kantos Kan.  He was
leading the little party that had won its way into the very heart
of the palace of Salensus Oll.

In an instant I saw that by attacking the Okarians from the rear
I could so quickly disorganize them that their further resistance
would be short-lived, and with this idea in mind I sprang from
the dais, casting a word of explanation to Dejah Thoris over my
shoulder, though I did not turn to look at her.

With myself ever between her enemies and herself, and with Kantos
Kan and his warriors winning to the apartment, there could be no
danger to Dejah Thoris standing there alone beside the throne.

I wanted the men of Helium to see me and to know that their beloved
princess was here, too, for I knew that this knowledge would inspire
them to even greater deeds of valor than they had performed in the
past, though great indeed must have been those which won for them
a way into the almost impregnable palace of the tyrant of the north.

As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear a
small doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed the
figures of Matai Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, his daughter,
peering into the room.

A quick glance about they took.  Their eyes rested for a moment,
wide in horror, upon the dead body of Salensus Oll, upon the blood
that crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who had
fallen thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battling
warriors at the other door.

They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its every
corner from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had sought
its entire area, a look of fierce rage overspread the features
of Matai Shang, and a cold and cunning smile touched the lips of
Phaidor.

Then they were gone, but not before a taunting laugh was thrown
directly in my face by the woman.

I did not understand then the meaning of Matai Shang's rage or
Phaidor's pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me.

A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow men, and as the
red men of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonists
a great shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drowned
the noise of battle.

"For the Prince of Helium!" they cried.  "For the Prince of Helium!"
and, like hungry lions upon their prey, they fell once more upon
the weakening warriors of the north.

The yellow men, cornered between two enemies, fought with the
desperation that utter hopelessness often induces.  Fought as I
should have fought had I been in their stead, with the determination
to take as many of my enemies with me when I died as lay within
the power of my sword arm.

It was a glorious battle, but the end seemed inevitable, when
presently from down the corridor behind the red men came a great
body of reenforcing yellow warriors.

Now were the tables turned, and it was the men of Helium who seemed
doomed to be ground between two millstones.  All were compelled to
turn to meet this new assault by a greatly superior force, so that
to me was left the remnants of the yellow men within the throneroom.

They kept me busy, too; so busy that I began to wonder if indeed
I should ever be done with them.  Slowly they pressed me back into
the room, and when they had all passed in after me, one of them
closed and bolted the door, effectually barring the way against
the men of Kantos Kan.

It was a clever move, for it put me at the mercy of a dozen men
within a chamber from which assistance was locked out, and it gave
the red men in the corridor beyond no avenue of escape should their
new antagonists press them too closely.

But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against me
that day, and I knew that Kantos Kan had battled his way from a
hundred more dangerous traps than that in which he now was.  So it
was with no feelings of despair that I turned my attention to the
business of the moment.

Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejah Thoris, and I longed for
the moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms,
and hear once more the words of love which had been denied me for
so many years.

During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single chance
to so much as steal a glance at her where she stood behind me beside
the throne of the dead ruler.  I wondered why she no longer urged
me on with the strains of the martial hymn of Helium; but I did not
need more than the knowledge that I was battling for her to bring
out the best that is in me.

It would be wearisome to narrate the details of that bloody struggle;
of how we fought from the doorway, the full length of the room to
the very foot of the throne before the last of my antagonists fell
with my blade piercing his heart.

And then, with a glad cry, I turned with outstretched arms to seize
my princess, and as my lips smothered hers to reap the reward that
would be thrice ample payment for the bloody encounters through
which I had passed for her dear sake from the south pole to the
north.

The glad cry died, frozen upon my lips; my arms dropped limp and
lifeless to my sides; as one who reels beneath the burden of a
mortal wound I staggered up the steps before the throne.

Dejah Thoris was gone.





REWARDS




With the realization that Dejah Thoris was no longer within the
throneroom came the belated recollection of the dark face that I had
glimpsed peering from behind the draperies that backed the throne
of Salensus Oll at the moment that I had first come so unexpectedly
upon the strange scene being enacted within the chamber.

Why had the sight of that evil countenance not warned me to greater
caution?  Why had I permitted the rapid development of new situations
to efface the recollection of that menacing danger?  But, alas,
vain regret would not erase the calamity that had befallen.

Once again had Dejah Thoris fallen into the clutches of that
archfiend, Thurid, the black dator of the First Born.  Again was
all my arduous labor gone for naught.  Now I realized the cause
of the rage that had been writ so large upon the features of Matai
Shang and the cruel pleasure that I had seen upon the face of
Phaidor.

They had known or guessed the truth, and the hekkador of the
Holy Therns, who had evidently come to the chamber in the hope of
thwarting Salensus Oll in his contemplated perfidy against the high
priest who coveted Dejah Thoris for himself, realized that Thurid
had stolen the prize from beneath his very nose.

Phaidor's pleasure had been due to her realization of what this last
cruel blow would mean to me, as well as to a partial satisfaction
of her jealous hatred for the Princess of Helium.

My first thought was to look beyond the draperies at the back of
the throne, for there it was that I had seen Thurid.  With a single
jerk I tore the priceless stuff from its fastenings, and there
before me was revealed a narrow doorway behind the throne.

No question entered my mind but that here lay the opening of the
avenue of escape which Thurid had followed, and had there been it
would have been dissipated by the sight of a tiny, jeweled ornament
which lay a few steps within the corridor beyond.

As I snatched up the bauble I saw that it bore the device of the
Princess of Helium, and then pressing it to my lips I dashed madly
along the winding way that led gently downward toward the lower
galleries of the palace.

I had followed but a short distance when I came upon the room in
which Solan formerly had held sway.  His dead body still lay where
I had left it, nor was there any sign that another had passed
through the room since I had been there; but I knew that two had
done so--Thurid, the black dator, and Dejah Thoris.

For a moment I paused uncertain as to which of the several exits
from the apartment would lead me upon the right path.  I tried to
recollect the directions which I had heard Thurid repeat to Solan,
and at last, slowly, as though through a heavy fog, the memory of
the words of the First Born came to me:

"Follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon the right;
then into the fourth right-hand corridor to where three corridors
meet; here again follow to the right, hugging the left wall closely
to avoid the pit.  At the end of this corridor I shall come to a
spiral runway which I must follow down instead of up; after that
the way is along but a single branchless corridor."

And I recalled the exit at which he had pointed as he spoke.

It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did I
go with caution, although I knew that there might be grave dangers
before me.

Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was fairly
well lighted.  The stretch where I must hug the left wall to avoid
the pits was darkest of them all, and I was nearly over the edge of
the abyss before I knew that I was near the danger spot.  A narrow
ledge, scarce a foot wide, was all that had been left to carry
the initiated past that frightful cavity into which the unknowing
must surely have toppled at the first step.  But at last I had won
safely beyond it, and then a feeble light made the balance of the
way plain, until, at the end of the last corridor, I came suddenly
out into the glare of day upon a field of snow and ice.

Clad for the warm atmosphere of the hothouse city of Kadabra, the
sudden change to arctic frigidity was anything but pleasant; but
the worst of it was that I knew I could not endure the bitter cold,
almost naked as I was, and that I would perish before ever I could
overtake Thurid and Dejah Thoris.

To be thus blocked by nature, who had had all the arts and wiles
of cunning man pitted against him, seemed a cruel fate, and as I
staggered back into the warmth of the tunnel's end I was as near
hopelessness as I ever have been.

I had by no means given up my intention of continuing the pursuit,
for if needs be I would go ahead though I perished ere ever I
reached my goal, but if there were a safer way it were well worth
the delay to attempt to discover it, that I might come again to
the side of Dejah Thoris in fit condition to do battle for her.

Scarce had I returned to the tunnel than I stumbled over a portion
of a fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridor
close to the wall.  In the darkness I could not see what held it,
but by groping with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneath
the bottom of a closed door.

Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of a
small chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from which
depended suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow men.

Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace,
it was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by the
nobles leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid,
having knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit himself and
Dejah Thoris before venturing into the bitter cold of the arctic
world beyond.

In his haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor, and
the telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had
proved the means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have
wished me to have knowledge of.

It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessary
orluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined boots that are so
essential a part of the garmenture of one who would successfully
contend with the frozen trails and the icy winds of the bleak
northland.

Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel's mouth to find the fresh
tracks of Thurid and Dejah Thoris in the new-fallen snow.  Now, at
last, was my task an easy one, for though the going was rough in
the extreme, I was no longer vexed by doubts as to the direction
I should follow, or harassed by darkness or hidden dangers.

Through a snow-covered canyon the way led up toward the summit of
low hills.  Beyond these it dipped again into another canon, only
to rise a quarter-mile farther on toward a pass which skirted the
flank of a rocky hill.

I could see by the signs of those who had gone before that when Dejah
Thoris had walked she had been continually holding back, and that
the black man had been compelled to drag her.  For other stretches
only his foot-prints were visible, deep and close together in
the heavy snow, and I knew from these signs that then he had been
forced to carry her, and I could well imagine that she had fought
him fiercely every step of the way.

As I came round the jutting promontory of the hill's shoulder I saw
that which quickened my pulses and set my heart to beating high,
for within a tiny basin between the crest of this hill and the next
stood four people before the mouth of a great cave, and beside them
upon the gleaming snow rested a flier which had evidently but just
been dragged from its hiding place.

The four were Dejah Thoris, Phaidor, Thurid, and Matai Shang.  The
two men were engaged in a heated argument--the Father of Therns
threatening, while the black scoffed at him as he went about the
work at which he was engaged.

As I crept toward them cautiously that I might come as near as
possible before being discovered, I saw that finally the men appeared
to have reached some sort of a compromise, for with Phaidor's
assistance they both set about dragging the resisting Dejah Thoris
to the flier's deck.

Here they made her fast, and then both again descended to the ground
to complete the preparations for departure.  Phaidor entered the
small cabin upon the vessel's deck.

I had come to within a quarter of a mile of them when Matai Shang
espied me.  I saw him seize Thurid by the shoulder, wheeling him
around in my direction as he pointed to where I was now plainly
visible, for the moment that I knew I had been perceived I cast
aside every attempt at stealth and broke into a mad race for the
flier.

The two redoubled their efforts at the propeller at which they were
working, and which very evidently was being replaced after having
been removed for some purpose of repair.

They had the thing completed before I had covered half the distance
that lay between me and them, and then both made a rush for the
boarding-ladder.

Thurid was the first to reach it, and with the agility of a monkey
clambered swiftly to the boat's deck, where a touch of the button
controlling the buoyancy tanks sent the craft slowly upward, though
not with the speed that marks the well-conditioned flier.

I was still some hundred yards away as I saw them rising from my
grasp.

Back by the city of Kadabra lay a great fleet of mighty fliers--the
ships of Helium and Ptarth that I had saved from destruction earlier
in the day; but before ever I could reach them Thurid could easily
make good his escape.

As I ran I saw Matai Shang clambering up the swaying, swinging
ladder toward the deck, while above him leaned the evil face of the
First Born.  A trailing rope from the vessel's stern put new hope
in me, for if I could but reach it before it whipped too high above
my head there was yet a chance to gain the deck by its slender aid.

That there was something radically wrong with the flier was evident
from its lack of buoyancy, and the further fact that though Thurid
had turned twice to the starting lever the boat still hung motionless
in the air, except for a slight drifting with a low breeze from
the north.

Now Matai Shang was close to the gunwale.  A long, claw-like hand
was reaching up to grasp the metal rail.

Thurid leaned farther down toward his co-conspirator.

Suddenly a raised dagger gleamed in the upflung hand of the black.
Down it drove toward the white face of the Father of Therns.  With
a loud shriek of fear the Holy Hekkador grasped frantically at that
menacing arm.

I was almost to the trailing rope by now.  The craft was still
rising slowly, the while it drifted from me.  Then I stumbled on
the icy way, striking my head upon a rock as I fell sprawling but
an arm's length from the rope, the end of which was now just leaving
the ground.

With the blow upon my head came unconsciousness.

It could not have been more than a few seconds that I lay senseless
there upon the northern ice, while all that was dearest to me
drifted farther from my reach in the clutches of that black fiend,
for when I opened my eyes Thurid and Matai Shang yet battled at the
ladder's top, and the flier drifted but a hundred yards farther to
the south--but the end of the trailing rope was now a good thirty
feet above the ground.

Goaded to madness by the cruel misfortune that had tripped me when
success was almost within my grasp, I tore frantically across the
intervening space, and just beneath the rope's dangling end I put
my earthly muscles to the supreme test.

With a mighty, catlike bound I sprang upward toward that slender
strand--the only avenue which yet remained that could carry me to
my vanishing love.

A foot above its lowest end my fingers closed.  Tightly as I clung
I felt the rope slipping, slipping through my grasp.  I tried to
raise my free hand to take a second hold above my first, but the
change of position that resulted caused me to slip more rapidly
toward the end of the rope.

Slowly I felt the tantalizing thing escaping me.  In a moment all
that I had gained would be lost--then my fingers reached a knot at
the very end of the rope and slipped no more.

With a prayer of gratitude upon my lips I scrambled upward toward
the boat's deck.  I could not see Thurid and Matai Shang now,
but I heard the sounds of conflict and thus knew that they still
fought--the thern for his life and the black for the increased
buoyancy that relief from the weight of even a single body would
give the craft.

Should Matai Shang die before I reached the deck my chances of ever
reaching it would be slender indeed, for the black dator need but
cut the rope above me to be freed from me forever, for the vessel
had drifted across the brink of a chasm into whose yawning depths
my body would drop to be crushed to a shapeless pulp should Thurid
reach the rope now.

At last my hand closed upon the ship's rail and that very instant
a horrid shriek rang out below me that sent my blood cold and turned
my horrified eyes downward to a shrieking, hurtling, twisting thing
that shot downward into the awful chasm beneath me.

It was Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador, Father of Therns, gone to his
last accounting.

Then my head came above the deck and I saw Thurid, dagger in hand,
leaping toward me.  He was opposite the forward end of the cabin,
while I was attempting to clamber aboard near the vessel's stern.
But a few paces lay between us.  No power on earth could raise me
to that deck before the infuriated black would be upon me.

My end had come.  I knew it; but had there been a doubt in my mind
the nasty leer of triumph upon that wicked face would have convinced
me.  Beyond Thurid I could see my Dejah Thoris, wide-eyed and
horrified, struggling at her bonds.  That she should be forced to
witness my awful death made my bitter fate seem doubly cruel.

I ceased my efforts to climb across the gunwale.  Instead I took
a firm grasp upon the rail with my left hand and drew my dagger.

I should at least die as I had lived--fighting.

As Thurid came opposite the cabin's doorway a new element projected
itself into the grim tragedy of the air that was being enacted upon
the deck of Matai Shang's disabled flier.

It was Phaidor.

With flushed face and disheveled hair, and eyes that betrayed the
recent presence of mortal tears--above which this proud goddess had
always held herself--she leaped to the deck directly before me.

In her hand was a long, slim dagger.  I cast a last look upon
my beloved princess, smiling, as men should who are about to die.
Then I turned my face up toward Phaidor--waiting for the blow.

Never have I seen that beautiful face more beautiful than it was
at that moment.  It seemed incredible that one so lovely could
yet harbor within her fair bosom a heart so cruel and relentless,
and today there was a new expression in her wondrous eyes that I
never before had seen there--an unfamiliar softness, and a look of
suffering.

Thurid was beside her now--pushing past to reach me first, and
then what happened happened so quickly that it was all over before
I could realize the truth of it.

Phaidor's slim hand shot out to close upon the black's dagger wrist.
Her right hand went high with its gleaming blade.

"That for Matai Shang!" she cried, and she buried her blade deep
in the dator's breast.  "That for the wrong you would have done
Dejah Thoris!" and again the sharp steel sank into the bloody flesh.

"And that, and that, and that!" she shrieked, "for John Carter,
Prince of Helium," and with each word her sharp point pierced the
vile heart of the great villain.  Then, with a vindictive shove she
cast the carcass of the First Born from the deck to fall in awful
silence after the body of his victim.

I had been so paralyzed by surprise that I had made no move to reach
the deck during the awe-inspiring scene which I had just witnessed,
and now I was to be still further amazed by her next act, for
Phaidor extended her hand to me and assisted me to the deck, where
I stood gazing at her in unconcealed and stupefied wonderment.

A wan smile touched her lips--it was not the cruel and haughty
smile of the goddess with which I was familiar.  "You wonder, John
Carter," she said, "what strange thing has wrought this change in
me?  I will tell you.  It is love--love of you," and when I darkened
my brows in disapproval of her words she raised an appealing hand.

"Wait," she said.  "It is a different love from mine--it is the
love of your princess, Dejah Thoris, for you that has taught me
what true love may be--what it should be, and how far from real
love was my selfish and jealous passion for you.

"Now I am different.  Now could I love as Dejah Thoris loves, and
so my only happiness can be to know that you and she are once more
united, for in her alone can you find true happiness.

"But I am unhappy because of the wickedness that I have wrought.  I
have many sins to expiate, and though I be deathless, life is all
too short for the atonement.

"But there is another way, and if Phaidor, daughter of the Holy
Hekkador of the Holy Therns, has sinned she has this day already
made partial reparation, and lest you doubt the sincerity of her
protestations and her avowal of a new love that embraces Dejah
Thoris also, she will prove her sincerity in the only way that
lies open--having saved you for another, Phaidor leaves you to her
embraces."

With her last word she turned and leaped from the vessel's deck
into the abyss below.

With a cry of horror I sprang forward in a vain attempt to save the
life that for two years I would so gladly have seen extinguished.
I was too late.

With tear-dimmed eyes I turned away that I might not see the awful
sight beneath.

A moment later I had struck the bonds from Dejah Thoris, and as her
dear arms went about my neck and her perfect lips pressed to mine
I forgot the horrors that I had witnessed and the suffering that
I had endured in the rapture of my reward.





THE NEW RULER




The flier upon whose deck Dejah Thoris and I found ourselves after
twelve long years of separation proved entirely useless.  Her
buoyancy tanks leaked badly.  Her engine would not start.  We were
helpless there in mid air above the arctic ice.

The craft had drifted across the chasm which held the corpses of
Matai Shang, Thurid, and Phaidor, and now hung above a low hill.
Opening the buoyancy escape valves I permitted her to come slowly
to the ground, and as she touched, Dejah Thoris and I stepped from
her deck and, hand in hand, turned back across the frozen waste
toward the city of Kadabra.

Through the tunnel that had led me in pursuit of them we passed,
walking slowly, for we had much to say to each other.

She told me of that last terrible moment months before when the
door of her prison cell within the Temple of the Sun was slowly
closing between us.  Of how Phaidor had sprung upon her with
uplifted dagger, and of Thuvia's shriek as she had realized the
foul intention of the thern goddess.

It had been that cry that had rung in my ears all the long, weary
months that I had been left in cruel doubt as to my princess' fate;
for I had not known that Thuvia had wrested the blade from the
daughter of Matai Shang before it had touched either Dejah Thoris
or herself.

She told me, too, of the awful eternity of her imprisonment.  Of
the cruel hatred of Phaidor, and the tender love of Thuvia, and
of how even when despair was the darkest those two red girls had
clung to the same hope and belief--that John Carter would find a
way to release them.

Presently we came to the chamber of Solan.  I had been proceeding
without thought of caution, for I was sure that the city and the
palace were both in the hands of my friends by this time.

And so it was that I bolted into the chamber full into the midst
of a dozen nobles of the court of Salensus Oll.  They were passing
through on their way to the outside world along the corridors we
had just traversed.

At sight of us they halted in their tracks, and then an ugly smile
overspread the features of their leader.

"The author of all our misfortunes!" he cried, pointing at me.  "We
shall have the satisfaction of a partial vengeance at least when we
leave behind us here the dead and mutilated corpses of the Prince
and Princess of Helium.

"When they find them," he went on, jerking his thumb upward toward
the palace above, "they will realize that the vengeance of the
yellow man costs his enemies dear.  Prepare to die, John Carter,
but that your end may be the more bitter, know that I may change my
intention as to meting a merciful death to your princess--possibly
she shall be preserved as a plaything for my nobles."

I stood close to the instrument-covered wall--Dejah Thoris at my
side.  She looked up at me wonderingly as the warriors advanced
upon us with drawn swords, for mine still hung within its scabbard
at my side, and there was a smile upon my lips.

The yellow nobles, too, looked in surprise, and then as I made no
move to draw they hesitated, fearing a ruse; but their leader urged
them on.  When they had come almost within sword's reach of me
I raised my hand and laid it upon the polished surface of a great
lever, and then, still smiling grimly, I looked my enemies full in
the face.

As one they came to a sudden stop, casting affrighted glances at
me and at one another.

"Stop!" shrieked their leader.  "You dream not what you do!"

"Right you are," I replied.  "John Carter does not dream.  He
knows--knows that should one of you take another step toward Dejah
Thoris, Princess of Helium, I pull this lever wide, and she and I
shall die together; but we shall not die alone."

The nobles shrank back, whispering together for a few moments.  At
last their leader turned to me.

"Go your way, John Carter," he said, "and we shall go ours."

"Prisoners do not go their own way," I answered, "and you are
prisoners--prisoners of the Prince of Helium."

Before they could make answer a door upon the opposite side of the
apartment opened and a score of yellow men poured into the apartment.
For an instant the nobles looked relieved, and then as their eyes
fell upon the leader of the new party their faces fell, for he was
Talu, rebel Prince of Marentina, and they knew that they could look
for neither aid nor mercy at his hands.

"Well done, John Carter," he cried.  "You turn their own mighty
power against them.  Fortunate for Okar is it that you were here
to prevent their escape, for these be the greatest villains north
of the ice-barrier, and this one"--pointing to the leader of the
party--"would have made himself Jeddak of Jeddaks in the place
of the dead Salensus Oll.  Then indeed would we have had a more
villainous ruler than the hated tyrant who fell before your sword."

The Okarian nobles now submitted to arrest, since nothing but death
faced them should they resist, and, escorted by the warriors of
Talu, we made our way to the great audience chamber that had been
Salensus Oll's.  Here was a vast concourse of warriors.

Red men from Helium and Ptarth, yellow men of the north, rubbing
elbows with the blacks of the First Born who had come under my
friend Xodar to help in the search for me and my princess.  There
were savage, green warriors from the dead sea bottoms of the south,
and a handful of white-skinned therns who had renounced their
religion and sworn allegiance to Xodar.

There was Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak, and tall and mighty in his
gorgeous warrior trappings, Carthoris, my son.  These three fell
upon Dejah Thoris as we entered the apartment, and though the lives
and training of royal Martians tend not toward vulgar demonstration,
I thought that they would suffocate her with their embraces.

And there were Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Kantos Kan,
my old-time friends, and leaping and tearing at my harness in the
exuberance of his great love was dear old Woola--frantic mad with
happiness.

Long and loud was the cheering that burst forth at sight of us;
deafening was the din of ringing metal as the veteran warriors of
every Martian clime clashed their blades together on high in token
of success and victory, but as I passed among the throng of saluting
nobles and warriors, jeds and jeddaks, my heart still was heavy,
for there were two faces missing that I would have given much to
have seen there--Thuvan Dihn and Thuvia of Ptarth were not to be
found in the great chamber.

I made inquiries concerning them among men of every nation, and at
last from one of the yellow prisoners of war I learned that they
had been apprehended by an officer of the palace as they sought to
reach the Pit of Plenty while I lay imprisoned there.

I did not need to ask to know what had sent them thither--the
courageous jeddak and his loyal daughter.  My informer said that
they lay now in one of the many buried dungeons of the palace
where they had been placed pending a decision as to their fate by
the tyrant of the north.

A moment later searching parties were scouring the ancient pile in
search of them, and my cup of happiness was full when I saw them
being escorted into the room by a cheering guard of honor.

Thuvia's first act was to rush to the side of Dejah Thoris, and I
needed no better proof of the love these two bore for each other
than the sincerity with which they embraced.

Looking down upon that crowded chamber stood the silent and empty
throne of Okar.

Of all the strange scenes it must have witnessed since that long-dead
age that had first seen a Jeddak of Jeddaks take his seat upon
it, none might compare with that upon which it now looked down,
and as I pondered the past and future of that long-buried race of
black-bearded yellow men I thought that I saw a brighter and more
useful existence for them among the great family of friendly nations
that now stretched from the south pole almost to their very doors.

Twenty-two years before I had been cast, naked and a stranger, into
this strange and savage world.  The hand of every race and nation
was raised in continual strife and warring against the men of
every other land and color.  Today, by the might of my sword and the
loyalty of the friends my sword had made for me, black man and white,
red man and green rubbed shoulders in peace and good-fellowship.
All the nations of Barsoom were not yet as one, but a great
stride forward toward that goal had been taken, and now if I could
but cement the fierce yellow race into this solidarity of nations
I should feel that I had rounded out a great lifework, and repaid
to Mars at least a portion of the immense debt of gratitude I owed
her for having given me my Dejah Thoris.

And as I thought, I saw but one way, and a single man who could
insure the success of my hopes.  As is ever the way with me, I acted
then as I always act--without deliberation and without consultation.

Those who do not like my plans and my ways of promoting them have
always their swords at their sides wherewith to back up their
disapproval; but now there seemed to be no dissenting voice, as,
grasping Talu by the arm, I sprang to the throne that had once been
Salensus Oll's.

"Warriors of Barsoom," I cried, "Kadabra has fallen, and with her
the hateful tyrant of the north; but the integrity of Okar must be
preserved.  The red men are ruled by red jeddaks, the green warriors
of the ancient seas acknowledge none but a green ruler, the First
Born of the south pole take their law from black Xodar; nor would
it be to the interests of either yellow or red man were a red jeddak
to sit upon the throne of Okar.

"There be but one warrior best fitted for the ancient and mighty
title of Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North.  Men of Okar, raise your
swords to your new ruler--Talu, the rebel prince of Marentina!"

And then a great cry of rejoicing rose among the free men of
Marentina and the Kadabran prisoners, for all had thought that the
red men would retain that which they had taken by force of arms,
for such had been the way upon Barsoom, and that they should be
ruled henceforth by an alien Jeddak.

The victorious warriors who had followed Carthoris joined in the
mad demonstration, and amidst the wild confusion and the tumult
and the cheering, Dejah Thoris and I passed out into the gorgeous
garden of the jeddaks that graces the inner courtyard of the palace
of Kadabra.

At our heels walked Woola, and upon a carved seat of wondrous
beauty beneath a bower of purple blooms we saw two who had preceded
us--Thuvia of Ptarth and Carthoris of Helium.

The handsome head of the handsome youth was bent low above the
beautiful face of his companion.  I looked at Dejah Thoris, smiling,
and as I drew her close to me I whispered:  "Why not?"

Indeed, why not?  What matter ages in this world of perpetual youth?

We remained at Kadabra, the guests of Talu, until after his formal
induction into office, and then, upon the great fleet which I had
been so fortunate to preserve from destruction, we sailed south
across the ice-barrier; but not before we had witnessed the total
demolition of the grim Guardian of the North under orders of the
new Jeddak of Jeddaks.

"Henceforth," he said, as the work was completed, "the fleets
of the red men and the black are free to come and go across the
ice-barrier as over their own lands.

"The Carrion Caves shall be cleansed, that the green men may find
an easy way to the land of the yellow, and the hunting of the sacred
apt shall be the sport of my nobles until no single specimen of
that hideous creature roams the frozen north."

We bade our yellow friends farewell with real regret, as we set
sail for Ptarth.  There we remained, the guest of Thuvan Dihn, for
a month; and I could see that Carthoris would have remained forever
had he not been a Prince of Helium.

Above the mighty forests of Kaol we hovered until word from Kulan
Tith brought us to his single landing-tower, where all day and half
a night the vessels disembarked their crews.  At the city of Kaol
we visited, cementing the new ties that had been formed between
Kaol and Helium, and then one long-to-be-remembered day we sighted
the tall, thin towers of the twin cities of Helium.

The people had long been preparing for our coming.  The sky was
gorgeous with gaily trimmed fliers.  Every roof within both cities
was spread with costly silks and tapestries.

Gold and jewels were scattered over roof and street and plaza,
so that the two cities seemed ablaze with the fires of the hearts
of the magnificent stones and burnished metal that reflected the
brilliant sunlight, changing it into countless glorious hues.

At last, after twelve years, the royal family of Helium was reunited
in their own mighty city, surrounded by joy-mad millions before
the palace gates.  Women and children and mighty warriors wept in
gratitude for the fate that had restored their beloved Tardos Mors
and the divine princess whom the whole nation idolized.  Nor did
any of us who had been upon that expedition of indescribable danger
and glory lack for plaudits.

That night a messenger came to me as I sat with Dejah Thoris and
Carthoris upon the roof of my city palace, where we had long since
caused a lovely garden to be made that we three might find seclusion
and quiet happiness among ourselves, far from the pomp and ceremony
of court, to summon us to the Temple of Reward--"where one is to
be judged this night," the summons concluded.

I racked my brain to try and determine what important case there
might be pending which could call the royal family from their palaces
on the eve of their return to Helium after years of absence; but
when the jeddak summons no man delays.

As our flier touched the landing stage at the temple's top we saw
countless other craft arriving and departing.  In the streets below
a great multitude surged toward the great gates of the temple.

Slowly there came to me the recollection of the deferred doom that
awaited me since that time I had been tried here in the Temple by
Zat Arras for the sin of returning from the Valley Dor and the Lost
Sea of Korus.

Could it be possible that the strict sense of justice which dominates
the men of Mars had caused them to overlook the great good that
had come out of my heresy?  Could they ignore the fact that to me,
and me alone, was due the rescue of Carthoris, of Dejah Thoris, of
Mors Kajak, of Tardos Mors?

I could not believe it, and yet for what other purpose could I have
been summoned to the Temple of Reward immediately upon the return
of Tardos Mors to his throne?

My first surprise as I entered the temple and approached the Throne
of Righteousness was to note the men who sat there as judges.  There
was Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, whom we had but just left within
his own palace a few days since; there was Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of
Ptarth--how came he to Helium as soon as we?

There was Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Xodar, Jeddak of the
First Born; there was Talu, Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North, whom
I could have sworn was still in his ice-bound hothouse city beyond
the northern barrier, and among them sat Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak,
with enough lesser jeds and jeddaks to make up the thirty-one who
must sit in judgment upon their fellow-man.

A right royal tribunal indeed, and such a one, I warrant, as never
before sat together during all the history of ancient Mars.

As I entered, silence fell upon the great concourse of people that
packed the auditorium.  Then Tardos Mors arose.

"John Carter," he said in his deep, martial voice, "take your place
upon the Pedestal of Truth, for you are to be tried by a fair and
impartial tribunal of your fellow-men."

With level eye and high-held head I did as he bade, and as I glanced
about that circle of faces that a moment before I could have sworn
contained the best friends I had upon Barsoom, I saw no single
friendly glance--only stern, uncompromising judges, there to do
their duty.

A clerk rose and from a great book read a long list of the more
notable deeds that I had thought to my credit, covering a long period
of twenty-two years since first I had stepped the ocher sea bottom
beside the incubator of the Tharks.  With the others he read of
all that I had done within the circle of the Otz Mountains where
the Holy Therns and the First Born had held sway.

It is the way upon Barsoom to recite a man's virtues with his sins
when he is come to trial, and so I was not surprised that all that
was to my credit should be read there to my judges--who knew it
all by heart--even down to the present moment.  When the reading
had ceased Tardos Mors arose.

"Most righteous judges," he exclaimed, "you have heard recited all
that is known of John Carter, Prince of Helium--the good with the
bad.  What is your judgment?"

Then Tars Tarkas came slowly to his feet, unfolding all his mighty,
towering height until he loomed, a green-bronze statue, far above
us all.  He turned a baleful eye upon me--he, Tars Tarkas, with whom
I had fought through countless battles; whom I loved as a brother.

I could have wept had I not been so mad with rage that I almost
whipped my sword out and had at them all upon the spot.

"Judges," he said, "there can be but one verdict.  No longer may
John Carter be Prince of Helium"--he paused--"but instead let him
be Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom!"

As the thirty-one judges sprang to their feet with drawn and
upraised swords in unanimous concurrence in the verdict, the storm
broke throughout the length and breadth and height of that mighty
building until I thought the roof would fall from the thunder of
the mad shouting.

Now, at last, I saw the grim humor of the method they had adopted
to do me this great honor, but that there was any hoax in the reality
of the title they had conferred upon me was readily disproved by
the sincerity of the congratulations that were heaped upon me by
the judges first and then the nobles.

Presently fifty of the mightiest nobles of the greatest courts of
Mars marched down the broad Aisle of Hope bearing a splendid car
upon their shoulders, and as the people saw who sat within, the
cheers that had rung out for me paled into insignificance beside
those which thundered through the vast edifice now, for she whom
the nobles carried was Dejah Thoris, beloved Princess of Helium.

Straight to the Throne of Righteousness they bore her, and there
Tardos Mors assisted her from the car, leading her forward to my
side.

"Let a world's most beautiful woman share the honor of her husband,"
he said.

Before them all I drew my wife close to me and kissed her upon the lips.



_______________________________________________________________________


The exploits of Lieutenant Jones, otherwise known as GULLIVER OF MARS

as told by EDWIN L. ARNOLD





CHAPTER I


Dare I say it?  Dare I say that I, a plain, prosaic lieutenant in the
republican service have done the incredible things here set out for the
love of a woman--for a chimera in female shape; for a pale, vapid ghost
of woman-loveliness?  At times I tell myself I dare not: that you will
laugh, and cast me aside as a fabricator; and then again I pick up my
pen and collect the scattered pages, for I MUST write it--the pallid
splendour of that thing I loved, and won, and lost is ever before me,
and will not be forgotten.  The tumult of the struggle into which that
vision led me still throbs in my mind, the soft, lisping voices of the
planet I ransacked for its sake and the roar of the destruction which
followed me back from the quest drowns all other sounds in my ears!
I must and will write--it relieves me; read and believe as you list.

At the moment this story commences I was thinking of grilled steak and
tomatoes--steak crisp and brown on both sides, and tomatoes red as a
setting sun!

Much else though I have forgotten, THAT fact remains as clear as the
last sight of a well-remembered shore in the mind of some wave-tossed
traveller.  And the occasion which produced that prosaic thought was a
night well calculated to make one think of supper and fireside, though
the one might be frugal and the other lonely, and as I, Gulliver Jones,
the poor foresaid Navy lieutenant, with the honoured stars of our Republic
on my collar, and an undeserved snub from those in authority rankling in
my heart, picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness
of a New York slum I longed for steak and stout, slippers and a pipe,
with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul.

It was a wild, black kind of night, and the weirdness of it showed up
as I passed from light to light or crossed the mouths of dim alleys
leading Heaven knows to what infernal dens of mystery and crime even
in this latter-day city of ours.  The moon was up as far as the church
steeples; large vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and
her, and a strong, gusty wind, laden with big raindrops snarled angrily
round corners and sighed in the parapets like strange voices talking
about things not of human interest.

It made no difference to me, of course.  New York in this year of grace
is not the place for the supernatural be the time never so fit for
witch-riding and the night wind in the chimney-stacks sound never so
much like the last gurgling cries of throttled men.  No! the world was
very matter-of-fact, and particularly so to me, a poor younger son with
five dollars in my purse by way of fortune, a packet of unpaid bills
in my breastpocket, and round my neck a locket with a portrait therein
of that dear buxom, freckled, stub-nosed girl away in a little southern
seaport town whom I thought I loved with a magnificent affection.  Gods!
I had not even touched the fringe of that affliction.

Thus sauntering along moodily, my chin on my chest and much too absorbed
in reflection to have any nice appreciation of what was happening about
me, I was crossing in front of a dilapidated block of houses, dating
back nearly to the time of the Pilgrim Fathers, when I had a vague
consciousness of something dark suddenly sweeping by me--a thing like
a huge bat, or a solid shadow, if such a thing could be, and the next
instant there was a thud and a bump, a bump again, a half-stifled cry,
and then a hurried vision of some black carpeting that flapped and shook
as though all the winds of Eblis were in its folds, and then apparently
disgorged from its inmost recesses a little man.

Before my first start of half-amused surprise was over I saw him by the
flickering lamp-light clutch at space as he tried to steady himself,
stumble on the slippery curb, and the next moment go down on the back
of his head with a most ugly thud.

Now I was not destitute of feeling, though it had been my lot to see men
die in many ways, and I ran over to that motionless form without an idea
that anything but an ordinary accident had occurred.  There he lay, silent
and, as it turned out afterwards, dead as a door-nail, the strangest old
fellow ever eyes looked upon, dressed in shabby sorrel-coloured clothes
of antique cut, with a long grey beard upon his chin, pent-roof eyebrows,
and a wizened complexion so puckered and tanned by exposure to Heaven
only knew what weathers that it was impossible to guess his nationality.

I lifted him up out of the puddle of black blood in which he was lying,
and his head dropped back over my arm as though it had been fixed to
his body with string alone.  There was neither heart-beat nor breath in
him, and the last flicker of life faded out of that gaunt face even as
I watched.  It was not altogether a pleasant situation, and the only thing
to do appeared to be to get the dead man into proper care (though little
good it could do him now!)  as speedily as possible.  So, sending a chance
passer-by into the main street for a cab, I placed him into it as soon
as it came, and there being nobody else to go, got in with him myself,
telling the driver at the same time to take us to the nearest hospital.

"Is this your rug, captain?" asked a bystander just as we were driving
off.

"Not mine," I answered somewhat roughly.  "You don't suppose I go
about at this time of night with Turkey carpets under my arm, do you?
It belongs to this old chap here who has just dropped out of the skies
on to his head; chuck it on top and shut the door!"  And that rug,
the very mainspring of the startling things which followed, was thus
carelessly thrown on to the carriage, and off we went.

Well, to be brief, I handed in that stark old traveller from nowhere at
the hospital, and as a matter of curiosity sat in the waiting-room while
they examined him.  In five minutes the house-surgeon on duty came in
to see me, and with a shake of his head said briefly--

"Gone, sir--clean gone!  Broke his neck like a pipe-stem.  Most
strange-looking man, and none of us can even guess at his age.  Not a
friend of yours, I suppose?"

"Nothing whatever to do with me, sir.  He slipped on the pavement and
fell in front of me just now, and as a matter of common charity I brought
him in here.  Were there any means of identification on him?"

"None whatever," answered the doctor, taking out his notebook and,
as a matter of form, writing down my name and address and a few brief
particulars, "nothing whatever except this curious-looking bead hung
round his neck by a blackened thong of leather," and he handed me a thing
about as big as a filbert nut with a loop for suspension and apparently
of rock crystal, though so begrimed and dull its nature was difficult to
speak of with certainty.  The bead was of no seeming value and slipped
unintentionally into my waistcoat pocket as I chatted for a few minutes
more with the doctor, and then, shaking hands, I said goodbye, and went
back to the cab which was still waiting outside.

It was only on reaching home I noticed the hospital porters had omitted to
take the dead man's carpet from the roof of the cab when they carried him
in, and as the cabman did not care about driving back to the hospital with
it, and it could not well be left in the street, I somewhat reluctantly
carried it indoors with me.

Once in the shine of my own lamp and a cigar in my mouth I had a closer
look at that ancient piece of art work from heaven, or the other place,
only knows what ancient loom.

A big, strong rug of faded Oriental colouring, it covered half the floor
of my sitting-room, the substance being of a material more like camel's
hair than anything else, and running across, when examined closely,
were some dark fibres so long and fine that surely they must have come
from the tail of Solomon's favourite black stallion itself.  But the
strangest thing about that carpet was its pattern.  It was threadbare
enough to all conscience in places, yet the design still lived in solemn,
age-wasted hues, and, as I dragged it to my stove-front and spread
it out, it seemed to me that it was as much like a star map done by a
scribe who had lately recovered from delirium tremens as anything else.
In the centre appeared a round such as might be taken for the sun, while
here and there, "in the field," as heralds say, were lesser orbs which
from their size and position could represent smaller worlds circling
about it.  Between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow-heads of the
oldest form pointing in all directions, while all the intervening spaces
were filled up with woven characters half-way in appearance between
Runes and Cryptic-Sanskrit.  Round the borders these characters ran into
a wild maze, a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a
wizard could have forced a way in search of meaning.

Altogether, I thought as I kicked it out straight upon my floor, it was
a strange and not unhandsome article of furniture--it would do nicely
for the mess-room on the Carolina, and if any representatives of yonder
poor old fellow turned up tomorrow, why, I would give them a couple of
dollars for it.  Little did I guess how dear it would be at any price!

Meanwhile that steak was late, and now that the temporary excitement of
the evening was wearing off I fell dull again.  What a dark, sodden world
it was that frowned in on me as I moved over to the window and opened
it for the benefit of the cool air, and how the wind howled about the
roof tops.  How lonely I was!  What a fool I had been to ask for long
leave and come ashore like this, to curry favour with a set of stubborn
dunderheads who cared nothing for me--or Polly, and could not or would
not understand how important it was to the best interests of the Service
that I should get that promotion which alone would send me back to her
an eligible wooer!  What a fool I was not to have volunteered for some
desperate service instead of wasting time like this!  Then at least life
would have been interesting; now it was dull as ditch-water, with wretched
vistas of stagnant waiting between now and that joyful day when I could
claim that dear, rosy-checked girl for my own.  What a fool I had been!

"I wish, I wish," I exclaimed, walking round the little room, "I wish
I were--"

While these unfinished exclamations were actually passing my lips I
chanced to cross that infernal mat, and it is no more startling than
true, but at my word a quiver of expectation ran through that gaunt
web--a rustle of anticipation filled its ancient fabric, and one frayed
corner surged up, and as I passed off its surface in my stride, the
sentence still unfinished on my lips, wrapped itself about my left leg
with extraordinary swiftness and so effectively that I nearly fell into
the arms of my landlady, who opened the door at the moment and came in
with a tray and the steak and tomatoes mentioned more than once already.

It was the draught caused by the opening door, of course, that had made
the dead man's rug lift so strangely--what else could it have been?
I made this apology to the good woman, and when she had set the table
and closed the door took another turn or two about my den, continuing
as I did so my angry thoughts.

"Yes, yes," I said at last, returning to the stove and taking my stand,
hands in pockets, in front of it, "anything were better than this, any
enterprise however wild, any adventure however desperate.  Oh, I wish I
were anywhere but here, anywhere out of this redtape-ridden world of ours!
I WISH I WERE IN THE PLANET MARS!"

How can I describe what followed those luckless words?  Even as I spoke
the magic carpet quivered responsively under my feet, and an undulation
went all round the fringe as though a sudden wind were shaking it.
It humped up in the middle so abruptly that I came down sitting with
a shock that numbed me for the moment.  It threw me on my back and
billowed up round me as though I were in the trough of a stormy sea.
Quicker than I can write it lapped a corner over and rolled me in its
folds like a chrysalis in a cocoon.  I gave a wild yell and made one
frantic struggle, but it was too late.  With the leathery strength of a
giant and the swiftness of an accomplished cigar-roller covering a "core"
with leaf, it swamped my efforts, straightened my limbs, rolled me over,
lapped me in fold after fold till head and feet and everything were
gone--crushed life and breath back into my innermost being, and then,
with the last particle of consciousness, I felt myself lifted from the
floor, pass once round the room, and finally shoot out, point foremost,
into space through the open window, and go up and up and up with a
sound of rending atmospheres that seemed to tear like riven silk in
one prolonged shriek under my head, and to close up in thunder astern
until my reeling senses could stand it no longer.  and time and space
and circumstances all lost their meaning to me.




CHAPTER II

How long that wild rush lasted I have no means of judging.  It may
have been an hour, a day, or many days, for I was throughout in a
state of suspended animation, but presently my senses began to return
and with them a sensation of lessening speed, a grateful relief to a
heavy pressure which had held my life crushed in its grasp, without
destroying it completely.  It was just that sort of sensation though
more keen which, drowsy in his bunk, a traveller feels when he is aware,
without special perception, harbour is reached and a voyage comes to
an end.  But in my case the slowing down was for a long time comparative.
Yet the sensation served to revive my scattered senses, and just as I
was awakening to a lively sense of amazement, an incredible doubt of my
own emotions, and an eager desire to know what had happened, my strange
conveyance oscillated once or twice, undulated lightly up and down, like
a woodpecker flying from tree to tree, and then grounded, bows first,
rolled over several times, then steadied again, and, coming at last to
rest, the next minute the infernal rug opened, quivering along all its
borders in its peculiar way, and humping up in the middle shot me five
feet into the air like a cat tossed from a schoolboy's blanket.

As I turned over I had a dim vision of a clear light like the shine
of dawn, and solid ground sloping away below me.  Upon that slope was
ranged a crowd of squatting people, and a staid-looking individual with
his back turned stood nearer by.  Afterwards I found he was lecturing
all those sitters on the ethics of gravity and the inherent properties
of falling bodies; at the moment I only knew he was directly in my line
as I descended, and him round the waist I seized, giddy with the light
and fresh air, waltzed him down the slope with the force of my impetus,
and, tripping at the bottom, rolled over and over recklessly with him
sheer into the arms of the gaping crowd below.  Over and over we went
into the thickest mass of bodies, making a way through the people, until
at last we came to a stop in a perfect mound of writhing forms and waving
legs and arms.  When we had done the mass disentangled itself and I was
able to raise my head from the shoulder of someone on whom I had fallen,
lifting him, or her--which was it?--into a sitting posture alongside of
me at the same time, while the others rose about us like wheat-stalks
after a storm, and edged shyly off, as well as they might.

Such a sleek, slim youth it was who sat up facing me, with a flush of
gentle surprise on his face, and dapper hands that felt cautiously about
his anatomy for injured places.  He looked so quaintly rueful yet withal
so good-tempered that I could not help bursting into laughter in spite
of my own amazement.  Then he laughed too, a sedate, musical chuckle,
and said something incomprehensible, pointing at the same time to a cut
upon my finger that was bleeding a little.  I shook my head, meaning
thereby that it was nothing, but the stranger with graceful solicitude
took my hand, and, after examining the hurt, deliberately tore a strip
of cloth from a bright yellow toga-like garment he was wearing and bound
the place up with a woman's tenderness.

Meanwhile, as he ministered, there was time to look about me.  Where
was I?  It was not the Broadway; it was not Staten Island on a Saturday
afternoon.  The night was just over, and the sun on the point of rising.
Yet it was still shadowy all about, the air being marvellously tepid
and pleasant to the senses.  Quaint, soft aromas like the breath of
a new world--the fragrance of unknown flowers, and the dewy scent of
never-trodden fields drifted to my nostrils; and to my ears came a sound
of laughter scarcely more human than the murmur of the wind in the trees,
and a pretty undulating whisper as though a great concourse of people
were talking softly in their sleep.  I gazed about scarcely knowing
how much of my senses or surroundings were real and how much fanciful,
until I presently became aware the rosy twilight was broadening into day,
and under the increasing shine a strange scene was fashioning itself.

At first it was an opal sea I looked on of mist, shot along its upper
surface with the rosy gold and pinks of dawn.  Then, as that soft,
translucent lake ebbed, jutting hills came through it, black and crimson,
and as they seemed to mount into the air other lower hills showed
through the veil with rounded forest knobs till at last the brightening
day dispelled the mist, and as the rosy-coloured gauzy fragments went
slowly floating away a wonderfully fair country lay at my feet, with
a broad sea glimmering in many arms and bays in the distance beyond.
It was all dim and unreal at first, the mountains shadowy, the ocean
unreal, the flowery fields between it and me vacant and shadowy.

Yet were they vacant?  As my eyes cleared and day brightened still more,
and I turned my head this way and that, it presently dawned upon me
all the meadow coppices and terraces northwards of where I lay, all
that blue and spacious ground I had thought to be bare and vacant, were
alive with a teeming city of booths and tents; now I came to look more
closely there was a whole town upon the slope, built as might be in a
night of boughs and branches still unwithered, the streets and ways of
that city in the shadows thronged with expectant people moving in groups
and shifting to and fro in lively streams--chatting at the stalls and
clustering round the tent doors in soft, gauzy, parti-coloured crowds
in a way both fascinating and  perplexing.

I stared about me like a child at its first pantomime, dimly understanding
all I saw was novel, but more allured to the colour and life of the
picture than concerned with its exact meaning; and while I stared
and turned my finger was bandaged, and my new friend had been lisping
away to me without getting anything in turn but a shake of the head.
This made him thoughtful, and thereon followed a curious incident which
I cannot explain.  I doubt even whether you will believe it; but what
am I to do in that case?  You have already accepted the episode of my
coming, or you would have shut the covers before arriving at this page
of my modest narrative, and this emboldens me.  I may strengthen my
claim on your credulity by pointing out the extraordinary marvels which
science is teaching you even on our own little world.  To quote a single
instance: If any one had declared ten years ago that it would shortly
be practicable and easy for two persons to converse from shore to shore
across the Atlantic without any intervening medium, he would have been
laughed at as a possibly amusing but certainly extravagant romancer.
Yet that picturesque lie of yesterday is amongst the accomplished facts
of today!  Therefore I am encouraged to ask your indulgence, in the name
of your previous errors, for the following and any other instances in
which I may appear to trifle with strict veracity.  There is no such
thing as the impossible in our universe!

When my friendly companion found I could not understand him, he looked
serious for a minute or two, then shortened his brilliant yellow toga,
as though he had arrived at some resolve, and knelt down directly in
front of me.  He next took my face between his hands, and putting his nose
within an inch of mine, stared into my eyes with all his might.  At first
I was inclined to laugh, but before long the most curious sensations took
hold of me.  They commenced with a thrill which passed all up my body,
and next all feeling save the consciousness of the loud beating of my
heart ceased.  Then it seemed that boy's eyes were inside my head and not
outside, while along with them an intangible something pervaded my brain.
The sensation at first was like the application of ether to the skin--a
cool, numbing emotion.  It was followed by a curious tingling feeling,
as some dormant cells in my mind answered to the thought-transfer, and
were filled and fertilised!  My other brain-cells most distinctly felt
the vitalising of their companions, and for about a minute I experienced
extreme nausea and a headache such as comes from over-study, though both
passed swiftly off.  I presume that in the future we shall all obtain
knowledge in this way.  The Professors of a later day will perhaps keep
shops for the sale of miscellaneous information, and we shall drop in
and be inflated with learning just as the bicyclist gets his tire pumped
up, or the motorist is recharged with electricity at so much per unit.
Examinations will then become matters of capacity in the real meaning
of that word, and we shall be tempted to invest our pocket-money by
advertisements of "A cheap line in Astrology," "Try our double-strength,
two-minute course of Classics," "This is remnant day for Trigonometry
and Metaphysics," and so on.

My friend did not get as far as that.  With him the process did not take
more than a minute, but it was startling in its results, and reduced me
to an extraordinary state of hypnotic receptibility.  When it was over
my instructor tapped with a finger on my lips, uttering aloud as he did
so the words--

"Know none; know some; know little; know morel" again and again; and the
strangest part of it is that as he spoke I did know at first a little,
then more, and still more, by swift accumulation, of his speech and
meaning.  In fact, when presently he suddenly laid a hand over my eyes
and then let go of my head with a pleasantly put question as to how I
felt, I had no difficulty whatever in answering him in his own tongue,
and rose from the ground as one gets from a hair-dresser's chair, with
a vague idea of looking round for my hat and offering him his fee.

"My word, sir!" I said, in lisping Martian, as I pulled down my cuffs
and put my cravat straight, "that was a quick process.  I once heard of
a man who learnt a language in the moments he gave each day to having
his boots blacked; but this beats all.  I trust I was a docile pupil?"

"Oh, fairly, sir," answered the soft, musical voice of the strange being
by me; "but your head is thick and your brain tough.  I could have taught
another in half the time."

"Curiously enough," was my response, "those are almost the very words
with which my dear old tutor dismissed me the morning I left college.
Never mind, the thing is done.  Shall I pay you anything?"

"I do not understand."

"Any honorarium, then?  Some people understand one word and not the
other."  But the boy only shook his head in answer.

Strangely enough, I was not greatly surprised all this time either
at the novelty of my whereabouts or at the hypnotic instruction in a
new language just received.  Perhaps it was because my head still spun
too giddily with that flight in the old rug for much thought; perhaps
because I did not yet fully realise the thing that had happened.  But,
anyhow, there is the fact, which, like so many others in my narrative,
must, alas! remain unexplained for the moment.  The rug, by the way, had
completely disappeared, my friend comforting me on this score, however,
by saying he had seen it rolled up and taken away by one whom he knew.

"We are very tidy people here, stranger," he said, "and everything
found Lying about goes back to the Palace store-rooms.  You will laugh
to see the lumber there, for few of us ever take the trouble to reclaim
our property."

Heaven knows I was in no laughing mood when I saw that enchanted web
again!

When I had lain and watched the brightening scene for a time, I got up,
and having stretched and shaken my clothes into some sort of order, we
strolled down the hill and joined the light-hearted crowds that twined
across the plain and through the streets of their city of booths.
They were the prettiest, daintiest folk ever eyes looked upon,
well-formed and like to us as could be in the main, but slender and
willowy, so dainty and light, both the men and the women, so pretty of
cheek and hair, so mild of aspect, I felt, as I strode amongst them, I
could have plucked them like flowers and bound them up in bunches with
my belt.  And yet somehow I liked them from the first minute; such a
happy, careless, light-hearted race, again I say, never was seen before.
There was not a stain of thought or care on a single one of those white
foreheads that eddied round me under their peaked, blossom-like caps,
the perpetual smile their faces wore never suffered rebuke anywhere;
their very movements were graceful and slow, their laughter was low and
musical, there was an odour of friendly, slothful happiness about them
that made me admire whether I would or no.

Unfortunately I was not able to live on laughter, as they appeared to
be, so presently turning to my acquaintance, who had told me his name
was the plain monosyllabic An, and clapping my hand on his shoulder
as he stood lost in sleepy reflection, said, in a good, hearty way,
"Hullo, friend Yellow-jerkin!  If a stranger might set himself athwart
the cheerful current of your meditations, may such a one ask how far
'tis to the nearest wine-shop or a booth where a thirsty man may get a
mug of ale at a moderate reckoning?"

That gilded youth staggered under my friendly blow as though the hammer
of Thor himself had suddenly lit upon his shoulder, and ruefully rubbing
his tender skin, he turned on me mild, handsome eyes, answering after a
moment, during which his native mildness struggled with the pain I had
unwittingly given him--

"If your thirst be as emphatic as your greeting, friend Heavy-fist,
it will certainly be a kindly deed to lead you to the drinking-place.
My shoulder tingles with your good-fellowship," he added, keeping two
arms'-lengths clear of me.  "Do you wish," he said, "merely to cleanse
a dusty throat, or for blue or pink oblivion?"

"Why," I answered laughingly, "I have come a longish journey since
yesterday night--a journey out of count of all reasonable mileage--and
I might fairly plead a dusty throat as excuse for a beginning; but as
to the other things mentioned, those tinted forgetfulnesses, I do not
even know what you mean."

"Undoubtedly you are a stranger," said the friendly youth, eyeing me from
top to toe with renewed wonder, "and by your unknown garb one from afar."

"From how far no man can say--not even I--but from very far, in truth.
Let that stay your curiosity for the time.  And now to bench and ale-mug,
on good fellow!--the shortest way.  I was never so thirsty as this since
our water-butts went overboard when I sailed the southern seas as a
tramp apprentice, and for three days we had to damp our black tongues
with the puddles the night-dews left in the lift of our mainsail."

Without more words, being a little awed of me, I thought, the boy led
me through the good-humoured crowd to where, facing the main road to the
town, but a little sheltered by a thicket of trees covered with gigantic
pink blossoms, stood a drinking-place--a cluster of tables set round an
open grass-plot.  Here he brought me a platter of some light inefficient
cakes which merely served to make hunger more self-conscious, and some
fine aromatic wine contained in a triple-bodied flask, each division
containing vintage of a separate hue.  We broke our biscuits, sipped
that mysterious wine, and talked of many things until at last something
set us on the subject of astronomy, a study I found my dapper gallant
had some knowledge of--which was not to be wondered at seeing he dwelt
under skies each night set thick above his curly head with tawny planets,
and glittering constellations sprinkled through space like flowers in
May meadows.  He knew what worlds went round the sun, larger or lesser,
and seeing this I began to question him, for I was uneasy in my innermost
mind and, you will remember, so far had no certain knowledge of where
I was, only a dim, restless suspicion that I had come beyond the ken of
all men's knowledge.

Therefore, sweeping clear the board with my sleeve, and breaking the
wafer cake I was eating, I set down one central piece for the sun, and,
"See here!" I said, "good fellow!  This morsel shall stand for that sun
you have just been welcoming back with quaint ritual.  Now stretch your
starry knowledge to the utmost, and put down that tankard for a moment.
If this be yonder sun and this lesser crumb be the outermost one of our
revolving system, and this the next within, and this the next, and so on;
now if this be so tell me which of these fragmentary orbs is ours--which
of all these crumbs from the hand of the primordial would be that we
stand upon?"  And I waited with an anxiety a light manner thinly hid,
to hear his answer.

It came at once.  Laughing as though the question were too trivial,
and more to humour my wayward fancy than aught else, that boy circled
his rosy thumb about a minute and brought it down on the planet Mars!

I started and stared at him; then all of a tremble cried, "You trifle
with me!  Choose again--there, see, I will set the symbols and name them
to you anew.  There now, on your soul tell me truly which this planet is,
the one here at our feet?"  And again the boy shook his head, wondering at
my eagerness, and pointed to Mars, saying gently as he did so the fact was
certain as the day above us, nothing was marvellous but my questioning.

Mars! oh, dreadful, tremendous, unexpected!  With a cry of affright,
and bringing my fist down on the table till all the cups upon it leapt,
I told him he lied--lied like a simpleton whose astronomy was as rotten
as his wit--smote the table and scowled at him for a spell, then turned
away and let my chin fall upon my breast and my hands upon my lap.

And yet, and yet, it might be so!  Everything about me was new and
strange, the crisp, thin air I breathed was new; the lukewarm sunshine
new; the sleek, long, ivory faces of the people new!  Yesterday--was it
yesterday?--I was back there--away in a world that pines to know of other
worlds, and one fantastic wish of mine, backed by a hideous, infernal
chance, had swung back the doors of space and shot me--if that boy spoke
true--into the outer void where never living man had been before: all
my wits about me, all the horrible bathos of my earthly clothing on me,
all my terrestrial hungers in my veins!

I sprang to my feet and swept my hands across my eyes.  Was that a dream,
or this?  No, no, both were too real.  The hum of my faraway city still
rang in my ears: a swift vision of the girl I had loved; of the men I
had hated; of the things I had hoped for rose before me, still dazing
my inner eye.  And these about me were real people, too; it was real
earth; real skies, trees, and rocks--had the infernal gods indeed heard,
I asked myself, the foolish wish that started from my lips in a moment of
fierce discontent, and swept me into another sphere, another existence?
I looked at the boy as though he could answer that question, but there
was nothing in his face but vacuous wonder; I clapped my hands together
and beat my breast; it was true; my soul within me said it was true;
the boy had not lied; the djins had heard; I was just in the flesh I
had; my common human hungers still unsatisfied where never mortal man
had hungered before; and scarcely knowing whether I feared or not,
whether to laugh or cry, but with all the wonder and terror of that
great remove sweeping suddenly upon me I staggered back to my seat,
and dropping my arms upon the table, leant my head heavily upon them
and strove to choke back the passion which beset me.




CHAPTER III

It was the light touch of the boy An upon my shoulder which roused me.
He was bending down, his pretty face full of concernful sympathy, and
in a minute said--knowing nothing of my thoughts, of course,

"It is the wine, stranger, the pink oblivion, it sometimes makes one
feel like that until enough is taken; you stopped just short of what you
should have had, and the next cup would have been delight--I should have
told you."

"Ay," I answered, glad he should think so, "it was the wine, no doubt;
your quaint drink, sir, tangled up my senses for the moment, but they
are clearer now, and I am eager past expression to learn a little more
of this strange country I have wandered into."

"I would rather," said the boy, relapsing again into his state of kindly
lethargy, "that you learnt things as you went, for talking is work,
and work we hate, but today we are all new and fresh, and if ever you
are to ask questions now is certainly the time.  Come with me to the
city yonder, and as we go I will answer the things you wish to know;"
and I went with him, for I was humble and amazed, and, in truth, at that
moment, had not a word to say for myself.

All the way from the plain where I had awoke to the walls of the city
stood booths, drinking-places, and gardens divided by labyrinths of
canals, and embowered in shrubberies that seemed coming into leaf
and flower as we looked, so swift was the process of their growth.
These waterways were covered with skiffs being pushed and rowed in every
direction; the cheerful rowers calling to each other through the leafy
screens separating one lane from another till the place was full of their
happy chirruping.  Every booth and way-side halting-place was thronged
with these delicate and sprightly people, so friendly, so gracious,
and withal so purposeless.

I began to think we should never reach the town itself, for first my
guide would sit down on a green stream-bank, his feet a-dangle in the
clear water, and bandy wit with a passing boat as though there were
nothing else in the world to think of.  And when I dragged him out of
that, whispering in his ear, "The town, my dear boy! the town!  I am
all agape to see it," he would saunter reluctantly to a booth a hundred
yards further on and fall to eating strange confections or sipping
coloured wines with chance acquaintances, till again I plucked him by
the sleeve and said: "Seth, good comrade--was it not so you called your
city just now?--take me to the gates, and I will be grateful to you,"
then on again down a flowery lane, aimless and happy, wasting my time
and his, with placid civility I was led by that simple guide.

Wherever we went the people stared at me, as well they might, as I walked
through them overtopping the tallest by a head or more.  The drinking-cups
paused half-way to their mouths; the jests died away upon their lips;
and the blinking eyes of the drinkers shone with a momentary sparkle of
wonder as their minds reeled down those many-tinted floods to the realms
of oblivion they loved.

I heard men whisper one to another, "Who is he?"; "Whence does he come?";
"Is he a tribute-taker?" as I strolled amongst them, my mind still so
thrilled with doubt and wonder that to me they seemed hardly more than
painted puppets, the vistas of their lovely glades and the ivory town
beyond only the fancy of a dream, and their talk as incontinent as the
babble of a stream.

Then happily, as I walked along with bent head brooding over the
incredible thing that had happened, my companion's shapely legs gave out,
and with a sigh of fatigue he suggested we should take a skiff amongst
the many lying about upon the margins and sail towards the town, "For,"
said he, "the breeze blows thitherward, and 'tis a shame to use one's
limbs when Nature will carry us for nothing!"

"But have you a boat of your own hereabouts?" I queried; "for to tell
the truth I came from home myself somewhat poorly provided with means
to buy or barter, and if your purse be not heavier than mine we must
still do as poor men do."

"Oh!" said An, "there is no need to think of that, no one here to hire
or hire of; we will just take the first skiff we see that suits us."

"And what if the owner should come along and find his boat gone?"

"Why, what should he do but take the next along the bank, and the master
of that the next again--how else could it be?" said the Martian, and
shrugging my shoulders, for I was in no great mood to argue, we went
down to the waterway, through a thicket of budding trees underlaid with
a carpet of small red flowers filling the air with a scent of honey, and
soon found a diminutive craft pulled up on the bank.  There were some
dainty cloaks and wraps in it which An took out and laid under a tree.
But first he felt in the pouch of one for a sweetmeat which his fine
nostrils, acute as a squirrel's, told him was there, and taking the lump
out bit a piece from it, afterwards replacing it in the owner's pocket
with the frankest simplicity.

Then we pushed off, hoisted the slender mast, set the smallest lug-sail
that ever a sailor smiled at, and, myself at the helm, and that golden
youth amidships, away we drifted under thickets of drooping canes
tasselled with yellow catkin-flowers, up the blue alley of the water into
the broader open river beyond with its rapid flow and crowding boats,
the white city front now towering clear before us.

The air was full of sunshine and merry voices; birds were singing,
trees were budding; only my heart was heavy, my mind confused.  Yet why
should I be sad, I said to myself presently?  Life beat in my pulses;
what had I to fear?  This world I had tumbled into was new and strange,
no doubt, but tomorrow it would be old and familiar; it discredited my
manhood to sit brow-bent like that, so with an effort I roused myself.

"Old chap!" I said to my companion, as he sat astride of a thwart
slowly chewing something sticky and eyeing me out of the corner of
his eyes with vapid wonder, "tell me something of this land of yours,
or something about yourself--which reminds me I have a question to ask.
It is a bit delicate, but you look a sensible sort of fellow, and will
take no offence.  The fact is, I have noticed as we came along half your
population dresses in all the colours of the rainbow--'fancy suitings'
our tailors could call it at home--and this half of the census are
undoubtedly men and women.  The rub is that the other half, to which you
belong, all dress alike in YELLOW, and I will be fired from the biggest
gun on the Carolina's main deck if I can tell what sex you belong to!
I took you for a boy in the beginning, and the way you closed with the
idea of having a drink with me seemed to show I was dead on the right
course.  Then a little later on I heard you and a friend abusing our
sex from an outside point of view in a way which was very disconcerting.
This, and some other things, have set me all abroad again, and as fate
seems determined to make us chums for this voyage--why--well, frankly,
I should be glad to know if you be boy or girl?  If you are as I am,
no more nor less then--for I like you--there's my hand in comradeship.
If you are otherwise, as those sleek outlines seem to promise--why,
here's my hand again!  But man or woman you must be--come, which is it?"

If I had been perplexed before, to watch that boy now was more curious
than ever.  He drew back from me with a show of wounded dignity, then
bit his lips, and sighed, and stared, and frowned.  "Come," I said
laughingly, "speak!  it engenders ambiguity to be so ambiguous of gender!
'Tis no great matter, yes or no, a plain answer will set us fairly in
our friendship; if it is comrade, then comrade let it be; if maid, why,
I shall not quarrel with that, though it cost me a likely messmate."

"You mock me."

"Not I, I never mocked any one."

"And does my robe tell you nothing?"

"Nothing so much; a yellow tunic and becoming enough, but nothing about
it to hang a deduction on.  Come!  Are you a girl, after all?"

"I do not count myself a girl."

"Why, then, you are the most blooming boy that ever eyes were set upon;
and though 'tis with some tinge of regret, yet cheerfully I welcome you
into the ranks of manhood."

"I hate your manhood, send it after the maidhood; it fits me just
as badly."

"But An, be reasonable; man or maid you must be."

"Must be; why?"

"Why?"  Was ever such a question put to a sane mortal before?  I stared
at that ambiguous thing before me, and then, a little wroth to be played
with, growled out something about Martians being all drunk or mad.

"'Tis you yourself are one or other," said that individual, by this time
pink with anger, "and if you think because I am what I am you can safely
taunt me, you are wrong.  See!  I have a sting," and like a thwarted
child my companion half drew from the folds of the yellow tunic-dress
the daintiest, most harmless-looking little dagger that was ever seen.

"Oh, if it comes to that," I answered, touching the Navy scabbard
still at my hip, and regaining my temper at the sight of hers, "why,
I have a sting also--and twice as long as yours!  But in truth, An,
let us not talk of these things; if something in what I have said has
offended nice Martian scruples I am sorry, and will question no more,
leaving my wonder for time to settle."

"No," said the other, "it was my fault to be hasty of offence; I am not
so angered once a year.  But in truth your question moves us yellow
robes deeply.  Did you not really know that we who wear this saffron
tunic are slaves,--a race apart, despised by all."

"'Slaves,' no; how should I know it?"

"I thought you must understand a thing so fundamental, and it was that
thought which made your questions seem unkind.  But if indeed you have
come so far as not to understand even this, then let me tell you once
we of this garb were women--priestesses of the immaculate conceptions of
humanity; guardians of those great hopes and longings which die so easily.
And because we forgot our high station and took to aping another sex
the gods deserted and men despised us, giving us, in the fierceness of
their contempt, what we asked for.  We are the slave ants of the nest,
the work-bees of the hive, come, in truth, of those here who still be
men and women of a sort, but toilers only; unknown in love, unregretted
in death--those who dangle all children but their own--slaves cursed
with the accomplishment of their own ambition."

There was no doubt poor An believed what she said, for her attitude was
one of extreme dejection while she spoke, and to cheer her I laughed.

"Oh! come, it can't be as bad as that.  Surely sometimes some of you
win back to womanhood?  You yourself do not look so far gone but what
some deed of abnegation, some strong love if you could but conceive
it would set you right again.  Surely you of the primrose robes can
sometimes love?"

Whereat unwittingly I troubled the waters in the placid soul of that
outcast Martian!  I cannot exactly describe how it was, but she bent her
head silently for a moment or two, and then, with a sigh, lifting her
eyes suddenly to mine, said quietly, "Yes, sometimes; sometimes--but
very seldom," while for an instant across her face there flashed the
summer lightning of a new hope, a single transient glance of wistful,
timid entreaty; of wonder and delight that dared not even yet acknowledge
itself.

Then it was my turn to sit silent, and the pause was so awkward that in
a minute, to break it, I exclaimed--

"Let's drop personalities, old chap--I mean my dear Miss An.  Tell me
something about your people, and let us begin properly at the top:
have you got a king, for instance?"

To this the girl, pulling herself out of the pleasant slough of her
listlessness, and falling into my vein, answered--

"Both yes and no, sir traveller from afar--no chiefly, and yet perhaps
yes.  If it were no then it were so, and if yes then Hath were our king."

"A mild king I should judge by your uncertainty.  In the place where
I came from kings press their individualities somewhat more clearly on
their subjects' minds.  Is Hath here in the city?  Does he come to your
feasts today?"

An nodded.  Hath was on the river, he had been to see the sunrise; even
now she thought the laughter and singing down behind the bend might be
the king's barge coming up citywards.  "He will not be late," said my
companion, "because the marriage-feast is set for tomorrow in the palace."

I became interested.  Kings, palaces, marriage-feasts--why, here was
something substantial to go upon; after all these gauzy folk might turn
out good fellows, jolly comrades to sojourn amongst--and marriage-feasts
reminded me again I was hungry.

"Who is it," I asked, with more interest in my tone, "who gets
married?--is it your ambiguous king himself?"

Whereat An's purple eyes broadened with wonder: then as though she would
not be uncivil she checked herself, and answered with smothered pity
for my ignorance, "Not only Hath himself, but every one, stranger, they
are all married tomorrow; you would not have them married one at a time,
would you?"--this with inexpressible derision.

I said, with humility, something like that happened in the place I came
from, asking her how it chanced the convenience of so many came to one
climax at the same moment.  "Surely, An, this is a marvel of arrangement.
Where I dwelt wooings would sometimes be long or sometimes short, and
all maids were not complacent by such universal agreement."

The girl was clearly perplexed.  She stared at me a space, then said,
"What have wooings long or short to do with weddings?  You talk as if
you did your wooing first and then came to marriage--we get married
first and woo afterwards!"

"'Tis not a bad idea, and I can see it might lend an ease and certainty
to the pastime which our method lacks.  But if the woman is got first and
sued subsequently, who brings you together?  Who sees to the essential
preliminaries of assortment?"

An, looking at my shoes as though she speculated on the remoteness of
the journey I had come if it were measured by my ignorance, replied,
"The urn, stranger, the urn does that--what else?  How it may be in that
out-fashioned region you have come from I cannot tell, but here--'tis so
commonplace I should have thought you must have known it--we put each
new year the names of all womenkind into an urn and the men draw for
them, each town, each village by itself, and those they draw are theirs;
is it conceivable your race has other methods?"

I told her it was so--we picked and chose for ourselves, beseeching the
damsels, fighting for them, and holding the sun of romance was at its
setting just where the Martians held it to rise.  Whereat An burst out
laughing--a clear, ringing laugh that set all the light-hearted folk in
the nearest boats laughing in sympathy.  But when the grotesqueness of
the idea had somewhat worn off, she turned grave and asked me if such
a fancy did not lead to spite, envy, and bickerings.  "Why, it seems to
me," she said, shaking her curly head, "such a plan might fire cities,
desolate plains, and empty palaces--"

"Such things have been."

"Ah! our way is much the better.  See!" quoth that gentle philosopher.
"'Here,' one of our women would say, 'am I to-day, unwed, as free of
thought as yonder bird chasing the catkin down; tomorrow I shall be
married, with a whole summer to make love in, relieved at one bound of
all those uncertainties you acknowledge to, with nothing to do but lie
about on sunny banks with him whom chance sends me, come to the goal of
love without any travelling to get there.'  Why, you must acknowledge
this is the perfection of ease."

"But supposing," I said, "chance dealt unkindly to you from your nuptial
urn, supposing the man was not to your liking, or another coveted him?"
To which An answered, with some shrewdness--

"In the first case we should do what we might, being no worse off than
those in your land who had played ill providence to themselves.  In the
second, no maid would covet him whom fate had given to another, it were
too fatiguing, or if such a thing DID happen, then one of them would
waive his claims, for no man or woman ever born was worth a wrangle,
and it is allowed us to barter and change a little."

All this was strange enough.  I could not but laugh, while An laughed
at the lightest invitation, and thus chatting and deriding each other's
social arrangements we floated idly townwards and presently came out
into the main waterway perhaps a mile wide and flowing rapidly, as
streams will on the threshold of the spring, with brash or waste of
distant beaches riding down it, and every now and then a broken branch
or tree-stem glancing through waves whose crests a fresh wind lifted and
sowed in golden showers in the intervening furrows.  The Martians seemed
expert upon the water, steering nimbly between these floating dangers
when they met them, but for the most part hugging the shore where a more
placid stream better suited their fancies, and for a time all went well.

An, as we went along, was telling me more of her strange country,
pointing out birds or flowers and naming them to me.  "Now that," she
said, pointing to a small grey owl who sat reflective on a floating log
we were approaching--"that is a bird of omen; cover your face and look
away, for it is not well to watch it."

Whereat I laughed.  "Oh!" I answered, "so those ancient follies have come
as far as this, have they?  But it is no bird grey or black or white that
can frighten folk where I come from; see, I will ruffle his philosophy
for him," and suiting the action to the words I lifted a pebble that
happened to lie at the bottom of the boat and flung it at that creature
with the melancholy eyes.  Away went the owl, dipping his wings into
the water at every stroke, and as he went wailing out a ghostly cry,
which even amongst sunshine and glitter made one's flesh creep.

An shook her head.  "You should not have done that," she said; "our
dead whom we send down over the falls come back in the body of yonder
little bird.  But he has gone now," she added, with relief; "see, he
settles far up stream upon the point of yonder rotten bough; I would
not disturb him again if I were you--"

Whatever more An would have said was lost, for amidst a sound of flutes
and singing round the bend of the river below came a crowd of boats
decked with flowers and garlands, all clustering round a barge barely
able to move, so thick those lesser skiffs pressed upon it.  So close
those wherries hung about that the garlanded rowers who sat at the oars
could scarcely pull, but, here as everywhere, it was the same good temper,
the same carelessness of order, as like a flowery island in the dancing
blue water the motley fleet came up.

I steered our skiff a space out from the bank to get a better view,
while An clapped her hands together and laughed.  "It is Hath--he
himself and those of the palace with him.  Steer a little nearer still,
friend--so! between yon floating rubbish flats, for those with Hath are
good to look at."

Nothing loth I made out into mid-stream to see that strange prince go by,
little thinking in a few minutes I should be shaking hands with him,
a wet and dripping hero.  The crowd came up, and having the advantage
of the wind, it did not take me long to get a front place in the ruck,
whence I set to work, with republican interest in royalty, to stare at
the man who An said was the head of Martian society.  He did not make
me desire to renounce my democratic principles.  The royal fellow was
sitting in the centre of the barge under a canopy and on a throne which
was a mass of flowers, not bunched together as they would have been
with us, but so cunningly arranged that they rose from the footstool
to the pinnacle in a rhythm of colour, a poem in bud and petals the
like of which for harmonious beauty I could not have imagined possible.
And in this fairy den was a thin, gaunt young man, dressed in some sort of
black stuff so nondescript that it amounted to little more than a shadow.
I took it for granted that a substance of bone and muscle was covered by
that gloomy suit, but it was the face above that alone riveted my gaze
and made me return the stare he gave me as we came up with redoubled
interest.  It was not an unhandsome face, but ashy grey in colour and
amongst the insipid countenances of the Martians about him marvellously
thoughtful.  I do not know whether those who had killed themselves by
learning ever leave ghosts behind, but if so this was the very ideal for
such a one.  At his feet I noticed, when I unhooked my eyes from his at
last, sat a girl in a loose coral pink gown who was his very antipode.
Princess Heru, for so she was called, was resting one arm upon his knee
at our approach and pulling a blue convolvulus bud to pieces--a charming
picture of dainty idleness.  Anything so soft, so silken as that little
lady was never seen before.  Who am I, a poor quarter-deck loafer,
that I should attempt to describe what poet and painter alike would
have failed to realise?  I know, of course, your stock descriptives:
the melting eye, the coral lip, the peachy cheek, the raven tress;
but these were coined for mortal woman--and this was not one of them.
I will not attempt to describe the glorious tenderness of those eyes she
turned upon me presently; the glowing radiance of her skin; the infinite
grace of every action; the incredible soul-searching harmony of her voice,
when later on I heard it--you must gather something of these things as
I go--suffice it to say that when I saw her there for the first time in
the plenitude of her beauty I fell desperately, wildly in love with her.

Meanwhile, even the most infatuated of mortals cannot stare for ever
without saying something.  The grating of our prow against the garlanded
side of the royal barge roused me from my reverie, and nodding to An, to
imply I would be back presently, I lightly jumped on to Hath's vessel,
and, with the assurance of a free and independent American voter,
approached that individual, holding out my palm, and saying as I did so,

"Shake hands, Mr. President!"

The prince came forward at my bidding and extending his hand for mine.
He bowed slow and sedately, in that peculiar way the Martians have,
a ripple of gratified civility passing up his flesh; lower and lower he
bowed, until his face was over our clasped hands, and then, with simple
courtesy, he kissed my finger-tips!  This was somewhat embarrassing.
It was not like the procedure followed in Courts nearer to Washington
than this one, as far as my reading went, and, withdrawing my fingers
hastily, I turned to the princess, who had risen, and was eyeing her
somewhat awkwardly, the while wondering what kind of salutation would
be suitable in her case when a startling incident happened.  The river,
as said, was full of floating rubbish brought down from some far-away
uplands by a spring freshet while the royal convoy was making slow
progress upstream and thus met it all bow on.  Some of this stuff was
heavy timber, and when a sudden warning cry went up from the leading
boats it did not take my sailor instinct long to guess what was amiss.
Those in front shot side to side, those behind tried to drop back as,
bearing straight down on the royal barge, there came a log of black wood
twenty feet long and as thick as the mainmast of an old three-decker.

Hath's boat could no more escape than if it had been planted on a rocky
pedestal, garlands and curtains trailing in the water hung so heavy
on it.  The gilded paddles of the slender rowers were so feeble--they
had but made a half-turn from that great javelin's road when down it
came upon them, knocking the first few pretty oarsmen head over heels
and crackling through their oars like a bull through dry maize stalks.
I sprang forward, and snatching a pole from a half-hearted slave, jammed
the end into the head of the log and bore with all my weight upon it,
diverting it a little, and thereby perhaps saving the ship herself, but
not enough.  As it flashed by a branch caught upon the trailing tapestry,
hurling me to the deck, and tearing away with it all that finery.
Then the great spar, tossing half its dripping length into the air, went
plunging downstream with shreds of silk and flowers trailing from it,
and white water bubbling in its rear.

When I scrambled to my feet all was ludicrous confusion on board.
Hath still stood by his throne--an island in a sea of disorder--staring
at me; all else was chaos.  The rowers and courtiers were kicking and
wallowing in the "waist" of the ship like fish newly shot out of a trawl
net, but the princess was gone.  Where was she?  I brushed the spray from
my eyes, and stared overboard.  She was not in the bubbling blue water
alongside.  Then I glanced aft to where the log, now fifteen yards away,
was splashing through the sunshine, and, as I looked, a fair arm came
up from underneath and white fingers clutched convulsively at the sky.
What man could need more?  Down the barge I rushed, and dropping only my
swordbelt, leapt in to her rescue.  The gentle Martians were too numb to
raise a hand in help; but it was not necessary.  I had the tide with me,
and gained at every stroke.  Meanwhile that accursed tree, with poor
Heru's skirts caught on a branch, was drowning her at its leisure;
lifting her up as it rose upon the crests, a fair, helpless bundle,
and then sousing her in its fall into the nether water, where I could
see her gleam now and again like pink coral.

I redoubled my efforts and got alongside, clutching the rind of that
old stump, and swimming and scrambling, at last was within reach of
the princess.  Thereon the log lifted her playfully to my arms, and
when I had laid hold came down, a crushing weight, and forced us far
into the clammy bosom of Martian sea.  Again we came up, coughing and
choking--I tugging furiously at that tangled raiment, and the lady, a
mere lump of sweetness in my other arm--then down again with that log
upon me and all the noises of Eblis in my ears.  Up and down we went,
over and over, till strength was spent and my ribs seemed breaking;
then, with a last desperate effort, I got a knee against the stem, and
by sheer strength freed my princess--the spiteful timber made a last
ugly thrust at us as it rolled away--and we were free!

I turned upon my back, and, sure of rescue now, took the lady's head
upon my chest, holding her sweet, white fists in mine the while, and,
floating, waited for help.

It came only too quickly.  The gallant Martians, when they saw the
princess saved, came swiftly down upon us.  Over the lapping of the water
in my ears I heard their sigh--like cries of admiration and surprise,
the rattle of spray on the canoe sides mingled with the splash of oars,
the flitting shadows of their prows were all about us, and in less time
than it takes to write we were hauled aboard, revived, and taken to
Hath's barge.  Again the prince's lips were on my fingertips; again the
flutes and music struck up; and as I squeezed the water out of my hair,
and tried to keep my eyes off the outline of Heru, whose loveliness shone
through her damp, clinging, pink robe, as if that robe were but a gauzy
fancy, I vaguely heard Hath saying wondrous things of my gallantry, and,
what was more to the purpose, asking me to come with him and stay that
night at the palace.




CHAPTER IV

They lodged me like a prince in a tributary country that first night.
I was tired.  'Twas a stiff stage I had come the day before, and they
gave me a couch whose ethereal softness seemed to close like the wings
of a bird as I plunged at its touch into fathomless slumbers.  But the
next day had hardly broken when I was awake, and, stretching my limbs
upon the piled silk of a legless bed upon the floor, found myself in a
great chamber with a purple tapestry across the entrance, and a square
arch leading to a flat terrace outside.

It was a glorious daybreak, making my heart light within me, the air
like new milk, and the colours of the sunrise lay purple and yellow in
bars across my room.  I yawned and stretched, then rising, wrapped a
silken quilt about me and went out into the flat terrace top, wherefrom
all the city could be seen stretched in an ivory and emerald patchwork,
with open, blue water on one side, and the Martian plain trending away
in illimitable distance upon the other.

Directly underneath in the great square at the bottom of Hath's palace
steps were gathered a concourse of people, brilliant in many-coloured
dresses.  They were sitting or lying about just as they might for all
I knew have done through the warm night, without much order, save that
where the black streaks of inlaid stone marked a carriageway across the
square none were stationed.  While I wondered what would bring so many
together thus early, there came a sound of flutes--for these people can
do nothing without piping like finches in a thicket in May--and from the
storehouses half-way over to the harbour there streamed a line of carts
piled high with provender.  Down came the teams attended by their slaves,
circling and wheeling into the open place, and as they passed each group
those lazy, lolling beggars crowded round and took the dole they were
too thriftless to earn themselves.  It was strange to see how listless
they were about the meal, even though Providence itself put it into
their hands; to note how the yellow-girted slaves scudded amongst them,
serving out the loaves, themselves had grown, harvested, and baked;
slipping from group to group, rousing, exhorting, administering to a
helpless throng that took their efforts without thought or thanks.

I stood there a long time, one foot upon the coping and my chin upon
my hand, noting the beauty of the ruined town and wondering how such a
feeble race as that which lay about, breakfasting in the limpid sunshine,
could have come by a city like this, or kept even the ruins of its walls
and buildings from the covetousness of others, until presently there was
a rustle of primrose garments and my friend of the day before stood by me.

"Are you rested, traveller?" she questioned in that pretty voice of hers.

"Rested ambrosially, An."

"It is well; I will tell the Government and it will come up to wash and
dress you, afterwards giving you breakfast."

"For the breakfast, damsel, I shall be grateful, but as for the washing
and dressing I will defend myself to the last gasp sooner than submit
to such administration."

"How strange!  Do you never wash in your country?"

"Yes, but it is a matter left largely to our own discretion; so, my
dear girl, if you will leave me for a minute or two in quest of that
meal you have mentioned, I will guarantee to be ready when it comes."

Away she slipped, with a shrug of her rosy shoulders, to return presently,
carrying a tray covered with a white cloth, whereon were half a dozen
glittering covers whence came most fragrant odours of cooked things.

"Why, comrade," I said, sitting down and lifting lid by lid, for the
cold, sweet air outside had made me hungry, "this is better than was
hoped for; I thought from what I saw down yonder I should have to trot
behind a tumbril for my breakfast, and eat it on my heels amongst your
sleepy friends below."

An replied, "The stranger is a prince, we take it, in his own country,
and princes fare not quite like common people, even here."

"So," I said, my mouth full of a strange, unknown fish, and a cake soft
as milk and white as cotton in the pod.  "Now that makes me feel at home!"

"Would you have had it otherwise with us?"

"No! now I come to think of it, it is most natural things should be much
alike in all the corners of the universe; the splendid simplicity that
rules the spheres, works much the same, no doubt, upon one side of the sun
as upon the other.  Yet, somehow--you can hardly wonder at it--yesterday
I looked to find your world, when I realised where I had tumbled to,
a world of djin and giants; of mad possibilities over realised, and here
I see you dwellers by the utterly remote little more marvellous than if
I had come amongst you on the introduction of a cheap tourist ticket,
and round some neglected corner of my own distant world!"

"I hardly follow your meaning, sir."

"No, no, of course you cannot.  I was forgetting you did not know!  There,
pass me the stuff on yonder platter that looks like caked mud from an
anchor fluke, and swells like breath of paradise, and let me question
you;" and while I sat and drank with that yellow servitor sitting in
front of me, I plied her with questions, just as a baby might who had
come into the world with a full-blown gift of speech.  But though she
was ready and willing enough to answer, and laughed gaily at my quaint
ignorance of simple things, yet there was little water in the well.

"Had they any kind of crafts or science; any cult of stars or figures?"
But again she shook her head, and said, "Hath might know, Hath understood
most things, but herself knew little of either."  "Armies or navies?" and
again the Martian shrugged her shoulders, questioning in turn--

"What for?"

"What for!" I cried, a little angry with her engaging dulness, "Why, to
keep that which the strong hand got, and to get more for those who come
next; navies to sweep yonder blue seas, and armies to ward what they
should bring home, or guard the city walls against all enemies,--for
I suppose, An," I said, putting down my knife as the cheering thought
came on me,--"I suppose, An, you have some enemies?  It is not like
Providence to give such riches as you possess, such lands, such cities,
and not to supply the antidote in some one poor enough to covet them."

At once the girl's face clouded over, and it was obvious a tender subject
had been chanced upon.  She waved her hand impatiently as though to
change the subject, but I would not be put off.

"Come," I said, "this is better than breakfast.  It was the one
thing--this unknown enemy of yours--wanting to lever the dull mass of
your too peacefulness.  What is he like?  How strong?  How stands the
quarrel between you?  I was a soldier myself before the sea allured me,
and love horse and sword best of all things."

"You would not jest if you knew our enemy!"

"That is as it may be.  I have laughed in the face of many a stronger
foe than yours is like to prove; but anyhow, give me a chance to judge.
Come, who is it that frightens all the blood out of your cheeks by a bare
mention and may not be laughed at even behind these substantial walls?"

"First, then, you know, of course, that long ago this land of ours was
harried from the West."

"Not I."

"No!" said An, with a little warmth.  "If it comes to that, you know
nothing."

Whereat I laughed, and, saying the reply was just, vowed I would not
interrupt again; so she wont on saying how Hath--that interminable
Hath!--would know it all better than she did, but long ago the land
was overrun by a people from beyond the broad, blue waters outside; a
people huge of person, hairy and savage, uncouth, unlettered, and poor
An's voice trembled even to describe them; a people without mercy or
compunction, dwellers in woods, eaters of flesh, who burnt, plundered,
and destroyed all before them, and had toppled over this city along with
many others in an ancient foray, the horrors of which, still burnt lurid
in her people's minds.

"Ever since then," went on the girl, "these odious terrors of the
outer land have been a nightmare to us, making hectic our pleasures,
and filling our peace with horrid thoughts of what might be, should they
chance to come again."

"'Tis unfortunate, no doubt, lady," I answered.  "Yet it was long ago,
and the plunderers are far away.  Why not rise and raid them in turn?
To live under such a nightmare is miserable, and a poet on my side of
the ether has said--


"'He either fears his fate too much,
  Or his deserts are small,
Who will not put it to the touch,
  To win or lose it all.'

It seems to me you must either bustle and fight again, or sit tamely
down, and by paying the coward's fee for peace, buy at heavy price,
indulgence from the victor."

"We," said An simply, and with no show of shame, "would rather die
than fight, and so we take the easier way, though a heavy one it is.
Look!" she said, drawing me to the broad window whence we could get
a glimpse of the westward town and the harbour out beyond the walls.
"Look! see yonder long row of boats with brown sails hanging loose reefed
from every yard ranged all along the quay.  Even from here you can make
out the thin stream of porter slaves passing to and fro between them and
the granaries like ants on a sunny path.  Those are our tax-men's ships,
they came yesterday from far out across the sea, as punctual as fate
with the first day of spring, and two or three nights hence we trust
will go again: and glad shall we be to see them start, although they
leave scupper deep with our cloth, our corn, and gold."

"Is that what they take for tribute?"

"That and one girl--the fairest they can find."

"One--only one!  'Tis very moderate, all things considered."

"She is for the thither king, Ar-hap, and though only one as you say,
stranger, yet he who loses her is apt sometimes to think her one too
many lost."

"By Jupiter himself it is well said!  If I were that man I would stir
up heaven and hell until I got her back; neither man, nor beast, nor
devil should stay me in my quest!"  As I spoke I thought for a minute
An's fingers trembled a little as she fixed a flower upon my coat,
while there was something like a sigh in her voice as she said--

"The maids of this country are not accustomed, sir, to be so strongly
loved."

By this time, breakfasted and rehabilitated, I was ready to go forth.
The girl swung back the heavy curtain that served in place of door across
the entrance of my chamber, and leading the way by a corridor and marble
steps while I followed, and whether it was the Martian air or the meal
I know not, but thinking mighty well of myself until we came presently
onto the main palace stairs, which led by stately flights from the upper
galleries to the wide square below.

As we passed into the full sunshine--and no sunshine is so crisply golden
as the Martian--amongst twined flowers and shrubs and gay, quaint birds
building in the cornices, a sleek youth rose slowly from where he had
spread his cloak as couch upon a step and approaching asked--

"You are the stranger of yesterday?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Then I bring a message from Prince Hath, saying it would pleasure him
greatly if you would eat the morning meal with him."

"Why," I answered, "it is very civil indeed, but I have breakfasted
already."

"And so has Hath," said the boy, gently yawning.  "You see I came here
early this morning, but knowing you would pass sooner or later I thought
it would save me the trouble if I lay down till you came--those quaint
people who built these places were so prodigal of steps," and smiling
apologetically he sank back on his couch and began toying with a leaf.

"Sweet fellow," I said, and you will note how I was getting into their
style of conversation, "get back to Hath when you have rested, give
him my most gracious thanks for the intended courtesy, but tell him
the invitation should have started a week earlier; tell him from me,
you nimble-footed messenger, that I will post-date his kindness and come
tomorrow; say that meanwhile I pray him to send any ill news he has for
me by you.  Is the message too bulky for your slender shoulders?"
`
"No," said the boy, rousing himself slowly, "I will take it," and then he
prepared to go.  He turned again and said, without a trace of incivility,
"But indeed, stranger, I wish you would take the message yourself.
This is the third flight of stairs I have been up today."

Everywhere it was the same friendly indolence.  Half the breakfasters
were lying on coloured shawls in groups about the square; the other half
were strolling off--all in one direction, I noticed--as slowly as could
be towards the open fields beyond; no one was active or had anything to
do save the yellow folk who flitted to and fro fostering the others,
and doing the city work as though it were their only thought in life.
There were no shops in that strange city, for there were no needs;
some booths I saw indeed, and temple-like places, but hollow, and used
for birds and beasts--things these lazy Martians love.  There was no
tramp of busy feet, for no one was busy; no clank of swords or armour
in those peaceful streets, for no one was warlike; no hustle, for no
one hurried; no wide-packed asses nodding down the lanes, for there
was nothing to fill their packs with, and though a cart sometimes came
by with a load of lolling men and maids, or a small horse, for horses
they had, paced along, itself nearly as lazy as the master he bore,
with trappings sewed over bits of coloured shell and coral, yet somehow
it was all extraordinarily unreal.  It was a city full of the ghosts of
the life which once pulsed through its ways.  The streets were peopled,
the chatter of voices everywhere, the singing boys and laughing girls
wandering, arms linked together, down the ways filled every echo with
their merriment, yet somehow it was all so shallow that again and again
I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I were indeed awake, or whether it were
not a prolonged sleep of which the tomorrow were still to come.

"What strikes me as strangest of all, good comrade," I observed pleasantly
to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours
who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose
petals, these wide ways paved with stones as hard as a usurer's heart."

An laughed.  "The stones were still in their native quarries had it
been left to us to seek them; we are like the conies in the ruins, sir,
the inheritors of what other hands have done."

"Ay, and undone, I think, as well, for coming along I have noted axe
chippings upon the walls, smudges of ancient fire and smoke upon the
cornices."

An winced a little and stared uneasily at the walls, muttering below her
breath something about trying to hide with flower garlands the marks they
could not banish, but it was plain the conversation was not pleasing
to her.  So unpleasant was talk or sight of woodmen (Thither-folk, as
she called them, in contradiction to the Hither people about us here),
that the girl was clearly relieved when we were free of the town and out
into the open playground of the people.  The whole place down there was a
gay, shifting crowd.  The booths of yesterday, the arcades, the archways,
were still standing, and during the night unknown hands had redecked
them with flowers, while another day's sunshine had opened the coppice
buds so that the whole place was brilliant past expression.  And here the
Hither folk were varying their idleness by a general holiday.  They were
standing about in groups, or lying ranked like new-plucked flowers on
the banks, piping to each other through reeds as soft and melodious as
running water.  They were playing inconsequent games and breaking off in
the middle of them like children looking for new pleasures.  They were
idling about the drinking booths, delicately stupid with quaint, thin
wines, dealt out to all who asked; the maids were ready to chevy or be
chevied through the blossoming thickets by anyone who chanced upon them,
the men slipped their arms round slender waists and wandered down the
paths, scarce seeming to care even whose waist it was they circled or into
whose ear they whispered the remainder of the love-tale they had begun
to some one else.  And everywhere it was "Hi," and "Ha," and "So," and
"See," as these quaint people called to one another, knowing each other
as familiarly as ants of a nest, and by the same magic it seemed to me.

"An," I said presently, when we had wandered an hour or so through the
drifting throng, "have these good countrymen of yours no other names but
monosyllabic, nothing to designate them but these chirruping syllables?"

"Is it not enough?" answered my companion.  "Once indeed I think we had
longer names, but," she added, smiling, "how much trouble it saves to
limit each one to a single sound.  It is uncivil to one's neighbours to
burden their tongues with double duty when half would do."

"But have you no patronymics--nothing to show the child comes of the
same source as his father came?"

"We have no fathers."

"What! no fathers?" I said, starting and staring at her.

"No, nor mothers either, or at least none that we remember, for again,
why should we?  Mayhap in that strange district you come from you keep
count of these things, but what have we to do with either when their
initial duty is done.  Look at that painted butterfly swinging on the
honey-laden catkin there.  What knows she of the mother who shed her life
into a flowercup and forgot which flower it was the minute afterwards.
We, too, are insects, stranger."

"And do you mean to say of this great concourse here, that every atom is
solitary, individual, and can claim no kindred with another save the loose
bonds of a general fraternity--a specious idea, horrible, impracticable!"

Whereat An laughed.  "Ask the grasshoppers if it is impracticable;
ask the little buzzing things of grass and leaves who drift hither and
thither upon each breath of wind, finding kinsmen never but comrades
everywhere--ask them if it is horrible."

This made me melancholy, and somehow set me thinking of the friends
immeasurably distant I had left but yesterday.

What were they doing?  Did they miss me?  I was to have called for my
pay this afternoon, and tomorrow was to have run down South to see that
freckled lady of mine.  What would she think of my absence?  What would
she think if she knew where I was?  Gods, it was too mad, too absurd!
I thrust my hands into my pockets in fierce desperation, and there
they clutched an old dance programme and an out-of-date check for a New
York ferry-boat.  I scowled about on that sunny, helpless people, and
laying my hand bitterly upon my heart felt in the breast-pocket beneath
a packet of unpaid Boston tailors' bills and a note from my landlady
asking if I would let her aunt do my washing while I was on shore.
Oh! what would they all think of me?  Would they brand me as a deserter,
a poltroon, and a thief, letting my name presently sink down in shame
and mystery in the shadowy realm of the forgotten?  Dreadful thoughts!
I would think no more.

Maybe An had marked my melancholy, for presently she led me to a stall
where in fantastic vases wines of sorts I have described before were put
out for all who came to try them.  There was medicine here for every kind
of dulness--not the gross cure which earthly wine effects, but so nicely
proportioned to each specific need that one could regulate one's debauch
to a hairbreadth, rising through all the gamut of satisfaction, from the
staid contentment coming of that flask there to the wild extravagances of
the furthermost vase.  So my stripling told me, running her finger down
the line of beakers carved with strange figures and cased in silver,
each in its cluster of little attendant drinking-cups, like-coloured,
and waiting round on the white napkins as the shore boats wait to unload
a cargo round the sides of a merchant vessel.

"And what," I said, after curiously examining each liquor in turn,
"what is that which stands alone there in the humble earthen jar, as
though unworthy of the company of the others."

"Oh, that," said my friend, "is the most essential of them all--that is
the wine of recovery, without which all the others were deadly poisons."

"The which, lady, looks as if it had a moral attaching to it."

"It may have; indeed I think it has, but I have forgotten.  Prince Hath
would know!  Meanwhile let me give you to drink, great stranger, let me
get you something."

"Well, then," I laughed, "reach me down an antidote to fate, a specific
for an absent mistress, and forgetful friends."

"What was she like?" said An, hesitating a little and frowning.

"Nay, good friend," was my answer, "what can that matter to you?"

"Oh, nothing, of course," answered that Martian, and while she took
from the table a cup and filled it with fluid I felt in the pouch of
my sword-belt to see if by chance a bit of money was Iying there, but
there was none, only the pips of an orange poor Polly had sucked and
laughingly thrown at me.

However, it did not matter.  The girl handed me the cup, and I put my
lips to it.  The first taste was bitter and acrid, like the liquor of
long-steeped wood.  At the second taste a shiver of pleasure ran through
me, and I opened my eyes and stared hard.  The third taste grossness
and heaviness and chagrin dropped from my heart; all the complexion of
Providence altered in a flash, and a stupid irresistible joy, unreasoning,
uncontrollable took possession of my fibre.  I sank upon a mossy bank
and, lolling my head, beamed idiotically on the lolling Martians all
about me.  How long I was like that I cannot say.  The heavy minutes of
sodden contentment slipped by unnoticed, unnumbered, till presently I
felt the touch of a wine-cup at my lips again, and drinking of another
liquor dulness vanished from my mind, my eyes cleared, my heart throbbed;
a fantastic gaiety seized upon my limbs; I bounded to my feet, and seizing
An's two hands in mine, swung that damsel round in a giddy dance, capering
as never dancer danced before, till spent and weary I sank down again
from sheer lack of breath, and only knew thereafter that An was sitting
by me saying, "Drink! drink stranger, drink and forget!" and as a third
time a cup was pressed to my lips, aches and pleasures, stupidness and
joy, life itself, seemed slipping away into a splendid golden vacuity,
a hazy episode of unconscious Elysium, indefinite, and unfathomable.




CHAPTER V

When I woke, feeling as refreshed as though I had been dreaming through
a long night, An, seeing me open-eyed, helped me to my feet, and when
I had recovered my senses a little, asked if we should go on.  I was
myself again by this time, so willingly took her hand, and soon came out
of the tangle into the open spaces.  I must have been under the spell
of the Martian wines longer than it seemed, for already it was late in
the afternoon, the shadows of trees were lying deep and far-reaching
over the motley crowds of people.  Out here as the day waned they had
developed some sort of method in their sports.  In front of us was a
broad, grassy course marked off with garlanded finger-posts, and in
this space rallies of workfolk were taking part in all manner of games
under the eyes of a great concourse of spectators, doing the Martians'
pleasures for them as they did their labours.  An led me gently on,
leaning on my arm heavier, I thought, than she had done in the morning,
and ever and anon turning her gazelle-like eyes upon me with a look I
could not understand.  As we sauntered forward I noticed all about lesser
circles where the yellow-girted ones were drawing delighted laughter
from good-tempered crowds by tricks of sleight-of-hand, and posturing,
or tossing gilded cups and balls as though they were catering, as indeed
they were, for outgrown children.  Others fluted or sang songs in chorus
to the slow clapping of hands, while others were doing I knew not what,
sitting silent amongst silent spectators who every now and then burst out
laughing for no cause that I could see.  But An would not let me stop,
and so we pushed on through the crowd till we came to the main enclosures
where a dozen slaves had run a race for the amusement of those too lazy
to race themselves, and were sitting panting on the grass.

To give them time to get their breath, perhaps, a man stepped out of the
crowd dressed in a dark blue tunic, a strange vacuous-looking fellow,
and throwing down a sheaf of javelins marched off a dozen paces, then,
facing round, called out loudly he would give sixteen suits of "summer
cloth" to any one who could prick him with a javelin from the heap.

"Why," I said in amazement, "this is the best of fools--no one could
miss from such a distance."

"Ay but," replied my guide, "he is a gifted one, versed in mystics."

I was just going to say a good javelin, shod with iron, was a stronger
argument than any mystic I had ever heard of could stand, when out of
the crowd stepped a youth, and amid the derisive cheers of his friends
chose a reed from the bundle.  He poised it in his hand a minute to get
the middle, then turned on the living target.  Whatever else they might
be, these Martians were certainly beautiful as the daytime.  Never had
I seen such a perfect embodiment of grace and elegance as that boy as
he stood there for a moment poised to the throw; the afternoon sunshine
warm and strong on his bunched brown hair, a girlish flush of shyness
on his handsome face, and the sleek perfection of his limbs, clear cut
against the dusky background beyond.  And now the javelin was going.
Surely the mystic would think better of it at the last moment!  No! the
initiate held his ground with tight-shut lips and retrospective eyes,
and even as I looked the weapon flew upon its errand.

"There goes the soul of a fool!" I exclaimed, and as the words were
uttered the spear struck, or seemed to, between the neck and shoulder, but
instead of piercing rose high into the air, quivering and flashing, and
presently turning over, fell back, and plunged deep into the turf, while
a low murmur of indifferent pleasure went round amongst the onlookers.

Thereat An, yawning gently, looked to me and said, "A strong-willed
fellow, isn't he, friend?"

I hesitated a minute and then asked, "Was it WILL which turned that
shaft?"

She answered with simplicity, "Why, of course--what else?"

By this time another boy had stepped out, and having chosen a javelin,
tested it with hand and foot, then retiring a pace or two rushed up to
the throwing mark and flung it straight and true into the bared bosom of
the man.  And as though it had struck a wall of brass, the shaft leapt
back falling quivering at the thrower's feet.  Another and another tried
unsuccessfully, until at last, vexed at their futility, I said, "I have
a somewhat scanty wardrobe that would be all the better for that fellow's
summer suiting, by your leave I will venture a throw against him."

"It is useless," answered An; "none but one who knows more magic than
he, or is especially befriended by the Fates can touch him through the
envelope he has put on."

"Still, I think I will try."

"It is hopeless, I would not willingly see you fail," whispered the girl,
with a sudden show of friendship.

"And what," I said, bending down, "would you give me if I succeeded?"
Whereat An laughed a little uneasily, and, withdrawing her hand from mine,
half turned away.  So I pushed through the spectators and stepped into
the ring.  I went straight up to the pile of weapons, and having chosen
one went over to the mystic.  "Good fellow," I cried out ostentatiously,
trying the sharpness of the javelin-point with my finger, "where are
all of those sixteen summer suits of yours lying hid?"

"It matters nothing," said the man, as if he were asleep.

"Ay, but by the stars it does, for it will vex the quiet repose of your
soul tomorrow if your heirs should swear they could not find them."

"It matters nothing," muttered the will-wrapped visionary.

"It will matter something if I take you at your word.  Come, friend
Purple-jerkin, will you take the council with your legs and run while
there is yet time, or stand up to be thrown at?"

"I stand here immoveable in the confidence of my initiation."

"Then, by thunder, I will initiate you into the mysteries of a
javelin-end, and your blood be on your head."

The Martians were all craning their necks in hushed eagerness as I turned
to the casting-place, and, poising the javelin, faced the magician.
Would he run at the last moment?  I half hoped so; for a minute I gave him
the chance, then, as he showed no sign of wavering, I drew my hand back,
shook the javelin back till it bent like a reed, and hurled it at him.

The Martians' heads turned as though all on one pivot as the spear sped
through the air, expecting no doubt to see it recoil as others had done.
But it took him full in the centre of his chest, and with a wild wave
of arms and a flutter of purple raiment sent him backwards, and down,
and over and over in a shapeless heap of limbs and flying raiment, while
a low murmur of awed surprise rose from the spectators.  They crowded
round him in a dense ring, as An came flitting to me with a startled face.

"Oh, stranger," she burst out, "you have surely killed him!" but more
astounded I had broken down his guard than grieved at his injury.

"No," I answered smilingly; "a sore chest he may have tomorrow, but dead
he is not, for I turned the lance-point back as I spun it, and it was
the butt-end I threw at him!"

"It was none the less wonderful; I thought you were a common man, a prince
mayhap, come but from over the hills, but now something tells me you
are more than that," and she lapsed into thoughtful silence for a time.

Neither of us were wishful to go back amongst those who were raising
the bruised magician to his legs, but wandered away instead through
the deepening twilight towards the city over meadows whose damp, soft
fragrance loaded the air with sleepy pleasure, neither of us saying
a word till the dusk deepened and the quick night descended, while
we came amongst the gardened houses, the thousand lights of an unreal
city rising like a jewelled bank before us, and there An said she would
leave me for a time, meeting me again in the palace square later on,
"To see Princess Heru read the destinies of the year."

"What!" I exclaimed, "more magic?  I have been brought up on more
substantial mental stuff than this."

"Nevertheless, I would advise you to come to the square," persisted
my companion.  "It affects us all, and--who knows?  --may affect you
more than any."

Therein poor An was unconsciously wearing the cloak of prophesy herself,
and, shrugging my shoulders good-humouredly, I kissed her chin, little
realising, as I let her fingers slip from mine, that I should see her
no more.

Turning back alone, through the city, through ways twinkling with
myriad lights as little lamps began to blink out amongst garlands
and flower-decked booths on every hand, I walked on, lost in varying
thoughts, until, fairly tired and hungry, I found myself outside a stall
where many Martians stood eating and drinking to their hearts' content.
I was known to none of them, and, forgetting past experience, was looking
on rather enviously, when there came a touch upon my arm, and--

"Are you hungry, sir?" asked a bystander.

"Ay," I said, "hungry, good friend, and with all the zest which an empty
purse lends to that condition."

"Then here is what you need, sir, even from here the wine smells good,
and the fried fruit would make a mouse's eye twinkle.  Why do you wait?"

"Why wait?  Why, because though the rich man's dinner goes in at his
mouth, the poor man must often be content to dine through his nose.
I tell you I have nothing to get me a meal with."

The stranger seemed to speculate on this for a time, and then he said,
"I cannot fathom your meaning, sir.  Buying and selling, gold and money,
all these have no meaning to me.  Surely the twin blessings of an appetite
and food abundant ready and free before you are enough."

"What! free is it--free like the breakfast served out this morning?"

"Why, of course," said the youth, with mild depreciation; "everything
here is free.  Everything is his who will take it, without exception.
What else is the good of a coherent society and a Government if it cannot
provide you with so rudimentary a thing as a meal?"

Whereat joyfully I undid my belt, and, without nicely examining the
argument, marched into the booth, and there put Martian hospitality to
the test, eating and drinking, but this time with growing wisdom, till
I was a new man, and then, paying my leaving with a wave of the hand to
the yellow-girted one who dispensed the common provender, I sauntered on
again, caring little or nothing which way the road went, and soon across
the current of my meditations a peal of laughter broke, accompanied by
the piping of a flute somewhere close at hand, and the next minute I
found myself amid a ring of light-hearted roisterers who were linking
hands for a dance to the music a curly-headed fellow was making close by.

They made me join them!  One rosey-faced damsel at the hither end of
the chain drew up to me, and, without a word, slipped her soft, baby
fingers into my hand; on the other side another came with melting eyes,
breath like a bed of violets, and banked-up fun puckering her dainty
mouth.  What could I do but give her a hand as well?  The flute began
to gurgle anew, like a drinking spout in spring-time, and away we went,
faster and faster each minute, the boys and girls swinging themselves
in time to the tune, and capering presently till their tender feet
were twinkling over the ground in gay confusion.  Faster and faster
till, as the infection of the dance spread even to the outside groups,
I capered too.  My word! if they could have seen me that night from the
deck of the old Carolina, how they would have laughed--sword swinging,
coat-tails flying--faster and faster, round and round we went, till
limbs could stand no more; the gasping piper blew himself quite out,
and the dance ended as abruptly as it commenced, the dancers melting
away to join others or casting themselves panting on the turf.

Certainly these Martian girls were blessed with an ingratiating
simplicity.  My new friend of the violet-scented breath hung back a
little, then after looking at me demurely for a minute or two, like
a child that chooses a new playmate, came softly up, and, standing on
tiptoe, kissed me on the cheek.  It was not unpleasant, so I turned the
other, whereon, guessing my meaning, without the smallest hesitation,
she reached up again, and pressed her pretty mouth to my bronzed skin
a second time.  Then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, she ran an
arm through mine, saying, "Comrade, from what country have you come?
I never saw one quite like you before."

"From what country had I come?"  Again the frown dropped down upon my
forehead.  Was I dreaming--was I mad?  Where indeed had I come from?
I stared back over my shoulder, and there, as if in answer to my
thought--there, where the black tracery of flowering shrubs waved in the
soft night wind, over a gap in the crumbling ivory ramparts, the sky
was brightening.  As I looked into the centre of that glow, a planet,
magnified by the wonderful air, came swinging up, pale but splendid, and
mapped by soft colours--green, violet, and red.  I knew it on the minute,
Heaven only knows how, but I knew it, and a desperate thrill of loneliness
swept over me, a spasm of comprehension of the horrible void dividing us.
Never did yearning babe stretch arms more wistfully to an unattainable
mother than I at that moment to my mother earth.  All her meanness and
prosaicness was forgotten, all her imperfections and shortcomings; it was
home, the one tangible thing in the glittering emptiness of the spheres.
All my soul went into my eyes, and then I sneezed violently, and turning
round, found that sweet damsel whose silky head nestled so friendly on
my shoulder was tickling my nose with a feather she had picked up.

Womanlike, she had forgotten all about her first question, and now asked
another, "Will you come to supper with me, stranger?  'Tis nearly ready,
I think."

"To be able to say no to such an invitation, lady, is the first thing
a young man should learn," I answered lightly; but then, seeing there
was nothing save the most innocent friendliness in those hazel eyes,
I went on, "but that stern rule may admit of variance.  Only, as it
chances, I have just supped at the public expense.  If, instead, you
would be a sailor's sweetheart for an hour, and take me to this show of
yours--your princess's benefit, or whatever it is--I shall be obliged;
my previous guide is hull down over the horizon, and I am clean out of
my reckoning in this crowd."

By way of reply, the little lady, light as an elf, took me by the
fingertips, and, gleefully skipping forward, piloted me through the
mazes of her city until we came out into the great square fronting on the
palace, which rose beyond it like a white chalk cliff in the dull light.
Not a taper showed anywhere round its circumference, but a mysterious
kind of radiance like sea phosphorescence beamed from the palace porch.
All was in such deathlike silence that the nails in my "ammunition" boots
made an unpleasant clanking as they struck on the marble pavement; yet,
by the uncertain starlight, I saw, to my surprise, the whole square was
thronged with Martians, all facing towards the porch, as still, graven
images, and as voiceless, for once, as though they had indeed been marble.
It was strange to see them sitting there in the twilight, waiting for
I knew not what, and my friend's voice at my elbow almost startled me
as she said, in a whisper, "The princess knows you are in the crowd,
and desires you to go up upon the steps near where she will be."

"Who brought her message?" I asked, gazing vaguely round, for none had
spoken to us for an hour or more.

"No one," said my companion, gently pushing me up an open way towards
the palace steps left clear by the sitting Martians.  "It came direct
from her to me this minute."

"But how?" I persisted.

"Nay," said the girl, "if we stop to talk like this we shall not be
placed before she comes, and thus throw a whole year's knowledge out."

So, bottling my speculations, I allowed myself to be led up the first
flight of worn, white steps to where, on the terrace between them and
the next flight leading directly to the palace portico, was a flat,
having a circle about twenty feet across, inlaid upon the marble with
darker coloured blocks.  Inside that circle, as I sat down close by it
in the twilight, showed another circle, and then a final one in whose
inmost middle stood a tall iron tripod and something atop of it covered by
a cloth.  And all round the outer circle were magic symbols--I started as
I recognised the meaning of some of them--within these again the inner
circle held what looked like the representations of planets, ending,
as I have said, in that dished hollow made by countless dancers' feet,
and its solitary tripod.  Back again, I glanced towards the square where
the great concourse--ten thousand of them, perhaps--were sitting mute
and silent in the deepening shadows, then back to the magic circles,
till the silence and expectancy of a strange scene began to possess me.

Shadow down below, star-dusted heaven above, and not a figure moving;
when suddenly something like a long-drawn sigh came from the lips of
the expectant multitude, and I was aware every eye had suddenly turned
back to the palace porch, where, as we looked, a figure, wrapped in pale
blue robes, appeared and stood for a minute, then stole down the steps
with an eagerness in every movement holding us spellbound.  I have seen
many splendid pageants and many sights, each of which might be the talk
of a lifetime, but somehow nothing ever so engrossing, so thrilling,
as that ghostly figure in flowing robes stealing across the piazza in
starlight and silence--the princess of a broken kingdom, the priestess
of a forgotten faith coming to her station to perform a jugglery of
which she knew not even the meaning.  It was my versatile friend Heru,
and with quick, incisive steps, her whole frame ambent for the time
with the fervour of her mission, she came swiftly down to within a
dozen yards of where I stood.  Heru, indeed, but not the same princess
as in the morning; an inspired priestess rather, her slim body wrapped
in blue and quivering with emotion, her face ashine with Delphic fire,
her hair loose, her feet bare, until at last when, as she stood within
the limit of the magic circle, her white hands upon her breast, her eyes
flashing like planets themselves in the starshine she looked so ghostly
and unreal I felt for a minute I was dreaming.

Then began a strange, weird dance amongst the imagery of the rings,
over which my earth planet was beginning to throw a haze of light.
At first it was hardly more than a walk, a slow procession round the
twin circumferences of the centred tripod.  But soon it increased to an
extraordinary graceful measure, a cadenced step without music or sound
that riveted my eyes to the dancer.  Presently I saw those mystic,
twinkling feet of hers--as the dance became swifter--were performing
a measured round amongst the planet signs--spelling out something,
I knew not what, with quick, light touch amongst the zodiac figures,
dancing out a soundless invocation of some kind as a dumb man might
spell a message by touching letters.  Quicker and quicker, for minute
after minute, grew the dance, swifter and swifter the swing of the light
blue drapery as the priestess, with eager face and staring eyes, swung
panting round upon her orbit, and redder and redder over the city tops
rose the circumference of the earth.  It seemed to me all the silent
multitude were breathing heavily as we watched that giddy dance, and
whatever THEY felt, all my own senses seemed to be winding up upon that
revolving figure as thread winds on a spindle.

"When will she stop?" I whispered to my friend under my breath.

"When the earth-star rests in the roof-niche of the temple it is
climbing," she answered back.

"And then?"

"On the tripod is a globe of water.  In it she will see the destiny of the
year, and will tell us.  The whiter the water stays, the better for us;
it never varies from white.  But we must not talk; see! she is stopping."

And as I looked back, the dance was certainly ebbing now with such
smoothly decreasing undulations, that every heart began to beat calmer
in response.  There was a minute or two of such slow cessation, and then
to say she stopped were too gross a description.  Motion rather died away
from her, and the priestess grounded as smoothly as a ship grounds in
fine weather on a sandy bank.  There she was at last, crouched behind
the tripod, one corner of the cloth covering it grasped in her hand,
and her eyes fixed on the shining round just poised upon the distant run.

Keenly the girl watched it slide into zenith, then the cloth was snatched
from the tripod-top.  As it fell it uncovered a beautiful and perfect
globe of clear white glass, a foot or so in diameter, and obviously
filled with the thinnest, most limpid water imaginable.  At first it
seemed to me, who stood near to the priestess of Mars, with that beaming
sphere directly between us, and the newly risen world, that its smooth
and flawless face was absolutely devoid of sign or colouring.  Then,
as the distant planet became stronger in the magnifying Martian air,
or my eyes better accustomed to that sudden nucleus of brilliancy,
a delicate and infinitely lovely network of colours came upon it.
They were like the radiant prisms that sometimes flush the surface of a
bubble more than aught else for a time.  But as I watched that mosaic
of yellow and purple creep softly to and fro upon the globe it seemed
they slowly took form and meaning.  Another minute or two and they
had certainly congealed into a settled plan, and then, as I stared and
wondered, it burst upon me in a minute that I was looking upon a picture,
faithful in every detail, of the world I stood on; all its ruddy forests,
its sapphire sea, both broad and narrow ones, its white peaked mountains,
and unnumbered islands being mapped out with startling clearness for a
spell upon that beaming orb.

Then a strange thing happened.  Heru, who had been crouching in a
tremulous heap by the tripod, rose stealthily and passed her hands a few
times across the sphere.  Colour and picture vanished at her touch like
breath from a mirror.  Again all was clear and pellucid.

"Now," said my companion, "now listen!  For Heru reads the destiny;
the whiter the globe stays the better for us--" and then I felt her
hand tighten on mine with a startled grasp as the words died away upon
her lips.

Even as the girl spoke, the sphere, which had been beaming in the centre
of the silent square like a mighty white jewel, began to flush with
angry red.  Redder and redder grew the gleam--a fiery glow which seemed
curdling in the interior of the round as though it were filled with
flame; redder and redder, until the princess, staring into it, seemed
turned against the jet-black night behind, into a form of molten metal.
A spasm of terror passed across her as she stared; her limbs stiffened;
her frightened hands were clutched in front, and she stood cowering under
that great crimson nucleus like one bereft of power and life, and lost
to every sense but that of agony.  Not a syllable came from her lips,
not a movement stirred her body, only that dumb, stupid stare of horror,
at the something she saw in the globe.  What could I do?  I could not
sit and see her soul come out at her frightened eyes, and not a Martian
moved a finger to her rescue; the red shine gleamed on empty faces,
tier above tier, and flung its broad flush over the endless rank of
open-mouthed spectators, then back I looked to Heru--that winsome little
lady for whom, you will remember, I had already more than a passing
fancy--and saw with a thrill of emotion that while she still kept her
eyes on the flaming globe like one in a horrible dream her hands were
slowly, very slowly, rising in supplication to ME! It was not vanity.
There was no mistaking the direction of that silent, imploring appeal.

Not a man of her countrymen moved, not even black Hath!  There was
not a sound in the world, it seemed, but the noisy clatter of my own
shoenails on the marble flags.  In the great red eye of that unholy globe
the Martians glimmered like a picture multitude under the red cliff of
their ruined palace.  I glared round at them with contempt for a minute,
then sprang forward and snatched the princess up.  It was like pulling a
flower up by the roots.  She was stiff and stark when I lay hold of her,
but when I tore her from the magic ground she suddenly gave a piercing
shriek, and fainted in my arms.

Then as I turned upon my heels with her upon my breast my foot caught
upon the cloths still wound about the tripod of the sphere.  Over went
that implement of a thousand years of sorcery, and out went the red fire.
But little I cared--the princess was safe!  And up the palace steps,
amidst a low, wailing hum of consternation from the recovering Martians,
I bore that bundle of limp and senseless loveliness up into the pale shine
of her own porch, and there, laying her down upon a couch, watched her
recover presently amongst her women with a varied assortment of emotions
tingling in my veins.




CHAPTER VI

Beyond the first flutter of surprise, the Martians had shown no interest
in the abrupt termination of the year's divinations.  They melted away,
a trifle more silently perhaps than usual, when I shattered the magic
globe, but with their invariable indifference, and having handed
the reviving Heru over to some women who led her away, apparently
already half forgetful of the things that had just happened, I was
left alone on the palace steps, not even An beside me, and only the
shadow of a passerby now and then to break the solitude.  Whereon a
great loneliness took hold upon me, and, pacing to and fro along the
ancient terrace with bent head and folded arms, I bewailed my fate.
To and fro I walked, heedless and melancholy, thinking of the old world,
that was so far and this near world so distant from me in everything
making life worth living, thinking, as I strode gloomily here and there,
how gladly I would exchange these poor puppets and the mockery of a town
they dwelt in, for a sight of my comrades and a corner in the poorest
wine-shop salon in New York or 'Frisco; idly speculating why, and how,
I came here, as I sauntered down amongst the glistening, shell-like
fragments of the shattered globe, and finding no answer.  How could I?
It was too fair, I thought, standing there in the open; there was a fatal
sweetness in the air, a deadly sufficiency in the beauty of everything
around falling on the lax senses like some sleepy draught of pleasure.
Not a leaf stirred, the wide purple roof of the sky was unbroken by
the healthy promise of a cloud from rim to rim, the splendid country,
teeming with its spring-time richness, lay in rank perfection everywhere;
and just as rank and sleek and passionless were those who owned it.

Why, even I, who yesterday was strong, began to come under the spell
of it.  But yesterday the spirit of the old world was still strong
within me, yet how much things were now changing.  The well-strung
muscles loosening, the heart beating a slower measure, the busy mind
drowsing off to listlessness.  Was I, too, destined to become like these?
Was the red stuff in my veins to be watered down to pallid Martian sap?
Was ambition and hope to desert me, and idleness itself become laborious,
while life ran to seed in gilded uselessness?  Little did I guess how
unnecessary my fears were, or of the incredible fairy tale of adventure
into which fate was going to plunge me.

Still engrossed the next morning by these thoughts, I decided I would
go to Hath.  Hath was a man--at least they said so--he might sympathise
even though he could not help, and so, dressing finished, I went down
towards the innermost palace whence for an hour or two had come sounds
of unwonted bustle.  Asking for the way occasionally from sleepy folk
lolling about the corridors, waiting as it seemed for their breakfasts
to come to them, and embarrassed by the new daylight, I wandered to
and fro in the labyrinths of that stony ant-heap until I chanced upon
a curtained doorway which admitted to a long chamber, high-roofed,
ample in proportions, with colonnades on either side separated from
the main aisle by rows of flowery figures and emblematic scroll-work,
meaning I knew not what.  Above those pillars ran a gallery with many
windows looking out over the ruined city.  While at the further end of
the chamber stood three broad steps leading to a dais.  As I entered, the
whole place was full of bustling girls, their yellow garments like a bed
of flowers in the sunlight trickling through the casements, and all intent
on the spreading of a feast on long tables ranged up and down the hall.
The morning light streamed in on the white cloths.  It glittered on the
glass and the gold they were putting on the trestles, and gave resplendent
depths of colour to the ribbon bands round the pillars.  All were so busy
no one noticed me standing in the twilight by the door, but presently,
laying a hand on a worker's shoulder, I asked who they banqueted for,
and why such unwonted preparation?

"It is the marriage-feast tonight, stranger, and a marvel you did not
know it.  You, too, are to be wed."

"I had not heard of it, damsel; a paternal forethought of your Government,
I suppose?  Have you any idea who the lady is?"

"How should I know?" she answered laughingly.  "That is the secret
of the urn.  Meanwhile, we have set you a place at the table-head near
Princess Heru, and tonight you dip and have your chance like all of them;
may luck send you a rosy bride, and save her from Ar-hap."

"Ay, now I remember; An told me of this before; Ar-hap is the sovereign
with whom your people have a little difference, and shares unbidden in the
free distribution of brides to-night.  This promises to be interesting;
depend on it I will come; if you will keep me a place where I can
hear the speeches, and not forget me when the turtle soup goes round,
I shall be more than grateful.  Now to another matter.  I want to get
a few minutes with your President, Prince Hath.  He concentrates the
fluid intelligence of this sphere, I am told.  Where can I find him?"

"He is drunk, in the library, sir!"

"My word!  It is early in the day for that, and a singular conjunction
of place and circumstance."

"Where," said the girl, "could he safer be?  We can always fetch him if
we want him, and sunk in blue oblivion he will not come to harm."

"A cheerful view, Miss, which is worthy of the attention of our reformers.
Nevertheless, I will go to him.  I have known men tell more truth in
that state than in any other."

The servitor directed me to the library, and after desolate wanderings
up crumbling steps and down mouldering corridors, sunny and lovely in
decay, I came to the immense lumber-shed of knowledge they had told me
of, a city of dead books, a place of dusty cathedral aisles stored with
forgotten learning.  At a table sat Hath the purposeless, enthroned in
leather and vellum, snoring in divine content amongst all that wasted
labour, and nothing I could do was sufficient to shake him into semblance

of intelligence.  So perforce I turned away till he should have come
to himself, and wandering round the splendid litter of a noble library,
presently amongst the ruck of volumes on the floor, amongst those lordly
tomes in tattered green and gold, and ivory, my eye lit upon a volume
propped up curiously on end, and going to it through the confusion I saw
by the dried fruit rind upon the sticks supporting it, that the grave
and reverend tome was set to catch a mouse!  It was a splendid book when
I looked more closely, bound as a king might bind his choicest treasure,
the sweet-scented leather on it was no doubt frayed; the golden arabesques
upon the covers had long since shed their eyes of inset gems, the jewelled
clasp locking its learning up from vulgar gaze was bent and open.  Yet it
was a lordly tome with an odour of sanctity about it, and lifting it
with difficulty, I noticed on its cover a red stain of mouse's blood.
Those who put it to this quaint use of mouse-trap had already had some
sport, but surely never was a mouse crushed before under so much learning.
And while I stood guessing at what the book might hold within, Heru, the
princess, came tripping in to me, and with the abrupt familiarity of her
kind, laid a velvet hand upon my wrist, conned the title over to herself.

"What does it say, sweet girl?" I asked.  "The matter is learned, by
its feel," and that maid, pursing up her pretty lips, read the title to
me--"The Secret of the Gods."

"The Secret of the Gods," I murmured.  "Was it possible other worlds
had struggled hopelessly to come within the barest ken of that great
knowledge, while here the same was set to catch a mouse with?"

I said, "Silver-footed, sit down and read me a passage or two," and
propping the mighty volume upon a table drew a bench before it and pulled
her down beside me.

"Oh! a horrid, dry old book for certain," cried that lady, her pink
fingertips falling as lightly on the musty leaves as almond petals on
March dust.  "Where shall I begin?  It is all equally dull."

"Dip in," was my answer.  " 'Tis no great matter where, but near the
beginning.  What says the writer of his intention?  What sets he out
to prove?"

"He says that is the Secret of the First Great Truth, descended straight
to him--"

"Many have said so much, yet have lied."

"He says that which is written in his book is through him but not of
him, past criticism and beyond cavil.  'Tis all in ancient and crabbed
characters going back to the threshold of my learning, but here upon
this passage-top where they are writ large I make them out to say,
'ONLY THE MAN WHO HAS DIED MANY TIMES BEGINS TO LIVE.'"

"A pregnant passage!  Turn another page, and try again; I have an inkling
of the book already."

"'Tis poor, silly stuff," said the girl, slipping a hand covertly into
my own.  "Why will you make me read it?  I have a book on pomatums worth
twice as much as this."
`
"Nevertheless, dip in again, dear lady.  What says the next heading?"
And with a little sigh at the heaviness of her task, Heru read out:
"SOMETIMES THE GODS THEMSELVES FORGET THE ANSWERS TO THEIR OWN RIDDLES."

"Lady, I knew it!

"All this is still preliminary to the great matter of the book, but the
mutterings of the priest who draws back the curtains of the shrine--and
here, after the scribe has left these two yellow pages blank as though
to set a space of reverence between himself and what comes next--here
speaks the truth, the voice, the fact of all life."  But "Oh!  Jones,"
she said, turning from the dusty pages and clasping her young, milk-warm
hands over mine and leaning towards me until her blushing cheek was near
to my shoulder and the incense of her breath upon me.  "Oh!  Gulliver
Jones," she said.  "Make me read no more; my soul revolts from the task,
the crazy brown letters swim before my eyes.  Is there no learning near
at hand that would be pleasanter reading than this silly book of yours?
What, after all," she said, growing bolder at the sound of her own voice,
"what, after all, is the musty reticence of gods to the whispered secret
of a maid?  Jones, splendid stranger for whom all men stand aside and
women look over shoulders, oh, let me be your book!" she whispered,
slipping on to my knee and winding her arms round my neck till, through
the white glimmer of her single vest, I could feel her heart beating
against mine.  "Newest and dearest of friends, put by this dreary learning
and look in my eyes; is there nothing to be spelt out there?"

And I was constrained to do as she bid me, for she was as fresh as an
almond blossom touched by the sun, and looking down into two swimming
blue lakes where shyness and passion were contending--books easy enough,
in truth, to be read, I saw that she loved me, with the unconventional
ardour of her nature.

It was a pleasant discovery, if its abruptness was embarrassing, for
she was a maid in a thousand; and half ashamed and half laughing I let
her escalade me, throwing now and then a rueful look at the Secret of
the Gods, and all that priceless knowledge treated so unworthily.

What else could I do?  Besides, I loved her myself!  And if there was
a momentary chagrin at having yonder golden knowledge put off by this
lovely interruption, yet I was flesh and blood, the gods could wait--they
had to wait long and often before, and when this sweet interpreter was
comforted we would have another try.  So it happened I took her into my
heart and gave her the answer she asked for.

For a long time we sat in the dusky grandeur of the royal library, my
mind revolving between wonder and admiration of the neglected knowledge
all about, and the stirrings of a new love, while Heru herself, lapsed
again into Martian calm, lay half sleeping on my shoulder, but presently,
unwinding her arms, I put her down.

"There, sweetheart," I whispered, "enough of this for the moment; tonight,
perhaps, some more, but while we are here amongst all this lordly litter,
I can think of nothing else."  Again I bid her turn the pages, noting
as she did so how each chapter was headed by the coloured configuration
of a world.  Page by page we turned of crackling parchment, until by
chance, at the top of one, my eye caught a coloured round I could not
fail to recognise--'twas the spinning button on the blue breast of
the immeasurable that yesterday I inhabited.  "Read here," I cried,
clapping my finger upon the page midway down, where there were some
signs looking like Egyptian writing.  "Says this quaint dabbler in all
knowledge anything of Isis, anything of Phra, of Ammon, of Ammon Top?"

"And who was Isis? who Ammon Top?" asked the lady.

"Nay, read," I answered, and down the page her slender fingers went
awandering till at a spot of knotted signs they stopped.  "Why, here
is something about thy Isis," exclaimed Heru, as though amused at
my perspicuity.  "Here, halfway down this chapter of earth-history,
it says," and putting one pink knee across the other to better prop the
book she read:

"And the priests of Thebes were gone; the sand stood untrampled on the
temple steps a thousand years; the wild bees sang the song of desolation
in the ears of Isis; the wild cats littered in the stony lap of Ammon;
ay, another thousand years went by, and earth was tilled of unseen hands
and sown with yellow grain from Paradise, and the thin veil that separates
the known from the unknown was rent, and men walked to and fro."

"Go on," I said.

"Nay," laughed the other, "the little mice in their eagerness have been
before you--see, all this corner is gnawed away."

"Read on again," I said, "where the page is whole; those sips of knowledge
you have given make me thirsty for more.  There, begin where this blazonry
of initialed red and gold looks so like the carpet spread by the scribe
for the feet of a sovereign truth--what says he here?"  And she, half
pouting to be set back once more to that task, half wondering as she
gazed on those magic letters, let her eyes run down the page, then began:

"And it was the Beginning, and in the centre void presently there came a
nucleus of light: and the light brightened in the grey primeval morning
and became definite and articulate.  And from the midst of that natal
splendour, behind which was the Unknowable, the life came hitherward;
from the midst of that nucleus undescribed, undescribable, there issued
presently the primeval sigh that breathed the breath of life into
all things.  And that sigh thrilled through the empty spaces of the
illimitable: it breathed the breath of promise over the frozen hills of
the outside planets where the night-frost had lasted without beginning:
and the waters of ten thousand nameless oceans, girding nameless planets,
were stirred, trembling into their depth.  It crossed the illimitable
spaces where the herding aerolites swirl forever through space in the
wake of careering world, and all their whistling wings answered to it.
It reverberated through the grey wastes of vacuity, and crossed the
dark oceans of the Outside, even to the black shores of the eternal
night beyond.

"And hardly had echo of that breath died away in the hollow of the
heavens and the empty wombs of a million barren worlds, when the light
brightened again, and drawing in upon itself became definite and took
form, and therefrom, at the moment of primitive conception, there came--"

And just then, as she had read so far as that, when all my faculties were
aching to know what came next--whether this were but the idle scribbling
of a vacuous fool, or something else--there rose the sound of soft flutes
and tinkling bells in the corridors, as seneschals wandered piping round
the palace to call folk to meals, a smell of roast meat and grilling
fish as that procession lifted the curtains between the halls, and--

"Dinner!" shouted my sweet Martian, slapping the covers of The Secret of
the Gods together and pushing the stately tome headlong from the table.
"Dinner!  'Tis worth a hundred thousand planets to the hungry!"

Nothing I could say would keep her, and, scarcely knowing whether to laugh
or to be angry at so unseemly an interruption, but both being purposeless
I dug my hands into my pockets, and somewhat sulkily refusing Heru's
invitation to luncheon in the corridor (Navy rations had not fitted my
stomach for these constant debauches of gossamer food), strolled into
the town again in no very pleasant frame of mind.




CHAPTER VII

It was only at moments like these I had any time to reflect on my
circumstances or that giddy chance which had shot me into space in
this fashion, and, frankly, the opportunities, when they did come,
brought such an extraordinary depressing train of thought, I by no means
invited them.  Even with the time available the occasion was always awry
for such reflection.  These dainty triflers made sulking as impossible
amongst them as philosophy in a ballroom.  When I stalked out like that
from the library in fine mood to moralise and apostrophise heaven in a
way that would no doubt have looked fine upon these pages, one sprightly
damsel, just as the gloomy rhetoric was bursting from my lips, thrust a
flower under my nose whose scent brought on a violent attack of sneezing,
her companions joining hands and dancing round me while they imitated
my agony.  Then, when I burst away from them and rushed down a narrow
arcade of crumbling mansions, another stopped me in mid-career, and
taking the honey-stick she was sucking from her lips, put it to mine,
like a pretty, playful child.  Another asked me to dance, another to
drink pink oblivion with her, and so on.  How could one lament amongst
all this irritating cheerfulness?

An might have helped me, for poor An was intelligent for a Martian,
but she had disappeared, and the terrible vacuity of life in the planet
was forced upon me when I realised that possessing no cognomen, no fixed
address, or rating, it would be the merest chance if I ever came across
her again.

Looking for my friendly guide and getting more and more at sea amongst
a maze of comely but similar faces, I made chance acquaintance with
another of her kind who cheerfully drank my health at the Government's
expense, and chatted on things Martian.  She took me to see a funeral
by way of amusement, and I found these people floated their dead off on
flower-decked rafts instead of burying them, the send-offs all taking
place upon a certain swift-flowing stream, which carried the dead
away into the vast region of northern ice, but more exactly whither my
informant seemed to have no idea.  The voyager on this occasion was old,
and this brought to my mind the curious fact that I had observed few
children in the city, and no elders, all, except perhaps Hath, being in
a state of sleek youthfulness.  My new friend explained the peculiarity
by declaring Martians ripened with extraordinary rapidity from infancy
to the equivalent of about twenty-five years of age, with us, and then
remained at that period however long they might live; Only when they died
did their accumulated seasons come upon them; the girl turning pale, and
wringing her pretty hands in sympathetic concern when I told her there
was a land where decrepitude was not so happily postponed.  The Martians,
she said, arranged their calendar by the varying colours of the seasons,
and loved blue as an antidote to the generally red and rusty character
of their soil.

Discussing such things as these we lightly squandered the day away, and
I know of nothing more to note until the evening was come again: that
wonderful purple evening which creeps over the outer worlds at sunset,
a seductive darkness gemmed with ten thousand stars riding so low in the
heaven they seem scarcely more than mast high.  When that hour was come
my friend tiptoed again to my cheek, and then, pointing to the palace
and laughingly hoping fate would send me a bride "as soft as catkin and
as sweet as honey," slipped away into the darkness.

Then I remembered all on a sudden this was the connubial evening of my
sprightly friends--the occasion when, as An had told me, the Government
constituted itself into a gigantic matrimonial agency, and, with the
cheerful carelessness of the place, shuffled the matrimonial pack anew,
and dealt a fresh hand to all the players.  Now I had no wish to avail
myself of a sailor's privilege of a bride in every port, but surely
this game would be interesting enough to see, even if I were but a
disinterested spectator.  As a matter of fact I was something more than
that, and had been thinking a good deal of Heru during the day.  I do
not know whether I actually aspired to her hand--that were a large order,
even if there had been no suspicion in my mind she was already bespoke in
some vague way by the invisible Hath, most abortive of princes.  But she
was undeniably a lovely girl; the more one thought of her the more she
grew upon the fancy, and then the preference she had shown myself was
very gratifying.  Yes, I would certainly see this quaint ceremonial,
even if I took no leading part in it.

The great centre hall of the palace was full of a radiant light bringing
up its ruined columns and intruding creepers to the best effect when I
entered.  Dinner also was just being served, as they would say in another,
and alas! very distant place, and the whole building thronged with folk.
Down the centre low tables with room for four hundred people were ranged,
but they looked quaint enough since but two hundred were sitting there,
all brand-new bachelors about to be turned into brand new Benedicts, and
taking it mightily calmly it seemed.  Across the hall-top was a raised
table similarly arranged and ornamented; and entering into the spirit
of the thing, and little guessing how stern a reality was to come from
the evening, I sat down in a vacant place near to the dais, and only a
few paces from where the pale, ghost-eyed Hath was already seated.

Almost immediately afterwards music began to buzz all about the
hall--music of the kind the people loved which always seemed to me
as though it were exuding from the tables and benches, so disembodied
and difficult it was to locate; all the sleepy gallants raised their
flower-encircled heads at the same time, seizing their wine-cups, already
filled to the brim, and the door at the bottom of the hall opening,
the ladies, preceded by one carrying a mysterious vase covered with a
glittering cloth, came in.

Now, being somewhat thirsty, I had already drunk half the wine in my
beaker, and whether it was that draught, drugged as all Martian wines are,
or the sheer loveliness of the maids themselves, I cannot say, but as the
procession entered, and, dividing, circled round under the colonnades of
the hall, a sensation of extraordinary felicity came over me--an emotion
of divine contentment purged of all grossness--and I stared and stared
at the circling loveliness, gossamer-clad, flower-girdled, tripping by
me with vapid delight.  Either the wine was budding in my head, or there
was little to choose from amongst them, for had any of those ladies sat
down in the vacant place beside me, I should certainly have accepted her
as a gift from heaven, without question or cavil.  But one after another
they slipped by, modestly taking their places in the shadows until at
last came Princess Heru, and at the sight of her my soul was stirred.

She came undulating over the white marble, the loveliness of her fairy
person dimmed but scarcely hidden by a robe of softest lawn in colour
like rose-petals, her eyes aglitter with excitement and a charming blush
upon her face.

She came straight up to me, and, resting a dainty hand upon my shoulder,
whispered, "Are you come as a spectator only, dear Mr. Jones, or do you
join in our custom tonight?"

"I came only as a bystander, lady, but the fascination of the opportunity
is deadly--"

"And have you any preference?"--this in the softest little voice from
somewhere in the nape of my neck.  "Strangers sometimes say there are
fair women in Seth."

"None--till you came; and now, as was said a long time ago, 'All is
dross that is not Helen.'  Dearest lady," I ran on, detaining her by
the fingertips and gazing up into those shy and star-like eyes, "must
I indeed put all the hopes your kindness has roused in me these last
few days to a shuffle in yonder urn, taking my chance with all these
lazy fellows?  In that land whereof I was, we would not have had it so,
we loaded our dice in these matters, a strong man there might have a
willing maid though all heaven were set against him!  But give me leave,
sweet lady, and I will ruffle with these fellows; give me a glance and I
will barter my life for your billet when it is drawn, but to stand idly
by and see you won by a cold chance, I cannot do it."

That lady laughed a little and said, "Men make laws, dear Jones, for
women to keep.  It is the rule, and we must not break it."  Then, gently
tugging at her imprisoned fingers and gathering up her skirts to go,
she added, "But it might happen that wit here were better than sword."
Then she hesitated, and freeing herself at last slipped from my side, yet
before she was quite gone half turned again and whispered so low that no
one but I could hear it, "A golden pool, and a silver fish, and a line
no thicker than a hair!" and before I could beg a meaning of her, had
passed down the hall and taken a place with the other expectant damsels.

"A golden pool," I said to myself, "a silver fish, and a line of hair."
What could she mean?  Yet that she meant something, and something clearly
of importance, I could not doubt.  "A golden pool, and a silver fish--"
I buried my chin in my chest and thought deeply but without effect while
the preparations were made and the fateful urn, each maid having slipped
her name tablet within, was brought down to us, covered in a beautiful
web of rose-coloured tissue, and commenced its round, passing slowly from
hand to hand as each of those handsome, impassive, fawn-eyed gallants
lifted a corner of the web in turn and helped themselves to fate.

"A golden pool," I muttered, "and a silver fish"--so absorbed in my own
thoughts I hardly noticed the great cup begin its journey, but when it had
gone three or four places the glitter of the lights upon it caught my eye.
It was of pure gold, round-brimmed, and circled about with a string of
the blue convolvulus, which implies delight to these people.  Ay! and
each man was plunging his hand into the dark and taking in his turn a
small notch-edged mother-of-pearl billet from it that flashed soft and
silvery as he turned it in his hand to read the name engraved in unknown
characters thereon.  "Why," I said, with a start, "surely THIS might
be the golden pool and these the silver fish--but the hair-fine line?
And again I meditated deeply, with all my senses on the watch.

Slowly the urn crept round, and as each man took a ticket from it, and
passed it, smiling, to the seneschal behind him, that official read out
the name upon it, and a blushing damsel slipped from the crowd above,
crossing over to the side of the man with whom chance had thus lightly
linked her for the brief Martian year, and putting her hands in his
they kissed before all the company, and sat down to their places at the
table as calmly as country folk might choose partners at a village fair
in hay-time.

But not so with me.  Each time a name was called I started and stared at
the drawer in a way which should have filled him with alarm had alarm
been possible to the peace-soaked triflers, then turned to glance
to where, amongst the women, my tender little princess was leaning
against a pillar, with drooping head, slowly pulling a convolvulus bud
to pieces.  None drew, though all were thinking of her, as I could tell
in my fingertips.  Keener and keener grew the suspense as name after name
was told and each slim white damsel skipped to the place allotted her.
And all the time I kept muttering to myself about that "golden pool,"
wondering and wondering until the urn had passed half round the tables
and was only some three men up from me--and then an idea flashed across
my mind.  I dipped my fingers in the scented water-basin on the table,
drying them carefully on a napkin, and waiting, outwardly as calm as
any, yet inwardly wrung by those tremors which beset all male creation
in such circumstances.

And now at last it was my turn.  The great urn, blazing golden,
through its rosy covering, was in front, and all eyes on me.  I clapped
a sunburnt hand upon its top as though I would take all remaining in it
to myself and stared round at that company--only her herself I durst not
look at!  Then, with a beating heart, I lifted a corner of the web and
slipped my hand into the dark inside, muttering to myself as I did so,
"A golden pool, and a silver fish, and a line no thicker than a hair."
I touched in turn twenty perplexing tablets and was no whit the wiser,
and felt about the sides yet came to nothing, groping here and there with
a rising despair, until as my fingers, still damp and fine of touch, went
round the sides a second time, yes! there was something, something in the
hollow of the fluting, a thought, a thread, and yet enough.  I took it
unseen, lifting it with infinite forbearance, and the end was weighted,
the other tablets slipped and rattled as from their midst, hanging to
that one fine virgin hair, up came a pearly billet.  I doubted no longer,
but snapped the thread, and showed the tablet, heard Heru's name, read
from it amongst the soft applause of that luxurious company with all
the unconcern I could muster.

There she was in a moment, lip to lip with me, before them all, her eyes
more than ever like planets from her native skies, and only the quick
heave of her bosom, slowly subsiding like a ground swell after a storm,
remaining to tell that even Martian blood could sometimes beat quicker
than usual!  She sat down in her place by me in the simplest way, and soon
everything was as merry as could be.  The main meal came on now, and as
far as I could see those Martian gallants had extremely good appetites,
though they drank at first but little, wisely remembering the strength of
their wines.  As for me, I ate of fishes that never swam in earthly seas,
and of strange fowl that never flapped a way through thick terrestrial
air, ate and drank as happy as a king, and falling each moment more and
more in love with the wonderfully beautiful girl at my side who was a
real woman of flesh and blood I knew, yet somehow so dainty, so pink and
white, so unlike other girls in the smoothness of her outlines, in the
subtle grace of each unthinking attitude, that again and again I looked
at her over the rim of my tankard half fearing she might dissolve into
nothing, being the half-fairy which she was.

Presently she asked, "Did that deed of mine, the hair in the urn, offend
you, stranger?"

"Offend me, lady!" I laughed.  "Why, had it been the blackest crime
that ever came out of a perverse imagination it would have brought its
own pardon with it; I, least of all in this room, have least cause to
be offended."

"I risked much for you and broke our rules."

"Why, no doubt that was so, but 'tis the privilege of your kind to
have some say in this little matter of giving and taking in marriage.
I only marvel that your countrywomen submit so tamely to the quaintest
game of chance I ever played at.

"Ay, and it is women's nature no doubt to keep the laws which others
make, as you have said yourself.  Yet this rule, lady, is one broken
with more credit than kept, and if you have offended no one more than me,
your penance is easily done."

"But I have offended some one," she said, laying her hand on mine
with gentle nervousness in its touch, "one who has the power to hurt,
and enough energy to resent.  Hath, up there at the cross-table, have
I offended deeply tonight, for he hoped to have me, and would have
compelled any other man to barter me for the maid chance assigned to
him; but of you, somehow, he is afraid--I have seen him staring at you,
and changing colour as though he knew something no one else knows--"

"Briefly, charming girl," I said, for the wine was beginning to sing in
my head, and my eyes were blinking stupidly--"briefly, Hath hath thee
not, and there's an end of it.  I would spit a score of Haths, as these
figs are spit on this golden skewer, before I would relinquish a hair
of your head to him, or to any man," and as everything about the great
hall began to look gauzy and unreal through the gathering fumes of my
confusion, I smiled on that gracious lady, and began to whisper I know
not what to her, and whisper and doze, and doze--

I know not how long afterwards it was, whether a minute or an hour, but
when I lifted my head suddenly from the lady's shoulder all the place
was in confusion, every one upon their feet, the talk and the drinking
ceased, and all eyes turned to the far doorway where the curtains were
just dropping again as I looked, while in front of them were standing
three men.

These newcomers were utterly unlike any others--a frightful vision of
ugly strength amidst the lolling loveliness all about.  Low of stature,
broad of shoulder, hairy, deep-chested, with sharp, twinkling eyes, set
far back under bushy eyebrows, retreating foreheads, and flat noses in
faces tanned to a dusky copper hue by exposure to every kind of weather
that racks the extreme Martian climate they were so opposite to all
about me, so quaint and grim amongst those mild, fair-skinned folk,
that at first I thought they were but a disordered creation of my fancy.

I rubbed my eyes and stared and blinked, but no! they were real men,
of flesh and blood, and now they had come down with as much stateliness
as their bandy legs would admit of, into the full glare of the lights
to the centre table where Hath sat.  I saw their splendid apparel, the
great strings of rudely polished gems hung round their hairy necks and
wrists, the cunningly dyed skins of soft-furred animals, green and red
and black, wherewith their limbs were swathed, and then I heard some
one by me whisper in a frightened tone, "The envoys from over seas."

"Oh," I thought sleepily to myself, "so these are the ape-men of the
western woods, are they?  Those who long ago vanquished my white-skinned
friends and yearly come to claim their tribute.  Jove, what hay they must
have made of them!  How those peach-skinned girls must have screamed and
the downy striplings by them felt their dimpled knees knock together,
as the mad flood of barbarians came pouring over from the forest, and
long ago stormed their citadels like a stream of red lava, as deadly,
as irresistible, as remorseless!"  And I lay asprawl upon my arms on
the table watching them with the stupid indifference I thought I could
so well afford.

Meanwhile Hath was on foot, pale and obsequious like others in the
presence of those dread ambassadors, but more collected, I thought.
With the deepest bows he welcomed them, handing them drink in a golden
State cup, and when they had drunk (I heard the liquor running down their
great throats, in the frightened hush, like water in a runnel on a wet
day), they wiped their fierce lips upon their furry sleeves, and the
leader began reciting the tribute for the year.  So much corn, so much
wine--and very much it was--so many thousands ells of cloth and webbing,
and so much hammered gold, and sinah and lar, precious metal of which I
knew nothing as yet; and ever as he went growling through the list in
his harsh animal voice, he refreshed his memory with a coloured stick
whereon a notch was made for every item, the woodmen not having come
as yet, apparently, to the gentler art of written signs and symbols.
Longer and longer that caravan of unearned wealth stretched out before
my fancy, but at last it was done, or all but done, and the head envoy,
passing the painted stick to a man behind, folded his bare, sinewy arms,
upon which the red fell bristles as it does upon a gorilla's, across his
ample chest, and, including us all in one general scowl, turned to Hath
as he said--

"All this for Ar-hap, the wood-king, my master and yours; all this,
and the most beautiful woman here tonight at your tables!"

"An item," I smiled stupidly to myself, for indeed I was very sleepy
and had no nice perception of things, "which shows his majesty with
the two-pronged name is a jolly fellow after all, and knows wealth is
incomplete without the crown and priming of all riches.  I wonder how
the Martian boys will like this postscript," and chin on hand, and eyes
that would hardly stay open, I watched to see what would happen next.
There was a little conversation between the prince and the ape-man;
then I saw Hath the traitor point in my direction and say--

"Since you ask and will be advised, then, mighty sir, there can be no
doubt of it, the most beautiful woman here tonight is undoubtedly she
who sits yonder by him in blue."

"A very pretty compliment!" I thought, too dull to see what was coming
quickly, "and handsome of Hath, all things considered."

And so I dozed and dozed, and then started, and stared!  Was I in my
senses?  Was I mad, or dreaming?  The drunkenness dropped from me like
a mantle; with a single, smothered cry I came to myself and saw that it
was all too true.  The savage envoy had come down the hall at Hath's
vindictive prompting, had lifted my fair girl to her feet, and there,
even as I looked, had drawn her, white as death, into the red circle of
his arm, and with one hand under her chin had raised her sweet face to
within an inch of his, and was staring at her with small, ugly eyes.

"Yes," said the enjoy, more interestedly than he had spoken yet, "it
will do; the tribute is accepted--for Ar-hap, my master!"  And taking
shrinking Heru by the wrist, and laying a heavy hand upon her shoulder,
he was about to lead her up the hall.

I was sober enough then.  I was on foot in an instant, and before all the
glittering company, before those simpering girls and pale Martian youths,
who sat mumbling their fingers, too frightened to lift their eyes from off
their half-finished dinners, I sprang at the envoy.  I struck him with my
clenched fist on the side of his bullet head, and he let go of Heru, who
slipped insensible from his hairy chest like a white cloud slipping down
the slopes of a hill at sunrise, and turned on me with a snort of rage.
We stared at each other for a minute, and then I felt the wine fumes
roaring in my head; I rushed at him and closed.  It was like embracing
a mountain bull, and he responded with a hug that made my ribs crackle.
For a minute we were locked together like that, swinging here and there,
and then getting a hand loose, I belaboured him so unmercifully that
he put his head down, and that was what I wanted.  I got a new hold of
him as we staggered and plunged, roaring the while like the wild beasts
we were, the teeth chattering in the Martian heads as they watched us,
and then, exerting all my strength, lifted him fairly from his feet and
with supreme effort swung him up, shoulder high, and with a mighty heave
hurled him across the tables, flung that ambassador, whom no Martian
dared look upon, crashing and sprawling through the gold and silver of
the feast, whirled him round with such a splendid send that bench and
trestle, tankards and flagons, chairs and cloths and candelabras all
went down into thundering chaos with him, and the envoy only stayed when
his sacred person came to harbour amongst the westral odds and ends,
the soiled linen, and dirty platters of our wedding feast.

I remember seeing him there on hands and knees, and then the liquor I
had had would not be denied.  In vain I drew my hands across my drooping
eyelids, in vain I tried to master my knees that knocked together.
The spell of the love-drink that Heru, blushing, had held to my lips
was on me.  Its soft, overwhelming influence rose like a prismatic fog
between me and my enemy, everything again became hazy and dreamlike, and
feebly calling on Heru, my chin dropped upon my chest, my limbs relaxed,
and I slipped down in drowsy oblivion before my rival.




CHAPTER VIII

They must have carried me, still under the influence of wine fumes,
to the chamber where I slept that night, for when I woke the following
morning my surroundings were familiar enough, though a glorious maze of
uncertainties rocked to and fro in my mind.

Was it a real feast we had shared in overnight, or only a quaint dream?
Was Heru real or only a lovely fancy?  And those hairy ruffians of whom
a horrible vision danced before my waking eyes, were they fancy too?
No, my wrists still ached with the strain of the tussle, the quaint,
sad wine taste was still on my lips--it was all real enough, I decided,
starting up in bed; and if it was real where was the little princess?
What had they done with her?  Surely they had not given her to the
ape-men--cowards though they were they could not have been cowards enough
for that.  And as I wondered a keen, bright picture of the hapless maid as
I saw her last blossomed before my mind's eye, the ambassadors on either
side holding her wrists, and she shrinking from them in horror while her
poor, white face turned to me for rescue in desperate pleading--oh! I
must find her at all costs; and leaping from bed I snatched up those
trousers without which the best of heroes is nothing, and had hardly got
into them when there came the patter of light feet without and a Martian,
in a hurry for once, with half a dozen others behind him, swept aside
the curtains of my doorway.

They peeped and peered all about the room, then one said, "Is Princess
Heru with you, sir?"

"No," I answered roughly.  "Saints alive, man, do you think I would have
you tumbling in here over each other's heels if she were?"

"Then it must indeed have been Heru," he said, speaking in an awed voice
to his fellows, "whom we saw carried down to the harbour at daybreak by
yonder woodmen," and the pink upon their pretty cheeks faded to nothing
at the suggestion.

"What!" I roared, "Heru taken from the palace by a handful of men
and none of you infernal rascals--none of you white-livered abortions
lifted a hand to save her--curse on you a thousand times.  Out of my
way, you churls!"  And snatching up coat and hat and sword I rushed
furiously down the long, marble stairs just as the short Martian night
was giving place to lavender-coloured light of morning.  I found my
way somehow down the deserted corridors where the air was heavy with
aromatic vapours; I flew by curtained niches and chambers where amongst
mounds of half-withered flowers the Martian lovers were slowly waking.
Down into the banquethall I sped, and there in the twilight was the litter
of the feast still about--gold cups and silver, broken bread and meat, the
convolvulus flowers all turning their pallid faces to the rosy daylight,
making pools of brightness between the shadows.  Amongst the litter
little sapphire-coloured finches were feeding, twittering merrily to
themselves as they hopped about, and here and there down the long tables
lay asprawl a belated reveller, his empty oblivion-phial before him,
his curly head upon his arms, dreaming perhaps of last night's feast
and a neglected bride dozing dispassionate in some distant chamber.
But Heru was not there and little I cared for twittering finches or
sighing damsels.  With hasty feet I rushed down the hall out into the
cool, sweet air of the planet morning.

There I met one whom I knew, and he told me he had been among the crowd
and had heard the woodmen had gone no farther than the river gate,
that Heru was with them beyond a doubt.  I would not listen to more.
"Good!" I shouted.  "Get me a horse and just a handful of your sleek
kindred and we will pull the prize from the bear's paw even yet!
Surely," I said, turning to a knot of Martian youths who stood listening
a few steps away, "surely some of you will come with me at this pinch?
The big bullies are very few; the sea runs behind them; the maid in their
clutch is worth fighting for; it needs but one good onset, five minutes'
gallantry, and she is ours again.  Think how fine it will look to bring
her back before yon sleepy fellows have found their weapons.  You, there,
with the blue tunic! you look a proper fellow, and something of a heart
should beat under such gay wrappings, will you come with me?"

But blue-mantle, biting his thumbs, murmured he had not breakfasted yet
and edged away behind his companions.  Wherever I looked eyes dropped
and timid hands fidgeted as their owners backed off from my dangerous
enthusiasm.  There was obviously no help to be had from them, and meantime
the precious moments were flying, so with a disdainful glance I turned
on my heels and set off alone as hard as I could go for the harbour.

But it was too late.  I rushed through the marketplace where all was
silent and deserted; I ran on to the wharves beyond and they were empty
save for the litter and embers of the fires Ar-hap's men had made during
their stay; I dashed out to the landing-place, and there at the hythe
the last boat-loads of the villains were just embarking, two boatloads
of them twenty yards from shore, and another still upon the beach.
This latter was careening over as a dusky group of men lifted aboard
to a heap of tumbled silks and stuffs in the stern such a sweet piece
of insensible merchandise as no man, I at least of all, could mistake.
It was Heru herself, and the rogues were ladling her on board like so
much sandal-wood or cotton sheeting.  I did not wait for more, but out
came my sword, and yielding to a reckless impulse, for which perhaps last
night's wine was as much to blame as anything, I sprang down the steps and
leapt aboard of the boat just as it was pushed off upon the swift tide.
Full of Bersark rage, I cut one brawny copper-coloured thief down, and
struck another with my fist between the eyes so that he went headlong
into the water, sinking like lead, and deep into the great target of
his neighbour's chest I drove my blade.  Had there been a man beside me,
had there been but two or three of all those silken triflers, too late
come on the terraces above to watch, we might have won.  But all alone
what could I do?  That last red beast turned on my blade, and as he fell
dragged me half down with him.  I staggered up, and tugging the metal
from him turned on the next.

At that moment the cause of all the turmoil, roused by the fighting, came
to herself, and sitting up on the piled plunder in the boat stared round
for a moment with a childish horror at the barbarians whose prize she was,
then at me, then at the dead man at my feet whose blood was welling in a
red tide from the wound in his breast.  As the full meaning of the scene
dawned upon her she started to her feet, looking wonderfully beautiful
amongst those dusky forms, and extending her hands to me began to cry in
the most piteous way.  I sprang forward, and as I did so saw an ape-man
clap his hairy paw over her mouth and face--it was like an eclipse of the
moon by a red earth-shadow, I thought at the moment--and drag her roughly
back, but that was about the last I remembered.  As I turned to hit him
standing on the slippery thwart, another rogue crept up behind and let
drive with a club he had in hand.  The cudgel caught me sideways on the
head, a glancing shot.  I can recall a blaze of light, a strange medley
of sounds in my ears, and then, clutching at a pile of stuffs as I fell,
a tall bower of spray rising on either hand, and the cool shock of the
blue sea as I plunged headlong in--but nothing after that!

How long after I know not, but presently a tissue of daylight crept into
my eyes, and I awoke again.  It was better than nothing perhaps, yet it
was a poor awakening.  The big sun lay low down, and the day was all but
done; so much I guessed as I rocked in that light with an undulating
movement, and then as my senses returned more fully, recognised with
a start of wonder that I was still in the water, floating on a swift
current into the unknown on an air-filled pile of silken stuffs which
had been pulled down with me from the boat when I got my ganging from
yonder rascal's mace.  It was a wet couch, sodden and chilly, but as the
freshening evening wind blew on my face and the darkening water lapped
against my forehead I revived more fully.

Where had we come to?  I turned an aching neck, and all along on both
sides seemed to stretch steep, straight coasts about a mile or so apart,
in the shadow of the setting sun black as ebony.  Between the two the
hampered water ran quickly, with, away on the right, some shallow sandy
spits and islands covered with dwarf bushes--chilly, inhospitable-looking
places they seemed as I turned my eyes upon them; but he who rides
helpless down an evening tide stands out for no great niceties of
landing-place; could I but reach them they would make at least a drier
bed than this of mine, and at that thought, turning over, I found all
my muscles as stiff as iron, the sinews of my neck and forearms a mass
of agonies and no more fit to swim me to those reedy swamps, which now,
as pain and hunger began to tell, seemed to wear the aspects of paradise.

With a groan I dropped back upon my raft and watched the islands
slipping by, while over my feet the southern sky darkened to purple.
There was no help there, but glancing round away on the left and a few
furlongs from me, I noticed on the surface of the water two converging
strands of brightness, an angle the point of which seemed to be coming
towards me.  Nearer it came and nearer, right across my road, until I
could see a black dot at the point, a head presently developed, then as
we approached the ears and antlers of a swimming stag.  It was a huge
beast as it loomed up against the glow, bigger than any mortal stag
ever was--the kind of fellow-traveller no one would willingly accost,
but even if I had wished to get out of its path I had no power to do so.

Closer and closer we came, one of us drifting helplessly, and the other
swimming strongly for the islands.  When we were about a furlong apart the
great beast seemed to change its course, mayhap it took the wreckage on
which I floated for an outlying shoal, something on which it could rest a
space in that long swim.  Be this as it may, the beast came hurtling down
on me lip deep in the waves, a mighty brown head with pricked ears that
flicked the water from them now and then, small bright eyes set far back,
and wide palmated antlers on a mighty forehead, like the dead branches of
a tree.  What that Martian mountain elk had hoped for can only be guessed,
what he met with was a tangle of floating finery carrying a numbed
traveller on it, and with a snort of disappointment he turned again.

It was a poor chance, but better than nothing, and as he turned I tried
to throw a strand of silk I had unwound from the sodden mass over his
branching tines.  Quick as thought the beast twisted his head aside and
tossed his antlers so that the try was fruitless.  But was I to lose my
only chance of shore?  With all my strength I hurled myself upon him,
missing my clutch again by a hair's-breadth and going headlong into the
salt furrow his chest was turning up.  Happily I kept hold of the web,
for the great elk then turned back, passing between me and the ruck of
stuff and getting thereby the silk under his chin, and as I came gasping
to the top once more round came that dainty wreckage over his back,
and I clutched it, and sooner than it takes to tell I was towing to the
shore as perhaps no one was ever towed before.

The big beast dragged the ruck like withered weed behind him, bellowing
all the time with a voice which made the hills echo all round; and then,
when he got his feet upon the shallows, rose dripping and mountainous,
a very cliff of black hide and limb against the night shine, and with a
single sweep of his antlers tore the webbing from me, who lay prone and
breathless in the mud, and, thinking it was his enemy, hurled the limp
bundle on the beach, and then, having pounded it with his cloven feet
into formless shreds, bellowed again victoriously and went off into the
darkness of the forests.




CHAPTER IX

I landed, stiff enough as you will guess, but pleased to be on shore
again.  It was a melancholy neighbourhood of low islands, overgrown
with rank grass and bushes, salt water encircling them, and inside sandy
dunes and hummocks with shallow pools, gleaming ghostly in the retreating
daylight, while beyond these rose the black bosses of what looked like
a forest.  Thither I made my way, plunging uncomfortably through shallows,
and tripping over blackened branches which, lying just below the surface,
quivered like snakes as the evening breeze ruffled each surface, until
the ground hardened under foot, and presently I was standing, hungry
and faint but safe, on dry land again.

The forest was so close to the sea, one could not advance without
entering it, and once within its dark arcades every way looked equally
gloomy and hopeless.  I struggled through tangles night made more and
more impenetrable each minute, until presently I could go no further,
and where a dense canopy of trees overhead gave out for a minute on the
edge of a swampy hollow, I determined to wait for daylight.

Never was there a more wet or weary traveller, or one more desperately
lonely than he who wrapped himself up in the miserable insufficiency of
his wet rags, and without fire or supper crept amongst the exposed roots
of a tree growing out of a bank, and prepared to hope grimly for morning.

Round and round meanwhile was drawn the close screen of night, till
the clearing in front was blotted out, and only the tree-tops, black as
rugged hills one behind the other, stood out against the heavy purple of
the circlet of sky above.  As the evening deepened the quaintest noises
began on every hand--noises so strange and bewildering that as I cowered
down with my teeth chattering, and stared hard into the impenetrable, they
could be likened to nothing but the crying of all the souls of dead things
since the beginning.  Never was there such an infernal chorus as that
which played up the Martian stars.  Down there in front, where hummock
grass was growing, some beast squeaked continuously, till I shouted at
him, then he stopped a minute, and began again in entirely another note.
Away on the hills two rival monsters were calling to each other in tones
so hollow they seemed as I listened to penetrate through me, and echo
out of my heart again.  Far overhead, gigantic bats were flitting, the
shadow of their wings dimming a dozen universes at once, and crying to
each other in shrill tones that rent the air like tearing silk.

As I listened to those vampires discussing their infernal loves under
the stars, from a branch right overhead broke such a deathly howl from
the throat of a wandering forest cat that everything else was hushed for
a moment.  All about a myriad insects were making night giddy with their
ghostly fires, while underground and from the labyrinths of matted roots
came quaint sounds of rustling snakes and forest pigs, and all the lesser
things that dig and scratch and growl.

Yet I was desperately sleepy, my sword hung heavy as lead at my side,
my eyelids drooped, and so at last I dozed uneasily for an hour or two.
Then, all on a sudden, I came wide awake with a shock.  The night was
quieter now; away in the forest depth strange noises still arose, but
close at hand was a strange hush, like the hush of expectation, and,
listening wonderingly, I was aware of slow, heavy footsteps coming up from
the river, now two or three steps together, then a pause, then another
step or two, and as I bent towards the approaching thing, staring into
the darkness, my strained senses were conscious of another approach,
as like as could be, coming from behind me.  On they came, making the
very ground quake with their weight, till I judged that both were about
on the edge of the clearing, two vast rat-like shadows, but as big as
elephants, and bringing a most intolerable smell of sour slime with them.
There, on the edge of the amphitheatre, each for the first time appeared
to become aware of the other's presence--the footsteps stopped dead.
I could hear the water dripping from the fur of those giant brutes amongst
the shadows and the deep breathing of the one nearest me, a scanty ten
paces off, but not another sound in the stillness.

Minute after minute passed, yet neither moved.  A half-hour grew to a
full hour, and that hour lengthened amid the keenest tension till my
ears ached with listening, and my eyes were sore with straining into
the blackness.  At last I began to wonder whether those earth-shaking
beasts had not been an evil dream, and was just venturing to stretch out
a cramped leg, and rally myself upon my cowardice, when, without warning,
at my elbow rose the most ear-piercing scream of rage that ever came
from a living throat.  There was a sweeping rush in the darkness which I
could feel but not see, and with a shock the two gladiators met in the
midst of the arena.  Over and over they went screaming and struggling,
and slipping and plunging.  I could hear them tearing at each other,
and the sharp cries of pain, first one and then another gave as claw or
tooth got home, and all the time, though the ground was quaking under
their struggles and the air full of horrible uproar, not a thing was
to be seen.  I did not even know what manner of beasts they were who
rocked and rolled and tore at each other's throats, but I heard their
teeth snapping, and their fierce breath in the pauses of the struggle,
and could but wait in a huddle amongst the roots until it was over.
To and fro they went, now at the far side of the dark clearing, now
so close that hot drops of blood from their jaws fell on my face like
rain in the darkness.  It seemed as though the fight would never end,
but presently there was more of worrying in it and less of snapping;
it was clear one or the other had had enough and as I marked this those
black shadows came gasping and struggling towards me.  There was a sudden
sharp cry, a desperate final tussle--before which strong trees snapped
and bushes were flattened out like grass, not twenty yards away--and
then for a minute all was silent.

One of them had killed, and as I sat rooted to the spot I was forced to
listen while his enemy tore him up and ate him.  Many a banquet have
I been at, but never an uglier one than that.  I sat in the darkness
while the unknown thing at my feet ripped the flesh from his half-dead
rival in strips, and across the damp night wind came the reek of that
abominable feast--the reek of blood and spilt entrails--until I turned
away my face in loathing, and was nearly starting to my feet to venture
a rush into the forest shadows.  But I was spellbound, and remained
listening to the heavy munch of blood-stained jaws until presently I
was aware other and lesser feasters were coming.  There was a twinkle of
hungry eyes all about the limits of the area, the shine of green points
of envious fire that circled round in decreasing orbits, as the little
foxes and jackals came crowding in.  One fellow took me for a rock,
so still I sat, putting his hot, soft paws upon my knee for a space,
and others passed me so near I could all but touch them.

The big beast had taken himself off by this time, and there must have
been several hundreds of these newcomers.  A merry time they had of it;
the whole place was full of the green, hurrying eyes, and amidst the
snap of teeth and yapping and quarrelling I could hear the flesh being
torn from the red bones in every direction.  One wolf-like individual
brought a mass of hot liver to eat between my feet, but I gave him a kick,
and sent him away much to his surprise.  Gradually, however, the sound
of this unholy feast died away, and, though you may hardly believe it,
I fell off into a doze.  It was not sleep, but it served the purpose,
and when in an hour or two a draught of cool air roused me, I awoke,
feeling more myself again.

Slowly morning came, and the black wall of forest around became full
of purple interstices as the east brightened.  Those glimmers of light
between bough and trunk turned to yellow and red, the day-shine presently
stretched like a canopy from point to point of the treetops on either
side of my sleeping-place, and I arose.

All my limbs were stiff with cold, my veins emptied by hunger and wounds,
and for a space I had not even strength to move.  But a little rubbing
softened my cramped muscles presently and limping painfully down to the
place of combat, I surveyed the traces of that midnight fight.  I will
not dwell upon it.  It was ugly and grim; the trampled grass, the giant
footmarks, each enringing its pool of curdled blood; the broken bushes,
the grooved mud-slides where the unknown brutes had slid in deadly
embrace; the hollows, the splintered boughs, their ragged points tufted
with skin and hair--all was sickening to me.  Yet so hungry was I that
when I turned towards the odious remnants of the vanquished--a shapeless
mass of abomination--my thoughts flew at once to breakfasting!  I went
down and inspected the victim cautiously--a huge rat-like beast as far
as might be judged from the bare uprising ribs--all that was left of him
looking like the framework of a schooner yacht.  His heart lay amongst
the offal, and my knife came out to cut a meal from it, but I could not
do it.  Three times I essayed the task, hunger and disgust contending
for mastery; three times turned back in loathing.  At last I could stand
the sight no more, and, slamming the knife up again, turned on my heels,
and fairly ran for fresh air and the shore, where the sea was beginning to
glimmer in the light a few score yards through the forest stems.  There,
once more out on the open, on a pebbly beach, I stripped, spreading my
things out to dry on the stones, and laying myself down with the lapping
of the waves in my ears, and the first yellow sunshine thawing my limbs,
tried to piece together the hurrying events of the last few days.

What were my gay Martians doing?  Lazy dogs to let me, a stranger, be the
only one to draw sword in defence of their own princess!  Where was poor
Heru, that sweet maiden wife?  The thought of her in the hands of the
ape-men was odious.  And yet was I not mad to try to rescue, or even to
follow her alone?  If by any chance I could get off this beast-haunted
place and catch up with the ravishers, what had I to look for from them
except speedy extinction, and that likely enough by the most painful
process they were acquainted with?

The other alternative of going back empty handed was terribly ignominious.
I had lectured the amiable young manhood of Seth so soundly on the
subject of gallantry, and set them such a good example on two occasions,
that it would be bathos to saunter back, hands in pockets, and confess I
knew nothing of the lady's fate and had been daunted by the first night
alone in the forest.  Besides, how dull it would be in that beautiful,
tumble-down old city without Heru, with no expectation day by day of
seeing her sylph-like form and hearing the merry tinkle of her fairy
laughter as she scoffed at the unknown learning collected by her ancestors
in a thousand laborious years.  No!  I would go on for certain.  I was
young, in love, and angry, and before those qualifications difficulties
became light.

Meanwhile, the first essential was breakfast of some kind.  I arose,
stretched, put on my half-dried clothes, and mounting a low hummock on
the forest edge looked around.  The sun was riding up finely into the
sky, and the sea to the eastward shone for leagues and leagues in the
loveliest azure.  Where it rippled on my own beach and those of the low
islands noted over night, a wonderful fire of blue and red played on
the sands as though the broken water were full of living gems.  The sky
was full of strange gulls with long, forked tails, and a lovely little
flying lizard with transparent wings of the palest green--like those of
a grasshopper--was flitting about picking up insect stragglers.

All this was very charming, but what I kept saying to myself was "Streaky
rashers and hot coffee: rashers and coffee and rolls," and, indeed, had
the gates of Paradise themselves opened at that moment I fear my first
look down the celestial streets within would have been for a restaurant.
They did not, and I was just turning away disconsolate when my eye caught,
ascending from behind the next bluff down the beach, a thin strand of
smoke rising into the morning air.

It was nothing so much in itself--a thin spiral creeping upwards
mast-high, then flattening out into a mushroom head--but it meant
everything to me.  Where there was fire there must be humanity, and where
there was humanity--ay, to the very outlayers of the universe--there
must be breakfast.  It was a splendid thought; I rushed down the hillock
and went gaily for that blue thread amongst the reeds.  It was not two
hundred yards away, and soon below me was a tiny bay with bluest water
frilling a silver beach, and in the midst of it a fire on a hearth dancing
round a pot that simmered gloriously.  But of an owner there was nothing
to be seen.  I peered here and there on the shore, but nothing moved,
while out to sea the water was shining like molten metal with not a
dot upon it!--what did it matter?  I laughed as, pleased and hungry,
I slipped down the bank and strode across the sands; it pleased Fate to
play bandy with me, and if it sent me supperless to bed, why, here was
restitution in the way of breakfast.  I took up a morsel of the stuff
in the kettle on a handy stick and found it good--indeed, I knew it at
once as a very dainty mess made from the roots of a herb the Martians
greatly liked; An had piled my platter with it when we supped that night
in the market-place of Seth, and the sweet white stuff had melted into
my corporal essence, it seemed, without any gross intermediate process
of digestion.  And here I was again, hungry, sniffing the fragrant breath
of a full meal and not a soul in sight--I should have been a fool not
to have eaten.  So thinking, down I sat, taking the pot from its place,
and when it was a little cool plunging my hands into it and feasting
with as good an appetite as ever a man had before.

It was gloriously ambrosial, and deeper and deeper I went, with the
tall stalk of the smoke in front growing from the hearth-stones like
some strange new plant, the pleasant sunshine on my back, and never a
thought for anything but the task in hand.  Deeper and deeper, oblivious
of all else, until to get the very last drops I lifted the pipkin up
and putting back my head drank in that fashion.

It was only when with a sigh of pleasure I lowered it slowly again that
over the rim as it sank there dawned upon me the vision of a Martian
standing by an empty canoe on the edge of the water and regarding me
with calm amazement.  I was, in fact, so astonished that for a minute
the empty pot stood still before my face, and over its edge we stared
at each other in mute surprise, then with all the dignity that might
be I laid the vessel down between my feet and waited for the newcomer
to speak.  She was a girl by her yellow garb, a fisherwoman, it seemed,
for in the prow of her craft was piled a net upon which the scales of
fishes were twinkling--a Martian, obviously, but something more robust
than most of them, a savour of honest work about her sunburnt face which
my pallid friends away yonder were lacking in, and when we had stared
at each other for a few moments in silence she came forward a step or
two and said without a trace of fear or shyness, "Are you a spirit, sir?

"Why," I answered, "about as much, no more and no less, than most of us."

"Aye," she said.  "I thought you were, for none but spirits live here
upon this island; are you for good or evil?"

"Far better for the breakfast of which I fear I have robbed you, but
wandering along the shore and finding this pot boiling with no owner,
I ventured to sample it, and it was so good my appetite got the better
of manners."

The girl bowed, and standing at a respectful distance asked if I would
like some fish as well; she had some, but not many, and if I would eat
she would cook them for me in a minute--it was not often, she added
lightly, she had met one of my kind before.  In fact, it was obvious
that simple person did actually take me for a being of another world,
and was it for me to say she was wrong?  So adopting a dignity worthy of
my reputation I nodded gravely to her offer.  She fetched from the boat
four little fishes of the daintiest kind imaginable.  They were each
about as big as a hand and pale blue when you looked down upon them,
but so clear against the light that every bone and vein in their bodies
could be traced.  These were wrapped just as they were in a broad, green
leaf and then the Martian, taking a pointed stick, made a hollow in the
white ashes, laid them in side by side, and drew the hot dust over again.

While they cooked we chatted as though the acquaintance were the most
casual thing in the world, and I found it was indeed an island we were
on and not the mainland, as I had hoped at first.  Seth, she told me,
was far away to the eastward, and if the woodmen had gone by in their
ships they would have passed round to the north-west of where we were.

I spent an hour or two with that amiable individual, and, it is to be
hoped, sustained the character of a spiritual visitant with considerable
dignity.  In one particular at least, that, namely, of appetite, I did
honour to my supposed source, and as my entertainer would not hear of
payment in material kind, all I could do was to show her some conjuring
tricks, which greatly increased her belief in my supernatural origin,
and to teach her some new hitches and knots, using her fishing-line
as a means of illustration, a demonstration which called from her the
natural observation that we must be good sailors "up aloft" since we
knew so much about cordage, then we parted.

She had seen nothing of the woodmen, though she had heard they had been
to Seth and thought, from some niceties of geographical calculation which
I could not follow, they would have crossed to the north, as just stated,
of her island.  There she told me, with much surprise at my desire for the
information, how I might, by following the forest track to the westward
coast, make my way to a fishing village, where they would give me a canoe
and direct me, since such was my extraordinary wish, to the place where,
if anywhere, the wild men had touched on their way home.

She filled my wallet with dried honey-cakes and my mouth with sugar plums
from her little store, then down on her knees went that poor waif of
a worn-out civilisation and kissed my hands in humble farewell, and I,
blushing to be so saluted, and after all but a sailor, got her by the
rosy fingers and lifted her up shoulder high, and getting one hand under
her chin and the other behind her head kissed her twice upon her pretty
cheeks; and so, I say, we parted.




CHAPTER X

Off into the forest I went, feeling a boyish elation to be so free nor
taking heed or count of the reckless adventure before me.  The Martian
weather for the moment was lovely and the many-coloured grass lush and
soft under foot.  Mile after mile I went, heeding the distance lightly,
the air was so elastic.  Now pressing forward as the main interest of my
errand took the upper hand, and remembrance of poor Heru like a crushed
white flower in the red grip of those cruel ravishers came upon me,
and then pausing to sigh with pleasure or stand agape--forgetful even
of her--in wonder of the unknown loveliness about me.

And well might I stare!  Everything in that forest was wonderful!  There
were plants which turned from colour to colour with the varying hours of
the day.  While others had a growth so swift it was dangerous to sit in
their neighbourhood since the long, succulent tendrils clambering from
the parent stem would weave you into a helpless tangle while you gazed,
fascinated, upon them.  There were plants that climbed and walked; sighing
plants who called the winged things of the air to them with a noise so
like to a girl sobbing that again and again I stopped in the tangled
path to listen.  There were green bladder-mosses which swam about the
surface of the still pools like gigantic frog-broods.  There were on the
ridges warrior trees burning in the vindictiveness of a long forgotten
cause--a blaze of crimson scimitar thorns from root to topmost twig;
and down again in the cool hollows were lady-bushes making twilight of
the green gloom with their cloudy ivory blossoms and filling the shadows
with such a heavy scent that head and heart reeled with fatal pleasure
as one pushed aside their branches.  Every river-bed was full of mighty
reeds, whose stems clattered together when the wind blew like swords on
shields, and every now and then a bit of forest was woven together with
the ropey stems of giant creepers till no man or beast could have passed
save for the paths which constant use had kept open through the mazes.

All day long I wandered on through those wonderful woodlands, and in fact
loitered so much over their infinite marvels that when sundown came all
too soon there was still undulating forest everywhere, vistas of fairy
glades on every hand, peopled with incredible things and echoing with
sounds that excited the ears as much as other things fascinated the eyes,
but no sign of the sea or my fishing village anywhere.

It did not matter; a little of the Martian leisureliness was getting
into my blood: "If not today, why then tomorrow," as An would have said;
and with this for comfort I selected a warm, sandy hollow under the roots
of a big tree, made my brief arrangements for the night, ate some honey
cakes, and was soon sleeping blissfully.

I woke early next morning, after many hours of interrupted dreams, and
having nothing to do till the white haze had lifted and made it possible
to start again, rested idly a time on my elbow and watched the sunshine
filter into the recesses.

Very pretty it was to see the thick canopy overhead, by star-light so
impenetrable, open its chinks and fissures as the searching sun came
upon it; to see the pin-hole gaps shine like spangles presently, the
spaces broaden into lesser suns, and even the thick leafage brighten and
shine down on me with a soft sea-green radiance.  The sunward sides of
the tree-stems took a glow, and the dew that ran dripping down their
mossy sides trickled blood-red to earth.  Elsewhere the shadows were
still black, and strange things began to move in them--things we in our
middle-aged world have never seen the likeness of: beasts half birds,
birds half creeping things, and creeping things which it seemed to me
passed through lesser creations down to the basest life that crawls
without interruption or division.

It was not for me, a sailor, to know much of such things, yet some I
could not fail to notice.  On one grey branch overhead, jutting from
a tree-stem where a patch of velvet moss made in the morning glint a
fairy bed, a wonderful flower unfolded.  It was a splendid bud, ivory
white, cushioned in leaves, and secured to its place by naked white
roots that clipped the branch like fingers of a lady's hand.  Even as I
looked it opened, a pale white star, and hung pensive and inviting on
its mossy cushion.  From it came such a ravishing odour that even I,
at the further end of the great scale of life, felt my pulses quicken
and my eyes brighten with cupidity.  I was in the very act of climbing
the tree, but before I could move hand or foot two things happened,
whether you take my word for them or no.

Firstly, up through a glade in the underwood, attracted by the odour, came
an ugly brown bird with a capacious beak and shining claws.  He perched
near by, and peeped and peered until he made out the flower pining on
her virgin stem, whereat off he hopped to her branch and there, with a
cynical chuckle, strutted to and fro between her and the main stem like
an ill genius guarding a fairy princess.

Surely Heaven would not allow him to tamper with so chaste a bud!
My hand reached for a stone to throw at him when happened the second
thing.  There came a gentle pat upon the woodland floor, and from a
tree overhead dropped down another living plant like to the one above
yet not exactly similar, a male, my instincts told me, in full solitary
blossom like her above, cinctured with leaves, and supported by half
a score of thick white roots that worked, as I looked, like the limbs
of a crab.  In a twinkling that parti-coloured gentleman vegetable
near me was off to the stem upon which grew his lady love; running
and scrambling, dragging the finery of his tasselled petals behind,
it was laughable to watch his eagerness.  He got a grip of the tree
and up he went, "hand over hand," root over root.  I had just time to
note others of his species had dropped here and there upon the ground,
and were hurrying with frantic haste to the same destination when he
reached the fatal branch, and was straddling victoriously down it,
blind to all but love and longing.  That ill-omened bird who stood
above the maiden-flower let him come within a stalk's length, so near
that the white splendour of his sleeping lady gleamed within arms'
reach, then the great beak was opened, the great claws made a clutch,
the gallant's head was yanked from his neck, and as it went tumbling
down the maw of the feathered thing his white legs fell spinning through
space, and lay knotting themselves in agony upon the ground for a minute
or two before they relaxed and became flaccid in the repose of death.
Another and another vegetable suitor made for that fatal tryst, and as
each came up the snap of the brown bird's beak was all their obsequies.
At last no more came, and then that Nemesis of claws and quills walked
over to the girl-flower, his stomach feathers ruffled with repletion,
the green blood of her lovers dripping from his claws, and pulled her
golden heart out, tore her white limbs one from the other, and swallowed
her piecemeal before my very eyes!  Then up in wrath I jumped and yelled
at him till the woods echoed, but too late to stay his sacrilege.

By this time the sun was bathing everything in splendour, and turning away
from the wonders about me, I set off at best pace along the well-trodden
path which led without turning to the west coast village where the
canoes were.

It proved far closer than expected.  As a matter of fact the forest
in this direction grew right down to the water's edge; the salt-loving
trees actually overhanging the waves--one of the pleasantest sights in
nature--and thus I came right out on top of the hamlet before there had
been an indication of its presence.  It occupied two sides of a pretty
little bay, the third side being flat land given over to the cultivation
of an enormous species of gourd whose characteristic yellow flowers and
green, succulent leaves were discernible even at this distance.

I branched off along the edge of the surf and down a dainty little flowery
path, noticing meanwhile how the whole bay was filled by hundreds of empty
canoes, while scores of others were drawn up on the strand, and then the
first thing I chanced upon was a group of people--youthful, of course,
with the eternal Martian bloom--and in the splendid simplicity of almost
complete nakedness.  My first idea was that they were bathing, and fixing
my eyes on the tree-tops with great propriety, I gave a warning cough.
At that sound instead of getting to cover, or clothes, all started up
and stood staring for a time like a herd of startled cattle.  It was
highly embarrassing; they were right in the path, a round dozen of them,
naked and so little ashamed that when I edged away modestly they began
to run after me.  And the farther they came forward the more I retired,
till we were playing a kind of game of hide-and-seek round the tree-stems.
In the middle of it my heel caught in a root and down I went very hard and
very ignominiously, whereon those laughing, light-hearted folk rushed in,
and with smiles and jests helped me to my feet.

"Was I the traveller who had come from Seth?"

"Yes."

"Oh, then that was well.  They had heard such a traveller was on the
road, and had come a little way down the path, as far as might be without
fatigue, to meet him."

"Would I eat with them?" these amiable strangers asked, pushing their soft
warm fingers into mine and ringing me round with a circle.  "But firstly
might they help me out of my clothes?  It was hot, and these things were
cumbersome."  As to the eating, I was agreeable enough seeing how casual
meals had been with me lately, but my clothes, though Heaven knows they
were getting horribly ragged and travel-stained, I clung to desperately.

My new friends shrugged their dimpled shoulders and, arguments being
tedious, at once squatted round me in the dappled shade of a big tree
and produced their stores of never failing provisions.  After a pleasant
little meal taken thus in the open and with all the simplicity Martians
delight in, we got to talking about those yellow canoes which were
bobbing about on the blue waters of the bay.

"Would you like to see where they are grown?" asked an individual basking
by my side.

"Grown!" I answered with incredulity.  "Built, you mean.  Never in my
life did I hear of growing boats."

"But then, sir," observed the girl as she sucked the honey out of the
stalk of an azure convolvulus flower and threw the remains at a butterfly
that sailed across the sunshine, "you know so little!  You have come
from afar, from some barbarous and barren district.  Here we undoubtedly
grow our boats, and though we know the Thither folk and such uncultivated
races make their craft by cumbrous methods of flat planks, yet we prefer
our own way, for one thing because it saves trouble," and as she murmured
that all-sufficient reason the gentle damsel nodded reflectively.

But one of her companions, more lively for the moment, tickled her with
a straw until she roused, and then said, "Let us take the stranger to the
boat garden now.  The current will drift us round the bay, and we can come
back when it turns.  If we wait we shall have to row in both directions,
or even walk," and again planetary slothfulness carried the day.

So down to the beach we strolled and launched one of the golden-hued
skiffs upon the pretty dancing wavelets just where they ran, lipped
with jewelled spray, on the shore, and then only had I a chance to
scrutinise their material.  I patted that one we were upon inside
and out.  I noted with a seaman's admiration its lightness, elasticity,
and supreme sleekness, its marvellous buoyancy and fairy-like "lines,"
and after some minutes' consideration it suddenly flashed across me that
it was all of gourd rind.  And as if to supply confirmation, the flat
land we were approaching on the opposite side of the bay was covered by
the characteristic verdure of these plants with a touch here and there
of splendid yellow blossoms, but all of gigantic proportions.

"Ay," said a Martian damsel lying on the bottom, and taking and kissing
my hand as she spoke, in the simple-hearted way of her people, "I see
you have guessed how we make our boats.  Is it the same in your distant
country?"

"No, my girl, and what's more, I am a bit uneasy as to what the
fellows on the Carolina will say if they ever hear I went to sea in
a hollowed-out pumpkin, and with a young lady--well, dressed as you
are--for crew.  Even now I cannot imagine how you get your ships so
trim and shapely--there is not a seam or a patch anywhere, it looks as
if you had run them into a mould."

"That's just what we have done, sir, and now you will witness the moulds
at work, for here we are," and the little skiff was pulled ashore and the
Martians and I jumped out on the shelving beach, hauled our boat up high
and dry, and there right over us, like great green umbrellas, spread the
fronds of the outmost garden of this strangest of all ship-building yards.
Briefly, and not to make this part of my story too long, those gilded boys
and girls took me ashore, and chattering like finches in the evening,
showed how they planted their gourd seed, nourished the gigantic plants
as they grew with brackish water and the burnt ashes; then, when they
flowered, mated the male and female blossoms, glorious funnels of golden
hue big enough for one to live in; and when the young fruit was of the
bigness of an ordinary bolster, how they slipped it into a double mould
of open reed-work something like the two halves of a walnut-shell; and
how, growing day by day in this, it soon took every curve and line they
chose to give it, even the hanging keel below, the strengthened bulwarks,
and tall prow-piece.  It was so ingenious, yet simple; and I confess I
laughed over my first skiff "on the stalk," and fell to bantering the
Martians, asking whether it was a good season for navies, whether their
Cunarders were spreading nicely, if they could give me a pinch of barge
seed, or a yacht in bud to show to my friends at home.

But those lazy people took the matter seriously enough.  They led me
down green alleys arched over with huge melon-like leaves; they led me
along innumerable byways, making me peep and peer through the chequered
sunlight at ocean-growing craft, that had budded twelve months before,
already filling their moulds to the last inch of space.  They told me
that when the growing process was sufficiently advanced, they loosened
the casing, and cutting a hole into the interior of each giant fruit,
scooped out all its seed, thereby checking more advance, and throwing
into the rind strength that would otherwise have gone to reproductiveness.
They said each fruit made two vessels, but the upper half was always best
and used for long salt-water journeys, the lower piece being but for
punting or fishing on their lakes.  They cut them in half while still
green, scraped out the light remaining pulp when dry, and dragged them
down with the minimum of trouble, light as feathers, tenacious as steel
plate, and already in the form and fashion of dainty craft from five to
twenty feet in length, when the process was completed.

By the time we had explored this strangest of ship-building yards, and
I had seen last year's crop on the stocks being polished and fitted with
seats and gear, the sun was going down; and the Martian twilight, owing
to the comparative steepness of the little planet's sides, being brief,
we strolled back to the village, and there they gave me harbourage for the
night, ambrosial supper, and a deep draught of the wine of Forgetfulness,
under the gauzy spell of which the real and unreal melted into the vistas
of rosy oblivion, and I slept.




CHAPTER XI

With the new morning came fresh energy and a spasm of conscience as I
thought of poor Heru and the shabby sort of rescuer I was to lie about
with these pretty triflers while she remained in peril.

So I had a bath and a swim, a breakfast, and, to my shame be it
acknowledged, a sort of farewell merry-go-round dance on the yellow
sands with a dozen young persons all light-hearted as the morning,
beautiful as the flowers that bound their hair, and in the extremity of
statuesque attire.

Then at last I got them to give me a sea-going canoe, a stock of cakes and
fresh water; and with many parting injunctions how to find the Woodman
trail, since I would not listen to reason and lie all the rest of my
life with them in the sunshine, they pushed me off on my lonely voyage.

"Over the blue waters!" they shouted in chorus as I dipped my paddle into
the diamond-crested wavelets.  "Six hours, adventurous stranger, with the
sun behind you!  Then into the broad river behind the yellow sand-bar.
But not the black northward river!  Not the strong, black river, above
all things, stranger!  For that is the River of the Dead, by which many
go but none come back.  Goodbye!"  And waving them adieu, I sternly turned
my eyes from delights behind and faced the fascination of perils in front.

In four hours (for the Martians had forgotten in their calculations that
my muscles were something better than theirs) I "rose" the further shore,
and then the question was, Where ran that westward river of theirs?

It turned out afterwards that, knowing nothing of their tides, I had
drifted much too far to northward, and consequently the coast had closed
up the estuary mouth I should have entered.  Not a sign of an opening
showed anywhere, and having nothing whatever for guidance I turned
northward, eagerly scanning an endless line of low cliffs, as the day
lessened, for the promised sand-bar or inlet.

About dusk my canoe, flying swiftly forward at its own sweet will, brought
me into a bight, a bare, desolate-looking country with no vegetation save
grass and sedge on the near marshes and stony hills rising up beyond,
with others beyond them mounting step by step to a long line of ridges
and peaks still covered in winter snow.

The outlook was anything but cheering.  Not a trace of habitation had been
seen for a long time, not a single living being in whose neighbourhood I
could land and ask the way; nothing living anywhere but a monstrous kind
of sea-slug, as big as a dog, battening on the waterside garbage, and
gaunt birds like vultures who croaked on the mud-flats, and half-spread
wings of funereal blackness as they gambolled here and there.  Where was
poor Heru?  Where pink-shouldered An?  Where those wild men who had
taken the princess from us?  Lastly, but not least, where was I?

All the first stars of the Martian sky were strange to me, and my boat
whirling round and round on the current confused what little geography
I might otherwise have retained.  It was a cheerless look out, and again
and again I cursed my folly for coming on such a fool's errand as I sat,
chin in hand, staring at a landscape that grew more and more depressing
every mile.  To go on looked like destruction, to go back was almost
impossible without a guide; and while I was still wondering which of the
two might be the lesser evil, the stream I was on turned a corner, and in
a moment we were upon water which ran with swift, oily smoothness straight
for the snow-ranges now beginning to loom unpleasantly close ahead.

By this time the night was coming on apace, the last of the evil-looking
birds had winged its way across the red sunset glare, and though it was
clear enough in mid-river under the banks, now steep and unclimbable,
it was already evening.

And with the darkness came a wondrous cold breath from off the ice-fields,
blowing through my lowland wrappings as though they were but tissue.
I munched a bit of honey-cake, took a cautious sip of wine, and though I
will not own I was frightened, yet no one will deny that the circumstances
were discouraging.

Standing up in the frail canoe and looking around, at the second glance
an object caught my eye coming with the stream, and rapidly overtaking me
on a strong sluice of water.  It was a raft of some sort, and something
extra-ordinarily like a sitting Martian on it!  Nearer and nearer it came,
bobbing to the rise and fall of each wavelet with the last icy sunlight
touching it up with reds and golds, nearer and nearer in the deadly
hush of that forsaken region, and then at last so near it showed quite
plainly on the purple water, a raft with some one sitting under a canopy.

With a thrill of delight I waved my cap aloft and shouted--

"Ship-ahoy!  Hullo, messmate, where are we bound to?"

But never an answer came from that swiftly-passing stranger, so again
I hailed--

"Put up your helm, Mr. Skipper; I have lost my bearings, and the
chronometer has run down," but without a pause or sound that strange
craft went slipping by.

That silence was more than I could stand.  It was against all sea
courtesies, and the last chance of learning where I was passing away.
So, angrily the paddle was snatched from the canoe bottom, and roaring
out again--

"Stop, I say, you d----- lubber, stop, or by all the gods I will
make you!"  I plunged the paddle into the water and shot my little
craft slantingly across the stream to intercept the newcomer.  A single
stroke sent me into mid-stream, a second brought me within touch of that
strange craft.  It was a flat raft, undoubtedly, though so disguised
by flowers and silk trailers that its shape was difficult to make out.
In the centre was a chair of ceremony bedecked with greenery and great
pale buds, hardly yet withered--oh, where had I seen such a chair and
such a raft before?

And the riddle did not long remain unanswered.  Upon that seat, as I
swept up alongside and laid a sunburnt hand upon its edge, was a girl,
and another look told me she was dead!

Such a sweet, pallid, Martian maid, her fair head lolling back against the
rear of the chair and gently moving to and fro with the rise and fall of
her craft.  Her face in the pale light of the evening like carved ivory,
and not less passionless and still; her arms bare, and her poor fingers
still closed in her lap upon the beautiful buds they had put into them.
I fairly gasped with amazement at the dreadful sweetness of that
solitary lady, and could hardly believe she was really a corpse!  But,
alas! there was no doubt of it, and I stared at her, half in admiration
and half in fear; noting how the last sunset flush lent a hectic beauty
to her face for a moment, and then how fair and ghostly she stood out
against the purpling sky; how her light drapery lifted to the icy wind,
and how dreadfully strange all those soft-scented flowers and trappings
seemed as we sped along side by side into the country of night and snow.

Then all of a sudden the true meaning of her being there burst upon me,
and with a start and a cry I looked around.  WE WERE FLYING SWIFTLY
DOWN THAT RIVER OF THE DEAD THEY HAD TOLD ME OF THAT HAS NO OUTLET AND
NO RETURNING!

With frantic haste I snatched up a paddle again and tried to paddle
against the great black current sweeping us forward.  I worked until the
perspiration stood in beads on my forehead, and all the time I worked
the river, like some black snake, hissed and twined, and that pretty lady
rode cheerily along at my side.  Overhead stars of unearthly brilliancy
were coming out in the frosty sky, while on either hand the banks were
high and the shadows under them black as ink.  In those shadows now and
then I noticed with a horrible indifference other rafts were travelling,
and presently, as the stream narrowed, they came out and joined us,
dead Martians, budding boys and girls; older voyagers with their age
quickening upon them in the Martian manner, just as some fruit only
ripens after it falls; yellow-girt slaves staring into the night in front,
quite a merry crew all clustered about I and that gentle lady, and more
far ahead and more behind, all bobbing and jostling forward as we hurried
to the dreadful graveyard in the Martian regions of eternal winter none
had ever seen and no one came to!  I cried aloud in my desolation and
fear and hid my face in my hands, while the icy cliffs mocked my cry and
the dead maid, tripping alongside, rolled her head over, and stared at
me with stony, unseeing eyes.

Well, I am no fine writer.  I sat down to tell a plain, unvarnished
tale, and I will not let the weird horror of that ride get into my pen.
We careened forward, I and those lost Martians, until pretty near on
midnight, by which time the great light-giving planets were up, and never
a chance did Fate give me all that time of parting company with them.
About midnight we were right into the region of snow and ice, not the
actual polar region of the planet, as I afterwards guessed, but one
of those long outliers which follow the course of the broad waterways
almost into fertile regions, and the cold, though intense, was somewhat
modified by the complete stillness of the air.

It was just then that I began to be aware of a low, rumbling sound ahead,
increasing steadily until there could not be any doubt the journey
was nearly over and we were approaching those great falls An had told
me of, over which the dead tumble to perpetual oblivion.  There was
no opportunity for action, and, luckily, little time for thought.
I remember clapping my hand to my heart as I muttered an imperfect
prayer, and laughing a little as I felt in my pocket, between it and that
organ, an envelope containing some corn-plaster and a packet of unpaid
tailors' bills.  Then I pulled out that locket with poor forgotten Polly's
photograph, and while I was still kissing it fervently, and the dead girl
on my right was jealously nudging my canoe with the corner of her raft, we
plunged into a narrow gully as black as hell, shot round a sharp corner at
a tremendous pace, and the moment afterwards entered a lake in the midst
of an unbroken amphitheatre of cliffs gleaming in soft light all round.

Even to this moment I can recall the blue shine of those terrible ice
crags framing the weird picture in on every hand, and the strange effect
upon my mind as we passed out of the darkness of the gully down which
we had come into the sepulchral radiance of that place.  But though it
fixed with one instantaneous flash its impression on my mind forever,
there was no time to admire it.  As we swept on to the lake's surface,
and a glance of light coming over a dip in the ice walls to the left lit
up the dead faces and half-withered flowers of my fellow-travellers with
startling distinctness, I noticed with a new terror at the lower end of
the lake towards which we were hurrying the water suddenly disappeared
in a cloud of frosty spray, and it was from thence came the low, ominous
rumble which had sounded up the ravine as we approached.  It was the
fall, and beyond the stream dropped down glassy step after step, in
wild pools and rapids, through which no boat could live for a moment,
to a black cavern entrance, where it was swallowed up in eternal night.

I WOULD not go that way!  With a yell such as those solitudes had
probably never heard since the planet was fashioned out of the void, I
seized the paddle again and struck out furiously from the main current,
with the result of postponing the crisis for a time, and finding myself
bobbing round towards the northern amphitheatre, where the light fell
clearest from planets overhead.  It was like a great ballroom with
those constellations for tapers, and a ghastly crowd of Martians were
doing cotillions and waltzes all about me on their rafts as the troubled
water, icy cold and clear as glass, eddied us here and there in solemn
confusion.  On the narrow beaches at the cliff foot were hundreds of
wrecked voyagers--the wall-flowers of that ghostly assembly-room--and
I went jostling and twirling round the circle as though looking for a
likely partner, until my brain spun and my heart was sick.

For twenty minutes Fate played with me, and then the deadly suck of the
stream got me down again close to where the water began to race for
the falls.  I vowed savagely I would not go over them if it could be
helped, and struggled furiously.

On the left, in shadow, a narrow beach seemed to lie between the water and
the cliff foot; towards it I fought.  At the very first stroke I fouled
a raft; the occupant thereof came tumbling aboard and nearly swamped me.
But now it was a fight for life, so him I seized without ceremony by
clammy neck and leg and threw back into the water.  Then another playful
Martian butted the behind part of my canoe and set it spinning, so that
all the stars seemed to be dancing giddily in the sky.  With a yell I
shoved him off, but only to find his comrades were closing round me in
a solid ring as we sucked down to the abyss at ever-increasing speed.

Then I fought like a fury, hacking, pushing, and paddling shorewards,
crying out in my excitement, and spinning and bumping and twisting
ever downwards.  For every foot I gained they pushed me on a yard,
as though determined their fate should be mine also.

They crowded round me in a compact circle, their poor flower-girt heads
nodding as the swift current curtsied their crafts.  They hemmed me in
with desperate persistency as we spun through the ghostly starlight in a
swirling mass down to destruction!  And in a minute we were so close to
the edge of the fall I could see the water break into ridges as it felt
the solid bottom give way under it.  We were so close that already the
foremost rafts, ten yards ahead, were tipping and their occupants one
by one waving their arms about and tumbling from their funeral chairs as
they shot into the spray veil and went out of sight under a faint rainbow
that was arched over there, the symbol of peace and the only lovely thing
in that gruesome region.  Another minute and I must have gone with them.
It was too late to think of getting out of the tangle then; the water
behind was heavy with trailing silks and flowers.  We were jammed together
almost like one huge float and in that latter fact lay my one chance.

On the left was a low ledge of rocks leading back to the narrow beach
already mentioned, and the ledge came out to within a few feet of where
the outmost boat on that side would pass it.  It was the only chance and
a poor one, but already the first rank of my fleet was trembling on the
brink, and without stopping to weigh matters I bounded off my own canoe
on to the raft alongside, which rocked with my weight like a tea-tray.
From that I leapt, with such hearty good-will as I had never had before,
on to a second and third.  I jumped from the footstool of one Martian
to the knee of another, steadying myself by a free use of their nodding
heads as I passed.  And every time I jumped a ship collapsed behind me.
As I staggered with my spring into the last and outermost boat the ledge
was still six feet away, half hidden in a smother of foam, and the rim of
the great fall just under it.  Then I drew all my sailor agility together
and just as the little vessel was going bow up over the edge I leapt from
her--came down blinded with spray on the ledge, rolled over and over,
clutched frantically at the frozen soil, and was safe for the moment,
but only a few inches from the vortex below!

As soon as I picked myself up and got breath, I walked shorewards and
found, with great satisfaction, that the ledge joined the shelving beach,
and so walked on in the blue obscurity of the cliff shadow back from the
falls in the bare hope that the beach might lead by some way into the
gully through which we had come and open country beyond.  But after a
couple of hundred yards this hope ended as abruptly as the spit itself
in deep water, and there I was, as far as the darkness would allow me
to ascertain, as utterly trapped as any mortal could be.

I will not dwell on the next few minutes, for no one likes to acknowledge
that he has been unmanned even for a space.  When those minutes were
over calmness and consideration returned, and I was able to look about.

All the opposite cliffs, rising sheer from the water, were in light,
their cold blue and white surfaces rising far up into the black starfields
overhead.  Looking at them intently from this vantage-point I saw without
at first understanding that along them horizontally, tier above tier,
were rows of objects, like--like--why, good Heavens, they were like men
and women in all sorts of strange postures and positions!  Rubbing my
eyes and looking again I perceived with a start and a strange creepy
feeling down my back that they WERE men and women!--hundreds of them,
thousands, all in rows as cormorants stand upon sea-side cliffs, myriads
and myriads now I looked about, in every conceivable pose and attitude
but never a sound, never a movement amongst the vast concourse.

Then I turned back to the cliffs behind me.  Yes! they ere there
too, dimmer by reason of the shadows, but there for certain, from the
snowfields far above down, down--good Heavens! to the very level where
I stood.  There was one of them not ten yards away half in and half out
of the ice wall, and setting my teeth I walked over and examined him.
And there was another further in behind as I peered into the clear blue
depth, another behind that one, another behind him--just like cherries
in a jelly.

It was startling and almost incredible, yet so many wonderful things had
happened of late that wonders were losing their sharpness, and I was soon
examining the cliff almost as coolly as though it were only some trivial
geological "section," some new kind of petrified sea-urchins which had
caught my attention and not a whole nation in ice, a huge amphitheatre
of fossilised humanity which stared down on me.

The matter was simple enough when you came to look at it with philosophy.
The Martians had sent their dead down here for many thousand years and
as they came they were frozen in, the bands and zones in which they
sat indicating perhaps alternating seasons.  Then after Nature had been
storing them like that for long ages some upheaval happened, and this
cleft and lake opened through the heart of the preserve.  Probably the
river once ran far up there where the starlight was crowning the blue
cliffs with a silver diadem of light, only when this hollow opened did
it slowly deepen a lower course, spreading out in a lake, and eventually
tumbling down those icy steps lose itself in the dark roots of the hills.
It was very simple, no doubt, but incredibly weird and wonderful to me who
stood, the sole living thing in that immense concourse of dead humanity.

Look where I would it was the same everywhere.  Those endless rows
of frozen bodies lying, sitting, or standing stared at me from every
niche and cornice.  It almost seemed, as the light veered slowly round,
as though they smiled and frowned at times, but never a word was there
amongst those millions; the silence itself was audible, and save the dull
low thunder of the fall, so monotonous the ear became accustomed to and
soon disregarded it, there was not a sound anywhere, not a rustle, not
a whisper broke the eternal calm of that great caravansary of the dead.

The very rattle of the shingle under my feet and the jingle of my
navy scabbard seemed offensive in the perfect hush, and, too awed
to be frightened, I presently turned away from the dreadful shine of
those cliffs and felt my way along the base of the wall on my own side.
There was no means of escape that way, and presently the shingle beach
itself gave out as stated, where the cliff wall rose straight from the
surface of the lake, so I turned back, and finding a grotto in the ice
determined to make myself as comfortable as might be until daylight came.




CHAPTER XII

Fortunately there was a good deal of broken timber thrown up at
"high-water" mark, and with a stack of this at the mouth of the little
cave a pleasant fire was soon made by help of a flint pebble and the
steel back of my sword.  It was a hearty blaze and lit up all the near
cliffs with a ruddy jumping glow which gave their occupants a marvellous
appearance of life.  The heat also brought off the dull rime upon the
side of my recess, leaving it clear as polished glass, and I was a little
startled to see, only an inch or so back in the ice and standing as erect
as ever he had been in life, the figure of an imposing grey clad man.
His arms were folded, his chin dropped upon his chest, his robes of
the finest stuff, the very flowers they had decked his head with frozen
with immortality, and under them, round his crisp and iron-grey hair,
a simple band of gold with strange runes and figures engraved upon it.

There was something very simple yet stately about him, though his face was
hidden and as I gazed long and intently the idea got hold of me that he
had been a king over an undegenerate Martian race, and had stood waiting
for the Dawn a very, very long time.

I wished a little that he had not been quite so near the glassy surface
of the ice down which the warmth was bringing quick moisture drops.
Had he been back there in the blue depths where others were sitting and
crouching it would have been much more comfortable.  But I was a sailor,
and misfortune makes strange companions, so I piled up the fire again,
and lying down presently on the dry shingle with my back to him stared
moodily at the blaze till slowly the fatigues of the day told, my eyelids
dropped and, with many a fitful start and turn, at length I slept.

It was an hour before dawn, the fire had burnt low and I was dreaming of
an angry discussion with my tailor in New York as to the sit of my last
new trousers when a faint sound of moving shingle caught my quick seaman
ear, and before I could raise my head or lift a hand, a man's weight was
on me--a heavy, strong man who bore me down with irresistible force.
I felt the slap of his ice-cold hand upon my throat and his teeth in
the back of my neck!  In an instant, though but half awake, with a yell
of surprise and anger I grappled with the enemy, and exerting all my
strength rolled him over.  Over and over we went struggling towards the
fire, and when I got him within a foot or so of it I came out on top,
and, digging my knuckles into his throttle, banged his head upon the
stony floor in reckless rage, until all of a sudden it seemed to me
he was done for.  I relaxed my grip, but the other man never moved.
I shook him again, like a terrier with a rat, but he never resented it.
Had I killed him? How limp and cold he was!  And then all of a sudden
an uneasy feeling came upon me.  I reached out, and throwing a handful
of dried stuff upon the embers the fire danced gaily up into the air,
and the blaze showed me I was savagely holding down to the gravel and
kneeling on the chest of that long-dead king from my grotto wall!

It was the man out of the ice without a doubt.  There was the very niche
he had fallen from under the influence of the fire heat, the very recess,
exactly in his shape in every detail, whence he had stood gazing into
vacuity all those years.  I left go my hold, and after the flutter in
my heart had gone down, apologetically set him up against the wall of
the cavern whence he had fallen; then built up the fire until twirling
flames danced to the very roof in the blue light of dawn, and hobgoblin
shadows leapt and capered about us.  Then once more I sat down on the
opposite side of the blaze, resting my chin upon my hands, and stared
into the frozen eyes of that grim stranger, who, with his chin upon his
knees, stared back at me with irresistible, remorseless steadfastness.

He was as fresh as if he had died but yesterday, yet by his clothing and
something in his appearance, which was not that of the Martian of to-day,
I knew he might be many thousand years old.  What things he had seen,
what wonders he knew!  What a story might be put into his mouth if I
were a capable writer gifted with time and imagination instead of a poor
outcast, ill-paid lieutenant whose literary wit is often taxed hardly
to fill even a log-book entry!  I stared at him so long and hard, and
he at me through the blinking flames, that again I dozed--and dozed--and
dozed again until at last when I woke in good earnest it was daylight.

By this time hunger was very aggressive.  The fire was naught but a
circlet of grey ashes; the dead king, still sitting against the cave-side,
looked very blue and cold, and with an uncomfortable realisation of my
position I shook myself together, picked up and pocketed without much
thought the queer gold circlet that had dropped from his forehead,
and went outside to see what prospect of escape the new day had brought.

It was not much.  Upriver there was not the remotest chance.  Not even
a Niagara steamer could have forged back against the sluice coming
down from the gulch there.  Looking round, the sides of the icy
amphitheatre--just lighting up now with glorious gold and crimson
glimmers of morning--were as steep as a wall face; only back towards
the falls was there a possibility of getting out of the dreadful trap,
so thither I went, after a last look at the poor old king, along my
narrow beach with all the eagerness begotten of a final chance.  Up to
the very brink it looked hopeless enough, but, looking downwards when
that was reached, instead of a sheer drop the slope seemed to be a wild
"staircase" of rocks and icy ledges with here and there a little patch
of sand on a cornice, and far below, five hundred feet or so, a good
big spread of gravel an acre or two in extent close by where the river
plunged out of sight into the nethermost cavern mouth.

It was so hopeless up above it, it could not possibly be worse further
down, and there was the ugly black flood running into the hole to trust
myself to as a last resource; so slipping and sliding I began the descent.

Had I been a schoolboy with a good breakfast ahead the incident might
have been amusing enough.  The travelling was mostly done on the seat of
my trousers, which consequently became caked with mud and glacial loam.
Some was accomplished on hands and knees, with now and then a bit down
a snow slope, in good, honest head-over-heels fashion.  The result was
a fine appetite for the next meal when it should please providence to
send it, and an abrupt arrival on the bottom beach about five minutes
after leaving the upper circles.

I came to behind a cluster of breast-high rocks, and before moving
took a look round.  Judge then of my astonishment and delight at the
second glance to perceive about a hundred yards away a brown object,
looking like an ape in the half light, meandering slowly up the margin
of the water towards me.  Every now and then it stopped, stooping down
to pick up something or other from the scum along the torrent, and it
was the fact that these trifles, whatever they were, were put into a
wallet by the vision's side--not into his mouth--which first made me
understand with a joyful thrill that it was a MAN before me--a real,
living man in this huge chamber of dead horrors!  Then again it flashed
across my mind in a luminous moment that where one man could come, or go,
or live, another could do likewise, and never did cat watch mouse with
more concentrated eagerness than I that quaint, bent-shouldered thing
hobbling about in the blue morning shadows where all else was silence.

Nearer and nearer he came, till so close face and garb were discernible,
and then there could no longer be any doubt, it was a woodman, an old man,
with grizzled monkey-face, stooping gait, and a shaggy fur cloak, utterly
unlike the airy garments of my Hither folk, who now stood before me.
It gave me quite a start to recognise him there, for it showed I was in
a new land, and since he was going so cheerfully about his business,
whatever it might chance to be, there must be some way out of this
accursed pit in which I had fallen.  So very cautiously I edged out,
taking advantage of all the cover possible until we were only twenty
yards apart, and then suddenly standing up, and putting on the most
affable smile, I called out--

"Hullo, mess-mate!"

The effect was electrical.  That quaint old fellow sprang a yard into
air as though a spring had shot him up.  Then, coming down, he stood
transfixed at his full height as stiff as a ramrod, staring at me
with incredible wonder.  He looked so funny that in spite of hunger
and loneliness I burst out laughing, whereat the woodman, suddenly
recovering his senses, turned on his heels and set off at his best pace
in the opposite direction.  This would never do!  I wanted him to be my
guide, philosopher, and friend.  He was my sole visible link with the
outside world, so after him I went at tip-top speed, and catching him
up in fifty yards along the shingle laid hold of his nether garments.
Whereat the old fellow stopping suddenly I shot clean over his back,
coming down on my shoulder in the gravel.

But I was much younger than he, and in a minute was in chase again.
This time I laid hold of his cloak, and the moment he felt my grip
he slipped the neck-thongs and left me with only the mangy garment in
my hands.  Again we set off, dodging and scampering with all our might
upon that frozen bit of beach.  The activity of that old fellow was
marvellous, but I could not and would not lose him.  I made a rush and
grappled him, but he tossed his head round and slipped away once more
under my arm, as though he had been brought up by a Chinese wrestler.
Then he got on one side of a flat rock, I the other, and for three or
four minutes we waltzed round that slab in the most insane manner.

But by this time we were both pretty well spent--he with age and I with
faintness from my long fast, and we came presently to a standstill.

After glaring at me for a time, the woodman gasped out as he struggled
for breath--

"Oh, mighty and dreadful spirit!  Oh, dweller in primordial ice, say
from which niche of the cliffs has the breath of chance thawed you?"

"Never a niche at all, Mr. Hunter-for-Haddocks'-Eyes," I  answered as
soon as I could speak.  "I am just a castaway wrecked last night on this
shore of yours, and very grateful indeed will I be if you can show me
the way to some breakfast first, and afterwards to the outside world."

But the old fellow would not believe.  "Spirits such as you," he said
sullenly, "need no food, and go whither they will by wish alone."

"I tell you I am not a spirit, and as hungry as I don't particularly want
to be again.  Here, look at the back of my trousers, caked three inches
deep in mud.  If I were a spirit, do you think I would slide about on my
coat-tails like that?  Do you think that if I could travel by volition
I would slip down these infernal cliffs on my pants' seat as I have just
done? And as for materialism--look at this fist; it punched you just now!
Surely there was nothing spiritual in that knock?''

"No," said the savage, rubbing his head, "it was a good, honest rap,
so I must take you at your word.  If you are indeed man, and hungry,
it will be a charity to feed you; if you are a spirit, it will at least
be interesting to watch you eat; so sit down, and let's see what I have
in my wallet."

So cross-legged we squatted opposite each other on the table rock, and,
feeling like another Sindbad the Sailor, I watched my new friend fumble
in his bag and lay out at his side all sorts of odds and ends of string,
fish-hooks, chewing-gum, material for making a fire, and so on, until
at last he came to a package (done up, I noted with delight, in a broad,
green leaf which had certainly been growing that morning), and unrolling
it, displayed a lump of dried meat, a few biscuits, much thicker and
heavier than the honey-cakes of the Hither folk, and something that
looked and smelt like strong, white cheese.

He signed to me to eat, and you may depend upon it I was not slow in
accepting the invitation.  That tough biltong tasted to me like the
tenderest steak that ever came from a grill; the biscuits were ambrosial;
the cheese melted in my mouth as butter melts in that of the virtuous; but
when the old man finished the quaint picnic by inviting me to accompany
him down to the waterside for a drink, I shook my head.  I had a great
respect for dead queens and kings, I said, but there were too many of
them up above to make me thirsty this morning; my respect did not go to
making me desire to imbibe them in solution!

Afterwards I chanced to ask him what he had been picking up just now along
the margin, and after looking at me suspiciously for a minute he asked--

"You are not a thief?"  On being reassured on that point he continued:
"And you will not attempt to rob me of the harvest for which I venture
into this ghost-haunted glen, which you and I alone of living men
have seen?"

"No."  Whatever they were, I said, I would respect his earnings.

"Very well, then," said the old man, "look here!  I come hither to pick
up those pretty trifles which yonder lords and ladies have done with,"
and plunging his hand into another bag he brought out a perfect fistful
of splendid gems and jewels, some set and some unset.  "They wash from
the hands and wrists of those who have lodgings in the crevices of the
falls above," he explained.  "After a time the beach here will be thick
with them.  Could I get up whence you came down, they might be gathered
by the sackful.  Come!  there is an eddy still unsearched, and I will
show you how they lie."

It was very fascinating, and I and that old man set to work amongst the
gravels, and, to be brief, in half an hour found enough glittering stuff
to set up a Fifth Avenue jeweller's shop.  But to tell the truth, now
that I had breakfasted, and felt manhood in my veins again, I was eager
to be off, and out of the close, death-tainted atmosphere of that valley.
Consequently I presently stood up and said--

"Look here, old man, this is fine sport no doubt, but just at present
I have a big job on hand--one which will not wait, and I must be going.
See, luck and young eyes have favoured me; here is twice as much gold and
stones as you have got together--it is all yours without a question if
you will show me the way out of this den and afterwards put me on the
road to your big city, for thither I am bound with an errand to your
king, Ar-hap."

The sight of my gems, backed, perhaps, with the mention of Ar-hap's name,
appealed to the old fellow; and after a grunt or two about "losing a tide"
just when spoil was so abundant, he accepted the bargain, shouldered
his belongings, and led me towards the far corner of the beach.

It looked as if we were walking right against the towering ice wall,
but when we were within a yard or two of it a narrow cleft, only eighteen
inches wide, and wonderfully masked by an ice column, showed to the left,
and into this we squeezed ourselves, the entrance by which we had come
appearing to close up instantly we had gone a pace or two, so perfectly
did the ice walls match each other.

It was the most uncanny thoroughfare conceivable--a sheer, sharp crack
in the blue ice cliffs extending from where the sunlight shone in a
dazzling golden band five hundred feet overhead to where bottom was
touched in blue obscurity of the ice-foot.  It was so narrow we had to
travel sideways for the most part, a fact which brought my face close
against the clear blue glass walls, and enabled me from time to time to
see, far back in those translucent depths, more and more and evermore
frozen Martians waiting in stony silence for their release.

But the fact of facts was that slowly the floor of the cleft trended
upwards, whilst the sky strip appeared to come downwards to meet it.
A mile, perhaps, we growled and squeezed up that wonderful gully; then
with a feeling of incredible joy I felt the clear, outer air smiting
upon me.

In my hurry and delight I put my head into the small of the back of the
puffing old man who blocked the way in front and forced him forward,
until at last--before we expected it--the cleft suddenly ended, and
he and I tumbled headlong over each other on to a glittering, frozen
snowslope; the sky azure overhead, the sunshine warm as a tepid bath,
and a wide prospect of mountain and plain extending all around.

So delightful was the sudden change of circumstances that I became quite
boyish, and seizing the old man in my exuberance by the hands, dragged
him to his feet, and danced him round and round in a circle, while
his ancient hair flapped about his head, his skin cloak waved from his
shoulders like a pair of dusky wings and half-eaten cakes, dried flesh,
glittering jewels, broken diadems, and golden finger-rings were flung in
an arc about us.  We capered till fairly out of breath, and then, slapping
him on the back shoulder, I asked whose land all this was about us.

He replied that it was no one's, all waste from verge to verge.

"What!" was my exclamation.  "All ownerless, and with so much treasure
hidden hereabout!  Why, I shall annex it to my country, and you and I will
peg out original settlers' claims!"  And, still excited by the mountain
air, I whipped out my sword, and in default of a star-spangled banner
to plant on the newly-acquired territory, traced in gigantic letters on
the snow-crust--U.S.A.

"And now," I added, wiping the rime off my blade with the lappet of my
coat, "let us stop capering about here and get to business.  You have
promised to put me on the way to your big city."

"Come on then," said the little man, gathering up his property.
"This white hillside leads to nowhere; we must get into the valley first,
and then you shall see your road."  And right well that quaint barbarian
kept his promise.




CHAPTER XIII

It was half a day's march from those glittering snow-fields into the
low country, and when that was reached I found myself amongst quite
another people.

The land was no longer fat and flowery, giving every kind of produce
for the asking, but stony for the most part, and, where we first came
on vegetation, overgrown by firs, with a pine which looked to me like
a species which went to make the coal measures in my dear but distant
planet.  More than this I cannot say, for there are no places in the
world like mess-room and quarter-deck for forgetting school learning.
Instead of the glorious wealth of parti-coloured vegetation my eyes had
been accustomed to lately, here they rested on infertile stretches of
marshland intersected by moss-covered gravel shoots, looking as though
they had been pushed into the plains in front of extinct glaciers
coming down from the region behind us.  On the low hills away from the
sea those sombre evergreen forests with an undergrowth of moss and red
lichens were more variegated with light foliage, and indeed the pines
proved to be but a fringe to the Arctic ice, giving way rapidly to more
typical Martian vegetation each mile we marched to the southward.

As for the inhabitants, they seemed, like my guide, rough, uncouth
fellows, but honest enough when you came to know them.  An introduction,
however, was highly desirable.  I chanced upon the first native as he was
gathering reindeer-moss.  My companion was some little way behind at the
moment, and when the gentle aborigine saw the stranger he stared hard
for a moment, then, turning on his heels, with extraordinary swiftness
flung at me half a pound of hard flint stone.  Had his aim been a little
more careful this humble narrative had never appeared on the Broadway
bookstalls.  As it was, the pebble, missing my head by an inch or two,
splintered into a hundred fragments on a rock behind, and while I was
debating whether a revengeful rush at the slinger or a strategic advance
to the rear were more advisable, my guide called out to his countryman--

"Ho! you base prowler in the morasses; you eater of unclean vegetation,
do you not see this is a ghost I am conducting, a dweller in the ice
cliffs, a spirit ten thousand years old? Put by your sling lest he wither
you with a glance."  And, very reasonably, surprised, the aborigine did
as he was bid and cautiously advanced to inspect me.

The news soon spread over the countryside that my jewel-hunter was
bringing a live "spook" along with him, considerable curiosity mixed with
an awe all to my advantage characterising the people we met thereafter.
Yet the wonder was not so great as might have been expected, for these
people were accustomed to meeting the tags of lost races, and though
they stared hard, their interest was chiefly in hearing how, when, and
where I had been found, whether I bit or kicked, or had any other vices,
and if I possessed any commercial value.

My guide's throat must have ached with the repetition of the narrative,
but as he made the story redound greatly to his own glory, he put
up cheerfully with the hoarseness.  In this way, walking and talking
alternately, we travelled during daylight through a country which slowly
lost its rugged features and became more and more inhabited, the hardy
people living in scattered villages in contradiction to the debased
city-loving Hither folk.

About nightfall we came to a sea-fishers' hamlet, where, after the
old man had explained my exalted nature and venerable antiquity, I was
offered shelter for the night.

My host was the headman, and I must say his bearing towards the
supernatural was most unaffected.  If it had been an Avenue hotel I could
not have found more handsome treatment than in that reed-thatched hut.
They made me wash and rest, and then were all agog for my history; but
that I postponed, contenting myself with telling them I had been lately in
Seth, and had come thence to see them via the ice valley--to all of which
they listened with the simplicity of children.  Afterwards I turned on
them, and openly marvelled that so small a geographical distance as there
was between that land and this could make so vast a human difference.
"The truth, O dweller in blue shadows of primordial ice, is," said the
most intelligent of the Thither folk as we sat over fried deer-steak
in his hut that evening, "we who are MEN, not Peri-zad, not overstayed
fairies like those you have been amongst, are newcomers here on this
shore.  We came but a few generations ago from where the gold curtains
of the sun lie behind the westward pine-trees, and as we came we drove,
year by year, those fays, those spent triflers, back before us.  All this
land was theirs once, and more and more towards our old home.  You may
still see traces of harbours dug and cities built thousands of years
ago, when the Hither folk were living men and women--not their shadows.
The big water outside stops us for a space, but," he added, laughing
gruffly and taking a draught of a strong beer he had been heating by the
fire, "King Ar-hap has their pretty noses between his fingers; he takes
tribute and girls while he gets ready--they say he is nearly ready this
summer, and if he is, it will not be much of an excuse he will need to
lick up the last of those triflers, those pretences of manhood."

Then we fell to talking of Ar-hap, his subjects and town, and I learned
the tides had swept me a long way to the northward of the proper route
between the capitals of the two races, that day they carried me into the
Dead-Men's Ice, as these entertainers of mine called the northern snows.
To get back to the place previously aimed at, where the woodmen road came
out on the seashore, it was necessary to go either by boat, a roundabout
way through a maze of channels, "as tangled as the grass roots in autumn";
or, secondly, by a couple of days' marching due southward across the
base of the great peninsula we were on, and so strike blue water again
at the long-sought-for harbour.

As I lay dozing and dreaming on a pile of strange furs in the corner of
the hut that evening I made up my mind for the land journey tomorrow,
having had enough for the moment of nautical Martian adventures; and this
point settled, fell again to wondering what made me follow so reckless
a quest in the way I was doing; asking myself again and again what was
gazelle-eyed Heru to me after all, and why should it matter even as
much as the value of a brass waist-coat button whether Hath had her
or Ar-hap? What a fool I was to risk myself day by day in quaint and
dangerous adventures, wearing out good Government shoe-leather in other
men's quarrels, all for a silly slip of royal girlhood who, by this time,
was probably making herself comfortable and forgetting both Hath and me
in the arms of her rough new lord.

And from Heru my mind drifted back dreamily to poor An, and Seth, the
city of fallen magnificence, where the spent masters of a strange planet
now lived on sufferance--the ghosts of their former selves.  Where was
An, where the revellers on the morning--so long ago it seemed!--when
first that infernal rug of mine translated a chance wish into a horrible
reality and shot me down here, a stranger and an outcast? Where was the
magic rug itself? Where my steak and tomato supper? Who had eaten it? Who
was drawing my pay? If I could but find the rug when I got back to Seth,
gods! but I would try if it would not return whence I had come, and as
swiftly, out of all these silly coils and adventuring.

So musing, presently the firelight died down, and bulky forms of
hide-wrapped woodmen sleeping on the floor slowly disappeared in obscurity
like ranges of mountains disappearing in the darkness of night.  All those
uncouth forms, and the throb of the sea outside, presently faded upon my
senses, and I slept the heavy sleep of one whose wakefulness gives way
before an imperious physical demand.  All through the long hours of the
night, while the waves outside champed upon the gravels, and the woodmen
snored and grunted uneasily as they simultaneously dreamt of the day's
hunting and digested its proceeds, I slept; and then when dawn began to
break I passed from that heavy stupor into another and lighter realm,
wherein fancy again rose superior to bodily fatigue, and events of the
last few days passed in procession through my mind.

I dreamt I was lunching at a fashionable seaside resort with Polly
at my side, and An kept bringing us melons, which grew so monstrous
every time a knife was put into them that poor Polly screamed aloud.
I dreamt I was afloat on a raft, hotly pursued by my tailor, whose bare
and shiny head--may Providence be good to him!--was garlanded with roses,
while in his fist was a bunch of unpaid bills, the which he waved aloft,
shouting to me to stop.  And thus we danced down an ink-black river until
he had chiveyed me into the vast hall of the Admiralty, where a fearsome
Secretary, whose golden teeth rattled and dropped from his head with
mingled cold and anger, towered above me as he asked why I was absent
from my ship without leave.  And I was just mumbling out excuses while
stooping to pick up his golden dentistry, when some one stirring in the
hut aroused me.  I started up on my elbow and looked around.  Where was
I? For a minute all was confused and dark.  The heavy mound-like forms of
sleeping men, the dim outlines of their hunting gear upon the walls, the
pale sea beyond, half seen through the open doorway, just turning livid
in the morning light; and then as my eyes grew more accustomed to the
obscurity, and my stupid senses returned, I recognised the surroundings,
and, with a sigh, remembered yesterday's adventures.

However, it would never do to mope; so, rising silently and picking
a way through human lumber on the floor, I went out and down to the
water's edge, where "shore-going" clothes, as we sailors call them,
were slipped off, and I plunged into the sea for a swim.

It was a welcome dip, for I needed the plunge physically and
intellectually, but it came to an abrupt conclusion.  The Thither folk
apparently had never heard of this form of enjoyment; to them water stood
for drinking or drowning, nothing else, and since one could not drink the
sea, to be in it meant, even for a ghost, to drown.  Consequently, when
the word went round the just rousing villages that "He-on-foot-from-afar"
was adrift in the waves, rescue parties were hurriedly organised, a boat
launched, and, in spite of all my kicking and shouting (which they took
to be evidence of my semi-moribund condition), I was speedily hauled out
by hairy and powerful hands, pungent herbs burnt under my nose, and my
heels held high in the air in order that the water might run out of me.
It was only with the greatest difficulty those rough but honest fellows
were eventually got to believe me saved.

The breakfast I made of grilled deer flesh and a fish not unlike salmon,
however, convinced them of my recovery, and afterward we parted very
good friends; for there was something in the nature of those rugged
barbarians just coming into the dawn of civilisation that won my liking
far more than the effete gentleness of others across the water.

When the time of parting came they showed no curiosity as to my errand,
but just gave me some food in a fish-skin bag, thrust a heavy stone-headed
axe into my hand, "in case I had to talk to a thief on the road," and
pointed out on the southern horizon a forked mountain, under which,
they said, was the harbour and high-road to King Ar-hap's capital.
Then they hugged me to their hairy chests in turn, and let me go with
a traveller's blessing.

There I was again, all alone, none but my thoughts for companions, and
nothing but youth to excuse the folly in thus venturing on a reckless
quest!

However, who can gainsay that same youth? The very spice of danger made my
steps light and the way pleasant.  For a mile or two the track was plain
enough, through an undulating country gradually becoming more and more
wooded with vegetation, changing rapidly from Alpine to sub-tropical.
The air also grew warmer, and when the dividing ridge was crossed and
a thick forest entered, the snows and dreadful region of Deadmen's Ice
already seemed leagues and leagues away.

Probably a warm ocean current played on one side of the peninsula, while
a cold one swept the other, but for scientific aspects of the question I
cared little in my joy at being anew in a soft climate, amongst beautiful
flowers and vivid life again.  Mile after mile slipped quickly by as
I strode along, whistling "Yankee Doodle" to myself and revelling in
the change.  At one place I met a rough-looking Martian woodcutter,
who wanted to fight until he found I also wanted to, when he turned
very civil and as talkative as a solitary liver often is when his tongue
gets started.  He particularly desired to know where I came from, and,
as in the case with so many other of his countrymen, took it for granted,
and with very little surprise, that I was either a spirit or an inhabitant
of another world.  With this idea in his mind he gave me a curious piece
of information, which, unfortunately, I was never able to follow up.

"I don't think you can be a spirit," he said, critically eyeing my
clothes, which were now getting ragged and dirty beyond description.
"They are finer-looking things than you, and I doubt if their toes come
through their shoes like yours do.  If you are a wanderer from the stars,
you are not like that other one we have down yonder," and he pointed to
the southward.

"What!" I asked, pricking my ears in amazement, "another wanderer from
the outside world!  Does he come from the earth?"--using the word An
had given me to signify my own planet.

"No, not from there; from the one that burns blue in evening between sun
and sea.  Men say he worked as a stoker or something of the kind when
he was at home, and got trifling with a volcano tap, and was lapped in
hot mud, and blown out here.  My brother saw him about a week ago."

"Now what you say is down right curious.  I thought I had a monopoly of
that kind of business in this sphere of yours.  I should be tremendously
interested to see him."

"No you wouldn't," briefly answered the woodman.  "He is the stupidest
fool ever blown from one world to another--more stupid to look at than
you are.  He is a gaseous, wavey thing, so glum you can't get two words
a week out of him, and so unstable that you never know when you are with
him and when the breeze has drifted him somewhere else."

I could but laugh and insist, with all respect to the woodcutter, such
an individual were worth the knowing however unstable his constitution;
at which the man shrugged his shoulders and changed the conversation,
as though the subject were too trivial to be worth much consideration.

This individual gave me the pleasure of his company until nearly sundown,
and finding I took an interest in things of the forest, pointed out more
curious plants and trees than I have space to mention.  Two of them,
however, cling to my memory very tenaciously.  One was a very Circe
amongst plants, the horrible charm of which can never be forgotten.
We were going down a glade when a most ravishing odour fell upon my
nostrils.  It was heavenly sweet yet withal there lurked an incredibly,
unexpressibly tempting spice of wickedness in it.  The moment he caught
that ambrosial invitation in the air my woodman spit fiercely on the
ground, and taking a plug of wool from his pouch stuffed his nostrils up.
Then he beckoned me to come away.  But the odour was too ravishing, I was
bound to see whence it arose, and finding me deaf to all warnings, the
man reluctantly turned aside down the enticing trail.  We pushed about
a hundred yards through bushes until we came to a little arena full in
sunshine where there were neither birds nor butterflies, but a death-like
hush upon everything.  Indeed, the place seemed shunned in spite of
the sodden loveliness of that scent which monopolised and mounted to my
brain until I was beginning to be drunk with the sheer pleasure of it.
And there in the centre of the space stood a plant not unlike a tree
fern, about six feet high, and crowned by one huge and lovely blossom.
It resembled a vast passion-flower of incredible splendour.  There were
four petals, with points resting on the ground, each six feet long,
ivory-white inside, exquisitely patterned with glittering silver veins.
From the base of these rose upright a gauzy veil of azure filaments of
the same length as the petals, wirelike, yet soft as silk, and inside
them again rested a chalice of silver holding a tiny pool of limpid
golden honey.  Circe, indeed!  It was from that cup the scent arose,
and my throat grew dry with longing as I looked at it; my eyes strained
through the blue tendrils towards that liquid nectar, and my giddy senses
felt they must drink or die!  I glanced at the woodman with a smile
of drunken happiness, then turned tottering legs towards the blossom.
A stride up the smooth causeway of white petals, a push through the azure
haze, and the wine of the wood enchantress would be mine--molten amber
wine, hotter and more golden than the sunshine; the fire of it was in my
veins, the recklessness of intoxication was on me, life itself as nothing
compared to a sip from that chalice, my lips must taste or my soul would
die, and with trembling hand and strained face I began to climb.

But the woodman pulled me back.

"Back, stranger!" he cried.  "Those who drink there never live again."

"Blessed oblivion!  If I had a thousand lives the price were still too
cheap," and once more I essayed to scramble up.

But the man was a big fellow, and with nostrils plugged, and eyes averted
from the deadly glamour, he seized me by the collar and threw me back.
Three times I tried, three times he hurled me down, far too faint and
absorbed to heed the personal violence.  Then standing between us,
"Look," he said, "look and learn."

He had killed a small ape that morning, meaning later on to take its fur
for clothing, and this he now unslung from his shoulder, and hitching
the handle of his axe into the loose skin at the back of its neck,
cautiously advanced to the witch plant, and gently hoisted the monkey
over the blue palings.  The moment its limp, dead feet touched the golden
pool a shudder passed through the plant, and a bird somewhere far back
in the forest cried out in horror.  Quick as thought, a spasm of life
shot up the tendrils, and like tongues of blue flame they closed round
the victim, lapping his miserable body in their embrace.  At the same
time the petals began to rise, showing as they did so hard, leathery,
unlovely outer rinds, and by the time the woodman was back at my side
the flower was closed.

Closer and closer wound the blue tendrils; tighter and tighter closed
the cruel petals with their iron grip, until at last we heard the ape's
bones crackling like dry firewood; then next his head burst, his brains
came oozing through the crevices, while blood and entrails followed
them through every cranny, and the horrible mess with the overflow of
the chalice curled down the stem in a hundred steaming rills, till at
last the petals locked with an ugly snap upon their ghastly meal, and
I turned away from the sight in dread and loathing.

That was plant Number One.

Plant Number Two was of milder disposition, and won a hearty laugh for my
friendly woodman.  In fact, being of a childlike nature, his success as
a professor of botany quite pleased him, and not content with answering
my questions, he set to work to find new vegetable surprises, greatly
enjoying my wonder and the sense of importance it gave him.

In this way we came, later on in the day, to a spot where herbage was
somewhat scantier, the grass coarse, and soil shallow.  Here I espied a
tree of small size, apparently withered, but still bearing a few parched
leaves on its uppermost twigs.

"Now that," quoth the professor, "is a highly curious tree, and I should
like you to make a close acquaintance with it.  It grows from a seed
in the course of a single springtime, perishes in the summer; but a
few specimens stand throughout the winter, provided the situation is
sheltered, as this one has done.  If you will kindly go down and shake
its stem I believe you will learn something interesting."

So, very willing to humour him, away I went to the tree, which was
perfect in every detail, but apparently very dry, clasped it with both
hands, and, pulling myself together, gave it a mighty shake.  The result
was instantaneous.  The whole thing was nothing but a skin of dust,
whence all fibre and sap had gone, and at my touch it dissolved into
a cloud of powder, a huge puff of white dust which descended on me as
though a couple of flour-bags had been inverted over my head; and as
I staggered out sneezing and blinking, white as a miller from face to
foot, the Martian burst into a wild, joyous peal of laughter that made
the woods ring again.  His merriment was so sincere I had not the heart
to be angry, and soon laughed as loud as he did; though, for the future,
I took his botanical essays with a little more caution.




CHAPTER XIV

That woodman friend of mine proved so engaging it was difficult to get
away, and thus when, dusk upon us, and my object still a long distance
off, he asked me to spend the night at his hut, I gladly assented.

We soon reached the cabin where the man lived by himself whilst working in
the forest.  It was a picturesque little place on a tree-overhung lagoon,
thatched, wattled, and all about were piles of a pleasant-scented bark,
collected for the purpose of tanning hides, and I could not but marvel
that such a familiar process should be practised identically on two sides
of the universal ether.  But as a matter of fact the similarity of many
details of existence here and there was the most striking of the things
I learned whilst in the red planet.

Within the hut stood a hearth in the centre of the floor, whereon
a comfortable blaze soon sparkled, and upon the walls hung various
implements, hides, and a store of dried fruits of various novel kinds.
My host, when he had somewhat disdainfully watched me wash in a rill of
water close by, suggested supper, and I agreed with heartiest good will.

"Nothing wonderful!  Oh, Mr. Blue-coat!" he said, prancing about as
he made his hospitable arrangements.  "No fine meat or scented wine to
unlock, one by one, all the doors of paradise, such as I have heard they
have in lands beyond the sea; but fare good enough for plain men who
eat but to live.  So! reach me down yonder bunch of yellow aru fruit,
and don't upset that calabash, for all my funniest stories lurk at the
bottom of it."

I did as he bid, and soon we were squatting by the fire toasting arus on
pointed sticks, the doorway closed with a wattle hurdle, and the black
and gold firelight filling the hut with fantastic shadows.  Then when
the banana-like fruit was ready, the man fetched from a recess a loaf
of bread savoured with the dust of dried and pounded fish, put the
foresaid calabash of strong ale to warm, and down we sat to supper with
real woodman appetites.  Seldom have I enjoyed a meal so much, and when
we had finished the fruit and the wheat cake my guide snatched up the
great gourd of ale, and putting it to his lips called out:

"Here's to you, stranger; here's to your country; here's to your girl,
if you have one, and death to your enemies!"  Then he drank deep and long,
and, passed the stuff to me.

"Here's to you, bully host, and the missus, and the children, if there
are any, and more power to your elbow!"--the which gratified him greatly,
though probably he had small idea of my meaning.

And right merry we were that evening.  The host was a jolly good fellow,
and his ale, with a pleasant savour of mint in it, was the heartiest drink
I ever set lips to.  We talked and laughed till the very jackals yapped in
sympathy outside.  And when he had told a score of wonderful wood stories
as pungent of the life of these fairy forests as the aromatic scent of
his bark-heaps outside, as iridescent with the colours of another world
as the rainbow bubbles riding down his starlit rill, I took a turn,
and told him of the commonplaces of my world so far away, whereat he
laughed gloriously again.  The greater the commonplace the larger his joy.
The humblest story, hardly calculated to impress a griffin between watches
on the main-deck, was a masterpiece of wit to that gentle savage; and
when I "took off" the tricks and foibles of some of my superiors--Heaven
forgive me for such treason!--he listened with the exquisite open-mouthed
delight of one who wanders in a brand-new world of mirth.

We drank and laughed over that strong beer till the little owls outside
raised their voice in combined accord, and then the woodman, shaking the
last remnant of his sleepy wits together, and giving a reproachful look
at me for finally passing him the gourd empty to the last drop, rose,
threw a fur on a pile of dead grass at one side of the hut, and bid me
sleep, "for his brain was giddy with the wonders of the incredible and
ludicrous sphere which I had lately inhabited."

Slowly the fire died away; slowly the quivering gold and black arabesques
on the walls merged in a red haze as the sticks dropped into tinder,
and the great black outline of the hairy monster who had thrown himself
down by the embers rose up the walls against that flush like the outline
of a range of hills against a sunset glow.  I listened drowsily for
a space to his snoring and the laughing answer of the brook outside,
and then that ambrosial sleep which is the gentle attendant of hardship
and danger touched my tired eyelids, and I, too, slept.

My friend was glum the next morning, as they who stay over-long at
the supper flagon are apt to be.  He had been at work an hour on his
bark-heaps when I came out into the open, and it was only by a good deal
of diplomacy and some material help in sorting his faggots that he was
got into a better frame of mind.  I could not, however, trust his mood
completely, and as I did not want to end so jovial a friendship with a
quarrel, I hurried through our breakfast of dry bread, with hard-boiled
lizard eggs, and then settling my reckoning with one of the brass buttons
from my coat, which he immediately threaded, with every evidence of
extreme gratification, on a string of trinkets hanging round his neck,
asked him the way to Ar-hap's capital.

"Your way is easy, friend, as long as you keep to the straight path
and have yonder two-humped mountain in front.  To the left is the sea,
and behind the hill runs the canal and road by which all traffic comes or
goes to Ar-hap.  But above all things pass not to the hills right, for no
man goes there; there away the forests are thick as night, and in their
perpetual shadows are the ruins of a Hither city, a haunted fairy town
to which some travellers have been, but whence none ever returned alive."

"By the great Jove, that sounds promising!  I would like to see that
town if my errand were not so urgent."

But the old fellow shook his shaggy head and turned a shade yellower.
"It is no place for decent folk," he growled.  "I myself once passed
within a mile of its outskirts at dusk, and saw the unholy little
people's lanterned processions starting for the shrine of Queen Yang,
who, tradition says, killed herself and a thousand babies with her when
we took this land."

"My word, that was a holocaust!  Couldn't I drop in there to lunch? It
would make a fine paper for an antiquarian society."

Again the woodman frowned.  "Do as I bid you, son.  You are too young
and green to go on ventures by yourself.  Keep to the straight road:
shun the swamps and the fairy forest, else will you never see Ar-hap."

"And as I have very urgent and very important business with him,
comrade, no doubt your advice is good.  I will call on Princess Yang some
other day.  And now goodbye!  Rougher but friendlier shelter than you
have given me no man could ask for.  I am downright sorry to part with
you in this lonely land.  If ever we meet again--" but we never did!
The honest old churl clasped me into his hairy bosom three times,
stuffed my wallet with dry fruit and bread, and once more repeating his
directions, sent me on my lonely way.

I confess I sighed while turning into the forest, and looked back
more than once at his retreating form.  The loneliness of my position,
the hopelessness of my venture, welled up in my heart after that good
comradeship, and when the hut was out of sight I went forward down the
green grass road, chin on chest, for twenty minutes in the deepest
dejection.  But, thank Heaven, I was born with a tough spirit, and
possess a mind which has learned in many fights to give brave counsel
to my spirit, and thus presently I shook myself together, setting my
face boldly to the quest and the day's work.

It was not so clear a morning as the previous one, and a steamy wind on
what at sea I should have called the starboard bow, as I pressed forward
to the distant hill, had a curiously subduing effect on my thoughts,
and filled the forest glades with a tremulous unreality like to nothing
on our earth, and distinctly embarrassing to a stranger in a strange
land.  Small birds in that quaint atmospheric haze looked like condors,
butterflies like giant fowl, and the simplest objects of the forest like
the imaginations of a disordered dream.  Behind that gauzy hallucination
a fine white mist came up, and the sun spread out flat and red in the sky,
while the pent-in heat became almost unendurable.

Still I plodded on, growling to myself that in Christian latitudes all
the evidences would have been held to betoken a storm before night,
whatever they might do here, but for the most part lost in my own gloomy
speculations.  That was the more pity since, in thinking the walk over
now, it seems to me that I passed many marvels, saw many glorious vistas
in those nameless forests, many spreads of colour, many incidents that,
could I but remember them more distinctly, would supply material for
making my fortune as a descriptive traveller.  But what would you? I
have forgotten, and am too virtuous to draw on my imagination, as it
is sometimes said other travellers have done when picturesque facts
were deficient.  Yes, I have forgotten all about that day, save that
it was sultry hot, that I took off my coat and waistcoat to be cooler,
carrying them, like the tramp I was, across my arm, and thus dishevelled
passed some time in the afternoon an encampment of forest folk, wherefrom
almost all the men were gone, and the women shy and surly.

In no very social humour myself, I walked round their woodland village,
and on the outskirts, by a brook, just as I was wishing there were some
one to eat my solitary lunch with, chanced upon a fellow busily engaged
in hammering stones into weapons upon a flint anvil.

He was an ugly-looking individual at best, yet I was hard up for company,
so I put my coat down, and, seating myself on a log opposite, proceeded
to open my wallet, and take out the frugal stores the woodman had given
me that morning.

The man was seated upon the ground holding a stone anvil between his feet,
while with his hands he turned and chipped with great skill a spear-head
he was making out of flint.  It was about the only pastime he had, and his
little yellow eyes gleamed with a craftsman's pleasure, his shaggy round
shoulders were bent over the task, the chips flew in quick particles,
and the wood echoed musically as the artificer watched the thing under
his hands take form and fashion.  Presently I spoke, and the worker
looked up, not too pleased at being thus interrupted.  But he was easy
of propitiation, and over a handful of dried raisins communicative.

How, I asked, knowing a craftsman's craft is often nearest to his heart,
how was it such things as that he chipped came to be thought of by him
and his? Whereon the woodman, having spit out the raisin-stones and
wiped his fingers on his fur, said in substance that the first weapon
was fashioned when the earliest ape hurled the first stone in wrath.

"But, chum," I said, taking up his half-finished spear and touching the
razor-fine edge with admiring caution, "from hurling the crude pebble to
fashioning such as this is a long stride.  Who first edged and pointed
the primitive malice? What man with the soul of a thousand unborn fighters
in him notched and sharpened your natural rock?"

Whereon the chipper grinned, and answered that, when the woodmen had
found stones that would crack skulls, it came upon them presently that
they would crack nuts as well.  And cracking nuts between two stones one
day a flint shattered, and there on the grass was the golden secret of
the edge--the thing that has made man what he is.

"Yet again, good fellow," I queried, "even this happy chance only gives
us a weapon, sharp, no doubt, and calculated to do a hundred services
for any ten the original pebble could have done, but still unhandled,
small in force, imperfect--now tell me, which of your amiable ancestors
first put a handle to the fashioned flint, and how he thought of it?"

The workman had done his flake by now, and wrapping it in a bit of skin,
put it carefully in his belt before turning to answer my question.

"Who made the first handle for the first flint, you of the many
questions? She did--she, the Mother," he suddenly cried, patting the
earth with his brown hand, and working himself up as he spoke, "made
it in her heart for us her first-born.  See, here is such as the first
handled weapon that ever came out of darkness," and he snatched from the
ground, where it had lain hidden under his fox-skin cloak, a heavy club.
I saw in an instant how it was.  The club had been a sapling, and the
sapling's roots had grown about and circled with a splendid grip a lump
of native flint.  A woodman had pulled the sapling, found the flint,
and fashioned the two in a moment of happy inspiration, the one to an
axe-head and the other to a handle, as they lay Nature-welded!

"This, I say, is the first--the first!" screamed the old fellow as
though I were contradicting him, thumping the ground with his weapon,
and working himself up to a fury as its black magic entered his being.
"This is the first: with this I slew Hetter and Gur, and those who
plundered my hiding-places in the woods; with this I have killed a score
of others, bursting their heads, and cracking their bones like dry sticks.
With this--with this--" but here his rage rendered him inarticulate;
he stammered and stuttered for a minute, and then as the killing fury
settled on him his yellow teeth shut with a sudden snap, while through
them his breath rattled like wind through dead pine branches in December,
the sinews sat up on his hands as his fingers tightened upon the axe-heft
like the roots of the same pines from the ground when winter rain has
washed the soil from beneath them; his small eyes gleamed like baleful
planets; every hair upon his shaggy back grew stiff and erect--another
minute and my span were ended.

With a leap from where I sat I flew at that hairy beast, and sinking my
fists deep in his throttle, shook him till his eyes blazed with delirious
fires.  We waltzed across the short greensward, and in and about the
tree-trunks, shaking, pulling, and hitting as we went, till at last I felt
the man's vigour dying within him; a little more shaking, a sudden twist,
and he was lying on the ground before me, senseless and civil!  That is
the worst of some orators, I thought to myself, as I gloomily gathered
up the scattered fragments of my lunch; they never know when they have
said enough, and are too apt to be carried away by their own arguments.

That inhospitable village was left behind in full belief the mountain
looming in the south could be reached before nightfall, while the road
to its left would serve as a sure guide to food and shelter for the
evening.  But, as it turned out, the morning's haze developed a strong
mist ere the afternoon was half gone, through which it was impossible to
see more than twenty yards.  My hill loomed gigantic for a time with a
tantalising appearance of being only a mile or two ahead, then wavered,
became visionary, and finally disappeared as completely as though the
forest mist had drunk it up bodily.

There was still the road to guide me, a fairly well-beaten track twining
through the glades; but even the best of highways are difficult in fog,
and this one was complicated by various side paths, made probably by
hunters or bark-cutters, and without compass or guide marks it was
necessary to advance with extreme caution, or get helplessly mazed.

An hour's steady tramping brought me nowhere in particular, and
stopping for a minute to consider, I picked a few wild fruit, such
as my wood-cutter friend had eaten, from an overhanging bush, and
in so doing slipped, the soil having now become damp, and in falling
broke a branch off.  The incident was only important from what follows.
Picking myself up, perhaps a little shaken by the jolt, I set off again
upon what seemed the plain road, and being by this time displeased by
my surroundings, determined to make a push for "civilization" before
the rapidly gathering darkness settled down.

Hands in pockets and collar up, I marched forward at a good round pace
for an hour, constantly straining eyes for a sight of the hill and ears
for some indications of living beings in the deathly hush of the shrouded
woods, and at the end of that time, feeling sure habitations must now be
near, arrived at what looked like a little open space, somehow seeming
rather familiar in its vague outlines.

Where had I seen such a place before? Sauntering round the margin,
a bush with a broken branch suddenly attracted my attention--a broken
bush with a long slide in the mud below it, and the stamp of Navy boots
in the soft turf!  I glared at those signs for a moment, then with an
exclamation of chagrin recognised them only too well--it was the bush
whence I had picked the fruit, and the mark of my fall.  An hour's hard
walking round some accursed woodland track had brought me exactly back
to the point I had started from--I was lost!

It really seemed to get twenty per cent darker as I made that abominable
discovery, and the position dawned in all its uncomfortable intensity.
There was nothing for it but to start off again, this time judging
my direction only by a light breath of air drifting the mist tangles
before it; and therein I made a great mistake, for the breeze had shifted
several points from the quarter whence it blew in the morning.

Knowing nothing of this, I went forward with as much lightheartedness
as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully putting
aside thoughts of warmth and supper, while the dusk increased and the
great forest vegetation seemed to grow ranker and closer at every step

Another disconcerting thing was that the ground sloped gradually
downwards, not upwards as it should have done, till it seemed the path
lay across the flats of a forest-covered plain, which did not conform to
my wish of striking a road on the foot-hills of the mountain.  However,
I plodded on, drawing some small comfort from the fact that as darkness
came the mist rose from the ground and appeared to condense in a ghostly
curtain twenty feet overhead, where it hung between me and a clear night
sky, presently illumined by starlight with the strangest effect.

Tired, footsore, and dejected, I struggled on a little further.  Oh for
a cab, I laughed bitterly to myself.  Oh for even the humble necessary
omnibus of civilisation.  Oh for the humblest tuck-shop where a mug of
hot coffee and a snack could be had by a homeless wanderer; and as I
thought and plodded savagely on, collar up, hands in pockets, through
the black tangles of that endless wood, suddenly the sound of wailing
children caught my ear!

It was the softest, saddest music ever mortal listened to.  It was as
though scores of babes in pain were dropping to sleep on their mothers'
breasts, and all hushing their sorrows with one accord in a common
melancholy chorus.  I stood spell-bound at that elfin wailing, the first
sound to break the deathly stillness of the road for an hour or more, and
my blood tingled as I listened to it.  Nevertheless, here was what I was
looking for; where there were weeping children there must be habitations,
and shelter, and--splendid thought!--supper.  Poor little babes! their
crying was the deadliest, sweetest thing in sorrows I ever listened to.
If it was cholic--why, I knew a little of medicine, and in gratitude for
that prospective supper, I had a soul big enough to cure a thousand; and
if they were in disgrace, and by some quaint Martian fashion had suffered
simultaneous punishment for baby offences, I would plead for them.

In fact, I fairly set off at the run towards the sobbing, in the black,
wet, night air ahead, and, tripping as I ran, looked down and saw in
the filtering starlight that the forest grass had given place to an
ancient roadway, paved with moss-grown flag-stones, such as they still
used in Seth.

Without stopping to think what that might mean I hurried on, the wailing
now right ahead, a tremulous tumult of gentle grief rising and falling on
the night air like the sound of a sea after a storm; and so, presently,
in a minute or two, came upon a ruined archway spanning the lonely road,
held together by great masses of black-fingered creepers, gaunt and
ghostly in the shadows, an extraordinary and unexpected vision; and
as I stopped with a jerk under that forbidding gateway and glared at
its tumbled masonry and great portals hanging rotten at their hinges,
suddenly the truth flashed upon me.  I had taken the forbidden road
after all.  I was in the ancient, ghost-haunted city of Queen Yang!




CHAPTER XV

The dark forest seemed to shut behind as I entered the gateway of the
deserted Hither town, against which my wood-cutter friend had warned me,
while inside the soft mist hung in the starlight like grey drapery over
endless vistas of ruins.  What was I to do? Without all was black and
cheerless, inside there was at least shelter.  Wet and cold, my courage
was not to be put down by the stories of a silly savage; I would go on
whatever happened.  Besides, the soft sound of crying, now apparently all
about, seemed companionable, and I had heard so much of ghosts of late,
the sharp edge of fear at their presence was wearing off.

So in I went: up a broad, decayed street, its flagstones heaved everywhere
by the roots of gnarled trees, and finding nothing save ruin, tried to
rest under a wall.  But the night air was chilly and the shelter poor,
so out I came again, with the wailing in the shadows so close about now
that I stopped, and mustering up courage called aloud:

"Hullo, you who weep there in the dark, are you living or dead?"
And after a minute from the hollows of the empty hearths around came
the sad little responsive echo:

"Are you living or dead?"  It was very delusive and unsatisfactory,
and I was wondering what to do next when a slant of warmer wind came up
behind me under the mist, and immediately little tongues of blue flame
blossomed without visible cause in every darksome crevice; pale flickers
of miasmic light rising pallid from every lurking nook and corner in the
black desolation as though a thousand lamps were lit by unseen fingers,
and, knee high, floated out into the thoroughfare where they oscillated
gently in airy grace, and then, forming into procession, began drifting
before the tepid air towards the city centre.  At once I thought of what
the woodcutter had seen, but was too wet and sulky by this time to care.
The fascination of the place was on me, and dropping into rear of the
march, I went forward with it.  By this time the wailing had stopped,
though now and then it seemed a dark form moved in the empty doorways
on either hand, while the mist, parting into gossamers before the wind,
took marvellously human forms in every alley and lane we passed.

Thus I, a sodden giant, led by those elfin torches, paced through the
city until we came to an open square with a great lumber of ruins in the
centre all marred and spoiled by vegetation; and here the lights wavered,
and went out by scores and hundreds, just as the petals drop from spent
flowers, while it seemed, though it may have been only wind in the rank
grass, that the air was full of most plaintive sighs as each little lamp
slipped into oblivion.

The big pile was a mass of fallen masonry, which, from the broken pillars
all about, might have been a palace or temple once.  I pushed in, but it
was as dark as Hades here, so, after struggling for a time in a labyrinth
of chambers, chose a sandy recess, with some dry herbage by way of
bedding in a corner, and there, thankful at least for shelter, my night's
wanderings came to an end and I coiled myself down, ate a last handful
of dry fruit, and, strange as it may seem, was soon sleeping peacefully.

I dreamed that night that a woman, with a face as white as ivory, came
and bent over me.  She led a babe by either hand, while behind her were
scores of other ones, with lovely faces, but all as pale as the stars
themselves, who looked and sighed, but said nothing, and when they had
stared their fill, dropped out one by one, leaving a wonderful blank in
the monotony where they had been; but beyond that dream nothing happened.

It was a fine morning when I woke again, and obviously broad day outside,
the sunshine coming down through cracks in the old palace roof, and
lying in golden pools on the floor with dazzling effect.

Rubbing my eyes and sitting up, it took me some time to get my senses
together, and at first an uneasy feeling possessed me that I was
somehow dematerialised and in an unreal world.  But a twinge of cramp
in my left arm, and a healthy sneeze, which frightened a score of bats
overhead nearly out of their senses, was reassuring on this point,
and rubbing away the cramp and staggering to my feet, I looked about
at the strange surroundings.  It was cavernous chaos on every side:
magnificent architecture reduced to the confusion of a debris-heap, only
the hollow chambers being here and there preserved by massive columns
meeting overhead.  Into these the yellow light filtered wherever a rent in
a cupola or side-wall admitted it, and allured by the vision of corridors
one beyond the other, I presently set off on a tour of discovery.

Twenty minutes' scrambling brought me to a place where the fallen
jambs of a fine doorway lay so close together that there was barely
room to pass between them.  However, seeing light beyond, I squeezed
through, and I found myself in the best-preserved chamber of all--a
wide, roomy hall with a domed roof, a haze of mural paintings on the
walls, and a marble floor nearly hidden in a century of fallen dust.
I stumbled over something at the threshold, and picking it up, found it
was a baby's skull!  And there were more of them now that my eyes became
accustomed to the light.  The whole floor was mottled with them--scores
and hundreds of bones and those poor little relics of humanity jutting
out of the sand everywhere.  In the hush of that great dead nursery the
little white trophies seemed inexpressibly pathetic, and I should have
turned back reverently from that chamber of forgotten sorrows but that
something caught my eye in the centre of it.

It was an oblong pile of white stone, very ill-used and chipped,
wrist-deep in dust, yet when a slant of light came in from above and fell
straight upon it, the marble against the black gloom beyond blazed like
living pearl.  It was dazzling; and shading my eyes and going tenderly
over through the poor dead babes, I looked, and there, full in the shine,
lay a woman's skeleton, still wrapped in a robe of which little was
left save the hard gold embroidery.  Her brown hair, wonderful to say,
still lay like lank, dead seaweed about her, and amongst it was a fillet
crown of plain iron set with gems such as eye never looked upon before.
There were not many, but enough to make the proud simplicity of that
circlet glisten like a little band of fire--a gleaming halo on her dead
forehead infinitely fascinating.  At her sides were two other little
bleached human flowers, and I stood before them for a long time in
silent sympathy.

Could this be Queen Yang, of whom the woodcutter had told me? It must
be--who else? And if it were, what strange chance had brought me here--a
stranger, yet the first to come, since her sorrow, from her distant
kindred? And if it were, then that fillet belonged of right to Heru,
the last representative of her kind.  Ought I not to take it to her
rather than leave it as spoil to the first idle thief with pluck enough
to deride the mysteries of the haunted city? Long time I thought over
it in the faint, heavy atmosphere of that hall, and then very gently
unwound the hair, lifted the circlet, and, scarcely knowing what I did,
put it in my shoulder-bag.

After that I went more cheerfully into the outside sunshine, and
setting my clothes to dry on a stone, took stock of the situation.
The place was, perhaps, not quite so romantic by day as by night, and
the scattered trees, matted by creepers, with which the whole were
overgrown, prevented anything like an extensive view of the ruined
city being obtained.  But what gave me great satisfaction was to note
over these trees to the eastward a two-humped mountain, not more than
six or seven miles distant--the very one I had mislaid the day before.
Here was reality and a chance of getting back to civilisation.  I was as
glad as if home were in sight, and not, perhaps, the less so because the
hill meant villages and food; and you who have doubtless lunched well and
lately will please bear in mind I had had nothing since breakfast the
day before; and though this may look picturesque on paper, in practice
it is a painful item in one's programme.

Well, I gave my damp clothes but a turn or two more in the sun, and then,
arguing that from the bare ground where the forest ended half-way up
the hill, a wide view would be obtained, hurried into my garments and
set off thither right gleefully.  A turn or two down the blank streets,
now prosaic enough, an easy scramble through a gap in the crumbling
battlements, and there was the open forest again, with a friendly path
well marked by the passage of those wild animals who made the city their
lair trending towards my landmark.

A light breakfast of soft green nuts, plucked on the way, and then
the ground began to bend upwards and the woods to thin a little.
With infinite ardour, just before midday, I scrambled on to a bare knoll
on the very hillside, and fell exhausted before the top could be reached.

But what were hunger or fatigue to the satisfaction of that moment? There
was the sea before me, the clear, strong, gracious sea, blue leagues
of it, furrowed by the white ridges of some distant storm.  I could
smell the scent of it even here, and my sailor heart rose in pride at
the companionship of that alien ocean.  Lovely and blessed thing! how
often have I turned from the shallow trivialities of the land and
found consolation in the strength of your stately solitudes!  How often
have I turned from the tinselled presence of the shore, the infinite
pretensions of dry land that make life a sorry, hectic sham, and found
in the black bosom of the Great Mother solace and comfort!  Dear, lovely
sea, man--half of every sphere, as far removed in the sequence of your
strong emotions from the painted fripperies of the woman-land as pole
from pole--the grateful blessing of the humblest of your followers on you!

The mere sight of salt water did me good.  Heaven knows our separation
had not been long, and many an unkind slap has the Mother given me in
the bygone; yet the mere sight of her was tonic, a lethe of troubles,
a sedative for tired nerves; and I gazed that morning at the illimitable
blue, the great, unfettered road to everywhere, the ever-varied, the
immutable, the thing which was before everything and shall be last of all,
in an ecstasy of affection.

There was also other satisfaction at hand.  Not a mile away lay a
well-defined road--doubtless the one spoken of by the wood-cutter--and
where the track pointed to the seashore the low roofs and circling smoke
of a Thither township showed.

There I went hot-footed, and, much too hungry to be nice in formality,
swung up to the largest building on the waterside quay and demanded
breakfast of the man who was lounging by its doorway chewing a honey reed.
He looked me up and down without emotion, then, falling into the common
mistake, said,

"This is not a hostel for ghosts, sir.  We do not board and lodge phantoms
here; this is a dry fish shop."

"Thrice blessed trade!" I answered.  "Give me some dried fish, good
fellow, or, for the matter of that, dried horse or dog, or anything
mortal teeth can bite through, and I will show you my tastes are
altogether mundane."

But he shook his head.  "This is no place for the likes of you, who
come, mayhap, from the city of Yang or some other abode of disembodied
spirits--you, who come for mischief and pay harbourage with mischance--is
it likely you could eat wholesome food?"

"Indeed I could, and plenty of it, seeing I have dined and breakfasted
along the hedges with the blackbirds this two days.  Look here, I will
pay in advance.  Will that get me a meal?" and, whipping out my knife,
cut off another of my fast-receding coat buttons.

The man took it with great interest, as I hoped he would, the yellow
metal being apparently a very scarce commodity in his part of the planet.

"Gold?" he asked.

"Well--ahem!  I forgot to ask the man who sewed them on for me what they
were exactly, but it looks like gold, doesn't it?"

"Yes," he answered, turning it to and fro admiringly in his hand, "you
are the first ghost I ever knew to pay in advance, and plenty of them go
to and fro through here.  Such a pretty thing is well worth a meal--if,
indeed, you can stomach our rough fare.  Here, you woman within," he
called to the lady whom I presume was his wife, "here is a gentleman
from the nether regions who wants some breakfast and has paid in advance.
Give him some of your best, for he has paid well."

"And what," said a female voice from inside, "what if I refused to serve
another of these plaguy wanderers you are always foisting upon me?"

"Don't mind her tongue, sir.  It's the worst part of her, though she is
mighty proud of it.  Go in and she will see you do not come out hungry,"
and the Thither man returned calmly to his honey stick.

"Come on, you Soul-with-a-man's-stomach," growled the woman, and too
hungry to be particular about the tone of invitation, I strode into the
parlour of that strange refreshment place.  The woman was the first I
had seen of the outer race, and better than might have been expected in
appearance.  Big, strong, and ruddy, she was a mental shock after the
slender slips of girlhood on the far side of the water, half a dozen
of whom she could have carried off without effort in her long arms.
Yet there was about her the credential of rough health, the dignity of
muscle, an upright carriage, an animal grace of movement, and withal a
comely though strongly featured face, which pleased me at once, and later
on I had great cause to remember her with gratitude.  She eyed me sulkily
for a minute, then her frown gradually softened, and the instinctive
love of the woman for the supernatural mastered her other feelings.

"Is that how you looked in another world?" she asked.

"Yes, exactly, cap to boots.  What do you think of the attire, ma'am?"

"Not much," replied the good woman frankly.  "It could not have been
becoming even when new, and you appear as though you had taken a muddy
road since then.  What did you die of?"

"I will tell you so much as this, madam--that what I am like to die of
now is hunger, plain, unvarnished hunger, so, in Heaven's name, get out
what you have and let me fall-to, for my last meal was yesterday morning."

Whereat, with a shrug of her shoulders at the eccentricities of
nether folk, the woman went to the rear of the house, and presently
came back with a meal which showed her husband had done scant justice
to the establishment by calling it a dry fish shop.  It is true, fish
supplied the staple of the repast, as was inevitable in a seaport, but,
like all Martian fish, it was of ambrosial kind, with a savour about it
of wine and sunshine such as no fish on our side of space can boast of.
Then there were cakes, steaming and hot, vegetables which fitted into
the previous course with exquisite nicety, and, lastly, a wooden tankard
of the invariable Thither beer to finish off.  Such a meal as a hungry
man might consider himself fortunate to meet with any day.

The woman watched me eat with much satisfaction, and when I had answered a
score of artless questions about my previous state, or present condition
and prospects, more or less to her satisfaction, she supplied me in turn
with some information which was really valuable to me just then.

First I learned that Ar-hap's men, with the abducted Heru, had passed
through this very port two days before, and by this time were probably in
the main town, which, it appeared, was only about twelve hours' rowing
up the salt-water estuary outside.  Here was news!  Heru, the prize
and object of my wild adventure, close at hand and well.  It brought
a whole new train of thoughts, for the last few days had been so full
of the stress of travel, the bare, hard necessity of getting forward,
that the object of my quest, illogical as it may seem, had gone into the
background before these things.  And here again, as I finished the last
cake and drank down to the bottom of the ale tankard, the extreme folly
of the venture came upon me, the madness of venturing single-handed into
the den of the Wood King.  What had I to hope for? What chance, however
remote, was there of successfully wresting that blooming prize from the
arms of her captor? Force was out of the question; stealth was utterly
impractical; as for cajolery, apparently the sole remaining means of
winning back the Princess--why, one might as well try the persuasion of
a penny flute upon a hungry eagle as seek to rouse Ar-hap's sympathies
for bereaved Hath in that way.  Surely to go forward would mean my own
certain destruction, with no advantage, no help to Heru; and if I was
ever to turn back or stop in the idle quest, here was the place and time.
My Hither friends were behind the sea; to them I could return before
it was too late, and here were the rough but honest Thither folk, who
would doubtless let me live amongst them if that was to be my fate.
One or other alternative were better than going to torture and death.

"You seem to take the fate of that Hither girl of yours mightily to
heart, stranger," quoth my hostess, with a touch of feminine jealousy,
as she watched my hesitation.  "Do you know anything of her?"

"Yes," I answered gloomily.  "I have seen her once or twice away in Seth."

"Ah, that reminds me!  When they brought her up here from the boats to
dry her wet clothes, she cried and called in her grief for just such a
one as you, saying he alone who struck down our men at her feast could
rescue her--"

"What!  Heru here in this room but yesterday!  How did she look? Was
she hurt? How had they treated her?"

My eagerness gave me away.  The woman looked at me through her half-shut
eyes a space, and then said, "Oh! sits the wind in THAT quarter? So
you can love as well as eat.  I must say you are well-conditioned for
a spirit."

I got up and walked about the room a space, then, feeling very friendless,
and knowing no woman was ever born who was not interested in another
woman's loves, I boldly drew my hostess aside and told her about Heru, and
that I was in pursuit of her, dwelling on the girl's gentle helplessness,
my own hare-brained adventure, and frankly asking what sort of a sovereign
Ar-hap was, what the customs of his court might be, and whether she could
suggest any means, temporal or spiritual, by which he might be moved to
give back Heru to her kindred.

Nor was my confidence misplaced.  The woman, as I guessed, was touched
somewhere back in her female heart by my melting love-tale, by my anxiety
and Heru's peril.  Besides, a ghost in search of a fairy lady--and such
the slender folk of Seth were still considered to be by the race which
had supplanted them--this was romance indeed.  To be brief, that good
woman proved invaluable.

She told me, firstly, that Ar-hap was believed to be away at war,
"weekending" as was his custom, amongst rebellious tribes, and by starting
at once up the water, I should very probably get to the town before
he did.  Secondly, she thought if I kept clear of private brawls there
was little chance of my receiving injury, from the people at all events,
as they were accustomed to strange visitors, and civil enough until they
were fired by war.  "Sickle cold, sword hot," was one of their proverbs,
meaning thereby that in peaceful times they were lambs, however lionlike
they might be in contest.

This was reassuring, but as to recovering the lady, that was another
matter over which the good woman shook her head.  It was ill coming
between Ar-hap and his tribute, she said; still, if I wanted to see Heru
once again, this was my opportunity, and, for the rest, that chance,
which often favours the enamoured, must be my help.

Briefly, though I should probably have gone forward in any case out of
sheer obstinacy, had it been to certain destruction, this better aspect
of the situation hastened my resolution.  I thanked the woman for help,
and then the man outside was called in to advise as to the best and
speediest way of getting within earshot of his hairy sovereignty, the
monarch of Thitherland.




CHAPTER XVI

The Martian told me of a merchant boat with ten rowers which was going
up to the capital in a couple of hours, and as the skipper was a friend
of his they would no doubt take me as supercargo, thereby saving the
necessity of passenger fees, which was obviously a consideration with me.
It was not altogether a romantic approach to the dungeon of an imprisoned
beauty, but it was practical, which is often better if not so pleasant.
So the offer was gladly closed with, and curling myself in a rug of
foxskins, for I was tired with much walking, sailors never being good
foot-gangers, I slept soundly fill they came to tell me it was time to
go on board.

The vessel was more like a canal barge than anything else, lean and long,
with the cargo piled in a ridge down the centre as farmers store their
winter turnips, the rowers sitting on either side of this plying oars
like dessert-spoons with long handles, while they chanted a monotonous
cadence of monosyllables:


Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh,
  How high, how high.

and then again after a pause--

  How high, how high
Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh.

the which was infinitely sleep-provoking if not a refrain of a high
intellectual order.

I shut my eyes as we pulled away from the wharfs of that nameless
emporium and picked a passage through a crowd of quaint shipping,
wondering where I was, and asking myself whether I was mentally rising
equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether I adequately appreciated
the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which I had last
travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley from a wharf.
Good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if they could see
me now steering a load of hairy savages up one of those waterways which
our biggest telescopes magnify but to the thickness of an indication?
No, I was not rising equal to the occasion, and could not.  The human
mind is of but limited capacity after all, and such freaks of fortune
are beyond its conception.  I knew I was where I was, but I knew I
should probably never get the chance of telling of it, and that no one
would ever believe me if I did, and I resigned myself to the inevitable
with sullen acquiescence, smothering the wonder that might have been
overwhelming in passing interests of the moment.

There is little to record of that voyage.  We passed through a fleet
of Ar-hap's warships, empty and at anchor in double line, serviceable
half-decked cutters, built of solid timber, not pumpkin rind it was
pleasant to notice, and then the town dropped away as we proceeded
up a stream about as broad as the Hudson at its widest, and profusely
studded with islands.  This water was bitterly salt and joined another
sea on the other side of the Martian continent.  Yet it had a pronounced
flow against us eastward, this tide running for three spring months and
being followed, I learned, as ocean temperatures varied, by a flow in
the opposite direction throughout the summer.

Just at present the current was so strong eastwards, the moisture
beaded upon my rowers' tawny hides as they struggled against it, and
their melancholy song dawdled in "linked sweetness long drawn out,"
while the swing of their oars grew longer and longer.  Truly it was
very hot, far hotter than was usual for the season, these men declared,
and possibly this robbed me of my wonted energy, and you, gentle reader,
of a description of all the strange things we passed upon that highway.

Suffice it to say we spent a scorching afternoon, the greater part of a
stifling night moored under a mud-bank with a grove of trees on top from
which gigantic fire-flies hung as though the place were illuminated for
a garden fete, and then, rowing on again in the comparatively cool hours
before dawn, turned into a backwater at cock-crow.

The skipper of our cargo boat roused me just as we turned, putting under
my sleepy nostrils a handful of toasted beans on a leaf, and a small
cup full of something that was not coffee, but smelt as good as that
matutinal beverage always does to the tired traveller.

Over our prow was an immense arch of foliage, and underneath a long arcade
of cool black shadows, sheltering still water, till water and shadow
suddenly ended a quarter of a mile down in a patch of brilliant colour.
It was as peaceful as could be in the first morning light, and to me
over all there was the inexpressible attraction of the unknown.

As our boat slipped silently forward up this leafy lane, a thin white
"feather" in her mouth alone breaking the steely surface of the stream,
the men rested from their work and began, as sailors will, to put on
their shore-going clothes, the while they chatted in low tones over the
profits of the voyage.  Overhead flying squirrels were flitting to and
fro like bats, or shelling fruit whereof the husks fell with a pleasant
splash about us, and on one bank a couple of early mothers were washing
their babies, whose smothered protests were almost the only sound in
this morning world.

Another silent dip or two of the oars and the colour ahead crystallised
into a town.  If I said it was like an African village on a large scale,
I should probably give you the best description in the fewest words.
From the very water's edge up to the crown of a low hill inland, extended
a mass of huts and wooden buildings, embowered and partly hidden in
bright green foliage, with here and there patches of millet, or some
such food plant, and the flowers that grow everywhere so abundantly in
this country.  It was all Arcadian and peaceful enough at the moment,
and as we drew near the men were just coming out to the quays along the
harbour front, the streets filling and the town waking to busy life.

A turn to the left through a watergate defended by towers of wood
and mud, and we were in the city harbour itself; boats of many kinds
moored on every side; quaint craft from the gulfs and bays of Nowhere,
full of unheard-of merchandise, and manned by strange-faced crews, every
vessel a romance of nameless seas, an epitome of an undiscovered world,
and every moment the scene grew busier as the breakfast smoke arose,
and wharf and gangway set to work upon the day's labours.

Our boat--loaded, as it turned out, with spoil from Seth--was run to
a place of honour at the bottom of the town square, and was an object
of much curiosity to a small crowd which speedily collected and lent a
hand with the mooring ropes, the while chatting excitedly with the crew
about further tribute and the latest news from overseas.  At the same
time a swarthy barbarian, whose trappings showed him to be some sort
of functionary, came down to our "captain," much wagging of heads and
counting of notched sticks taking place between them.

I, indeed, was apparently the least interesting item of the cargo,
and this was embarrassing.  No hero likes to be neglected, it is fatal
to his part.  I had said my prayers and steeled myself to all sorts of
fine endurance on the way up, and here, when it came to the crisis,
no one was anxious to play the necessary villain.  They just helped
me ashore civilly enough, the captain nodded his head at me, muttering
something in an indifferent tone to the functionary about a ghost who
had wandered overseas and begged a passage up the canal; the group about
the quay stared a little, but that was all.

Once I remember seeing a squatting, life-size heathen idol hoisted
from a vessel's hold and deposited on a sugar-box on a New York quay.
Some ribald passer-by put a battered felt hat upon Vishnu's sacred curls,
and there the poor image sat, an alien in an indifferent land, a sack
across its shoulders, a "billycock" upon its head, and honoured at most
with a passing stare.  I thought of that lonely image as almost as lonely
I stood on the Thither men's quay, without the support of friends or
heroics, wondering what to do next.

However, a cheerful disposition is sometimes better than a banking
account, and not having the one I cultivated the other, sunning myself
amongst the bales for a time, and then, since none seemed interested
in me, wandered off into the town, partly to satisfy my curiosity, and
partly in the vague hope of ascertaining if my princess was really here,
and, if possible, getting sight of her.

Meanwhile it turned hot with a supernatural, heavy sort of heat
altogether, I overheard passersby exclaiming, out of the common, and
after wandering for an hour through gardens and endless streets of
thatched huts, I was glad enough to throw myself down in the shadow of
some trees on the outskirts of the great central pile of buildings,
a whole village in itself of beam-built towers and dwelling-place,
suggesting by its superior size that it might actually be Ar-hap's palace.

Hotter and hotter it grew, while a curious secondary sunrise in the
west, the like of which I never saw before seemed to add to the heat,
and heavier and heavier my eyelids, till I dozed at last, and finally
slept uncomfortably for a time.

Rousing up suddenly, imagine my surprise to see sitting, chin on knees,
about a yard away, a slender girlish figure, infinitely out of place
in that world of rough barbarians.  Was it possible?  Was I dreaming?
No, there was no doubt about it, she was a girl of the Hither folk,
slim and pretty, but with a wonderfully sad look in her gazelle eyes,
and scarcely a sign of the indolent happiness of Seth in the pale little
face regarding me so fixedly.

"Good gracious, miss," I said, still rubbing my eyes and doubting my
senses, "have you dropped from the skies?  You are the very last person
I expected to see in this barbarian place."

"And you too, sir.  Oh, it is lovely to see one so newly from home,
and free-seeming--not a slave."

"How did you know I was from Seth?"

"Oh, that was easy enough," and with a little laugh she pointed to a
pebble lying between us, on which was a piece of battered sweetmeat in
a perforated bamboo box.  Poor An had given me something just like that
in a playful mood, and I had kept it in my pocket for her sake, being,
as you will have doubtless observed, a sentimental young man, and now
I clapped my hand where it should have been, but it was gone.

"Yes," said my new friend, "that is yours.  I smelt the sweetmeat
coming up the hill, and crossed the grass until I found you here asleep.
Oh, it was lovely!  I took it from your pocket, and white Seth rose up
before my swimming eyes, even at the scent of it.  I am Si, well named,
for that in our land means sadness, Si, the daughter of Prince Hath's
chief sweetmeat-maker, so I should know something of such stuff.  May I,
please, nibble a little piece?"

"Eat it all, my lass, and welcome.  How came you here?  But I can guess.
Do not answer if you would rather not."

"Ay, but I will.  It is not every day I can speak to ears so friendly
as yours.  I am a slave, chosen for my luckless beauty as last year's
tribute to Ar-hap."

"And now?"

"And now the slave of Ar-hap's horse-keeper, set aside to make room for
a fresher face."

"And do you know whose face that is?"

"Not I, a hapless maid sent into this land of horrors, to bear ignominy
and stripes, to eat coarse food and do coarse work, the miserable
plaything of some brute in semi-human form, with but the one consolation
of dying early as we tribute-women always die.  Poor comrade in exile,
I only know her as yet by sympathy."

"What if I said it was Heru, the princess?"

The Martian girl sprang to her feet, and clasping her hands exclaimed,

"Heru, the Slender!  Then the end comes, for it is written in our books
that the last tribute is paid when the best is paid.  Oh, how splendid
if she gave herself of free will to this slavery to end it once for all.
Was it so?"

"I think, Si, your princess could not have known of that tradition;
she did not come willingly.  Besides, I am come to fetch her back,
if it may be, and that spoils the look of sacrifice."

"You to fetch her back, and from Ar-hap's arms?  My word, Sir Spirit,
you must know some potent charms; or, what is less likely, my countrymen
must have amazingly improved in pluck since I left them.  Have you a
great army at hand?"

But I only shook my head, and, touching my sword, said that here was
the only army coming to rescue Heru.  Whereon the lady replied that
she thought my valour did me more honour than my discretion.  How did
I propose to take the princess from her captors?

"To tell the truth, damsel, that is a matter which will have to be
left to your invention, or the kindness of such as you.  I am here
on a hare-brained errand, playing knight-errant in a way that shocks
my common sense.  But since the matter has gone so far I will see it
through, or die in the attempt.  Your bully lord shall either give me
Heru, stock, lock, and block, or hang me from a yard-arm.  But I would
rather have the lady.  Come, you will help me; and, as a beginning,
if she is in yonder shanty get me speech with her."

Poor Si's eyes dilated at the peril of the suggestion, and I saw the
sluggish Martian nature at war against her better feelings.  But presently
the latter conquered.  "I will try," she said.  "What matter a few stripes
more or less?" pointing to her rosy shoulders where red scars crisscross
upon one another showed how the Martian girls fared in Ar-hap's palace
when their novelty wore off.  "I will try to help you; and if they kill
me for it--why, that will not matter much."  And forthwith in that
blazing forenoon under the flickering shadow of the trees we put our
heads together to see what we might do for Heru.

It was not much for the moment.  Try what we would that afternoon, I could
not persuade those who had charge of the princess to let me even approach
her place of imprisonment, but Si, as a woman, was more successful,
actually seeing her for a few moments, and managed to whisper in her
ear that I had come, the Spirit-with-the-gold-buttons-down-his front,
afterwards describing to me in flowing Martian imagery--but doubtless not
more highly coloured than poor Heru's emotion warranted--how delightedly
that lady had received the news.

Si also did me another service, presenting me to the porter's wife,
who kept a kind of boarding-house at the gates of Ar-hap's palace for
gentlemen and ladies with grievances.  I had heard of lobbying before,
and the presentation of petitions, though I had never indulged myself
in the pastime; but the crowd of petitioners here, with petitions as
wild and picturesque as their own motley appearances, was surely the
strangest that ever gathered round a seat of supreme authority.

Si whispered in the ear of that good woman the nature of my errand, with
doubtless some blandishment of her own; and my errand being one so much
above the vulgar and so nearly touching the sovereign, I was at once
accorded a separate room in the gate-house, whence I could look down
in comparative peace on the common herd of suitors, and listen to the
buzz of their invective as they practised speeches which I calculated
it would take Ar-hap all the rest of his reign to listen to, without
allowing him any time for pronouncing verdicts on them.

Here I made myself comfortable, and awaited the return of the sovereign
as placidly as might be.  Meanwhile fate was playing into my feeble hands.

I have said it was hot weather.  At first this seemed but an outcome of
the Martian climate, but as the hours went by the heat developed to an
incredible extent.  Also that red glare previously noted in the west grew
in intensity, till, as the hours slipped by, all the town was staring at
it in panting horror.  I have seen a prairie on fire, luckily from the far
side of a comfortably broad river, and have ridden through a pine-forest
when every tree for miles was an uplifted torch, and pungent yellow smoke
rolled down each corrie side in grey rivers crested with dancing flame.
But that Martian glare was more sombre and terrible than either.

"What is it?" I asked of poor Si, who came out gasping to speak to me
by the gate-house.

"None of us know, and unless the gods these Thither folk believe in are
angry, and intend to destroy the world with yonder red sword in the sky,
I cannot guess.  Perhaps," she added, with a sudden flash of inspiration,
"it comes by your machinations for Heru's help."

"No!"

"If not by your wish, then, in the name of all you love, set your wish
against it.  If you know any incantations suitable for the occasion, oh,
practise them now at once, for look, even the very grass is withering;
birds are dropping from trees; fishes, horribly bloated, are beginning
to float down the steaming rills; and I, with all others, have a nameless
dread upon me."

Hotter and hotter it grew, until about sunset the red blaze upon the
sky slowly opened, and showed us for about half an hour, through the
opening a lurid, flame-coloured meteor far out in space beyond; then
the cleft closed again, and through that abominable red curtain came
the very breath of Hades.

What was really happening I am not astronomer enough to say, though
on cooler consideration I have come to the conclusion that our planet,
in going out to its summer pastures in the remoter fields of space, had
somehow come across a wandering lesser world and got pretty well singed
in passing.  This is purely my own opinion, and I have not yet submitted
it to the kindly authorities of the Lick Observatory for verification.
All I can say for certain is that in an incredibly short space of time
the face of the country changed from green to sear, flowers drooped;
streams (there were not many in the neighbourhood apparently) dried up;
fishes died; a mighty thirst there was nothing to quench settled down on
man and beast, and we all felt that unless Providence listened to the
prayers and imprecations which the whole town set to work with frantic
zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable comet in the sky sheered off on
another tack with the least possible delay, we should all be reduced to
cinders in a very brief space of time.




CHAPTER XVII

The evening of the second day had already come, when Ar-hap arrived home
after weekending amongst a tribe of rebellious subjects.  But any imposing
State entry which might have been intended was rendered impossible by
the heat and the threat of that baleful world in the western sky.

It was a lurid but disordered spectacle which I witnessed from my room in
the gate-house just after nightfall.  The returning army had apparently
fallen away exhausted on its march through the town; only some three
hundred of the bodyguard straggled up the hill, limp and sweating,
behind a group of pennons, in the midst of which rode a horseman whose
commanding presence and splendid war harness impressed me, though I could
not make out his features; a wild, impressionist scene of black outlines,
tossing headgear, and spears glittering and vanishing in front of the
red glare in the sky, but nothing more.  Even the dry throats of the
suitors in the courtyard hardly mustered a husky cry of welcome as the
cavalcade trooped into the enclosure, and then the shadows enfolded them
up in silence, and, too hot and listless to care much what the morrow
brought forth, I threw myself on the bare floor, tossing and turning in
a vain endeavour to sleep until dawn came once more.

A thin mist which fell with daybreak drew a veil over the horrible glare
in the west for an hour or two, and taking advantage of the slight
alleviation of heat, I rose and went into the gardens to enjoy a dip
in a pool, making, with its surrounding jungle of flowers, one of the
pleasantest things about the wood-king's forest citadel.  The very earth
seemed scorched and baking underfoot--and the pool was gone!  It had
run as dry as a limekiln; nothing remained of the pretty fall which
had fed it but a miserable trickle of drops from the cascade above.
Down beyond the town shone a gleam of water where the bitter canal
steamed and simmered in the first grey of the morning, but up here six
months of scorching drought could not have worked more havoc.  The very
leaves were dropping from the trees, and the luxuriant growths of the
day before looked as though a simoon had played upon them.

I staggered back in disgust, and found some show of official activity
about the palace.  It was the king's custom, it appeared, to hear
petitions and redress wrongs as soon after his return as possible,
but today the ceremony was to be cut short as his majesty was going out
with all his court to a neighbouring mountain to "pray away the comet,"
which by this time was causing dire alarm all through the city.

"Heaven's own particular blessing on his prayers, my friend," I said to
the man who told me this.  "Unless his majesty's orisons are fruitful,
we shall all be cooked like baked potatoes before nightfall, and though
I have faced many kinds of death, that is not the one I would choose
by preference.  Is there a chance of myself being heard at the throne?
Your peculiar climate tempts me to hurry up with my business and begone
if I may."

"Not only may you be heard, sir, but you are summoned.  The king has
heard of you somehow, and sent me to find and bring you into his presence
at once."

"So be it," I said, too hot to care what happened.  "I have no levee
dress with me.  I lost my luggage check some time ago, but if you will
wait outside I will be with you in a moment."

Hastily tidying myself up, and giving my hair a comb, as though just off
to see Mr. Secretary for the Navy, or on the way to get a senator to push
a new patent medicine for me, I rejoined my guide outside, and together
we crossed the wide courtyard, entered the great log-built portals of
Ar-hap's house, and immediately afterwards found ourselves in a vast
hall dimly lit by rays coming in through square spaces under the eaves,
and crowded on both sides with guards, courtiers, and supplicants.
The heat was tremendous, the odour of Thither men and the ill-dressed
hides they wore almost overpowering.  Yet little I recked for either,
for there at the top of the room, seated on a dais made of rough-hewn
wood inlet with gold and covered with splendid furs, was Ar-hap himself.

A fine fellow, swarthy, huge, and hairy, at any other time or place I
could have given him due admiration as an admirable example of the savage
on the borderland of grace and culture, but now I only glanced at him, and
then to where at his side a girl was crouching, a gem of human loveliness
against that dusky setting.  It was Heru, my ravished princess, and,
still clad in her diaphanous Hither robes, her face white with anxiety,
her eyes bright as stars, the embodiment of helpless, flowery beauty,
my heart turned over at sight of her.

Poor girl!  When she saw me stride into the hall she rose swiftly from
Ar-hap's side, clasped her pretty hands, and giving a cry of joy would
have rushed towards me, but the king laid a mighty paw upon her, under
which she subsided with a shiver as though the touch had blanched all
the life within.

"Good morning, your majesty," I said, walking boldly up to the lower
step of the dais.

"Good morning, most singular-looking vagrant from the Unknown," answered
the monarch.  "In what way can I be of service to you?''

"I have come about that girl," I said, nodding to where Heru lay
blossoming in the hot gloom like some night-flowering bud.  "I do not
know whether your majesty is aware how she came here, but it is a highly
discreditable incident in what is doubtless your otherwise blameless
reign.  Some rough scullions intrusted with the duty of collecting your
majesty's customs asked Prince Hath of the Hither people to point out
the most attractive young person at his wedding feast, and the prince
indicated that lady there at your side.  It was a dirty trick, and
all the worse because it was inspired by malice, which is the meanest
of all weaknesses.  I had the pleasure of knocking down some of your
majesty's representatives, but they stole the girl away while I slept,
and, briefly, I have come to fetch her back."

The monarch had followed my speech, the longest ever made in my life,
with fierce, blinking eyes, and when it stopped looked at poor shrinking
Heru as though for explanation, then round the circle of his awestruck
courtiers, and reading dismay at my boldness in their faces, burst into
a guttural laugh.

"I suppose you have the great and puissant Hither nation behind you in
this request, Mr. Spirit?"

"No, I came alone, hoping to find justice here, and, if not, then
prepared to do all I could to make your majesty curse the day your
servants maltreated my friends."

"Tall words, stranger!  May I ask what you propose to do if Ar-hap, in his
own palace, amongst his people and soldiers, refuses to disgorge a pretty
prize at the bidding of one shabby interloper--muddy and friendless?"

"What should I do?"

"Yes," said the king, with a haughty frown.  "What would you do?"

I do not know what prompted the reply.  For a moment I was completely
at a loss what to say to this very obvious question, and then all on a
sudden, remembering they held me to be some kind of disembodied spirit,
by a happy inspiration, fixing my eyes grimly on the king, I answered,

"What would I do?  Why, I WOULD HAUNT YOU!"

It may not seem a great stroke of genius here, but the effect on the
Martian was instantaneous.  He sat straight up, his hands tightened, his
eyes dilated, and then fidgeting uneasily, after a minute he beckoned to
an over-dressed individual, whom Heru afterwards told me was the Court
necromancer, and began whispering in his ear.

After a minute's consultation he turned again, a rather frightened
civility struggling in his face with anger, and said, "We have no wish,
of course, stranger, to offend you or those who had the honour of your
patronage.  Perhaps the princess here was a little roughly handled, and,
I confess, if she were altogether as reluctant as she seems, a lesser
maid would have done as well.  I could have wooed this one in Seth,
where I may shortly come, and our espousals would possibly have lent, in
the eyes of your friends, quite a cheerful aspect to my arrival.  But my
ambassadors have had no great schooling in diplomacy; they have brought
Princess Heru here, and how can I hand her over to one I know nothing of?
How do I know you are a ghost, after all?  How do I know you have anything
but a rusty sword and much impertinence to back your astounding claim?"

"Oh, let it be just as you like," I said, calmly shelling and eating a
nut I had picked up.  "Only if you do not give the maid back, why, then--"
And I stopped as though the sequel were too painful to put into words.

Again that superstitious monarch of a land thronged with malicious
spirits called up his magician, and, after they had consulted a moment,
turned more cheerfully to me.

"Look here, Mister-from-Nowhere, if you are really a spirit, and have
the power to hurt as you say, you will have the power also to go and
come between the living and the dead, between the present and the past.
Now I will set you an errand, and give you five minutes to do it in."

"Five minutes!" I exclaimed in incautious alarm.

"Five minutes," said the monarch savagely.  "And if in that time the
errand is not done, I shall hold you to be an impostor, an impudent
thief from some scoundrel tribe of this world of mine, and will make of
you an example which shall keep men's ears tingling for a century or two."

Poor Heru dropped in a limp and lovely heap at that dire threat, while I
am bound to say I felt somewhat uncomfortable, not unnaturally when all
the circumstances are considered, but contented myself with remarking,
with as much bravado as could be managed,

"And now to the errand, Ar-hap.  What can I do for your majesty?"

The king consulted with the rogue at his elbow, and then nodding and
chuckling in expectancy of his triumph, addressed me.

"Listen," he cried, smiting a huge hairy hand upon his knee, "listen,
and do or die.  My magician tells me it is recorded in his books that
once, some five thousand years ago, when this land belonged to the Hither
people, there lived here a king.  It is a pity he died, for he seems to
have been a jovial old fellow; but he did die, and, according to their
custom, they floated him down the stream that flows to the regions of
eternal ice, where doubtless he is at this present moment, caked up with
ten million of his subjects.  Now just go and find that sovereign for me,
oh you bold-tongued dweller in other worlds!"

"And if I go how am I to know your ancient king, as you say, amongst
ten million others?"

"That is easy enough," quoth Ar-hap lightly.  "You have only to pass to
and fro through the ice mountains, opening the mouths of the dead men and
women you meet, and when you come to a middle-sized man with a fillet on
his head and a jaw mended with gold, that will be he whom you look for.
Bring me that fillet here within five minutes and the maid is yours."

I started, and stared hard in amazement.  Was this a dream?  Was the
royal savage in front playing with me?  By what incredible chance had
he hit upon the very errand I could answer to best, the very trophy I
had brought away from the grim valley of ice and death, and had still in
my shoulder-bag?  No, he was not playing; he was staring hard in turn,
joying in my apparent confusion, and clearly thinking he had cornered
me beyond hope of redemption.

"Surely your mightiness is not daunted by so simple a task," scowled
the sovereign, playing with the hilt of his huge hunting-knife, "and all
amongst your friends' kindred too.  On a hot day like this it ought to
be a pleasant saunter for a spirit such as yourself."

"Not daunted," I answered coldly, turning on my heels towards the door,
"only marvelling that your majesty's skull and your necromancer's could
not between them have devised a harder task."

Out into the courtyard I went, with my heart beating finely in spite
of my assumed indifference; got the bag from a peg in my sleeping-room,
and was back before the log throne ere four minutes were gone.

"The old Hither king's compliments to your majesty," I said, bowing,
while a deathly hush fell on all the assembly, "and he says though your
ancestors little liked to hear his voice while alive, he says he has no
objection to giving you some jaw now he is dead," and I threw down on
the floor the golden circlet of the frozen king.

Ar-hap's eyes almost started from his head as, with his courtiers,
he glared in silent amazement at that shining thing while the great
drops of fear and perspiration trickled down his forehead.  As for poor
Heru, she rose like a spirit behind them, gazed at the jaw-bone of her
mythical ancestor, and then suddenly realising my errand was done and
she apparently free, held out her hands, and, with a tremulous cry,
would have come to me.

But Ar-hap was too quick for her.  All the black savage blood swelled
into his veins as he swept her away with one great arm, and then with his
foot gave the luckless jaw a kick that sent it glittering and spinning
through the far doorway out into the sunshine.

"Sit down," he roared, "you brazen wench, who are so eager to leave a
king's side for a nameless vagrant's care!  And you, sir," turning to
me, and fairly trembling with rage and dread, "I will not gainsay that
you have done the errand set you, but it might this once be chance that
got you that cursed token, some one happy turn of luck.  I will not
yield my prize on one throw of the dice.  Another task you must do.
Once might be chance, but such chance comes not twice."

"You swore to give me the maid this time."

"And why should I keep my word to a half-proved spirit such as you?"

"There are some particularly good reasons why you should," I said,
striking an attitude which I had once seen a music-hall dramatist take
when he was going to blast somebody's future--a stick with a star on
top of it in his hand and forty lines of blank verse in his mouth.

The king writhed, and begged me with a sign to desist.

"We have no wish to anger you.  Do us this other task and none will doubt
that you are a potent spirit, and even I, Ar-hap, will listen to you."

"Well, then," I answered sulkily, "what is it to be this time?"

After a minute's consultation, and speaking slowly as though conscious
of how much hung on his words, the king said,

"Listen!  My soothsayer tells me that somewhere there is a city lost in
a forest, and a temple lost in the city, and a tomb lost in the temple;
a city of ghosts and djins given over to bad spirits, wherefore all human
men shun it by day and night.  And on the tomb is she who was once queen
there, and by her lies her crown.  Quick! oh you to whom all distances are
nothing, and who see, by your finer essence, into all times and places.
Away to that city!  Jostle the memories of the unclean things that hide
in its shadows; ask which amongst them knows where dead Queen Yang still
lies in dusty state.  Get guides amongst your comrade ghosts.  Find Queen
Yang, and bring me here in five minutes the bloody circlet from her hair."

Then, and then for the first time, I believed the planet was haunted
indeed, and I myself unknowingly under some strange and watchful
influence.  Spirits, demons!  Oh! what but some incomprehensible power,
some unseen influence shaping my efforts to its ends, could have moved
that hairy barbarian to play a second time into my hands like this,
to choose from the endless records of his world the second of the two
incidents I had touched in hasty travel through it?  I was almost overcome
for a minute; then, pulling myself together, strode forward fiercely,
and, speaking so that all could hear me, cried, "Base king, who neither
knows the capacities of a spirit nor has learned as yet to dread its
anger, see! your commission is executed in a thought, just as your
punishment might be.  Heru, come here."  And when the girl, speechless
with amazement, had risen and slipped over to me, I straightened her
pretty hair from her forehead, and then, in a way which would make my
fortune if I could repeat it at a conjuror's table, whipped poor Yang's
gemmy crown from my pocket, flashed its baleful splendour in the eyes
of the courtiers, and placed it on the tresses of the first royal lady
who had worn it since its rightful owner died a hundred years before.

A heavy silence fell on the hall as I finished, and nothing was heard
for a time save Heru sobbing on my breast and a thirsty baby somewhere
outside calling to its mother for the water that was not to be had.
But presently on those sounds came the fall of anxious feet, and a
messenger, entering the doorway, approached the throne, laid himself out
flat twice, after which obeisance he proceeded to remind the king of the
morning's ceremonial on a distant hill to "pray away the comet," telling
his majesty that all was ready and the procession anxiously awaiting him.

Whereon Ar-hap, obviously very well content to change the subject,
rose, and, coming down from the dais, gave me his hand.  He was a fine
fellow, as I have said, strong and bold, and had not behaved badly for
an autocrat, so that I gripped his mighty fist with great pleasure.

"I cannot deny, stranger," he said, "that you have done all that has been
asked of you, and the maid is fairly yours.  Yet before you take away the
prize I must have some assurance of what you yourself will do with her.
Therefore, for the moment, until this horrible thing in the sky which
threatens my people with destruction has gone, let it be truce between
us--you to your lodgings, and the princess back, unharmed, amongst my
women till we meet again."

"But--"

"No, no," said the king, waving his hand.  "Be content with your
advantage.  And now to business more important than ten thousand silly
wenches," and gathering up his robes over his splendid war-gear the wood
king stalked haughtily from the hall.




CHAPTER XVIII

Hotter and hotter grew that stifling spell, more and more languid man
and beast, drier and drier the parching earth.

All the water gave out on the morning after I had bearded Ar-hap in his
den, and our strength went with it.  No earthly heat was ever like it,
and it drank our vitality up from every pore.  Water there was down below
in the bitter, streaming gulf, but so noisome that we dared not even bathe
there; here there was none but the faintest trickle.  All discipline was
at an end; all desire save such as was born of thirst.  Heru I saw as
often as I wished as she lay gasping, with poor Si at her feet, in the
women's verandah; but the heat was so tremendous that I gazed at her with
lack-lustre eyes, staggering to and fro amongst the courtyard shadows,
without nerve to plot her rescue or strength to carry out anything my
mind might have conceived.

We prayed for rain and respite.  Ar-hap had prayed with a wealth of
picturesque ceremonial.  We had all prayed and cursed by turns, but
still the heavens would not relent, and the rain came not.

At last the stifling heat and vapour reached an almost intolerable pitch.
The earth reeked with unwholesome humours no common summer could draw
from it, the air was sulphurous and heavy, while overhead the sky seemed
a tawny dome, from edge to edge of angry clouds, parting now and then
to let us see the red disc threatening us.

Hour after hour slipped by until, when evening was upon us, the clouds
drew together, and thunder, with a continuous low rumble, began to
rock from sky to sky.  Fitful showers of rain, odorous and heavy, but
unsatisfying, fell, and birds and beasts of the woodlands came slinking
in to our streets and courtyards.  Ever since the sky first darkened
our own animals had become strangely familiar, and now here were these
wild things of the woods slinking in for companionship, sagheaded and
frightened.  To me especially they came, until that last evening as I
staggered dying about the streets or sat staring into the remorseless sky
from the steps of Heru's prison house, all sorts of beasts drew softly
in and crowded about, whether I sat or moved, all asking for the hope
I had not to give them.

At another time this might have been embarrassing; then it seemed pure
commonplace.  It was a sight to see them slink in between the useless
showers, which fell like hot tears upon us--sleek panthers with lolling
tongues; russet-red wood dogs; bears and sloths from the dark arcades of
the remote forests, all casting themselves down gasping in the palace
shadows; strange deer, who staggered to the garden plots and lay there
heaving their lives out; mighty boars, who came from the river marshes
and silently nozzled a place amongst their enemies to die in!  Even the
wolves came off the hills, and, with bloodshot eyes and tongues that
dripped foam, flung themselves down in my shadow.

All along the tall stockades apes sat sad and listless, and on the
roof-ridges storks were dying.  Over the branches of the trees, whose
leaves were as thin as though we had had a six months' drought, the
toucans and Martian parrots hung limp and fashionless like gaudy rags,
and in the courtyard ground the corn-rats came up from their tunnels in
the scorching earth to die, squeaking in scores along under the walls.

Our common sorrow made us as sociable as though I were Noah, and Ar-hap's
palace mound another Ararat.  Hour after hour I sat amongst all these
lesser beasts in the hot darkness, waiting for the end.  Every now and
then the heavy clouds parted, changing the gloom to sudden fiery daylight
as the great red eye in the west looked upon us through the crevice, and,
taking advantage of those gleams, I would reel across to where, under a
spout leading from a dried rivulet, I had placed a cup to collect the
slow and tepid drops that were all now coming down the reed for Heru.
And as I went back each time with that sickly spoonful at the bottom
of the vessel all the dying beasts lifted their heads and watched--the
thirsty wolves shambling after me; the boars half sat up and grunted
plaintively; the panthers, too weak to rise, beat the dusty ground with
their tails; and from the portico the blue storks, with trailing wings,
croaked husky greeting.

But slower and slower came the dripping water, more and more intolerable
the heat.  At last I could stand it no longer.  What purpose did it serve
to lay gasping like this, dying cruelly without a hope of rescue, when
a shorter way was at my side?  I had not drank for a day and a half.
I was past active reviling; my head swam; my reason was clouded.  No!
I would not stand it any longer.  Once more I would take Heru and poor
Si the cup that was but a mockery after all, then fix my sword into the
ground and try what next the Fates had in store for me.

So once again the leathern mug was fetched and carried through the
prostrate guards to where the Martian girl lay, like a withered flower,
upon her couch.  Once again I moistened those fair lips, while my own
tongue was black and swollen in my throat, then told Si, who had had
none all the afternoon, to drink half and leave half for Heru.  Poor Si
put her aching lips to the cup and tilted it a little, then passed it
to her mistress.  And Heru drank it all, and Si cried a few hot tears
behind her hands, FOR SHE HAD TAKEN NONE, and she knew it was her life!

Again picking a way through the courtyard, scarce noticing how the
beasts lifted their heads as I passed, I went instinctively, cup in
hand, to the well, and then hesitated.  Was I a coward to leave Heru so?
Ought I not to stay and see it out to the bitter end?  Well, I would
compound with Fate.  I would give the malicious gods one more chance.
I would put the cup down again, and until seven drops had fallen into
it I would wait.  That there might be no mistake about it, no sooner was

the mug in place under the nozzle wherefrom the moisture beads collected
and fell with infinite slowness, than my sword, on which I meant to throw
myself, was bared and the hilt forced into a gaping crack in the ground,
and sullenly contented to leave my fate so, I sat down beside it.

I turned grimly to the spout and saw the first drop fall, then another,
and another later on, but still no help came.  There was a long rift
in the clouds now, and a glare like that from an open furnace door was
upon me.  I had noticed when I came to the spring how the comet which
was killing us hung poised exactly upon the point of a distant hill.
If he had passed his horrible meridian, if he was going from us, if he
sunk but a hair's breadth before that seventh drop should fall, I could
tell it would mean salvation.

But the fourth drop fell, and he was big as ever.  The fifth drop fell,
and a hot, pleasing nose was thrust into my hand, and looking down I
saw a grey wolf had dragged herself across the court and was asking with
eloquent eyes for the help I could not give.  The sixth drop gathered,
and fell; already the seventh was like a seedling pearl in its place.
The dying wolf yanked affectionately at my hand, but I put her by and
undid my tunic.  Big and bright that drop hung to the spout lip; another
minute and it would fall.  A beautiful drop, I laughed, peering closely at
it, many-coloured, prismatic, flushing red and pink, a tiny living ruby,
hanging by a touch to the green rim above; enough! enough!  The quiver of
an eyelash would unhinge it now; and angry with the life I already felt
was behind me, and turning in defiant expectation to the new to come,
I rose, saw the red gleam of my sword jutting like a fiery spear from
the cracking soil where I had planted it, then looked once more at the
drop and glanced for the last time at the sullen red terror on the hill.

Were my eyes dazed, my senses reeling?  I said a space ago that the
meteor stood exactly on the mountain-top and if it sunk a hair's breadth
I should note it; and now, why, there WAS a flaw in its lower margin, a
flattening of the great red foot that before had been round and perfect.
I turned my smarting eyes away a minute,--saw the seventh drop fall
with a melodious tingle into the cup, then back again,--there was no
mistake--the truant fire was a fraction less, it had shrunk a fraction
behind the hill even since I looked, and thereon all my life ran back into
its channels, the world danced before me, and "Heru!" I shouted hoarsely,
reeling back towards the palace, "Heru, 'tis well; the worst is past!"

But the little princess was unconscious, and at her feet was poor Si,
quite dead, still reclining with her head in her hands just as I had
left her.  Then my own senses gave out, and dropping down by them I
remembered no more.

I must have lain there an hour or two, for when consciousness came
again it was night--black, cool, profound night, with an inky sky low
down upon the tree-tops, and out of it such a glorious deluge of rain
descending swiftly and silently as filled my veins even to listen to.
Eagerly I shuffled away to the porch steps, down them into the swimming
courtyard, and ankle-deep in the glorious flood, set to work lapping
furiously at the first puddle, drinking with gasps of pleasure, gasping
and drinking again, feeling my body filling out like the thirsty steaming
earth below me.  Then, as I still drank insatiably, there came a gleam
of lightning out of the gloom overhead, a brilliant yellow blaze, and by
it I saw a few yards away a panther drinking at the same pool as myself,
his gleaming eyes low down like mine upon the water, and by his side
two apes, the black water running in at their gaping mouths, while out
beyond were more pools, more drinking animals.  Everything was drinking.
I saw their outlined forms, the gleam shining on wet skins as though they
were cut out in silver against the darkness, each beast steaming like a
volcano as the Heaven-sent rain smoked from his fevered hide, all drinking
for their lives, heedless of aught else--and then came the thunder.

It ran across the cloudy vault as though the very sky were being ripped
apart, rolling in mighty echoes here and there before it died away.
As it stopped, the rain also fell less heavily for a minute, and as I lay
with my face low down I heard the low, contented lapping of numberless
tongues unceasing, insatiable.  Then came the lightning again, lighting
up everything as though it were daytime.  The twin black apes were still
drinking, but the panther across the puddle had had enough; I saw him
lift his grateful head up to the flare; saw the limp red tongue licking
the black nose, the green eyes shining like opals, the water dripping
in threads of diamonds from the hairy tag under his chin and every tuft
upon his chest--then darkness again.

To and fro the green blaze rocked between the thunder crashes.  It struck
a house a hundred yards away, stripping every shingle from the roof better
than a master builder could in a week.  It fell a minute after on a tall
tree by the courtyard gate, and as the trunk burst into white splinters
I saw every leaf upon the feathery top turn light side up against the
violet reflection in the sky beyond, and then the whole mass came down
to earth with a thud that crushed the courtyard palings into nothing
for twenty yards and shook me even across the square.

Another time I might have stopped to marvel or to watch, as I have often
watched with sympathetic pleasure, the gods thus at play; but tonight
there were other things on hand.  When I had drunk, I picked up an earthen
crock, filled it, and went to Heru.  It was a rough drinking-vessel for
those dainty lips, and an indifferent draught, being as much mud as aught
else, but its effect was wonderful.  At the first touch of that turgid
stuff a shiver of delight passed through the drowsy lady.  At the second
she gave a sigh, and her hand tightened on my arm.  I fetched another
crockful, and by the flickering light rocking to and fro in the sky,
took her head upon my shoulder, like a prodigal new come into riches,
squandering the stuff, giving her to drink and bathing face and neck
till presently, to my delight, the princess's eyes opened.  Then she
sat up, and taking the basin from me drank as never lady drank before,
and soon was almost herself again.

I went out into the portico, there snuffing the deep, strong breath of
the fragrant black earth receiving back into its gaping self what the last
few days had taken from it, while quick succeeding thoughts of escape and
flight passed across my brain.  All through the fiery time we had just
had the chance of escaping with the fair booty yonder had been present.
Without her, flight would have been easy enough, but that was not worth
considering for a moment.  With her it was more difficult, yet, as I
had watched the woodmen, accustomed to cool forest shades, faint under
the fiery glare of the world above, to make a dash for liberty seemed
each hour more easy.  I had seen the men in the streets drop one by one,
and the spears fall from the hands of guards about the pallisades; I had
seen messengers who came to and fro collapse before their errands were
accomplished, and the forest women, who were Heru's gaolers, groan and
drop across the thresholds of her prison, until at length the way was
clear--a babe might have taken what he would from that half-scorched town
and asked no man's leave.  Yet what did it avail me?  Heru was helpless,
my own spirit burnt in a nerveless frame, and so we stayed.

But with rain strength came back to both of us.  The guards, lying
about like black logs, were only slowly returning to consciousness; the
town still slept, and darkness favoured; before they missed us in the
morning light we might be far on the way back to Seth--a dangerous way
truly, but we were like to tread a rougher one if we stayed.  In fact,
directly my strength returned with the cooler air, I made up my mind
to the venture and went to Heru, who by this time was much recovered.
To her I whispered my plot, and that gentle lady, as was only natural,
trembled at its dangers.  But I put it to her that no time could be better
than the present: the storm was going over; morning would "line the black
mantle of the night with a pink dawn of promise"; before any one stirred
we might be far off, shaping a course by our luck and the stars for her
kindred, at whose name she sighed.  If we stayed, I argued, and the king
changed his mind, then death for me, and for Heru the arms of that surly
monarch, and all the rest of her life caged in these pallisades amongst
the uncouth forms about us.

The lady gave a frightened little shiver at the picture, but after a
moment, laying her head upon my shoulder, answered, "Oh, my guardian
spirit and helper in adversity, I too have thought of tomorrow, and doubt
whether that horror, that great swine who has me, will not invent an
excuse for keeping me.  Therefore, though the forest roads are dreadful,
and Seth very far away, I will come; I give myself into your hands.
Do what you will with me."

"Then the sooner the better, princess.  How soon can you be prepared?"

She smiled, and stooping picked up her slippers, saying as she did so,
"I am ready!"

There were no arrangements to be made.  Every instant was of value.
So, to be brief, I threw a dark cloak over the damsel's shoulders, for
indeed she was clad in little more than her loveliness and the gauziest
filaments of a Hither girl's underwear, and hand in hand led her down
the log steps, over the splashing, ankle-deep courtyard, and into the
shadows of the gateway beyond.

Down the slope we went; along towards the harbour, through a score of
deserted lanes where nothing was to be heard but the roar of rain and the
lapping of men and beasts, drinking in the shadows as though they never
would stop, and so we came at last unmolested to the wharf.  There I
hid royal Seth between two piles of merchandise, and went to look for a
boat suitable to our needs.  There were plenty of small craft moored to
rings along the quay, and selecting a canoe--it was no time to stand on
niceties of property--easily managed by a single paddle, I brought it
round to the steps, put in a fresh water-pot, and went for the princess.

With her safely stowed in the prow, a helpless, sodden little morsel of
feminine loveliness, things began to appear more hopeful and an escape
down to blue water, my only idea, for the first time possible.  Yet I must
needs go and well nigh spoil everything by over-solicitude for my charge.

Had we pushed off at once there can be no doubt my credit as a spirit
would have been established for all time in the Thither capital, and the
belief universally held that Heru had been wafted away by my enchantment
to the regions of the unknown.  The idea would have gradually grown into
a tradition, receiving embellishments in succeeding generations, until
little wood children at their mother's knees came to listen in awe to the
story of how, once upon a time, the Sun-god loved a beautiful maiden, and
drove his fiery chariot across the black night-fields to her prison door,
scorching to death all who strove to gainsay him.  How she flew into his
arms and drove away before all men's eyes, in his red car, into the west,
and was never seen again--the foresaid Sun-god being I, Gulliver Jones,
a much under-paid lieutenant in the glorious United States navy, with
a packet of overdue tailors' bills in my pocket, and nothing lovable
about me save a partiality for meddling with other people's affairs.

This is how it might have been, but I spoiled a pretty fairy story and
changed the whole course of Martian history by going back at that moment
in search of a wrap for my prize.  Right on top of the steps was a man
with a lantern, and half a glance showed me it was the harbour master
met with on my first landing.

"Good evening," he said suspiciously.  "May I ask what you are doing on
the quay at such an hour as this?"

"Doing?  Oh, nothing in particular, just going out for a little fishing."

"And your companion the lady--is she too fond of fishing?"

I swore between my teeth, but could not prevent the fellow walking to the
quay edge and casting his light full upon the figure of the girl below.
I hate people who interfere with other people's business!

"Unless I am very much mistaken your fishing friend is the Hither woman
brought here a few days ago as tribute to Ar-hap."

"Well," I answered, getting into a nice temper, for I had been very much
harrassed of late, "put it at that.  What would you do if it were so?"

"Call up my rain-drunk guards, and give you in charge as a thief caught
meddling with the king's property."

"Thanks, but as my interviews with Ar-hap have already begun to grow
tedious, we will settle this little matter here between ourselves at
once."  And without more to-do I closed with him.  There was a brief
scuffle and then I got in a blow upon his jaw which sent the harbour
master flying back head over heels amongst the sugar bales and potatoes.

Without waiting to see how he fared I ran down the steps, jumped on board,
loosened the rope, and pushed out into the river.  But my heart was angry
and sore, for I knew, as turned out to be the case, that our secret was
one no more; in a short time we should have the savage king in pursuit,
and now there was nothing for it but headlong flight with only a small
chance of getting away to distant Seth.

Luckily the harbour master lay insensible until he was found at dawn,
so that we had a good start, and the moment the canoe passed from the
arcade-like approach to the town the current swung her head automatically
seaward, and away we went down stream at a pace once more filling me
with hope.




CHAPTER XIX

All went well and we fled down the bitter stream of the Martian gulf at
a pace leaving me little to do but guide our course just clear of snags
and promontories on the port shore.  Just before dawn, however, with a
thin mist on the water and flocks of a flamingo-like bird croaking as
they flew southward overhead, we were nearly captured again.

Drifting silently down on a rocky island, I was having a drink at the
water-pitcher at the moment, while Heru, her hair beaded with prismatic
moisture and looking more ethereal than ever, sat in the bows timorously
inhaling the breath of freedom, when all on a sudden voices invisible
in the mist, came round a corner.  It was one of Ar-hap's war-canoes
toiling up-stream.  Heru and I ducked down into the haze like dab-chicks
and held our breath.

Straight on towards us came the toiling ship, the dip of oars resonant in
the hollow fog and a ripple babbling on her cutwater plainly discernible.


Oh, oh!
Hoo, hoo!
How high, how high!"

sounded the sleepy song of the rowers till they were looming right
abreast and we could smell their damp hides in the morning air.  Then they
stopped suddenly and some one asked,

"Is there not something like a boat away on the right?"

"It is nothing," said another, "but the lees of last night's beer curdling
in your stupid brain."

"But I saw it move."

"That must have been in dreams."

"What is all that talking about?" growled a sleepy voice of authority
from the stern.

"Bow man, sir, says he can see a boat."

"And what does it matter if he can?  Are we to delay every time that lazy
ruffian spying a shadow makes it an excuse to stop to yawn and scratch?
Go on, you plankful of lubbers, or I'll give you something worth thinking
about!"  And joyfully, oh, so joyfully, we heard the sullen dip of oars
commence again.

Nothing more happened after that till the sun at length shone on the
little harbour town at the estuary mouth, making the masts of fishing
craft clustering there like a golden reed-bed against the cool, clean
blue of the sea beyond.

Right glad we were to see it, and keeping now in shadow of the banks,
made all haste while light was faint and mist hung about to reach the
town, finally pushing through the boats and gaining a safe hiding-place
without hostile notice before it was clear daylight.

Covering Heru up and knowing well all our chances of escape lay in
expedition, I went at once, in pursuance of a plan made during the night,
to the good dame at what, for lack of a better name, must still continue
to be called the fish-shop, and finding her alone, frankly told her the
salient points of my story.  When she learned I had "robbed the lion of
his prey" and taken his new wife singlehanded from the dreaded Ar-hap her
astonishment was unbounded.  Nothing would do but she must look upon the
princess, so back we went to the hiding-place, and when Heru knew that
on this woman depended our lives she stepped ashore, taking the rugged
Martian hand in her dainty fingers and begging her help so sweetly that
my own heart was moved, and, thrusting hands in pocket, I went aside,
leaving those two to settle it in their own female way.

And when I looked back in five minutes, royal Seth had her arms round the
woman's neck, kissing the homely cheeks with more than imperial fervour,
so I knew all was well thus far, and stopped expectorating at the little
fishes in the water below and went over to them.  It was time!  We had
hardly spoken together a minute when a couple of war-canoes filled with
men appeared round the nearest promontory, coming down the swift water
with arrow-like rapidity.

"Quick!" said the fishwife, "or we are all lost.  Into your canoe and
paddle up this creek.  It runs out to the sea behind the town, and at
the bar is my man's fishing-boat amongst many others.  Lie hidden there
till he comes if you value your lives."  So in we got, and while that
good Samaritan went back to her house we cautiously paddled through a
deserted backwater to where it presently turned through low sandbanks
to the gulf.  There were the boats, and we hid the canoe and lay down
amongst them till, soon after, a man, easily recognised as the husband
of our friend, came sauntering down from the village.

At first he was sullen, not unreasonably alarmed at the danger into
which his good woman was running him.  But when he set eyes on Heru
he softened immediately.  Probably that thick-bodied fellow had never
seen so much female loveliness in so small a bulk in all his life, and,
being a man, he surrendered at discretion.

"In with you, then," he growled, "since I must needs risk my neck for
a pair of runaways who better deserve to be hung than I do.  In with
you both into this fishing-cobble of mine, and I will cover you with
nets while I go for a mast and sail, and mind you lie as still as logs.
The town is already full of soldiers looking for you, and it will be
short shrift for us all if you are seen."

Well aware of the fact and now in the hands of destiny, the princess and
I lay down as bidden in the prow, and the man covered us lightly over
with one of those fine meshed seines used by these people to catch the
little fish I had breakfasted on more than once.

Materially I could have enjoyed the half-hour which followed, since
such rest after exertion was welcome, the sun warm, the lapping of sea
on shingle infinitely soothing, and, above all, Heru was in my arms!
How sweet and childlike she was!  I could feel her little heart beating
through her scanty clothing, while every now and then she turned her
gazelle eyes to mine with a trust and admiration infinitely alluring.
Yes! as far as that went I could have lain there with that slip of
maiden royalty for ever, but the fascination of the moment was marred
by the thought of our danger.  What was to prevent these new friends
giving us away?  They knew we had no money to recompense them for the
risk they were running.  They were poor, and a splendid reward, wealth
itself to them, would doubtless be theirs if they betrayed us even by
a look.  Yet somehow I trusted them as I have trusted the poor before
with the happiest results, and telling myself this and comforting Heru,
I listened and waited.

Minute by minute went by.  It seemed an age since the fisherman had
gone, but presently the sound of voices interrupted the sea's murmur.
Cautiously stealing a glance through a chink imagine my feelings on
perceiving half a dozen of Ar-hap's soldiers coming down the beach
straight towards us!  Then my heart was bitter within me, and I tasted of
defeat, even with Heru in my arms.  Luckily even in that moment of agony
I kept still, and another peep showed the men were now wandering about
rather aimlessly.  Perhaps after all they did not know of our nearness?
Then they took to horseplay, as idle soldiers will even in Mars, pelting
each other with bits of wood and dead fish, and thereon I breathed again.

Nearer they came and nearer, my heart beating fast as they strolled
amongst the boats until they were actually "larking" round the one next
to ours.  A minute or two of this, and another footstep crunched on the
pebbles, a quick, nervous one, which my instinct told me was that of
our returning friend.

"Hullo old sprat-catcher!  Going for a sail?" called out a soldier,
and I knew that the group were all round our boat, Heru trembling so
violently in my breast that I thought she would make the vessel shake.

"Yes," said the man gruffly.

"Let's go with him," cried several voices.  "Here, old dried haddock,
will you take us if we help haul your nets for you?"

"No, I won't.  Your ugly faces would frighten all the fish out of
the sea."

"And yours, you old chunk of dried mahogany, is meant to attract them
no doubt."

"Let's tie him to a post and go fishing in his boat ourselves," some
one suggested.  Meanwhile two of them began rocking the cobble violently
from side to side.  This was awful, and every moment I expected the net
and the sail which our friend had thrown down unceremoniously upon us
would roll off.

"Oh, stop that," said the Martian, who was no doubt quite as well aware of
the danger as we were.  "The tide's full, the shoals are in the bay--stop
your nonsense, and help me launch like good fellows."

"Well, take two of us, then.  We will sit on this heap of nets as quiet
as mice, and stand you a drink when we get back."

"No, not one of you," quoth the plucky fellow, "and here's my staff in
my hand, and if you don't leave my gear alone I will crack some of your
ugly heads."

"That's a pity," I thought to myself, "for if they take to fighting it
will be six to one--long odds against our chances."  There was indeed a
scuffle, and then a yell of pain, as though a soldier had been hit across
the knuckles; but in a minute the best disposed called out, "Oh, cease
your fun, boys, and let the fellow get off if he wants to.  You know
the fleet will be down directly, and Ar-hap has promised something
worth having to the man who can find that lost bit of crackling of his.
It's my opinion she's in the town, and I for one would rather look for
her than go haddock fishing any day."

"Right you are, mates," said our friend with visible relief.  "And,
what's more, if you help me launch this boat and then go to my missus and
tell her what you've done, she'll understand, and give you the biggest
pumpkinful of beer in the place.  Ah, she will understand, and bless your
soft hearts and heads while you drink it--she's a cute one is my missus."

"And aren't you afraid to leave her with us?"

"Not I, my daisy, unless it were that a sight of your pretty face might
give her hysterics.  Now lend a hand, your accursed chatter has already
cost me half an hour of the best fishing time."

"In with you, old buck!" shouted the soldiers; I felt the fisherman step
in, as a matter of fact he stepped in on to my toes; a dozen hands were
on the gunwales: six soldier yells resounded, it seemed, in my very ears:
there was the grit and rush of pebbles under the keel: a sudden lurch up
of the bows, which brought the fairy lady's honey-scented lips to mine,
and then the gentle lapping of deep blue waters underneath us!

There is little more to be said of that voyage.  We pulled until out
of sight of the town, then hoisted sail, and, with a fair wind, held
upon one tack until we made an island where there was a small colony of
Hither folk.

Here our friend turned back.  I gave him another gold button from my
coat, and the princess a kiss upon either cheek, which he seemed to like
even more than the button.  It was small payment, but the best we had.
Doubtless he got safely home, and I can but hope that Providence somehow
or other paid him and his wife for a good deed bravely done.

Those islanders in turn lent us another boat, with a guide, who had
business in the Hither capital, and on the evening of the second day,
the direct route being very short in comparison, we were under the
crumbling marble walls of Seth.




CHAPTER XX

It was like turning into a hothouse from a keen winter walk, our arrival
at the beautiful but nerveless city after my life amongst the woodmen.

As for the people, they were delighted to have their princess back,
but with the delight of children, fawning about her, singing, clapping
hands, yet asking no questions as to where she had been, showing no
appreciation of our adventures--a serious offence in my eyes--and,
perhaps most important of all, no understanding of what I may call the
political bearings of Heru's restoration, and how far their arch enemies
beyond the sea might be inclined to attempt her recovery.

They were just delighted to have the princess back, and that was the
end of it.  Theirs was the joy of a vast nursery let loose.  Flower
processions were organised, garlands woven by the mile, a general
order issued that the nation might stay up for an hour after bedtime,
and in the vortex of that gentle rejoicing Heru was taken from me, and
I saw her no more, till there happened the wildest scene of all you have
shared with me so patiently.

Overlooked, unthanked, I turned sulky, and when this mood, one I can
never maintain for long, wore off, I threw myself into the dissipation
about me with angry zeal.  I am frankly ashamed of the confession, but
I was "a sailor ashore," and can only claim the indulgences proper to
the situation.  I laughed, danced, drank, through the night; I drank
deep of a dozen rosy ways to forgetfulness, till my mind was a great
confusion, full of flitting pictures of loveliness, till life itself
was an illusive pantomime, and my will but thistle-down on the folly
of the moment.  I drank with those gentle roisterers all through their
starlit night, and if we stopped when morning came it was more from
weariness than virtue.  Then the yellow-robed slaves gave us the wine
of recovery--alas! my faithful An was not amongst them--and all through
the day we lay about in sodden happiness.

Towards nightfall I was myself again, not unfortunately with the headache
well earned, but sufficiently remorseful to be in a vein to make good
resolutions for the future.

In this mood I mingled with a happy crowd, all purposeless and cheerful
as usual, but before long began to feel the influence of one of those
drifts, a universal turning in one direction, as seaweed turns when
the tide changes, so characteristic of Martian society.  It was dusk,
a lovely soft velvet dusk, but not dark yet, and I said to a yellow-robed
fairy at my side:

"Whither away, comrade?  It is not eight bells yet.  Surely we are not
going to be put to bed so early as this?"

"No," said that smiling individual, "it is the princess.  We are going to
listen to Princess Heru in the palace square.  She reads the globe on the
terrace again tonight, to see if omens are propitious for her marriage.
She MUST marry, and you know the ceremony has been unavoidably postponed
so far."

"Unavoidably postponed?"  Yes, Heaven wotted I was aware of the fact.
And was Heru going to marry black Hath in such a hurry?  And after all
I had done for her?  It was scarcely decent, and I tried to rouse myself
to rage over it, but somehow the seductive Martian contentment with any
fate was getting into my veins.  I was not yet altogether sunk in their
slothful acceptance of the inevitable, but there was not the slightest
doubt the hot red blood in me was turning to vapid stuff such as did duty
for the article in their veins.  I mustered up a half-hearted frown at
this unwelcome intelligence, turning with it on my face towards the slave
girl; but she had slipped away into the throng, so the frown evaporated,
and shrugging my shoulders I said to myself, "What does it matter?
There are twenty others will do as well for me.  If not one, why then
obviously another, 'tis the only rational way to think, and at all events
there is the magic globe.  That may tell us something."  And slipping
my arm round the waist of the first disengaged girl--we were not then,
mind you, in Atlantic City--I kissed her dimpling cheek unreproached,
and gaily followed in the drift of humanity, trending with a low hum of
pleasure towards the great white terraces under the palace porch.

How well I knew them!  It was just such an evening Heru had consulted
Fate in the same place once before; how much had happened since then!
But there was little time or inclination to think of those things now.
The whole phantom city's population had drifted to one common centre.
The crumbling seaward ramparts were all deserted; no soldier watch was
kept to note if angry woodmen came from over seas; a soft wind blew
in from off the brine, but told no tales; the streets were empty, and,
when as we waited far away in the southern sky the earth planet presently
got up, by its light Heru, herself again, came tripping down the steps
to read her fate.

They had placed another magic globe under a shroud on a tripod for her.
It stood within the charmed circle upon the terrace, and I was close by,
although the princess did not see me.

Again that weird, fantastic dance commenced, the princess working herself
up from the drowsiest undulations to a hurricane of emotion.  Then she
stopped close by the orb, and seized the corner of the web covering it.
We saw the globe begin to beam with veiled magnificence at her touch.

Not an eye wavered, not a thought wandered from her in all that silent
multitude.  It was a moment of the keenest suspense, and just when it
was at its height there came a strange sound of hurrying feet behind
the outermost crowd, a murmur such as a great pack of wolves might make
rushing through snow, while a soft long wail went up from the darkness.

Whether Heru understood it or not I cannot say, but she hesitated a
moment, then swept the cloth from the orb of her fate.

And as its ghostly, self-emitting light beamed up in the darkness with
weird brilliancy, there by it, in gold and furs and war panoply, huge,
fierce, and lowering, stood--AR-HAP HIMSELF!

Ay, and behind him, towering over the crouching Martians, blocking every
outlet and street, were scores and hundreds of his men.  Never was
surprise so utter, ambush more complete.  Even I was transfixed with
astonishment, staring with open-mouthed horror at the splendid figure
of the barbarian king as he stood aglitter in the ruddy light, scowling
defiance at the throng around him.  So silently had he come on his errand
of vengeance it was difficult to believe he was a reality, and not some
clever piece of stageplay, some vision conjured up by Martian necromancy.

But he was good reality.  In a minute comedy turned to tragedy.  Ar-hap
gave a sign with his hand, whereon all his men set up a terrible warcry,
the like of which Seth had not heard for very long, and as far as I could
make out in the half light began hacking and hewing my luckless friends
with all their might.  Meanwhile the king made at Heru, feeling sure of
her this time, and doubtless intending to make her taste his vengeance to
the dregs; and seeing her handled like that, and hearing her plaintive
cries, wrath took the place of stupid surprise in me.  I was on my feet
in a second, across the intervening space, and with all my force gave
the king a blow upon the jaw which sent even him staggering backwards.
Before I could close again, so swift was the sequence of events in
those flying minutes, a wild mob of people, victims and executioners in
one disordered throng, was between us.  How the king fared I know not,
nor stopped to ask, but half dragging, half carrying Heru through the
shrieking mob, got her up the palace steps and in at the great doors,
which a couple of yellow-clad slaves, more frightened of the barbarians
than thoughtful of the crowd without, promptly clapped to, and shot
the bolts.  Thus we were safe for a moment, and putting the princess on a
couch, I ran up a short flight of stairs and looked out of a front window
to see if there were a chance of succouring those in the palace square.
But it was all hopeless chaos with the town already beginning to burn
and not a show of fight anywhere which I could join.

I glared out on that infernal tumult for a moment or two in an agony
of impotent rage, then turned towards the harbour and saw in the shine
of the burning town below the ancient battlements and towers of Seth
begin to gleam out, like a splendid frost work of living metal clear-cut
against the smooth, black night behind, and never a show of resistance
there either.  Ay, and by this time Ar-hap's men were battering in
our gates with a big beam, and somehow, I do not know how it happened,
the palace itself away on the right, where the dry-as-dust library lay,
was also beginning to burn.

It was hopeless outside, and nothing to be done but to save Heru,
so down I went, and, with the slaves, carried her away from the hall
through a vestibule or two, and into an anteroom, where some yellow-girt
individuals were already engaged in the suggestive work of tying up
palace plate in bundles, amongst other things, alas! the great gold
love-bowl from which--oh! so long ago--I had drawn Heru's marriage billet.
These individuals told me in tremulous accents they had got a boat on a
secret waterway behind the palace whence flight to the main river and so,
far away inland, to another smaller but more peaceful city of their race
would be quite practical; and joyfully hearing this news, I handed over
to them the princess while I went to look for Hath.

And the search was not long.  Dashing into the banquet-hall, still
littered with the remains of a feast, and looking down its deserted
vistas, there at the farther end, on his throne, clad in the sombre
garments he affected, chin on hand, sedate in royal melancholy, listening
unmoved to the sack of his town outside, sat the prince himself.  Strange,
gloomy man, the great dead intelligence of his race shining in his face as
weird and out of place as a lonely sea beacon fading to nothing before the
glow of sunrise, never had he appeared so mysterious as at that moment.
Even in the heat of excitement I stared at him in amazement, wishing in a
hasty thought the confusion of the past few weeks had given me opportunity
to penetrate the recesses of his mind, and therefrom retell you things
better worth listening to than all the incident of my adventures.
But now there was no time to think, scarce time to act.

"Hath!" I cried, rushing over to him, "wake up, your majesty.  The Thither
men are outside, killing and burning!"

"I know it."

"And the palace is on fire.  You can smell the reek even here."

"Yes."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"My word, that is a fine proposition for a prince!  If you care nothing
for town or palace perhaps you will bestir yourself for Princess Heru."

A faint glimmer of interest rose upon the alabaster calm of his face at
that name, but it faded instantly, and he said quietly,

"The slaves will save her.  She will live.  I looked into the book of
her fate yesterday.  She will escape, and forget, and sit at another
marriage feast, and be a mother, and give the people yet one more prince
to keep the faint glimmer of our ancestry alive.  I am content."

"But, d--- it, man, I am not!  I take a deal more interest in the young
lady than you seem to, and have scoured half this precious planet
of yours on her account, and will be hanged if I sit idly twiddling
my thumbs while her pretty skin is in danger."  But Hath was lost in
contemplation of his shoe-strings.

"Come, sir," I said, shaking his majesty by the shoulder, "don't be down
on your luck.  There has been some rivalry between us, but never mind
about that just now.  The princess wants you.  I am going to save both
her and you, you must come with her."

"No."

"But you SHALL come."

"No!"

By this time the palace was blazing like a bonfire and the uproar outside
was terrible.  What was I to do?  As I hesitated the arras at the further
end of the hall was swept aside, a disordered mob of slaves bearing
bundles and dragging Heru with them rushing down to the door near us.
As Heru was carried swiftly by she stretched her milk-white arms towards
the prince and turned her face, lovely as a convolvulus flower even in
its pallor, upon him.

It was a heart-moving appeal from a woman with the heart of a child,
and Hath rose to his feet while for a moment there shone a look of
responsible manhood in his eyes.  But it faded quickly; he bowed slowly
as though he had received an address of condolence on the condition of
his empire, and the next moment the frightened slaves, stumbling under
their burdens, had swept poor Heru through the doorway.

I glanced savagely round at the curling smoke overhead, the red tendrils
of fire climbing up a distant wall, and there on a table by us was a
half-finished flask of the lovely tinted wine of forgetfulness.  If Hath
would not come sober perhaps he might come drunk.

"Here," I cried, "drink to tomorrow, your majesty, a sovereign toast in
all ages, and better luck next time with these hairy gentlemen battering
at your majesty's doors," and splashing out a goblet full of the stuff
I handed it to him.

He took it and looked rather lovingly into the limpid pool, then
deliberately poured it on the step in front of him, and throwing the
cup away said pleasantly,

"Not tonight, good comrade; tonight I drink a deeper draught of oblivion
than that,--and here come my cup-bearers."

Even while he spoke the palace gates had given way; there was a horrible
medley of shrieks and cries, a quick sound of running feet; then again the
arras lifted and in poured a horde of Ar-hap's men-at-arms.  The moment
they caught sight of us about a dozen of them, armed with bows, drew the
thick hide strings to their ears and down the hall came a ravening flight
of shafts.  One went through my cap, two stuck quivering in the throne,
and one, winged with owl feather, caught black Hath full in the bosom.

He had stood out boldly at the first coming of that onset, arms crossed on
breast, chin up, and looking more of a gentleman than I had ever seen him
look before; and now, stricken, he smiled gravely, then without flinching,
and still eyeing his enemies with gentle calm, his knees unlocked, his
frame trembled, then down he went headlong, his red blood running forth
in rivulets amongst the wine of oblivion he had just poured out.

There was no time for sentiment.  I shrugged my shoulders, and turning
on my heels, with the woodmen close after me, sprang through the near
doorway.  Where was Heru?  I flew down the corridor by which it seemed
she had retreated, and then, hesitating a moment where it divided in two,
took the left one.  This to my chagrin presently began to trend upwards,
whereas I knew Heru was making for the river down below.

But it was impossible to go back, and whenever I stopped in those deserted
passages I could hear the wolflike patter of men's feet upon my trail.
On again into the stony labyrinths of the old palace, ever upwards,
in spite of my desire to go down, until at last, the pursuers off the
track for a moment, I came to a north window in the palace wall, and,
hot and breathless, stayed to look out.

All was peace here; the sky a lovely lavender, a promise of coming morning
in it, and a gold-spangled curtain of stars out yonder on the horizon.
Not a soul moved.  Below appeared a sheer drop of a hundred feet into
a moat winding through thickets of heavy-scented convolvulus flowers
to the waterways beyond.  And as I looked a skiff with half a dozen
rowers came swiftly out of the darkness of the wall and passed like a
shadow amongst the thickets.  In the prow was all Hath's wedding plate,
and in the stern, a faint vision of unconscious loveliness, lay Heru!

Before I could lift a finger or call out, even if I had had a mind to
do so, the shadow had gone round a bend, and a shout within the palace
told me I was sighted again.

On once more, hotly pursued, until the last corridor ended in two doors
leading into a half-lit gallery with open windows at the further end.
There was a wilderness of lumber down the sides of the great garret,
and now I come to think of it more calmly I imagine it was Hath's
Lost Property Office, the vast receptacle where his slaves deposited
everything lazy Martians forgot or left about in their daily life.
At that moment it only represented a last refuge, and into it I dashed,
swung the doors to and fastened them just as the foremost of Ar-hap's
men hurled themselves upon the barrier from outside.

There I was like a rat in a trap, and like a rat I made up my mind
to fight savagely to the end, without for a moment deceiving myself
as to what that end must be.  Even up there the horrible roar of
destruction was plainly audible as the barbarians sacked and burned
the ancient town, and I was glad from the bottom of my heart my poor
little princess was safely out of it.  Nor did I bear her or hers the
least resentment for making off while there was yet time and leaving me
to my fate--anything else would have been contrary to Martian nature.
Doubtless she would get away, as Hath had said, and elsewhere drop a
few pearly tears and then over her sugar-candy and lotus-eating forget
with happy completeness--most blessed gift!  And meanwhile the foresaid
barbarians were battering on my doors, while over their heads choking
smoke was pouring in in ever-increas-ing volumes.

In burst the first panel, then another, and I could see through the
gaps a medley of tossing weapons and wild faces without.  Short shrift
for me if they came through, so in the obstinacy of desperation I set
to work to pile old furniture and dry goods against the barricade.
And as they yelled and hammered outside I screamed back defiance from
within, sweating, tugging, and hauling with the strength of ten men,
piling up the old Martian lumber against the opening till, so fierce was
the attack outside, little was left of the original doorway and nothing
between me and the beseigers but a rampart of broken woodwork half seen
in a smother of smoke and flames.

Still they came on, thrusting spears and javelins through every crevice
and my strength began to go.  I threw two tables into a gap, and brained
a besieger with a sweetmeat-seller's block and smothered another, and
overturned a great chest against my barricade; but what was the purpose
of it all?  They were fifty to one and my rampart quaked before them.
The smoke was stifling, and the pains of dissolution in my heart.
They burst in and clambered up the rampart like black ants.  I looked
round for still one more thing to hurl into the breach.  My eyes lit on
a roll of carpet: I seized it by one corner meaning to drag it to the
doorway, and it came undone at a touch.

That strange, that incredible pattern!  Where in all the vicissitudes
of a chequered career had I seen such a one before?  I stared at it in
amazement under the very spears of the woodmen in the red glare of Hath's
burning palace.  Then all on a sudden it burst upon me that IT WAS THE
ACCURSED RUG, the very one which in response to a careless wish had swept
me out of my own dear world, and forced me to take as wild a journey
into space as ever fell to a man's lot since the universe was made!

And in another second it occurred to me that if it had brought me hither
it might take me hence.  It was but a chance, yet worth trying when all
other chances were against me.  As Ar-hap's men came shouting over the
barricade I threw myself down upon that incredible carpet and cried from
the bottom of my heart,

"I wish--I wish I were in New York!"

Yes!

A moment of thrilling suspense and then the corners lifted as though
a strong breeze were playing upon them.  Another moment and they had
curled over like an incoming surge.  One swift glance I got at the smoke
and flames, the glittering spears and angry faces, and then fold upon
fold, a stifling, all-enveloping embrace, a lift, a sense of super-human
speed--and then forgetfulness.

When I came to, as reporters say, I was aware the rug had ejected me on
solid ground and disappeared, forever.  Where was I!  It was cool, damp,
and muddy.  There were some iron railings close at hand and a street
lamp overhead.  These things showed clearly to me, sitting on a doorstep
under that light, head in hand, amazed and giddy--so amazed that when
slowly the recognition came of the incredible fact my wish was gratified
and I was home again, the stupendous incident scarcely appealed to my
tingling senses more than one of the many others I had lately undergone.

Very slowly I rose to my feet, and as like a discreditable reveller as
could be, climbed the steps.  The front door was open, and entering the
oh, so familiar hall a sound of voices in my sitting-room on the right
caught my ear.

"Oh no, Mrs. Brown," said one, which I recognised at once as my Polly's,
"he is dead for certain, and my heart is breaking.  He would never,
never have left me so long without writing if he had been alive," and
then came a great sound of sobbing.

"Bless your kind heart, miss," said the voice of my landlady in reply,
"but you don't know as much about young gentlemen as I do.  It is not
likely, if he has gone off on the razzle-dazzle, as I am sure he has,
he is going to write every post and tell you about it.  Now you go off
to your ma at the hotel like a dear, and forget all about him till he
comes back--that's MY advice."

"I cannot, I cannot, Mrs. Brown.  I cannot rest by day or sleep by
night for thinking of him; for wondering why he went away so suddenly,
and for hungering for news of him.  Oh, I am miserable.  Gully!  Gully!
Come to me," and then there were sounds of troubled footsteps pacing to
and fro and of a woman's grief.

That was more than I could stand.  I flung the door open, and, dirty,
dishevelled, with unsteady steps, advanced into the room.

"Ahem!" coughed Mrs. Brown, "just as I expected!"

But I had no eyes for her.  "Polly!  Polly!" I cried, and that dear
girl, after a startled scream and a glance to make sure it was indeed
the recovered prodigal, rushed over and threw all her weight of dear,
warm, comfortable womanhood into my arms, and the moment after burst
into a passion of happy tears down my collar.

"Humph!" quoth the landlady, "that is not what BROWN gets when he forgets
his self.  No, not by any means."

But she was a good old soul at heart, and, seeing how matters stood,
with a parting glance of scorn in my direction and a toss of her head,
went out of the room, and closed the door behind her.

Need I tell in detail what followed?  Polly behaved like an angel, and
when in answer to her gentle reproaches I told her the outlines of my
marvellous story she almost believed me!  Over there on the writing-desk
lay a whole row of the unopened letters she had showered upon me during
my absence, and amongst them an official one.  We went and opened it
together, and it was an intimation of my promotion, a much better "step"
than I had ever dared to hope for.

Holding that missive in my hand a thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Polly dear, this letter makes me able to maintain you as you ought
to be maintained, and there is still a fortnight of vacation for me.
Polly, will you marry me tomorrow?"

"No, certainly not, sir."

"Then will you marry me on Monday?"

"Do you truly, truly want me to?"

"Truly, truly."

"Then, yes," and the dear girl again came blushing into my arms.

While we were thus the door opened, and in came her parents who were
staying at a neighbouring hotel while inquiries were made as to my
mysterious absence.  Not unnaturally my appearance went a long way to
confirm suspicions such as Mrs. Brown had confessed to, and, after they
had given me cold salutations, Polly's mother, fixing gold glasses on
the bridge of her nose and eyeing me haughtily therefrom, observed,

"And now that you ARE safely at home again, Lieutenant Gulliver Jones,
I think I will take my daughter away with me.  Tomorrow her father will
ascertain the true state of her feelings after this unpleasant experience,
and subsequently he will no doubt communicate with you on the subject."
This very icily.

But I was too happy to be lightly put down.

"My dear madam," I replied, "I am happy to be able to save her father
that trouble.  I have already communicated with this young lady as to
the state of her feelings, and as an outcome I am delighted to be able
to tell you we are to be married on Monday."

"Oh yes, Mother, it is true, and if you do not want to make me the most
miserable of girls again you will not be unkind to us."

In brief, that sweet champion spoke so prettily and smoothed things so
cleverly that I was "forgiven," and later on in the evening allowed to
escort Polly back to her hotel.

"And oh!" she said, in her charmingly enthusiastic way when we were
saying goodnight, "you shall write a book about that extraordinary story
you told me just now.  Only you must promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"To leave out all about Heru--I don't like that part at all."  This with
the prettiest little pout.

"But, Polly dear, see how important she was to the narrative.  I cannot
quite do that."

"Then you will say as little as you can about her?"

"No more than the story compels me to."

"And you are quite sure you like me much the best, and will not go after
her again?"

"Quite sure."

The compact was sealed in the most approved fashion; and here, indulgent
reader, is the artless narrative that resulted--an incident so incredible
in this prosaic latter-day world that I dare not ask you to believe,
and must humbly content myself with hoping that if I fail to convince
yet I may at least claim the consolation of having amused you.



__________________________________________________________________________

Allan Quatermain encounters SHE

as told by H. RIDER HAGGARD




IN EARTH AND SKIE AND SEA

STRANGE THYNGS THER BE

Doggerel couplet from the

Sherd of Amenartas



I inscribe this history to

ANDREW LANG

in token of personal regard

and of

my sincere admiration for his learning and his works





SHE



INTRODUCTION

In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure
only, is I suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences
ever undergone by mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what
my exact connection with it is. And so I may as well say at once that I
am not the narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history,
and then go on to tell how it found its way into my hands.

Some years ago I, the editor, was stopping with a friend, "_vir
doctissimus et amicus neus_," at a certain University, which for the
purposes of this history we will call Cambridge, and was one day much
struck with the appearance of two persons whom I saw going arm-in-arm
down the street. One of these gentlemen was I think, without exception,
the handsomest young fellow I have ever seen. He was very tall, very
broad, and had a look of power and a grace of bearing that seemed as
native to him as it is to a wild stag. In addition his face was almost
without flaw--a good face as well as a beautiful one, and when he lifted
his hat, which he did just then to a passing lady, I saw that his head
was covered with little golden curls growing close to the scalp.

"Good gracious!" I said to my friend, with whom I was walking, "why,
that fellow looks like a statue of Apollo come to life. What a splendid
man he is!"

"Yes," he answered, "he is the handsomest man in the University, and one
of the nicest too. They call him 'the Greek god'; but look at the other
one, he's Vincey's (that's the god's name) guardian, and supposed to be
full of every kind of information. They call him 'Charon.'" I looked,
and found the older man quite as interesting in his way as the glorified
specimen of humanity at his side. He appeared to be about forty years
of age, and was I think as ugly as his companion was handsome. To begin
with, he was shortish, rather bow-legged, very deep chested, and with
unusually long arms. He had dark hair and small eyes, and the hair grew
right down on his forehead, and his whiskers grew right up to his hair,
so that there was uncommonly little of his countenance to be seen.
Altogether he reminded me forcibly of a gorilla, and yet there was
something very pleasing and genial about the man's eye. I remember
saying that I should like to know him.

"All right," answered my friend, "nothing easier. I know Vincey;
I'll introduce you," and he did, and for some minutes we stood
chatting--about the Zulu people, I think, for I had just returned from
the Cape at the time. Presently, however, a stoutish lady, whose name
I do not remember, came along the pavement, accompanied by a pretty
fair-haired girl, and these two Mr. Vincey, who clearly knew them well,
at once joined, walking off in their company. I remember being rather
amused because of the change in the expression of the elder man, whose
name I discovered was Holly, when he saw the ladies advancing. He
suddenly stopped short in his talk, cast a reproachful look at his
companion, and, with an abrupt nod to myself, turned and marched off
alone across the street. I heard afterwards that he was popularly
supposed to be as much afraid of a woman as most people are of a mad
dog, which accounted for his precipitate retreat. I cannot say, however,
that young Vincey showed much aversion to feminine society on this
occasion. Indeed I remember laughing, and remarking to my friend at
the time that he was not the sort of man whom it would be desirable to
introduce to the lady one was going to marry, since it was exceedingly
probable that the acquaintance would end in a transfer of her
affections. He was altogether too good-looking, and, what is more,
he had none of that consciousness and conceit about him which usually
afflicts handsome men, and makes them deservedly disliked by their
fellows.

That same evening my visit came to an end, and this was the last I saw
or heard of "Charon" and "the Greek god" for many a long day. Indeed, I
have never seen either of them from that hour to this, and do not think
it probable that I shall. But a month ago I received a letter and two
packets, one of manuscript, and on opening the first found that it was
signed by "Horace Holly," a name that at the moment was not familiar to
me. It ran as follows:--

"---- College, Cambridge, May 1, 18--

"My dear Sir,--You will be surprised, considering the very slight nature
of our acquaintance, to get a letter from me. Indeed, I think I had
better begin by reminding you that we once met, now some five years ago,
when I and my ward Leo Vincey were introduced to you in the street at
Cambridge. To be brief and come to my business. I have recently
read with much interest a book of yours describing a Central African
adventure. I take it that this book is partly true, and partly an effort
of the imagination. However this may be, it has given me an idea. It
happens, how you will see in the accompanying manuscript (which together
with the Scarab, the 'Royal Son of the Sun,' and the original sherd, I
am sending to you by hand), that my ward, or rather my adopted son Leo
Vincey and myself have recently passed through a real African adventure,
of a nature so much more marvellous than the one which you describe,
that to tell the truth I am almost ashamed to submit it to you lest you
should disbelieve my tale. You will see it stated in this manuscript
that I, or rather we, had made up our minds not to make this history
public during our joint lives. Nor should we alter our determination
were it not for a circumstance which has recently arisen. We are for
reasons that, after perusing this manuscript, you may be able to guess,
going away again this time to Central Asia where, if anywhere upon this
earth, wisdom is to be found, and we anticipate that our sojourn there
will be a long one. Possibly we shall not return. Under these altered
conditions it has become a question whether we are justified in
withholding from the world an account of a phenomenon which we believe
to be of unparalleled interest, merely because our private life is
involved, or because we are afraid of ridicule and doubt being cast
upon our statements. I hold one view about this matter, and Leo
holds another, and finally, after much discussion, we have come to a
compromise, namely, to send the history to you, giving you full leave to
publish it if you think fit, the only stipulation being that you shall
disguise our real names, and as much concerning our personal identity as
is consistent with the maintenance of the _bona fides_ of the narrative.

"And now what am I to say further? I really do not know beyond once more
repeating that everything is described in the accompanying manuscript
exactly as it happened. As regards _She_ herself I have nothing to add.
Day by day we gave greater occasion to regret that we did not better
avail ourselves of our opportunities to obtain more information from
that marvellous woman. Who was she? How did she first come to the Caves
of Kor, and what was her real religion? We never ascertained, and now,
alas! we never shall, at least not yet. These and many other questions
arise in my mind, but what is the good of asking them now?

"Will you undertake the task? We give you complete freedom, and as a
reward you will, we believe, have the credit of presenting to the world
the most wonderful history, as distinguished from romance, that its
records can show. Read the manuscript (which I have copied out fairly
for your benefit), and let me know.

"Believe me, very truly yours, "L. Horace Holly.[*]

"P.S.--Of course, if any profit results from the sale of the writing
should you care to undertake its publication, you can do what you
like with it, but if there is a loss I will leave instructions with my
lawyers, Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, to meet it. We entrust the sherd,
the scarab, and the parchments to your keeping, till such time as we
demand them back again. --L. H. H."

     [*] This name is varied throughout in accordance with the
     writer's request.--Editor.

This letter, as may be imagined, astonished me considerably, but when I
came to look at the MS., which the pressure of other work prevented me
from doing for a fortnight, I was still more astonished, as I think the
reader will be also, and at once made up my mind to press on with the
matter. I wrote to this effect to Mr. Holly, but a week afterwards
received a letter from that gentleman's lawyers, returning my own, with
the information that their client and Mr. Leo Vincey had already left
this country for Thibet, and they did not at present know their address.

Well, that is all I have to say. Of the history itself the reader must
judge. I give it him, with the exception of a very few alterations,
made with the object of concealing the identity of the actors from the
general public, exactly as it came to me. Personally I have made up my
mind to refrain from comments. At first I was inclined to believe that
this history of a woman on whom, clothed in the majesty of her almost
endless years, the shadow of Eternity itself lay like the dark wing
of Night, was some gigantic allegory of which I could not catch the
meaning. Then I thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the
possible results of practical immortality, informing the substance of
a mortal who yet drew her strength from Earth, and in whose human bosom
passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world around her
the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly. But as I
went on I abandoned that idea also. To me the story seems to bear the
stamp of truth upon its face. Its explanation I must leave to others,
and with this slight preface, which circumstances make necessary, I
introduce the world to Ayesha and the Caves of Kor.--The Editor.

P.S.--There is on consideration one circumstance that, after a reperusal
of this history, struck me with so much force that I cannot resist
calling the attention of the reader to it. He will observe that so far
as we are made acquainted with him there appears to be nothing in the
character of Leo Vincey which in the opinion of most people would have
been likely to attract an intellect so powerful as that of Ayesha. He is
not even, at any rate to my view, particularly interesting. Indeed, one
might imagine that Mr. Holly would under ordinary circumstances have
easily outstripped him in the favour of _She_. Can it be that extremes
meet, and that the very excess and splendour of her mind led her by
means of some strange physical reaction to worship at the shrine of
matter? Was that ancient Kallikrates nothing but a splendid animal
loved for his hereditary Greek beauty? Or is the true explanation what
I believe it to be--namely, that Ayesha, seeing further than we can
see, perceived the germ and smouldering spark of greatness which lay hid
within her lover's soul, and well knew that under the influence of her
gift of life, watered by her wisdom, and shone upon with the sunshine
of her presence, it would bloom like a flower and flash out like a star,
filling the world with light and fragrance?

Here also I am not able to answer, but must leave the reader to form his
own judgment on the facts before him, as detailed by Mr. Holly in the
following pages.



I

MY VISITOR

There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail
seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget
it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe. It rises
as clearly before my mind at this moment as thought it had happened but
yesterday.

It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I, Ludwig
Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at Cambridge, grinding
away at some mathematical work, I forget what. I was to go up for my
fellowship within a week, and was expected by my tutor and my college
generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung my book
down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and filled it.
There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass
at the back of it; and as I was in the act of lighting the pipe I caught
sight of my own countenance in the glass, and paused to reflect. The
lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers, forcing me to drop
it; but still I stood and stared at myself in the glass, and reflected.

"Well," I said aloud, at last, "it is to be hoped that I shall be able
to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly never
do anything by the help of the outside."

This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being slightly
obscure, but I was in reality alluding to my physical deficiencies.
Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some share of the
comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied. Short, thick-set,
and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sinewy arms, heavy
features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of
thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on which the forest had once
more begun to encroach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of a
century ago, and such, with some modification, it is to this day.
Like Cain, I was branded--branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal
ugliness, as I was gifted by Nature with iron and abnormal strength and
considerable intellectual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce
young men of my College, though they were proud enough of my feats of
endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen walking
with me. Was it wonderful that I was misanthropic and sullen? Was it
wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had no friends--at least,
only one? I was set apart by Nature to live alone, and draw comfort
from her breast, and hers only. Women hated the sight of me. Only a week
before I had heard one call me a "monster" when she thought I was out
of hearing, and say that I had converted her to the monkey theory. Once,
indeed, a woman pretended to care for me, and I lavished all the pent-up
affection of my nature upon her. Then money that was to have come to me
went elsewhere, and she discarded me. I pleaded with her as I have never
pleaded with any living creature before or since, for I was caught by
her sweet face, and loved her; and in the end by way of answer she took
me to the glass, and stood side by side with me, and looked into it.

"Now," she said, "if I am Beauty, who are you?" That was when I was only
twenty.

And so I stood and stared, and felt a sort of grim satisfaction in the
sense of my own loneliness; for I had neither father, nor mother, nor
brother; and as I did so there came a knock at my door.

I listened before I went to open it, for it was nearly twelve o'clock at
night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger. I had but one friend
in the College, or, indeed, in the world--perhaps it was he.

Just then the person outside the door coughed, and I hastened to open
it, for I knew the cough.

A tall man of about thirty, with the remains of great personal beauty,
came hurrying in, staggering beneath the weight of a massive iron box
which he carried by a handle with his right hand. He placed the box upon
the table, and then fell into an awful fit of coughing. He coughed and
coughed till his face became quite purple, and at last he sank into
a chair and began to spit up blood. I poured out some whisky into a
tumbler, and gave it to him. He drank it, and seemed better; though his
better was very bad indeed.

"Why did you keep me standing there in the cold?" he asked pettishly.
"You know the draughts are death to me."

"I did not know who it was," I answered. "You are a late visitor."

"Yes; and I verily believe it is my last visit," he answered, with a
ghastly attempt at a smile. "I am done for, Holly. I am done for. I do
not believe that I shall see to-morrow."

"Nonsense!" I said. "Let me go for a doctor."

He waved me back imperiously with his hand. "It is sober sense; but I
want no doctors. I have studied medicine and I know all about it. No
doctors can help me. My last hour has come! For a year past I have
only lived by a miracle. Now listen to me as you have never listened to
anybody before; for you will not have the opportunity of getting me to
repeat my words. We have been friends for two years; now tell me how
much do you know about me?"

"I know that you are rich, and have had a fancy to come to College long
after the age that most men leave it. I know that you have been married,
and that your wife died; and that you have been the best, indeed almost
the only friend I ever had."

"Did you know that I have a son?"

"No."

"I have. He is five years old. He cost me his mother's life, and I have
never been able to bear to look upon his face in consequence. Holly,
if you will accept the trust, I am going to leave you that boy's sole
guardian."

I sprang almost out of my chair. "_Me!_" I said.

"Yes, you. I have not studied you for two years for nothing. I have
known for some time that I could not last, and since I realised the fact
I have been searching for some one to whom I could confide the boy and
this," and he tapped the iron box. "You are the man, Holly; for, like a
rugged tree, you are hard and sound at core. Listen; the boy will be the
only representative of one of the most ancient families in the world,
that is, so far as families can be traced. You will laugh at me when
I say it, but one day it will be proved to you beyond a doubt, that my
sixty-fifth or sixty-sixth lineal ancestor was an Egyptian priest
of Isis, though he was himself of Grecian extraction, and was called
Kallikrates.[*] His father was one of the Greek mercenaries raised
by Hak-Hor, a Mendesian Pharaoh of the twenty-ninth dynasty, and his
grandfather or great-grandfather, I believe, was that very Kallikrates
mentioned by Herodotus.[+] In or about the year 339 before Christ, just
at the time of the final fall of the Pharaohs, this Kallikrates (the
priest) broke his vows of celibacy and fled from Egypt with a Princess
of Royal blood who had fallen in love with him, and was finally wrecked
upon the coast of Africa, somewhere, as I believe, in the neighbourhood
of where Delagoa Bay now is, or rather to the north of it, he and his
wife being saved, and all the remainder of their company destroyed in
one way or another. Here they endured great hardships, but were at last
entertained by the mighty Queen of a savage people, a white woman of
peculiar loveliness, who, under circumstances which I cannot enter into,
but which you will one day learn, if you live, from the contents of
the box, finally murdered my ancestor Kallikrates. His wife, however,
escaped, how, I know not, to Athens, bearing a child with her, whom she
named Tisisthenes, or the Mighty Avenger. Five hundred years or more
afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of which no
trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of preserving the idea
of vengeance which we find set out in the name of Tisisthenes, they
appear to have pretty regularly assumed the cognomen of Vindex, or
Avenger. Here, too, they remained for another five centuries or more,
till about 770 A.D., when Charlemagne invaded Lombardy, where they were
then settled, whereon the head of the family seems to have attached
himself to the great Emperor, and to have returned with him across the
Alps, and finally to have settled in Brittany. Eight generations later
his lineal representative crossed to England in the reign of Edward
the Confessor, and in the time of William the Conqueror was advanced to
great honour and power. From that time to the present day I can trace
my descent without a break. Not that the Vinceys--for that was the final
corruption of the name after its bearers took root in English soil--have
been particularly distinguished--they never came much to the fore.
Sometimes they were soldiers, sometimes merchants, but on the whole they
have preserved a dead level of respectability, and a still deader level
of mediocrity. From the time of Charles II. till the beginning of the
present century they were merchants. About 1790 by grandfather made a
considerable fortune out of brewing, and retired. In 1821 he died, and
my father succeeded him, and dissipated most of the money. Ten years ago
he died also, leaving me a net income of about two thousand a year. Then
it was that I undertook an expedition in connection with _that_," and he
pointed to the iron chest, "which ended disastrously enough. On my way
back I travelled in the South of Europe, and finally reached Athens.
There I met my beloved wife, who might well also have been called the
'Beautiful,' like my old Greek ancestor. There I married her, and there,
a year afterwards, when my boy was born, she died."

     [*] The Strong and Beautiful, or, more accurately, the
     Beautiful in strength.

     [+] The Kallikrates here referred to by my friend was a
     Spartan, spoken of by Herodotus (Herod. ix. 72) as being
     remarkable for his beauty. He fell at the glorious battle of
     Plataea (September 22, B.C. 479), when the Lacedaemonians
     and Athenians under Pausanias routed the Persians, putting
     nearly 300,000 of them to the sword. The following is a
     translation of the passage, "For Kallikrates died out of the
     battle, he came to the army the most beautiful man of the
     Greeks of that day--not only of the Lacedaemonians
     themselves, but of the other Greeks also. He when Pausanias
     was sacrificing was wounded in the side by an arrow; and
     then they fought, but on being carried off he regretted his
     death, and said to Arimnestus, a Plataean, that he did not
     grieve at dying for Greece, but at not having struck a blow,
     or, although he desired so to do, performed any deed worthy
     of himself." This Kallikrates, who appears to have been as
     brave as he was beautiful, is subsequently mentioned by
     Herodotus as having been buried among the {~GREEK SMALL
     LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
     SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
     NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
     SIGMA~} (young commanders), apart from the other Spartans
     and the Helots.--L. H. H.

He paused a while, his head sunk upon his hand, and then continued--

"My marriage had diverted me from a project which I cannot enter into
now. I have no time, Holly--I have no time! One day, if you accept my
trust, you will learn all about it. After my wife's death I turned my
mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at least, I conceived
that it was necessary, that I should attain to a perfect knowledge of
Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to facilitate my studies
that I came here. Very soon, however, my disease developed itself, and
now there is an end of me." And as though to emphasise his words he
burst into another terrible fit of coughing.

I gave him some more whisky, and after resting he went on--

"I have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never could
bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and handsome child.
In this envelope," and he produced a letter from his pocket addressed
to myself, "I have jotted down the course I wish followed in the boy's
education. It is a somewhat peculiar one. At any rate, I could not
entrust it to a stranger. Once more, will you undertake it?"

"I must first know what I am to undertake," I answered.

"You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till he is
twenty-five years of age--not to send him to school, remember. On his
twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you will then,
with the keys that I give you now" (and he placed them on the table)
"open the iron box, and let him see and read the contents, and say
whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no
obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income is
two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured
to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the
guardianship--that is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for
you will have to give up your life to it, and one hundred a year to
pay for the board of the boy. The rest is to accumulate till Leo is
twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to
undertake the quest of which I spoke."

"And suppose I were to die?" I asked.

"Then the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance. Only
be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your will. Listen,
Holly, don't refuse me. Believe me, this is to your advantage. You are
not fit to mix with the world--it would only embitter you. In a few
weeks you will become a Fellow of your College, and the income that you
will derive from that combined with what I have left you will enable you
to live a life of learned leisure, alternated with the sport of which
you are so fond, such as will exactly suit you."

He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated. The charge
seemed so very strange.

"For my sake, Holly. We have been good friends, and I have no time to
make other arrangements."

"Very well," I said, "I will do it, provided there is nothing in this
paper to make me change my mind," and I touched the envelope he had put
upon the table by the keys.

"Thank you, Holly, thank you. There is nothing at all. Swear to me by
God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my directions to
the letter."

"I swear it," I answered solemnly.

"Very well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the account of
your oath, for though I am dead and forgotten, yet I shall live. There
is no such thing as death, Holly, only a change, and, as you may perhaps
learn in time to come, I believe that even that change could under
certain circumstances be indefinitely postponed," and again he broke
into one of his dreadful fits of coughing.

"There," he said, "I must go, you have the chest, and my will will be
found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be
handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you
are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you."

I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak.

He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had
been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. "Food for the worms,"
he said. "Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and
cold--the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly! life
is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love--at least,
mine has not been; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and
the faith. Good-bye, my friend!" and with a sudden access of tenderness
he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned
to go.

"Look here, Vincey," I said, "if you are as ill as you think, you had
better let me fetch a doctor."

"No, no," he said earnestly. "Promise me that you won't. I am going to
die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone."

"I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort," I
answered. He smiled, and, with the word "Remember" on his lips, was
gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had
been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it
up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking. I knew that
he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he
could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he
would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he
would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy iron box with
him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible,
for I was not then old enough to be aware how many things happen in
this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as
so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have
only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five
years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No. Was
it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately? No. Was
it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three
centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute
guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college
friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That
being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest?

The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I
could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it. So I jumped
up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away
into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large portmanteau,
I turned in, and was soon fast asleep.

As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was
awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes; it was
broad daylight--eight o'clock, in fact.

"Why, what is the matter with you, John?" I asked of the gyp who waited
on Vincey and myself. "You look as though you had seen a ghost!"

"Yes, sir, and so I have," he answered, "leastways I've seen a corpse,
which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he
lies stark and dead!"



II

THE YEARS ROLL BY

As might be expected, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir
in the College; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory
doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were
not so particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed,
they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all these
circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to
volunteer any information about our interview on the night of Vincey's
decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he
often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and
followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with
his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been
left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter,
and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was
up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the
funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was
over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a
happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly.

Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed
them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events
of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it
all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter,
and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curious iron
chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began to grow quite
disturbed over the whole occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the
prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had
taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world
than this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what
was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so
much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed
at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew
afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How much more
do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards!

As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter, in a
big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was
a lawyer's letter, and an instinct told me that it was connected with my
trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus:--

"Sir,--Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th
instant in ---- College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of which
you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the executors.
Under this Will you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about
half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject
to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey, at
present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document
in question in obedience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions,
both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had
very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that
its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have
bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order
that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by
contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to safeguard
the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was
a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has
absolutely no relations living to whom he could have confided the
guardianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this
course.

"Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards
the delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the
dividends due to you,

"We remain, Sir, faithfully yours,

"Geoffrey and Jordan.

"Horace L. Holly, Esq."


I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared,
from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest
legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore
out what my friend Vincey had told me on the night of his death. So
it was true after all. I must take the boy. Suddenly I remembered the
letter which Vincey had left with the chest. I fetched and opened it.
It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to
opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the
outlines of the boy's education, which was to include Greek, the higher
Mathematics, and _Arabic_. At the end there was a postscript to the
effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which,
however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest,
and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see
fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them
on to a stranger.

As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly
raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had
promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open
to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my
acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence
my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the
authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story
as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable
difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the
event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain
I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent,
however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms
in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty
succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college
gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a
determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child,
and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do
without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male
attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable
round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but
who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to
the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake
the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron
box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought
some books upon the health and management of children and read them,
first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's
name--and waited.

At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept
bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do
not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes
were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face, even at that early age,
clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his
most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and
tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse
finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the
scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon
his golden curls, his fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in
with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to
him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a
sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or
from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and
inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of
peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little
short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden
the lad stretched out both his little arms and ran to me.

"I like you," he said: "you is ugly, but you is good."

Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and butter,
with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but
I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we had read, and
forbade it.

In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship) the
boy became the favourite of the whole College--where, all orders and
regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually in
and out--a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were
relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without number,
and I had serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow,
now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the
University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered,
when a frequently recurring fit of sickness had forced Job to keep a
strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of
enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unlimited
quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about
it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, "at his age,
too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was
right," by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the
row.

But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around which
memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed
we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few sons have
been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous
affection that Leo bears to me.

The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one
by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so
did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was
about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me
they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us
when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo
attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he
sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too--thrashed him fairly. I
walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting,
when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of
the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a
little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me
Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with
the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as
I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at
twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never
saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious
of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant and keen-witted, but not a
scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed
out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough,
and on the whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and
Arabic, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help
to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I
did--almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I always
was a great sportsman--it is my one passion--and every autumn we went
away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes
to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he
learnt to excel me.

When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my
own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree--a respectable degree,
but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told
him something of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead.
Of course he was very curious about it, and of course I explained to
him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to
pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the
Bar; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London
to eat his dinners.

I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman
who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on
falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not
enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the
whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more than that.

And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth
birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful history
really begins.



III

THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fifth birthday we both journeyed to
London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had
deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the
same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden
it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in
finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs.

In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I
think that we might both of us have given away all the sleep we got that
night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my
room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to
business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest
had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait
until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine--an unusually sharp nine--we
breakfasted; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to
state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump
of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course,
spread, managed to break the handle off my Sevres china tea-cup, the
identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he
was stabbed in his bath.

At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request,
fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly
fashion, as though he mistrusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room.

"Stop a moment, Job," I said. "If Mr. Leo has no objection, I should
prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be
relied upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak."

"Certainly, Uncle Horace," answered Leo; for I had brought him up to
call me uncle--though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully
by calling me "old fellow," or even "my avuncular relative."

Job touched his head, not having a hat on.

"Lock the door, Job," I said, "and bring me my despatch-box."

He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's
father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of
them; the largest a comparatively modern key, the second an exceedingly
ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we
had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of solid
silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and leaving
some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of an
antediluvian railway key than anything else.

"Now are you both ready?" I said, as people do when they are going to
fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some
salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands
were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and
caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the
hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case
covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any
difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a
clothes-brush.

It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black
wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its
antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts
actually commencing to crumble from age.

"Now for it," I said, inserting the second key.

Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and
I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for
inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve
inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship,
and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was
also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and
dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition.

I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the
most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and
pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket
stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded
material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I
have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth
of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary
modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead
friend Vincey.

"_To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket._"

I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it
down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket.

The next thing that I found was a parchment carefully rolled up. I
unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and
headed, "Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd," put
it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment,
that had become yellow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I
also unrolled. It was likewise a translation of the same Greek original,
but into black-letter Latin, which at the first glance from the style
and character appeared to me to date from somewhere about the beginning
of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something
hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another
layer of the fibrous material. Slowly and carefully we unrolled the
linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd
of a dirty yellow colour! This potsherd had in my judgment, once been
a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured
ten and a half inches in length by seven in width, was about a quarter
of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay
towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek
character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly
legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the
greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients
often used. I must not forget to mention that in some remote age this
wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of
cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on
the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had
clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and
of them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to
speak presently.

     [plate 1]

     FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

     One 1/2 size

     Greatest length of the original    101/2 inches
     Greatest breadth                   7 inches
     Weight                             1lb 51/2 oz

     [plate 2]

     FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

     One 1/2 size

"Is there anything more?" asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper.

I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen
bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done
upon ivory, and secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition
_scarabaeus_, marked thus:--

[sketch omitted]

symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean "Suten se Ra," which is
being translated the "Royal Son of Ra or the Sun." The miniature was a
picture of Leo's Greek mother--a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back
of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, "My beloved wife."

"That is all," I said.

"Very well," answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he
had been gazing affectionately; "and now let us read the letter," and
without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows:--

"My Son Leo,--When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will
have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to
be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it
remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and
that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand
to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the
silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains
in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your
birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your
life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often
loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in
time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live.
My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when
such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are
completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me
if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year."

"So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so."

"And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to
be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as
much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if
he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have
told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In
the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The
strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress
upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed,
and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years
of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors
about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that
befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the
coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the
north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland,
at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a
negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there,
and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people
because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great
mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps.
I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are
ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but
who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two
days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted
in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by
symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow
again.

"Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was
wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards
by an English ship that brought me to Aden, whence I started for
England, intending to prosecute my search as soon as I had made
sufficient preparations. On my way I stopped in Greece, and there, for
'Omnia vincit amor,' I met your beloved mother, and married her, and
there you were born and she died. Then it was that my last illness
seized me, and I returned hither to die. But still I hoped against hope,
and set myself to work to learn Arabic, with the intention, should I
ever get better, of returning to the coast of Africa, and solving
the mystery of which the tradition has lived so many centuries in our
family. But I have not got better, and, so far as I am concerned, the
story is at an end.

"For you, however, my son, it is not at an end, and to you I hand on
these the results of my labour, together with the hereditary proofs of
its origin. It is my intention to provide that they shall not be put
into your hands until you have reached an age when you will be able to
judge for yourself whether or no you will choose to investigate what, if
it is true, must be the greatest mystery in the world, or to put it by
as an idle fable, originating in the first place in a woman's disordered
brain.

"I do not believe that it is a fable; I believe that if it can only
be re-discovered there is a spot where the vital forces of the world
visibly exist. Life exists; why therefore should not the means of
preserving it indefinitely exist also? But I have no wish to prejudice
your mind about the matter. Read and judge for yourself. If you are
inclined to undertake the search, I have so provided that you will not
lack for means. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied that the whole
thing is a chimera, then, I adjure you, destroy the potsherd and the
writings, and let a cause of troubling be removed from our race for
ever. Perhaps that will be wisest. The unknown is generally taken to be
terrible, not as the proverb would infer, from the inherent superstition
of man, but because it so often _is_ terrible. He who would tamper with
the vast and secret forces that animate the world may well fall a victim
to them. And if the end were attained, if at last you emerged from the
trial ever beautiful and ever young, defying time and evil, and lifted
above the natural decay of flesh and intellect, who shall say that the
awesome change would prove a happy one? Choose, my son, and may the
Power who rules all things, and who says 'thus far shalt thou go, and
thus much shalt thou learn,' direct the choice to your own happiness
and the happiness of the world, which, in the event of your success,
you would one day certainly rule by the pure force of accumulated
experience.-- Farewell!"

Thus the letter, which was unsigned and undated, abruptly ended.

"What do you make of that, Uncle Holly," said Leo, with a sort of gasp,
as he replaced it on the table. "We have been looking for a mystery, and
we certainly seem to have found one."

"What do I make of it? Why, that your poor dear father was off his head,
of course," I answered, testily. "I guessed as much that night, twenty
years ago, when he came into my room. You see he evidently hurried his
own end, poor man. It is absolute balderdash."

"That's it, sir!" said Job, solemnly. Job was a most matter-of-fact
specimen of a matter-of-fact class.

"Well, let's see what the potsherd has to say, at any rate," said Leo,
taking up the translation in his father's writing, and commencing to
read:--

"_I, Amenartas, of the Royal House of the Pharaohs of Egypt, wife of
Kallikrates (the Beautiful in Strength), a Priest of Isis whom the
gods cherish and the demons obey, being about to die, to my little son
Tisisthenes (the Mighty Avenger). I fled with thy father from Egypt in
the days of Nectanebes,[*] causing him through love to break the vows
that he had vowed. We fled southward, across the waters, and we wandered
for twice twelve moons on the coast of Libya (Africa) that looks towards
the rising sun, where by a river is a great rock carven like the head
of an Ethiopian. Four days on the water from the mouth of a mighty river
were we cast away, and some were drowned and some died of sickness. But
us wild men took through wastes and marshes, where the sea fowl hid the
sky, bearing us ten days' journey till we came to a hollow mountain,
where a great city had been and fallen, and where there are caves of
which no man hath seen the end; and they brought us to the Queen of the
people who place pots upon the heads of strangers, who is a magician
having a knowledge of all things, and life and loveliness that does not
die. And she cast eyes of love upon thy father, Kallikrates, and would
have slain me, and taken him to husband, but he loved me and feared her,
and would not. Then did she take us, and lead us by terrible ways, by
means of dark magic, to where the great pit is, in the mouth of which
the old philosopher lay dead, and showed to us the rolling Pillar of
Life that dies not, whereof the voice is as the voice of thunder; and
she did stand in the flames, and come forth unharmed, and yet more
beautiful. Then did she swear to make thy father undying even as she is,
if he would but slay me, and give himself to her, for me she could
not slay because of the magic of my own people that I have, and that
prevailed thus far against her. And he held his hand before his eyes to
hide her beauty, and would not. Then in her rage did she smite him by
her magic, and he died; but she wept over him, and bore him thence with
lamentations: and being afraid, me she sent to the mouth of the great
river where the ships come, and I was carried far away on the ships
where I gave thee birth, and hither to Athens I came at last after many
wanderings. Now I say to thee, my son, Tisisthenes, seek out the woman,
and learn the secret of Life, and if thou mayest find a way slay her,
because of thy father Kallikrates; and if thou dost fear or fail, this
I say to all thy seed who come after thee, till at last a brave man be
found among them who shall bathe in the fire and sit in the place of the
Pharaohs. I speak of those things, that though they be past belief, yet
I have known, and I lie not._"

     [*] Nekht-nebf, or Nectanebo II., the last native Pharaoh of
     Egypt, fled from Ochus to Ethiopia, B.C. 339.--Editor.

"May the Lord forgive her for that," groaned Job, who had been listening
to this marvellous composition with his mouth open.

As for myself, I said nothing: my first idea being that my poor friend,
being demented, had composed the whole thing, though it scarcely seemed
likely that such a story could have been invented by anybody. It was too
original. To solve my doubts I took up the potsherd and began to read
the close uncial Greek writing on it; and very good Greek of the period
it is, considering that it came from the pen of an Egyptian born. Here
is an exact transcript of it:--


{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER BETA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ZETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~} {~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK

CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}

The general convenience in reading, I have here accurately transcribed
this inscription into the cursive character.

{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~},
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~},
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~},
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA AND VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ETA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK ANO TELEIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON
WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK NUMERAL
SIGN~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK NUMERAL SIGN~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA
WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK NUMERAL
SIGN~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK ANO TELEIA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI
AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~},
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~},
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ETA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA
WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI
AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA
WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO
WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ETA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK NUMERAL SIGN~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA AND PERISPOMENI~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK NUMERAL SIGN~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH OXIA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH DASIA AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}. {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PSILI AND
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH PSILI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON
WITH PSILI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA AND VARIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK NUMERAL SIGN~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}.
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMEGA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK NUMERAL
SIGN~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA
WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}, {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL
SIGMA~}. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
PSILI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI
AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH
VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA AND
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON
WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON
WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}, {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH DASIA AND VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.

The English translation was, as I discovered on further investigation,
and as the reader may easily see by comparison, both accurate and
elegant.

Besides the uncial writing on the convex side of the sherd at the top,
painted in dull red, on what had once been the lip of the amphora, was
the cartouche already mentioned as being on the _scarabaeus_, which we
had also found in the casket. The hieroglyphics or symbols, however,
were reversed, just as though they had been pressed on wax. Whether this
was the cartouche of the original Kallikrates,[*] or of some Prince or
Pharaoh from whom his wife Amenartas was descended, I am not sure, nor
can I tell if it was drawn upon the sherd at the same time that the
uncial Greek was inscribed, or copied on more recently from the Scarab
by some other member of the family. Nor was this all. At the foot of
the writing, painted in the same dull red, was the faint outline of a
somewhat rude drawing of the head and shoulders of a Sphinx wearing
two feathers, symbols of majesty, which, though common enough upon the
effigies of sacred bulls and gods, I have never before met with on a
Sphinx.

     [*] The cartouche, if it be a true cartouche, cannot have
     been that of Kallikrates, as Mr. Holly suggests. Kallikrates
     was a priest and not entitled to a cartouche, which was the
     prerogative of Egyptian royalty, though he might have
     inscribed his name or title upon an _oval_.--Editor.

Also on the right-hand side of this surface of the sherd, painted
obliquely in red on the space not covered by the uncial characters, and
signed in blue paint, was the following quaint inscription:--

IN EARTH AND SKIE AND SEA

STRANGE THYNGES THER BE.

HOC FECIT

DOROTHEA VINCEY.

Perfectly bewildered, I turned the relic over. It was covered from top
to bottom with notes and signatures in Greek, Latin, and English. The
first in uncial Greek was by Tisisthenes, the son to whom the writing
was addressed. It was, "I could not go. Tisisthenes to his son,
Kallikrates." Here it is in fac-simile with its cursive equivalent:--


{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LUNATE SIGMA SYMBOL~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LUNATE SIGMA SYMBOL~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LUNATE SIGMA SYMBOL~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LUNATE SIGMA SYMBOL~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
PSILI AND VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}. {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND
YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}.

This Kallikrates (probably, in the Greek fashion, so named after his
grandfather) evidently made some attempt to start on the quest, for his
entry written in very faint and almost illegible uncial is, "I ceased
from my going, the gods being against me. Kallikrates to his son." Here
it is also:--


{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK
CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}. {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}.

Between these two ancient writings, the second of which was inscribed
upside down and was so faint and worn that, had it not been for the
transcript of it executed by Vincey, I should scarcely have been able to
read it, since, owing to its having been written on that portion of the
tile which had, in the course of ages, undergone the most handling, it
was nearly rubbed out--was the bold, modern-looking signature of one
Lionel Vincey, "AEtate sua 17," which was written thereon, I think, by
Leo's grandfather. To the right of this were the initials "J. B. V.,"
and below came a variety of Greek signatures, in uncial and cursive
character, and what appeared to be some carelessly executed repetitions
of the sentence {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA
WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~} (to my son), showing that
the relic was religiously passed on from generation to generation.

The next legible thing after the Greek signatures was the word
"Romae, A.U.C.," showing that the family had now migrated to Rome.
Unfortunately, however, with the exception of its termination (evi) the
date of their settlement there is for ever lost, for just where it had
been placed a piece of the potsherd is broken away.

Then followed twelve Latin signatures, jotted about here and there,
wherever there was a space upon the tile suitable to their inscription.
These signatures, with three exceptions only, ended with the name
"Vindex" or "the Avenger," which seems to have been adopted by the
family after its migration to Rome as a kind of equivalent to the Greek
"Tisisthenes," which also means an avenger. Ultimately, as might be
expected, this Latin cognomen of Vindex was transformed first into De
Vincey, and then into the plain, modern Vincey. It is very curious
to observe how the idea of revenge, inspired by an Egyptian who lived
before the time of Christ, is thus, as it were, embalmed in an English
family name.

A few of the Roman names inscribed upon the sherd I have actually since
found mentioned in history and other records. They were, if I remember
right,

MVSSIVS. VINDEX

SEX. VARIVS MARVLLVS

C. FVFIDIVS. C. F. VINDEX

and

LABERIA POMPEIANA. CONIVX. MACRINI. VINDICIS

this last being, of course, the name of a Roman lady.

The following list, however, comprises all the Latin names upon the
sherd:--

     C. CAECILIVS VINDEX
     M. AIMILIVS VINDEX
     SEX. VARIVS. MARVLLVS
     Q. SOSIVS PRISCVS SENECIO VINDEX
     L. VALERIVS COMINIVS VINDEX
     SEX. OTACILIVS. M. F.
     L. ATTIVS. VINDEX
     MVSSIVS VINDEX
     C. FVFIDIVS. C. F. VINDEX
     LICINIVS FAVSTVS
     LABERIA POMPEIANA CONIVX MACRINI VINDICIS
     MANILIA LVCILLA CONIVX MARVLLI VINDICIS

After the Roman names there is evidently a gap of very many centuries.
Nobody will ever know now what was the history of the relic during those
dark ages, or how it came to have been preserved in the family. My
poor friend Vincey had, it will be remembered, told me that his Roman
ancestors finally settled in Lombardy, and when Charlemagne invaded
it, returned with him across the Alps, and made their home in Brittany,
whence they crossed to England in the reign of Edward the Confessor. How
he knew this I am not aware, for there is no reference to Lombardy or
Charlemagne upon the tile, though, as will presently be seen, there is a
reference to Brittany. To continue: the next entries on the sherd, if I
may except a long splash either of blood or red colouring matter of
some sort, consist of two crosses drawn in red pigment, and probably
representing Crusaders' swords, and a rather neat monogram ("D. V.")
in scarlet and blue, perhaps executed by that same Dorothea Vincey who
wrote, or rather painted, the doggrel couplet. To the left of this,
inscribed in faint blue, were the initials A. V., and after them a date,
1800.

Then came what was perhaps as curious an entry as anything upon this
extraordinary relic of the past. It is executed in black letter, written
over the crosses or Crusaders' swords, and dated fourteen hundred and
forty-five. As the best plan will be to allow it to speak for itself, I
here give the black-letter fac-simile, together with the original Latin
without the contractions, from which it will be seen that the writer
was a fair mediaeval Latinist. Also we discovered what is still more
curious, an English version of the black-letter Latin. This, also
written in black letter, we found inscribed on a second parchment that
was in the coffer, apparently somewhat older in date than that on which
was inscribed the mediaeval Latin translation of the uncial Greek of
which I shall speak presently. This I also give in full.

_Fac-simile of Black-Letter Inscription on the Sherd of Amenartas._

"I{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ta reliq{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ia e{~LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t valde mi{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}ticu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} et myrificu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
op{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}s q{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}d maiores mei ex
Armorica {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}
Brittania mi{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ore {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}ecu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} co{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}veheba{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}t et q{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}dm {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}c{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}s cleric{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}s {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}e{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}per p{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ri meo
in manu ferebat q{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}d pe{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}itus
illvd de{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}trueret, affirma{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}s q{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}d e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}et ab ip{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}o
{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}athana co{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}flatu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} pre{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}tigio{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}a et dyabolica arte q{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}re p{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ter mevs co{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}fregit illvd i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} dvas p{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}tes q{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}s q{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}dm ego
Johs{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} de Vi{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ceto {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}alvas {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ervavi et adaptavi
{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}icut ap{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}paret die
lu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}e p{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}r{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
po{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t fe{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t beate
Mrie vir{g} anni gr{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}e mccccxlv."

_Expanded Version of the above Black-Letter Inscription._

"Ista reliquia est valde misticum et myrificum opus, quod majores mei
ex Armorica, scilicet Britannia Minore, secum convehebant; et et quidam
sanctus clericus semper patri meo in manu ferebat quod penitus illud
destrueret, affirmans quod esset ab ipso Sathana conflatum prestigiosa
et dyabolica arte, quare pater meus confregit illud in duas partes, quas
quidem ego Johannes de Vinceto salvas servavi et adaptavi sicut apparet
die lune proximo post festum beate Marie Virginis anni gratie MCCCCXLV."

_Fac-simile of the Old English Black-Letter Translation of the above
Latin Inscription from the Sherd of Amenartas found inscribed upon a
parchment._

"Thys rellike ys a ryghte mistycall worke & a marvaylous y{~MODIFIER
LETTER SMALL E~} whyche myne aunceteres afore tyme dyd conveigh hider
w{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL T~} y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL M~} ffrom Armoryke
wh{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~} ys to {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}eien
Britaine y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~} le{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e & a certayne holye clerke {~LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S~}houlde allweyes beare my ffadir on honde
y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL T~} he owghte uttirly ffor to ffru{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}he y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL
E~} {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ame affyrmynge y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL
T~} yt was ffourmyd & confflatyd off {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}athanas hym {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}elffe by arte magike &
dyvelly{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}he
wherefore my ffadir dyd take y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~} {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}ame & to bra{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t yt yn tweyne
but I John de Vincey dyd {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ave whool
y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~} tweye p{~COMBINING MACRON~}tes therof &
topeecyd y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL M~} togydder agayne {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}oe as yee {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e on y{s} daye
mondaye next ffolowynge after y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~} ffeeste of
{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}eynte Marye y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~}
ble{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ed vyrgyne
yn y{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL E~} yeere of {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}alvacioun ffowertene hundreth & ffyve & ffowrti."

_Modernised Version of the above Black-Letter Translation._

"Thys rellike ys a ryghte mistycall worke and a marvaylous, ye whyche
myne aunceteres aforetyme dyd conveigh hider with them from Armoryke
which ys to seien Britaine ye Lesse and a certayne holye clerke should
allweyes beare my fadir on honde that he owghte uttirly for to frusshe
ye same, affyrmynge that yt was fourmed and conflatyed of Sathanas hym
selfe by arte magike and dyvellysshe wherefore my fadir dyd take ye same
and tobrast yt yn tweyne, but I, John de Vincey, dyd save whool ye tweye
partes therof and topeecyd them togydder agayne soe as yee se, on this
daye mondaye next followynge after ye feeste of Seynte Marye ye Blessed
Vyrgyne yn ye yeere of Salvacioun fowertene hundreth and fyve and
fowerti."

The next and, save one, last entry was Elizabethan, and dated 1564. "A
most strange historie, and one that did cost my father his life; for in
seekynge for the place upon the east coast of Africa, his pinnance
was sunk by a Portuguese galleon off Lorenzo Marquez, and he himself
perished.--John Vincey."

Then came the last entry, apparently, to judge by the style of
writing, made by some representative of the family in the middle of the
eighteenth century. It was a misquotation of the well-known lines in
Hamlet, and ran thus: "There are more things in Heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."[*]

     [*] Another thing that makes me fix the date of this entry
     at the middle of the eighteenth century is that, curiously
     enough, I have an acting copy of "Hamlet," written about
     1740, in which these two lines are misquoted almost exactly
     in the same way, and I have little doubt but that the Vincey
     who wrote them on the potsherd heard them so misquoted at
     that date. Of course, the lines really run:--

     There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
     Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.--L. H. H.

And now there remained but one more document to be examined--namely, the
ancient black-letter transcription into mediaeval Latin of the uncial
inscription on the sherd. As will be seen, this translation was executed
and subscribed in the year 1495, by a certain "learned man," Edmundus
de Prato (Edmund Pratt) by name, licentiate in Canon Law, of Exeter
College, Oxford, who had actually been a pupil of Grocyn, the first
scholar who taught Greek in England.[*] No doubt, on the fame of this
new learning reaching his ears, the Vincey of the day, perhaps that same
John de Vincey who years before had saved the relic from destruction and
made the black-letter entry on the sherd in 1445, hurried off to
Oxford to see if perchance it might avail to dissolve the secret of
the mysterious inscription. Nor was he disappointed, for the learned
Edmundus was equal to the task. Indeed his rendering is so excellent
an example of mediaeval learning and latinity that, even at the risk of
sating the learned reader with too many antiquities, I have made up my
mind to give it in fac-simile, together with an expanded version for the
benefit of those who find the contractions troublesome. The translation
has several peculiarities on which this is not the place to dwell, but I
would in passing call the attention of scholars to the passage "duxerunt
autem nos ad reginam _advenaslasaniscoronantium_," which strikes me as a
delightful rendering of the original, "{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH
PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH
OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA
WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER
XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~}."

     [*] Grocyn, the instructor of Erasmus, studied Greek under
     Chalcondylas the Byzantine at Florence, and first lectured
     in the Hall of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1491.--Editor.

     _Mediaeval Black-Letter Latin Translation of the Uncial
     Inscription on the Sherd of Amenartas_

Amenartas e gen. reg. Egyptii uxor Callicratis {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}acerdot{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} I{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}idis
qua{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} dei fove{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}t demonia
atte{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}du{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}t filiol' {~LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S~}uo Ti{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}i{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}theni ia{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} moribu{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}da ita ma{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}dat: Effugi quo{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}da{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} ex Egypto regna{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}te Nectanebo cu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} patre tuo, p{~COMBINING
TILDE~}pter mei amore{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} pejerato. Fugie{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}tes aute{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} v'{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}us Notu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} trans mare et xxiiij me{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}es p'r litora Libye v'{~LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S~}us Orie{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}te{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} errant{~COMBINING TILDE~} ubi e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t
petra queda{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} m{~COMBINING TILDE~}gna {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}culpta in{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}tar
Ethiop{~COMBINING TILDE~} capit{~COMBINING TILDE~}, deinde dies iiij ab
o{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t{~COMBINING TILDE~} flum{~COMBINING
TILDE~} m{~COMBINING TILDE~}gni eiecti p'tim {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}ubmer{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}i {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}umus
p'tim morbo mortui {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}um{~COMBINING TILDE~}:
in fine aute{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} a fer{~COMBINING TILDE~}
ho{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}bs portabamur
p{~COMBINING TILDE~}r palud{~COMBINING TILDE~} et vada. ubi
aviu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} m'titudo celu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
obu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}brat dies x. donec advenim{~COMBINING TILDE~}
ad cavu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} que{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}da{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} monte{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}, ubi olim m{~COMBINING TILDE~}gna
urbs erat, caverne quoq{~COMBINING TILDE~} im{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}e{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e:
duxeru{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}t aute{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} nos ad
regina{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} Advena{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}la{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ani{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}corona{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}tiu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} que
magic{~COMBINING TILDE~} utebat{~COMBINING TILDE~} et peritia
omniu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} rer{~COMBINING TILDE~} et {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}alte{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} pulcrit{~COMBINING TILDE~} et
vigore i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}cibil' erat. Hec m{~COMBINING
TILDE~}gno patr{~COMBINING TILDE~} tui amore p{~COMBINING
TILDE~}cul{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}a p'mu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
q'de{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} ei con{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ubiu{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} michi morte{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} parabat. po{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}tea v'ro recu{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}a{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}te Callicrate amore mei et timore regine affecto nos
p{~COMBINING TILDE~}r magica{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} abduxit p'r vias
horribil' ubi e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t puteus ille p{~COMBINING
TILDE~}fu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}dus, cuius iuxta aditu{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} iacebat {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}enior{~COMBINING TILDE~}
philo{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ophi cadaver, et adve{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}ie{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}tib{~COMBINING TILDE~} mo{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}travit flam{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}a{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} Vite erecta{~COMBINING OVERLINE~},
i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}star columne voluta{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}tis,
voces emitte{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}te{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} q{~COMBINING
TILDE~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}i tonitrus: tu{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}c p{~COMBINING TILDE~}r igne{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}petu nociuo expers tra{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}iit et ia{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
ipsa {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e
formo{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ior vi{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}a
e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t.

Quib{~COMBINING TILDE~} fact{~COMBINING TILDE~} iuravit {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}e patre{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} tuu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
quoq{~COMBINING TILDE~} im{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ortale{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} o{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}te{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}{~LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S~}ura{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER
LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e, {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}i
me prius occi{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}a regine co{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}tuberniu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} mallet; neq{~COMBINING TILDE~}
eni{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} ip{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}a me occidere
valuit, p{~COMBINING TILDE~}pter no{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}tratu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} m{~COMBINING TILDE~}gica{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} cuius egomet p{~COMBINING TILDE~}tem habeo. Ille vero nichil
huius gen maluit, manib ante ocul{~COMBINING TILDE~} pa{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}is ne mulier{~COMBINING
TILDE~} formo{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}itate{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
ad{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}piceret: po{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}tea eu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} m{~COMBINING TILDE~}gica p{~COMBINING
TILDE~}cu{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}it
arte, at mortuu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} efferebat i{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}de cu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} fletib{~COMBINING TILDE~} et
vagitib{~COMBINING TILDE~}, me p{~COMBINING TILDE~}r timore{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} expulit ad o{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}tiu{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} m{~COMBINING TILDE~}gni flumin veliuoli porro in nave in qua
te peperi, uix po{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t dies hvc Athenas invecta
{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}u{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}. At tu, O Ti{~LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S~}i{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}then, ne q'd
quoru{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} ma{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}do nauci fac:
nece{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}e
eni{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} e{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}t
muliere{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} exquirere {~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}i
qva Vite my{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}teriu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}petres et vi{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}dicare,
qua{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}tu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} in te e{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}t, patre{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} tuu{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}
Callierat{~COMBINING TILDE~} in regine morte. Sin timore {~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}ue aliq{~COMBINING TILDE~} cav{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}a re{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} reli{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}quis
i{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}fecta{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}, hoc ip{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}u{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} oi{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}b{~COMBINING TILDE~} po{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG
S~}ter{~COMBINING TILDE~} ma{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}do du{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~} bonvs q{~COMBINING TILDE~}s inveniatur qvi ignis
lauacru{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} no{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} p{~COMBINING
TILDE~}rhorre{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}cet et p{~COMBINING
TILDE~}tentia dign do{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}i{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}abit{~COMBINING TILDE~} ho{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}i{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}u{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}.

Talia dico incredibilia q{~COMBINING TILDE~}de{~COMBINING OVERLINE~} at
min{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}e ncta de reb{~COMBINING TILDE~} michi
cognitis.

Hec Grece scripta Latine reddidit vir doctus Edm{~COMBINING OVERLINE~}ds
de Prato, in Decretis Licenciatus e Coll. Exon: Oxon: docti{~LATIN SMALL
LETTER LONG S~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S~}imi Grocyni quondam e
pupillis, Id. Apr. A{~MODIFIER LETTER SMALL O~}. Dn{~COMBINING
OVERLINE~}i. MCCCCLXXXXV deg..

_Expanded Version of the above Mediaeval Latin Translation_

Amenartas, e genere regio Egyptii, uxor Callicratis, sacerdotis Isidis,
quam dei fovent demonia attendunt, filiolo suo Tisistheni jam moribunda
ita mandat: Effugi quodam ex Egypto, regnante Nectanebo, cum patre tuo,
propter mei amorem pejerato. Fugientes autem versus Notum trans mare,
et viginti quatuor menses per litora Libye versus Orientem errantes,
ubi est petra quedam magna sculpta instar Ethiopis capitis, deinde dies
quatuor ab ostio fluminis magni ejecti partim submersi sumus partim
morbo mortui sumus: in fine autem a feris hominibus portabamur per
paludes et vada, ubi avium multitudo celum obumbrat, dies decem, donec
advenimus ad cavum quendam montem, ubi olim magna urbs erat, caverne
quoque immense; duxerunt autem nos ad reginam Advenaslasaniscoronantium,
que magica utebatur et peritia omnium rerum, et saltem pulcritudine et
vigore insenescibilis erat. Hec magno patris tui amore perculsa,
primum quidem ei connubium michi mortem parabat; postea vero, recusante
Callicrate, amore mei et timore regine affecto, nos per magicam abduxit
per vias horribiles ubi est puteus ille profundus, cujus juxta aditum
jacebat senioris philosophi cadaver, et advenientibus monstravit
flammam Vite erectam, instar columne voluntantis, voces emittentem quasi
tonitrus: tunc per ignem impetu nocivo expers transiit et jam ipsa sese
formosior visa est.

Quibus factis juravit se patrem tuum quoque immortalem ostensuram
esse, si me prius occisa regine contubernium mallet; neque enim ipsa me
occidere valuit, propter nostratum magicam cujus egomet partem habeo.
Ille vero nichil hujus generis malebat, manibus ante oculos passis, ne
mulieris formositatem adspiceret: postea illum magica percussit arte,
at mortuum efferebat inde cum fletibus et vagitibus, et me per timorem
expulit ad ostium magni fluminis, velivoli, porro in nave, in qua te
peperi, vix post dies huc Athenas vecta sum. At tu, O Tisisthenes, ne
quid quorum mando nauci fac: necesse enim est mulierem exquirere si qua
Vite mysterium impetres et vindicare, quautum in te est, patrem tuum
Callieratem in regine morte. Sin timore sue aliqua causa rem reliquis
infectam, hoc ipsum omnibus posteris mando, dum bonus quis inveniatur
qui ignis lavacrum non perhorrescet, et potentia dignus dominabitur
hominum.

Talia dico incredibilia quidem at minime ficta de rebus michi cognitis.

Hec Grece scripta Latine reddidit vir doctus Edmundus de Prato, in
Descretis Licenciatus, e Collegio Exoniensi Oxoniensi doctissimi Grocyni
quondam e pupillis, Idibus Aprilis Anno Domini MCCCCLXXXXV deg..

"Well," I said, when at length I had read out and carefully examined
these writings and paragraphs, at least those of them that were still
easily legible, "that is the conclusion of the whole matter, Leo, and
now you can form your own opinion on it. I have already formed mine."

"And what is it?" he asked, in his quick way.

"It is this. I believe that potsherd to be perfectly genuine, and that,
wonderful as it may seem, it has come down in your family from since
the fourth century before Christ. The entries absolutely prove it, and
therefore, however improbable it may seem, it must be accepted. But
there I stop. That your remote ancestress, the Egyptian princess, or
some scribe under her direction, wrote that which we see on the sherd
I have no doubt, nor have I the slightest doubt but that her sufferings
and the loss of her husband had turned her head, and that she was not
right in her mind when she did write it."

"How do you account for what my father saw and heard there?" asked Leo.

"Coincidence. No doubt there are bluffs on the coast of Africa that
look something like a man's head, and plenty of people who speak bastard
Arabic. Also, I believe that there are lots of swamps. Another thing
is, Leo, and I am sorry to say it, but I do not believe that your poor
father was quite right when he wrote that letter. He had met with
a great trouble, and also he had allowed this story to prey on his
imagination, and he was a very imaginative man. Anyway, I believe that
the whole thing is the most unmitigated rubbish. I know that there are
curious things and forces in nature which we rarely meet with, and, when
we do meet them, cannot understand. But until I see it with my own eyes,
which I am not likely to, I never will believe that there is any means
of avoiding death, even for a time, or that there is or was a white
sorceress living in the heart of an African swamp. It is bosh, my boy,
all bosh!--What do you say, Job?"

"I say, sir, that it is a lie, and, if it is true, I hope Mr. Leo won't
meddle with no such things, for no good can't come of it."

"Perhaps you are both right," said Leo, very quietly. "I express no
opinion. But I say this. I am going to set the matter at rest once and
for all, and if you won't come with me I will go by myself."

I looked at the young man, and saw that he meant what he said. When Leo
means what he says he always puts on a curious look about the mouth. It
has been a trick of his from a child. Now, as a matter of fact, I had no
intention of allowing Leo to go anywhere by himself, for my own sake, if
not for his. I was far too attached to him for that. I am not a man
of many ties or affections. Circumstances have been against me in this
respect, and men and women shrink from me, or at least, I fancy that
they do, which comes to the same thing, thinking, perhaps, that my
somewhat forbidding exterior is a key to my character. Rather than
endure this, I have, to a great extent, secluded myself from the world,
and cut myself off from those opportunities which with most men result
in the formation of relations more or less intimate. Therefore Leo was
all the world to me--brother, child, and friend--and until he wearied of
me, where he went there I should go too. But, of course, it would not do
to let him see how great a hold he had over me; so I cast about for some
means whereby I might let myself down easy.

"Yes, I shall go, Uncle; and if I don't find the 'rolling Pillar of
Life,' at any rate I shall get some first-class shooting."

Here was my opportunity, and I took it.

"Shooting?" I said. "Ah! yes; I never thought of that. It must be a very
wild stretch of country, and full of big game. I have always wanted to
kill a buffalo before I die. Do you know, my boy, I don't believe in the
quest, but I do believe in big game, and really on the whole, if, after
thinking it over, you make up your mind to go, I will take a holiday,
and come with you."

"Ah," said Leo, "I thought that you would not lose such a chance. But
how about money? We shall want a good lot."

"You need not trouble about that," I answered. "There is all your income
that has been accumulating for years, and besides that I have saved
two-thirds of what your father left to me, as I consider, in trust for
you. There is plenty of cash."

"Very well, then, we may as well stow these things away and go up to
town to see about our guns. By the way, Job, are you coming too? It's
time you began to see the world."

"Well, sir," answered Job, stolidly, "I don't hold much with foreign
parts, but if both you gentlemen are going you will want somebody to
look after you, and I am not the man to stop behind after serving you
for twenty years."

"That's right, Job," said I. "You won't find out anything wonderful, but
you will get some good shooting. And now look here, both of you. I won't
have a word said to a living soul about this nonsense," and I pointed
to the potsherd. "If it got out, and anything happened to me, my next of
kin would dispute my will on the ground of insanity, and I should become
the laughing stock of Cambridge."

That day three months we were on the ocean, bound for Zanzibar.



IV

THE SQUALL

How different is the scene that I have now to tell from that which has
just been told! Gone are the quiet college rooms, gone the wind-swayed
English elms, the cawing rooks, and the familiar volumes on the shelves,
and in their place there rises a vision of the great calm ocean gleaming
in shaded silver lights beneath the beams of the full African moon. A
gentle breeze fills the huge sail of our dhow, and draws us through
the water that ripples musically against her sides. Most of the men are
sleeping forward, for it is near midnight, but a stout swarthy Arab,
Mahomed by name, stands at the tiller, lazily steering by the stars.
Three miles or more to our starboard is a low dim line. It is the
Eastern shore of Central Africa. We are running to the southward, before
the North East Monsoon, between the mainland and the reef that for
hundreds of miles fringes this perilous coast. The night is quiet, so
quiet that a whisper can be heard fore and aft the dhow; so quiet that a
faint booming sound rolls across the water to us from the distant land.

The Arab at the tiller holds up his hand, and says one word:--"_Simba_
(lion)!"

We all sit up and listen. Then it comes again, a slow, majestic sound,
that thrills us to the marrow.

"To-morrow by ten o'clock," I say, "we ought, if the Captain is not out
in his reckoning, which I think very probable, to make this mysterious
rock with a man's head, and begin our shooting."

"And begin our search for the ruined city and the Fire of Life,"
corrected Leo, taking his pipe from his mouth, and laughing a little.

"Nonsense!" I answered. "You were airing your Arabic with that man at
the tiller this afternoon. What did he tell you? He has been trading
(slave-trading, probably) up and down these latitudes for half of his
iniquitous life, and once landed on this very 'man' rock. Did he ever
hear anything of the ruined city or the caves?"

"No," answered Leo. "He says that the country is all swamp behind, and
full of snakes, especially pythons, and game, and that no man lives
there. But then there is a belt of swamp all along the East African
coast, so that does not go for much."

"Yes," I said, "it does--it goes for malaria. You see what sort of an
opinion these gentry have of the country. Not one of them will go with
us. They think that we are mad, and upon my word I believe that they are
right. If ever we see old England again I shall be astonished. However,
it does not greatly matter to me at my age, but I am anxious for you,
Leo, and for Job. It's a Tom Fool's business, my boy."

"All right, Uncle Horace. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to take
my chance. Look! What is that cloud?" and he pointed to a dark blotch
upon the starry sky, some miles astern of us.

"Go and ask the man at the tiller," I said.

He rose, stretched his arms, and went. Presently he returned.

"He says it is a squall, but it will pass far on one side of us."

Just then Job came up, looking very stout and English in his
shooting-suit of brown flannel, and with a sort of perplexed appearance
upon his honest round face that had been very common with him since he
got into these strange waters.

"Please, sir," he said, touching his sun hat, which was stuck on to the
back of his head in a somewhat ludicrous fashion, "as we have got all
those guns and things in the whale-boat astern, to say nothing of the
provisions in the lockers, I think it would be best if I got down and
slept in her. I don't like the looks" (here he dropped his voice to a
portentous whisper) "of these black gentry; they have such a wonderful
thievish way about them. Supposing now that some of them were to slip
into the boat at night and cut the cable, and make off with her? That
would be a pretty go, that would."

The whale-boat, I may explain, was one specially built for us at Dundee,
in Scotland. We had brought it with us, as we knew that this coast was a
network of creeks, and that we might require something to navigate
them with. She was a beautiful boat, thirty-feet in length, with a
centre-board for sailing, copper-bottomed to keep the worm out of her,
and full of water-tight compartments. The Captain of the dhow had told
us that when we reached the rock, which he knew, and which appeared to
be identical with the one described upon the sherd and by Leo's father,
he would probably not be able to run up to it on account of the shallows
and breakers. Therefore we had employed three hours that very morning,
whilst we were totally becalmed, the wind having dropped at sunrise,
in transferring most of our goods and chattels to the whale-boat,
and placing the guns, ammunition, and preserved provisions in the
water-tight lockers specially prepared for them, so that when we did
sight the fabled rock we should have nothing to do but step into the
boat, and run her ashore. Another reason that induced us to take this
precautionary step was that Arab captains are apt to run past the point
that they are making, either from carelessness or owing to a mistake in
its identity. Now, as sailors know, it is quite impossible for a dhow
which is only rigged to run before the monsoon to beat back against it.
Therefore we got our boat ready to row for the rock at any moment.

"Well, Job," I said, "perhaps it would be as well. There are lots of
blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it may turn
your head or blind you."

"Lord, sir! I don't think it would much matter if it did; it is that
turned already with the sight of these blackamoors and their filthy,
thieving ways. They are only fit for muck, they are; and they smell bad
enough for it already."

Job, it will be perceived, was no admirer of the manners and customs of
our dark-skinned brothers.

Accordingly we hauled up the boat by the tow-rope till it was right
under the stern of the dhow, and Job bundled into her with all the grace
of a falling sack of potatoes. Then we returned and sat down on the deck
again, and smoked and talked in little gusts and jerks. The night was so
lovely, and our brains were so full of suppressed excitement of one sort
and another, that we did not feel inclined to turn in. For nearly an
hour we sat thus, and then, I think, we both dozed off. At least I have
a faint recollection of Leo sleepily explaining that the head was not a
bad place to hit a buffalo, if you could catch him exactly between the
horns, or send your bullet down his throat, or some nonsense of the
sort.

Then I remember no more; till suddenly--a frightful roar of wind, a
shriek of terror from the awakening crew, and a whip-like sting of water
in our faces. Some of the men ran to let go the haulyards and lower the
sail, but the parrel jammed and the yard would not come down. I sprang
to my feet and hung on to a rope. The sky aft was dark as pitch, but the
moon still shone brightly ahead of us and lit up the blackness. Beneath
its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was
rushing on to us. It was on the break--the moon shone on its crest and
tipped its foam with light. On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by
the awful squall behind it. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw
the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on the crest of
the breaking wave. Then--a shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam,
and I was clinging for my life to the shroud, ay, swept straight out
from it like a flag in a gale.

We were pooped.

The wave passed. It seemed to me that I was under water for
minutes--really it was seconds. I looked forward. The blast had torn out
the great sail, and high in the air it was fluttering away to leeward
like a huge wounded bird. Then for a moment there was comparative calm,
and in it I heard Job's voice yelling wildly, "Come here to the boat."

Bewildered and half-drowned as I was, I had the sense to rush aft. I
felt the dhow sinking under me--she was full of water. Under her counter
the whale-boat was tossing furiously, and I saw the Arab Mahomed, who
had been steering, leap into her. I gave one desperate pull at the
tow-rope to bring the boat alongside. Wildly I sprang also, Job caught
me by the arm and I rolled into the bottom of the boat. Down went the
dhow bodily, and as she did so Mahomed drew his curved knife and severed
the fibre-rope by which we were fast to her, and in another second we
were driving before the storm over the place where the dhow had been.

"Great God!" I shrieked, "where is Leo? _Leo! Leo!_"

"He's gone, sir, God help him!" roared Job into my ear; and such was the
fury of the squall that his voice sounded like a whisper.

I wrung my hands in agony. Leo was drowned, and I was left alive to
mourn him.

"Look out," yelled Job; "here comes another."

I turned; a second huge wave was overtaking us. I half hoped that it
would drown me. With a curious fascination I watched its awful advent.
The moon was nearly hidden now by the wreaths of the rushing storm, but
a little light still caught the crest of the devouring breaker. There
was something dark on it--a piece of wreckage. It was on us now, and
the boat was nearly full of water. But she was built in air-tight
compartments--Heaven bless the man who invented them!--and lifted up
through it like a swan. Through the foam and turmoil I saw the black
thing on the wave hurrying right at me. I put out my right arm to ward
it from me, and my hand closed on another arm, the wrist of which my
fingers gripped like a vice. I am a very strong man, and had something
to hold to, but my arm was nearly torn from its socket by the strain and
weight of the floating body. Had the rush lasted another two seconds I
might either have let go or gone with it. But it passed, leaving us up
to our knees in water.

"Bail out! bail out!" shouted Job, suiting the action to the word.

But I could not bail just then, for as the moon went out and left us in
total darkness, one faint, flying ray of light lit upon the face of the
man I had gripped, who was now half lying, half floating in the bottom
of the boat.

It was Leo. Leo brought back by the wave--back, dead or alive, from the
very jaws of Death.

"Bail out! bail out!" yelled Job, "or we shall founder."

I seized a large tin bowl with a handle to it, which was fixed under one
of the seats, and the three of us bailed away for dear life. The furious
tempest drove over and round us, flinging the boat this way and that,
the wind and the storm wreaths and the sheets of stinging spray blinded
and bewildered us, but through it all we worked like demons with the
wild exhilaration of despair, for even despair can exhilarate. One
minute! three minutes! six minutes! The boat began to lighten, and no
fresh wave swamped us. Five minutes more, and she was fairly clear.
Then, suddenly, above the awful shriekings of the hurricane came a
duller, deeper roar. Great Heavens! It was the voice of breakers!

At that moment the moon began to shine forth again--this time behind the
path of the squall. Out far across the torn bosom of the ocean shot the
ragged arrows of her light, and there, half a mile ahead of us, was a
white line of foam, then a little space of open-mouthed blackness, and
then another line of white. It was the breakers, and their roar grew
clearer and yet more clear as we sped down upon them like a swallow.
There they were, boiling up in snowy spouts of spray, smiting and
gnashing together like the gleaming teeth of hell.

"Take the tiller, Mahomed!" I roared in Arabic. "We must try and shoot
them." At the same moment I seized an oar, and got it out, motioning to
Job to do likewise.

Mahomed clambered aft, and got hold of the tiller, and with some
difficulty Job, who had sometimes pulled a tub upon the homely Cam, got
out his oar. In another minute the boat's head was straight on to the
ever-nearing foam, towards which she plunged and tore with the speed
of a racehorse. Just in front of us the first line of breakers seemed
a little thinner than to the right or left--there was a cap of rather
deeper water. I turned and pointed to it.

"Steer for your life, Mahomed!" I yelled. He was a skilful steersman,
and well acquainted with the dangers of this most perilous coast, and I
saw him grip the tiller, bend his heavy frame forward, and stare at the
foaming terror till his big round eyes looked as though they would start
out of his head. The send of the sea was driving the boat's head round
to starboard. If we struck the line of breakers fifty yards to starboard
of the gap we must sink. It was a great field of twisting, spouting
waves. Mahomed planted his foot against the seat before him, and,
glancing at him, I saw his brown toes spread out like a hand with the
weight he put upon them as he took the strain of the tiller. She came
round a bit, but not enough. I roared to Job to back water, whilst I
dragged and laboured at my oar. She answered now, and none too soon.

Heavens, we were in them! And then followed a couple of minutes of
heart-breaking excitement such as I cannot hope to describe. All that I
remember is a shrieking sea of foam, out of which the billows rose here,
there, and everywhere like avenging ghosts from their ocean grave. Once
we were turned right round, but either by chance, or through Mahomed's
skilful steering, the boat's head came straight again before a breaker
filled us. One more--a monster. We were through it or over it--more
through than over--and then, with a wild yell of exultation from the
Arab, we shot out into the comparative smooth water of the mouth of sea
between the teeth-like lines of gnashing waves.

But we were nearly full of water again, and not more than half a mile
ahead was the second line of breakers. Again we set to and bailed
furiously. Fortunately the storm had now quite gone by, and the moon
shone brightly, revealing a rocky headland running half a mile or more
out into the sea, of which this second line of breakers appeared to be
a continuation. At any rate, they boiled around its foot. Probably the
ridge that formed the headland ran out into the ocean, only at a lower
level, and made the reef also. This headland was terminated by a curious
peak that seemed not to be more than a mile away from us. Just as we got
the boat pretty clear for the second time, Leo, to my immense relief,
opened his eyes and remarked that the clothes had tumbled off the bed,
and that he supposed it was time to get up for chapel. I told him to
shut his eyes and keep quiet, which he did without in the slightest
degree realizing the position. As for myself, his reference to chapel
made me reflect, with a sort of sick longing, on my comfortable rooms
at Cambridge. Why had I been such a fool as to leave them? This is a
reflection that has several times recurred to me since, and with an
ever-increasing force.

But now again we were drifting down on the breakers, though with
lessened speed, for the wind had fallen, and only the current or the
tide (it afterwards turned out to be the tide) was driving us.

Another minute, and with a sort of howl to Allah from the Arab, a pious
ejaculation from myself, and something that was not pious from Job,
we were in them. And then the whole scene, down to our final escape,
repeated itself, only not quite so violently. Mahomed's skilful steering
and the air-tight compartments saved our lives. In five minutes we were
through, and drifting--for we were too exhausted to do anything to
help ourselves except keep her head straight--with the most startling
rapidity round the headland which I have described.

Round we went with the tide, until we got well under the lee of the
point, and then suddenly the speed slackened, we ceased to make way,
and finally appeared to be in dead water. The storm had entirely passed,
leaving a clean-washed sky behind it; the headland intercepted the heavy
sea that had been occasioned by the squall, and the tide, which had
been running so fiercely up the river (for we were now in the mouth of a
river), was sluggish before it turned, so we floated quietly, and before
the moon went down managed to bail out the boat thoroughly and get her
a little ship-shape. Leo was sleeping profoundly, and on the whole I
thought it wise not to wake him. It was true he was sleeping in wet
clothes, but the night was now so warm that I thought (and so did Job)
that they were not likely to injure a man of his unusually vigorous
constitution. Besides, we had no dry ones at hand.

Presently the moon went down, and left us floating on the waters, now
only heaving like some troubled woman's breast, with leisure to reflect
upon all that we had gone through and all that we had escaped. Job
stationed himself at the bow, Mahomed kept his post at the tiller, and I
sat on a seat in the middle of the boat close to where Leo was lying.

The moon went slowly down in chastened loveliness; she departed like
some sweet bride into her chamber, and long veil-like shadows crept up
the sky through which the stars peeped shyly out. Soon, however, they
too began to pale before a splendour in the east, and then the quivering
footsteps of the dawn came rushing across the new-born blue, and shook
the high stars from their places. Quieter and yet more quiet grew the
sea, quiet as the soft mist that brooded on her bosom, and covered up
her troubling, as the illusive wreaths of sleep brood upon a pain-racked
mind, causing it to forget its sorrow. From the east to the west
sped the angels of the Dawn, from sea to sea, from mountain-top to
mountain-top, scattering light with both their hands. On they sped out
of the darkness, perfect, glorious, like spirits of the just breaking
from the tomb; on, over the quiet sea, over the low coastline, and the
swamps beyond, and the mountains above them; over those who slept in
peace and those who woke in sorrow; over the evil and the good; over the
living and the dead; over the wide world and all that breathes or has
breathed thereon.

It was a wonderfully beautiful sight, and yet sad, perhaps, from the
very excess of its beauty. The arising sun; the setting sun! There we
have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things with which
humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and the earthly
beginning, and the end also. And on that morning this came home to me
with a peculiar force. The sun that rose to-day for us had set last
night for eighteen of our fellow-voyagers!--had set everlastingly for
eighteen whom we knew!

The dhow had gone down with them, they were tossing about among the
rocks and seaweed, so much human drift on the great ocean of Death! And
we four were saved. But one day a sunrise will come when we shall be
among those who are lost, and then others will watch those glorious
rays, and grow sad in the midst of beauty, and dream of Death in the
full glow of arising Life!

For this is the lot of man.



V

THE HEAD OF THE ETHIOPIAN

At length the heralds and forerunners of the royal sun had done their
work, and, searching out the shadows, had caused them to flee away.
Then up he came in glory from his ocean-bed, and flooded the earth
with warmth and light. I sat there in the boat listening to the gentle
lapping of the water and watched him rise, till presently the slight
drift of the boat brought the odd-shaped rock, or peak, at the end of
the promontory which we had weathered with so much peril, between me
and the majestic sight, and blotted it from my view. I still continued,
however, to stare at the rock, absently enough, till presently it became
edged with the fire of the growing light behind it, and then I started,
as well I might, for I perceived that the top of the peak, which was
about eighty feet high by one hundred and fifty feet thick at its base,
was shaped like a negro's head and face, whereon was stamped a most
fiendish and terrifying expression. There was no doubt about it; there
were the thick lips, the fat cheeks, and the squat nose standing out
with startling clearness against the flaming background. There, too, was
the round skull, washed into shape perhaps by thousands of years of
wind and weather, and, to complete the resemblance, there was a scrubby
growth of weeds or lichen upon it, which against the sun looked for all
the world like the wool on a colossal negro's head. It certainly was
very odd; so odd that now I believe it is not a mere freak of nature but
a gigantic monument fashioned, like the well-known Egyptian Sphinx, by a
forgotten people out of a pile of rock that lent itself to their
design, perhaps as an emblem of warning and defiance to any enemies who
approached the harbour. Unfortunately we were never able to ascertain
whether or not this was the case, inasmuch as the rock was difficult of
access both from the land and the waterside, and we had other things
to attend to. Myself, considering the matter by the light of what we
afterwards saw, I believe that it was fashioned by man, but whether or
not this is so, there it stands, and sullenly stares from age to age out
across the changing sea--there it stood two thousand years and more
ago, when Amenartas, the Egyptian princess, and the wife of Leo's remote
ancestor Kallikrates, gazed upon its devilish face--and there I have no
doubt it will still stand when as many centuries as are numbered between
her day and our own are added to the year that bore us to oblivion.

"What do you think of that, Job?" I asked of our retainer, who was
sitting on the edge of the boat, trying to get as much sunshine as
possible, and generally looking uncommonly wretched, and I pointed to
the fiery and demonical head.

"Oh Lord, sir," answered Job, who now perceived the object for the first
time, "I think that the old geneleman must have been sitting for his
portrait on them rocks."

I laughed, and the laugh woke up Leo.

"Hullo," he said, "what's the matter with me? I am all stiff--where is
the dhow? Give me some brandy, please."

"You may be thankful that you are not stiffer, my boy," I answered. "The
dhow is sunk, everybody on board her is drowned with the exception of
us four, and your own life was only saved by a miracle"; and whilst Job,
now that it was light enough, searched about in a locker for the brandy
for which Leo asked, I told him the history of our night's adventure.

"Great Heavens!" he said faintly; "and to think that we should have been
chosen to live through it!"

By this time the brandy was forthcoming, and we all had a good pull at
it, and thankful enough we were for it. Also the sun was beginning to
get strength, and warm our chilled bones, for we had been wet through
for five hours or more.

"Why," said Leo, with a gasp as he put down the brandy bottle, "there
is the head the writing talks of, the 'rock carven like the head of an
Ethiopian.'"

"Yes," I said, "there it is."

"Well, then," he answered, "the whole thing is true."

"I don't see at all that that follows," I answered. "We knew this head
was here: your father saw it. Very likely it is not the same head that
the writing talks of; or if it is, it proves nothing."

Leo smiled at me in a superior way. "You are an unbelieving Jew, Uncle
Horace," he said. "Those who live will see."

"Exactly so," I answered, "and now perhaps you will observe that we are
drifting across a sandbank into the mouth of the river. Get hold of your
oar, Job, and we will row in and see if we can find a place to land."

The river mouth which we were entering did not appear to be a very wide
one, though as yet the long banks of steaming mist that clung about
its shores had not lifted sufficiently to enable us to see its exact
measure. There was, as is the case with nearly every East African river,
a considerable bar at the mouth, which, no doubt, when the wind was on
shore and the tide running out, was absolutely impassable even for a
boat drawing only a few inches. But as things were it was manageable
enough, and we did not ship a cupful of water. In twenty minutes we were
well across it, with but slight assistance from ourselves, and being
carried by a strong though somewhat variable breeze well up the harbour.
By this time the mist was being sucked up by the sun, which was getting
uncomfortably hot, and we saw that the mouth of the little estuary was
here about half a mile across, and that the banks were very marshy, and
crowded with crocodiles lying about on the mud like logs. About a mile
ahead of us, however, was what appeared to be a strip of firm land, and
for this we steered. In another quarter of an hour we were there, and
making the boat fast to a beautiful tree with broad shining leaves, and
flowers of the magnolia species, only they were rose-coloured and
not white,[*] which hung over the water, we disembarked. This done we
undressed, washed ourselves, and spread our clothes, together with the
contents of the boat, in the sun to dry, which they very quickly did.
Then, taking shelter from the sun under some trees, we made a hearty
breakfast off a "Paysandu" potted tongue, of which we had brought a good
quantity with us, congratulating ourselves loudly on our good fortune
in having loaded and provisioned the boat on the previous day before the
hurricane destroyed the dhow. By the time that we had finished our meal
our clothes were quite dry, and we hastened to get into them, feeling
not a little refreshed. Indeed, with the exception of weariness and
a few bruises, none of us were the worse for the terrifying adventure
which had been fatal to all our companions. Leo, it is true, had been
half-drowned, but that is no great matter to a vigorous young athlete of
five-and-twenty.

     [*] There is a known species of magnolia with pink flowers.
     It is indigenous in Sikkim, and known as _Magnolia
     Campbellii_.--Editor.

After breakfast we started to look about us. We were on a strip of dry
land about two hundred yards broad by five hundred long, bordered on one
side by the river, and on the other three by endless desolate swamps,
that stretched as far as the eye could reach. This strip of land was
raised about twenty-five feet above the plain of the surrounding swamps
and the river level: indeed it had every appearance of having been made
by the hand of man.

"This place has been a wharf," said Leo, dogmatically.

"Nonsense," I answered. "Who would be stupid enough to build a wharf
in the middle of these dreadful marshes in a country inhabited by
savages--that is, if it is inhabited at all?"

"Perhaps it was not always marsh, and perhaps the people were not
always savage," he said drily, looking down the steep bank, for we were
standing by the river. "Look there," he went on, pointing to a spot
where the hurricane of the previous night had torn up one of the
magnolia trees by the roots, which had grown on the extreme edge of the
bank just where it sloped down to the water, and lifted a large cake of
earth with them. "Is not that stonework? If not, it is very like it."

"Nonsense," I said again, but we clambered down to the spot, and got
between the upturned roots and the bank.

"Well?" he said.

But I did not answer this time. I only whistled. For there, laid bare by
the removal of the earth, was an undoubted facing of solid stone laid in
large blocks and bound together with brown cement, so hard that I could
make no impression on it with the file in my shooting-knife. Nor was
this all; seeing something projecting through the soil at the bottom of
the bared patch of walling, I removed the loose earth with my hands, and
revealed a huge stone ring, a foot or more in diameter, and about three
inches thick. This fairly staggered me.

"Looks rather like a wharf where good-sized vessels have been moored,
does it not, Uncle Horace?" said Leo, with an excited grin.

I tried to say "Nonsense" again, but the word stuck in my throat--the
ring spoke for itself. In some past age vessels _had_ been moored there,
and this stone wall was undoubtedly the remnant of a solidly constructed
wharf. Probably the city to which it had belonged lay buried beneath the
swamp behind it.

"Begins to look as though there were something in the story after all,
Uncle Horace," said the exultant Leo; and reflecting on the mysterious
negro's head and the equally mysterious stonework, I made no direct
reply.

"A country like Africa," I said, "is sure to be full of the relics
of long dead and forgotten civilisations. Nobody knows the age of the
Egyptian civilisation, and very likely it had offshoots. Then there were
the Babylonians and the Phoenicians, and the Persians, and all manner
of people, all more or less civilised, to say nothing of the Jews whom
everybody 'wants' nowadays. It is possible that they, or any one of
them, may have had colonies or trading stations about here. Remember
those buried Persian cities that the consul showed us at Kilwa."[*]

[*] Near Kilwa, on the East Coast of Africa, about 400 miles south of
Zanzibar, is a cliff which has been recently washed by the waves. On the
top of this cliff are Persian tombs known to be at least seven centuries
old by the dates still legible upon them. Beneath these tombs is a layer
of _debris_ representing a city. Farther down the cliff is a second
layer representing an older city, and farther down still a third layer,
the remains of yet another city of vast and unknown antiquity.
Beneath the bottom city were recently found some specimens of glazed
earthenware, such as are occasionally to be met with on that coast to
this day. I believe that they are now in the possession of Sir John
Kirk.--Editor.

"Quite so," said Leo, "but that is not what you said before."

"Well, what is to be done now?" I asked, turning the conversation.

As no answer was forthcoming we walked to the edge of the swamp, and
looked over it. It was apparently boundless, and vast flocks of
every sort of waterfowl flew from its recesses, till it was sometimes
difficult to see the sky. Now that the sun was getting high it drew thin
sickly looking clouds of poisonous vapour from the surface of the marsh
and from the scummy pools of stagnant water.

"Two things are clear to me," I said, addressing my three companions,
who stared at this spectacle in dismay: "first, that we can't go across
there" (I pointed to the swamp), "and, secondly, that if we stop here we
shall certainly die of fever."

"That's as clear as a haystack, sir," said Job.

"Very well, then; there are two alternatives before us. One is to 'bout
ship, and try and run for some port in the whale-boat, which would be
a sufficiently risky proceeding, and the other to sail or row on up the
river, and see where we come to."

"I don't know what you are going to do," said Leo, setting his mouth,
"but I am going up that river."

Job turned up the whites of his eyes and groaned, and the Arab murmured
"Allah," and groaned also. As for me, I remarked sweetly that as we
seemed to be between the devil and the deep sea, it did not much matter
where we went. But in reality I was as anxious to proceed as Leo. The
colossal negro's head and the stone wharf had excited my curiosity to an
extent of which I was secretly ashamed, and I was prepared to gratify it
at any cost. Accordingly, having carefully fitted the mast, restowed
the boat, and got out our rifles, we embarked. Fortunately the wind
was blowing on shore from the ocean, so we were able to hoist the sail.
Indeed, we afterwards found out that as a general rule the wind set on
shore from daybreak for some hours, and off shore again at sunset, and
the explanation that I offer of this is, that when the earth is cooled
by the dew and the night the hot air rises, and the draught rushes in
from the sea till the sun has once more heated it through. At least that
appeared to be the rule here.

Taking advantage of this favouring wind, we sailed merrily up the river
for three or four hours. Once we came across a school of hippopotami,
which rose, and bellowed dreadfully at us within ten or a dozen fathoms
of the boat, much to Job's alarm, and, I will confess, to my own. These
were the first hippopotami that we had ever seen, and, to judge by their
insatiable curiosity, I should judge that we were the first white men
that they had ever seen. Upon my word, I once or twice thought that they
were coming into the boat to gratify it. Leo wanted to fire at them,
but I dissuaded him, fearing the consequences. Also, we saw hundreds of
crocodiles basking on the muddy banks, and thousands upon thousands
of water-fowl. Some of these we shot, and among them was a wild goose,
which, in addition to the sharp-curved spurs on its wings, had a spur
about three-quarters of an inch long growing from the skull just between
the eyes. We never shot another like it, so I do not know if it was
a "sport" or a distinct species. In the latter case this incident may
interest naturalists. Job named it the Unicorn Goose.

About midday the sun grew intensely hot, and the stench drawn up by it
from the marshes which the river drains was something too awful, and
caused us instantly to swallow precautionary doses of quinine. Shortly
afterwards the breeze died away altogether, and as rowing our heavy boat
against stream in the heat was out of the question, we were thankful
enough to get under the shade of a group of trees--a species of
willow--that grew by the edge of the river, and lie there and gasp till
at length the approach of sunset put a period to our miseries. Seeing
what appeared to be an open space of water straight ahead of us, we
determined to row there before settling what to do for the night. Just
as we were about to loosen the boat, however, a beautiful waterbuck,
with great horns curving forward, and a white stripe across the rump,
came down to the river to drink, without perceiving us hidden away
within fifty yards under the willows. Leo was the first to catch sight
of it, and, being an ardent sportsman, thirsting for the blood of
big game, about which he had been dreaming for months, he instantly
stiffened all over, and pointed like a setter dog. Seeing what was the
matter, I handed him his express rifle, at the same time taking my own.

"Now then," I whispered, "mind you don't miss."

"Miss!" he whispered back contemptuously; "I could not miss it if I
tried."

He lifted the rifle, and the roan-coloured buck, having drunk his fill,
raised his head and looked out across the river. He was standing right
against the sunset sky on a little eminence, or ridge of ground, which
ran across the swamp, evidently a favourite path for game, and there
was something very beautiful about him. Indeed, I do not think that if
I live to a hundred I shall ever forget that desolate and yet most
fascinating scene; it is stamped upon my memory. To the right and
left were wide stretches of lonely death-breeding swamp, unbroken and
unrelieved so far as the eye could reach, except here and there by ponds
of black and peaty water that, mirror-like, flashed up the red rays
of the setting sun. Behind us and before stretched the vista of the
sluggish river, ending in glimpses of a reed-fringed lagoon, on the
surface of which the long lights of the evening played as the faint
breeze stirred the shadows. To the west loomed the huge red ball of the
sinking sun, now vanishing down the vapoury horizon, and filling the
great heaven, high across whose arch the cranes and wildfowl streamed
in line, square, and triangle, with flashes of flying gold and the lurid
stain of blood. And then ourselves--three modern Englishmen in a
modern English boat--seeming to jar upon and look out of tone with that
measureless desolation; and in front of us the noble buck limned out
upon a background of ruddy sky.

_Bang!_ Away he goes with a mighty bound. Leo has missed him. _Bang!_
right under him again. Now for a shot. I must have one, though he is
going like an arrow, and a hundred yards away and more. By Jove! over
and over and over! "Well, I think I've wiped your eye there, Master
Leo," I say, struggling against the ungenerous exultation that in such
a supreme moment of one's existence will rise in the best-mannered
sportsman's breast.

"Confound you, yes," growled Leo; and then, with that quick smile that
is one of his charms lighting up his handsome face like a ray of light,
"I beg your pardon, old fellow. I congratulate you; it was a lovely
shot, and mine were vile."

We got out of the boat and ran to the buck, which was shot through the
spine and stone dead. It took us a quarter of an hour or more to clean
it and cut off as much of the best meat as we could carry, and,
having packed this away, we had barely light enough to row up into the
lagoon-like space, into which, there being a hollow in the swamp, the
river here expanded. Just as the light vanished we cast anchor about
thirty fathoms from the edge of the lake. We did not dare to go ashore,
not knowing if we should find dry ground to camp on, and greatly fearing
the poisonous exhalations from the marsh, from which we thought we
should be freer on the water. So we lighted a lantern, and made our
evening meal off another potted tongue in the best fashion that we
could, and then prepared to go to sleep, only, however, to find that
sleep was impossible. For, whether they were attracted by the lantern,
or by the unaccustomed smell of a white man for which they had been
waiting for the last thousand years or so, I know not; but certainly we
were presently attacked by tens of thousands of the most blood-thirsty,
pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes that I ever saw or read of. In clouds
they came, and pinged and buzzed and bit till we were nearly mad.
Tobacco smoke only seemed to stir them into a merrier and more active
life, till at length we were driven to covering ourselves with blankets,
head and all, and sitting to slowly stew and continually scratch and
swear beneath them. And as we sat, suddenly rolling out like thunder
through the silence came the deep roar of a lion, and then of a second
lion, moving among the reeds within sixty yards of us.

"I say," said Leo, sticking his head out from under his blanket, "lucky
we ain't on the bank, eh, Avuncular?" (Leo sometimes addressed me in
this disrespectful way.) "Curse it! a mosquito has bitten me on the
nose," and the head vanished again.

Shortly after this the moon came up, and notwithstanding every variety
of roar that echoed over the water to us from the lions on the banks, we
began, thinking ourselves perfectly secure, to gradually doze off.

I do not quite know what it was that made me poke my head out of the
friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the
mosquitoes were biting right through it. Anyhow, as I did so I heard Job
whisper, in a frightened voice--

"Oh, my stars, look there!"

Instantly we all of us looked, and this was what we saw in the
moonlight. Near the shore were two wide and ever-widening circles of
concentric rings rippling away across the surface of the water, and in
the heart and centre of the circles were two dark moving objects.

"What is it?" asked I.

"It is those damned lions, sir," answered Job, in a tone which was
an odd mixture of a sense of personal injury, habitual respect, and
acknowledged fear, "and they are swimming here to _heat_ us," he added,
nervously picking up an "h" in his agitation.

I looked again: there was no doubt about it; I could catch the glare of
their ferocious eyes. Attracted either by the smell of the newly killed
waterbuck meat or of ourselves, the hungry beasts were actually storming
our position.

Leo already had his rifle in his hand. I called to him to wait till they
were nearer, and meanwhile grabbed my own. Some fifteen feet from us
the water shallowed on a bank to the depth of about fifteen inches, and
presently the first of them--it was the lioness--got on to it, shook
herself, and roared. At that moment Leo fired, the bullet went right
down her open mouth and out at the back of her neck, and down she
dropped, with a splash, dead. The other lion--a full-grown male--was
some two paces behind her. At this second he got his forepaws on to the
bank, when a strange thing happened. There was a rush and disturbance
of the water, such as one sees in a pond in England when a pike takes a
little fish, only a thousand times fiercer and larger, and suddenly the
lion gave a most terrific snarling roar and sprang forward on to the
bank, dragging something black with him.

"Allah!" shouted Mahomed, "a crocodile has got him by the leg!" and sure
enough he had. We could see the long snout with its gleaming lines of
teeth and the reptile body behind it.

And then followed an extraordinary scene indeed. The lion managed to
get well on to the bank, the crocodile half standing and half swimming,
still nipping his hind leg. He roared till the air quivered with the
sound, and then, with a savage, shrieking snarl, turned round and clawed
hold of the crocodile's head. The crocodile shifted his grip, having,
as we afterwards discovered, had one of his eyes torn out, and slightly
turned over; instantly the lion got him by the throat and held on, and
then over and over they rolled upon the bank struggling hideously. It
was impossible to follow their movements, but when next we got a clear
view the tables had turned, for the crocodile, whose head seemed to be
a mass of gore, had got the lion's body in his iron jaws just above the
hips, and was squeezing him and shaking him to and fro. For his part,
the tortured brute, roaring in agony, was clawing and biting madly
at his enemy's scaly head, and fixing his great hind claws in the
crocodile's, comparatively speaking, soft throat, ripping it open as one
would rip a glove.

Then, all of a sudden, the end came. The lion's head fell forward on the
crocodile's back, and with an awful groan he died, and the crocodile,
after standing for a minute motionless, slowly rolled over on to his
side, his jaws still fixed across the carcase of the lion, which, we
afterwards found, he had bitten almost in halves.

This duel to the death was a wonderful and a shocking sight, and one
that I suppose few men have seen--and thus it ended.

When it was all over, leaving Mahomed to keep a look out, we managed to
spend the rest of the night as quietly as the mosquitoes would allow.



VI

AN EARLY CHRISTIAN CEREMONY

Next morning, at the earliest light of dawn, we rose, performed such
ablutions as circumstances would allow, and generally made ready to
start. I am bound to say that when there was sufficient light to enable
us to see each other's faces I, for one, burst out into a roar of
laughter. Job's fat and comfortable countenance was swollen out to
nearly twice its natural size from mosquito bites, and Leo's condition
was not much better. Indeed, of the three I had come off much the best,
probably owing to the toughness of my dark skin, and to the fact that
a good deal of it was covered by hair, for since we had started from
England I had allowed my naturally luxuriant beard to grow at its
own sweet will. But the other two were, comparatively speaking, clean
shaved, which of course gave the enemy a larger extent of open country
to operate on, though in Mahomed's case the mosquitoes, recognising the
taste of a true believer, would not touch him at any price. How often,
I wonder, during the next week or so did we wish that we were flavoured
like an Arab!

By the time that we had done laughing as heartily as our swollen lips
would allow, it was daylight, and the morning breeze was coming up from
the sea, cutting lanes through the dense marsh mists, and here and there
rolling them before it in great balls of fleecy vapour. So we set
our sail, and having first taken a look at the two dead lions and the
alligator, which we were of course unable to skin, being destitute of
means of curing the pelts, we started, and, sailing through the lagoon,
followed the course of the river on the farther side. At midday, when
the breeze dropped, we were fortunate enough to find a convenient piece
of dry land on which to camp and light a fire, and here we cooked two
wild-ducks and some of the waterbuck's flesh--not in a very appetising
way, it is true, but still sufficiently. The rest of the buck's flesh
we cut into strips and hung in the sun to dry into "biltong," as, I
believe, the South African Dutch call flesh thus prepared. On this
welcome patch of dry land we stopped till the following dawn, and, as
before, spent the night in warfare with the mosquitoes, but without
other troubles. The next day or two passed in similar fashion, and
without noticeable adventures, except that we shot a specimen of a
peculiarly graceful hornless buck, and saw many varieties of water-lily
in full bloom, some of them blue and of exquisite beauty, though few
of the flowers were perfect, owing to the prevalence of a white
water-maggot with a green head that fed upon them.

It was on the fifth day of our journey, when we had travelled, so far
as we could reckon, about one hundred and thirty-five to a hundred and
forty miles westwards from the coast, that the first event of any real
importance occurred. On that morning the usual wind failed us about
eleven o'clock, and after pulling a little way we were forced to halt,
more or less exhausted, at what appeared to be the junction of our

stream with another of a uniform width of about fifty feet. Some trees
grew near at hand--the only trees in all this country were along the
banks of the river, and under these we rested, and then, the land being
fairly dry just here, walked a little way along the edge of the river to
prospect, and shoot a few waterfowl for food. Before we had gone fifty
yards we perceived that all hopes of getting further up the stream in
the whale-boat were at an end, for not two hundred yards above where
we had stopped were a succession of shallows and mudbanks, with not six
inches of water over them. It was a watery _cul de sac_.

Turning back, we walked some way along the banks of the other river, and
soon came to the conclusion, from various indications, that it was not
a river at all, but an ancient canal, like the one which is to be seen
above Mombasa, on the Zanzibar coast, connecting the Tana River with
the Ozy, in such a way as to enable the shipping coming down the Tana
to cross to the Ozy, and reach the sea by it, and thus avoid the very
dangerous bar that blocks the mouth of the Tana. The canal before us
had evidently been dug out by man at some remote period of the world's
history, and the results of his digging still remained in the shape of
the raised banks that had no doubt once formed towing-paths. Except here
and there, where they had been hollowed out by the water or fallen in,
these banks of stiff binding clay were at a uniform distance from each
other, and the depth of the stream also appeared to be uniform. Current
there was little or none, and, as a consequence, the surface of the
canal was choked with vegetable growth, intersected by little paths
of clear water, made, I suppose, by the constant passage of waterfowl,
iguanas, and other vermin. Now, as it was evident that we could not
proceed up the river, it became equally evident that we must either try
the canal or else return to the sea. We could not stop where we were,
to be baked by the sun and eaten up by the mosquitoes, till we died of
fever in that dreary marsh.

"Well, I suppose that we must try it," I said; and the others assented
in their various ways--Leo, as though it were the best joke in the
world; Job, in respectful disgust; and Mahomed, with an invocation to
the Prophet, and a comprehensive curse upon all unbelievers and their
ways of thought and travel.

Accordingly, as soon as the sun got low, having little or nothing more
to hope for from our friendly wind, we started. For the first hour or so
we managed to row the boat, though with great labour; but after that the
weeds got too thick to allow of it, and we were obliged to resort to the
primitive and most exhausting resource of towing her. For two hours we
laboured, Mahomed, Job, and I, who was supposed to be strong enough to
pull against the two of them, on the bank, while Leo sat in the bow of
the boat, and brushed away the weeds which collected round the cutwater
with Mahomed's sword. At dark we halted for some hours to rest and enjoy
the mosquitoes, but about midnight we went on again, taking advantage
of the comparative cool of the night. At dawn we rested for three hours,
and then started once more, and laboured on till about ten o'clock, when
a thunderstorm, accompanied by a deluge of rain, overtook us, and we
spent the next six hours practically under water.

I do not know that there is any necessity for me to describe the next
four days of our voyage in detail, further than to say that they were,
on the whole, the most miserable that I ever spent in my life, forming
one monotonous record of heavy labour, heat, misery, and mosquitoes. All
that dreary way we passed through a region of almost endless swamp, and
I can only attribute our escape from fever and death to the constant
doses of quinine and purgatives which we took, and the unceasing toil
which we were forced to undergo. On the third day of our journey up the
canal we had sighted a round hill that loomed dimly through the vapours
of the marsh, and on the evening of the fourth night, when we camped,
this hill seemed to be within five-and-twenty or thirty miles of us. We
were by now utterly exhausted, and felt as though our blistered hands
could not pull the boat a yard farther, and that the best thing that
we could do would be to lie down and die in that dreadful wilderness of
swamp. It was an awful position, and one in which I trust no other white
man will ever be placed; and as I threw myself down in the boat to sleep
the sleep of utter exhaustion, I bitterly cursed my folly in ever having
been a party to such a mad undertaking, which could, I saw, only end in
our death in this ghastly land. I thought, I remember, as I slowly sank
into a doze, of what the appearance of the boat and her unhappy crew
would be in two or three months' time from that night. There she would
lie, with gaping seams and half filled with foetid water, which, when
the mist-laden wind stirred her, would wash backwards and forwards
through our mouldering bones, and that would be the end of her, and of
those in her who would follow after myths and seek out the secrets of
Nature.

Already I seemed to hear the water rippling against the desiccated bones
and rattling them together, rolling my skull against Mahomed's, and
his against mine, till at last Mahomed's stood straight up upon its
vertebrae, and glared at me through its empty eyeholes, and cursed me
with its grinning jaws, because I, a dog of a Christian, disturbed the
last sleep of a true believer. I opened my eyes, and shuddered at the
horrid dream, and then shuddered again at something that was not a
dream, for two great eyes were gleaming down at me through the misty
darkness. I struggled up, and in my terror and confusion shrieked, and
shrieked again, so that the others sprang up too, reeling, and drunken
with sleep and fear. And then all of a sudden there was a flash of cold
steel, and a great spear was held against my throat, and behind it other
spears gleamed cruelly.

"Peace," said a voice, speaking in Arabic, or rather in some dialect
into which Arabic entered very largely; "who are ye who come hither
swimming on the water? Speak or ye die," and the steel pressed sharply
against my throat, sending a cold chill through me.

"We are travellers, and have come hither by chance," I answered in my
best Arabic, which appeared to be understood, for the man turned his
head, and, addressing a tall form that towered up in the background,
said, "Father, shall we slay?"

"What is the colour of the men?" said a deep voice in answer.

"White is their colour."

"Slay not," was the reply. "Four suns since was the word brought to me
from '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_,' 'White men come; if white men
come, slay them not.' Let them be brought to the house of
'_She-who-must-be-obeyed_.' Bring forth the men, and let that which they
have with them be brought forth also."

"Come," said the man, half leading and half dragging me from the boat,
and as he did so I perceived other men doing the same kind office to my
companions.

On the bank were gathered a company of some fifty men. In that light all
I could make out was that they were armed with huge spears, were very
tall, and strongly built, comparatively light in colour, and nude, save
for a leopard skin tied round the middle.

Presently Leo and Job were bundled out and placed beside me.

"What on earth is up?" said Leo, rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, Lord! sir, here's a rum go," ejaculated Job; and just at that
moment a disturbance ensued, and Mahomed came tumbling between us,
followed by a shadowy form with an uplifted spear.

"Allah! Allah!" howled Mahomed, feeling that he had little to hope from
man, "protect me! protect me!"

"Father, it is a black one," said a voice. "What said
'_She-who-must-be-obeyed_' about the black one?"

"She said naught; but slay him not. Come hither, my son."

The man advanced, and the tall shadowy form bent forward and whispered
something.

"Yes, yes," said the other, and chuckled in a rather blood-curdling
tone.

"Are the three white men there?" asked the form.

"Yes, they are there."

"Then bring up that which is made ready for them, and let the men take
all that can be brought from the thing which floats."

Hardly had he spoken when men came running up, carrying on their
shoulders neither more nor less than palanquins--four bearers and two
spare men to a palanquin--and in these it was promptly indicated we were
expected to stow ourselves.

"Well!" said Leo, "it is a blessing to find anybody to carry us after
having to carry ourselves so long."

Leo always takes a cheerful view of things.

There being no help for it, after seeing the others into theirs I
tumbled into my own litter, and very comfortable I found it. It appeared
to be manufactured of cloth woven from grass-fibre, which stretched and
yielded to every motion of the body, and, being bound top and bottom to
the bearing pole, gave a grateful support to the head and neck.

Scarcely had I settled myself when, accompanying their steps with a
monotonous song, the bearers started at a swinging trot. For half an
hour or so I lay still, reflecting on the very remarkable experiences
that we were going through, and wondering if any of my eminently
respectable fossil friends down at Cambridge would believe me if I were
to be miraculously set at the familiar dinner-table for the purpose
of relating them. I do not want to convey any disrespectful notion or
slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but my experience
is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University if they follow
the same paths too persistently. I was getting fossilised myself, but
of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged. Well, I lay and
reflected, and wondered what on earth would be the end of it all, till
at last I ceased to wonder, and went to sleep.

I suppose I must have slept for seven or eight hours, getting the first
real rest that I had had since the night before the loss of the
dhow, for when I woke the sun was high in the heavens. We were still
journeying on at a pace of about four miles an hour. Peeping out through
the mist-like curtains of the litter, which were ingeniously fixed to
the bearing pole, I perceived to my infinite relief that we had passed
out of the region of eternal swamp, and were now travelling over
swelling grassy plains towards a cup-shaped hill. Whether or not it was
the same hill that we had seen from the canal I do not know, and have
never since been able to discover, for, as we afterwards found out,
these people will give little information upon such points. Next I
glanced at the men who were bearing me. They were of a magnificent
build, few of them being under six feet in height, and yellowish in
colour. Generally their appearance had a good deal in common with that
of the East African Somali, only their hair was not frizzed up, but hung
in thick black locks upon their shoulders. Their features were aquiline,
and in many cases exceedingly handsome, the teeth being especially
regular and beautiful. But notwithstanding their beauty, it struck me
that, on the whole, I had never seen a more evil-looking set of faces.
There was an aspect of cold and sullen cruelty stamped upon them
that revolted me, and which in some cases was almost uncanny in its
intensity.

Another thing that struck me about them was that they never seemed to
smile. Sometimes they sang the monotonous song of which I have spoken,
but when they were not singing they remained almost perfectly silent,
and the light of a laugh never came to brighten their sombre and evil
countenances. Of what race could these people be? Their language was a
bastard Arabic, and yet they were not Arabs; I was quite sure of that.
For one thing they were too dark, or rather yellow. I could not say why,
but I know that their appearance filled me with a sick fear of which
I felt ashamed. While I was still wondering another litter came up
alongside of mine. In it--for the curtains were drawn--sat an old man,
clothed in a whitish robe, made apparently from coarse linen, that hung
loosely about him, who, I at once jumped to the conclusion, was
the shadowy figure that had stood on the bank and been addressed as
"Father." He was a wonderful-looking old man, with a snowy beard, so
long that the ends of it hung over the sides of the litter, and he had
a hooked nose, above which flashed out a pair of eyes as keen as a
snake's, while his whole countenance was instinct with a look of wise
and sardonic humour impossible to describe on paper.

"Art thou awake, stranger?" he said in a deep and low voice.

"Surely, my father," I answered courteously, feeling certain that I
should do well to conciliate this ancient Mammon of Unrighteousness.

He stroked his beautiful white beard, and smiled faintly.

"From whatever country thou camest," he said, "and by the way it must
be from one where somewhat of our language is known, they teach their
children courtesy there, my stranger son. And now wherefore comest thou
unto this land, which scarce an alien foot has pressed from the time
that man knoweth? Art thou and those with thee weary of life?"

"We came to find new things," I answered boldly. "We are tired of
the old things; we have come up out of the sea to know that which
is unknown. We are of a brave race who fear not death, my very much
respected father--that is, if we can get a little information before we
die."

"Humph!" said the old gentleman, "that may be true; it is rash to
contradict, otherwise I should say that thou wast lying, my son.
However, I dare to say that '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_' will meet thy
wishes in the matter."

"Who is '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_'?" I asked, curiously.

The old man glanced at the bearers, and then answered, with a little
smile that somehow sent my blood to my heart--

"Surely, my stranger son, thou wilt learn soon enough, if it be her
pleasure to see thee at all in the flesh."

"In the flesh?" I answered. "What may my father wish to convey?"

But the old man only laughed a dreadful laugh, and made no reply.

"What is the name of my father's people?" I asked.

"The name of my people is Amahagger" (the People of the Rocks).

"And if a son might ask, what is the name of my father?"

"My name is Billali."

"And whither go we, my father?"

"That shalt thou see," and at a sign from him his bearers started
forward at a run till they reached the litter in which Job was reposing
(with one leg hanging over the side). Apparently, however, he could not
make much out of Job, for presently I saw his bearers trot forward to
Leo's litter.

And after that, as nothing fresh occurred, I yielded to the pleasant
swaying motion of the litter, and went to sleep again. I was dreadfully
tired. When I woke I found that we were passing through a rocky defile
of a lava formation with precipitous sides, in which grew many beautiful
trees and flowering shrubs.

Presently this defile took a turn, and a lovely sight unfolded itself
to my eyes. Before us was a vast cup of green from four to six miles in
extent, in the shape of a Roman amphitheatre. The sides of this great
cup were rocky, and clothed with bush, but the centre was of the richest
meadow land, studded with single trees of magnificent growth, and
watered by meandering brooks. On this rich plain grazed herds of goats
and cattle, but I saw no sheep. At first I could not imagine what this
strange spot could be, but presently it flashed upon me that it must
represent the crater of some long-extinct volcano which had afterwards
been a lake, and was ultimately drained in some unexplained way. And
here I may state that from my subsequent experience of this and a much
larger, but otherwise similar spot, which I shall have occasion to
describe by-and-by, I have every reason to believe that this conclusion
was correct. What puzzled me, however, was, that although there were
people moving about herding the goats and cattle, I saw no signs of any
human habitation. Where did they all live? I wondered. My curiosity was
soon destined to be gratified. Turning to the left the string of litters
followed the cliffy sides of the crater for a distance of about half
a mile, or perhaps a little less, and then halted. Seeing the old
gentleman, my adopted "father," Billali, emerge from his litter, I did
the same, and so did Leo and Job. The first thing I saw was our wretched
Arab companion, Mahomed, lying exhausted on the ground. It appeared that
he had not been provided with a litter, but had been forced to run the
entire distance, and, as he was already quite worn out when we started,
his condition now was one of great prostration.

On looking round we discovered that the place where we had halted was
a platform in front of the mouth of a great cave, and piled upon this
platform were the entire contents of the whale-boat, even down to the
oars and sail. Round the cave stood groups of the men who had escorted
us, and other men of a similar stamp. They were all tall and all
handsome, though they varied in their degree of darkness of skin, some
being as dark as Mahomed, and some as yellow as a Chinese. They were
naked, except for the leopard-skin round the waist, and each of them
carried a huge spear.

There were also some women among them, who, instead of the leopard-skin,
wore a tanned hide of a small red buck, something like that of the
oribe, only rather darker in colour. These women were, as a class,
exceedingly good-looking, with large, dark eyes, well-cut features, and
a thick bush of curling hair--not crisped like a negro's--ranging from
black to chestnut in hue, with all shades of intermediate colour. Some,
but very few of them, wore a yellowish linen garment, such as I have
described as worn by Billali, but this, as we afterwards discovered, was
a mark of rank, rather than an attempt at clothing. For the rest, their
appearance was not quite so terrifying as that of the men, and they
sometimes, though rarely, smiled. As soon as we had alighted they
gathered round us and examined us with curiosity, but without
excitement. Leo's tall, athletic form and clear-cut Grecian face,
however, evidently excited their attention, and when he politely lifted
his hat to them, and showed his curling yellow hair, there was a slight
murmur of admiration. Nor did it stop there; for, after regarding him
critically from head to foot, the handsomest of the young women--one
wearing a robe, and with hair of a shade between brown and
chestnut--deliberately advanced to him, and, in a way that would have
been winning had it not been so determined, quietly put her arm round
his neck, bent forward, and kissed him on the lips.

I gave a gasp, expecting to see Leo instantly speared; and Job
ejaculated, "The hussy--well, I never!" As for Leo, he looked slightly
astonished; and then, remarking that we had clearly got into a country
where they followed the customs of the early Christians, deliberately
returned the embrace.

Again I gasped, thinking that something would happen; but, to my
surprise, though some of the young women showed traces of vexation, the
older ones and the men only smiled slightly. When we came to understand
the customs of this extraordinary people the mystery was explained. It
then appeared that, in direct opposition to the habits of almost every
other savage race in the world, women among the Amahagger are not only
upon terms of perfect equality with the men, but are not held to them by
any binding ties. Descent is traced only through the line of the
mother, and while individuals are as proud of a long and superior female
ancestry as we are of our families in Europe, they never pay attention
to, or even acknowledge, any man as their father, even when their male
parentage is perfectly well known. There is but one titular male parent
of each tribe, or, as they call it, "Household," and he is its elected
and immediate ruler, with the title of "Father." For instance, the man
Billali was the father of this "household," which consisted of about
seven thousand individuals all told, and no other man was ever called
by that name. When a woman took a fancy to a man she signified her
preference by advancing and embracing him publicly, in the same way that
this handsome and exceedingly prompt young lady, who was called Ustane,
had embraced Leo. If he kissed her back it was a token that he accepted
her, and the arrangement continued until one of them wearied of it. I
am bound, however, to say that the change of husbands was not nearly so
frequently as might have been expected. Nor did quarrels arise out
of it, at least among the men, who, when their wives deserted them
in favour of a rival, accepted the whole thing much as we accept the
income-tax or our marriage laws, as something not to be disputed, and as
tending to the good of the community, however disagreeable they may in
particular instances prove to the individual.

It is very curious to observe how the customs of mankind on this matter
vary in different countries, making morality an affair of latitude, and
what is right and proper in one place wrong and improper in another. It
must, however, be understood that, since all civilised nations appear to
accept it as an axiom that ceremony is the touchstone of morality, there
is, even according to our canons, nothing immoral about this Amahagger
custom, seeing that the interchange of the embrace answers to our
ceremony of marriage, which, as we know, justifies most things.



VII

USTANE SINGS

When the kissing operation was finished--by the way, none of the young
ladies offered to pet me in this fashion, though I saw one hovering
round Job, to that respectable individual's evident alarm--the old man
Billali advanced, and graciously waved us into the cave, whither we
went, followed by Ustane, who did not seem inclined to take the hints I
gave her that we liked privacy.

Before we had gone five paces it struck me that the cave that we were
entering was none of Nature's handiwork, but, on the contrary, had been
hollowed by the hand of man. So far as we could judge it appeared to
be about one hundred feet in length by fifty wide, and very lofty,
resembling a cathedral aisle more than anything else. From this main
aisle opened passages at a distance of every twelve or fifteen feet,
leading, I supposed, to smaller chambers. About fifty feet from the
entrance of the cave, just where the light began to get dim, a fire was
burning, which threw huge shadows upon the gloomy walls around. Here
Billali halted, and asked us to be seated, saying that the people would
bring us food, and accordingly we squatted ourselves down upon the
rugs of skins which were spread for us, and waited. Presently the food,
consisting of goat's flesh boiled, fresh milk in an earthenware pot, and
boiled cobs of Indian corn, was brought by young girls. We were almost
starving, and I do not think that I ever in my life before ate with
such satisfaction. Indeed, before we had finished we literally ate up
everything that was set before us.

When we had done, our somewhat saturnine host, Billali, who had been
watching us in perfect silence, rose and addressed us. He said that it
was a wonderful thing that had happened. No man had ever known or heard
of white strangers arriving in the country of the People of the Rocks.
Sometimes, though rarely, black men had come here, and from them they
had heard of the existence of men much whiter than themselves, who
sailed on the sea in ships, but for the arrival of such there was no
precedent. We had, however, been seen dragging the boat up the canal,
and he told us frankly that he had at once given orders for our
destruction, seeing that it was unlawful for any stranger to enter here,
when a message had come from "_She-who-must-be-obeyed_," saying that our
lives were to be spared, and that we were to be brought hither.

"Pardon me, my father," I interrupted at this point; "but if, as I
understand, '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_' lives yet farther off, how could
she have known of our approach?"

Billali turned, and seeing that we were alone--for the young lady,
Ustane, had withdrawn when he had begun to speak--said, with a curious
little laugh--

"Are there none in your land who can see without eyes and hear without
ears? Ask no questions; _She_ knew."

I shrugged my shoulders at this, and he proceeded to say that no further
instructions had been received on the subject of our disposal, and this
being so he was about to start to interview "_She-who-must-be-obeyed_,"
generally spoken of, for the sake of brevity, as "Hiya" or _She_ simply,
who he gave us to understand was the Queen of the Amahagger, and learn
her wishes.

I asked him how long he proposed to be away, and he said that by
travelling hard he might be back on the fifth day, but there were many
miles of marsh to cross before he came to where _She_ was. He then said
that every arrangement would be made for our comfort during his absence,
and that, as he personally had taken a fancy to us, he sincerely trusted
that the answer he should bring from _She_ would be one favourable to
the continuation of our existence, but at the same time he did not wish
to conceal from us that he thought this doubtful, as every stranger
who had ever come into the country during his grandmother's life, his
mother's life, and his own life, had been put to death without mercy,
and in a way he would not harrow our feelings by describing; and this
had been done by the order of _She_ herself, at least he supposed that
it was by her order. At any rate, she never interfered to save them.

"Why," I said, "but how can that be? You are an old man, and the time
you talk of must reach back three men's lives. How therefore could _She_
have ordered the death of anybody at the beginning of the life of your
grandmother, seeing that herself she would not have been born?"

Again he smiled--that same faint, peculiar smile, and with a deep bow
departed, without making any answer; nor did we see him again for five
days.

When we had gone we discussed the situation, which filled me with
alarm. I did not at all like the accounts of this mysterious Queen,
"_She-who-must-be-obeyed_," or more shortly _She_, who apparently
ordered the execution of any unfortunate stranger in a fashion so
unmerciful. Leo, too, was depressed about it, but consoled himself by
triumphantly pointing out that this _She_ was undoubtedly the person
referred to in the writing on the potsherd and in his father's letter,
in proof of which he advanced Billali's allusions to her age and power.
I was by this time too overwhelmed with the whole course of events that
I had not even the heart left to dispute a proposition so absurd, so I
suggested that we should try to go out and get a bath, of which we all
stood sadly in need.

Accordingly, having indicated our wish to a middle-aged individual of
an unusually saturnine cast of countenance, even among this saturnine
people, who appeared to be deputed to look after us now that the Father
of the hamlet had departed, we started in a body--having first lit
our pipes. Outside the cave we found quite a crowd of people evidently
watching for our appearance, but when they saw us come out smoking they
vanished this way and that, calling out that we were great magicians.
Indeed, nothing about us created so great a sensation as our tobacco
smoke--not even our firearms.[*] After this we succeeded in reaching
a stream that had its source in a strong ground spring, and taking our
bath in peace, though some of the women, not excepting Ustane, showed a
decided inclination to follow us even there.

     [*] We found tobacco growing in this country as it does in
     every other part of Africa, and, although they were so
     absolutely ignorant of its other blessed qualities, the
     Amahagger use it habitually in the form of snuff and also
     for medicinal purposes.--L. H. H.

By the time that we had finished this most refreshing bath the sun was
setting; indeed, when we got back to the big cave it had already set.
The cave itself was full of people gathered round fires--for several
more had now been lighted--and eating their evening meal by their lurid
light, and by that of various lamps which were set about or hung upon
the walls. These lamps were of a rude manufacture of baked earthenware,
and of all shapes, some of them graceful enough. The larger ones were
formed of big red earthenware pots, filled with clarified melted fat,
and having a reed wick stuck through a wooden disk which filled the top
of the pot. This sort of lamp required the most constant attention to
prevent its going out whenever the wick burnt down, as there were no
means of turning it up. The smaller hand lamps, however, which were also
made of baked clay, were fitted with wicks manufactured from the pith
of a palm-tree, or sometimes from the stem of a very handsome variety
of fern. This kind of wick was passed through a round hole at the end of
the lamp, to which a sharp piece of hard wood was attached wherewith to
pierce and draw it up whenever it showed signs of burning low.

For a while we sat down and watched this grim people eating their
evening meal in silence as grim as themselves, till at length, getting
tired of contemplating them and the huge moving shadows on the rocky
walls, I suggested to our new keeper that we should like to go to bed.

Without a word he rose, and, taking me politely by the hand, advanced
with a lamp to one of the small passages that I had noticed opening
out of the central cave. This we followed for about five paces, when it
suddenly widened out into a small chamber, about eight feet square, and
hewn out of the living rock. On one side of this chamber was a stone
slab, about three feet from the ground, and running its entire length
like a bunk in a cabin, and on this slab he intimated that I was to
sleep. There was no window or air-hole to the chamber, and no furniture;
and, on looking at it more closely, I came to the disturbing conclusion
(in which, as I afterwards discovered, I was quite right) that it
had originally served for a sepulchre for the dead rather than a
sleeping-place for the living, the slab being designed to receive the
corpse of the departed. The thought made me shudder in spite of myself;
but, seeing that I must sleep somewhere, I got over the feeling as best
I might, and returned to the cavern to get my blanket, which had been
brought up from the boat with the other things. There I met Job, who,
having been inducted to a similar apartment, had flatly declined to stop
in it, saying that the look of the place gave him the horrors, and that
he might as well be dead and buried in his grandfather's brick grave
at once, and expressed his determination of sleeping with me if I would
allow him. This, of course, I was only too glad to do.

The night passed very comfortably on the whole. I say on the whole,
for personally I went through a most horrible nightmare of being buried
alive, induced, no doubt, by the sepulchral nature of my surroundings.
At dawn we were aroused by a loud trumpeting sound, produced, as we
afterwards discovered, by a young Amahagger blowing through a hole
bored in its side into a hollowed elephant tusk, which was kept for the
purpose.

Taking the hint, we got up and went down to the stream to wash, after
which the morning meal was served. At breakfast one of the women, no
longer quite young, advanced and publicly kissed Job. I think it was in
its way the most delightful thing (putting its impropriety aside for
a moment) that I ever saw. Never shall I forget the respectable Job's
abject terror and disgust. Job, like myself, is a bit of a misogynist--I
fancy chiefly owing to the fact of his having been one of a family
of seventeen--and the feelings expressed upon his countenance when
he realised that he was not only being embraced publicly, and without
authorisation on his own part, but also in the presence of his masters,
were too mixed and painful to admit of accurate description. He sprang
to his feet, and pushed the woman, a buxom person of about thirty, from
him.

"Well, I never!" he gasped, whereupon probably thinking that he was only
coy, she embraced him again.

"Be off with you! Get away, you minx!" he shouted, waving the wooden
spoon, with which he was eating his breakfast, up and down before the
lady's face. "Beg your pardon, gentlemen, I am sure I haven't encouraged
her. Oh, Lord! she's coming for me again. Hold her, Mr. Holly! please
hold her! I can't stand it; I can't, indeed. This has never happened to
me before, gentlemen, never. There's nothing against my character," and
here he broke off, and ran as hard as he could go down the cave, and for
once I saw the Amahagger laugh. As for the woman, however, she did
not laugh. On the contrary, she seemed to bristle with fury, which the
mockery of the other women about only served to intensify. She stood
there literally snarling and shaking with indignation, and, seeing her,
I wished Job's scruples had been at Jericho, forming a shrewd guess that
his admirable behaviour had endangered our throats. Nor, as the sequel
shows, was I wrong.

The lady having retreated, Job returned in a great state of nervousness,
and keeping his weather eye fixed upon every woman who came near him. I
took an opportunity to explain to our hosts that Job was a married man,
and had had very unhappy experiences in his domestic relations, which
accounted for his presence here and his terror at the sight of women,
but my remarks were received in grim silence, it being evident that our
retainer's behaviour was considered as a slight to the "household"
at large, although the women, after the manner of some of their most
civilised sisters, made merry at the rebuff of their companion.

After breakfast we took a walk and inspected the Amahagger herds, and
also their cultivated lands. They have two breeds of cattle, one large
and angular, with no horns, but yielding beautiful milk; and the other,
a red breed, very small and fat, excellent for meat, but of no value for
milking purposes. This last breed closely resembles the Norfolk red-pole
strain, only it has horns which generally curve forward over the head,
sometimes to such an extent that they have to be cut to prevent them
from growing into the bones of the skull. The goats are long-haired, and
are used for eating only, at least I never saw them milked. As for the
Amahagger cultivation, it is primitive in the extreme, being all done
by means of a spade made of iron, for these people smelt and work iron.
This spade is shaped more like a big spear-head than anything else, and
has no shoulder to it on which the foot can be set. As a consequence,
the labour of digging is very great. It is, however, all done by the
men, the women, contrary to the habits of most savage races, being
entirely exempt from manual toil. But then, as I think I have said
elsewhere, among the Amahagger the weaker sex has established its
rights.

At first we were much puzzled as to the origin and constitution of
this extraordinary race, points upon which they were singularly
uncommunicative. As the time went on--for the next four days passed
without any striking event--we learnt something from Leo's lady friend
Ustane, who, by the way, stuck to that young gentleman like his own
shadow. As to origin, they had none, at least, so far as she was
aware. There were, however, she informed us, mounds of masonry and many
pillars, near the place where _She_ lived, which was called Kor, and
which the wise said had once been houses wherein men lived, and it was
suggested that they were descended from these men. No one, however,
dared go near these great ruins, because they were haunted: they only
looked on them from a distance. Other similar ruins were to be seen, she
had heard, in various parts of the country, that is, wherever one of
the mountains rose above the level of the swamp. Also the caves in which
they lived had been hollowed out of the rocks by men, perhaps the same
who built the cities. They themselves had no written laws, only custom,
which was, however, quite as binding as law. If any man offended
against the custom, he was put to death by order of the Father of the
"Household." I asked how he was put to death, and she only smiled and
said that I might see one day soon.

They had a Queen, however. _She_ was their Queen, but she was very
rarely seen, perhaps once in two or three years, when she came forth to
pass sentence on some offenders, and when seen was muffled up in a big
cloak, so that nobody could look upon her face. Those who waited upon
her were deaf and dumb, and therefore could tell no tales, but it was
reported that she was lovely as no other woman was lovely, or ever had
been. It was rumoured also that she was immortal, and had power over
all things, but she, Ustane, could say nothing of all that. What she
believed was that the Queen chose a husband from time to time, and as
soon as a female child was born, this husband, who was never again seen,
was put to death. Then the female child grew up and took the place of
the Queen when its mother died, and had been buried in the great caves.
But of these matters none could speak with certainty. Only _She_ was
obeyed throughout the length and breadth of the land, and to question
her command was instant death. She kept a guard, but had no regular
army, and to disobey her was to die.

I asked what size the land was, and how many people lived in it. She
answered that there were ten "Households," like this that she knew
of, including the big "Household," where the Queen was, that all the
"Households" lived in caves, in places resembling this stretch of raised
country, dotted about in a vast extent of swamp, which was only to be
threaded by secret paths. Often the "Households" made war on each other
until _She_ sent word that it was to stop, and then they instantly
ceased. That and the fever which they caught in crossing the swamps
prevented their numbers from increasing too much. They had no connection
with any other race, indeed none lived near them, or were able to thread
the vast swamps. Once an army from the direction of the great river
(presumably the Zambesi) had attempted to attack them, but they got lost
in the marshes, and at night, seeing the great balls of fire that move
about there, tried to come to them, thinking that they marked the enemy
camp, and half of them were drowned. As for the rest, they soon died of
fever and starvation, not a blow being struck at them. The marshes, she
told us, were absolutely impassable except to those who knew the paths,
adding, what I could well believe, that we should never have reached
this place where we then were had we not been brought thither.

These and many other things we learnt from Ustane during the four days'
pause before our real adventures began, and, as may be imagined, they
gave us considerable cause for thought. The whole thing was exceedingly
remarkable, almost incredibly so, indeed, and the oddest part of it was
that so far it did more or less correspond to the ancient writing on the
sherd. And now it appeared that there was a mysterious Queen clothed by
rumour with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the
impersonal, but, to my mind, rather awesome title of _She_. Altogether,
I could not make it out, nor could Leo, though of course he was
exceedingly triumphant over me because I had persistently mocked at the
whole thing. As for Job, he had long since abandoned any attempt to call
his reason his own, and left it to drift upon the sea of circumstance.
Mahomed, the Arab, who was, by the way, treated civilly indeed, but
with chilling contempt, by the Amahagger, was, I discovered, in a great
fright, though I could not quite make out what he was frightened about.
He would sit crouched up in a corner of the cave all day long, calling
upon Allah and the Prophet to protect him. When I pressed him about it,
he said that he was afraid because these people were not men or women at
all, but devils, and that this was an enchanted land; and, upon my word,
once or twice since then I have been inclined to agree with him. And
so the time went on, till the night of the fourth day after Billali had
left, when something happened.

We three and Ustane were sitting round a fire in the cave just before
bedtime, when suddenly the woman, who had been brooding in silence,
rose, and laid her hand upon Leo's golden curls, and addressed him. Even
now, when I shut my eyes, I can see her proud, imperial form, clothed
alternately in dense shadow and the red flickering of the fire, as she
stood, the wild centre of as weird a scene as I ever witnessed, and
delivered herself of the burden of her thoughts and forebodings in a
kind of rhythmical speech that ran something as follows:--

     Thou art my chosen--I have waited for thee from the beginning!
     Thou art very beautiful. Who hath hair like unto thee, or skin so
     white?
     Who hath so strong an arm, who is so much a man?
     Thine eyes are the sky, and the light in them is the stars.
     Thou art perfect and of a happy face, and my heart turned itself
     towards thee.
     Ay, when mine eyes fell upon thee I did desire thee,--
     Then did I take thee to me--oh, thou Beloved,
     And hold thee fast, lest harm should come unto thee.
     Ay, I did cover thine head with mine hair, lest the sun should
     strike it;
     And altogether was I thine, and thou wast altogether mine.
     And so it went for a little space, till Time was in labour with
     an evil Day;
     And then what befell on that day? Alas! my Beloved, I know not!
     But I, I saw thee no more--I, I was lost in the blackness.
     And she who is stronger did take thee; ay, she who is fairer than
     Ustane.
     Yet didst thou turn and call upon me, and let thine eyes wander in
     the darkness.
     But, nevertheless, she prevailed by Beauty, and led thee down
     horrible places,
     And then, ah! then my Beloved----

Here this extraordinary woman broke off her speech, or chant, which was
so much musical gibberish to us, for all that we understood of what she
was talking about, and seemed to fix her flashing eyes upon the deep
shadow before her. Then in a moment they acquired a vacant, terrified
stare, as though they were striving to realise some half-seen horror.
She lifted her hand from Leo's head, and pointed into the darkness. We
all looked, and could see nothing; but she saw something, or thought she
did, and something evidently that affected even her iron nerves, for,
without another sound, down she fell senseless between us.

Leo, who was growing really attached to this remarkable young person,
was in a great state of alarm and distress, and I, to be perfectly
candid, was in a condition not far removed from superstitious fear. The
whole scene was an uncanny one.

Presently, however, she recovered, and sat up with an extraordinary
convulsive shudder.

"What didst thou mean, Ustane?" asked Leo, who, thanks to years of
tuition, spoke Arabic very prettily.

"Nay, my chosen," she answered, with a little forced laugh. "I did but
sing unto thee after the fashion of my people. Surely, I meant nothing.
Now could I speak of that which is not yet?"

"And what didst thou see, Ustane?" I asked, looking her sharply in the
face.

"Nay," she answered again, "I saw naught. Ask me not what I saw. Why
should I fright ye?" And then, turning to Leo with a look of the most
utter tenderness that I ever saw upon the face of a woman, civilised
or savage, she took his head between her hands, and kissed him on the
forehead as a mother might.

"When I am gone from thee, my chosen," she said; "when at night thou
stretchest out thine hand and canst not find me, then shouldst thou
think at times of me, for of a truth I love thee well, though I be not
fit to wash thy feet. And now let us love and take that which is given
us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor
any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter
memories of what might have been. To-night the hours are our own, how
know we to whom they shall belong to-morrow?"



VIII

THE FEAST, AND AFTER!

On the day following this remarkable scene--a scene calculated to make
a deep impression upon anybody who beheld it, more because of what it
suggested and seemed to foreshadow than of what it revealed--it was
announced to us that a feast would be held that evening in our honour.
I did my best to get out of it, saying that we were modest people, and
cared little for feasts, but my remarks being received with the silence
of displeasure, I thought it wisest to hold my tongue.

Accordingly, just before sundown, I was informed that everything was
ready, and, accompanied by Job, went into the cave, where I met Leo,
who was, as usual, followed by Ustane. These two had been out walking
somewhere, and knew nothing of the projected festivity till that moment.
When Ustane heard of it I saw an expression of horror spring up upon her
handsome features. Turning she caught a man who was passing up the cave
by the arm, and asked him something in an imperious tone. His answer
seemed to reassure her a little, for she looked relieved, though far
from satisfied. Next she appeared to attempt some remonstrance with the
man, who was a person in authority, but he spoke angrily to her, and
shook her off, and then, changing his mind, led her by the arm, and sat
her down between himself and another man in the circle round the fire,
and I perceived that for some reason of her own she thought it best to
submit.

The fire in the cave was an unusually big one that night, and in a
large circle round it were gathered about thirty-five men and two women,
Ustane and the woman to avoid whom Job had played the _role_ of another
Scriptural character. The men were sitting in perfect silence, as was
their custom, each with his great spear stuck upright behind him, in
a socket cut in the rock for that purpose. Only one or two wore the
yellowish linen garment of which I have spoken, the rest had nothing on
except the leopard's skin about the middle.

"What's up now, sir," said Job, doubtfully. "Bless us and save us,
there's that woman again. Now, surely, she can't be after me, seeing
that I have given her no encouragement. They give me the creeps, the
whole lot of them, and that's a fact. Why look, they have asked Mahomed
to dine, too. There, that lady of mine is talking to him in as nice and
civil a way as possible. Well, I'm glad it isn't me, that's all."

We looked up, and sure enough the woman in question had risen, and was
escorting the wretched Mahomed from his corner, where, overcome by some
acute prescience of horror, he had been seated, shivering, and calling
on Allah. He appeared unwilling enough to come, if for no other reason
perhaps because it was an unaccustomed honour, for hitherto his food had
been given to him apart. Anyway I could see that he was in a state of
great terror, for his tottering legs would scarcely support his
stout, bulky form, and I think it was rather owing to the resources
of barbarism behind him, in the shape of a huge Amahagger with a
proportionately huge spear, than to the seductions of the lady who led
him by the hand, that he consented to come at all.

"Well," I said to the others, "I don't at all like the look of things,
but I suppose we must face it out. Have you fellows got your revolvers
on? because, if so, you had better see that they are loaded."

"I have, sir," said Job, tapping his Colt, "but Mr. Leo has only got his
hunting knife, though that is big enough, surely."

Feeling that it would not do to wait while the missing weapon was
fetched, we advanced boldly, and seated ourselves in a line, with our
backs against the side of the cave.

As soon as we were seated, an earthenware jar was passed round
containing a fermented fluid, of by no means unpleasant taste, though
apt to turn upon the stomach, made from crushed grain--not Indian corn,
but a small brown grain that grows upon its stem in clusters, not unlike
that which in the southern part of Africa is known by the name of Kafir
corn. The vase which contained this liquor was very curious, and as
it more or less resembled many hundreds of others in use among the
Amahagger I may as well describe it. These vases are of a very ancient
manufacture, and of all sizes. None such can have been made in the
country for hundreds, or rather thousands, of years. They are found
in the rock tombs, of which I shall give a description in their proper
place, and my own belief is that, after the fashion of the Egyptians,
with whom the former inhabitants of this country may have had some
connection, they were used to receive the viscera of the dead. Leo,
however, is of opinion that, as in the case of Etruscan amphorae, they
were placed there for the spiritual use of the deceased. They are mostly
two-handled, and of all sizes, some being nearly three feet in height,
and running from that down to as many inches. In shape they vary, but
all are exceedingly beautiful and graceful, being made of a very fine
black ware, not lustrous, but slightly rough. On this groundwork are
inlaid figures much more graceful and lifelike than any others that
I have seen on antique vases. Some of these inlaid pictures represent
love-scenes with a childlike simplicity and freedom of manner which
would not commend itself to the taste of the present day. Others again
give pictures of maidens dancing, and yet others of hunting-scenes. For
instance, the very vase from which we were then drinking had on one side
a most spirited drawing of men, apparently white in colour, attacking a
bull-elephant with spears, while on the reverse was a picture, not quite
so well done, of a hunter shooting an arrow at a running antelope, I
should say from the look of it either an eland or a koodoo.

This is a digression at a critical moment, but it is not too long for
the occasion, for the occasion itself was very long. With the exception
of the periodical passing of the vase, and the movement necessary to
throw fuel on to the fire, nothing happened for the best part of a whole
hour. Nobody spoke a word. There we all sat in perfect silence, staring
at the glare and glow of the large fire, and at the shadows thrown by
the flickering earthenware lamps (which, by the way, were not ancient).
On the open space between us and the fire lay a large wooden tray,
with four short handles to it, exactly like a butcher's tray, only not
hollowed out. By the side of the tray was a great pair of long-handled
iron pincers, and on the other side of the fire was a similar pair.
Somehow I did not at all like the appearance of this tray and the
accompanying pincers. There I sat and stared at them and at the silent
circle of the fierce moody faces of the men, and reflected that it
was all very awful, and that we were absolutely in the power of this
alarming people, who, to me at any rate, were all the more formidable
because their true character was still very much of a mystery to us.
They might be better than I thought them, or they might be worse. I
feared that they were worse, and I was not wrong. It was a curious sort
of a feast, I reflected, in appearance indeed, an entertainment of the
Barmecide stamp, for there was absolutely nothing to eat.

At last, just as I was beginning to feel as though I were being
mesmerised, a move was made. Without the slightest warning, a man from
the other side of the circle called out in a loud voice--

"Where is the flesh that we shall eat?"

Thereon everybody in the circle answered in a deep measured tone, and
stretching out the right arm towards the fire as he spoke--

"_The flesh will come._"

"Is it a goat?" said the same man.

"_It is a goat without horns, and more than a goat, and we shall slay
it,_" they answered with one voice, and turning half round they one and
all grasped the handles of their spears with the right hand, and then
simultaneously let them go.

"Is it an ox?" said the man again.

"_It is an ox without horns, and more than an ox, and we shall slay
it,_" was the answer, and again the spears were grasped, and again let
go.

Then came a pause, and I noticed, with horror and a rising of the hair,
that the woman next to Mahomed began to fondle him, patting his cheeks
and calling him by names of endearment while her fierce eyes played up
and down his trembling form. I do not know why the sight frightened me
so, but it did frighten us all dreadfully, especially Leo. The caressing
was so snake-like, and so evidently a part of some ghastly formula that
had to be gone through.[*] I saw Mahomed turn white under his brown
skin, sickly white with fear.

     [*] We afterwards learnt that its object was to pretend to
     the victim that he was the object of love and admiration,
     and so to sooth his injured feelings, and cause him to
     expire in a happy and contented frame of mind.--L. H. H.

"Is the meat ready to be cooked?" asked the voice, more rapidly.

"_It is ready; it is ready._"

"Is the pot hot to cook it?" it continued, in a sort of scream that
echoed painfully down the great recesses of the cave.

"_It is hot; it is hot._"

"Great heavens!" roared Leo, "remember the writing, '_The people who
place pots upon the heads of strangers._'"

As he said the words, before we could stir, or even take the matter in,
two great ruffians jumped up, and, seizing the long pincers, thrust them
into the heart of the fire, and the woman who had been caressing Mahomed
suddenly produced a fibre noose from under her girdle or moocha, and,
slipping it over his shoulders, ran it tight, while the men next to him
seized him by the legs. The two men with the pincers gave a heave, and,
scattering the fire this way and that upon the rocky floor, lifted
from it a large earthenware pot, heated to a white heat. In an instant,
almost with a single movement, they had reached the spot where Mahomed
was struggling. He fought like a fiend, shrieking in the abandonment of
his despair, and notwithstanding the noose round him, and the efforts
of the men who held his legs, the advancing wretches were for the moment
unable to accomplish their purpose, which, horrible and incredible as it
seems, was _to put the red-hot pot upon his head_.

I sprang to my feet with a yell of horror, and drawing my revolver fired
it by a sort of instinct straight at the diabolical woman who had been
caressing Mahomed, and was now gripping him in her arms. The bullet
struck her in the back and killed her, and to this day I am glad that
it did, for, as it afterwards transpired, she had availed herself of the
anthropophagous customs of the Amahagger to organise the whole thing in
revenge of the slight put upon her by Job. She sank down dead, and as
she did so, to my terror and dismay, Mahomed, by a superhuman effort,
burst from his tormenters, and, springing high into the air, fell dying
upon her corpse. The heavy bullet from my pistol had driven through
the bodies of both, at once striking down the murderess, and saving her
victim from a death a hundred times more horrible. It was an awful and
yet a most merciful accident.

For a moment there was a silence of astonishment. The Amahagger had
never heard the report of a firearm before, and its effects dismayed
them. But the next a man close to us recovered himself, and seized his
spear preparatory to making a lunge with it at Leo, who was the nearest
to him.

"Run for it!" I shouted, setting the example by starting up the cave as
hard as my legs would carry me. I would have made for the open air if
it had been possible, but there were men in the way, and, besides, I
had caught sight of the forms of a crowd of people standing out clear
against the skyline beyond the entrance to the cave. Up the cave I went,
and after me came the others, and after them thundered the whole crowd
of cannibals, mad with fury at the death of the woman. With a bound I
cleared the prostrate form of Mahomed. As I flew over him I felt the
heat from the red-hot pot, which was lying close by, strike upon my
legs, and by its glow saw his hands--for he was not quite dead--still
feebly moving. At the top of the cave was a little platform of rock
three feet or so high by about eight deep, on which two large lamps were
placed at night. Whether this platform had been left as a seat, or as a
raised point afterwards to be cut away when it had served its purpose
as a standing place from which to carry on the excavations, I do not
know--at least, I did not then. At any rate, we all three reached it,
and, jumping on it, prepared to sell our lives as dearly as we could.
For a few seconds the crowd that was pressing on our heels hung back
when they saw us face round upon them. Job was on one side of the rock
to the left, Leo in the centre, and I to the right. Behind us were
the lamps. Leo bent forward, and looked down the long lane of shadows,
terminating in the fire and lighted lamps, through which the quiet
forms of our would-be murderers flitted to and fro with the faint light
glinting on their spears, for even their fury was silent as a bulldog's.
The only other thing visible was the red-hot pot still glowing angrily
in the gloom. There was a curious light in Leo's eyes, and his
handsome face was set like a stone. In his right hand was his heavy
hunting-knife. He shifted its thong a little up his wrist and then put
his arm round me and gave me a good hug.

"Good-bye, old fellow," he said, "my dear friend--my more than father.
We have no chance against those scoundrels; they will finish us in a
few minutes, and eat us afterwards, I suppose. Good-bye. I led you into
this. I hope you will forgive me. Good-bye, Job."

"God's will be done," I said, setting my teeth, as I prepared for the
end. At that moment, with an exclamation, Job lifted his revolver and
fired, and hit a man--not the man he had aimed at, by the way: anything
that Job shot _at_ was perfectly safe.

On they came with a rush, and I fired too as fast as I could, and
checked them--between us, Job and I, besides the woman, killed or
mortally wounded five men with our pistols before they were emptied.
But we had no time to reload, and they still came on in a way that was
almost splendid in its recklessness, seeing that they did not know but
that we could go on firing for ever.

A great fellow bounded up upon the platform, and Leo struck him dead
with one blow of his powerful arm, sending the knife right through him.
I did the same by another, but Job missed his stroke, and I saw a brawny
Amahagger grip him by the middle and whirl him off the rock. The knife
not being secured by a thong fell from Job's hand as he did so, and, by
a most happy accident for him, lit upon its handle on the rock, just as
the body of the Amahagger, who was undermost, struck upon its point and
was transfixed upon it. What happened to Job after that I am sure I do
not know, but my own impression is that he lay still upon the corpse of
his deceased assailant, "playing 'possum" as the Americans say. As for
myself, I was soon involved in a desperate encounter with two ruffians,
who, luckily for me, had left their spears behind them; and for the
first time in my life the great physical power with which Nature has
endowed me stood me in good stead. I had hacked at the head of one man
with my hunting-knife, which was almost as big and heavy as a short
sword, with such vigour, that the sharp steel had split his skull
down to the eyes, and was held so fast by it that as he suddenly fell
sideways the knife was twisted right out of my hand.

Then it was that the two others sprang upon me. I saw them coming, and
got an arm round the waist of each, and down we all fell upon the floor
of the cave together, rolling over and over. They were strong men, but
I was mad with rage, and that awful lust for slaughter which will creep
into the hearts of the most civilised of us when blows are flying, and
life and death tremble on the turn. My arms were round the two swarthy
demons, and I hugged them till I heard their ribs crack and crunch up
beneath my grip. They twisted and writhed like snakes, and clawed and
battered at me with their fists, but I held on. Lying on my back there,
so that their bodies might protect me from spear thrusts from above, I
slowly crushed the life out of them, and as I did so, strange as it may
seem, I thought of what the amiable Head of my College at Cambridge (who
is a member of the Peace Society) and my brother Fellows would say if by
clairvoyance they could see me, of all men, playing such a bloody game.
Soon my assailants grew faint, and almost ceased to struggle, their
breath had failed them, and they were dying, but still I dared not leave
them, for they died very slowly. I knew that if I relaxed my grip they
would revive. The other ruffians probably thought--for we were all three
lying in the shadow of the ledge--that we were all dead together, at any
rate they did not interfere with our little tragedy.

I turned my head, and as I lay gasping in the throes of that awful
struggle I could see that Leo was off the rock now, for the lamplight
fell full upon him. He was still on his feet, but in the centre of a
surging mass of struggling men, who were striving to pull him down as
wolves pull down a stag. Up above them towered his beautiful pale face
crowned with its bright curls (for Leo is six feet two high), and I saw
that he was fighting with a desperate abandonment and energy that was
at once splendid and hideous to behold. He drove his knife through one
man--they were so close to and mixed up with him that they could not
get at him to kill him with their big spears, and they had no knives or
sticks. The man fell, and then somehow the knife was wrenched from his
hand, leaving him defenceless, and I thought the end had come. But no;
with a desperate effort he broke loose from them, seized the body of the
man he had just slain, and lifting it high in the air hurled it right at
the mob of his assailants, so that the shock and weight of it swept
some five or six of them to the earth. But in a minute they were all up
again, except one, whose skull was smashed, and had once more fastened
upon him. And then slowly, and with infinite labour and struggling,
the wolves bore the lion down. Once even then he recovered himself, and
felled an Amahagger with his fist, but it was more than man could do to
hold his own for long against so many, and at last he came crashing down
upon the rock floor, falling as an oak falls, and bearing with him to
the earth all those who clung about him. They gripped him by his arms
and legs, and then cleared off his body.

"A spear," cried a voice--"a spear to cut his throat, and a vessel to
catch his blood."

I shut my eyes, for I saw the man coming with a spear, and myself, I
could not stir to Leo's help, for I was growing weak, and the two men on
me were not yet dead, and a deadly sickness overcame me.

Then suddenly there was a disturbance, and involuntarily I opened my
eyes again, and looked towards the scene of murder. The girl Ustane had
thrown herself on Leo's prostrate form, covering his body with her body,
and fastening her arms about his neck. They tried to drag her from
him, but she twisted her legs round his, and hung on like a bulldog, or
rather like a creeper to a tree, and they could not. Then they tried to
stab him in the side without hurting her, but somehow she shielded him,
and he was only wounded.

At last they lost patience.

"Drive the spear through the man and the woman together," said a voice,
the same voice that had asked the questions at that ghastly feast, "so
of a verity shall they be wed."

Then I saw the man with the weapon straighten himself for the effort. I
saw the cold steel gleam on high, and once more I shut my eyes.

As I did so I heard the voice of a man thunder out in tones that rang
and echoed down the rocky ways--

"_Cease!_"

Then I fainted, and as I did so it flashed through my darkening mind
that I was passing down into the last oblivion of death.



IX

A LITTLE FOOT

When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying on a skin mat not far
from the fire round which we had been gathered for that dreadful feast.
Near me lay Leo, still apparently in a swoon, and over him was bending
the tall form of the girl Ustane, who was washing a deep spear wound
in his side with cold water preparatory to binding it up with linen.
Leaning against the wall of the cave behind her was Job, apparently
uninjured, but bruised and trembling. On the other side of the fire,
tossed about this way and that, as though they had thrown themselves
down to sleep in some moment of absolute exhaustion, were the bodies of
those whom we had killed in our frightful struggle for life. I counted
them: there were twelve besides the woman, and the corpse of poor
Mahomed, who had died by my hand, which, the fire-stained pot at its
side, was placed at the end of the irregular line. To the left a body of
men were engaged in binding the arms of the survivors of the cannibals
behind them, and then fastening them two and two. The villains were
submitting with a look of sulky indifference upon their faces which
accorded ill with the baffled fury that gleamed in their sombre eyes.
In front of these men, directing the operations, stood no other than our
friend Billali, looking rather tired, but particularly patriarchal
with his flowing beard, and as cool and unconcerned as though he were
superintending the cutting up of an ox.

Presently he turned, and perceiving that I was sitting up advanced
to me, and with the utmost courtesy said that he trusted that I felt
better. I answered that at present I scarcely knew how I felt, except
that I ached all over.

Then he bent down and examined Leo's wound.

"It is an evil cut," he said, "but the spear has not pierced the
entrails. He will recover."

"Thanks to thy arrival, my father," I answered. "In another minute we
should all have been beyond the reach of recovery, for those devils of
thine would have slain us as they would have slain our servant," and I
pointed towards Mahomed.

The old man ground his teeth, and I saw an extraordinary expression of
malignity light up his eyes.

"Fear not, my son," he answered. "Vengeance shall be taken on them such
as would make the flesh twist upon the bones merely to hear of it. To
_She_ shall they go, and her vengeance shall be worthy of her greatness.
That man," pointing to Mahomed, "I tell thee that man would have died a
merciful death to the death these hyaena-men shall die. Tell me, I pray
of thee, how it came about."

In a few words I sketched what had happened.

"Ah, so," he answered. "Thou seest, my son, here there is a custom that
if a stranger comes into this country he may be slain by 'the pot,' and
eaten."

"It is hospitality turned upside down," I answered feebly. "In our
country we entertain a stranger, and give him food to eat. Here ye eat
him, and are entertained."

"It is a custom," he answered, with a shrug. "Myself I think it an evil
one; but then," he added by an afterthought, "I do not like the taste
of strangers, especially after they have wandered through the swamps and
lived on wild-fowl. When _She-who-must-be-obeyed_ sent orders that ye
were to be saved alive she said naught of the black man, therefore,
being hyaenas, these men lusted after his flesh, and the woman it was,
whom thou didst rightly slay, who put it into their evil hearts to
hot-pot him. Well, they will have their reward. Better for them would it
be if they had never seen the light than that they should stand before
_She_ in her terrible anger. Happy are those of them who died by your
hands."

"Ah," he went on, "it was a gallant fight that ye fought. Knowest thou
that, long-armed old baboon that thou art, thou hast crushed in the ribs
of those two who are laid out there as though they were but as the shell
on an egg? And the young one, the lion, it was a beautiful stand that
he made--one against so many--three did he slay outright, and that one
there"--and he pointed to a body that was still moving a little--"will
die anon, for his head is cracked across, and others of those who are
bound are hurt. It was a gallant fight, and thou and he have made a
friend of me by it, for I love to see a well-fought fray. But tell me,
my son, the baboon--and now I think of it thy face, too, is hairy, and
altogether like a baboon's--how was it that ye slew those with a hole in
them?--Ye made a noise, they say, and slew them--they fell down on the
faces at the noise?"

I explained to him as well as I could, but very shortly--for I was
terribly wearied, and only persuaded to talk at all through fear
of offending one so powerful if I refused to do so--what were the
properties of gunpowder, and he instantly suggested that I should
illustrate what I said by operating on the person of one of the
prisoners. One, he said, never would be counted, and it would not only
be very interesting to him, but would give me the opportunity of an
instalment of revenge. He was greatly astounded when I told him that it
was not our custom to avenge ourselves in cold blood, and that we left
vengeance to the law and a higher power, of which he knew nothing. I
added, however, that when I recovered I would take him out shooting
with us, and he should kill an animal for himself, and at this he was as
pleased as a child at the promise of a new toy.

Just then Leo opened his eyes beneath the stimulus of some brandy (of
which we still had a little) that Job had poured down his throat, and
our conversation came to an end.

After this we managed to get Leo, who was in a very poor way indeed, and
only half conscious, safely off to bed, supported by Job and that brave
girl Ustane, to whom, had I not been afraid that she might resent it, I
would certainly have given a kiss for her splendid behaviour in saving
my boy's life at the risk of her own. But Ustane was not the sort of
young person with whom one would care to take liberties unless one were
perfectly certain that they would not be misunderstood, so I repressed
my inclinations. Then, bruised and battered, but with a sense of safety
in my breast to which I had for some days been a stranger, I crept off
to my own little sepulchre, not forgetting before I laid down in it to
thank Providence from the bottom of my heart that it was not a sepulchre
indeed, as, save for a merciful combination of events that I can only
attribute to its protection, it would certainly have been for me that
night. Few men have been nearer their end and yet escaped it than we
were on that dreadful day.

I am a bad sleeper at the best of times, and my dreams that night when
at last I got to rest were not of the pleasantest. The awful vision of
poor Mahomed struggling to escape the red-hot pot would haunt them, and
then in the background, as it were, a veiled form was always hovering,
which, from time to time, seemed to draw the coverings from its body,
revealing now the perfect shape of a lovely blooming woman, and now
again the white bones of a grinning skeleton, and which, as it veiled
and unveiled, uttered the mysterious and apparently meaningless
sentence:--

"That which is alive and hath known death, and that which is dead yet
can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death
is naught. Yea, all things live for ever, though at times they sleep and
are forgotten."

The morning came at last, but when it came I found that I was too stiff
and sore to rise. About seven Job arrived, limping terribly, and with
his face the colour of a rotten apple, and told me that Leo had slept
fairly, but was very weak. Two hours afterwards Billali (Job called
him "Billy-goat," to which, indeed, his white beard gave him some
resemblance, or more familiarly, "Billy") came too, bearing a lamp in
his hand, his towering form reaching nearly to the roof of the little
chamber. I pretended to be asleep, and through the cracks of my eyelids
watched his sardonic but handsome old face. He fixed his hawk-like eyes
upon me, and stroked his glorious white beard, which, by the way,
would have been worthy a hundred a year to any London barber as an
advertisement.

"Ah!" I heard him mutter (Billali had a habit of muttering to himself),
"he is ugly--ugly as the other is beautiful--a very Baboon, it was a
good name. But I like the man. Strange now, at my age, that I should
like a man. What says the proverb--'Mistrust all men, and slay him whom
thou mistrustest overmuch; and as for women, flee from them, for they
are evil, and in the end will destroy thee.' It is a good proverb,
especially the last part of it: I think that it must have come down from
the ancients. Nevertheless I like this Baboon, and I wonder where they
taught him his tricks, and I trust that _She_ will not bewitch him. Poor
Baboon! he must be wearied after that fight. I will go lest I should
awake him."

I waited till he had turned and was nearly through the entrance, walking
softly on tiptoe, and then I called after him.

"My father," I said, "is it thou?"

"Yes, my son, it is I; but let me not disturb thee. I did but come to
see how thou didst fare, and to tell thee that those who would have
slain thee, my Baboon, are by now far on their road to _She_. _She_ said
that ye also were to come at once, but I fear ye cannot yet."

"Nay," I said, "not till we have recovered a little; but have me borne
out into the daylight, I pray thee, my father. I love not this place."

"Ah, no," he answered, "it hath a sad air. I remember when I was a boy I
found the body of a fair woman lying where thou liest now, yes, on that
very bench. She was so beautiful that I was wont to creep in hither with
a lamp and gaze upon her. Had it not been for her cold hands, almost
could I think that she slept and would one day awake, so fair and
peaceful was she in her robes of white. White was she, too, and her
hair was yellow and lay down her almost to the feet. There are many such
still in the tombs at the place where _She_ is, for those who set them
there had a way I know naught of, whereby to keep their beloved out of
the crumbling hand of Decay, even when Death had slain them. Ay, day
by day I came hither, and gazed on her till at last--laugh not at me,
stranger, for I was but a silly lad--I learned to love that dead form,
that shell which once had held a life that no more is. I would creep
up to her and kiss her cold face, and wonder how many men had lived and
died since she was, and who had loved her and embraced her in the days
that long had passed away. And, my Baboon, I think I learned wisdom from
that dead one, for of a truth it taught me of the littleness of life,
and the length of Death, and how all things that are under the sun go
down one path, and are for ever forgotten. And so I mused, and it seemed
to me that wisdom flowed into me from the dead, till one day my mother,
a watchful woman, but hasty-minded, seeing I was changed, followed me,
and saw the beautiful white one, and feared that I was bewitched, as,
indeed, I was. So half in dread, and half in anger, she took up the
lamp, and standing the dead woman up against the wall even there, set
fire to her hair, and she burnt fiercely, even down to the feet, for
those who are thus kept burn excellently well.

"See, my son, there on the roof is yet the smoke of her burning."

I looked up doubtfully, and there, sure enough, on the roof of the
sepulchre, was a peculiarly unctuous and sooty mark, three feet or more
across. Doubtless it had in the course of years been rubbed off the
sides of the little cave, but on the roof it remained, and there was no
mistaking its appearance.

"She burnt," he went on in a meditative way, "even to the feet, but the
feet I came back and saved, cutting the burnt bone from them, and
hid them under the stone bench there, wrapped up in a piece of linen.
Surely, I remember it as though it were but yesterday. Perchance they
are there, if none have found them, even to this hour. Of a truth I have
not entered this chamber from that time to this very day. Stay, I will
look," and, kneeling down, he groped about with his long arm in the
recess under the stone bench. Presently his face brightened, and with an
exclamation he pulled something forth which was caked in dust; which he
shook on to the floor. It was covered with the remains of a rotting rag,
which he undid, and revealed to my astonished gaze a beautifully shaped
and almost white woman's foot, looking as fresh and firm as though it
had but now been placed there.

"Thou seest, my son, the Baboon," he said, in a sad voice, "I spake the
truth to thee, for here is yet one foot remaining. Take it, my son, and
gaze upon it."

I took this cold fragment of mortality in my hand and looked at it in
the light of the lamp with feelings which I cannot describe, so mixed
up were they between astonishment, fear, and fascination. It was light,
much lighter I should say than it had been in the living state, and the
flesh to all appearance was still flesh, though about it there clung a
faintly aromatic odour. For the rest it was not shrunk or shrivelled, or
even black and unsightly, like the flesh of Egyptian mummies, but plump
and fair, and, except where it had been slightly burnt, perfect as on
the day of death--a very triumph of embalming.

Poor little foot! I set it down upon the stone bench where it had lain
for so many thousand years, and wondered whose was the beauty that
it had upborne through the pomp and pageantry of a forgotten
civilisation--first as a merry child's, then as a blushing maid's, and
lastly as a perfect woman's. Through what halls of Life had its soft
step echoed, and in the end, with what courage had it trodden down the
dusty ways of Death! To whose side had it stolen in the hush of night
when the black slave slept upon the marble floor, and who had listened
for its stealing? Shapely little foot! Well might it have been set upon
the proud neck of a conqueror bent at last to woman's beauty, and
well might the lips of nobles and of kings have been pressed upon its
jewelled whiteness.

I wrapped up this relic of the past in the remnants of the old linen rag
which had evidently formed a portion of its owner's grave-clothes, for
it was partially burnt, and put it away in my Gladstone bag--a strange
combination, I thought. Then with Billali's help I staggered off to see
Leo. I found him dreadfully bruised, worse even than myself, perhaps
owing to the excessive whiteness of his skin, and faint and weak with
the loss of blood from the flesh wound in his side, but for all that
cheerful as a cricket, and asking for some breakfast. Job and Ustane
got him on to the bottom, or rather the sacking of a litter, which was
removed from its pole for that purpose, and with the aid of old Billali
carried him out into the shade at the mouth of the cave, from which, by
the way, every trace of the slaughter of the previous night had now been
removed, and there we all breakfasted, and indeed spent that day, and
most of the two following ones.

On the third morning Job and myself were practically recovered. Leo also
was so much better that I yielded to Billali's often expressed entreaty,
and agreed to start at once upon our journey to Kor, which we were told
was the name of the place where the mysterious _She_ lived, though I
still feared for its effect upon Leo, and especially lest the motion
should cause his wound, which was scarcely skinned over, to break open
again. Indeed, had it not been for Billali's evident anxiety to get off,
which led us to suspect that some difficulty or danger might threaten us
if we did not comply with it, I would not have consented to go.



X

SPECULATIONS

Within an hour of our finally deciding to start five litters were
brought up to the door of the cave, each accompanied by four regular
bearers and two spare hands, also a band of about fifty armed Amahagger,
who were to form the escort and carry the baggage. Three of these
litters, of course, were for us, and one for Billali, who, I was
immensely relieved to hear, was to be our companion, while the fifth I
presumed was for the use of Ustane.

"Does the lady go with us, my father?" I asked of Billali, as he stood
superintending things in general.

He shrugged his shoulders as he answered--

"If she wills. In this country the women do what they please. We worship
them, and give them their way, because without them the world could not
go on; they are the source of life."

"Ah," I said, the matter never having struck me quite in that light
before.

"We worship them," he went on, "up to a point, till at last they get
unbearable, which," he added, "they do about every second generation."

"And then what do you do?" I asked, with curiosity.

"Then," he answered, with a faint smile, "we rise, and kill the old
ones as an example to the young ones, and to show them that we are the
strongest. My poor wife was killed in that way three years ago. It was
very sad, but to tell thee the truth, my son, life has been happier
since, for my age protects me from the young ones."

"In short," I replied, quoting the saying of a great man whose wisdom
has not yet lightened the darkness of the Amahagger, "thou hast found
thy position one of greater freedom and less responsibility."

This phrase puzzled him a little at first from its vagueness, though I
think my translation hit off its sense very well, but at last he saw it,
and appreciated it.

"Yes, yes, my Baboon," he said, "I see it now, but all the
'responsibilities' are killed, at least some of them are, and that is
why there are so few old women about just now. Well, they brought it on
themselves. As for this girl," he went on, in a graver tone, "I know
not what to say. She is a brave girl, and she loves the Lion (Leo); thou
sawest how she clung to him, and saved his life. Also, she is, according
to our custom, wed to him, and has a right to go where he goes, unless,"
he added significantly, "_She_ would say her no, for her word overrides
all rights."

"And if _She_ bade her leave him, and the girl refused? What then?"

"If," he said, with a shrug, "the hurricane bids the tree to bend, and
it will not; what happens?"

And then, without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked to his
litter, and in ten minutes from that time we were all well under way.

It took us an hour and more to cross the cup of the volcanic plain,
and another half-hour or so to climb the edge on the farther side. Once
there, however, the view was a very fine one. Before us was a long steep
slope of grassy plain, broken here and there by clumps of trees mostly
of the thorn tribe. At the bottom of this gentle slope, some nine or ten
miles away, we could make out a dim sea of marsh, over which the foul
vapours hung like smoke about a city. It was easy going for the bearers
down the slopes, and by midday we had reached the borders of the dismal
swamp. Here we halted to eat our midday meal, and then, following a
winding and devious path, plunged into the morass. Presently the path,
at any rate to our unaccustomed eyes, grew so faint as to be almost
indistinguishable from those made by the aquatic beasts and birds, and
it is to this day a mystery to me how our bearers found their way across
the marshes. Ahead of the cavalcade marched two men with long poles,
which they now and again plunged into the ground before them, the reason
of this being that the nature of the soil frequently changed from causes
with which I am not acquainted, so that places which might be safe
enough to cross one month would certainly swallow the wayfarer the next.
Never did I see a more dreary and depressing scene. Miles on miles of
quagmire, varied only by bright green strips of comparatively solid
ground, and by deep and sullen pools fringed with tall rushes, in which
the bitterns boomed and the frogs croaked incessantly: miles on miles of
it without a break, unless the fever fog can be called a break. The only
life in this great morass was that of the aquatic birds, and the animals
that fed on them, of both of which there were vast numbers. Geese,
cranes, ducks, teal, coot, snipe, and plover swarmed all around us, many
being of varieties that were quite new to me, and all so tame that one
could almost have knocked them over with a stick. Among these birds I
especially noticed a very beautiful variety of painted snipe, almost the
size of a woodcock, and with a flight more resembling that bird's than
an English snipe's. In the pools, too, was a species of small alligator
or enormous iguana, I do not know which, that fed, Billali told me, upon
the waterfowl, also large quantities of a hideous black water-snake, of
which the bite is very dangerous, though not, I gathered, so deadly as a
cobra's or a puff adder's. The bull-frogs were also very large, and
with voices proportionate to their size; and as for the mosquitoes--the
"musqueteers," as Job called them--they were, if possible, even worse
than they had been on the river, and tormented us greatly. Undoubtedly,
however, the worst feature of the swamp was the awful smell of
rotting vegetation that hung about it, which was at times positively
overpowering, and the malarious exhalations that accompanied it, which
we were of course obliged to breathe.

On we went through it all, till at last the sun sank in sullen splendour
just as we reached a spot of rising ground about two acres in extent--a
little oasis of dry in the midst of the miry wilderness--where Billali
announced that we were to camp. The camping, however, turned out to be
a very simple process, and consisted, in fact, in sitting down on the
ground round a scanty fire made of dry reeds and some wood that had been
brought with us. However, we made the best we could of it, and smoked
and ate with such appetite as the smell of damp, stifling heat would
allow, for it was very hot on this low land, and yet, oddly enough,
chilly at times. But, however hot it was, we were glad enough to keep
near the fire, because we found that the mosquitoes did not like the
smoke. Presently we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and tried to
go to sleep, but so far as I was concerned the bull-frogs, and the
extraordinary roaring and alarming sound produced by hundreds of snipe
hovering high in the air, made sleep an impossibility, to say nothing of
our other discomforts. I turned and looked at Leo, who was next me; he
was dozing, but his face had a flushed appearance that I did not like,
and by the flickering fire-light I saw Ustane, who was lying on the
other side of him, raise herself from time to time upon her elbow, and
look at him anxiously enough.

However, I could do nothing for him, for we had all already taken a
good dose of quinine, which was the only preventive we had; so I lay and
watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch of
heaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world!
Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own
insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies
easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the
footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or
deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know.
Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would
perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make
us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were
drowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first result
of man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by the
persistent effort of his purblind observation? It is not but too often
to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any
intelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because we
could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It would
destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his
capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small. The
vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable
and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, and
the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered
into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it may be
otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of the flesh is but
to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown by
Fate, which he calls pleasure, thankful if before they burst they rest
a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and his hour
comes to perish, to pass humbly whither he knows not.

Above me, as I lay, shone the eternal stars, and there at my feet the
impish marsh-born balls of fire rolled this way and that, vapour-tossed
and earth-desiring, and methought that in the two I saw a type and image
of what man is, and what perchance man may one day be, if the living
Force who ordained him and them should so ordain this also. Oh, that it
might be ours to rest year by year upon that high level of the heart to
which at times we momentarily attain! Oh, that we could shake loose the
prisoned pinions of the soul and soar to that superior point, whence,
like to some traveller looking out through space from Darien's giddiest
peak, we might gaze with spiritual eyes deep into Infinity!

What would it be to cast off this earthy robe, to have done for ever
with these earthy thoughts and miserable desires; no longer, like those
corpse candles, to be tossed this way and that, by forces beyond our
control; or which, if we can theoretically control them, we are at times
driven by the exigencies of our nature to obey! Yes, to cast them off,
to have done with the foul and thorny places of the world; and, like to
those glittering points above me, to rest on high wrapped for ever in
the brightness of our better selves, that even now shines in us as fire
faintly shines within those lurid balls, and lay down our littleness in
that wide glory of our dreams, that invisible but surrounding Good, from
which all truth and beauty comes!

These and many such thoughts passed through my mind that night. They
come to torment us all at times. I say to torment, for, alas! thinking
can only serve to measure out the helplessness of thought. What is the
purpose of our feeble crying in the awful silences of space? Can our dim
intelligence read the secrets of that star-strewn sky? Does any answer
come out of it? Never any at all, nothing but echoes and fantastic
visions! And yet we believe that there is an answer, and that upon a
time a new Dawn will come blushing down the ways of our enduring night.
We believe it, for its reflected beauty even now shines up continually
in our hearts from beneath the horizon of the grave, and we call it
Hope. Without Hope we should suffer moral death, and by the help of Hope
we yet may climb to Heaven, or at the worst, if she also prove but a
kindly mockery given to hold us from despair, be gently lowered into the
abysses of eternal sleep.

Then I fell to reflecting upon the undertaking on which we were bent,
and what a wild one it was, and yet how strangely the story seemed to
fit in with what had been written centuries ago upon the sherd. Who
was this extraordinary woman, Queen over a people apparently as
extraordinary as herself, and reigning amidst the vestiges of a lost
civilisation? And what was the meaning of this story of the Fire that
gave unending life? Could it be possible that any fluid or essence
should exist which might so fortify these fleshy walls that they
should from age to age resist the mines and batterings of decay? It was
possible, though not probable. The infinite continuation of life would
not, as poor Vincey said, be so marvellous a thing as the production of
life and its temporary endurance. And if it were true, what then? The
person who found it could no doubt rule the world. He could accumulate
all the wealth in the world, and all the power, and all the wisdom that
is power. He might give a lifetime to the study of each art or science.
Well, if that were so, and this _She_ were practically immortal, which
I did not for one moment believe, how was it that, with all these things
at her feet, she preferred to remain in a cave amongst a society
of cannibals? This surely settled the question. The whole story was
monstrous, and only worthy of the superstitious days in which it was
written. At any rate I was very sure that _I_ would not attempt to
attain unending life. I had had far too many worries and disappointments
and secret bitternesses during my forty odd years of existence to wish
that this state of affairs should be continued indefinitely. And yet I
suppose that my life has been, comparatively speaking, a happy one.

And then, reflecting that at the present moment there was far more
likelihood of our earthly careers being cut exceedingly short than of
their being unduly prolonged, I at last managed to get to sleep, a fact
for which anybody who reads this narrative, if anybody ever does, may
very probably be thankful.

When I woke again it was just dawning, and the guard and bearers were
moving about like ghosts through the dense morning mists, getting ready
for our start. The fire had died quite down, and I rose and stretched
myself, shivering in every limb from the damp cold of the dawn. Then I
looked at Leo. He was sitting up, holding his hands to his head, and I
saw that his face was flushed and his eye bright, and yet yellow round
the pupil.

"Well, Leo," I said, "how do you feel?"

"I feel as though I were going to die," he answered hoarsely. "My head
is splitting, my body is trembling, and I am as sick as a cat."

I whistled, or if I did not whistle I felt inclined to--Leo had got a
sharp attack of fever. I went to Job, and asked him for the quinine,
of which fortunately we had still a good supply, only to find that Job
himself was not much better. He complained of pains across the back, and
dizziness, and was almost incapable of helping himself. Then I did the
only thing it was possible to do under the circumstances--gave them both
about ten grains of quinine, and took a slightly smaller dose myself as
a matter of precaution. After that I found Billali, and explained to him
how matters stood, asking at the same time what he thought had best be
done. He came with me, and looked at Leo and Job (whom, by the way,
he had named the Pig on account of his fatness, round face, and small
eyes).

"Ah," he said, when we were out of earshot, "the fever! I thought so.
The Lion has it badly, but he is young, and he may live. As for the Pig,
his attack is not so bad; it is the 'little fever' which he has; that
always begins with pains across the back, it will spend itself upon his
fat."

"Can they go on, my father?" I asked.

"Nay, my son, they must go on. If they stop here they will certainly
die; also, they will be better in the litters than on the ground. By
to-night, if all goes well, we shall be across the marsh and in good
air. Come, let us lift them into the litters and start, for it is very
bad to stand still in this morning fog. We can eat our meal as we go."

This we accordingly did, and with a heavy heart I once more set out upon
our strange journey. For the first three hours all went as well as
could be expected, and then an accident happened that nearly lost us the
pleasure of the company of our venerable friend Billali, whose litter
was leading the cavalcade. We were going through a particularly
dangerous stretch of quagmire, in which the bearers sometimes sank up to
their knees. Indeed, it was a mystery to me how they contrived to
carry the heavy litters at all over such ground as that which we were
traversing, though the two spare hands, as well as the four regular
ones, had of course to put their shoulders to the pole.

Presently, as we blundered and floundered along, there was a sharp
cry, then a storm of exclamations, and, last of all, a most tremendous
splash, and the whole caravan halted.

I jumped out of my litter and ran forward. About twenty yards ahead was
the edge of one of those sullen peaty pools of which I have spoken, the
path we were following running along the top of its bank, that, as it
happened, was a steep one. Looking towards this pool, to my horror I saw
that Billali's litter was floating on it, and as for Billali himself, he
was nowhere to be seen. To make matters clear I may as well explain
at once what had happened. One of Billali's bearers had unfortunately
trodden on a basking snake, which had bitten him in the leg, whereon he
had, not unnaturally, let go of the pole, and then, finding that he
was tumbling down the bank, grasped at the litter to save himself. The
result of this was what might have been expected. The litter was pulled
over the edge of the bank, the bearers let go, and the whole thing,
including Billali and the man who had been bitten, rolled into the slimy
pool. When I got to the edge of the water neither of them were to be
seen; indeed, the unfortunate bearer never was seen again. Either he
struck his head against something, or get wedged in the mud, or possibly
the snake-bite paralyzed him. At any rate he vanished. But though
Billali was not to be seen, his whereabouts was clear enough from the
agitation of the floating litter, in the bearing cloth and curtains of
which he was entangled.

"He is there! Our father is there!" said one of the men, but he did not
stir a finger to help him, nor did any of the others. They simply stood
and stared at the water.

"Out of the way, you brutes!" I shouted in English, and throwing off my
hat I took a run and sprang well out into the horrid slimy-looking pool.
A couple of strokes took me to where Billali was struggling beneath the
cloth.

Somehow, I do not quite know how, I managed to push it free of him,
and his venerable head all covered with green slime, like that of a
yellowish Bacchus with ivy leaves, emerged upon the surface of the
water. The rest was easy, for Billali was an eminently practical
individual, and had the common sense not to grasp hold of me as drowning
people often do, so I got him by the arm, and towed him to the bank,
through the mud of which we were with difficulty dragged. Such a filthy
spectacle as we presented I have never seen before or since, and it will
perhaps give some idea of the almost superhuman dignity of Billali's
appearance when I say that, coughing, half-drowned, and covered with mud
and green slime as he was, with his beautiful beard coming to a dripping
point, like a Chinaman's freshly-oiled pig-tail, he still looked
venerable and imposing.

"Ye dogs," he said, addressing the bearers, as soon as he had
sufficiently recovered to speak, "ye left me, your father, to drown.
Had it not been for this stranger, my son the Baboon, assuredly I should
have drowned. Well, I will remember it," and he fixed them with his
gleaming though slightly watery eye, in a way I saw that they did not
like, though they tried to appear sulkily indifferent.

"As for thee, my son," the old man went on, turning towards me and
grasping my hand, "rest assured that I am thy friend through good and
evil. Thou hast saved my life: perchance a day may come when I shall
save thine."

After that we cleaned ourselves as best we could, fished out the litter,
and went on, _minus_ the man who had been drowned. I do not know if
it was owing to his being an unpopular character, or from native
indifference and selfishness of temperament, but I am bound to say that
nobody seemed to grieve much over his sudden and final disappearance,
unless, perhaps, it was the men who had to do his share of the work.



XI

THE PLAIN OF KOR

About an hour before sundown we at last, to my unbounded gratitude,
emerged from the great belt of marsh on to land that swelled upwards in
a succession of rolling waves. Just on the hither side of the crest
of the first wave we halted for the night. My first act was to examine
Leo's condition. It was, if anything, worse than in the morning, and a
new and very distressing feature, vomiting, set in, and continued till
dawn. Not one wink of sleep did I get that night, for I passed it in
assisting Ustane, who was one of the most gentle and indefatigable
nurses I ever saw, to wait upon Leo and Job. However, the air here was
warm and genial without being too hot, and there were no mosquitoes
to speak of. Also we were above the level of the marsh mist, which lay
stretched beneath us like the dim smoke-pall over a city, lit up here
and there by the wandering globes of fen fire. Thus it will be seen that
we were, speaking comparatively, in clover.

By dawn on the following morning Leo was quite light-headed, and fancied
that he was divided into halves. I was dreadfully distressed, and began
to wonder with a sort of sick fear what the end of the attack would be.
Alas! I had heard but too much of how these attacks generally terminate.
As I was wondering Billali came up and said that we must be getting on,
more especially as, in his opinion, if Leo did not reach some spot
where he could be quiet, and have proper nursing, within the next twelve
hours, his life would only be a matter of a day or two. I could not but
agree with him, so we got Leo into the litter, and started on, Ustane
walking by his side to keep the flies off him, and see that he did not
throw himself out on to the ground.

Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise of
which I have spoken, and a most beautiful view broke upon our gaze.
Beneath us was a rich stretch of country, verdant with grass and lovely
with foliage and flowers. In the background, at a distance, so far as I
could judge, of some eighteen miles from where we then stood, a huge and
extraordinary mountain rose abruptly from the plain. The base of this
great mountain appeared to consist of a grassy slope, but rising from
this, I should say, from subsequent observation, at a height of about
five hundred feet above the level of the plain, was a most tremendous
and absolutely precipitous wall of bare rock, quite twelve or fifteen
hundred feet in height. The shape of the mountain, which was undoubtedly
of volcanic origin, was round, and of course, as only a segment of its
circle was visible, it was difficult to estimate its exact size, which
was enormous. I afterwards discovered that it could cover less than
fifty square miles of ground. Anything more grand and imposing than
the sight presented by this great natural castle, starting in solitary
grandeur from the level of the plain, I never saw, and I suppose I never
shall. Its very solitude added to its majesty, and its towering cliffs
seemed to kiss the sky. Indeed, generally speaking, they were clothed in
clouds that lay in fleecy masses upon their broad and level battlements.

I sat up in my hammock and gazed out across the plain at this thrilling
and majestic sight, and I suppose that Billali noticed it, for he
brought his litter alongside.

"Behold the house of '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_!'" he said. "Had ever a
queen such a throne before?"

"It is wonderful, my father," I answered. "But how do we enter. Those
cliffs look hard to climb."

"Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What thinkest
thou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me."

I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway running
straight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered with
turf. There were high banks on each side of it, broken here and there,
but fairly continuous on the whole, the meaning of which I did not
understand. It seemed so very odd that anybody should embank a roadway.

"Well, my father," I answered, "I suppose that it is a road, otherwise
I should have been inclined to say that it was the bed of a river, or
rather," I added, observing the extraordinary directness of the cutting,
"of a canal."

Billali--who, by the way, was none the worse for his immersion of the
day before--nodded his head sagely as he replied--

"Thou art right, my son. It is a channel cut out by those who were
before us in this place to carry away water. Of this I am sure: within
the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey was once a great
lake. But those who were before us, by wonderful arts of which I
know naught, hewed a path for the water through the solid rock of the
mountain, piercing even to the bed of the lake. But first they cut the
channel that thou seest across the plain. Then, when at last the water
burst out, it rushed down the channel that had been made to receive it,
and crossed this plain till it reached the low land behind the rise,
and there, perchance, it made the swamp through which we have come. Then
when the lake was drained dry, the people whereof I speak built a mighty
city on its bed, whereof naught but ruins and the name of Kor yet
remaineth, and from age to age hewed the caves and passages that thou
wilt see."

"It may be," I answered; "but if so, how is it that the lake does not
fill up again with the rains and the water of the springs?"

"Nay, my son, the people were a wise people, and they left a drain to
keep it clear. Seest thou the river to the right?" and he pointed to a
fair-sized stream that wound away across the plain, some four miles from
us. "That is the drain, and it comes out through the mountain wall where
this cutting goes in. At first, perhaps, the water ran down this canal,
but afterwards the people turned it, and used the cutting for a road."

"And is there then no other place where one may enter into the great
mountain," I asked, "except through that drain?"

"There is a place," he answered, "where cattle and men on foot may cross
with much labour, but it is secret. A year mightest thou search and
shouldst never find it. It is only used once a year, when the herds of
cattle that have been fatting on the slopes of the mountain, and on this
plain, are driven into the space within."

"And does _She_ live there always?" I asked, "or does she come at times
without the mountain?"

"Nay, my son, where she is, there she is."

By now we were well on to the great plain, and I was examining with
delight the varied beauty of its semi-tropical flowers and trees, the
latter of which grew singly, or at most in clumps of three or four, much
of the timber being of large size, and belonging apparently to a variety
of evergreen oak. There were also many palms, some of them more than one
hundred feet high, and the largest and most beautiful tree ferns that
I ever saw, about which hung clouds of jewelled honeysuckers and
great-winged butterflies. Wandering about among the trees or crouching
in the long and feathered grass were all varieties of game, from
rhinocerotes down. I saw a rhinoceros, buffalo (a large herd), eland,
quagga, and sable antelope, the most beautiful of all the bucks, not
to mention many smaller varieties of game, and three ostriches which
scudded away at our approach like white drift before a gale. So
plentiful was the game that at last I could stand it no longer. I had
a single barrel sporting Martini with me in the litter, the "Express"
being too cumbersome, and espying a beautiful fat eland rubbing himself
under one of the oak-like trees, I jumped out of the litter, and
proceeded to creep as near to him as I could. He let me come within
eighty yards, and then turned his head, and stared at me, preparatory to
running away. I lifted the rifle, and taking him about midway down the
shoulder, for he was side on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shot
or a better kill in all my small experience, for the great buck sprang
right up into the air and fell dead. The bearers, who had all halted to
see the performance, gave a murmur of surprise, an unwonted compliment
from these sullen people, who never appear to be surprised at anything,
and a party of the guard at once ran off to cut the animal up. As for
myself, though I was longing to have a look at him, I sauntered back
to my litter as though I had been in the habit of killing eland all my
life, feeling that I had gone up several degrees in the estimation
of the Amahagger, who looked on the whole thing as a very high-class
manifestation of witchcraft. As a matter of fact, however, I had
never seen an eland in a wild state before. Billali received me with
enthusiasm.

"It is wonderful, my son the Baboon," he cried; "wonderful! Thou art
a very great man, though so ugly. Had I not seen, surely I would never
have believed. And thou sayest that thou wilt teach me to slay in this
fashion?"

"Certainly, my father," I said airily; "it is nothing."

But all the same I firmly made up my mind that when "my father" Billali
began to fire I would without fail lie down or take refuge behind a
tree.

After this little incident nothing happened of any note till about an
hour and a half before sundown, when we arrived beneath the shadow of
the towering volcanic mass that I have already described. It is quite
impossible for me to describe its grim grandeur as it appeared to me
while my patient bearers toiled along the bed of the ancient watercourse
towards the spot where the rich brown-hued cliff shot up from precipice
to precipice till its crown lost itself in a cloud. All I can say is
that it almost awed me by the intensity of its lonesome and most solemn
greatness. On we went up the bright and sunny slope, till at last the
creeping shadows from above swallowed up its brightness, and presently
we began to pass through a cutting hewn in the living rock. Deeper
and deeper grew this marvellous work, which must, I should say, have
employed thousands of men for many years. Indeed, how it was ever
executed at all without the aid of blasting-powder or dynamite I cannot
to this day imagine. It is and must remain one of the mysteries of that
wild land. I can only suppose that these cuttings and the vast caves
that had been hollowed out of the rocks they pierced were the State
undertakings of the people of Kor, who lived here in the dim lost
ages of the world, and, as in the case of the Egyptian monuments, were
executed by the forced labour of tens of thousands of captives, carried
on through an indefinite number of centuries. But who were the people?

At last we reached the face of the precipice itself, and found ourselves
looking into the mouth of a dark tunnel that forcibly reminded me of
those undertaken by our nineteenth-century engineers in the construction
of railway lines. Out of this tunnel flowed a considerable stream of
water. Indeed, though I do not think that I have mentioned it, we had
followed this stream, which ultimately developed into the river I have
already described as winding away to the right, from the spot where
the cutting in the solid rock commenced. Half of this cutting formed a
channel for the stream, and half, which was placed on a slightly higher
level--eight feet perhaps--was devoted to the purposes of a roadway. At
the termination of the cutting, however, the stream turned off across
the plain and followed a channel of its own. At the mouth of the cave
the cavalcade was halted, and, while the men employed themselves in
lighting some earthenware lamps they had brought with them, Billali,
descending from his litter, informed me politely but firmly that the
orders of _She_ were that we were now to be blindfolded, so that we
should not learn the secret of the paths through the bowels of the
mountains. To this I, of course, assented cheerfully enough, but Job,
who was now very much better, notwithstanding the journey, did not like
it at all, fancying, I believe, that it was but a preliminary step to
being hot-potted. He was, however, a little consoled when I pointed out
to him that there were no hot pots at hand, and, so far as I knew, no
fire to heat them in. As for poor Leo, after turning restlessly for
hours, he had, to my deep thankfulness, at last dropped off into a sleep
or stupor, I do not know which, so there was no need to blindfold him.
The blindfolding was performed by binding a piece of the yellowish linen
whereof those of the Amahagger who condescended to wear anything in
particular made their dresses, tightly round the eyes. This linen I
afterwards discovered was taken from the tombs, and was not, as I had at
first supposed, of native manufacture. The bandage was then knotted at
the back of the head, and finally brought down again and the ends bound
under the chin to prevent its slipping. Ustane was, by the way, also
blindfolded, I do not know why, unless it was from fear that she should
impart the secrets of the route to us.

This operation performed we started on once more, and soon, by the
echoing sound of the footsteps of the bearers and the increased noise
of the water caused by reverberation in a confined space, I knew that
we were entering into the bowels of the great mountain. It was an eerie
sensation, being borne along into the dead heart of the rock we knew not
whither, but I was getting used to eerie sensations by this time, and by
now was pretty well prepared for anything. So I lay still, and listened
to the tramp, tramp of the bearers and the rushing of the water, and
tried to believe that I was enjoying myself. Presently the men set up
the melancholy little chant that I had heard on the first night when we
were captured in the whaleboat, and the effect produced by their voices
was very curious, and quite indescribable. After a while the air began
to get exceedingly thick and heavy, so much so, indeed, that I felt as
though I were going to choke, till at length the litter took a sharp
turn, then another and another, and the sound of the running water
ceased. After this the air was fresher again, but the turns were
continuous, and to me, blindfolded as I was, most bewildering. I tried
to keep a map of them in my mind in case it might ever be necessary
for us to try and escape by this route, but, needless to say, failed
utterly. Another half-hour or so passed, and then suddenly I became
aware that we were once more in the open air. I could see the light
through my bandage and feel its freshness on my face. A few more minutes
and the caravan halted, and I heard Billali order Ustane to remove her
bandage and undo ours. Without waiting for her attentions I got the knot
of mine loose, and looked out.

As I anticipated, we had passed right through the precipice, and were
now on the farther side, and immediately beneath its beetling face. The
first thing I noticed was that the cliff is not nearly so high here, not
so high I should say by five hundred feet, which proved that the bed of
the lake, or rather of the vast ancient crater in which we stood, was
much above the level of the surrounding plain. For the rest, we found
ourselves in a huge rock-surrounded cup, not unlike that of the first
place where we had sojourned, only ten times the size. Indeed, I could
only just make out the frowning line of the opposite cliffs. A great
portion of the plain thus enclosed by nature was cultivated, and fenced
in with walls of stone placed there to keep the cattle and goats, of
which there were large herds about, from breaking into the gardens.
Here and there rose great grass mounds, and some miles away towards the
centre I thought that I could see the outline of colossal ruins. I had
no time to observe anything more at the moment, for we were instantly
surrounded by crowds of Amahagger, similar in every particular to those
with whom we were already familiar, who, though they spoke little,
pressed round us so closely as to obscure the view to a person lying
in a hammock. Then all of a sudden a number of armed men arranged in
companies, and marshalled by officers who held ivory wands in their
hands, came running swiftly towards us, having, so far as I could
make out, emerged from the face of the precipice like ants from their
burrows. These men as well as their officers were all robed in addition
to the usual leopard skin, and, as I gathered, formed the bodyguard of
_She_ herself.

Their leader advanced to Billali, saluted him by placing his ivory wand
transversely across his forehead, and then asked some question which
I could not catch, and Billali having answered him the whole regiment
turned and marched along the side of the cliff, our cavalcade of litters
following in their track. After going thus for about half a mile we
halted once more in front of the mouth of a tremendous cave, measuring
about sixty feet in height by eighty wide, and here Billali descended
finally, and requested Job and myself to do the same. Leo, of course,
was far too ill to do anything of the sort. I did so, and we entered the
great cave, into which the light of the setting sun penetrated for
some distance, while beyond the reach of the daylight it was faintly
illuminated with lamps which seemed to me to stretch away for an almost
immeasurable distance, like the gas lights of an empty London street.
The first thing I noticed was that the walls were covered with
sculptures in bas-relief, of a sort, pictorially speaking, similar to
those that I have described upon the vases;--love-scenes principally,
then hunting pictures, pictures of executions, and the torture of
criminals by the placing of a, presumably, red-hot pot upon the head,
showing whence our hosts had derived this pleasant practice. There
were very few battle-pieces, though many of duels, and men running and
wrestling, and from this fact I am led to believe that this people were
not much subject to attack by exterior foes, either on account of the
isolation of their position or because of their great strength. Between
the pictures were columns of stone characters of a formation absolutely
new to me; at any rate, they were neither Greek nor Egyptian, nor
Hebrew, nor Assyrian--that I am sure of. They looked more like Chinese
writings than any other that I am acquainted with. Near to the entrance
of the cave both pictures and writings were worn away, but further in
they were in many cases absolutely fresh and perfect as the day on which
the sculptor had ceased work on them.

The regiment of guards did not come further than the entrance to the
cave, where they formed up to let us pass through. On entering the place
itself we were, however, met by a man robed in white, who bowed humbly,
but said nothing, which, as it afterwards appeared that he was a deaf
mute, was not very wonderful.

Running at right angles to the great cave, at a distance of some twenty
feet from the entrance, was a smaller cave or wide gallery, that was
pierced into the rock both to the right and to the left of the main
cavern. In front of the gallery to our left stood two guards, from which
circumstance I argued that it was the entrance to the apartments of
_She_ herself. The mouth of the right-hand gallery was unguarded, and
along it the mute indicated that we were to go. Walking a few yards down
this passage, which was lighted with lamps, we came to the entrance of
a chamber having a curtain made of some grass material, not unlike a
Zanzibar mat in appearance, hung over the doorway. This the mute drew
back with another profound obeisance, and led the way into a good-sized
apartment, hewn, of course, out of the solid rock, but to my great
relief lighted by means of a shaft pierced in the face of the precipice.
In this room was a stone bedstead, pots full of water for washing, and
beautifully tanned leopard skins to serve as blankets.

Here we left Leo, who was still sleeping heavily, and with him stopped
Ustane. I noticed that the mute gave her a very sharp look, as much
as to say, "Who are you, and by whose order do you come here?" Then he
conducted us to another similar room which Job took, and then to two
more that were respectively occupied by Billali and myself.



XII

"SHE"

The first care of Job and myself, after seeing to Leo, was to wash
ourselves and put on clean clothing, for what we were wearing had not
been changed since the loss of the dhow. Fortunately, as I think that
I have said, by far the greater part of our personal baggage had been
packed into the whaleboat, and was therefore saved--and brought hither
by the bearers--although all the stores laid in by us for barter and
presents to the natives was lost. Nearly all our clothing was made of a
well-shrunk and very strong grey flannel, and excellent I found it for
travelling in these places, because though a Norfolk jacket, shirt,
and pair of trousers of it only weighed about four pounds, a great
consideration in a tropical country, where every extra ounce tells on
the wearer, it was warm, and offered a good resistance to the rays of
the sun, and best of all to chills, which are so apt to result from
sudden changes of temperature.

Never shall I forget the comfort of the "wash and brush-up," and of
those clean flannels. The only thing that was wanting to complete my joy
was a cake of soap, of which we had none.

Afterwards I discovered that the Amahagger, who do not reckon dirt among
their many disagreeable qualities, use a kind of burnt earth for washing
purposes, which, though unpleasant to the touch till one gets accustomed
to it, forms a very fair substitute for soap.

By the time that I was dressed, and had combed and trimmed my black
beard, the previous condition of which was certainly sufficiently
unkempt to give weight to Billali's appellation for me of "Baboon," I
began to feel most uncommonly hungry. Therefore I was by no means sorry
when, without the slightest preparatory sound or warning, the curtain
over the entrance to my cave was flung aside, and another mute, a
young girl this time, announced to me by signs that I could not
misunderstand--that is, by opening her mouth and pointing down it--that
there was something ready to eat. Accordingly I followed her into the
next chamber, which we had not yet entered, where I found Job, who had
also, to his great embarrassment, been conducted thither by a fair mute.
Job never got over the advances the former lady had made towards him,
and suspected every girl who came near to him of similar designs.

"These young parties have a way of looking at one, sir," he would say
apologetically, "which I don't call respectable."

This chamber was twice the size of the sleeping caves, and I saw at once
that it had originally served as a refectory, and also probably as an
embalming room for the Priests of the Dead; for I may as well say at
once that these hollowed-out caves were nothing more nor less than vast
catacombs, in which for tens of ages the mortal remains of the great
extinct race whose monuments surrounded us had been first preserved,
with an art and a completeness that has never since been equalled,
and then hidden away for all time. On each side of this particular
rock-chamber was a long and solid stone table, about three feet wide by
three feet six in height, hewn out of the living rock, of which it had
formed part, and was still attached to at the base. These tables were
slightly hollowed out or curved inward, to give room for the knees of
any one sitting on the stone ledge that had been cut for a bench along
the side of the cave at a distance of about two feet from them. Each of
them, also, was so arranged that it ended right under a shaft pierced
in the rock for the admission of light and air. On examining them
carefully, however, I saw that there was a difference between them that
had at first escaped my attention, viz. that one of the tables, that
to the left as we entered the cave, had evidently been used, not to
eat upon, but for the purposes of embalming. That this was beyond all
question the case was clear from five shallow depressions in the stone
of the table, all shaped like a human form, with a separate place
for the head to lie in, and a little bridge to support the neck, each
depression being of a different size, so as to fit bodies varying in
stature from a full-grown man's to a small child's, and with little
holes bored at intervals to carry off fluid. And, indeed, if any further
confirmation was required, we had but to look at the wall of the cave
above to find it. For there, sculptured all round the apartment, and
looking nearly as fresh as the day it was done, was the pictorial
representation of the death, embalming, and burial of an old man with a
long beard, probably an ancient king or grandee of this country.

The first picture represented his death. He was lying upon a couch which
had four short curved posts at the corners coming to a knob at the end,
in appearance something like written notes of music, and was evidently
in the very act of expiring. Gathered round the couch were women and
children weeping, the former with their hair hanging down their backs.
The next scene represented the embalmment of the body, which lay stark
upon a table with depressions in it, similar to the one before us;
probably, indeed, it was a picture of the same table. Three men were
employed at the work--one superintending, one holding a funnel shaped
exactly like a port wine strainer, of which the narrow end was fixed in
an incision in the breast, no doubt in the great pectoral artery; while
the third, who was depicted as standing straddle-legged over the corpse,
held a kind of large jug high in his hand, and poured from it some
steaming fluid which fell accurately into the funnel. The most curious
part of this sculpture is that both the man with the funnel and the
man who pours the fluid are drawn holding their noses, either I suppose
because of the stench arising from the body, or more probably to keep
out the aromatic fumes of the hot fluid which was being forced into the
dead man's veins. Another curious thing which I am unable to explain is
that all three men were represented as having a band of linen tied round
the face with holes in it for the eyes.

The third sculpture was a picture of the burial of the deceased. There
he was, stiff and cold, clothed in a linen robe, and laid out on a stone
slab such as I had slept upon at our first sojourning-place. At his
head and feet burnt lamps, and by his side were placed several of
the beautiful painted vases that I have described, which were perhaps
supposed to be full of provisions. The little chamber was crowded with
mourners, and with musicians playing on an instrument resembling a lyre,
while near the foot of the corpse stood a man holding a sheet, with
which he was preparing to cover it from view.

These sculptures, looked at merely as works of art, were so remarkable
that I make no apology for describing them rather fully. They struck
me also as being of surpassing interest as representing, probably with
studious accuracy, the last rites of the dead as practised among
an utterly lost people, and even then I thought how envious some
antiquarian friends of my own at Cambridge would be if ever I found an
opportunity of describing these wonderful remains to them. Probably they
would say that I was exaggerating, notwithstanding that every page of
this history must bear so much internal evidence of its truth that it
would obviously have been quite impossible for me to have invented it.

To return. As soon as I had hastily examined these sculptures, which
I think I omitted to mention were executed in relief, we sat down to a
very excellent meal of boiled goat's-flesh, fresh milk, and cakes made
of meal, the whole being served upon clean wooden platters.

When we had eaten we returned to see how Leo was getting on, Billali
saying that he must now wait upon _She_, and hear her commands. On
reaching Leo's room we found the poor boy in a very bad way. He had woke
up from his torpor, and was altogether off his head, babbling about some
boat-race on the Cam, and was inclined to be violent. Indeed, when we
entered the room Ustane was holding him down. I spoke to him, and my
voice seemed to soothe him; at any rate he grew much quieter, and was
persuaded to swallow a dose of quinine.

I had been sitting with him for an hour, perhaps--at any rate I know
that it was getting so dark that I could only just make out his head
lying like a gleam of gold upon the pillow we had extemporised out of a
bag covered with a blanket--when suddenly Billali arrived with an air
of great importance, and informed me that _She_ herself had deigned to
express a wish to see me--an honour, he added, accorded to but very
few. I think that he was a little horrified at my cool way of taking the
honour, but the fact was that I did not feel overwhelmed with gratitude
at the prospect of seeing some savage, dusky queen, however absolute
and mysterious she might be, more especially as my mind was full of
dear Leo, for whose life I began to have great fears. However, I rose to
follow him, and as I did so I caught sight of something bright lying on
the floor, which I picked up. Perhaps the reader will remember that with
the potsherd in the casket was a composition scarabaeus marked with a
round O, a goose, and another curious hieroglyphic, the meaning of which
is "Suten se Ra," or "Royal Son of the Sun." The scarab, which is a very
small one, Leo had insisted upon having set in a massive gold ring, such
as is generally used for signets, and it was this very ring that I now
picked up. He had pulled it off in the paroxysm of his fever, at least
I suppose so, and flung it down upon the rock-floor. Thinking that if I
left it about it might get lost, I slipped it on my own little finger,
and then followed Billali, leaving Job and Ustane with Leo.

We passed down the passage, crossed the great aisle-like cave, and came
to the corresponding passage on the other side, at the mouth of which
the guards stood like two statues. As we came they bowed their heads in
salutation, and then lifting their long spears placed them transversely
across their foreheads, as the leaders of the troop that had met us
had done with their ivory wands. We stepped between them, and found
ourselves in an exactly similar gallery to that which led to our own
apartments, only this passage was, comparatively speaking, brilliantly
lighted. A few paces down it we were met by four mutes--two men and two
women--who bowed low and then arranged themselves, the women in front
and the men behind of us, and in this order we continued our procession
past several doorways hung with curtains resembling those leading to
our own quarters, and which I afterwards found opened out into chambers
occupied by the mutes who attended on _She_. A few paces more and we
came to another doorway facing us, and not to our left like the others,
which seemed to mark the termination of the passage. Here two more
white-, or rather yellow-robed guards were standing, and they too
bowed, saluted, and let us pass through heavy curtains into a great
antechamber, quite forty feet long by as many wide, in which some eight
or ten women, most of them young and handsome, with yellowish hair, sat
on cushions working with ivory needles at what had the appearance of
being embroidery frames. These women were also deaf and dumb. At the
farther end of this great lamp-lit apartment was another doorway closed
in with heavy Oriental-looking curtains, quite unlike those that hung
before the doors of our own rooms, and here stood two particularly
handsome girl mutes, their heads bowed upon their bosoms and their hands
crossed in an attitude of humble submission. As we advanced they each
stretched out an arm and drew back the curtains. Thereupon Billali did
a curious thing. Down he went, that venerable-looking old gentleman--for
Billali is a gentleman at the bottom--down on to his hands and knees,
and in this undignified position, with his long white beard trailing on
the ground, he began to creep into the apartment beyond. I followed him,
standing on my feet in the usual fashion. Looking over his shoulder he
perceived it.

"Down, my son; down, my Baboon; down on to thy hands and knees. We enter
the presence of _She_, and, if thou art not humble, of a surety she will
blast thee where thou standest."

I halted, and felt scared. Indeed, my knees began to give way of their
own mere motion; but reflection came to my aid. I was an Englishman,
and why, I asked myself, should I creep into the presence of some savage
woman as though I were a monkey in fact as well as in name? I would not
and could not do it, that is, unless I was absolutely sure that my life
or comfort depended upon it. If once I began to creep upon my knees I
should always have to do so, and it would be a patent acknowledgment of
inferiority. So, fortified by an insular prejudice against "kootooing,"
which has, like most of our so-called prejudices, a good deal of common
sense to recommend it, I marched in boldly after Billali. I found myself
in another apartment, considerably smaller than the anteroom, of which
the walls were entirely hung with rich-looking curtains of the same make
as those over the door, the work, as I subsequently discovered, of the
mutes who sat in the antechamber and wove them in strips, which were
afterwards sewn together. Also, here and there about the room, were
settees of a beautiful black wood of the ebony tribe, inlaid with ivory,
and all over the floor were other tapestries, or rather rugs. At the top
end of this apartment was what appeared to be a recess, also draped with
curtains, through which shone rays of light. There was nobody in the
place except ourselves.

Painfully and slowly old Billali crept up the length of the cave, and
with the most dignified stride that I could command I followed after
him. But I felt that it was more or less of a failure. To begin with, it
is not possible to look dignified when you are following in the wake
of an old man writhing along on his stomach like a snake, and then,
in order to go sufficiently slowly, either I had to keep my leg some
seconds in the air at every step, or else to advance with a full stop
between each stride, like Mary Queen of Scots going to execution in a
play. Billali was not good at crawling, I suppose his years stood in the
way, and our progress up that apartment was a very long affair. I was
immediately behind him, and several times I was sorely tempted to help
him on with a good kick. It is so absurd to advance into the presence of
savage royalty after the fashion of an Irishman driving a pig to market,
for that is what we looked like, and the idea nearly made me burst out
laughing then and there. I had to work off my dangerous tendency to
unseemly merriment by blowing my nose, a proceeding which filled old
Billali with horror, for he looked over his shoulder and made a ghastly
face at me, and I heard him murmur, "Oh, my poor Baboon!"

At last we reached the curtains, and here Billali collapsed flat on to
his stomach, with his hands stretched out before him as though he were
dead, and I, not knowing what to do, began to stare about the place. But
presently I clearly felt that somebody was looking at me from behind the
curtains. I could not see the person, but I could distinctly feel his
or her gaze, and, what is more, it produced a very odd effect upon my
nerves. I was frightened, I do not know why. The place was a strange
one, it is true, and looked lonely, notwithstanding its rich hangings
and the soft glow of the lamps--indeed, these accessories added to,
rather than detracted from its loneliness, just as a lighted street at
night has always a more solitary appearance than a dark one. It was
so silent in the place, and there lay Billali like one dead before the
heavy curtains, through which the odour of perfume seemed to float up
towards the gloom of the arched roof above. Minute grew into minute, and
still there was no sign of life, nor did the curtain move; but I felt
the gaze of the unknown being sinking through and through me, and
filling me with a nameless terror, till the perspiration stood in beads
upon my brow.

At length the curtain began to move. Who could be behind it?--some naked
savage queen, a languishing Oriental beauty, or a nineteenth-century
young lady, drinking afternoon tea? I had not the slightest idea,
and should not have been astonished at seeing any of the three. I was
getting beyond astonishment. The curtain agitated itself a little, then
suddenly between its folds there appeared a most beautiful white hand
(white as snow), and with long tapering fingers, ending in the pinkest
nails. The hand grasped the curtain, and drew it aside, and as it did so
I heard a voice, I think the softest and yet most silvery voice I ever
heard. It reminded me of the murmur of a brook.

"Stranger," said the voice in Arabic, but much purer and more classical
Arabic than the Amahagger talk--"stranger, wherefore art thou so much
afraid?"

Now I flattered myself that in spite of my inward terrors I had kept
a very fair command of my countenance, and was, therefore, a little
astonished at this question. Before I had made up my mind how to answer
it, however, the curtain was drawn, and a tall figure stood before us. I
say a figure, for not only the body, but also the face was wrapped up in
soft white, gauzy material in such a way as at first sight to remind me
most forcibly of a corpse in its grave-clothes. And yet I do not know
why it should have given me that idea, seeing that the wrappings were so
thin that one could distinctly see the gleam of the pink flesh beneath
them. I suppose it was owing to the way in which they were arranged,
either accidentally, or more probably by design. Anyhow, I felt more
frightened than ever at this ghost-like apparition, and my hair began
to rise upon my head as the feeling crept over me that I was in the
presence of something that was not canny. I could, however, clearly
distinguish that the swathed mummy-like form before me was that of a
tall and lovely woman, instinct with beauty in every part, and also
with a certain snake-like grace which I had never seen anything to
equal before. When she moved a hand or foot her entire frame seemed to
undulate, and the neck did not bend, it curved.

"Why art thou so frightened, stranger?" asked the sweet voice again--a
voice which seemed to draw the heart out of me, like the strains of
softest music. "Is there that about me that should affright a man? Then
surely are men changed from what they used to be!" And with a little
coquettish movement she turned herself, and held up one arm, so as
to show all her loveliness and the rich hair of raven blackness that
streamed in soft ripples down her snowy robes, almost to her sandalled
feet.

"It is thy beauty that makes me fear, oh Queen," I answered humbly,
scarcely knowing what to say, and I thought that as I did so I heard old
Billali, who was still lying prostrate on the floor, mutter, "Good, my
Baboon, good."

"I see that men still know how to beguile us women with false words. Ah,
stranger," she answered, with a laugh that sounded like distant silver
bells, "thou wast afraid because mine eyes were searching out thine
heart, therefore wast thou afraid. Yet being but a woman, I forgive thee
for the lie, for it was courteously said. And now tell me how came ye
hither to this land of the dwellers among the caves--a land of swamps
and evil things and dead old shadows of the dead? What came ye for to
see? How is it that ye hold your lives so cheap as to place
them in the hollow of the hand of _Hiya_, into the hand of
'_She-who-must-be-obeyed_'? Tell me also how come ye to know the tongue
I talk. It is an ancient tongue, that sweet child of the old Syriac.
Liveth it yet in the world? Thou seest I dwell among the caves and the
dead, and naught know I of the affairs of men, nor have I cared to know.
I have lived, O stranger, with my memories, and my memories are in a
grave that mine hands hollowed, for truly hath it been said that
the child of man maketh his own path evil;" and her beautiful voice
quivered, and broke in a note as soft as any wood-bird's. Suddenly
her eye fell upon the sprawling frame of Billali, and she seemed to
recollect herself.

"Ah! thou art there, old man. Tell me how it is that things have gone
wrong in thine household. Forsooth, it seems that these my guests were
set upon. Ay, and one was nigh to being slain by the hot-pot to be eaten
of those brutes, thy children, and had not the others fought gallantly
they too had been slain, and not even I could have called back the life
which had been loosed from the body. What means it, old man? What hast
thou to say that I should not give thee over to those who execute my
vengeance?"

Her voice had risen in her anger, and it rang clear and cold against the
rocky walls. Also I thought I could see her eyes flash through the gauze
that hid them. I saw poor Billali, whom I had believed to be a very
fearless person, positively quiver with terror at her words.

"Oh 'Hiya!' oh _She_!" he said, without lifting his white head from the
floor. "Oh _She_, as thou art great be merciful, for I am now as ever
thy servant to obey. It was no plan or fault of mine, oh _She_, it was
those wicked ones who are called my children. Led on by a woman whom thy
guest the Pig had scorned, they would have followed the ancient custom
of the land, and eaten the fat black stranger who came hither with these
thy guests the Baboon and the Lion who is sick, thinking that no word
had come from thee about the Black one. But when the Baboon and the Lion
saw what they would do, they slew the woman, and slew also their servant
to save him from the horror of the pot. Then those evil ones, ay, those
children of the Wicked One who lives in the Pit, they went mad with the
lust of blood, and flew at the throats of the Lion and the Baboon and
the Pig. But gallantly they fought. Oh _Hiya_! they fought like very
men, and slew many, and held their own, and then I came and saved them,
and the evildoers have I sent on hither to Kor to be judged of thy
greatness, oh _She_! and here they are."

"Ay, old man, I know it, and to-morrow will I sit in the great hall and
do justice upon them, fear not. And for thee, I forgive thee, though
hardly. See that thou dost keep thine household better. Go."

Billali rose upon his knees with astonishing alacrity, bowed his head
thrice, and his white beard sweeping the ground, crawled down the
apartment as he had crawled up it, till he finally vanished through the
curtains, leaving me, not a little to my alarm, alone with this terrible
but most fascinating person.



XIII

AYESHA UNVEILS

"There," said _She_, "he has gone, the white-bearded old fool! Ah, how
little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathereth it up like
water, but like water it runneth through his fingers, and yet, if his
hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call
out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so? But how call they thee?
'Baboon,' he says," and she laughed; "but that is the fashion of these
savages who lack imagination, and fly to the beasts they resemble for a
name. How do they call thee in thine own country, stranger?"

"They call me Holly, oh Queen," I answered.

"Holly," she answered, speaking the word with difficulty, and yet with a
most charming accent; "and what is 'Holly'?"

"'Holly' is a prickly tree," I said.

"So. Well, thou hast a prickly and yet a tree-like look. Strong art
thou, and ugly, but if my wisdom be not at fault, honest at the core,
and a staff to lean on. Also one who thinks. But stay, oh Holly, stand
not there, enter with me and be seated by me. I would not see thee crawl
before me like those slaves. I am aweary of their worship and their
terror; sometimes when they vex me I could blast them for very sport,
and to see the rest turn white, even to the heart." And she held the
curtain aside with her ivory hand to let me pass in.

I entered, shuddering. This woman was very terrible. Within the curtains
was a recess, about twelve feet by ten, and in the recess was a couch
and a table whereon stood fruit and sparkling water. By it, at its end,
was a vessel like a font cut in carved stone, also full of pure water.
The place was softly lit with lamps formed out of the beautiful vessels
of which I have spoken, and the air and curtains were laden with a
subtle perfume. Perfume too seemed to emanate from the glorious hair and
white-clinging vestments of _She_ herself. I entered the little room,
and there stood uncertain.

"Sit," said _She_, pointing to the couch. "As yet thou hast no cause to
fear me. If thou hast cause, thou shalt not fear for long, for I shall
slay thee. Therefore let thy heart be light."

I sat down on the foot of the couch near to the font-like basin of
water, and _She_ sank down softly on to the other end.

"Now, Holly," she said, "how comest thou to speak Arabic? It is my own
dear tongue, for Arabian am I by my birth, even 'al Arab al Ariba' (an
Arab of the Arabs), and of the race of our father Yarab, the son of
Kahtan, for in that fair and ancient city Ozal was I born, in the
province of Yaman the Happy. Yet dost thou not speak it as we used to
speak. Thy talk doth lack the music of the sweet tongue of the tribes of
Hamyar which I was wont to hear. Some of the words too seemed changed,
even as among these Amahagger, who have debased and defiled its purity,
so that I must speak with them in what is to me another tongue."[*]

     [*] Yarab the son of Kahtan, who lived some centuries
     before the time of Abraham, was the father of the ancient
     Arabs, and gave its name Araba to the country. In speaking
     of herself as "al Arab al Ariba," _She_ no doubt meant to
     convey that she was of the true Arab blood as distinguished
     from the naturalised Arabs, the descendants of Ismael, the
     son of Abraham and Hagar, who were known as "al Arab al
     mostaraba." The dialect of the Koreish was usually called
     the clear or "perspicuous" Arabic, but the Hamaritic dialect
     approached nearer to the purity of the mother Syriac.--L. H.
     H.

"I have studied it," I answered, "for many years. Also the language is
spoken in Egypt and elsewhere."

"So it is still spoken, and there is yet an Egypt? And what Pharaoh sits
upon the throne? Still one of the spawn of the Persian Ochus, or are
the Achaemenians gone, for far is it to the days of Ochus."

"The Persians have been gone for Egypt for nigh two thousand years, and
since then the Ptolemies, the Romans, and many others have flourished
and held sway upon the Nile, and fallen when their time was ripe," I
said, aghast. "What canst thou know of the Persian Artaxerxes?"

She laughed, and made no answer, and again a cold chill went through
me. "And Greece," she said; "is there still a Greece? Ah, I loved the
Greeks. Beautiful were they as the day, and clever, but fierce at heart
and fickle, notwithstanding."

"Yes," I said, "there is a Greece; and, just now, it is once more a
people. Yet the Greeks of to-day are not what the Greeks of the old time
were, and Greece herself is but a mockery of the Greece that was."

"So! The Hebrews, are they yet at Jerusalem? And does the Temple that
the wise king built stand, and if so what God do they worship therein?
Is their Messiah come, of whom they preached so much and prophesied so
loudly, and doth He rule the earth?"

"The Jews are broken and gone, and the fragments of their people strew
the world, and Jerusalem is no more. As for the temple that Herod
built----"

"Herod!" she said. "I know not Herod. But go on."

"The Romans burnt it, and the Roman eagles flew across its ruins, and
now Judaea is a desert."

"So, so! They were a great people, those Romans, and went straight to
their end--ay, they sped to it like Fate, or like their own eagles on
their prey!--and left peace behind them."

"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant," I suggested.

"Ah, thou canst speak the Latin tongue, too!" she said, in surprise. "It
hath a strange ring in my ears after all these days, and it seems to
me that thy accent does not fall as the Romans put it. Who was it wrote
that? I know not the saying, but it is a true one of that great people.
It seems that I have found a learned man--one whose hands have held the
water of the world's knowledge. Knowest thou Greek also?"

"Yes, oh Queen, and something of Hebrew, but not to speak them well.
They are all dead languages now."

She clapped her hands in childish glee. "Of a truth, ugly tree that thou
art, thou growest the fruits of wisdom, oh Holly," she said; "but of
those Jews whom I hated, for they called me 'heathen' when I would have
taught them my philosophy--did their Messiah come, and doth He rule the
world?"

"Their Messiah came," I answered with reverence; "but He came poor and
lowly, and they would have none of Him. They scourged Him, and crucified
Him upon a tree, but yet His words and His works live on, for He was the
Son of God, and now of a truth He doth rule half the world, but not with
an Empire of the World."

"Ah, the fierce-hearted wolves," she said, "the followers of Sense and
many gods--greedy of gain and faction-torn. I can see their dark faces
yet. So they crucified their Messiah? Well can I believe it. That He was
a Son of the Living Spirit would be naught to them, if indeed He was so,
and of that we will talk afterwards. They would care naught for any God
if He came not with pomp and power. They, a chosen people, a vessel
of Him they call Jehovah, ay, and a vessel of Baal, and a vessel of
Astoreth, and a vessel of the gods of the Egyptians--a high-stomached
people, greedy of aught that brought them wealth and power. So they
crucified their Messiah because He came in lowly guise--and now are
they scattered about the earth? Why, if I remember, so said one of their
prophets that it should be. Well, let them go--they broke my heart,
those Jews, and made me look with evil eyes across the world, ay, and
drove me to this wilderness, this place of a people that was before
them. When I would have taught them wisdom in Jerusalem they stoned me,
ay, at the Gate of the Temple those white-bearded hypocrites and Rabbis
hounded the people on to stone me! See, here is the mark of it to this
day!" and with a sudden move she pulled up the gauzy wrapping on her
rounded arm, and pointed to a little scar that showed red against its
milky beauty.

I shrank back, horrified.

"Pardon me, oh Queen," I said, "but I am bewildered. Nigh upon two
thousand years have rolled across the earth since the Jewish Messiah
hung upon His cross at Golgotha. How then canst thou have taught thy
philosophy to the Jews before He was? Thou art a woman and no spirit.
How can a woman live two thousand years? Why dost thou befool me, oh
Queen?"

She leaned back upon the couch, and once more I felt the hidden eyes
playing upon me and searching out my heart.

"Oh man!" she said at last, speaking very slowly and deliberately, "it
seems that there are still things upon the earth of which thou knowest
naught. Dost thou still believe that all things die, even as those very
Jews believed? I tell thee that naught dies. There is no such thing as
Death, though there be a thing called Change. See," and she pointed to
some sculptures on the rocky wall. "Three times two thousand years have
passed since the last of the great race that hewed those pictures fell
before the breath of the pestilence which destroyed them, yet are they
not dead. E'en now they live; perchance their spirits are drawn towards
us at this very hour," and she glanced round. "Of a surety it sometimes
seems to me that my eyes can see them."

"Yes, but to the world they are dead."

"Ay, for a time; but even to the world are they born again and again. I,
yes I, Ayesha[*]--for that, stranger, is my name--I say to thee that
I wait now for one I loved to be born again, and here I tarry till he
finds me, knowing of a surety that hither he will come, and that here,
and here only, shall he greet me. Why, dost thou believe that I, who
am all-powerful, I, whose loveliness is more than the loveliness of the
Grecian Helen, of whom they used to sing, and whose wisdom is wider, ay,
far more wide and deep than the wisdom of Solomon the Wise--I, who know
the secrets of the earth and its riches, and can turn all things to
my uses--I, who have even for a while overcome Change, that ye call
Death--why, I say, oh stranger, dost thou think that I herd here with
barbarians lower than the beasts?"

[*] Pronounced Assha.--L. H. H.

"I know not," I said humbly.

"Because I wait for him I love. My life has perchance been evil, I know
not--for who can say what is evil and what good?--so I fear to die even
if I could die, which I cannot until mine hour comes, to go and seek him
where he is; for between us there might rise a wall I could not climb,
at least, I dread it. Surely easy would it be also to lose the way in
seeking in those great spaces wherein the planets wander on for ever.
But the day will come, it may be when five thousand more years have
passed, and are lost and melted into the vault of Time, even as the
little clouds melt into the gloom of night, or it may be to-morrow,
when he, my love, shall be born again, and then, following a law that
is stronger than any human plan, he shall find me _here_, where once
he knew me, and of a surety his heart will soften towards me, though I
sinned against him; ay, even though he knew me not again, yet will he
love me, if only for my beauty's sake."

For a moment I was dumbfounded, and could not answer. The matter was too
overpowering for my intellect to grasp.

"But even so, oh Queen," I said at last, "even if we men be born again
and again, that is not so with thee, if thou speakest truly." Here she
looked up sharply, and once more I caught the flash of those hidden
eyes; "thou," I went on hurriedly, "who hast never died?"

"That is so," she said; "and it is so because I have, half by chance and
half by learning, solved one of the great secrets of the world. Tell
me, stranger: life is--why therefore should not life be lengthened for a
while? What are ten or twenty or fifty thousand years in the history of
life? Why in ten thousand years scarce will the rain and storms lessen
a mountain top by a span in thickness? In two thousand years these caves
have not changed, nothing has changed but the beasts, and man, who is as
the beasts. There is naught that is wonderful about the matter, couldst
thou but understand. Life is wonderful, ay, but that it should be a
little lengthened is not wonderful. Nature hath her animating spirit as
well as man, who is Nature's child, and he who can find that spirit,
and let it breathe upon him, shall live with her life. He shall not live
eternally, for Nature is not eternal, and she herself must die, even as
the nature of the moon hath died. She herself must die, I say, or rather
change and sleep till it be time for her to live again. But when shall
she die? Not yet, I ween, and while she lives, so shall he who hath
all her secret live with her. All I have it not, yet have I some, more
perchance than any who were before me. Now, to thee I doubt not that
this thing is a great mystery, therefore I will not overcome thee with
it now. Another time I will tell thee more if the mood be on me, though
perchance I shall never speak thereof again. Dost thou wonder how I
knew that ye were coming to this land, and so saved your heads from the
hot-pot?"

"Ay, oh Queen," I answered feebly.

"Then gaze upon that water," and she pointed to the font-like vessel,
and then, bending forward, held her hand over it.

I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it cleared, and
I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life--I saw, I say, our
boat upon that horrible canal. There was Leo lying at the bottom asleep
in it, with a coat thrown over him to keep off the mosquitoes, in such a
fashion as to hide his face, and myself, Job, and Mahomed towing on the
bank.

I started back, aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I
recognised the whole scene--it was one which had actually occurred.

"Nay, nay; oh Holly," she answered, "it is no magic, that is a fiction
of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a
thing as a knowledge of the secrets of Nature. That water is my glass;
in it I see what passes if I will to summon up the pictures, which is
not often. Therein I can show thee what thou wilt of the past, if it be
anything that hath to do with this country and with what I have known,
or anything that thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face if thou
wilt, and it shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water. I know not
all the secret yet--I can read nothing in the future. But it is an old
secret; I did not find it. In Arabia and in Egypt the sorcerers knew
it centuries gone. So one day I chanced to bethink me of that old
canal--some twenty ages since I sailed upon it, and I was minded to
look thereon again. So I looked, and there I saw the boat and three men
walking, and one, whose face I could not see, but a youth of noble form,
sleeping in the boat, and so I sent and saved ye. And now farewell. But
stay, tell me of this youth--the Lion, as the old man calls him. I would
look upon him, but he is sick, thou sayest--sick with the fever, and
also wounded in the fray."

"He is very sick," I answered sadly; "canst thou do nothing for him, oh
Queen! who knowest so much?"

"Of a surety I can. I can cure him; but why speakest thou so sadly? Dost
thou love the youth? Is he perchance thy son?"

"He is my adopted son, oh Queen! Shall he be brought in before thee?"

"Nay. How long hath the fever taken him?"

"This is the third day."

"Good; then let him lie another day. Then will he perchance throw it off
by his own strength, and that is better than that I should cure him,
for my medicine is of a sort to shake the life in its very citadel. If,
however, by to-morrow night, at that hour when the fever first took him,
he doth not begin to mend, then will I come to him and cure him. Stay,
who nurses him?"

"Our white servant, him whom Billali names the Pig; also," and here
I spoke with some little hesitation, "a woman named Ustane, a very
handsome woman of this country, who came and embraced him when she
first saw him, and hath stayed by him ever since, as I understand is the
fashion of thy people, oh Queen."

"My people! speak not to me of my people," she answered hastily; "these
slaves are no people of mine, they are but dogs to do my bidding till
the day of my deliverance comes; and, as for their customs, naught have
I to do with them. Also, call me not Queen--I am weary of flattery and
titles--call me Ayesha, the name hath a sweet sound in mine ears, it is
an echo from the past. As for this Ustane, I know not. I wonder if it
be she against whom I was warned, and whom I in turn did warn? Hath
she--stay, I will see;" and, bending forward, she passed her hand over
the font of water and gazed intently into it. "See," she said quietly,
"is that the woman?"

I looked into the water, and there, mirrored upon its placid surface,
was the silhouette of Ustane's stately face. She was bending forward,
with a look of infinite tenderness upon her features, watching something
beneath her, and with her chestnut locks falling on to her right
shoulder.

"It is she," I said, in a low voice, for once more I felt much disturbed
at this most uncommon sight. "She watches Leo asleep."

"Leo!" said Ayesha, in an absent voice; "why, that is 'lion' in the
Latin tongue. The old man hath named happily for once. It is very
strange," she went on, speaking to herself, "very. So like--but it is
not possible!" With an impatient gesture she passed her hand over
the water once more. It darkened, and the image vanished silently and
mysteriously as it had risen, and once more the lamplight, and the
lamplight only, shone on the placid surface of that limpid, living
mirror.

"Hast thou aught to ask me before thou goest, oh Holly?" she said, after
a few moments' reflection. "It is but a rude life that thou must live
here, for these people are savages, and know not the ways of cultivated
man. Not that I am troubled thereby, for behold my food," and she
pointed to the fruit upon the little table. "Naught but fruit doth
ever pass my lips--fruit and cakes of flour, and a little water. I have
bidden my girls to wait upon thee. They are mutes, thou knowest, deaf
are they and dumb, and therefore the safest of servants, save to those
who can read their faces and their signs. I bred them so--it hath taken
many centuries and much trouble; but at last I have triumphed. Once I
succeeded before, but the race was too ugly, so I let it die away; but
now, as thou seest, they are otherwise. Once, too, I reared a race of
giants, but after a while Nature would no more of it, and it died away.
Hast thou aught to ask of me?"

"Ay, one thing, oh Ayesha," I said boldly; but feeling by no means as
bold as I trust I looked. "I would gaze upon thy face."

She laughed out in her bell-like notes. "Bethink thee, Holly," she
answered; "bethink thee. It seems that thou knowest the old myths of the
gods of Greece. Was there not one Actaeon who perished miserably because
he looked on too much beauty? If I show thee my face, perchance thou
wouldst perish miserably also; perchance thou wouldst eat out thy heart
in impotent desire; for know I am not for thee--I am for no man, save
one, who hath been, but is not yet."

"As thou wilt, Ayesha," I said. "I fear not thy beauty. I have put my
heart away from such vanity as woman's loveliness, that passeth like a
flower."

"Nay, thou errest," she said; "that does _not_ pass. My beauty endures
even as I endure; still, if thou wilt, oh rash man, have thy will; but
blame not me if passion mount thy reason, as the Egyptian breakers used
to mount a colt, and guide it whither thou wilt not. Never may the man
to whom my beauty has been unveiled put it from his mind, and therefore
even with these savages do I go veiled, lest they vex me, and I should
slay them. Say, wilt thou see?"

"I will," I answered, my curiosity overpowering me.

She lifted her white and rounded arms--never had I seen such arms
before--and slowly, very slowly, withdrew some fastening beneath her
hair. Then all of a sudden the long, corpse-like wrappings fell from her
to the ground, and my eyes travelled up her form, now only robed in
a garb of clinging white that did but serve to show its perfect and
imperial shape, instinct with a life that was more than life, and with a
certain serpent-like grace that was more than human. On her little feet
were sandals, fastened with studs of gold. Then came ankles more perfect
than ever sculptor dreamed of. About the waist her white kirtle was
fastened by a double-headed snake of solid gold, above which her
gracious form swelled up in lines as pure as they were lovely, till the
kirtle ended on the snowy argent of her breast, whereon her arms were
folded. I gazed above them at her face, and--I do not exaggerate--shrank
back blinded and amazed. I have heard of the beauty of celestial beings,
now I saw it; only this beauty, with all its awful loveliness and
purity, was _evil_--at least, at the time, it struck me as evil. How am
I to describe it? I cannot--simply I cannot! The man does not live
whose pen could convey a sense of what I saw. I might talk of the great
changing eyes of deepest, softest black, of the tinted face, of the
broad and noble brow, on which the hair grew low, and delicate, straight
features. But, beautiful, surpassingly beautiful as they all were, her
loveliness did not lie in them. It lay rather, if it can be said to have
had any fixed abiding place, in a visible majesty, in an imperial grace,
in a godlike stamp of softened power, which shone upon that radiant
countenance like a living halo. Never before had I guessed what beauty
made sublime could be--and yet, the sublimity was a dark one--the glory
was not all of heaven--though none the less was it glorious. Though
the face before me was that of a young woman of certainly not more than
thirty years, in perfect health, and the first flush of ripened beauty,
yet it had stamped upon it a look of unutterable experience, and of
deep acquaintance with grief and passion. Not even the lovely smile that
crept about the dimples of her mouth could hide this shadow of sin and
sorrow. It shone even in the light of the glorious eyes, it was present
in the air of majesty, and it seemed to say: "Behold me, lovely as no
woman was or is, undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to
age, and passion leads me by the hand--evil have I done, and from age to
age evil I shall do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes."

Drawn by some magnetic force which I could not resist, I let my eyes
rest upon her shining orbs, and felt a current pass from them to me that
bewildered and half-blinded me.

She laughed--ah, how musically! and nodded her little head at me with
an air of sublimated coquetry that would have done credit to a Venus
Victrix.

"Rash man!" she said; "like Actaeon, thou hast had thy will; be careful
lest, like Actaeon, thou too dost perish miserably, torn to pieces
by the ban-hounds of thine own passions. I too, oh Holly, am a virgin
goddess, not to be moved of any man, save one, and it is not thou. Say,
hast thou seen enough!"

"I have looked on beauty, and I am blinded," I said hoarsely, lifting my
hand to cover up my eyes.

"So! what did I tell thee? Beauty is like the lightning; it is lovely,
but it destroys--especially trees, oh Holly!" and again she nodded and
laughed.

Suddenly she paused, and through my fingers I saw an awful change come
over her countenance. Her great eyes suddenly fixed themselves into an
expression in which horror seemed to struggle with some tremendous hope
arising through the depths of her dark soul. The lovely face grew rigid,
and the gracious willowy form seemed to erect itself.

"Man," she half whispered, half hissed, throwing back her head like a
snake about to strike--"Man, whence hadst thou that scarab on thy hand?
Speak, or by the Spirit of Life I will blast thee where thou standest!"
and she took one light step towards me, and from her eyes there shone
such an awful light--to me it seemed almost like a flame--that I fell,
then and there, on the ground before her, babbling confusedly in my
terror.

"Peace," she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking in her
former soft voice. "I did affright thee! Forgive me! But at times, oh
Holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient of the slowness of the
very finite, and am I tempted to use my power out of vexation--very
nearly wast thou dead, but I remembered----. But the scarab--about the
scarabaeus!"

"I picked it up," I gurgled feebly, as I got on to my feet again, and
it is a solemn fact that my mind was so disturbed that at the moment I
could remember nothing else about the ring except that I had picked it
up in Leo's cave.

"It is very strange," she said with a sudden access of womanlike
trembling and agitation which seemed out of place in this awful
woman--"but once I knew a scarab like to that. It--hung round the
neck--of one I loved," and she gave a little sob, and I saw that after
all she was only a woman, although she might be a very old one.

"There," she went on, "it must be one like to it, and yet never did
I see one like to it, for thereto hung a history, and he who wore it
prized it much.[*] But the scarab that I knew was not set thus in the
bezel of a ring. Go now, Holly, go, and, if thou canst, try to forget
that thou hast of thy folly looked upon Ayesha's beauty," and, turning
from me, she flung herself on her couch, and buried her face in the
cushions.

     [*] I am informed by a renowned and learned Egyptologist, to
     whom I have submitted this very interesting and beautifully
     finished scarab, "Suten se Ra," that he has never seen one
     resembling it. Although it bears a title frequently given to
     Egyptian royalty, he is of opinion that it is not
     necessarily the cartouche of a Pharaoh, on which either the
     throne or personal name of the monarch is generally
     inscribed. What the history of this particular scarab may
     have been we can now, unfortunately, never know, but I have
     little doubt but that it played some part in the tragic
     story of the Princess Amenartas and her lover Kallikrates,
     the forsworn priest of Isis.--Editor.

As for me, I stumbled from her presence, and I do not remember how I
reached my own cave.



XIV

A SOUL IN HELL

It was nearly ten o'clock at night when I cast myself down upon my bed,
and began to gather my scattered wits, and reflect upon what I had seen
and heard. But the more I reflected the less I could make of it. Was I
mad, or drunk, or dreaming, or was I merely the victim of a gigantic
and most elaborate hoax? How was it possible that I, a rational man,
not unacquainted with the leading scientific facts of our history, and
hitherto an absolute and utter disbeliever in all the hocus-pocus which
in Europe goes by the name of the supernatural, could believe that I had
within the last few minutes been engaged in conversation with a woman
two thousand and odd years old? The thing was contrary to the experience
of human nature, and absolutely and utterly impossible. It must be a
hoax, and yet, if it were a hoax, what was I to make of it? What, too,
was to be said of the figures on the water, of the woman's extraordinary
acquaintance with the remote past, and her ignorance, or apparent
ignorance, of any subsequent history? What, too, of her wonderful and
awful loveliness? This, at any rate, was a patent fact, and beyond the
experience of the world. No merely mortal woman could shine with such
a supernatural radiance. About that she had, at any rate, been in the
right--it was not safe for any man to look upon such beauty. I was
a hardened vessel in such matters, having, with the exception of one
painful experience of my green and tender youth, put the softer sex
(I sometimes think that this is a misnomer) almost entirely out of my
thoughts. But now, to my intense horror, I _knew_ that I could never put
away the vision of those glorious eyes; and alas! the very _diablerie_
of the woman, whilst it horrified and repelled, attracted in even a
greater degree. A person with the experience of two thousand years at
her back, with the command of such tremendous powers, and the knowledge
of a mystery that could hold off death, was certainly worth falling
in love with, if ever woman was. But, alas! it was not a question of
whether or no she was worth it, for so far as I could judge, not being
versed in such matters, I, a fellow of my college, noted for what my
acquaintances are pleased to call my misogyny, and a respectable man
now well on in middle life, had fallen absolutely and hopelessly in love
with this white sorceress. Nonsense; it must be nonsense! She had warned
me fairly, and I had refused to take the warning. Curses on the fatal
curiosity that is ever prompting man to draw the veil from woman,
and curses on the natural impulse that begets it! It is the cause of
half--ay, and more than half--of our misfortunes. Why cannot man be
content to live alone and be happy, and let the women live alone and be
happy too? But perhaps they would not be happy, and I am not sure that
we should either. Here is a nice state of affairs. I, at my age, to fall
a victim to this modern Circe! But then she was not modern, at least she
said not. She was almost as ancient as the original Circe.

I tore my hair, and jumped up from my couch, feeling that if I did
not do something I should go off my head. What did she mean about the
scarabaeus too? It was Leo's scarabaeus, and had come out of the old
coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly one-and-twenty years
before. Could it be, after all, that the whole story was true, and
the writing on the sherd was _not_ a forgery, or the invention of some
crack-brained, long-forgotten individual? And if so, could it be that
_Leo_ was the man that _She_ was waiting for--the dead man who was to be
born again! Impossible! The whole thing was gibberish! Who ever heard of
a man being born again?

But if it were possible that a woman could exist for two thousand years,
this might be possible also--anything might be possible. I myself might,
for aught I knew, be a reincarnation of some other forgotten self, or
perhaps the last of a long line of ancestral selves. Well, _vive la
guerre!_ why not? Only, unfortunately, I had no recollection of these
previous conditions. The idea was so absurd to me that I burst out
laughing, and, addressing the sculptured picture of a grim-looking
warrior on the cave wall, called out to him aloud, "Who knows, old
fellow?--perhaps I was your contemporary. By Jove! perhaps I was you and
you are I," and then I laughed again at my own folly, and the sound of
my laughter rang dismally along the vaulted roof, as though the ghost of
the warrior had echoed the ghost of a laugh.

Next I bethought me that I had not been to see how Leo was, so, taking
up one of the lamps which was burning at my bedside, I slipped off my
shoes and crept down the passage to the entrance of his sleeping cave.
The draught of the night air was lifting his curtain to and fro gently,
as though spirit hands were drawing and redrawing it. I slid into the
vault-like apartment, and looked round. There was a light by which I
could see that Leo was lying on the couch, tossing restlessly in his
fever, but asleep. At his side, half-lying on the floor, half-leaning
against the stone couch, was Ustane. She held his hand in one of hers,
but she too was dozing, and the two made a pretty, or rather a pathetic,
picture. Poor Leo! his cheek was burning red, there were dark shadows
beneath his eyes, and his breath came heavily. He was very, very ill;
and again the horrible fear seized me that he might die, and I be left
alone in the world. And yet if he lived he would perhaps be my rival
with Ayesha; even if he were not the man, what chance should I,
middle-aged and hideous, have against his bright youth and beauty? Well,
thank Heaven! my sense of right was not dead. _She_ had not killed that
yet; and, as I stood there, I prayed to Heaven in my heart that my boy,
my more than son, might live--ay, even if he proved to be the man.

Then I went back as softly as I had come, but still I could not sleep;
the sight and thought of dear Leo lying there so ill had but added fuel
to the fire of my unrest. My wearied body and overstrained mind awakened
all my imagination into preternatural activity. Ideas, visions, almost
inspirations, floated before it with startling vividness. Most of them
were grotesque enough, some were ghastly, some recalled thoughts and
sensations that had for years been buried in the _debris_ of my past
life. But, behind and above them all, hovered the shape of that awful
woman, and through them gleamed the memory of her entrancing loveliness.
Up and down the cave I strode--up and down.

Suddenly I observed, what I had not noticed before, that there was a
narrow aperture in the rocky wall. I took up the lamp and examined it;
the aperture led to a passage. Now, I was still sufficiently sensible
to remember that it is not pleasant, in such a situation as ours was, to
have passages running into one's bed-chamber from no one knows where. If
there are passages, people can come up them; they can come up when one
is asleep. Partly to see where it went to, and partly from a restless
desire to be doing something, I followed the passage. It led to a stone
stair, which I descended; the stair ended in another passage, or rather
tunnel, also hewn out of the bed-rock, and running, so far as I could
judge, exactly beneath the gallery that led to the entrance of our
rooms, and across the great central cave. I went on down it: it was as
silent as the grave, but still, drawn by some sensation or attraction
that I cannot define, I followed on, my stockinged feet falling without
noise on the smooth and rocky floor. When I had traversed some fifty
yards of space, I came to another passage running at right angles, and
here an awful thing happened to me: the sharp draught caught my lamp
and extinguished it, leaving me in utter darkness in the bowels of that
mysterious place. I took a couple of strides forward so as to clear the
bisecting tunnel, being terribly afraid lest I should turn up it in
the dark if once I got confused as to the direction, and then paused to
think. What was I to do? I had no match; it seemed awful to attempt that
long journey back through the utter gloom, and yet I could not stand
there all night, and, if I did, probably it would not help me much, for
in the bowels of the rock it would be as dark at midday as at midnight.
I looked back over my shoulder--not a sight or a sound. I peered forward
into the darkness: surely, far away, I saw something like the faint glow
of fire. Perhaps it was a cave where I could get a light--at any rate,
it was worth investigating. Slowly and painfully I crept along the
tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling at every step with
my foot before I put it down, fearing lest I should fall into some
pit. Thirty paces--there was a light, a broad light that came and went,
shining through curtains! Fifty paces--it was close at hand! Sixty--oh,
great heaven!

I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could see
clearly into the little cavern beyond them. It had all the appearance of
being a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt in its centre with a
whitish flame and without smoke. Indeed, there, to the left, was a stone
shelf with a little ledge to it three inches or so high, and on the
shelf lay what I took to be a corpse; at any rate, it looked like one,
with something white thrown over it. To the right was a similar shelf,
on which lay some broidered coverings. Over the fire bent the figure of
a woman; she was sideways to me and facing the corpse, wrapped in a dark
mantle that hid her like a nun's cloak. She seemed to be staring at the
flickering flame. Suddenly, as I was trying to make up my mind what
to do, with a convulsive movement that somehow gave an impression of
despairing energy, the woman rose to her feet and cast the dark cloak
from her.

It was _She_ herself!

She was clothed, as I had seen her when she unveiled, in the kirtle of
clinging white, cut low upon her bosom, and bound in at the waist with
the barbaric double-headed snake, and, as before, her rippling black
hair fell in heavy masses down her back. But her face was what caught my
eye, and held me as in a vice, not this time by the force of its beauty,
but by the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still there,
indeed, but the agony, the blind passion, and the awful vindictiveness
displayed upon those quivering features, and in the tortured look of the
upturned eyes, were such as surpass my powers of description.

For a moment she stood still, her hands raised high above her head, and
as she did so the white robe slipped from her down to her golden girdle,
baring the blinding loveliness of her form. She stood there, her fingers
clenched, and the awful look of malevolence gathered and deepened on her
face.

Suddenly I thought of what would happen if she discovered me, and the
reflection made me turn sick and faint. But, even if I had known that I
must die if I stopped, I do not believe that I could have moved, for
I was absolutely fascinated. But still I knew my danger. Supposing she
should hear me, or see me through the curtain, supposing I even sneezed,
or that her magic told her that she was being watched--swift indeed
would be my doom.

Down came the clenched hands to her sides, then up again above her head,
and, as I am a living and honourable man, the white flame of the fire
leapt up after them, almost to the roof, throwing a fierce and ghastly
glare upon _She_ herself, upon the white figure beneath the covering,
and every scroll and detail of the rockwork.

Down came the ivory arms again, and as they did so she spoke, or rather
hissed, in Arabic, in a note that curdled my blood, and for a second
stopped my heart.

"Curse her, may she be everlastingly accursed."

The arms fell and the flame sank. Up they went again, and the broad
tongue of fire shot up after them; and then again they fell.

"Curse her memory--accursed be the memory of the Egyptian."

Up again, and again down.

"Curse her, the daughter of the Nile, because of her beauty.

"Curse her, because her magic hath prevailed against me.

"Curse her, because she held my beloved from me."

And again the flame dwindled and shrank.

She put her hands before her eyes, and abandoning the hissing tone,
cried aloud:--

"What is the use of cursing?--she prevailed, and she is gone."

Then she recommenced with an even more frightful energy:--

"Curse her where she is. Let my curses reach her where she is and
disturb her rest.

"Curse her through the starry spaces. Let her shadow be accursed.

"Let my power find her even there.

"Let her hear me even there. Let her hide herself in the blackness.

"Let her go down into the pit of despair, because I shall one day find
her."

Again the flame fell, and again she covered her eyes with her hands.

"It is of no use--no use," she wailed; "who can reach those who sleep?
Not even I can reach them."

Then once more she began her unholy rites.

"Curse her when she shall be born again. Let her be born accursed.

"Let her be utterly accused from the hour of her birth until sleep finds
her.

"Yea, then, let her be accursed; for then shall I overtake her with my
vengeance, and utterly destroy her."

And so on. The flame rose and fell, reflecting itself in her agonised
eyes; the hissing sound of her terrible maledictions, and no words of
mine can convey how terrible they were, ran round the walls and died
away in little echoes, and the fierce light and deep gloom alternated
themselves on the white and dreadful form stretched upon that bier of
stone.

But at length she seemed to wear herself out and cease. She sat herself
down upon the rocky floor, shook the dense cloud of her beautiful hair
over her face and breast, and began to sob terribly in the torture of a
heartrending despair.

"Two thousand years," she moaned--"two thousand years have I wanted and
endured; but though century doth still creep on to century, and time
give place to time, the sting of memory hath not lessened, the light of
hope doth not shine more bright. Oh! to have lived two thousand years,
with all my passion eating out my heart, and with my sin ever before me.
Oh, that for me life cannot bring forgetfulness! Oh, for the weary years
that have been and are yet to come, and evermore to come, endless and
without end!

"My love! my love! my love! Why did that stranger bring thee back to me
after this sort? For five hundred years I have not suffered thus. Oh,
if I sinned against thee, have I not wiped away the sin? When wilt thou
come back to me who have all, and yet without thee have naught? What is
there that I can do? What? What? What? And perchance she--perchance that
Egyptian doth abide with thee where thou art, and mock my memory. Oh,
why could I not die with thee, I who slew thee? Alas, that I cannot die!
Alas! Alas!" and she flung herself prone upon the ground, and sobbed and
wept till I thought her heart must burst.

Suddenly she ceased, raised herself to her feet, rearranged her robe,
and, tossing back her long locks impatiently, swept across to where the
figure lay upon the stone.

"Oh Kallikrates," she cried, and I trembled at the name, "I must look
upon thy face again, though it be agony. It is a generation since
I looked upon thee whom I slew--slew with mine own hand," and with
trembling fingers she seized the corner of the sheet-like wrapping that
covered the form upon the stone bier, and then paused. When she spoke
again, it was in a kind of awed whisper, as though her idea were
terrible even to herself.

"Shall I raise thee," she said, apparently addressing the corpse, "so
that thou standest there before me, as of old? I _can_ do it," and she
held out her hands over the sheeted dead, while her whole frame became
rigid and terrible to see, and her eyes grew fixed and dull. I shrank in
horror behind the curtain, my hair stood up upon my head, and, whether
it was my imagination or a fact I am unable to say, but I thought that
the quiet form beneath the covering began to quiver, and the winding
sheet to lift as though it lay on the breast of one who slept. Suddenly
she withdrew her hands, and the motion of the corpse seemed to me to
cease.

"To what purpose?" she said gloomily. "Of what good is it to recall the
semblance of life when I cannot recall the spirit? Even if thou stoodest
before me thou wouldst not know me, and couldst but do what I bid thee.
The life in thee would be _my_ life, and not _thy_ life, Kallikrates."

For a moment she stood there brooding, and then cast herself down on her
knees beside the form, and began to press her lips against the sheet,
and weep. There was something so horrible about the sight of this
awe-inspiring woman letting loose her passion on the dead--so much more
horrible even than anything that had gone before--that I could no longer
bear to look at it, and, turning, began to creep, shaking as I was in
every limb, slowly along the pitch-dark passage, feeling in my trembling
heart that I had seen a vision of a Soul in Hell.

On I stumbled, I scarcely know how. Twice I fell, once I turned up the
bisecting passage, but fortunately found out my mistake in time. For
twenty minutes or more I crept along, till at last it occurred to me
that I must have passed the little stair by which I had descended. So,
utterly exhausted, and nearly frightened to death, I sank down at length
there on the stone flooring, and sank into oblivion.

When I came to I noticed a faint ray of light in the passage just behind
me. I crept to it, and found it was the little stair down which the weak
dawn was stealing. Passing up it, I gained my chamber in safety, and,
flinging myself on the couch, was soon lost in slumber or rather stupor.



XV

AYESHA GIVES JUDGMENT

The next thing that I remember was opening my eyes and perceiving the
form of Job, who had now practically recovered from his attack of fever.
He was standing in the ray of light that pierced into the cave from
the outer air, shaking out my clothes as a makeshift for brushing them,
which he could not do because there was no brush, and then folding them
up neatly and laying them on the foot of the stone couch. This done, he
got my travelling dressing-case out of the Gladstone bag, and opened it
ready for my use. First he stood it on the foot of the couch also, then,
being afraid, I suppose, that I should kick it off, he placed it on a
leopard skin on the floor, and stood back a step or two to observe the
effect. It was not satisfactory, so he shut up the bag, turned it on
end, and, having rested it against the foot of the couch, placed the
dressing-case on it. Next he looked at the pots full of water, which
constituted our washing apparatus. "Ah!" I heard him murmur, "no hot
water in this beastly place. I suppose these poor creatures only use it
to boil each other in," and he sighed deeply.

"What is the matter, Job?" I said.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, touching his hair. "I thought you were
asleep, sir; and I am sure you seem as though you want it. One might
think from the look of you that you had been having a night of it."

I only groaned by way of answer. I had, indeed, been having a night of
it, such as I hope never to have again.

"How is Mr. Leo, Job?"

"Much the same, sir. If he don't soon mend, he'll end, sir; and that's
all about it; though I must say that that there savage, Ustane, do
do her best for him, almost like a baptised Christian. She is always
hanging round and looking after him, and if I ventures to interfere it's
awful to see her; her hair seems to stand on end, and she curses and
swears away in her heathen talk--at least I fancy she must be cursing,
from the look of her."

"And what do you do then?"

"I make her a perlite bow, and I say, 'Young woman, your position is one
that I don't quite understand, and can't recognise. Let me tell you that
I has a duty to perform to my master as is incapacitated by illness,
and that I am going to perform it until I am incapacitated too,' but
she don't take no heed, not she--only curses and swears away worse than
ever. Last night she put her hand under that sort of night-shirt she
wears and whips out a knife with a kind of a curl in the blade, so I
whips out my revolver, and we walks round and round each other till at
last she bursts out laughing. It isn't nice treatment for a Christian
man to have to put up with from a savage, however handsome she may be,
but it is what people must expect as is _fools_ enough" (Job laid great
emphasis on the "fools") "to come to such a place to look for things no
man is meant to find. It's a judgment on us, sir--that's my view; and I,
for one, is of opinion that the judgment isn't half done yet, and when
it is done we shall be done too, and just stop in these beastly caves
with the ghosts and the corpseses for once and all. And now, sir, I
must be seeing about Mr. Leo's broth, if that wild cat will let me; and,
perhaps, you would like to get up, sir, because it's past nine o'clock."

Job's remarks were not of an exactly cheering order to a man who had
passed such a night as I had; and, what is more, they had the weight of
truth. Taking one thing with another, it appeared to me to be an utter
impossibility that we should escape from the place we were. Supposing
that Leo recovered, and supposing that _She_ would let us go, which was
exceedingly doubtful, and that she did not "blast" us in some moment of
vexation, and that we were not hot-potted by the Amahagger, it would be
quite impossible for us to find our way across the network of marshes
which, stretching for scores and scores of miles, formed a stronger and
more impassable fortification round the various Amahagger households

than any that could be built or designed by man. No, there was but
one thing to do--face it out; and, speaking for my own part, I was so
intensely interested in the whole weird story that, so far as I was
concerned, notwithstanding the shattered state of my nerves, I asked
nothing better, even if my life paid forfeit to my curiosity. What man
for whom physiology has charms could forbear to study such a character
as that of this Ayesha when the opportunity of doing so presented
itself? The very terror of the pursuit added to its fascination, and
besides, as I was forced to own to myself even now in the sober light of
day, she herself had attractions that I could not forget. Not even the
dreadful sight which I had witnessed during the night could drive that
folly from my mind; and alas! that I should have to admit it, it has not
been driven thence to this hour.

After I had dressed myself I passed into the eating, or rather embalming
chamber, and had some food, which was as before brought to me by the
girl mutes. When I had finished I went and saw poor Leo, who was quite
off his head, and did not even know me. I asked Ustane how she thought
he was; but she only shook her head and began to cry a little. Evidently
her hopes were small; and I then and there made up my mind that, if it
were in any way possible, I would get _She_ to come and see him. Surely
she would cure him if she chose--at any rate she said she could. While I
was in the room, Billali entered, and also shook his head.

"He will die at night," he said.

"God forbid, my father," I answered, and turned away with a heavy heart.

"_She-who-must-be-obeyed_ commands thy presence, my Baboon," said the
old man as soon as we got to the curtain; "but, oh my dear son, be more
careful. Yesterday I made sure in my heart that _She_ would blast thee
when thou didst not crawl upon thy stomach before her. She is sitting in
the great hall even now to do justice upon those who would have smitten
thee and the Lion. Come on, my son; come swiftly."

I turned, and followed him down the passage, and when we reached the
great central cave saw that many Amahagger, some robed, and some merely
clad in the sweet simplicity of a leopard skin, were hurrying along
it. We mingled with the throng, and walked up the enormous and, indeed,
almost interminable cave. All the way its walls were elaborately
sculptured, and every twenty paces or so passages opened out of it at
right angles, leading, Billali told me, to tombs, hollowed in the rock
by "the people who were before." Nobody visited those tombs now, he
said; and I must say that my heart rejoiced when I thought of the
opportunities of antiquarian research which opened out before me.

At last we came to the head of the cave, where there was a rock dais
almost exactly similar to the one on which we had been so furiously
attacked, a fact that proved to me that these dais must have been used
as altars, probably for the celebration of religious ceremonies, and
more especially of rites connected with the interment of the dead. On
either side of this dais were passages leading, Billali informed me, to
other caves full of dead bodies. "Indeed," he added, "the whole mountain
is full of dead, and nearly all of them are perfect."

In front of the dais were gathered a great number of people of both
sexes, who stood staring about in their peculiar gloomy fashion, which
would have reduced Mark Tapley himself to misery in about five minutes.
On the dais was a rude chair of black wood inlaid with ivory, having
a seat made of grass fibre, and a footstool formed of a wooden slab
attached to the framework of the chair.

Suddenly there was a cry of "Hiya! Hiya!" ("_She! She!_"), and thereupon
the entire crowd of spectators instantly precipitated itself upon the
ground, and lay still as though it were individually and collectively
stricken dead, leaving me standing there like some solitary survivor of
a massacre. As it did so a long string of guards began to defile from a
passage to the left, and ranged themselves on either side of the dais.
Then followed about a score of male mutes, then as many women mutes
bearing lamps, and then a tall white figure, swathed from head to foot,
in whom I recognised _She_ herself. She mounted the dais and sat down
upon the chair, and spoke to me in _Greek_, I suppose because she did
not wish those present to understand what she said.

"Come hither, oh Holly," she said, "and sit thou at my feet, and see me
do justice on those who would have slain thee. Forgive me if my Greek
doth halt like a lame man; it is so long since I have heard the sound of
it that my tongue is stiff, and will not bend rightly to the words."

I bowed, and, mounting the dais, sat down at her feet.

"How hast thou slept, my Holly?" she asked.

"I slept not well, oh Ayesha!" I answered with perfect truth, and with
an inward fear that perhaps she knew how I had passed the heart of the
night.

"So," she said, with a little laugh; "I, too, have not slept well. Last
night I had dreams, and methinks that thou didst call them to me, oh
Holly."

"Of what didst thou dream, Ayesha?" I asked indifferently.

"I dreamed," she answered quickly, "of one I hate and one I love," and
then, as though to turn the conversation, she addressed the captain of
her guard in Arabic: "Let the men be brought before me."

The captain bowed low, for the guard and her attendants did not
prostrate themselves, but had remained standing, and departed with his
underlings down a passage to the right.

Then came a silence. _She_ leaned her swathed head upon her hand and
appeared to be lost in thought, while the multitude before her continued
to grovel upon their stomachs, only screwing their heads round a little
so as to get a view of us with one eye. It seemed that their Queen
so rarely appeared in public that they were willing to undergo this
inconvenience, and even graver risks, to have the opportunity of looking
on her, or rather on her garments, for no living man there except myself
had ever seen her face. At last we caught sight of the waving of lights,
and heard the tramp of men coming along the passage, and in filed the
guard, and with them the survivors of our would-be murderers, to the
number of twenty or more, on whose countenances a natural expression of
sullenness struggled with the terror that evidently filled their savage
hearts. They were ranged in front of the dais, and would have cast
themselves down on the floor of the cave like the spectators, but _She_
stopped them.

"Nay," she said in her softest voice, "stand; I pray you stand.
Perchance the time will soon be when ye shall grow weary of being
stretched out," and she laughed melodiously.

I saw a cringe of terror run along the rank of the doomed wretches,
and, wicked villains as they were, I felt sorry for them. Some minutes,
perhaps two or three, passed before anything fresh occurred, during
which _She_ appeared from the movement of her head--for, of course,
we could not see her eyes--to be slowly and carefully examining each
delinquent. At last she spoke, addressing herself to me in a quiet and
deliberate tone.

"Dost thou, oh my guest, recognise these men?"

"Ay, oh Queen, nearly all of them," I said, and I saw them glower at me
as I said it.

"Then tell to me, and this great company, the tale whereof I have
heard."

Thus adjured, I, in as few words as I could, related the history of the
cannibal feast, and of the attempted torture of our poor servant. The
narrative was received in perfect silence, both by the accused and by
the audience, and also by _She_ herself. When I had done, Ayesha called
upon Billali by name, and, lifting his head from the ground, but without
rising, the old man confirmed my story. No further evidence was taken.

"Ye have heard," said _She_ at length, in a cold, clear voice,
very different from her usual tones--indeed, it was one of the most
remarkable things about this extraordinary creature that her voice had
the power of suiting itself in a wonderful manner to the mood of the
moment. "What have ye to say, ye rebellious children, why vengeance
should not be done upon you?"

For some time there was no answer, but at last one of the men, a fine,
broad-chested fellow, well on in middle-life, with deep-graven features
and an eye like a hawk's, spoke, and said that the orders that they had
received were not to harm the white men; nothing was said of their
black servant, so, egged on thereto by a woman who was now dead, they
proceeded to try to hot-pot him after the ancient and honourable custom
of their country, with a view of eating him in due course. As for their
sudden attack upon ourselves, it was made in an access of sudden fury,
and they deeply regretted it. He ended by humbly praying that they might
be banished into the swamps, to live and die as it might chance; but I
saw it written on his face that he had but little hope of mercy.

Then came a pause, and the most intense silence reigned over the whole
scene, which, illuminated as it was by the flicker of the lamps striking
out broad patterns of light and shadow upon the rocky walls, was as
strange as any I ever saw, even in that unholy land. Upon the ground
before the dais were stretched scores of the corpselike forms of the
spectators, till at last the long lines of them were lost in the
gloomy background. Before this outstretched audience were the knots
of evil-doers, trying to cover up their natural terrors with a brave
appearance of unconcern. On the right and left stood the silent guards,
robed in white and armed with great spears and daggers, and men and
women mutes watching with hard curious eyes. Then, seated in her
barbaric chair above them all, with myself at her feet, was the veiled
white woman, whose loveliness and awesome power seemed to visibly shine
about her like a halo, or rather like the glow from some unseen light.
Never have I seen her veiled shape look more terrible than it did in
that space, while she gathered herself up for vengeance.

At last it came.

"Dogs and serpents," _She_ began in a low voice that gradually gathered
power as she went on, till the place rang with it. "Eaters of human
flesh, two things have ye done. First, ye have attacked these strangers,
being white men, and would have slain their servant, and for that alone
death is your reward. But that is not all. Ye have dared to disobey me.
Did I not send my word unto you by Billali, my servant, and the father
of your household? Did I not bid you to hospitably entertain these
strangers, whom now ye have striven to slay, and whom, had not they
been brave and strong beyond the strength of men, ye would cruelly have
murdered? Hath it not been taught to you from childhood that the law of
_She_ is an ever fixed law, and that he who breaketh it by so much as
one jot or tittle shall perish? And is not my lightest word a law?
Have not your fathers taught you this, I say, whilst as yet ye were but
children? Do ye not know that as well might ye bid these great caves to
fall upon you, or the sun to cease its journeying, as to hope to turn
me from my courses, or make my word light or heavy, according to your
minds? Well do ye know it, ye Wicked Ones. But ye are all evil--evil
to the core--the wickedness bubbles up in you like a fountain in the
spring-time. Were it not for me, generations since had ye ceased to be,
for of your own evil way had ye destroyed each other. And now, because
ye have done this thing, because ye have striven to put these men, my
guests, to death, and yet more because ye have dared to disobey my word,
this is the doom that I doom you to. That ye be taken to the cave of
torture,[*] and given over to the tormentors, and that on the going down
of to-morrow's sun those of you who yet remain alive be slain, even as
ye would have slain the servant of this my guest."

     [*] "The cave of torture." I afterwards saw this dreadful
     place, also a legacy from the prehistoric people who lived
     in Kor. The only objects in the cave itself were slabs of
     rock arranged in various positions to facilitate the
     operations of the torturers. Many of these slabs, which were
     of a porous stone, were stained quite dark with the blood of
     ancient victims that had soaked into them. Also in the
     centre of the room was a place for a furnace, with a cavity
     wherein to heat the historic pot. But the most dreadful
     thing about the cave was that over each slab was a
     sculptured illustration of the appropriate torture being
     applied. These sculptures were so awful that I will not
     harrow the reader by attempting a description of them.--L.
     H. H.

She ceased, and a faint murmur of horror ran round the cave. As for the
victims, as soon as they realised the full hideousness of their doom,
their stoicism forsook them, and they flung themselves down upon the
ground, and wept and implored for mercy in a way that was dreadful to
behold. I, too, turned to Ayesha, and begged her to spare them, or at
least to mete out their fate in some less awful way. But she was hard as
adamant about it.

"My Holly," she said, again speaking in Greek, which, to tell the truth,
although I have always been considered a better scholar of the language
than most men, I found it rather difficult to follow, chiefly because of
the change in the fall of the accent. Ayesha, of course, talked with
the accent of her contemporaries, whereas we have only tradition and the
modern accent to guide us as to the exact pronunciation. "My Holly, it
cannot be. Were I to show mercy to those wolves, your lives would not be
safe among this people for a day. Thou knowest them not. They are tigers
to lap blood, and even now they hunger for your lives. How thinkest
thou that I rule this people? I have but a regiment of guards to do my
bidding, therefore it is not by force. It is by terror. My empire is
of the imagination. Once in a generation mayhap I do as I have done but
now, and slay a score by torture. Believe not that I would be cruel, or
take vengeance on anything so low. What can it profit me to be avenged
on such as these? Those who live long, my Holly, have no passions,
save where they have interests. Though I may seem to slay in wrath,
or because my mood is crossed, it is not so. Thou hast seen how in the
heavens the little clouds blow this way and that without a cause, yet
behind them is the great wind sweeping on its path whither it listeth.
So it is with me, oh Holly. My moods and changes are the little clouds,
and fitfully these seem to turn; but behind them ever blows the great
wind of my purpose. Nay, the men must die; and die as I have said."
Then, suddenly turning to the captain of the guard:--

"As my word is, so be it!"



XVI

THE TOMBS OF KOR

After the prisoners had been removed Ayesha waved her hand, and the
spectators turned round, and began to crawl off down the cave like a
scattered flock of sheep. When they were a fair distance from the dais,
however, they rose and walked away, leaving the Queen and myself alone,
with the exception of the mutes and the few remaining guards, most of
whom had departed with the doomed men. Thinking this a good opportunity,
I asked _She_ to come and see Leo, telling her of his serious condition;
but she would not, saying that he certainly would not die before the
night, as people never died of that sort of fever except at nightfall
or dawn. Also she said that it would be better to let the sickness spend
its course as much as possible before she cured it. Accordingly, I was
rising to leave, when she bade me follow her, as she would talk with me,
and show me the wonders of the caves.

I was too much involved in the web of her fatal fascinations to say her
no, even if I had wished, which I did not. She rose from her chair, and,
making some signs to the mutes, descended from the dais. Thereon four
of the girls took lamps, and ranged themselves two in front and two
behind us, but the others went away, as also did the guards.

"Now," she said, "wouldst thou see some of the wonders of this place, oh
Holly? Look upon this great cave. Sawest thou ever the like? Yet was it,
and many more like it, hollowed by the hands of the dead race that once
lived here in the city on the plain. A great and wonderful people must
they have been, those men of Kor, but, like the Egyptians, they thought
more of the dead than of the living. How many men, thinkest thou,
working for how many years, did it need to the hollowing out this cave
and all the galleries thereof?"

"Tens of thousands," I answered.

"So, oh Holly. This people was an old people before the Egyptians
were. A little can I read of their inscriptions, having found the key
thereto--and see, thou here, this was one of the last of the caves that
they hollowed," and, turning to the rock behind her, she motioned the
mutes to hold up the lamps. Carven over the dais was the figure of an
old man seated in a chair, with an ivory rod in his hand. It struck me
at once that his features were exceedingly like those of the man who was
represented as being embalmed in the chamber where we took our meals.
Beneath the chair, which, by the way, was shaped exactly like the one
in which Ayesha had sat to give judgment, was a short inscription in the
extraordinary characters of which I have already spoke, but which I do
not remember sufficient of to illustrate. It looked more like Chinese
writing than any other that I am acquainted with. This inscription
Ayesha proceeded, with some difficulty and hesitation, to read aloud and
translate. It ran as follows:--

"In the year four thousand two hundred and fifty-nine from the founding
of the City of imperial Kor was this cave (or burial place) completed
by Tisno, King of Kor, the people thereof and their slaves having
laboured thereat for three generations, to be a tomb for their citizens
of rank who shall come after. May the blessings of the heaven above the
heaven rest upon their work, and make the sleep of Tisno, the mighty
monarch, the likeness of whose features is graven above, a sound and
happy sleep till the day of awakening,[*] and also the sleep of his
servants, and of those of his race who, rising up after him, shall yet
lay their heads as low."

     [*] This phrase is remarkable, as seeming to indicate a
     belief in a future state.--Editor.

"Thou seest, oh Holly," she said, "this people founded the city, of
which the ruins yet cumber the plain yonder, four thousand years before
this cave was finished. Yet, when first mine eyes beheld it two thousand
years ago, was it even as it is now. Judge, therefore, how old must that
city have been! And now, follow thou me, and I will show thee after what
fashion this great people fell when the time was come for it to fall,"
and she led the way down to the centre of the cave, stopping at a spot
where a round rock had been let into a kind of large manhole in the
flooring, accurately filling it just as the iron plates fill the spaces
in the London pavements down which the coals are thrown. "Thou seest,"
she said. "Tell me, what is it?"

"Nay, I know not," I answered; whereon she crossed to the left-hand side
of the cave (looking towards the entrance) and signed to the mutes to
hold up the lamps. On the wall was something painted with a red pigment
in similar characters to those hewn beneath the sculpture of Tisno, King
of Kor. This inscription she proceeded to translate to me, the pigment
still being fresh enough to show the form of the letters. It ran thus:

"I, Junis, a priest of the Great Temple of Kor, write this upon the
rock of the burying-place in the year four thousand eight hundred and
three from the founding of Kor. Kor is fallen! No more shall the
mighty feast in her halls, no more shall she rule the world, and her
navies go out to commerce with the world. Kor is fallen! and her mighty
works and all the cities of Kor, and all the harbours that she built
and the canals that she made, are for the wolf and the owl and the wild
swan, and the barbarian who comes after. Twenty and five moons ago did
a cloud settle upon Kor, and the hundred cities of Kor, and out of the
cloud came a pestilence that slew her people, old and young, one
with another, and spared not. One with another they turned black and
died--the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the man and the
woman, the prince and the slave. The pestilence slew and slew, and
ceased not by day or by night, and those who escaped from the pestilence
were slain of the famine. No longer could the bodies of the children of
Kor be preserved according to the ancient rites, because of the number
of the dead, therefore were they hurled into the great pit beneath
the cave, through the hole in the floor of the cave. Then, at last, a
remnant of this the great people, the light of the whole world, went
down to the coast and took ship and sailed northwards; and now am I, the
Priest Junis, who write this, the last man left alive of this great city
of men, but whether there be any yet left in the other cities I know
not. This do I write in misery of heart before I die, because Kor
the Imperial is no more, and because there are none to worship in her
temple, and all her palaces are empty, and her princes and her captains
and her traders and her fair women have passed off the face of the
earth."

I gave a sigh of astonishment--the utter desolation depicted in this
rude scrawl was so overpowering. It was terrible to think of this
solitary survivor of a mighty people recording its fate before he too
went down into darkness. What must the old man have felt as, in ghastly
terrifying solitude, by the light of one lamp feebly illuminating a
little space of gloom, he in a few brief lines daubed the history of his
nation's death upon the cavern wall? What a subject for the moralist, or
the painter, or indeed for any one who can think!

"Doth it not occur to thee, oh Holly," said Ayesha, laying her hand upon
my shoulder, "that those men who sailed North may have been the fathers
of the first Egyptians?"

"Nay, I know not," I said; "it seems that the world is very old."

"Old? Yes, it is old indeed. Time after time have nations, ay, and rich
and strong nations, learned in the arts, been and passed away and
been forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of
several; for Time eats up the works of man, unless, indeed, he digs in
caves like the people of Kor, and then mayhap the sea swallows them, or
the earthquake shakes them in. Who knows what hath been on the earth, or
what shall be? There is no new thing under the sun, as the wise Hebrew
wrote long ago. Yet were not these people utterly destroyed, as I think.
Some few remained in the other cities, for their cities were many. But
the barbarians from the south, or perchance my people, the Arabs,
came down upon them, and took their women to wife, and the race of the
Amahagger that is now is a bastard brood of the mighty sons of Kor, and
behold it dwelleth in the tombs with its fathers' bones.[*] But I know
not: who can know? My arts cannot pierce so far into the blackness of
Time's night. A great people were they. They conquered till none were
left to conquer, and then they dwelt at ease within their rocky mountain
walls, with their man servants and their maid servants, their minstrels,
their sculptors, and their concubines, and traded and quarrelled, and
ate and hunted and slept and made merry till their time came. But come,
I will show thee the great pit beneath the cave whereof the writing
speaks. Never shall thine eyes witness such another sight."

     [*] The name of the race Ama-hagger would seem to indicate a
     curious mingling of races such as might easily have occurred
     in the neighbourhood of the Zambesi. The prefix "Ama" is
     common to the Zulu and kindred races, and signifies
     "people," while "hagger" is an Arabic word meaning a stone.
     --Editor.

Accordingly I followed her to a side passage opening out of the main
cave, then down a great number of steps, and along an underground shaft
which cannot have been less than sixty feet beneath the surface of the
rock, and was ventilated by curious borings that ran upward, I know not
where. Suddenly the passage ended, and she halted and bade the mutes
hold up the lamps, and, as she had prophesied, I saw a scene such as
I was not likely to see again. We were standing in an enormous pit, or
rather on the brink of it, for it went down deeper--I do not know how
much--than the level on which we stood, and was edged in with a low wall
of rock. So far as I could judge, this pit was about the size of the
space beneath the dome of St. Paul's in London, and when the lamps were
held up I saw that it was nothing but one vast charnel-house, being
literally full of thousands of human skeletons, which lay piled up in an
enormous gleaming pyramid, formed by the slipping down of the bodies
at the apex as fresh ones were dropped in from above. Anything more
appalling than this jumbled mass of the remains of a departed race I
cannot imagine, and what made it even more dreadful was that in this
dry air a considerable number of the bodies had simply become desiccated
with the skin still on them, and now, fixed in every conceivable
position, stared at us out of the mountain of white bones, grotesquely
horrible caricatures of humanity. In my astonishment I uttered an
ejaculation, and the echoes of my voice, ringing in the vaulted space,
disturbed a skull that had been accurately balanced for many thousands
of years near the apex of the pile. Down it came with a run, bounding
along merrily towards us, and of course bringing an avalanche of other
bones after it, till at last the whole pit rattled with their movement,
even as though the skeletons were getting up to greet us.

"Come," I said, "I have seen enough. These are the bodies of those who
died of the great sickness, is it not so?" I added, as we turned away.

"Yea. The people of Kor ever embalmed their dead, as did the Egyptians,
but their art was greater than the art of the Egyptians, for, whereas
the Egyptians disembowelled and drew the brain, the people of Kor
injected fluid into the veins, and thus reached every part. But stay,
thou shalt see," and she halted at haphazard at one of the little
doorways opening out of the passage along which we were walking, and
motioned to the mutes to light us in. We entered into a small chamber
similar to the one in which I had slept at our first stopping-place,
only instead of one there were two stone benches or beds in it. On the
benches lay figures covered with yellow linen,[*] on which a fine and
impalpable dust had gathered in the course of ages, but nothing like to
the extent that one would have anticipated, for in these deep-hewn caves
there is no material to turn to dust. About the bodies on the stone
shelves and floor of the tomb were many painted vases, but I saw very
few ornaments or weapons in any of the vaults.

     [*] All the linen that the Amahagger wore was taken from the
     tombs, which accounted for its yellow hue. It was well
     washed, however, and properly rebleached, it acquired its
     former snowy whiteness, and was the softest and best linen I
     ever saw.--L. H. H.

"Uplift the cloths, oh Holly," said Ayesha, but when I put out my hand
to do so I drew it back again. It seemed like sacrilege, and, to speak
the truth, I was awed by the dread solemnity of the place, and of the
presences before us. Then, with a little laugh at my fears, she drew
them herself, only to discover other and yet finer cloths lying over the
forms upon the stone bench. These also she withdrew, and then for the
first for thousands upon thousands of years did living eyes look upon
the face of that chilly dead. It was a woman; she might have been
thirty-five years of age, or perhaps a little less, and had certainly
been beautiful. Even now her calm clear-cut features, marked out with
delicate eyebrows and long eyelashes which threw little lines of the
shadow of the lamplight upon the ivory face, were wonderfully beautiful.
There, robed in white, down which her blue-black hair was streaming, she
slept her last long sleep, and on her arm, its face pressed against her
breast, there lay a little babe. So sweet was the sight, although so
awful, that--I confess it without shame--I could scarcely withhold my
tears. It took me back across the dim gulf of ages to some happy home in
dead Imperial Kor, where this winsome lady girt about with beauty had
lived and died, and dying taken her last-born with her to the tomb.
There they were before us, mother and babe, the white memories of a
forgotten human history speaking more eloquently to the heart than
could any written record of their lives. Reverently I replaced the
grave-cloths, and, with a sigh that flowers so fair should, in the
purpose of the Everlasting, have only bloomed to be gathered to the
grave, I turned to the body on the opposite shelf, and gently unveiled
it. It was that of a man in advanced life, with a long grizzled beard,
and also robed in white, probably the husband of the lady, who, after
surviving her many years, came at the last to sleep once more for good
and all beside her.

We left the place and entered others. It would be too long to describe
the many things I saw in them. Each one had its occupants, for the five
hundred and odd years that had elapsed between the completion of the
cave and the destruction of the race had evidently sufficed to fill
these catacombs, numberless as they were, and all appeared to have been
undisturbed since the day when they were placed there. I could fill a
book with the description of them, but to do so would only be to repeat
what I have said, with variations.

Nearly all the bodies, so masterfully was the art with which they had
been treated, were as perfect as on the day of death thousands of years
before. Nothing came to injure them in the deep silence of the living
rock: they were beyond the reach of heat and cold and damp, and the
aromatic drugs with which they had been saturated were evidently
practically everlasting in their effect. Here and there, however, we saw
an exception, and in these cases, although the flesh looked sound enough
externally, if one touched it it fell in, and revealed the fact that the
figure was but a pile of dust. This arose, Ayesha told me, from these
particular bodies having, either owing to haste in the burial or
other causes, been soaked in the preservative,[*] instead of its being
injected into the substance of the flesh.

     [*] Ayesha afterwards showed me the tree from the leaves of
     which this ancient preservative was manufactured. It is a
     low bush-like tree, that to this day grows in wonderful
     plenty upon the sides of the mountains, or rather upon the
     slopes leading up to the rocky walls. The leaves are long
     and narrow, a vivid green in colour, but turning a bright
     red in the autumn, and not unlike those of a laurel in
     general appearance. They have little smell when green, but
     if boiled the aromatic odour from them is so strong that one
     can hardly bear it. The best mixture, however, was made from
     the roots, and among the people of Kor there was a law,
     which Ayesha showed me alluded to on some of the
     inscriptions, to the effect that on pain of heavy penalties
     no one under a certain rank was to be embalmed with the
     drugs prepared from the roots. The object and effect of this
     was, of course, to preserve the trees from extermination.
     The sale of the leaves and roots was a Government monopoly,
     and from it the Kings of Kor derived a large proportion of
     their private revenue.--L. H. H.

About the last tomb we visited I must, however, say one word, for its
contents spoke even more eloquently to the human sympathies than those
of the first. It had but two occupants, and they lay together on a
single shelf. I withdrew the grave-cloths and there, clasped heart to
heart, were a young man and a blooming girl. Her head rested on his arm,
and his lips were pressed against her brow. I opened the man's linen
robe, and there over his heart was a dagger-wound, and beneath the
woman's fair breast was a like cruel stab, through which her life had
ebbed away. On the rock above was an inscription in three words. Ayesha
translated it. It was "_Wedded in Death_."

What was the life-story of these two, who, of a truth, were beautiful in
their lives, and in their death were not divided?

I closed my eyelids, and imagination, taking up the thread of thought,
shot its swift shuttle back across the ages, weaving a picture on their
blackness so real and vivid in its details that I could almost for a
moment think that I had triumphed o'er the Past, and that my spirit's
eyes had pierced the mystery of Time.

I seemed to see this fair girl form--the yellow hair streaming down
her, glittering against her garments snowy white, and the bosom that
was whiter than the robes, even dimming with its lustre her ornaments
of burnished gold. I seemed to see the great cave filled with warriors,
bearded and clad in mail, and, on the lighted dais where Ayesha had
given judgment, a man standing, robed, and surrounded by the symbols of
his priestly office. And up the cave there came one clad in purple, and
before him and behind him came minstrels and fair maidens, chanting a
wedding song. White stood the maid against the altar, fairer than
the fairest there--purer than a lily, and more cold than the dew that
glistens in its heart. But as the man drew near she shuddered. Then out
of the press and throng there sprang a dark-haired youth, and put his
arms about this long-forgotten maid, and kissed her pale face in which
the blood shot up like lights of the red dawn across the silent sky. And
next there was turmoil and uproar, and a flashing of swords, and they
tore the youth from her arms, and stabbed him, but with a cry she
snatched the dagger from his belt, and drove it into her snowy breast,
home to the heart, and down she fell, and then, with cries and wailing,
and every sound of lamentation, the pageant rolled away from the arena
of my vision, and once more the past shut to its book.

Let him who reads forgive the intrusion of a dream into a history of
fact. But it came so home to me--I saw it all so clear in a moment,
as it were; and, besides, who shall say what proportion of fact, past,
present, or to come, may lie in the imagination? What is imagination?
Perhaps it is the shadow of the intangible truth, perhaps it is the
soul's thought.

In an instant the whole thing had passed through my brain, and _She_ was
addressing me.

"Behold the lot of man," said the veiled Ayesha, as she drew the winding
sheets back over the dead lovers, speaking in a solemn, thrilling voice,
which accorded well with the dream that I had dreamed: "to the tomb, and
to the forgetfulness that hides the tomb, must we all come at last! Ay,
even I who live so long. Even for me, oh Holly, thousands upon thousands
of years hence; thousands of years after you hast gone through the gate
and been lost in the mists, a day will dawn whereon I shall die, and be
even as thou art and these are. And then what will it avail that I have
lived a little longer, holding off death by the knowledge that I have
wrung from Nature, since at last I too must die? What is a span of ten
thousand years, or ten times ten thousand years, in the history of time?
It is as naught--it is as the mists that roll up in the sunlight; it
fleeth away like an hour of sleep or a breath of the Eternal Spirit.
Behold the lot of man! Certainly it shall overtake us, and we shall
sleep. Certainly, too, we shall awake and live again, and again shall
sleep, and so on and on, through periods, spaces, and times, from aeon
unto aeon, till the world is dead, and the worlds beyond the world are
dead, and naught liveth but the Spirit that is Life. But for us twain
and for these dead ones shall the end of ends be Life, or shall it be
Death? As yet Death is but Life's Night, but out of the night is the
Morrow born again, and doth again beget the Night. Only when Day and
Night, and Life and Death, are ended and swallowed up in that from which
they came, what shall be our fate, oh Holly? Who can see so far? Not
even I!"

And then, with a sudden change of tone and manner--

"Hast thou seen enough, my stranger guest, or shall I show thee more of
the wonders of these tombs that are my palace halls? If thou wilt, I can
lead thee to where Tisno, the mightiest and most valorous King of Kor,
in whose day these caves were ended, lies in a pomp that seems to mock
at nothingness, and bid the empty shadows of the past do homage to his
sculptured vanity!"

"I have seen enough, oh Queen," I answered. "My heart is overwhelmed
by the power of the present Death. Mortality is weak, and easily broken
down by a sense of the companionship that waits upon its end. Take me
hence, oh Ayesha!"



XVII

THE BALANCE TURNS

In a few minutes, following the lamps of the mutes, which, held out
from the body as a bearer holds water in a vessel, had the appearance of
floating down the darkness by themselves, we came to a stair which led
us to _She's_ ante-room, the same that Billali had crept up upon on all
fours on the previous day. Here I would have bid the Queen adieu, but
she would not.

"Nay," she said, "enter with me, oh Holly, for of a truth thy
conversation pleaseth me. Think, oh Holly: for two thousand years have I
had none to converse with save slaves and my own thoughts, and though
of all this thinking hath much wisdom come, and many secrets been made
plain, yet am I weary of my thoughts, and have come to loathe mine own
society, for surely the food that memory gives to eat is bitter to the
taste, and it is only with the teeth of hope that we can bear to bite
it. Now, though thy thoughts are green and tender, as becometh one so
young, yet are they those of a thinking brain, and in truth thou dost
bring back to my mind certain of those old philosophers with whom in
days bygone I have disputed at Athens, and at Becca in Arabia, for thou
hast the same crabbed air and dusty look, as though thou hadst passed
thy days in reading ill-writ Greek, and been stained dark with the grime
of manuscripts. So draw the curtain, and sit here by my side, and we
will eat fruit, and talk of pleasant things. See, I will again unveil
to thee. Thou hast brought it on thyself, oh Holly; fairly have I warned
thee--and thou shalt call me beautiful as even those old philosophers
were wont to do. Fie upon them, forgetting their philosophy!"

And without more ado she stood up and shook the white wrappings from
her, and came forth shining and splendid like some glittering snake when
she has cast her slough; ay, and fixed her wonderful eyes upon me--more
deadly than any Basilisk's--and pierced me through and through with
their beauty, and sent her light laugh ringing through the air like
chimes of silver bells.

A new mood was on her, and the very colour of her mind seemed to change
beneath it. It was no longer torture-torn and hateful, as I had seen
it when she was cursing her dead rival by the leaping flames, no longer
icily terrible as in the judgment-hall, no longer rich, and sombre, and
splendid, like a Tyrian cloth, as in the dwellings of the dead. No, her
mood now was that of Aphrodite triumphing. Life--radiant, ecstatic,
wonderful--seemed to flow from her and around her. Softly she laughed
and sighed, and swift her glances flew. She shook her heavy tresses,
and their perfume filled the place; she struck her little sandalled foot
upon the floor, and hummed a snatch of some old Greek epithalamium. All
the majesty was gone, or did but lurk and faintly flicker through her
laughing eyes, like lightning seen through sunlight. She had cast off
the terror of the leaping flame, the cold power of judgment that was
even now being done, and the wise sadness of the tombs--cast them off
and put them behind her, like the white shroud she wore, and now stood
out the incarnation of lovely tempting womanhood, made more perfect--and
in a way more spiritual--than ever woman was before.

"So, my Holly, sit there where thou canst see me. It is by thine own
wish, remember--again I say, blame me not if thou dost wear away thy
little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou wouldst fain
have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon me. There, sit so,
and tell me, for in truth I am inclined for praises--tell me, am I not
beautiful? Nay, speak not so hastily; consider well the point; take me
feature by feature, forgetting not my form, and my hands and feet, and
my hair, and the whiteness of my skin, and then tell me truly, hast
thou ever known a woman who in aught, ay, in one little portion of
her beauty, in the curve of an eyelash even, or the modelling of a
shell-like ear, is justified to hold a light before my loveliness? Now,
my waist! Perchance thou thinkest it too large, but of a truth it is not
so; it is this golden snake that is too large, and doth not bind it as
it should. It is a wide snake, and knoweth that it is ill to tie in
the waist. But see, give me thy hands--so--now press them round me, and
there, with but a little force, thy fingers touch, oh Holly."

I could bear it no longer. I am but a man, and she was more than a
woman. Heaven knows what she was--I do not! But then and there I
fell upon my knees before her, and told her in a sad mixture of
languages--for such moments confuse the thoughts--that I worshipped her
as never woman was worshipped, and that I would give my immortal soul
to marry her, which at that time I certainly would have done, and so,
indeed, would any other man, or all the race of men rolled into one. For
a moment she looked surprised, and then she began to laugh, and clap her
hands in glee.

"Oh, so soon, oh Holly!" she said. "I wondered how many minutes it would
need to bring thee to thy knees. I have not seen a man kneel before
me for so many days, and, believe me, to a woman's heart the sight is
sweet, ay, wisdom and length of days take not from that dear pleasure
which is our sex's only right.

"What wouldst thou?--what wouldst thou? Thou dost not know what thou
doest. Have I not told thee that I am not for thee? I love but one, and
thou art not the man. Ah Holly, for all thy wisdom--and in a way thou
art wise--thou art but a fool running after folly. Thou wouldst look
into mine eyes--thou wouldst kiss me! Well, if it pleaseth thee,
_look_," and she bent herself towards me, and fixed her dark and
thrilling orbs upon my own; "ay, and _kiss_ too, if thou wilt, for,
thanks be given to the scheme of things, kisses leave no marks, except
upon the heart. But if thou dost kiss, I tell thee of a surety wilt thou
eat out thy breast with love of me, and die!" and she bent yet further
towards me till her soft hair brushed my brow, and her fragrant breath
played upon my face, and made me faint and weak. Then of a sudden, even
as I stretched out my hands to clasp, she straightened herself, and a
quick change passed over her. Reaching out her hand, she held it over my
head, and it seemed to me that something flowed from it that chilled
me back to common sense, and a knowledge of propriety and the domestic
virtues.

"Enough of this wanton folly," she said with a touch of sternness.
"Listen, Holly. Thou art a good and honest man, and I fain would spare
thee; but, oh! it is so hard for woman to be merciful. I have said I am
not for thee, therefore let thy thoughts pass by me like an idle wind,
and the dust of thy imagination sink again into the depths--well, of
despair, if thou wilt. Thou dost not know me, Holly. Hadst thou seen me
but ten hours past when my passion seized me, thou hadst shrunk from me
in fear and trembling. I am of many moods, and, like the water in that
vessel, I reflect many things; but they pass, my Holly; they pass, and
are forgotten. Only the water is the water still, and I still am I, and
that which maketh the water maketh it, and that which maketh me maketh
me, nor can my quality be altered. Therefore, pay no heed to what I
seem, seeing that thou canst not know what I am. If thou troublest me
again I will veil myself, and thou shalt behold my face no more."

I rose, and sank on the cushioned couch beside her, yet quivering with
emotion, though for a moment my mad passion had left me, as the leaves
of a tree quiver still, although the gust be gone that stirred them. I
did not dare to tell her that I _had_ seen her in that deep and hellish
mood, muttering incantations to the fire in the tomb.

"So," she went on, "now eat some fruit; believe me, it is the only true
food for man. Oh, tell me of the philosophy of that Hebrew Messiah, who
came after me, and who thou sayest doth now rule Rome, and Greece, and
Egypt, and the barbarians beyond. It must have been a strange philosophy
that He taught, for in my day the peoples would have naught of our
philosophies. Revel and lust and drink, blood and cold steel, and the
shock of men gathered in the battle--these were the canons of their
creeds."

I had recovered myself a little by now, and, feeling bitterly ashamed of
the weakness into which I had been betrayed, I did my best to expound
to her the doctrines of Christianity, to which, however, with the single
exception of our conception of Heaven and Hell, I found that she paid
but scant attention, her interest being all directed towards the Man
who taught them. Also I told her that among her own people, the Arabs,
another prophet, one Mohammed, had arisen and preached a new faith, to
which many millions of mankind now adhered.

"Ah!" she said; "I see--two new religions! I have known so many, and
doubtless there have been many more since I knew aught beyond these
caves of Kor. Mankind asks ever of the skies to vision out what
lies behind them. It is terror for the end, and but a subtler form of
selfishness--this it is that breeds religions. Mark, my Holly, each
religion claims the future for its followers; or, at least, the good
thereof. The evil is for those benighted ones who will have none of
it; seeing the light the true believers worship, as the fishes see the
stars, but dimly. The religions come and the religions pass, and the
civilisations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human
nature. Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from
without--that he himself must work out his own salvation! He is there,
and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good and evil as
good and evil is to him. Thereon let him build and stand erect, and not
cast himself before the image of some unknown God, modelled like his
poor self, but with a bigger brain to think the evil thing, and a longer
arm to do it."

I thought to myself, which shows how old such reasoning is, being,
indeed, one of the recurring qualities of theological discussion, that
her argument sounded very like some that I have heard in the nineteenth
century, and in other places than the caves of Kor, and with which, by
the way, I totally disagree, but I did not care to try and discuss the
question with her. To begin with, my mind was too weary with all the
emotions through which I had passed, and, in the second place, I knew
that I should get the worst of it. It is weary work enough to argue
with an ordinary materialist, who hurls statistics and whole strata
of geological facts at your head, whilst you can only buffet him with
deductions and instincts and the snowflakes of faith, that are, alas! so
apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles. How little chance, then,
should I have against one whose brain was supernaturally sharpened,
and who had two thousand years of experience, besides all manner of
knowledge of the secrets of Nature at her command! Feeling that she
would be more likely to convert me than I should to convert her, I
thought it best to leave the matter alone, and so sat silent. Many a
time since then have I bitterly regretted that I did so, for thereby I
lost the only opportunity I can remember having had of ascertaining what
Ayesha _really_ believed, and what her "philosophy" was.

"Well, my Holly," she continued, "and so those people of mine have found
a prophet, a false prophet thou sayest, for he is not thine own, and,
indeed, I doubt it not. Yet in my day was it otherwise, for then we
Arabs had many gods. Allat there was, and Saba, the Host of Heaven, Al
Uzza, and Manah the stony one, for whom the blood of victims flowed,
and Wadd and Sawa, and Yaghuth the Lion of the dwellers in Yaman, and
Yaeuk the Horse of Morad, and Nasr the Eagle of Hamyar; ay, and many
more. Oh, the folly of it all, the shame and the pitiful folly! Yet when
I rose in wisdom and spoke thereof, surely they would have slain me in
the name of their outraged gods. Well, so hath it ever been;--but, my
Holly, art thou weary of me already, that thou dost sit so silent? Or
dost thou fear lest I should teach thee my philosophy?--for know I have
a philosophy. What would a teacher be without her own philosophy? and
if thou dost vex me overmuch beware! for I will have thee learn it, and
thou shalt be my disciple, and we twain will found a faith that shall
swallow up all others. Faithless man! And but half an hour since thou
wast upon thy knees--the posture does not suit thee, Holly--swearing
that thou didst love me. What shall we do?--Nay, I have it. I will come
and see this youth, the Lion, as the old man Billali calls him, who came
with thee, and who is so sick. The fever must have run its course by
now, and if he is about to die I will recover him. Fear not, my Holly, I
shall use no magic. Have I not told thee that there is no such thing as
magic, though there is such a thing as understanding and applying the
forces which are in Nature? Go now, and presently, when I have made the
drug ready, I will follow thee."[*]

     [*] Ayesha was a great chemist, indeed chemistry appears to
     have been her only amusement and occupation. She had one of
     the caves fitted up as a laboratory, and, although her
     appliances were necessarily rude, the results that she
     attained were, as will become clear in the course of this
     narrative, sufficiently surprising.--L. H. H.

Accordingly I went, only to find Job and Ustane in a great state of
grief, declaring that Leo was in the throes of death, and that they had
been searching for me everywhere. I rushed to the couch, and glanced at
him: clearly he was dying. He was senseless, and breathing heavily, but
his lips were quivering, and every now and again a little shudder ran
down his frame. I knew enough of doctoring to see that in another hour
he would be beyond the reach of earthly help--perhaps in another five
minutes. How I cursed my selfishness and the folly that had kept me
lingering by Ayesha's side while my dear boy lay dying! Alas and alas!
how easily the best of us are lighted down to evil by the gleam of
a woman's eyes! What a wicked wretch was I! Actually, for the last
half-hour I had scarcely thought of Leo, and this, be it remembered,
of the man who for twenty years had been my dearest companion, and the
chief interest of my existence. And now, perhaps, it was too late!

I wrung my hands, and glanced round. Ustane was sitting by the couch,
and in her eyes burnt the dull light of despair. Job was blubbering--I
am sorry I cannot name his distress by any more delicate word--audibly
in the corner. Seeing my eye fixed upon him, he went outside to give way
to his grief in the passage. Obviously the only hope lay in Ayesha. She,
and she alone--unless, indeed, she was an imposter, which I could
not believe--could save him. I would go and implore her to come. As
I started to do so, however, Job came flying into the room, his hair
literally standing on end with terror.

"Oh, God help us, sir!" he ejaculated in a frightened whisper, "here's a
corpse a-coming sliding down the passage!"

For a moment I was puzzled, but presently, of course, it struck me that
he must have seen Ayesha, wrapped in her grave-like garment, and been
deceived by the extraordinary undulating smoothness of her walk into a
belief that she was a white ghost gliding towards him. Indeed, at that
very moment the question was settled, for Ayesha herself was in the
apartment, or rather cave. Job turned, and saw her sheeted form, and
then, with a convulsive howl of "Here it comes!" sprang into a corner,
and jammed his face against the wall, and Ustane, guessing whose the
dread presence must be, prostrated herself upon her face.

"Thou comest in a good time, Ayesha," I said, "for my boy lies at the
point of death."

"So," she said softly; "provided he be not dead, it is no matter, for I
can bring him back to life, my Holly. Is that man there thy servant,
and is that the method wherewith thy servants greet strangers in thy
country?"

"He is frightened of thy garb--it hath a death-like air," I answered.

She laughed.

"And the girl? Ah, I see now. It is she of whom thou didst speak to me.
Well, bid them both to leave us, and we will see to this sick Lion of
thine. I love not that underlings should perceive my wisdom."

Thereon I told Ustane in Arabic and Job in English both to leave the
room; an order which the latter obeyed readily enough, and was glad to
obey, for he could not in any way subdue his fear. But it was otherwise
with Ustane.

"What does _She_ want?" she whispered, divided between her fear of the
terrible Queen and her anxiety to remain near Leo. "It is surely the
right of a wife to be near her husband when he dieth. Nay, I will not
go, my lord the Baboon."

"Why doth not that woman leave us, my Holly?" asked Ayesha from the
other end of the cave, where she was engaged in carelessly examining
some of the sculptures on the wall.

"She is not willing to leave Leo," I answered, not knowing what to say.
Ayesha wheeled round, and, pointing to the girl Ustane, said one word,
and one only, but it was quite enough, for the tone in which it was said
meant volumes.

"Go!"

And then Ustane crept past her on her hands and knees, and went.

"Thou seest, my Holly," said Ayesha, with a little laugh, "it was
needful that I should give these people a lesson in obedience. That girl
went nigh to disobeying me, but then she did not learn this morn how
I treat the disobedient. Well, she has gone; and now let me see the
youth," and she glided towards the couch on which Leo lay, with his face
in the shadow and turned towards the wall.

"He hath a noble shape," she said, as she bent over him to look upon his
face.

Next second her tall and willowy form was staggering back across the
room, as though she had been shot or stabbed, staggering back till at
last she struck the cavern wall, and then there burst from her lips the
most awful and unearthly scream that I ever heard in all my life.

"What is it, Ayesha?" I cried. "Is he dead?"

She turned, and sprang towards me like a tigress.

"Thou dog!" she said, in her terrible whisper, which sounded like the
hiss of a snake, "why didst thou hide this from me?" And she stretched
out her arm, and I thought that she was about to slay me.

"What?" I ejaculated, in the most lively terror; "what?"

"Ah!" she said, "perchance thou didst not know. Learn, my Holly, learn:
there lies--there lies my lost Kallikrates. Kallikrates, who has come
back to me at last, as I knew he would, as I knew he would;" and she
began to sob and to laugh, and generally to conduct herself like any
other lady who is a little upset, murmuring "Kallikrates, Kallikrates!"

"Nonsense," thought I to myself, but I did not like to say it; and,
indeed, at that moment I was thinking of Leo's life, having forgotten
everything else in that terrible anxiety. What I feared now was that he
should die while she was "carrying on."

"Unless thou art able to help him, Ayesha," I put in, by way of a
reminder, "thy Kallikrates will soon be far beyond thy calling. Surely
he dieth even now."

"True," she said, with a start. "Oh, why did I not come before! I am
unnerved--my hand trembles, even mine--and yet it is very easy. Here,
thou Holly, take this phial," and she produced a tiny jar of pottery
from the folds of her garment, "and pour the liquid in it down his
throat. It will cure him if he be not dead. Swift, now! Swift! The man
dies!"

I glanced towards him; it was true enough, Leo was in his
death-struggle. I saw his poor face turning ashen, and heard the breath
begin to rattle in his throat. The phial was stoppered with a little
piece of wood. I drew it with my teeth, and a drop of the fluid within
flew out upon my tongue. It had a sweet flavour, and for a second made
my head swim, and a mist gather before my eyes, but happily the effect
passed away as swiftly as it had arisen.

When I reached Leo's side he was plainly expiring--his golden head was
slowly turning from side to side, and his mouth was slightly open. I
called to Ayesha to hold his head, and this she managed to do, though
the woman was quivering from head to foot, like an aspen-leaf or a
startled horse. Then, forcing the jaw a little more open, I poured the
contents of the phial into his mouth. Instantly a little vapour arose
from it, as happens when one disturbs nitric acid, and this sight did
not increase my hopes, already faint enough, of the efficacy of the
treatment.

One thing, however, was certain, the death throes ceased--at first I
thought because he had got beyond them, and crossed the awful river.
His face turned to a livid pallor, and his heart-beats, which had been
feeble enough before, seemed to die away altogether--only the eyelid
still twitched a little. In my doubt I looked up at Ayesha, whose
head-wrapping had slipped back in her excitement when she went reeling
across the room. She was still holding Leo's head, and, with a face as
pale as his own, watching his countenance with such an expression of
agonised anxiety as I had never seen before. Clearly she did not know if
he would live or die. Five minutes slowly passed and I saw that she was
abandoning hope; her lovely oval face seemed to fall in and grow visibly
thinner beneath the pressure of a mental agony whose pencil drew black
lines about the hollows of her eyes. The coral faded even from her lips,
till they were as white as Leo's face, and quivered pitifully. It was
shocking to see her: even in my own grief I felt for hers.

"Is it too late?" I gasped.

She hid her face in her hands, and made no answer, and I too turned
away. But as I did so I heard a deep-drawn breath, and looking down
perceived a line of colour creeping up Leo's face, then another and
another, and then, wonder of wonders, the man we had thought dead turned
over on his side.

"Thou seest," I said in a whisper.

"I see," she answered hoarsely. "He is saved. I thought we were too
late--another moment--one little moment more--and he had been gone!"
and she burst into an awful flood of tears, sobbing as though her heart
would break, and yet looking lovelier than ever as she did it. As last
she ceased.

"Forgive me, my Holly--forgive me for my weakness," she said. "Thou
seest after all I am a very woman. Think--now think of it! This morning
didst thou speak of the place of torment appointed by this new religion
of thine. Hell or Hades thou didst call it--a place where the vital
essence lives and retains an individual memory, and where all the errors
and faults of judgment, and unsatisfied passions and the unsubstantial
terrors of the mind wherewith it hath at any time had to do, come to
mock and haunt and gibe and wring the heart for ever and for ever with
the vision of its own hopelessness. Thus, even thus, have I lived for
full two thousand years--for some six and sixty generations, as ye
reckon time--in a Hell, as thou callest it--tormented by the memory of
a crime, tortured day and night with an unfulfilled desire--without
companionship, without comfort, without death, and led on only down my
dreary road by the marsh lights of Hope, which, though they flickered
here and there, and now glowed strong, and now were not, yet, as my
skill told me, would one day lead unto my deliverer.

"And then--think of it still, oh Holly, for never shalt thou hear such
another tale, or see such another scene, nay, not even if I give thee
ten thousand years of life--and thou shalt have it in payment if thou
wilt--think: at last my deliverer came--he for whom I had watched and
waited through the generations--at the appointed time he came to seek
me, as I knew that he must come, for my wisdom could not err, though
I knew not when or how. Yet see how ignorant I was! See how small my
knowledge, and how faint my strength! For hours he lay there sick unto
death, and I felt it not--I who had waited for him for two thousand
years--I knew it not. And then at last I see him, and behold, my chance
is gone but by a hair's breadth even before I have it, for he is in the
very jaws of death, whence no power of mine can draw him. And if he die,
surely must the Hell be lived through once more--once more must I face
the weary centuries, and wait, and wait till the time in its fulness
shall bring my Beloved back to me. And then thou gavest him the
medicine, and that five minutes dragged long before I knew if he would
live or die, and I tell thee that all the sixty generations that are
gone were not so long as that five minutes. But they passed at length,
and still he showed no sign, and I knew that if the drug works not then,
so far as I have had knowledge, it works not at all. Then thought I that
he was once more dead, and all the tortures of all the years gathered
themselves into a single venomed spear, and pierced me through and
through, because again I had lost Kallikrates! And then, when all was
done, behold! he sighed, behold! he lived, and I knew that he would
live, for none die on whom the drug takes hold. Think of it now, my
Holly--think of the wonder of it! He will sleep for twelve hours and
then the fever will have left him!"

She stopped, and laid her hand upon his golden head, and then bent down
and kissed his brow with a chastened abandonment of tenderness that
would have been beautiful to behold had not the sight cut me to the
heart--for I was jealous!



XVIII

"GO, WOMAN!"

Then followed a silence of a minute or so, during which _She_ appeared,
if one might judge from the almost angelic rapture of her face--for she
looked angelic sometimes--to be plunged into a happy ecstasy. Suddenly,
however, a new thought struck her, and her expression became the very
reverse of angelic.

"Almost had I forgotten," she said, "that woman, Ustane. What is she
to Kallikrates--his servant, or----" and she paused, and her voice
trembled.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I understand that she is wed to him according
to the custom of the Amahagger," I answered; "but I know not."

Her face grew dark as a thunder-cloud. Old as she was, Ayesha had not
outlived jealousy.

"Then there is an end," she said; "she must die, even now!"

"For what crime?" I asked, horrified. "She is guilty of naught that thou
art not guilty of thyself, oh Ayesha. She loves the man, and he has been
pleased to accept her love: where, then, is her sin?"

"Truly, oh Holly, thou art foolish," she answered, almost petulantly.
"Where is her sin? Her sin is that she stands between me and my desire.
Well, I know that I can take him from her--for dwells there a man upon
this earth, oh Holly, who could resist me if I put out my strength?
Men are faithful for so long only as temptations pass them by. If the
temptation be but strong enough, then will the man yield, for every man,
like every rope, hath his breaking strain, and passion is to men what
gold and power are to women--the weight upon their weakness. Believe me,
ill will it go with mortal woman in that heaven of which thou speakest,
if only the spirits be more fair, for their lords will never turn to
look upon them, and their Heaven will become their Hell. For man can be
bought with woman's beauty, if it be but beautiful enough; and woman's
beauty can be ever bought with gold, if only there be gold enough. So
was it in my day, and so it will be to the end of time. The world is a
great mart, my Holly, where all things are for sale to whom who bids the
highest in the currency of our desires."

These remarks, which were as cynical as might have been expected from
a woman of Ayesha's age and experience, jarred upon me, and I answered,
testily, that in our heaven there was no marriage or giving in marriage.

"Else would it not be heaven, dost thou mean?" she put in. "Fie on thee,
Holly, to think so ill of us poor women! Is it, then, marriage that
marks the line between thy heaven and thy hell? but enough of this. This
is no time for disputing and the challenge of our wits. Why dost thou
always dispute? Art thou also a philosopher of these latter days? As
for this woman, she must die; for, though I can take her lover from her,
yet, while she lived, might he think tenderly of her, and that I cannot
away with. No other woman shall dwell in my Lord's thoughts; my empire
shall be all my own. She hath had her day, let her be content; for
better is an hour with love than a century of loneliness--now the night
shall swallow her."

"Nay, nay," I cried, "it would be a wicked crime; and from a crime
naught comes but what is evil. For thine own sake, do not this deed."

"Is it, then, a crime, oh foolish man, to put away that which stands
between us and our ends? Then is our life one long crime, my Holly,
since day by day we destroy that we may live, since in this world none
save the strongest can endure. Those who are weak must perish; the earth
is to the strong, and the fruits thereof. For every tree that grows a
score shall wither, that the strong one may take their share. We run to
place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we
win the food we eat from out of the mouths of starving babes. It is
the scheme of things. Thou sayest, too, that a crime breeds evil, but
therein thou dost lack experience; for out of crimes come many good
things, and out of good grows much evil. The cruel rage of the tyrant
may prove a blessing to the thousands who come after him, and the
sweetheartedness of a holy man may make a nation slaves. Man doeth this,
and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knoweth not
to what end his moral sense doth prompt him; for when he striketh he is
blind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count the airy threads
that weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, night
and day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earth
beneath--all these things are necessary, one to the other, and who knows
the end of each? I tell thee that there is a hand of fate that twines
them up to bear the burden of its purpose, and all things are gathered
in that great rope to which all things are needful. Therefore doth it
not become us to say this thing is evil and this good, or the dark is
hateful and the light lovely; for to other eyes than ours the evil may
be the good and the darkness more beautiful than the day, or all alike
be fair. Hearest thou, my Holly?"

I felt it was hopeless to argue against casuistry of this nature, which,
if it were carried to its logical conclusion, would absolutely destroy
all morality, as we understand it. But her talk gave me a fresh thrill
of fear; for what may not be possible to a being who, unconstrained by
human law, is also absolutely unshackled by a moral sense of right and
wrong, which, however partial and conventional it may be, is yet
based, as our conscience tells us, upon the great wall of individual
responsibility that marks off mankind from the beasts?

But I was deeply anxious to save Ustane, whom I liked and respected,
from the dire fate that overshadowed her at the hands of her mighty
rival. So I made one more appeal.

"Ayesha," I said, "thou art too subtle for me; but thou thyself hast
told me that each man should be a law unto himself, and follow the
teaching of his heart. Hath thy heart no mercy towards her whose place
thou wouldst take? Bethink thee--as thou sayest--though to me the thing
is incredible--he whom thou desirest has returned to thee after many
ages, and but now thou hast, as thou sayest also, wrung him from the
jaws of death. Wilt thou celebrate his coming by the murder of one who
loved him, and whom perchance he loved--one, at the least, who saved
his life for thee when the spears of thy slaves would have made an end
thereof? Thou sayest also that in past days thou didst grievously wrong
this man, that with thine own hand thou didst slay him because of the
Egyptian Amenartas whom he loved."

"How knowest thou that, oh stranger? How knowest thou that name? I spoke
it not to thee," she broke in with a cry, catching at my arm.

"Perchance I dreamed it," I answered; "strange dreams do hover about
these caves of Kor. It seems that the dream was, indeed, a shadow of
the truth. What came to thee of thy mad crime?--two thousand years of
waiting, was it not? And now wouldst thou repeat the history? Say what
thou wilt, I tell thee that evil will come of it; for to him who doeth,
at the least, good breeds good and evil evil, even though in after days
out of evil cometh good. Offences must needs come; but woe to him by
whom the offence cometh. So said that Messiah of whom I spoke to thee,
and it was truly said. If thou slayest this innocent woman, I say unto
thee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit from thine ancient
tree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will this man take thee
red-handed from the slaughter of her who loved and tended him?"

"As to that," she answered, "I have already answered thee. Had I slain
thee as well as her, yet should he love me, Holly, because he could not
save himself from therefrom any more than thou couldst save thyself from
dying, if by chance I slew thee, oh Holly. And yet maybe there is truth
in what thou dost say; for in some way it presseth on my mind. If it
may be, I will spare this woman; for have I not told thee that I am not
cruel for the sake of cruelty? I love not to see suffering, or to cause
it. Let her come before me--quick now, before my mood changes," and she
hastily covered her face with its gauzy wrapping.

Well pleased to have succeeded even to this extent, I passed out into
the passage and called to Ustane, whose white garment I caught sight of
some yards away, huddled up against one of the earthenware lamps that
were placed at intervals along the tunnel. She rose, and ran towards me.

"Is my lord dead? Oh, say not he is dead," she cried, lifting her
noble-looking face, all stained as it was with tears, up to me with an
air of infinite beseeching that went straight to my heart.

"Nay, he lives," I answered. "_She_ hath saved him. Enter."

She sighed deeply, entered, and fell upon her hands and knees, after the
custom of the Amahagger people, in the presence of the dread _She_.

"Stand," said Ayesha, in her coldest voice, "and come hither."

Ustane obeyed, standing before her with bowed head.

Then came a pause, which Ayesha broke.

"Who is this man?" she said, pointing to the sleeping form of Leo.

"The man is my husband," she answered in a low voice.

"Who gave him to thee for a husband?"

"I took him according to the custom of our country, oh _She_."

"Thou hast done evil, woman, in taking this man, who is a stranger. He
is not a man of thine own race, and the custom fails. Listen: perchance
thou didst this thing through ignorance, therefore, woman, do I spare
thee, otherwise hadst thou died. Listen again. Go from hence back to
thine own place, and never dare to speak to or set thine eyes upon this
man again. He is not for thee. Listen a third time. If thou breakest
this my law, that moment thou diest. Go."

But Ustane did not move.

"Go, woman!"

Then she looked up, and I saw that her face was torn with passion.

"Nay, oh _She_. I will not go," she answered in a choked voice: "the
man is my husband, and I love him--I love him, and I will not leave him.
What right hast thou to command me to leave my husband?"

I saw a little quiver pass down Ayesha's frame, and shuddered myself,
fearing the worst.

"Be pitiful," I said in Latin; "it is but Nature working."

"I am pitiful," she answered coldly in the same language; "had I not
been pitiful she had been dead even now." Then, addressing Ustane:
"Woman, I say to thee, go before I destroy thee where thou art!"

"I will not go! He is mine--mine!" she cried in anguish. "I took him,
and I saved his life! Destroy me, then, if thou hast the power! I will
not give thee my husband--never--never!"

Ayesha made a movement so swift that I could scarcely follow it, but it
seemed to me that she lightly struck the poor girl upon the head with
her hand. I looked at Ustane, and then staggered back in horror, for
there upon her hair, right across her bronze-like tresses, were three
finger-marks _white as snow_. As for the girl herself, she had put her
hands to her head, and was looking dazed.

"Great heavens!" I said, perfectly aghast at this dreadful manifestation
of human power; but _She_ did but laugh a little.

"Thou thinkest, poor ignorant fool," she said to the bewildered woman,
"that I have not the power to slay. Stay, there lies a mirror," and she
pointed to Leo's round shaving-glass that had been arranged by Job with
other things upon his portmanteau; "give it to this woman, my Holly, and
let her see that which lies across her hair, and whether or no I have
power to slay."

I picked up the glass, and held it before Ustane's eyes. She gazed, then
felt at her hair, then gazed again, and then sank upon the ground with a
sort of sob.

"Now, wilt thou go, or must I strike a second time?" asked Ayesha, in
mockery. "Look, I have set my seal upon thee so that I may know thee
till thy hair is all as white as it. If I see thy face again, be sure,
too, that thy bones shall soon be whiter than my mark upon thy hair."

Utterly awed and broken down, the poor creature rose, and, marked with
that awful mark, crept from the room, sobbing bitterly.

"Look not so frighted, my Holly," said Ayesha, when she had gone. "I
tell thee I deal not in magic--there is no such thing. 'Tis only a force
that thou dost not understand. I marked her to strike terror to her
heart, else must I have slain her. And now I will bid my servants to
bear my Lord Kallikrates to a chamber near mine own, that I may watch
over him, and be ready to greet him when he wakes; and thither, too,
shalt thou come, my Holly, and the white man, thy servant. But one thing
remember at thy peril. Naught shalt thou say to Kallikrates as to how
this woman went, and as little as may be of me. Now, I have warned
thee!" and she slid away to give her orders, leaving me more absolutely
confounded than ever. Indeed, so bewildered was I, and racked and torn
with such a succession of various emotions, that I began to think that
I must be going mad. However, perhaps fortunately, I had but little time
to reflect, for presently the mutes arrived to carry the sleeping Leo
and our possessions across the central cave, so for a while all was
bustle. Our new rooms were situated immediately behind what we used to
call Ayesha's boudoir--the curtained space where I had first seen her.
Where she herself slept I did not then know, but it was somewhere quite
close.

That night I passed in Leo's room, but he slept through it like the
dead, never once stirring. I also slept fairly well, as, indeed, I
needed to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all the horrors
and wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was haunted by that
frightful piece of _diablerie_ by which Ayesha left her finger-marks
upon her rival's hair. There was something so terrible about her swift,
snake-like movement, and the instantaneous blanching of that threefold
line, that, if the results to Ustane had been much more tremendous, I
doubt if they would have impressed me so deeply. To this day I often
dream of that awful scene, and see the weeping woman, bereaved, and
marked like Cain, cast a last look at her lover, and creep from the
presence of her dread Queen.

Another dream that troubled me originated in the huge pyramid of bones.
I dreamed that they all stood up and marched past me in thousands
and tens of thousands--in squadrons, companies, and armies--with the
sunlight shining through their hollow ribs. On they rushed across the
plain to Kor, their imperial home; I saw the drawbridges fall before
them, and heard their bones clank through the brazen gates. On they
went, up the splendid streets, on past fountains, palaces, and temples
such as the eye of man never saw. But there was no man to greet them in
the market-place, and no woman's face appeared at the windows--only
a bodiless voice went before them, calling: "_Fallen is Imperial
Kor!--fallen!--fallen! fallen!_" On, right through the city, marched
those gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of their bony tread echoed
through the silent air as they pressed grimly on. They passed through
the city and clomb the wall, and marched along the great roadway that
was made upon the wall, till at length they once more reached the
drawbridge. Then, as the sun was sinking, they returned again towards
their sepulchre, and luridly his light shone in the sockets of their
empty eyes, throwing gigantic shadows of their bones, that stretched
away, and crept and crept like huge spiders' legs as their armies wound
across the plain. Then they came to the cave, and once more one by one
flung themselves in unending files through the hole into the pit of
bones, and I awoke, shuddering, to see _She_, who had evidently been
standing between my couch and Leo's, glide like a shadow from the room.

After this I slept again, soundly this time, till morning, when I
awoke much refreshed, and got up. At last the hour drew near at which,
according to Ayesha, Leo was to awake, and with it came _She_ herself,
as usual, veiled.

"Thou shalt see, oh Holly," she said; "presently shall he awake in his
right mind, the fever having left him."

Hardly were the words out of her mouth, when Leo turned round and
stretched out his arms, yawned, opened his eyes, and, perceiving a
female form bending over him, threw his arms round her and kissed her,
mistaking her, perhaps, for Ustane. At any rate, he said, in Arabic,
"Hullo, Ustane, why have you tied your head up like that? Have you got
the toothache?" and then, in English, "I say, I'm awfully hungry. Why,
Job, you old son of a gun, where the deuce have we got to now--eh?"

"I am sure I wish I knew, Mr. Leo," said Job, edging suspiciously past
Ayesha, whom he still regarded with the utmost disgust and horror, being
by no means sure that she was not an animated corpse; "but you mustn't
talk, Mr. Leo, you've been very ill, and given us a great deal of
hanxiety, and, if this lady," looking at Ayesha, "would be so kind as to
move, I'll bring you your soup."

This turned Leo's attention to the "lady," who was standing by in
perfect silence. "Hullo!" he said; "that is not Ustane--where is
Ustane?"

Then, for the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first words were
a lie. "She has gone from hence upon a visit," she said; "and, behold,
in her place am I here as thine handmaiden."

Ayesha's silver notes seemed to puzzle Leo's half-awakened intellect,
as also did her corpse-like wrappings. However, he said nothing at the
time, but drank off his soup greedily enough, and then turned over and
slept again till the evening. When he woke for the second time he saw
me, and began to question me as to what had happened, but I had to
put him off as best I could till the morrow, when he awoke almost
miraculously better. Then I told him something of his illness and of my
doings, but as Ayesha was present I could not tell him much except that
she was the Queen of the country, and well disposed towards us, and
that it was her pleasure to go veiled; for, though of course I spoke in
English, I was afraid that she might understand what we were saying from
the expression of our faces, and besides, I remembered her warning.

On the following day Leo got up almost entirely recovered. The flesh
wound in his side was healed, and his constitution, naturally a vigorous
one, had shaken off the exhaustion consequent on his terrible fever with
a rapidity that I can only attribute to the effects of the wonderful
drug which Ayesha had given to him, and also to the fact that his
illness had been too short to reduce him very much. With his returning
health came back full recollection of all his adventures up to the time
when he had lost consciousness in the marsh, and of course of Ustane
also, to whom I had discovered he had grown considerably attached.
Indeed, he overwhelmed me with questions about the poor girl, which I
did not dare to answer, for after Leo's first awakening _She_ had sent
for me, and again warned me solemnly that I was to reveal nothing of the
story to him, delicately hinting that if I did it would be the worse for
me. She also, for the second time, cautioned me not to tell Leo anything
more than I was obliged about herself, saying that she would reveal
herself to him in her own time.

Indeed, her whole manner changed. After all that I had seen I had
expected that she would take the earliest opportunity of claiming the
man she believed to be her old-world lover, but this, for some reason of
her own, which was at the time quite inscrutable to me, she did not do.
All that she did was to attend to his wants quietly, and with a humility
which was in striking contrast with her former imperious bearing,
addressing him always in a tone of something very like respect, and
keeping him with her as much as possible. Of course his curiosity was as
much excited about this mysterious woman as my own had been, and he was
particularly anxious to see her face, which I had, without entering
into particulars, told him was as lovely as her form and voice. This
in itself was enough to raise the expectations of any young man to a
dangerous pitch, and, had it not been that he had not as yet completely
shaken off the effects of illness, and was much troubled in his mind
about Ustane, of whose affection and brave devotion he spoke in touching
terms, I have no doubt that he would have entered into her plans, and
fallen in love with her by anticipation. As it was, however, he was
simply wildly curious, and also, like myself, considerably awed, for,
though no hint had been given to him by Ayesha of her extraordinary age,
he not unnaturally came to identify her with the woman spoken of on
the potsherd. At last, quite driven into a corner by his continual
questions, which he showered on me while he was dressing on this third
morning, I referred him to Ayesha, saying, with perfect truth, that I
did not know where Ustane was. Accordingly, after Leo had eaten a hearty
breakfast, we adjourned into _She's_ presence, for her mutes had orders
to admit us at all hours.

She was, as usual, seated in what, for want of a better term, we called
her boudoir, and on the curtains being drawn she rose from her couch
and, stretching out both hands, came forward to greet us, or rather
Leo; for I, as may be imagined, was now quite left in the cold. It was
a pretty sight to see her veiled form gliding towards the sturdy young
Englishman, dressed in his grey flannel suit; for, though he is half a
Greek in blood, Leo is, with the exception of his hair, one of the most
English-looking men I ever saw. He has nothing of the subtle form or
slippery manner of the modern Greek about him, though I presume that
he got his remarkable personal beauty from his foreign mother, whose
portrait he resembles not a little. He is very tall and big-chested, and
yet not awkward, as so many big men are, and his head is set upon him in
such a fashion as to give him a proud and vigorous air, which was well
translated in his Amahagger name of the "Lion."

"Greeting to thee, my young stranger lord," she said in her softest
voice. "Right glad am I to see thee upon thy feet. Believe me, had I not
saved thee at the last, never wouldst thou have stood upon those feet
again. But the danger is done, and it shall be my care"--and she flung a
world of meaning into the words--"that it doth return no more."

Leo bowed to her, and then, in his best Arabic, thanked her for all her
kindness and courtesy in caring for one unknown to her.

"Nay," she answered softly, "ill could the world spare such a man.
Beauty is too rare upon it. Give me no thanks, who am made happy by thy
coming."

"Humph! old fellow," said Leo aside to me in English, "the lady is very
civil. We seem to have tumbled into clover. I hope that you have made
the most of your opportunities. By Jove! what a pair of arms she has
got!"

I nudged him in the ribs to make him keep quiet, for I caught sight of a
gleam from Ayesha's veiled eyes, which were regarding me curiously.

"I trust," went on Ayesha, "that my servants have attended well upon
thee; if there can be comfort in this poor place, be sure it waits on
thee. Is there aught that I can do for thee more?"

"Yes, oh _She_," answered Leo hastily, "I would fain know whither the
young lady who was looking after me has gone to."

"Ah," said Ayesha: "the girl--yes, I saw her. Nay, I know not; she
said that she would go, I know not whither. Perchance she will return,
perchance not. It is wearisome waiting on the sick, and these savage
women are fickle."

Leo looked both sulky and distressed at this intelligence.

"It's very odd," he said to me in English; and then, addressing _She_,
"I cannot understand," he said; "the young lady and I--well--in short,
we had a regard for each other."

Ayesha laughed a little very musically, and then turned the subject.



XIX

"GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!"

The conversation after this was of such a desultory order that I do not
quite recollect it. For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep her
identity and character in reserve, Ayesha did not talk freely, as she
usually did. Presently, however, she informed Leo that she had arranged
a dance that night for our amusement. I was astonished to hear this, as
I fancied that the Amahagger were much too gloomy a folk to indulge
in any such frivolity; but, as will presently more clearly appear,
it turned out that an Amahagger dance has little in common with such
fantastic festivities in other countries, savage or civilised. Then, as
we were about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo might like to see
some of the wonders of the caves, and as he gladly assented thither we
departed, accompanied by Job and Billali. To describe our visit would
only be to repeat a great deal of what I have already said. The tombs
we entered were indeed different, for the whole rock was a honeycomb of
sepulchres,[*] but the contents were nearly always similar. Afterwards
we visited the pyramid of bones that had haunted my dreams on the
previous night, and from thence went down a long passage to one of the
great vaults occupied by the bodies of the poorer citizens of Imperial
Kor. These bodies were not nearly so well preserved as were those of
the wealthier classes. Many of them had no linen covering on them, also
they were buried from five hundred to one thousand in a single large
vault, the corpses in some instances being thickly piled one upon
another, like a heap of slain.

     [*] For a long while it puzzled me to know what could have
     been done with the enormous quantities of rock that must
     have been dug out of these vast caves; but I afterwards
     discovered that it was for the most part built into the
     walls and palaces of Kor, and also used to line the
     reservoirs and sewers.--L. H. H.

Leo was of course intensely interested in this stupendous and unequalled
sight, which was, indeed, enough to awake all the imagination a man
had in him into the most active life. But to poor Job it did not
prove attractive. His nerves--already seriously shaken by what he had
undergone since we had arrived in this terrible country--were, as may
be imagined, still further disturbed by the spectacle of these masses of
departed humanity, whereof the forms still remained perfect before his
eyes, though their voices were for ever lost in the eternal silence of
the tomb. Nor was he comforted when old Billali, by way of soothing
his evident agitation, informed him that he should not be frightened of
these dead things, as he would soon be like them himself.

"There's a nice thing to say of a man, sir," he ejaculated, when I
translated this little remark; "but there, what can one expect of an old
man-eating savage? Not but what I dare say he's right," and Job sighed.

When we had finished inspecting the caves, we returned and had our
meal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all--especially
Leo--needed some food and rest. At six o'clock we, together with Job,
waited on Ayesha, who set to work to terrify our poor servant still
further by showing him pictures on the pool of water in the font-like
vessel. She learnt from me that he was one of seventeen children, and
then bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or as many of them
as he could, gathered together in his father's cottage. Then she told
him to look in the water, and there, reflected from its stilly surface,
was that dead scene of many years gone by, as it was recalled to our
retainer's brain. Some of the faces were clear enough, but some were
mere blurs and splotches, or with one feature grossly exaggerated; the
fact being that, in these instances, Job had been unable to recall
the exact appearances of the individuals, or remembered them only by a
peculiarity of his tribe, and the water could only reflect what he saw
with his mind's eye. For it must be remembered that _She's_ power in
this matter was strictly limited; she could apparently, except in very
rare instances, only photograph upon the water what was actually in the
mind of some one present, and then only by his will. But, if she was
personally acquainted with a locality, she could, as in the case of
ourselves and the whale-boat, throw its reflection upon the water, and
also, it seems, the reflection of anything extraneous that was passing
there at the time. This power, however, did not extend to the minds
of others. For instance, she could show me the interior of my college
chapel, as I remembered it, but not as it was at the moment of
reflection; for, where other people were concerned, her art was strictly
limited to the facts or memories present to _their_ consciousness at the
moment. So much was this so that when we tried, for her amusement, to
show her pictures of noted buildings, such as St. Paul's or the Houses
of Parliament, the result was most imperfect; for, of course, though we
had a good general idea of their appearance, we could not recall all the
architectural details, and therefore the minutiae necessary to a perfect
reflection were wanting. But Job could not be got to understand this,
and, so far from accepting a natural explanation of the matter, which
was after all, though strange enough in all conscience, nothing more
than an instance of glorified and perfected telepathy, he set the whole
thing down as a manifestation of the blackest magic. I shall never
forget the howl of terror which he uttered when he saw the more or less
perfect portraits of his long-scattered brethren staring at him from the
quiet water, or the merry peal of laughter with which Ayesha greeted his
consternation. As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran
his fingers through his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him the
creeps.

After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Job
did _not_ participate, the mutes by signs indicated that Billali was
waiting for an audience. Accordingly he was told to "crawl up," which
he did as awkwardly as usual, and announced that the dance was ready
to begin if _She_ and the white strangers would be pleased to attend.
Shortly afterwards we all rose, and, Ayesha having thrown a dark cloak
(the same, by the way, that she had worn when I saw her cursing by the
fire) over her white wrappings, we started. The dance was to be held in
the open air, on the smooth rocky plateau in front of the great cave,
and thither we made our way. About fifteen paces from the mouth of the
cave we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited, for as
yet no dancers were to be seen. The night was almost, but not quite,
dark, the moon not having risen as yet, which made us wonder how we
should be able to see the dancing.

"Thou wilt presently understand," said Ayesha, with a little laugh, when
Leo asked her; and we certainly did. Scarcely were the words out of her
mouth when from every point we saw dark forms rushing up, each bearing
with him what we at first took to be an enormous flaming torch. Whatever
they were, they were burning furiously, for the flames stood out a
yard or more behind each bearer. On they came, fifty or more of them,
carrying their flaming burdens and looking like so many devils from
hell. Leo was the first to discover what these burdens were.

"Great heaven!" he said, "they are corpses on fire!"

I stared and stared again--he was perfectly right--the torches that were
to light our entertainment were human mummies from the caves!

On rushed the bearers of the flaming corpses, and, meeting at a spot
about twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly burdens crossways
into a huge bonfire. Heavens! how they roared and flared! No tar barrel
could have burnt as those mummies did. Nor was this all. Suddenly I
saw one great fellow seize a flaming human arm that had fallen from its
parent frame, and rush off into the darkness. Presently he stopped, and
a tall streak of fire shot up into the air, illumining the gloom, and
also the lamp from which it sprang. That lamp was the mummy of a woman
tied to a stout stake let into the rock, and he had fired her hair. On
he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth,
till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of
bodies flaring furiously, the material with which they were preserved
having rendered them so inflammable that the flames would literally
spout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more in
length.

Nero illuminated his gardens with live Christians soaked in tar, and
we were now treated to a similar spectacle, probably for the first time
since his day, only happily our lamps were not living ones.

But, although this element of horror was fortunately wanting, to
describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus presented
to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my poor powers that I scarcely
dare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as well as the
physical susceptibilities. There was something very terrible, and yet
very fascinating, about the employment of the remote dead to illumine
the orgies of the living; in itself the thing was a satire, both on the
living and the dead. Caesar's dust--or is it Alexander's?--may stop a
bunghole, but the functions of these dead Caesars of the past was to
light up a savage fetish dance. To such base uses may we come, of so
little account may we be in the minds of the eager multitudes that we
shall breed, many of whom, so far from revering our memory, will live to
curse us for begetting them into such a world of woe.

Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird and
splendid one it was. Those old citizens of Kor burnt as, to judge from
their sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and with
the utmost liberality. What is more, there were plenty of them. As soon
as ever a mummy had burnt down to the ankles, which it did in about
twenty minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another one put in its
place. The bonfire was kept going on the same generous scale, and its
flames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, twenty or thirty feet into
the air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the gloom, through
which the dark forms of the Amahagger flitted to and fro like
devils replenishing the infernal fires. We all stood and stared
aghast--shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle, and half
expecting to see the spirits those flaming forms had once enclosed come
creeping from the shadows to work vengeance on their desecrators.

"I promised thee a strange sight, my Holly," laughed Ayesha, whose
nerves alone did not seem to be affected; "and, behold, I have not
failed thee. Also, it hath its lesson. Trust not to the future, for
who knows what the future may bring! Therefore, live for the day, and
endeavour not to escape the dust which seems to be man's end. What
thinkest thou those long-forgotten nobles and ladies would have felt had
they known that they should one day flare to light the dance or boil the
pot of savages? But see, here come the dancers; a merry crew--are they
not? The stage is lit--now for the play."

As she spoke, we perceived two lines of figures, one male and the other
female, to the number of about a hundred, each advancing round the human
bonfire, arrayed only in the usual leopard and buck skins. They formed
up, in perfect silence, in two lines, facing each other between us
and the fire, and then the dance--a sort of infernal and fiendish
cancan--began. To describe it is quite impossible, but, though there was
a good deal of tossing of legs and double-shuffling, it seemed to our
untutored minds to be more of a play than a dance, and, as usual with
this dreadful people, whose minds seem to have taken their colour from
the caves in which they live, and whose jokes and amusements are drawn
from the inexhaustible stores of preserved mortality with which they
share their homes, the subject appeared to be a most ghastly one. I
know that it represented an attempted murder first of all, and then the
burial alive of the victim and his struggling from the grave; each act
of the abominable drama, which was carried on in perfect silence, being
rounded off and finished with a furious and most revolting dance round
the supposed victim, who writhed upon the ground in the red light of the
bonfire.

Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. Suddenly there
was a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had noted as
one of the most vigorous of the dancers, came, made mad and drunken with
unholy excitement, bounding and staggering towards us, shrieking out as
she came:--

"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat, bring me a Black
Goat!" and down she fell upon the rocky floor foaming and writhing, and
shrieking for a Black Goat, about as hideous a spectacle as can well be
conceived.

Instantly most of the dancers came up and got round her, though some
still continued their capers in the background.

"She has got a Devil," called out one of them. "Run and get a black
goat. There, Devil, keep quiet! keep quiet! You shall have the goat
presently. They have gone to fetch it, Devil."

"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat!" shrieked the foaming
rolling creature again.

"All right, Devil, the goat will be here presently; keep quiet, there's
a good Devil!"

And so on till the goat, taken from a neighbouring kraal, did at last
arrive, being dragged bleating on to the scene by its horns.

"Is it a Black One, is it a Black One?" shrieked the possessed.

"Yes, yes, Devil, as black as night;" then aside, "keep it behind thee,
don't let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump and
another on its belly. In one minute, Devil. There, cut his throat quick.
Where is the saucer?"

"The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! I
must have it, don't you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me the
blood of the goat."

At this moment a terrified _bah!_ announced that the poor goat had been
sacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full of
blood. This the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming her
wildest, seized and _drank_, and was instantly recovered, and without
a trace of hysteria, or fits, or being possessed, or whatever dreadful
thing it was she was suffering from. She stretched her arms, smiled
faintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently withdrew
in a double line as they had come, leaving the space between us and the
bonfire deserted.

I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling rather
queer, was about to ask _She_ if we could rise, when suddenly what
at first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and was
instantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human being
dressed in a lion's skin. Then came a goat, then a man wrapped in an
ox's hide, with the horns wobbling about in a ludicrous way. After him
followed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats, and
many other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly hide
of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground
behind her. When all the beasts had collected they began to dance about
in a lumbering, unnatural fashion, and to imitate the sounds produced
by the respective animals they represented, till the whole air was alive
with roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes. This went on for a
long time, till, getting tired of the pantomime, I asked Ayesha if there
would be any objection to Leo and myself walking round to inspect the
human torches, and, as she had nothing to say against it, we started,
striking round to the left. After looking at one or two of the flaming
bodies, we were about to return, thoroughly disgusted with the grotesque
weirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one of
the dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itself
from its fellow-beasts, and was whisking about in our immediate
neighbourhood, but gradually drawing into a spot where the shadow
was darkest, equidistant between two of the flaming mummies. Drawn by
curiosity, we followed it, when suddenly it darted past us into the
shadows beyond, and as it did so erected itself and whispered, "Come,"
in a voice that we both recognised as that of Ustane. Without waiting to
consult me Leo turned and followed her into the outer darkness, and I,
feeling sick enough at heart, went after them. The leopard crawled on
for about fifty paces--a sufficient distance to be quite beyond the
light of the fire and torches--and then Leo came up with it, or, rather,
with Ustane.

"Oh, my lord," I heard her whisper, "so I have found thee! Listen. I am
in peril of my life from '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_.' Surely the Baboon
has told thee how she drove me from thee? I love thee, my lord, and thou
art mine according to the custom of the country. I saved thy life! My
Lion, wilt thou cast me off now?"

"Of course not," ejaculated Leo; "I have been wondering whither thou
hadst gone. Let us go and explain matters to the Queen."

"Nay, nay, she would slay us. Thou knowest not her power--the Baboon
there, he knoweth, for he saw. Nay, there is but one way: if thou wilt
cleave to me, thou must flee with me across the marshes even now, and
then perchance we may escape."

"For Heaven's sake, Leo," I began, but she broke in--

"Nay, listen not to him. Swift--be swift--death is in the air we
breathe. Even now, mayhap, _She_ heareth us," and without more ado she
proceeded to back her arguments by throwing herself into his arms. As
she did so the leopard's head slipped from her hair, and I saw the three
white finger-marks upon it, gleaming faintly in the starlight. Once
more realising the desperate nature of the position, I was about to
interpose, for I knew that Leo was not too strong-minded where women
were concerned, when--oh! horror!--I heard a little silvery laugh behind
me. I turned round, and there was _She_ herself, and with her Billali
and two male mutes. I gasped and nearly sank to the ground, for I knew
that such a situation must result in some dreadful tragedy, of which it
seemed exceedingly probable to me that I should be the first victim. As
for Ustane, she untwined her arms and covered her eyes with her hands,
while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the position, merely covered
up, and looked as foolish as a man caught in such a trap would naturally
do.



XX

TRIUMPH

Then followed a moment of the most painful silence that I ever endured.
It was broken by Ayesha, who addressed herself to Leo.

"Nay, now, my lord and guest," she said in her softest tones, which yet
had the ring of steel about them, "look not so bashful. Surely the sight
was a pretty one--the leopard and the lion!"

"Oh, hang it all!" said Leo in English.

"And thou, Ustane," she went on, "surely I should have passed thee by,
had not the light fallen on the white across thy hair," and she pointed
to the bright edge of the rising moon which was now appearing above
the horizon. "Well! well! the dance is done--see, the tapers have burnt
down, and all things end in silence and in ashes. So thou thoughtest
it a fit time for love, Ustane, my servant--and I, dreaming not that I
could be disobeyed, thought thee already far away."

"Play not with me," moaned the wretched woman; "slay me, and let there
be an end."

"Nay, why? It is not well to go so swift from the hot lips of love down
to the cold mouth of the grave," and she made a motion to the mutes, who
instantly stepped up and caught the girl by either arm. With an oath Leo
sprang upon the nearest, and hurled him to the ground, and then stood
over him with his face set, and his fist ready.

Again Ayesha laughed. "It was well thrown, my guest; thou hast a strong
arm for one who so late was sick. But now out of thy courtesy I pray
thee let that man live and do my bidding. He shall not harm the girl;
the night air grows chill, and I would welcome her in mine own place.
Surely she whom thou dost favour shall be favoured of me also."

I took Leo by the arm, and pulled him from the prostrate mute, and he,
half bewildered, obeyed the pressure. Then we all set out for the cave
across the plateau, where a pile of white human ashes was all that
remained of the fire that had lit the dancing, for the dancers had
vanished.

In due course we gained Ayesha's boudoir--all too soon, it seemed to me,
having a sad presage of what was to come lying heavy on my heart.

Ayesha seated herself upon her cushions, and, having dismissed Job and
Billali, by signs bade the mutes tend the lamps and retire--all save
one girl, who was her favourite personal attendant. We three remained
standing, the unfortunate Ustane a little to the left of the rest of us.

"Now, oh Holly," Ayesha began, "how came it that thou who didst hear
my words bidding this evil-doer"--and she pointed to Ustane--"to go
hence--thou at whose prayer I did weakly spare her life--how came it,
I say, that thou wast a sharer in what I saw to-night? Answer, and for
thine own sake, I say, speak all the truth, for I am not minded to hear
lies upon this matter!"

"It was by accident, oh Queen," I answered. "I knew naught of it."

"I do believe thee, oh Holly," she answered coldly, "and well it is for
thee that I do--then does the whole guilt rest upon her."

"I do not find any guilt therein," broke in Leo. "She is not another
man's wife, and it appears that she has married me according to the
custom of this awful place, so who is the worse? Any way, madam," he
went on, "whatever she has done I have done too, so if she is to be
punished let me be punished also; and I tell thee," he went on, working
himself up into a fury, "that if thou biddest one of those dead and dumb
villains to touch her again I will tear him to pieces!" And he looked as
though he meant it.

Ayesha listened in icy silence, and made no remark. When he had
finished, however, she addressed Ustane.

"Hast thou aught to say, woman? Thou silly straw, thou feather, who
didst think to float towards thy passion's petty ends, even against the
great wind of my will! Tell me, for I fain would understand. Why didst
thou this thing?"

And then I think I saw the most tremendous exhibition of moral courage
and intrepidity that it is possible to conceive. For the poor doomed
girl, knowing what she had to expect at the hands of her terrible Queen,
knowing, too, from bitter experience, how great was her adversary's
power, yet gathered herself together, and out of the very depths of her
despair drew materials to defy her.

"I did it, oh _She_," she answered, drawing herself up to the full of
her stately height, and throwing back the panther skin from her head,
"because my love is stronger than the grave. I did it because my life
without this man whom my heart chose would be but a living death.
Therefore did I risk my life, and, now that I know that it is forfeit
to thine anger, yet am I glad that I did risk it, and pay it away in the
risking, ay, because he embraced me once, and told me that he loved me
yet."

Here Ayesha half rose from her couch, and then sank down again.

"I have no magic," went on Ustane, her rich voice ringing strong and
full, "and I am not a Queen, nor do I live for ever, but a woman's heart
is heavy to sink through waters, however deep, oh Queen! and a woman's
eyes are quick to see--even through thy veil, oh Queen!

"Listen: I know it, thou dost love this man thyself, and therefore
wouldst thou destroy me who stand across thy path. Ay, I die--I die, and
go into the darkness, nor know I whither I go. But this I know. There is
a light shining in my breast, and by that light, as by a lamp, I see
the truth, and the future that I shall not share unroll itself before
me like a scroll. When first I knew my lord," and she pointed to Leo, "I
knew also that death would be the bridal gift he gave me--it rushed upon
me of a sudden, but I turned not back, being ready to pay the price,
and, behold, death is here! And now, even as I knew that, so do I,
standing on the steps of doom, know that thou shalt not reap the profit
of thy crime. Mine he is, and, though thy beauty shine like a sun among
the stars, mine shall he remain for thee. Never here in this life shall
he look thee in the eyes and call thee spouse. Thou too art doomed, I
see"--and her voice rang like the cry of an inspired prophetess; "ah, I
see----"

Then came an answering cry of mingled rage and terror. I turned my head.
Ayesha had risen, and was standing with her outstretched hand pointing
at Ustane, who had suddenly stopped speaking. I gazed at the poor
woman, and as I gazed there came upon her face that same woeful, fixed
expression of terror that I had seen once before when she had broken out
into her wild chant. Her eyes grew large, her nostrils dilated, and her
lips blanched.

Ayesha said nothing, she made no sound, she only drew herself up,
stretched out her arm, and, her tall veiled frame quivering like an
aspen leaf, appeared to look fixedly at her victim. Even as she did so
Ustane put her hands to her head, uttered one piercing scream, turned
round twice, and then fell backwards with a thud--prone upon the floor.
Both Leo and myself rushed to her--she was stone dead--blasted into
death by some mysterious electric agency or overwhelming will-force
whereof the dread _She_ had command.

For a moment Leo did not quite realise what had happened. But, when he
did, his face was awful to see. With a savage oath he rose from beside
the corpse, and, turning, literally sprang at Ayesha. But she was
watching, and, seeing him come, stretched out her hand again, and he
went staggering back towards me, and would have fallen, had I not
caught him. Afterwards he told me that he felt as though he had suddenly
received a violent blow in the chest, and, what is more, utterly cowed,
as if all the manhood had been taken out of him.

Then Ayesha spoke. "Forgive me, my guest," she said softly, addressing
him, "if I have shocked thee with my justice."

"Forgive thee, thou fiend," roared poor Leo, wringing his hands in his
rage and grief. "Forgive thee, thou murderess! By Heaven, I will kill
thee if I can!"

"Nay, nay," she answered in the same soft voice, "thou dost not
understand--the time has come for thee to learn. _Thou_ art my love,
my Kallikrates, my Beautiful, my Strong! For two thousand years,
Kallikrates, have I waited for _thee_, and now at length thou hast come
back to me; and as for this woman," pointing to the corpse, "she
stood between me and thee, and therefore have I laid her in the dust,
Kallikrates."

"It is an accursed lie!" said Leo. "My name is not Kallikrates! I am Leo
Vincey; my ancestor was Kallikrates--at least, I believe he was."

"Ah, thou sayest it--thine ancestor was Kallikrates, and thou, even
thou, art Kallikrates reborn, come back--and mine own dear lord!"

"I am not Kallikrates, and, as for being thy lord, or having aught to do
with thee, I had sooner be the lord of a fiend from hell, for she would
be better than thou."

"Sayest thou so--sayest thou so, Kallikrates? Nay, but thou hast not
seen me for so long a time that no memory remains. Yet am I very fair,
Kallikrates!"

"I hate thee, murderess, and I have no wish to see thee. What is it to
me how fair thou art? I hate thee, I say."

"Yet within a very little space shalt thou creep to my knee, and swear
that thou dost love me," answered Ayesha, with a sweet, mocking laugh.
"Come, there is no time like the present time, here before this dead
girl who loved thee, let us put it to the proof.

"Look now on me, Kallikrates!" and with a sudden motion she shook her
gauzy covering from her, and stood forth in her low kirtle and her snaky
zone, in her glorious radiant beauty and her imperial grace, rising from
her wrappings, as it were, like Venus from the wave, or Galatea from her
marble, or a beatified spirit from the tomb. She stood forth, and fixed
her deep and glowing eyes upon Leo's eyes, and I saw his clenched fists
unclasp, and his set and quivering features relax beneath her gaze.
I saw his wonder and astonishment grow into admiration, and then into
fascination, and the more he struggled the more I saw the power of her
dread beauty fasten on him and take possession of his senses, drugging
them, and drawing the heart out of him. Did I not know the process? Had
not I, who was twice his age, gone through it myself? Was I not going
through it afresh even then, although her sweet and passionate gaze was
not for me? Yes, alas, I was! Alas, that I should have to confess that
at that very moment I was rent by mad and furious jealousy. I could
have flown at him, shame upon me! The woman had confounded and almost
destroyed my moral sense, as she was bound to confound all who looked
upon her superhuman loveliness. But--I do not quite know how--I got the
better of myself, and once more turned to see the climax of the tragedy.

"Oh, great Heaven!" gasped Leo, "art thou a woman?"

"A woman in truth--in very truth--and thine own spouse, Kallikrates!"
she answered, stretching out her rounded ivory arms towards him, and
smiling, ah, so sweetly!

He looked and looked, and slowly I perceived that he was drawing nearer
to her. Suddenly his eye fell upon the corpse of poor Ustane, and he
shuddered and stopped.

"How can I?" he said hoarsely. "Thou art a murderess; she loved me."

Observe, he was already forgetting that he had loved her.

"It is naught," she murmured, and her voice sounded sweet as the
night-wind passing through the trees. "It is naught at all. If I have
sinned, let my beauty answer for my sin. If I have sinned, it is for
love of thee: let my sin, therefore, be put away and forgotten;" and
once more she stretched out her arms and whispered "_Come_," and then in
another few seconds it was all over.

I saw him struggle--I saw him even turn to fly; but her eyes drew
him more strongly than iron bonds, and the magic of her beauty and
concentrated will and passion entered into him and overpowered him--ay,
even there, in the presence of the body of the woman who had loved him
well enough to die for him. It sounds horrible and wicked enough, but he
should not be too greatly blamed, and be sure his sin will find him out.
The temptress who drew him into evil was more than human, and her beauty
was greater than the loveliness of the daughters of men.

I looked up again and now her perfect form lay in his arms, and her lips
were pressed against his own; and thus, with the corpse of his dead
love for an altar, did Leo Vincey plight his troth to her red-handed
murderess--plight it for ever and a day. For those who sell themselves
into a like dominion, paying down the price of their own honour, and
throwing their soul into the balance to sink the scale to the level of
their lusts, can hope for no deliverance here or hereafter. As they
have sown, so shall they reap and reap, even when the poppy flowers of
passion have withered in their hands, and their harvest is but bitter
tares, garnered in satiety.

Suddenly, with a snake-like motion, she seemed to slip from his embrace,
and then again broke out into her low laugh of triumphant mockery.

"Did I not tell thee that within a little space thou wouldst creep to my
knee, oh Kallikrates? And surely the space has not been a great one!"

Leo groaned in shame and misery; for though he was overcome and
stricken down, he was not so lost as to be unaware of the depth of the
degradation to which he had sunk. On the contrary, his better nature
rose up in arms against his fallen self, as I saw clearly enough later
on.

Ayesha laughed again, and then quickly veiled herself, and made a sign
to the girl mute, who had been watching the whole scene with curious
startled eyes. The girl left, and presently returned, followed by two
male mutes, to whom the Queen made another sign. Thereon they all three
seized the body of poor Ustane by the arms, and dragged it heavily down
the cavern and away through the curtains at the end. Leo watched it for
a little while, and then covered his eyes with his hand, and it too, to
my excited fancy, seemed to watch us as it went.

"There passes the dead past," said Ayesha, solemnly, as the curtains
shook and fell back into their places, when the ghastly procession
had vanished behind them. And then, with one of those extraordinary
transitions of which I have already spoken, she again threw off her
veil, and broke out, after the ancient and poetic fashion of the
dwellers in Arabia,[*] into a paean of triumph or epithalamium, which,
wild and beautiful as it was, is exceedingly difficult to render into
English, and ought by rights to be sung to the music of a cantata,
rather than written and read. It was divided into two parts--one
descriptive or definitive, and the other personal; and, as nearly as I
can remember, ran as follows:--

Love is like a flower in the desert.

It is like the aloe of Arabia that blooms but once and dies; it blooms
in the salt emptiness of Life, and the brightness of its beauty is set
upon the waste as a star is set upon a storm.

It hath the sun above that is the Spirit, and above it blows the air of
its divinity.

At the echoing of a step, Love blooms, I say; I say Love blooms, and
bends her beauty down to him who passeth by.

He plucketh it, yea, he plucketh the red cup that is full of honey,
and beareth it away; away across the desert, away till the flower be
withered, away till the desert be done.

There is only one perfect flower in the wilderness of Life.

That flower is Love!

There is only one fixed star in the midsts of our wandering.

That star is Love!

There is only one hope in our despairing night.

That hope is Love!

All else is false. All else is shadow moving upon water. All else is
wind and vanity.

Who shall say what is the weight or the measure of Love?

It is born of the flesh, it dwelleth in the spirit. From each doth it
draw its comfort.

For beauty it is as a star.

Many are its shapes, but all are beautiful, and none know where the star
rose, or the horizon where it shall set.

     [*] Among the ancient Arabians the power of poetic
     declamation, either in verse or prose, was held in the
     highest honour and esteem, and he who excelled in it was
     known as "Khateb," or Orator. Every year a general assembly
     was held at which the rival poets repeated their
     compositions, when those poems which were judged to be the
     best were, so soon as the knowledge and the art of writing
     became general, inscribed on silk in letters of gold, and
     publicly exhibited, being known as "Al Modhahabat," or
     golden verses. In the poem given above by Mr. Holly, Ayesha
     evidently followed the traditional poetic manner of her
     people, which was to embody their thoughts in a series of
     somewhat disconnected sentences, each remarkable for its
     beauty and the grace of its expression. --Editor.

Then, turning to Leo, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she went
on in a fuller and more triumphant tone, speaking in balanced sentences
that gradually grew and swelled from idealised prose into pure and
majestic verse:--

Long have I loved thee, oh, my love; yet has my love not lessened.

Long have I waited for thee, and behold my reward is at hand--is here!

Far away I saw thee once, and thou wast taken from me.

Then in a grave sowed I the seed of patience, and shone upon it with the
sun of hope, and watered it with tears of repentance, and breathed on
it with the breath of my knowledge. And now, lo! it hath sprung up, and
borne fruit. Lo! out of the grave hath it sprung. Yea, from among the
dry bones and ashes of the dead.

I have waited and my reward is with me.

I have overcome Death, and Death brought back to me him that was dead.

Therefore do I rejoice, for fair is the future.

Green are the paths that we shall tread across the everlasting meadows.

The hour is at hand. Night hath fled away into the valleys.

The dawn kisseth the mountain tops.

Soft shall we live, my love, and easy shall we go.

Crowned shall we be with the diadem of Kings.

Worshipping and wonder struck all peoples of the world, Blinded shall
fall before our beauty and might.

From time unto times shall our greatness thunder on, Rolling like a
chariot through the dust of endless days.

Laughing shall we speed in our victory and pomp, Laughing like the
Daylight as he leaps along the hills.

Onward, still triumphant to a triumph ever new!

Onward, in our power to a power unattained!

Onward, never weary, clad with splendour for a robe!

Till accomplished be our fate, and the night is rushing down.

She paused in her strange and most thrilling allegorical chant, of
which I am, unfortunately, only able to give the burden, and that feebly
enough, and then said--

"Perchance thou dost not believe my word, Kallikrates--perchance thou
thinkest that I do delude thee, and that I have not lived these many
years, and that thou hast not been born again to me. Nay, look not
so--put away that pale cast of doubt, for oh be sure herein can error
find no foothold! Sooner shall the suns forget their course and the
swallow miss her nest, than my soul shall swear a lie and be led astray
from thee, Kallikrates. Blind me, take away mine eyes, and let the
darkness utterly fence me in, and still mine ears would catch the tone
of thy unforgotten voice, striking more loud against the portals of
my sense than can the call of brazen-throated clarions:--stop up mine
hearing also, and let a thousand touch me on the brow, and I would name
thee out of all:--yea, rob me of every sense, and see me stand deaf and
blind, and dumb, and with nerves that cannot weigh the value of a touch,
yet would my spirit leap within me like a quickening child and cry unto
my heart, behold Kallikrates! behold, thou watcher, the watches of
thy night are ended! behold thou who seekest in the night season, thy
morning Star ariseth."

She paused awhile and then continued, "But stay, if thy heart is yet
hardened against the mighty truth and thou dost require a further pledge
of that which thou dost find too deep to understand, even now shall it
be given to thee, and to thee also, oh my Holly. Bear each one of you a
lamp, and follow after me whither I shall lead you."

Without stopping to think--indeed, speaking for myself, I had almost
abandoned the function in circumstances under which to think seemed
to be absolutely useless, since thought fell hourly helpless against a
black wall of wonder--we took the lamps and followed her. Going to the
end of her "boudoir," she raised a curtain and revealed a little stair
of the sort that is so common in these dim caves of Kor. As we hurried
down the stair I observed that the steps were worn in the centre to
such an extent that some of them had been reduced from seven and a half
inches, at which I guessed their original height, to about three and
a half. Now, all the other steps that I had seen in the caves were
practically unworn, as was to be expected, seeing that the only traffic
which ever passed upon them was that of those who bore a fresh burden to
the tomb. Therefore this fact struck my notice with that curious force
with which little things do strike us when our minds are absolutely
overwhelmed by a sudden rush of powerful sensations; beaten flat, as it
were, like a sea beneath the first burst of a hurricane, so that every
little object on the surface starts into an unnatural prominence.

At the bottom of the staircase I stood and stared at the worn steps, and
Ayesha, turning, saw me.

"Wonderest thou whose are the feet that have worn away the rock, my
Holly?" she asked. "They are mine--even mine own light feet! I can
remember when those stairs were fresh and level, but for two thousand
years and more have I gone down hither day by day, and see, my sandals
have worn out the solid rock!"

I made no answer, but I do not think that anything that I had heard or
seen brought home to my limited understanding so clear a sense of this
being's overwhelming antiquity as that hard rock hollowed out by her
soft white feet. How many hundreds of thousands of times must she have
passed up and down that stair to bring about such a result?

The stair led to a tunnel, and a few paces down the tunnel was one of
the usual curtain-hung doorways, a glance at which told me that it
was the same where I had been a witness of that terrible scene by the
leaping flame. I recognised the pattern of the curtain, and the sight of
it brought the whole event vividly before my eyes, and made me tremble
even at its memory. Ayesha entered the tomb (for it was a tomb), and we
followed her--I, for one, rejoicing that the mystery of the place was
about to be cleared up, and yet afraid to face its solution.



XXI

THE DEAD AND LIVING MEET

"See now the place where I have slept for these two thousand years,"
said Ayesha, taking the lamp from Leo's hand and holding it above her
head. Its rays fell upon a little hollow in the floor, where I had seen
the leaping flame, but the fire was out now. They fell upon the white
form stretched there beneath its wrappings upon its bed of stone,
upon the fretted carving of the tomb, and upon another shelf of stone
opposite the one on which the body lay, and separated from it by the
breadth of the cave.

"Here," went on Ayesha, laying her hand upon the rock--"here have I
slept night by night for all these generations, with but a cloak to
cover me. It did not become me that I should lie soft when my spouse
yonder," and she pointed to the rigid form, "lay stiff in death. Here
night by night have I slept in his cold company--till, thou seest, this
thick slab, like the stairs down which we passed, has worn thin with the
tossing of my form--so faithful have I been to thee even in thy space
of sleep, Kallikrates. And now, mine own, thou shalt see a wonderful
thing--living, thou shalt behold thyself dead--for well have I tended
thee during all these years, Kallikrates. Art thou prepared?"

We made no answer, but gazed at each other with frightened eyes, the
whole scene was so dreadful and so solemn. Ayesha advanced, and laid her
hand upon the corner of the shroud, and once more spoke.

"Be not affrighted," she said; "though the thing seem wonderful to
thee--all we who live have thus lived before; nor is the very shape
that holds us a stranger to the sun! Only we know it not, because memory
writes no record, and earth hath gathered in the earth she lent us, for
none have saved our glory from the grave. But I, by my arts and by the
arts of those dead men of Kor which I have learned, have held thee
back, oh Kallikrates, from the dust, that the waxen stamp of beauty
on thy face should ever rest before mine eye. 'Twas a mask that memory
might fill, serving to fashion out thy presence from the past, and
give it strength to wander in the habitations of my thought, clad in a
mummery of life that stayed my appetite with visions of dead days.

"Behold now, let the Dead and Living meet! Across the gulf of Time they
still are one. Time hath no power against Identity, though sleep the
merciful hath blotted out the tablets of our mind, and with oblivion
sealed the sorrows that else would hound us from life to life, stuffing
the brain with gathered griefs till it burst in the madness of uttermost
despair. Still are they one, for the wrappings of our sleep shall roll
away as thunder-clouds before the wind; the frozen voice of the past
shall melt in music like mountain snows beneath the sun; and the weeping
and the laughter of the lost hours shall be heard once more most sweetly
echoing up the cliffs of immeasurable time.

"Ay, the sleep shall roll away, and the voices shall be heard, when down
the completed chain, whereof our each existence is a link, the lightning
of the Spirit hath passed to work out the purpose of our being;
quickening and fusing those separated days of life, and shaping them to
a staff whereon we may safely lean as we wend to our appointed fate.

"Therefore, have no fear, Kallikrates, when thou--living, and but lately
born--shalt look upon thine own departed self, who breathed and died
so long ago. I do but turn one page in thy Book of Being, and show thee
what is writ thereon.

"_Behold!_"

With a sudden motion she drew the shroud from the cold form, and let the
lamplight play upon it. I looked, and then shrank back terrified; since,
say what she might in explanation, the sight was an uncanny one--for her
explanations were beyond the grasp of our finite minds, and when they
were stripped from the mists of vague esoteric philosophy, and brought
into conflict with the cold and horrifying fact, did not do much to
break its force. For there, stretched upon the stone bier before us,
robed in white and perfectly preserved, was what appeared to be the body
of Leo Vincey. I stared from Leo, standing _there_ alive, to Leo lying
_there_ dead, and could see no difference; except, perhaps, that the
body on the bier looked older. Feature for feature they were the same,
even down to the crop of little golden curls, which was Leo's most
uncommon beauty. It even seemed to me, as I looked, that the expression
on the dead man's face resembled that which I had sometimes seen upon
Leo's when he was plunged into profound sleep. I can only sum up the
closeness of the resemblance by saying that I never saw twins so exactly
similar as that dead and living pair.

I turned to see what effect was produced upon Leo by the sight of his
dead self, and found it to be one of partial stupefaction. He stood
for two or three minutes staring, and said nothing, and when at last he
spoke it was only to ejaculate--

"Cover it up, and take me away."

"Nay, wait, Kallikrates," said Ayesha, who, standing with the lamp
raised above her head, flooding with its light her own rich beauty and
the cold wonder of the death-clothed form upon the bier, resembled
an inspired Sibyl rather than a woman, as she rolled out her majestic
sentences with a grandeur and a freedom of utterance which I am, alas!
quite unable to reproduce.

"Wait, I would show thee something, that no tittle of my crime may be
hidden from thee. Do thou, oh Holly, open the garment on the breast
of the dead Kallikrates, for perchance my lord may fear to touch it
himself."

I obeyed with trembling hands. It seemed a desecration and an unhallowed
thing to touch that sleeping image of the live man by my side. Presently
his broad chest was bare, and there upon it, right over the heart, was a
wound, evidently inflicted with a spear.

"Thou seest, Kallikrates," she said. "Know then that it was _I_ who slew
thee: in the Place of Life _I_ gave thee death. I slew thee because of
the Egyptian Amenartas, whom thou didst love, for by her wiles she held
thy heart, and her I could not smite as but now I smote that woman, for
she was too strong for me. In my haste and bitter anger I slew thee, and
now for all these days have I lamented thee, and waited for thy coming.
And thou hast come, and none can stand between thee and me, and of a
truth now for death I will give thee life--not life eternal, for that
none can give, but life and youth that shall endure for thousands upon
thousands of years, and with it pomp, and power, and wealth, and all
things that are good and beautiful, such as have been to no man before
thee, nor shall be to any man who comes after. And now one thing more,
and thou shalt rest and make ready for the day of thy new birth. Thou
seest this body, which was thine own. For all these centuries it hath
been my cold comfort and my companion, but now I need it no more, for
I have thy living presence, and it can but serve to stir up memories
of that which I would fain forget. Let it therefore go back to the dust
from which I held it.

"Behold! I have prepared against this happy hour!" And going to the
other shelf or stone ledge, which she said had served her for a bed, she
took from it a large vitrified double-handed vase, the mouth of which
was tied up with a bladder. This she loosed, and then, having bent down
and gently kissed the white forehead of the dead man, she undid the
vase, and sprinkled its contents carefully over the form, taking, I
observed, the greatest precautions against any drop of them touching
us or herself, and then poured out what remained of the liquid upon the
chest and head. Instantly a dense vapour arose, and the cave was filled
with choking fumes that prevented us from seeing anything while the
deadly acid (for I presume it was some tremendous preparation of that
sort) did its work. From the spot where the body lay came a fierce
fizzing and cracking sound, which ceased, however, before the fumes had
cleared away. At last they were all gone, except a little cloud that
still hung over the corpse. In a couple of minutes more this too had
vanished, and, wonderful as it may seem, it is a fact that on the stone
bench that had supported the mortal remains of the ancient Kallikrates
for so many centuries there was now nothing to be seen but a few
handfuls of smoking white powder. The acid had utterly destroyed the
body, and even in places eaten into the stone. Ayesha stooped down, and,
taking a handful of this powder in her grasp, threw it into the air,
saying at the same time, in a voice of calm solemnity--

"Dust to dust!--the past to the past!--the dead to the
dead!--Kallikrates is dead, and is born again!"

The ashes floated noiselessly to the rocky floor, and we stood in awed
silence and watched them fall, too overcome for words.

"Now leave me," she said, "and sleep if ye may. I must watch and think,
for to-morrow night we go hence, and the time is long since I trod the
path that we must follow."

Accordingly we bowed, and left her.

As we passed to our own apartment I peeped into Job's sleeping place,
to see how he fared, for he had gone away just before our interview with
the murdered Ustane, quite prostrated by the terrors of the Amahagger
festivity. He was sleeping soundly, good honest fellow that he was,
and I rejoiced to think that his nerves, which, like those of most
uneducated people, were far from strong, had been spared the closing
scenes of this dreadful day. Then we entered our own chamber, and here
at last poor Leo, who, ever since he had looked upon that frozen
image of his living self, had been in a state not far removed from
stupefaction, burst out into a torrent of grief. Now that he was no
longer in the presence of the dread _She_, his sense of the awfulness
of all that had happened, and more especially of the wicked murder of
Ustane, who was bound to him by ties so close, broke upon him like a
storm, and lashed him into an agony of remorse and terror which was
painful to witness. He cursed himself--he cursed the hour when we had
first seen the writing on the sherd, which was being so mysteriously
verified, and bitterly he cursed his own weakness. Ayesha he dared not
curse--who dared speak evil of such a woman, whose consciousness, for
aught we knew, was watching us at the very moment?

"What am I to do, old fellow?" he groaned, resting his head against my
shoulder in the extremity of his grief. "I let her be killed--not that
I could help that, but within five minutes I was kissing her murderess
over her body. I am a degraded brute, but I cannot resist that" (and
here his voice sank)--"that awful sorceress. I know I shall do it again
to-morrow; I know that I am in her power for always; if I never saw her
again I should never think of anybody else during all my life; I must
follow her as a needle follows a magnet; I would not go away now if I
could; I could not leave her, my legs would not carry me, but my mind is
still clear enough, and in my mind I hate her--at least, I think so. It
is all so horrible; and that--that body! What can I make of it? It was
_I_! I am sold into bondage, old fellow, and she will take my soul as
the price of herself!"

Then, for the first time, I told him that I was in a but very little
better position; and I am bound to say that, notwithstanding his own
infatuation, he had the decency to sympathise with me. Perhaps he did
not think it worth while being jealous, realising that he had no cause
so far as the lady was concerned. I went on to suggest that we should
try to run away, but we soon rejected the project as futile, and, to be
perfectly honest, I do not believe that either of us would really have
left Ayesha even if some superior power had suddenly offered to convey
us from these gloomy caves and set us down in Cambridge. We could no
more have left her than a moth can leave the light that destroys it. We
were like confirmed opium-eaters: in our moments of reason we well knew
the deadly nature of our pursuit, but we certainly were not prepared to
abandon its terrible delights.

No man who once had seen _She_ unveiled, and heard the music of her
voice, and drunk in the bitter wisdom of her words, would willingly give
up the sight for a whole sea of placid joys. How much more, then, was
this likely to be so when, as in Leo's case, to put myself out of the
question, this extraordinary creature declared her utter and absolute
devotion, and gave what appeared to be proofs of its having lasted for
some two thousand years?

No doubt she was a wicked person, and no doubt she had murdered Ustane
when she stood in her path, but then she was very faithful, and by a
law of nature man is apt to think but lightly of a woman's crimes,
especially if that woman be beautiful, and the crime be committed for
the love of him.

And then, for the rest, when had such a chance ever come to a man before
as that which now lay in Leo's hand? True, in uniting himself to this
dread woman, he would place his life under the influence of a mysterious
creature of evil tendencies,[*] but then that would be likely enough to
happen to him in any ordinary marriage. On the other hand, however, no
ordinary marriage could bring him such awful beauty--for awful is the
only word that can describe it--such divine devotion, such wisdom, and
command over the secrets of nature, and the place and power that they
must win, or, lastly, the royal crown of unending youth, if indeed she
could give that. No, on the whole, it is not wonderful that, though Leo
was plunged in bitter shame and grief, such as any gentleman would have
felt under the circumstances, he was not ready to entertain the idea of
running away from his extraordinary fortune.

     [*] After some months of consideration of this statement I
     am bound to confess that I am not quite satisfied of its
     truth. It is perfectly true that Ayesha committed a murder,
     but I shrewdly suspect that, were we endowed with the same
     absolute power, and if we had the same tremendous interest
     at stake, we would be very apt to do likewise under parallel
     circumstances. Also, it must be remembered that she looked
     on it as an execution for disobedience under a system which
     made the slightest disobedience punishable by death. Putting
     aside this question of the murder, her evil-doing resolves
     itself into the expression of views and the acknowledgment
     of motives which are contrary to our preaching if not to our
     practice. Now at first sight this might be fairly taken as a
     proof of an evil nature, but when we come to consider the
     great antiquity of the individual it becomes doubtful if it
     was anything more than the natural cynicism which arises
     from age and bitter experience, and the possession of
     extraordinary powers of observation. It is a well known fact
     that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the
     question, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we
     get; indeed many of us are only saved by timely death from
     utter moral petrifaction if not moral corruption. No one
     will deny that a young man is on the average better than an
     old one, for he is without that experience of the order of
     things that in certain thoughtful dispositions can hardly
     fail to produce cynicism, and that disregard of acknowledged
     methods and established custom which we call evil. Now the
     oldest man upon the earth was but a babe compared to Ayesha,
     and the wisest man upon the earth was not one-third as wise.
     And the fruit of her wisdom was this, that there was but one
     thing worth living for, and that was Love in its highest
     sense, and to gain that good thing she was not prepared to
     stop at trifles. This is really the sum of her evil doings,
     and it must be remembered, on the other hand, that, whatever
     may be thought of them, she had some virtues developed to a
     degree very uncommon in either sex--constancy, for
     instance.--L. H. H.

My own opinion is that he would have been mad if he had done so. But
then I confess that my statement on the matter must be accepted with
qualifications. I am in love with Ayesha myself to this day, and I would
rather have been the object of her affection for one short week than
that of any other woman in the world for a whole lifetime. And let me
add that, if anybody who doubts this statement, and thinks me foolish
for making it, could have seen Ayesha draw her veil and flash out in
beauty on his gaze, his view would exactly coincide with my own. Of
course, I am speaking of any _man_. We never had the advantage of a
lady's opinion of Ayesha, but I think it quite possible that she
would have regarded the Queen with dislike, would have expressed her
disapproval in some more or less pointed manner, and ultimately have got
herself blasted.

For two hours or more Leo and I sat with shaken nerves and frightened
eyes, and talked over the miraculous events through which we were
passing. It seemed like a dream or a fairy tale, instead of the solemn,
sober fact. Who would have believed that the writing on the potsherd was
not only true, but that we should live to verify its truth, and that
we two seekers should find her who was sought, patiently awaiting our
coming in the tombs of Kor? Who would have thought that in the person
of Leo this mysterious woman should, as she believed, discover the
being whom she awaited from century to century, and whose former earthly
habitation she had till this very night preserved? But so it was. In the
face of all we had seen it was difficult for us as ordinary reasoning
men any longer to doubt its truth, and therefore at last, with humble
hearts and a deep sense of the impotence of human knowledge, and the
insolence of its assumption that denies that to be possible which it has
no experience of, we laid ourselves down to sleep, leaving our fates in
the hands of that watching Providence which had thus chosen to allow us
to draw the veil of human ignorance, and reveal to us for good or evil
some glimpse of the possibilities of life.



XXII

JOB HAS A PRESENTIMENT

It was nine o'clock on the following morning when Job, who still looked
scared and frightened, came in to call me, and at the same time breathe
his gratitude at finding us alive in our beds, which it appeared was
more than he had expected. When I told him of the awful end of poor
Ustane he was even more grateful at our survival, and much shocked,
though Ustane had been no favourite of his, or he of hers, for the
matter of that. She called him "pig" in bastard Arabic, and he called
her "hussy" in good English, but these amenities were forgotten in the
face of the catastrophe that had overwhelmed her at the hands of her
Queen.

"I don't want to say anything as mayn't be agreeable, sir," said Job,
when he had finished exclaiming at my tale, "but it's my opinion that
that there _She_ is the old gentleman himself, or perhaps his wife, if
he has one, which I suppose he has, for he couldn't be so wicked all by
himself. The Witch of Endor was a fool to her, sir: bless you, she would
make no more of raising every gentleman in the Bible out of these here
beastly tombs than I should of growing cress on an old flannel. It's a
country of devils, this is, sir, and she's the master one of the lot;
and if ever we get out of it it will be more than I expect to do. I
don't see no way out of it. That witch isn't likely to let a fine young
man like Mr. Leo go."

"Come," I said, "at any rate she saved his life."

"Yes, and she'll take his soul to pay for it. She'll make him a witch,
like herself. I say it's wicked to have anything to do with those sort
of people. Last night, sir, I lay awake and read in my little Bible that
my poor old mother gave me about what is going to happen to sorceresses
and them sort, till my hair stood on end. Lord, how the old lady would
stare if she saw where her Job had got to!"

"Yes, it's a queer country, and a queer people too, Job," I answered,
with a sigh, for, though I am not superstitious like Job, I admit to a
natural shrinking (which will not bear investigation) from the things
that are above Nature.

"You are right, sir," he answered, "and if you won't think me very
foolish, I should like to say something to you now that Mr. Leo is out
of the way"--(Leo had got up early and gone for a stroll)--"and that is
that I know it is the last country as ever I shall see in this world.
I had a dream last night, and I dreamed that I saw my old father with
a kind of night-shirt on him, something like these folks wear when they
want to be in particular full-dress, and a bit of that feathery grass
in his hand, which he may have gathered on the way, for I saw lots of it
yesterday about three hundred yards from the mouth of this beastly cave.

"'Job,' he said to me, solemn like, and yet with a kind of satisfaction
shining through him, more like a Methody parson when he has sold a
neighbour a marked horse for a sound one and cleared twenty pounds by
the job than anything I can think on--'Job, time's up, Job; but I never
did expect to have to come and hunt you out in this 'ere place, Job.
Such ado as I have had to nose you up; it wasn't friendly to give
your poor old father such a run, let alone that a wonderful lot of bad
characters hail from this place Kor.'"

"Regular cautions," I suggested.

"Yes, sir--of course, sir, that's just what he said they was--'cautions,
downright scorchers'--sir, and I'm sure I don't doubt it, seeing what I
know of them, and their hot-potting ways," went on Job sadly. "Anyway,
he was sure that time was up, and went away saying that we should
see more than we cared for of each other soon, and I suppose he was
a-thinking of the fact that father and I never could hit it off together
for longer nor three days, and I daresay that things will be similar
when we meet again."

"Surely," I said, "you don't think that you are going to die because you
dreamed you saw your old father; if one dies because one dreams of one's
father, what happens to a man who dreams of his mother-in-law?"

"Ah, sir, you're laughing at me," said Job; "but, you see, you didn't
know my old father. If it had been anybody else--my Aunt Mary, for
instance, who never made much of a job--I should not have thought so
much of it; but my father was that idle, which he shouldn't have been
with seventeen children, that he would never have put himself out to
come here just to see the place. No, sir; I know that he meant business.
Well, sir, I can't help it; I suppose every man must go some time or
other, though it is a hard thing to die in a place like this, where
Christian burial isn't to be had for its weight in gold. I've tried
to be a good man, sir, and do my duty honest, and if it wasn't for the
supercilus kind of way in which father carried on last night--a sort
of sniffing at me as it were, as though he hadn't no opinion of my
references and testimonials--I should feel easy enough in my mind. Any
way, sir, I've been a good servant to you and Mr. Leo, bless him!--why,
it seems but the other day that I used to lead him about the streets
with a penny whip;--and if ever you get out of this place--which, as
father didn't allude to you, perhaps you may--I hope you will think
kindly of my whitened bones, and never have anything more to do with
Greek writing on flower-pots, sir, if I may make so bold as to say so."

"Come, come, Job," I said seriously, "this is all nonsense, you know.
You mustn't be silly enough to go getting such ideas into your head.
We've lived through some queer things, and I hope that we may go on
doing so."

"No, sir," answered Job, in a tone of conviction that jarred on me
unpleasantly, "it isn't nonsense. I'm a doomed man, and I feel it, and a
wonderful uncomfortable feeling it is, sir, for one can't help wondering
how it's going to come about. If you are eating your dinner you think
of poison and it goes against your stomach, and if you are walking along
these dark rabbit-burrows you think of knives, and Lord, don't you just
shiver about the back! I ain't particular, sir, provided it's sharp,
like that poor girl, who, now that she's gone, I am sorry to have spoke
hard on, though I don't approve of her morals in getting married, which
I consider too quick to be decent. Still, sir," and poor Job turned a
shade paler as he said it, "I do hope it won't be that hot-pot game."

"Nonsense," I broke in angrily, "nonsense!"

"Very well, sir," said Job, "it isn't my place to differ from you, sir,
but if you happen to be going anywhere, sir, I should be obliged if you
could manage to take me with you, seeing that I shall be glad to have a
friendly face to look at when the time comes, just to help one through,
as it were. And now, sir, I'll be getting the breakfast," and he went,
leaving me in a very uncomfortable state of mind. I was deeply attached
to old Job, who was one of the best and honestest men I have ever had
to do with in any class of life, and really more of a friend than a
servant, and the mere idea of anything happening to him brought a lump
into my throat. Beneath all his ludicrous talk I could see that he
himself was quite convinced that something was going to happen,
and though in most cases these convictions turn out to be utter
moonshine--and this particular one especially was to be amply accounted
for by the gloomy and unaccustomed surroundings in which its victim
was placed--still it did more or less carry a chill to my heart, as any
dread that is obviously a genuine object of belief is apt to do, however
absurd the belief may be. Presently the breakfast arrived, and with it
Leo, who had been taking a walk outside the cave--to clear his mind, he
said--and very glad I was to see both, for they gave me a respite
from my gloomy thoughts. After breakfast we went for another walk, and
watched some of the Amahagger sowing a plot of ground with the grain
from which they make their beer. This they did in scriptural fashion--a
man with a bag made of goat's hide fastened round his waist walking up
and down the plot and scattering the seed as he went. It was a positive
relief to see one of these dreadful people do anything so homely and
pleasant as sow a field, perhaps because it seemed to link them, as it
were, with the rest of humanity.

As we were returning Billali met us, and informed us that it was _She's_
pleasure that we should wait upon her, and accordingly we entered her
presence, not without trepidation, for Ayesha was certainly an exception
to the rule. Familiarity with her might and did breed passion and wonder
and horror, but it certainly did _not_ breed contempt.

We were as usual shown in by the mutes, and after these had
retired Ayesha unveiled, and once more bade Leo embrace her, which,
notwithstanding his heart-searchings of the previous night, he did with
more alacrity and fervour than in strictness courtesy required.

She laid her white hand on his head, and looked him fondly in the eyes.
"Dost thou wonder, my Kallikrates," she said, "when thou shalt call me
all thine own, and when we shall of a truth be for one another and to
one another? I will tell thee. First, must thou be even as I am, not
immortal indeed, for that I am not, but so cased and hardened against
the attacks of Time that his arrows shall glance from the armour of thy
vigorous life as the sunbeams glance from water. As yet I may not mate
with thee, for thou and I are different, and the very brightness of my
being would burn thee up, and perchance destroy thee. Thou couldst not
even endure to look upon me for too long a time lest thine eyes should
ache, and thy senses swim, and therefore" (with a little nod) "shall
I presently veil myself again." (This by the way she did not do.) "No:
listen, thou shalt not be tried beyond endurance, for this very
evening, an hour before the sun goes down, shall we start hence, and
by to-morrow's dark, if all goes well, and the road is not lost to me,
which I pray it may not be, shall we stand in the place of Life, and
thou shalt bathe in the fire, and come forth glorified, as no man ever
was before thee, and then, Kallikrates, shalt thou call me wife, and I
will call thee husband."

Leo muttered something in answer to this astonishing statement, I do not
know what, and she laughed a little at his confusion, and went on.

"And thou, too, oh Holly; on thee also will I confer this boon, and then
of a truth shalt thou be evergreen, and this will I do--well, because
thou hast pleased me, Holly, for thou art not altogether a fool, like
most of the sons of men, and because, though thou hast a school of
philosophy as full of nonsense as those of the old days, yet hast thou
not forgotten how to turn a pretty phrase about a lady's eyes."

"Hulloa, old fellow!" whispered Leo, with a return of his old
cheerfulness, "have you been paying compliments? I should never have
thought it of you!"

"I thank thee, oh Ayesha," I replied, with as much dignity as I could
command, "but if there be such a place as thou dost describe, and if in
this strange place there may be found a fiery virtue that can hold off
Death when he comes to pluck us by the hand, yet would I none of it. For
me, oh Ayesha, the world has not proved so soft a nest that I would lie
in it for ever. A stony-hearted mother is our earth, and stones are the
bread she gives her children for their daily food. Stones to eat and
bitter water for their thirst, and stripes for tender nurture. Who would
endure this for many lives? Who would so load up his back with memories
of lost hours and loves, and of his neighbour's sorrows that he cannot
lessen, and wisdom that brings not consolation? Hard is it to die,
because our delicate flesh doth shrink back from the worm it will not
feel, and from that unknown which the winding-sheet doth curtain from
our view. But harder still, to my fancy, would it be to live on, green
in the leaf and fair, but dead and rotten at the core, and feel that
other secret worm of recollection gnawing ever at the heart."

"Bethink thee, Holly," she said; "yet doth long life and strength and
beauty beyond measure mean power and all things that are dear to man."

"And what, oh Queen," I answered, "are those things that are dear to
man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by
which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is
mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is no resting-place
upon them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the
number. Doth not wealth satiate, and become nauseous, and no longer
serve to satisfy or pleasure, or to buy an hour's peace of mind? And is
there any end to wisdom that we may hope to reach it? Rather, the more
we learn, shall we not thereby be able only to better compass out our
ignorance? Did we live ten thousand years could we hope to solve the
secrets of the suns, and of the space beyond the suns, and of the Hand
that hung them in the heavens? Would not our wisdom be but as a gnawing
hunger calling our consciousness day by day to a knowledge of the empty
craving of our souls? Would it not be but as a light in one of these
great caverns, that, though bright it burn, and brighter yet, doth but

the more serve to show the depths of the gloom around it? And what good
thing is there beyond that we may gain by length of days?"

"Nay, my Holly, there is love--love which makes all things beautiful,
and doth breathe divinity into the very dust we tread. With love shall
life roll gloriously on from year to year, like the voice of some great
music that hath power to hold the hearer's heart poised on eagles' wings
above the sordid shame and folly of the earth."

"It may be so," I answered; "but if the loved one prove a broken reed to
pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain--what then? Shall a man grave
his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need to write them on
the water? Nay, oh _She_, I will live my day, and grow old with my
generation, and die my appointed death, and be forgotten. For I do hope
for an immortality to which the little span that perchance thou canst
confer will be but as a finger's length laid against the measure of the
great world; and, mark this! the immortality to which I look, and which
my faith doth promise me, shall be free from the bonds that here must
tie my spirit down. For, while the flesh endures, sorrow and evil and
the scorpion whips of sin must endure also; but when the flesh hath
fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in the brightness
of eternal good, and for its common air shall breathe so rare an ether
of most noble thoughts that the highest aspiration of our manhood, or
the purest incense of a maiden's prayer, would prove too earthly gross
to float therein."


"Thou lookest high," answered Ayesha, with a little laugh, "and speakest
clearly as a trumpet and with no uncertain sound. And yet methinks that
but now didst thou talk of 'that Unknown' from which the winding-sheet
doth curtain us. But perchance, thou seest with the eye of Faith, gazing
on that brightness, that is to be, through the painted-glass of thy
imagination. Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can
thus draw with this brush of faith and this many-coloured pigment of
imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them doth agree with another!
I could tell thee--but there, what is the use? why rob a fool of his
bauble? Let it pass, and I pray, oh Holly, that when thou dost feel old
age creeping slowly toward thyself, and the confusion of senility making
havoc in thy brain, thou mayest not bitterly regret that thou didst cast
away the imperial boon I would have given to thee. But so it hath ever
been; man can never be content with that which his hand can pluck. If
a lamp be in his reach to light him through the darkness, he must needs
cast it down because it is no star. Happiness danceth ever apace before
him, like the marsh-fires in the swamps, and he must catch the fire, and
he must hold the star! Beauty is naught to him, because there are lips
more honey-sweet; and wealth is naught, because others can weigh him
down with heavier shekels; and fame is naught, because there have
been greater men than he. Thyself thou saidst it, and I turn thy words
against thee. Well, thou dreamest that thou shalt pluck the star. I
believe it not, and I think thee a fool, my Holly, to throw away the
lamp."

I made no answer, for I could not--especially before Leo--tell her that
since I had seen her face I knew that it would always be before my eyes,
and that I had no wish to prolong an existence which must always be
haunted and tortured by her memory, and by the last bitterness of
unsatisfied love. But so it was, and so, alas, is it to this hour!

"And now," went on _She_, changing her tone and the subject together,
"tell me, my Kallikrates, for as yet I know it not, how came ye to seek
me here? Yesternight thou didst say that Kallikrates--him whom thou
sawest--was thine ancestor. How was it? Tell me--thou dost not speak
overmuch!"

Thus adjured, Leo told her the wonderful story of the casket and of the
potsherd that, written on by his ancestress, the Egyptian Amenartas, had
been the means of guiding us to her. Ayesha listened intently, and, when
he had finished, spoke to me.

"Did I not tell thee one day, when we did talk of good and evil, oh
Holly--it was when my beloved lay so ill--that out of good came evil,
and out of evil good--that they who sowed knew not what the crop
should be, nor he who struck where the blow should fall? See, now: this
Egyptian Amenartas, this royal child of the Nile who hated me, and whom
even now I hate, for in a way she did prevail against me--see, now, she
herself hath been the very means to bring her lover to mine arms! For
her sake I slew him, and now, behold, through her he hath comeback to
me! She would have done me evil, and sowed her seeds that I might reap
tares, and behold she hath given me more than all the world can give,
and there is a strange square for thee to fit into thy circle of good
and evil, oh Holly!

"And so," she went on, after a pause--"and so she bade her son destroy
me if he might, because I slew his father. And thou, my Kallikrates, art
the father, and in a sense thou art likewise the son; and wouldst thou
avenge thy wrong, and the wrong of that far-off mother of thine, upon
me, oh Kallikrates? See," and she slid to her knees, and drew the white
corsage still farther down her ivory bosom--"see, here beats my heart,
and there by thy side is a knife, heavy, and long, and sharp, the very
knife to slay an erring woman with. Take it now, and be avenged. Strike,
and strike home!--so shalt thou be satisfied, Kallikrates, and go
through life a happy man, because thou hast paid back the wrong, and
obeyed the mandate of the past."

He looked at her, and then stretched out his hand and lifted her to her
feet.

"Rise, Ayesha," he said sadly; "well thou knowest that I cannot strike
thee, no, not even for the sake of her whom thou slewest but last
night. I am in thy power, and a very slave to thee. How can I kill
thee?--sooner should I slay myself."

"Almost dost thou begin to love me, Kallikrates," she answered, smiling.
"And now tell me of thy country--'tis a great people, is it not? with an
empire like that of Rome! Surely thou wouldst return thither, and it is
well, for I mean not that thou shouldst dwell in these caves of Kor.
Nay, when once thou art even as I am, we will go hence--fear not but
that I shall find a path--and then shall we journey to this England of
thine, and live as it becometh us to live. Two thousand years have I
waited for the day when I should see the last of these hateful caves and
this gloomy-visaged folk, and now it is at hand, and my heart bounds up
to meet it like a child's towards its holiday. For thou shalt rule this
England----"

"But we have a queen already," broke in Leo, hastily.

"It is naught, it is naught," said Ayesha; "she can be overthrown."

At this we both broke out into an exclamation of dismay, and explained
that we should as soon think of overthrowing ourselves.

"But here is a strange thing," said Ayesha, in astonishment; "a queen
whom her people love! Surely the world must have changed since I dwelt
in Kor."

Again we explained that it was the character of monarchs that had
changed, and that the one under whom we lived was venerated and beloved
by all right-thinking people in her vast realms. Also, we told her that
real power in our country rested in the hands of the people, and that we
were in fact ruled by the votes of the lower and least educated classes
of the community.

"Ah," she said, "a democracy--then surely there is a tyrant, for I have
long since seen that democracies, having no clear will of their own, in
the end set up a tyrant, and worship him."

"Yes," I said, "we have our tyrants."

"Well," she answered resignedly, "we can at any rate destroy these
tyrants, and Kallikrates shall rule the land."

I instantly informed Ayesha that in England "blasting" was not an
amusement that could be indulged in with impunity, and that any such
attempt would meet with the consideration of the law and probably end
upon a scaffold.

"The law," she laughed with scorn--"the law! Canst thou not understand,
oh Holly, that I am above the law, and so shall my Kallikrates be also?
All human law will be to us as the north wind to a mountain. Does the
wind bend the mountain, or the mountain the wind?"

"And now leave me, I pray thee, and thou too, my own Kallikrates, for
I would get me ready against our journey, and so must ye both, and your
servant also. But bring no great quantity of things with thee, for I
trust that we shall be but three days gone. Then shall we return hither,
and I will make a plan whereby we can bid farewell for ever to these
sepulchres of Kor. Yea, surely thou mayst kiss my hand!"

So we went, I, for one, meditating deeply on the awful nature of the
problem that now opened out before us. The terrible _She_ had evidently
made up her mind to go to England, and it made me absolutely shudder
to think what would be the result of her arrival there. What her powers
were I knew, and I could not doubt but that she would exercise them
to the full. It might be possible to control her for a while, but her
proud, ambitious spirit would be certain to break loose and avenge
itself for the long centuries of its solitude. She would, if necessary,
and if the power of her beauty did not unaided prove equal to the
occasion, blast her way to any end she set before her, and, as she could
not die, and for aught I knew could not even be killed,[*] what was
there to stop her? In the end she would, I had little doubt, assume
absolute rule over the British dominions, and probably over the whole
earth, and, though I was sure that she would speedily make ours the most
glorious and prosperous empire that the world has ever seen, it would be
at the cost of a terrible sacrifice of life.

     [*] I regret to say that I was never able to ascertain if
     _She_ was invulnerable against the ordinary accidents of
     life. Presumably this was so, else some misadventure would
     have been sure to put an end to her in the course of so many
     centuries. True, she offered to let Leo slay her, but very
     probably this was only an experiment to try his temper and
     mental attitude towards her. Ayesha never gave way to
     impulse without some valid object.--L. H. H.

The whole thing sounded like a dream or some extraordinary invention of
a speculative brain, and yet it was a fact--a wonderful fact--of which
the whole world would soon be called on to take notice. What was the
meaning of it all? After much thinking I could only conclude that this
marvellous creature, whose passion had kept her for so many centuries
chained as it were, and comparatively harmless, was now about to be used
by Providence as a means to change the order of the world, and possibly,
by the building up of a power that could no more be rebelled against
or questioned than the decrees of Fate, to change it materially for the
better.



XXIII

THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH

Our preparations did not take us very long. We put a change of clothing
apiece and some spare boots into my Gladstone bag, also we took our
revolvers and an express rifle each, together with a good supply of
ammunition, a precaution to which, under Providence, we subsequently
owed our lives over and over again. The rest of our gear, together with
our heavy rifles, we left behind us.

A few minutes before the appointed time we once more attended in
Ayesha's boudoir, and found her also ready, her dark cloak thrown over
her winding-sheetlike wrappings.

"Are ye prepared for the great venture?" she said.

"We are," I answered, "though for my part, Ayesha, I have no faith in
it."

"Ah, my Holly," she said, "thou art of a truth like those old Jews--of
whom the memory vexes me so sorely--unbelieving, and hard to accept
that which they have not known. But thou shalt see; for unless my mirror
beyond lies," and she pointed to the font of crystal water, "the path is
yet open as it was of old time. And now let us start upon the new life
which shall end--who knoweth where?"

"Ah," I echoed, "who knoweth where?" and we passed down into the great
central cave, and out into the light of day. At the mouth of the cave we
found a single litter with six bearers, all of them mutes, waiting, and
with them I was relieved to see our old friend Billali, for whom I
had conceived a sort of affection. It appeared that, for reasons not
necessary to explain at length, Ayesha had thought it best that, with
the exception of herself, we should proceed on foot, and this we were
nothing loth to do, after our long confinement in these caves,
which, however suitable they might be for sarcophagi--a singularly
inappropriate word, by the way, for these particular tombs, which
certainly did not consume the bodies given to their keeping--were
depressing habitations for breathing mortals like ourselves. Either by
accident or by the orders of _She_, the space in front of the cave where
we had beheld that awful dance was perfectly clear of spectators. Not
a soul was to be seen, and consequently I do not believe that our
departure was known to anybody, except perhaps the mutes who waited on
_She_, and they were, of course, in the habit of keeping what they saw
to themselves.

In a few minutes' time we were stepping out sharply across the great
cultivated plain or lake bed, framed like a vast emerald in its setting
of frowning cliff, and had another opportunity of wondering at the
extraordinary nature of the site chosen by these old people of Kor for
their capital, and at the marvellous amount of labour, ingenuity, and
engineering skill that must have been brought into requisition by the
founders of the city to drain so huge a sheet of water, and to keep
it clear of subsequent accumulations. It is, indeed, so far as my
experience goes, an unequalled instance of what man can do in the face
of nature, for in my opinion such achievements as the Suez Canal or
even the Mont Cenis Tunnel do not approach this ancient undertaking in
magnitude and grandeur of conception.

When we had been walking for about half an hour, enjoying ourselves
exceedingly in the delightful cool which about this time of the day
always appeared to descend upon the great plain of Kor, and which in
some degree atoned for the want of any land or sea breeze--for all wind
was kept off by the rocky mountain wall--we began to get a clear view of
what Billali had informed us were the ruins of the great city. And even
from that distance we could see how wonderful those ruins were, a fact
which with every step we took became more evident. The town was not
very large if compared to Babylon or Thebes, or other cities of remote
antiquity; perhaps its outer wall contained some twelve square miles of
ground, or a little more. Nor had the walls, so far as we could judge
when we reached them, been very high, probably not more than forty feet,
which was about their present height where they had not through the
sinking of the ground, or some such cause, fallen into ruin. The reason
of this, no doubt, was that the people of Kor, being protected from any
outside attack by far more tremendous ramparts than any that the hand of
man could rear, only required them for show and to guard against civil
discord. But on the other hand they were as broad as they were high,
built entirely of dressed stone, hewn, no doubt, from the vast caves,
and surrounded by a great moat about sixty feet in width, some reaches
of which were still filled with water. About ten minutes before the
sun finally sank we reached this moat, and passed down and through it,
clambering across what evidently were the piled-up fragments of a great
bridge in order to do so, and then with some little difficulty over the
slope of the wall to its summit. I wish that it lay within the power of
my pen to give some idea of the grandeur of the sight that then met our
view. There, all bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles
upon miles of ruins--columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of
kings, varied with patches of green bush. Of course, the roofs of these
buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to
the extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness
and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great
columns still remained standing.[*]

     [*] In connection with the extraordinary state of
     preservation of these ruins after so vast a lapse of time--
     at least six thousand years--it must be remembered that Kor
     was not burnt or destroyed by an enemy or an earthquake, but
     deserted, owing to the action of a terrible plague.
     Consequently the houses were left unharmed; also the climate
     of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, and there is very
     little rain or wind; as a result of which these relics have
     only to contend against the unaided action of time, that
     works but slowly upon such massive blocks of masonry. --L.
     H. H.

Straight before us stretched away what had evidently been the main
thoroughfare of the city, for it was very wide, wider than the Thames
Embankment, and regular, being, as we afterwards discovered, paved,
or rather built, throughout of blocks of dressed stone, such as were
employed in the walls, it was but little overgrown even now with grass
and shrubs that could get no depth of soil to live in. What had been the
parks and gardens, on the contrary, were now dense jungle. Indeed, it
was easy even from a distance to trace the course of the various roads
by the burnt-up appearance of the scanty grass that grew upon them. On
either side of this great thoroughfare were vast blocks of ruins, each
block, generally speaking, being separated from its neighbour by a space
of what had once, I suppose, been garden-ground, but was now dense and
tangled bush. They were all built of the same coloured stone, and most
of them had pillars, which was as much as we could make out in the
fading light as we passed swiftly up the main road, that I believe I am
right in saying no living foot had pressed for thousands of years.[*]

     [*] Billali told me that the Amahagger believe that the site
     of the city is haunted, and could not be persuaded to enter
     it upon any consideration. Indeed, I could see that he
     himself did not at all like doing so, and was only consoled
     by the reflection that he was under the direct protection of
     _She_. It struck Leo and myself as very curious that a
     people which has no objection to living amongst the dead,
     with whom their familiarity has perhaps bred contempt, and
     even using their bodies for purposes of fuel, should be
     terrified at approaching the habitations that these very
     departed had occupied when alive. After all, however, it is
     only a savage inconsistency.--L. H. H.

Presently we came to an enormous pile, which we rightly took to be a
temple covering at least eight acres of ground, and apparently arranged
in a series of courts, each one enclosing another of smaller size, on
the principle of a Chinese nest of boxes, the courts being separated one
from the other by rows of huge columns. And, while I think of it, I may
as well state a remarkable thing about the shape of these columns, which
resembled none that I have ever seen or heard of, being fashioned with a
kind of waist at the centre, and swelling out above and below. At first
we thought that this shape was meant to roughly symbolise or suggest
the female form, as was a common habit amongst the ancient religious
architects of many creeds. On the following day, however, as we went up
the slopes of the mountain, we discovered a large quantity of the most
stately looking palms, of which the trucks grew exactly in this shape,
and I have now no doubt but that the first designer of those columns
drew his inspiration from the graceful bends of those very palms, or
rather of their ancestors, which then, some eight or ten thousand years
ago, as now, beautified the slopes of the mountain that had once formed
the shores of the volcanic lake.

At the _facade_ of this huge temple, which, I should imagine, is almost
as large as that of El-Karnac, at Thebes, some of the largest columns,
which I measured, being between eighteen to twenty feet in diameter at
the base, by about seventy feet in height, our little procession was
halted, and Ayesha descended from her litter.

"There was a spot here, Kallikrates," she said to Leo, who had run up to
help her down, "where one might sleep. Two thousand years ago did thou
and I and that Egyptian asp rest therein, but since then have I not set
foot here, nor any man, and perchance it has fallen," and, followed by
the rest of us, she passed up a vast flight of broken and ruined steps
into the outer court, and looked round into the gloom. Presently she
seemed to recollect, and, walking a few paces along the wall to the
left, halted.

"It is here," she said, and at the same time beckoned to the two mutes,
who were loaded with provisions and our little belongings, to advance.
One of them came forward, and, producing a lamp, lit it from his brazier
(for the Amahagger when on a journey nearly always carried with them a
little lighted brazier, from which to provide fire). The tinder of this
brazier was made of broken fragments of mummy carefully damped, and,
if the admixture of moisture was properly managed, this unholy compound
would smoulder away for hours.[*] As soon as the lamp was lit we entered
the place before which Ayesha had halted. It turned out to be a chamber
hollowed in the thickness of the wall, and, from the fact of there still
being a massive stone table in it, I should think that it had probably
served as a living-room, perhaps for one of the door-keepers of the
great temple.

     [*] After all we are not much in advance of the Amahagger in
     these matters. "Mummy," that is pounded ancient Egyptian,
     is, I believe, a pigment much used by artists, and
     especially by those of them who direct their talents to the
     reproduction of the works of the old masters.--Editor.

Here we stopped, and after cleaning the place out and making it as
comfortable as circumstances and the darkness would permit, we ate some
cold meat, at least Leo, Job and I did, for Ayesha, as I think I have
said elsewhere, never touched anything except cakes of flour, fruit and
water. While we were still eating, the moon, which was at her full, rose
above the mountain-wall, and began to flood the place with silver.

"Wot ye why I have brought you here to-night, my Holly?" said Ayesha,
leaning her head upon her hand and watching the great orb as she rose,
like some heavenly queen, above the solemn pillars of the temple. "I
brought you--nay, it is strange, but knowest thou, Kallikrates, that
thou liest at this moment upon the very spot where thy dead body lay
when I bore thee back to those caves of Kor so many years ago? It all
returns to my mind now. I can see it, and horrible is it to my sight!"
and she shuddered.

Here Leo jumped up and hastily changed his seat. However the
reminiscence might affect Ayesha, it clearly had few charms for him.

"I brought you," went on Ayesha presently, "that ye might look upon
the most wonderful sight that ever the eye of man beheld--the full moon
shining over ruined Kor. When ye have done your eating--I would that I
could teach you to eat naught but fruit, Kallikrates, but that will come
after thou hast laved in the fire. Once I, too, ate flesh like a brute
beast. When ye have done we will go out, and I will show you this great
temple and the God whom men once worshipped therein."

Of course we got up at once, and started. And here again my pen fails
me. To give a string of measurements and details of the various courts
of the temple would only be wearisome, supposing that I had them, and
yet I know not how I am to describe what we saw, magnificent as it was
even in its ruin, almost beyond the power of realisation. Court upon dim
court, row upon row of mighty pillars--some of them (especially at the
gateways) sculptured from pedestal to capital--space upon space of empty
chambers that spoke more eloquently to the imagination than any crowded
streets. And over all, the dead silence of the dead, the sense of utter
loneliness, and the brooding spirit of the Past! How beautiful it was,
and yet how drear! We did not dare to speak aloud. Ayesha herself was
awed in the presence of an antiquity compared to which even her length
of days was but a little thing; we only whispered, and our whispers
seemed to run from column to column, till they were lost in the quiet
air. Bright fell the moonlight on pillar and court and shattered wall,
hiding all their rents and imperfections in its silver garment, and
clothing their hoar majesty with the peculiar glory of the night. It was
a wonderful sight to see the full moon looking down on the ruined fane
of Kor. It was a wonderful thing to think for how many thousands of
years the dead orb above and the dead city below had gazed thus upon
each other, and in the utter solitude of space poured forth each to each
the tale of their lost life and long-departed glory. The white
light fell, and minute by minute the quiet shadows crept across
the grass-grown courts like the spirits of old priests haunting the
habitations of their worship--the white light fell, and the long shadows
grew till the beauty and grandeur of each scene and the untamed majesty
of its present Death seemed to sink into our very souls, and speak more
loudly than the shouts of armies concerning the pomp and splendour that
the grave had swallowed, and even memory had forgotten.

"Come," said Ayesha, after we had gazed and gazed, I know not for how
long, "and I will show you the stony flower of Loveliness and Wonder's
very crown, if yet it stands to mock time with its beauty and fill
the heart of man with longing for that which is behind the veil," and,
without waiting for an answer, she led us through two more pillared
courts into the inner shrine of the old fane.

And there, in the centre of the inmost court, that might have been some
fifty yards square, or a little more, we stood face to face with what
is perhaps the grandest allegorical work of Art that the genius of her
children has ever given to the world. For in the exact centre of the
court, placed upon a thick square slab of rock, was a huge round ball of
dark stone, some twenty feet in diameter, and standing on the ball was a
colossal winged figure of a beauty so entrancing and divine that when
I first gazed upon it, illuminated and shadowed as it was by the soft
light of the moon, my breath stood still, and for an instant my heart
ceased its beating.

The statue was hewn from marble so pure and white that even now, after
all those ages, it shone as the moonbeams danced upon it, and its height
was, I should say, a trifle over twenty feet. It was the winged figure
of a woman of such marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form that the
size seemed rather to add to than to detract from its so human and yet
more spiritual beauty. She was bending forward and poising herself upon
her half-spread wings as though to preserve her balance as she leant.
Her arms were outstretched like those of some woman about to embrace
one she dearly loved, while her whole attitude gave an impression of
the tenderest beseeching. Her perfect and most gracious form was naked,
save--and here came the extraordinary thing--the face, which was thinly
veiled, so that we could only trace the marking of her features. A gauzy
veil was thrown round and about the head, and of its two ends one fell
down across her left breast, which was outlined beneath it, and one, now
broken, streamed away upon the air behind her.

"Who is she?" I asked, as soon as I could take my eyes off the statue.

"Canst thou not guess, oh Holly?" answered Ayesha. "Where then is thy
imagination? It is Truth standing on the World, and calling to its
children to unveil her face. See what is writ upon the pedestal. Without
doubt it is taken from the book of Scriptures of these men of Kor," and
she led the way to the foot of the statue, where an inscription of the
usual Chinese-looking hieroglyphics was so deeply graven as to be still
quite legible, at least to Ayesha. According to her translation it ran
thus:--

"Is there no man that will draw my veil and look upon my face, for it is
very fair? Unto him who draws my veil shall I be, and peace will I give
him, and sweet children of knowledge and good works."

And a voice cried, "Though all those who seek after thee desire thee,
behold! Virgin art thou, and Virgin shalt thou go till Time be done. No
man is there born of woman who may draw thy veil and live, nor shall be.
By Death only can thy veil be drawn, oh Truth!"

And Truth stretched out her arms and wept, because those who sought her
might not find her, nor look upon her face to face.

"Thou seest," said Ayesha, when she had finished translating, "Truth
was the Goddess of the people of old Kor, and to her they built their
shrines, and her they sought; knowing that they should never find, still
sought they."

"And so," I added sadly, "do men seek to this very hour, but they find
out; and, as this Scripture saith, nor shall they; for in Death only is
Truth found."

Then with one more look at this veiled and spiritualised
loveliness--which was so perfect and so pure that one might almost fancy
that the light of a living spirit shone through the marble prison to
lead man on to high and ethereal thoughts--this poet's dream of beauty
frozen into stone, which I shall never forget while I live, we turned
and went back through the vast moonlit courts to the spot whence we had
started. I never saw the statue again, which I the more regret, because
on the great ball of stone representing the World whereon the figure
stood, lines were drawn, that probably, had there been light enough, we
should have discovered to be a map of the Universe as it was known to
the people of Kor. It is at any rate suggestive of some scientific
knowledge that these long-dead worshippers of Truth had recognised the
fact that the globe is round.



XXIV

WALKING THE PLANK

Next day the mutes woke us before the dawn; and by the time that we had
got the sleep out of our eyes, and gone through a perfunctory wash at a
spring which still welled up into the remains of a marble basin in the
centre of the North quadrangle of the vast outer court, we found _She_
standing by the litter ready to start, while old Billali and the two
bearer mutes were busy collecting the baggage. As usual, Ayesha was
veiled like the marble Truth (by the way, I wonder if she originally
got the idea of covering up her beauty from that statue?). I noticed,
however, that she seemed very depressed, and had none of that proud and
buoyant bearing which would have betrayed her among a thousand women of
the same stature, even if they had been veiled like herself. She looked
up as we came--for her head was bowed--and greeted us. Leo asked her how
she had slept.

"Ill, my Kallikrates," she answered, "ill. This night have strange and
hideous dreams come creeping through my brain, and I know not what they
may portend. Almost do I feel as though some evil overshadowed me; and
yet how can evil touch me? I wonder," she went on with a sudden outbreak
of womanly tenderness, "I wonder if, should aught happen to me, so that
I slept awhile and left thee waking, thou wouldst think gently of me? I
wonder, my Kallikrates, if thou wouldst tarry till I came again, as for
so many centuries I have tarried for thy coming?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, she went on: "Come, let us be
setting forth, for we have far to go, and before another day is born in
yonder blue should we stand in the place of Life."

In five minutes we were once more on our way through the vast ruined
city, which loomed at us on either side in the grey dawning in a way
that was at once grand and oppressive. Just as the first ray of the
rising sun shot like a golden arrow athwart this storied desolation we
gained the further gateway of the outer wall, and having given one more
glance at the hoar and pillared majesty through which we had journeyed,
and (with the exception of Job, for whom ruins had no charms) breathed
a sigh of regret that we had not had more time to explore it, passed
through the great moat, and on to the plain beyond.

As the sun rose so did Ayesha's spirits, till by breakfast-time they had
regained their normal level, and she laughingly set down her previous
depression to the associations of the spot where she had slept.

"These barbarians swear that Kor is haunted," she said, "and of a truth
I do believe their saying, for never did I know so ill a night save one.
I remember it now. It was on that very spot when thou didst lie dead at
my feet, Kallikrates. Never will I visit it again; it is a place of evil
omen."

After a very brief halt for breakfast we pressed on with such good will
that by two o'clock in the afternoon we were at the foot of the vast
wall of rock that formed the lip of the volcano, and which at this point
towered up precipitously above us for fifteen hundred or two thousand
feet. Here we halted, certainly not to my astonishment, for I did not
see how it was possible that we should go any farther.

"Now," said Ayesha, as she descended from her litter, "doth our labour
but commence, for here do we part with these men, and henceforward must
we bear ourselves;" and then, addressing Billali, "do thou and these
slaves remain here, and abide our coming. By to-morrow at the midday
shall we be with thee--if not, wait."

Billali bowed humbly, and said that her august bidding should be obeyed
if they stopped there till they grew old.

"And this man, oh Holly," said _She_, pointing to Job; "best is it
that he should tarry also, for if his heart be not high and his courage
great, perchance some evil might overtake him. Also, the secrets of the
place whither we go are not fit for common eyes."

I translated this to Job, who instantly and earnestly entreated me,
almost with tears in his eyes, not to leave him behind. He said he was
sure that he could see nothing worse than he had already seen, and that
he was terrified to death at the idea of being left alone with those
"dumb folk," who, he thought, would probably take the opportunity to
hot-pot him.

I translated what he said to Ayesha, who shrugged her shoulders, and
answered, "Well, let him come, it is naught to me; on his own head be
it, and he will serve to bear the lamp and this," and she pointed to a
narrow plank, some sixteen feet in length, which had been bound above
the long bearing-pole of her hammock, as I had thought to make curtains
spread out better, but, as it now appeared, for some unknown purpose
connected with our extraordinary undertaking.

Accordingly, the plank, which, though tough, was very light, was given
to Job to carry, and also one of the lamps. I slung the other on to my
back, together with a spare jar of oil, while Leo loaded himself with
the provisions and some water in a kid's skin. When this was done _She_
bade Billali and the six bearer mutes to retreat behind a grove of
flowering magnolias about a hundred yards away, and remain there under
pain of death till we had vanished. They bowed humbly, and went, and,
as he departed, old Billali gave me a friendly shake of the hand, and
whispered that he had rather that it was I than he who was going on this
wonderful expedition with "_She-who-must-be-obeyed_," and upon my word
I felt inclined to agree with him. In another minute they were gone, and
then, having briefly asked us if we were ready, Ayesha turned, and gazed
up the towering cliff.

"Goodness me, Leo," I said, "surely we are not going to climb that
precipice!"

Leo shrugged his shoulders, being in a condition of half-fascinated,
half-expectant mystification, and as he did so, Ayesha with a sudden
move began to climb the cliff, and of course we had to follow her. It
was perfectly marvellous to see the ease and grace with which she sprang
from rock to rock, and swung herself along the ledges. The ascent was
not, however, so difficult as it seemed, although there were one or two
nasty places where it did not do to look behind you, the fact being that
the rock still sloped here, and was not absolutely precipitous as it was
higher up. In this way we, with no great labour, mounted to the height
of some fifty feet above our last standing-place, the only really
troublesome thing to manage being Job's board, and in doing so drew some
fifty or sixty paces to the left of our starting-point, for we went up
like a crab, sideways. Presently we reached a ledge, narrow enough at
first, but which widened as we followed it, and moreover sloped inwards
like the petal of a flower, so that as we followed it we gradually got
into a kind of rut or fold of rock, that grew deeper and deeper, till at
last it resembled a Devonshire lane in stone, and hid us perfectly from
the gaze of anybody on the slope below, if there had been anybody to
gaze. This lane (which appeared to be a natural formation) continued
for some fifty or sixty paces, and then suddenly ended in a cave, also
natural, running at right angles to it. I am sure it was a natural
cave, and not hollowed by the hand of man, because of its irregular and
contorted shape and course, which gave it the appearance of having been
blown bodily in the mountain by some frightful eruption of gas following
the line of the least resistance. All the caves hollowed by the ancients
of Kor, on the contrary, were cut out with the most perfect regularity
and symmetry. At the mouth of this cave Ayesha halted, and bade us light
the two lamps, which I did, giving one to her and keeping the other
myself. Then, taking the lead, she advanced down the cavern, picking her
way with great care, as indeed it was necessary to do, for the floor was
most irregular--strewn with boulders like the bed of a stream, and in
some places pitted with deep holes, in which it would have been easy to
break one's leg.

This cavern we pursued for twenty minutes or more, it being, so far as
I could form a judgment--owing to its numerous twists and turns no easy
task--about a quarter of a mile long.

At last, however, we halted at its farther end, and whilst I was still
trying to pierce the gloom a great gust of air came tearing down it, and
extinguished both the lamps.

Ayesha called to us, and we crept up to her, for she was a little in
front, and were rewarded with a view that was positively appalling in
its gloom and grandeur. Before us was a mighty chasm in the black rock,
jagged and torn and splintered through it in a far past age by some
awful convulsion of Nature, as though it had been cleft by stroke upon
stroke of the lightning. This chasm, which was bounded by a precipice on
the hither, and presumably, though we could not see it, on the farther
side also, may have measured any width across, but from its darkness I
do not think it can have been very broad. It was impossible to make out
much of its outline, or how far it ran, for the simple reason that the
point where we were standing was so far from the upper surface of the
cliff, at least fifteen hundred or two thousand feet, that only a very
dim light struggled down to us from above. The mouth of the cavern that
we had been following gave on to a most curious and tremendous spur
of rock, which jutted out in mid air into the gulf before us, for
a distance of some fifty yards, coming to a sharp point at its
termination, and resembling nothing that I can think of so much as the
spur upon the leg of a cock in shape. This huge spur was attached only
to the parent precipice at its base, which was, of course, enormous,
just as the cock's spur is attached to its leg. Otherwise it was utterly
unsupported.

"Here must we pass," said Ayesha. "Be careful lest giddiness overcome
you, or the wind sweep you into the gulf beneath, for of a truth it hath
no bottom;" and, without giving us any further time to get scared, she
started walking along the spur, leaving us to follow her as best we
might. I was next to her, then came Job, painfully dragging his plank,
while Leo brought up the rear. It was a wonderful sight to see this
intrepid woman gliding fearlessly along that dreadful place. For my
part, when I had gone but a very few yards, what between the pressure
of the air and the awful sense of the consequences that a slip would
entail, I found it necessary to go down on my hands and knees and crawl,
and so did the other two.

But Ayesha never condescended to this. On she went, leaning her body
against the gusts of wind, and never seeming to lose her head or her
balance.

In a few minutes we had crossed some twenty paces of this awful bridge,
which got narrower at every step, and then all of a sudden a great gust
came tearing along the gorge. I saw Ayesha lean herself against it, but
the strong draught got under her dark cloak, and tore it from her, and
away it went down the wind flapping like a wounded bird. It was dreadful
to see it go, till it was lost in the blackness. I clung to the saddle
of rock, and looked round, while, like a living thing, the great spur
vibrated with a humming sound beneath us. The sight was a truly awesome
one. There we were poised in the gloom between earth and heaven. Beneath
us were hundreds upon hundreds of feet of emptiness that gradually grew
darker, till at last it was absolutely black, and at what depth it ended
is more than I can guess. Above was space upon space of giddy air, and
far, far away a line of blue sky. And down this vast gulf upon which we
were pinnacled the great draught dashed and roared, driving clouds and
misty wreaths of vapour before it, till we were nearly blinded, and
utterly confused.

The whole position was so tremendous and so absolutely unearthly, that I
believe it actually lulled our sense of terror, but to this hour I often
see it in my dreams, and at its mere phantasy wake up covered with cold
sweat.

"On! on!" cried the white form before us, for now the cloak had gone,
_She_ was robed in white, and looked more like a spirit riding down the
gale than a woman; "On, or ye will fall and be dashed to pieces. Keep
your eyes fixed upon the ground, and closely hug the rock."

We obeyed her, and crept painfully along the quivering path, against
which the wind shrieked and wailed as it shook it, causing it to murmur
like a vast tuning-fork. On we went, I do not know for how long, only
gazing round now and again, when it was absolutely necessary, until at
last we saw that we were on the very tip of the spur, a slab of rock,
little larger than an ordinary table, that throbbed and jumped like any
over-engined steamer. There we lay, clinging to the ground, and looked
about us, while Ayesha stood leaning out against the wind, down which
her long hair streamed, and, absolutely heedless of the hideous depth
that yawned beneath, pointed before her. Then we saw why the narrow
plank had been provided, which Job and I had painfully dragged along
between us. Before us was an empty space, on the other side of which was
something, as yet we could not see what, for here--either owing to the
shadow of the opposite cliff, or from some other cause--the gloom was
that of night.

"We must wait awhile," called Ayesha; "soon there will be light."

At the moment I could not imagine what she meant. How could more light
than there was ever come to this dreadful spot? While I was still
wondering, suddenly, like a great sword of flame, a beam from the
setting sun pierced the Stygian gloom, and smote upon the point of
rock whereon we lay, illumining Ayesha's lovely form with an unearthly
splendour. I only wish I could describe the wild and marvellous beauty
of that sword of fire, laid across the darkness and rushing mist-wreaths
of the gulf. How it got there I do not to this moment know, but I
presume that there was some cleft or hole in the opposing cliff, through
which it pierced when the setting orb was in a direct line therewith.
All I can say is, that the effect was the most wonderful that I ever
saw. Right through the heart of the darkness that flaming sword was
stabbed, and where it lay there was the most surpassingly vivid light,
so vivid that even at a distance we could see the grain of the rock,
while, outside of it--yes, within a few inches of its keen edge--was
naught but clustering shadows.

And now, by this ray of light, for which _She_ had been waiting, and
timed our arrival to meet, knowing that at this season for thousands of
years it had always struck thus at sunset, we saw what was before us.
Within eleven or twelve feet of the very tip of the tongue-like rock
whereon we stood there arose, presumably from the far bottom of the
gulf, a sugarloaf-shaped cone, of which the summit was exactly opposite
to us. But had there been a summit only it would not have helped us
much, for the nearest point of its circumference was some forty feet
from where we were. On the lip of this summit, however, which was
circular and hollow, rested a tremendous flat boulder, something like a
glacier stone--perhaps it was one, for all I know to the contrary--and
the end of this boulder approached to within twelve feet or so of us.
This huge rock was nothing more or less than a gigantic rocking-stone,
accurately balanced upon the edge of the cone or miniature crater, like
a half-crown on the rim of a wine-glass; for, in the fierce light that
played upon it and us, we could see it oscillating in the gusts of wind.

"Quick!" said Ayesha; "the plank--we must cross while the light endures;
presently it will be gone."

"Oh, Lord, sir!" groaned Job, "surely she don't mean us to walk across
that there place on that there thing," as in obedience to my direction
he pushed the long board towards me.

"That's it, Job," I halloaed in ghastly merriment, though the idea of
walking the plank was no pleasanter to me than to him.

I pushed the board on to Ayesha, who deftly ran it across the gulf so
that one end of it rested on the rocking-stone, the other remaining on
the extremity of the trembling spur. Then placing her foot upon it to
prevent it from being blown away, she turned to me.

"Since I was last here, oh Holly," she called, "the support of the
moving stone hath lessened somewhat, so that I am not certain if it will
bear our weight or no. Therefore will I cross the first, because no
harm will come unto me," and, without further ado, she trod lightly but
firmly across the frail bridge, and in another second was standing safe
upon the heaving stone.

"It is safe," she called. "See, hold thou the plank! I will stand on
the farther side of the stone so that it may not overbalance with your
greater weights. Now, come, oh Holly, for presently the light will fail
us."

I struggled to my knees, and if ever I felt terrified in my life it was
then, and I am not ashamed to say that I hesitated and hung back.

"Surely thou art not afraid," this strange creature called in a lull of
the gale, from where she stood poised like a bird on the highest point
of the rocking-stone. "Make way then for Kallikrates."

This settled me; it is better to fall down a precipice and die than
be laughed at by such a woman; so I clenched my teeth, and in another
instant I was on that horrible, narrow, bending plank, with bottomless
space beneath and around me. I have always hated a great height, but
never before did I realise the full horrors of which such a position is
capable. Oh, the sickening sensation of that yielding board resting on
the two moving supports. I grew dizzy, and thought that I must fall;
my spine _crept_; it seemed to me that I was falling, and my delight at
finding myself sprawling upon that stone, which rose and fell beneath me
like a boat in a swell, cannot be expressed in words. All I know is that
briefly, but earnestly enough, I thanked Providence for preserving me so
far.

Then came Leo's turn, and though he looked rather queer, he came across
like a rope-dancer. Ayesha stretched out her hand to clasp his own, and
I heard her say, "Bravely done, my love--bravely done! The old Greek
spirit lives in thee yet!"

And now only poor Job remained on the farther side of the gulf. He crept
up to the plank, and yelled out, "I can't do it, sir. I shall fall into
that beastly place."

"You must," I remember saying with inappropriate facetiousness--"you
must, Job, it's as easy as catching flies." I suppose that I must
have said it to satisfy my conscience, because although the expression
conveys a wonderful idea of facility, as a matter of fact I know no more
difficult operation in the whole world than catching flies--that is, in
warm weather, unless, indeed, it is catching mosquitoes.

"I can't, sir--I can't, indeed."

"Let the man come, or let him stop and perish there. See, the light is
dying! In a moment it will be gone!" said Ayesha.

I looked. She was right. The sun was passing below the level of the hole
or cleft in the precipice through which the ray reached us.

"If you stop there, Job, you will die alone," I called; "the light is
going."

"Come, be a man, Job," roared Leo; "it's quite easy."

Thus adjured, the miserable Job, with a most awful yell, precipitated
himself face downwards on the plank--he did not dare, small blame to
him, to try to walk it, and commenced to draw himself across in little
jerks, his poor legs hanging down on either side into the nothingness
beneath.

His violent jerks at the frail board made the great stone, which was
only balanced on a few inches of rock, oscillate in a most dreadful
manner, and, to make matters worse, when he was half-way across the
flying ray of lurid light suddenly went out, just as though a lamp
had been extinguished in a curtained room, leaving the whole howling
wilderness of air black with darkness.

"Come on, Job, for God's sake!" I shouted in an agony of fear, while the
stone, gathering motion with every swing, rocked so violently that it
was difficult to hang on to it. It was a truly awful position.

"Lord have mercy on me!" cried poor Job from the darkness. "Oh, the
plank's slipping!" and I heard a violent struggle, and thought that he
was gone.

But at that moment his outstretched hand, clasping in agony at the
air, met my own, and I hauled--ah, how I did haul, putting out all
the strength that it has pleased Providence to give me in such
abundance--and to my joy in another minute Job was gasping on the rock
beside me. But the plank! I felt it slip, and heard it knock against a
projecting knob of rock, and it was gone.

"Great heavens!" I exclaimed. "How are we going to get back?"

"I don't know," answered Leo, out of the gloom. "'Sufficient to the day
is the evil thereof,' I am thankful enough to be here."

But Ayesha merely called to me to take her hand and creep after her.



XXV

THE SPIRIT OF LIFE

I did as I was bid, and in fear and trembling felt myself guided over
the edge of the stone. I sprawled my legs out, but could touch nothing.

"I am going to fall!" I gasped.

"Nay, let thyself go, and trust to me," answered Ayesha.

Now, if the position is considered, it will be easily understood that
this was a greater demand upon my confidence than was justified by my
knowledge of Ayesha's character. For all I knew she might be in the very
act of consigning me to a horrible doom. But in life we sometimes have
to lay our faith upon strange altars, and so it was now.

"Let thyself go!" she cried, and, having no choice, I did.

I felt myself slide a pace or two down the sloping surface of the rock,
and then pass into the air, and the thought flashed through my brain
that I was lost. But no! In another instant my feet struck against a
rocky floor, and I felt that I was standing upon something solid, and
out of reach of the wind, which I could hear singing away overhead. As
I stood there thanking Heaven for these small mercies, there was a slip
and a scuffle, and down came Leo alongside of me.

"Hulloa, old fellow!" he called out, "are you there? This is getting
interesting, is it not?"

Just then, with a terrific yell, Job arrived right on the top of us,
knocking us both down. By the time we had struggled to our feet again
Ayesha was standing among us, and bidding us light the lamps, which
fortunately remained uninjured, as also did the spare jar of oil.

I got out my box of wax matches, and they struck as merrily, there, in
that awful place, as they could have done in a London drawing-room.

In a couple of minutes both the lamps were alight and revealed a curious
scene. We were huddled together in a rocky chamber, some ten feet
square, and scared enough we looked; that is, except Ayesha, who was
standing calmly with her arms folded, and waiting for the lamps to burn
up. The chamber appeared to be partly natural, and partly hollowed out
of the top of the cone. The roof of the natural part was formed of the
swinging stone, and that of the back part of the chamber, which sloped
downwards, was hewn from the live rock. For the rest, the place was warm
and dry--a perfect haven of rest compared to the giddy pinnacle above,
and the quivering spur that shot out to meet it in mid-air.

"So!" said _She_, "safely have we come, though once I feared that
the rocking stone would fall with you, and precipitate you into the
bottomless depths beneath, for I do believe that the cleft goeth down
to the very womb of the world. The rock whereon the stone resteth hath
crumbled beneath the swinging weight. And now that he," nodding towards
Job, who was sitting on the floor, feebly wiping his forehead with a red
cotton pocket-handkerchief, "whom they rightly call the 'Pig,' for as a
pig is he stupid, hath let fall the plank, it will not be easy to return
across the gulf, and to that end must I make a plan. But now rest a
while, and look upon this place. What think ye that it is?"

"We know not," I answered.

"Wouldst thou believe, oh Holly, that once a man did choose this airy
nest for a daily habitation, and did here endure for many years; leaving
it only but one day in every twelve to seek food and water and oil that
the people brought, more than he could carry, and laid as an offering in
the mouth of the tunnel through which we passed hither?"

We looked up wonderingly, and she continued--

"Yet so it was. There was a man--Noot, he named himself--who, though
he lived in the latter days, had of the wisdom of the sons of Kor. A
hermit was he, and a philosopher, and greatly skilled in the secrets
of Nature, and he it was who discovered the Fire that I shall show you,
which is Nature's blood and life, and also that he who bathed therein,
and breathed thereof, should live while Nature lives. But like unto
thee, oh Holly, this man, Noot, would not turn his knowledge to account.
'Ill,' he said, 'was it for man to live, for man was born to die.'
Therefore did he tell his secret to none, and therefore did he come and
live here, where the seeker after Life must pass, and was revered of
the Amahagger of the day as holy, and a hermit. And when first I came to
this country--knowest thou how I came, Kallikrates? Another time I will
tell thee, for it is a strange tale--I heard of this philosopher, and
waited for him when he came to fetch his food, and returned with him
hither, though greatly did I fear to tread the gulf. Then did I beguile
him with my beauty and my wit, and flatter him with my tongue, so that
he led me down and showed me the Fire, and told me the secrets of the
Fire, but he would not suffer me to step therein, and, fearing lest he
should slay me, I refrained, knowing that the man was very old, and soon
would die. And I returned, having learned from him all that he knew of
the wonderful Spirit of the World, and that was much, for the man
was wise and very ancient, and by purity and abstinence, and the
contemplations of his innocent mind, had worn thin the veil between that
which we see and the great invisible truths, the whisper of whose wings
at times we hear as they sweep through the gross air of the world.
Then--it was but a very few days after, I met thee, my Kallikrates,
who hadst wandered hither with the beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, and I
learned to love for the first and last time, once and for ever, so that
it entered into my mind to come hither with thee, and receive the gift
of Life for thee and me. Therefore came we, with that Egyptian who would
not be left behind, and, behold, we found the old man Noot lying but
newly dead. _There_ he lay, and his white beard covered him like a
garment," and she pointed to a spot near where I was sitting; "but
surely he hath long since crumbled into dust, and the wind hath borne
his ashes hence."

Here I put out my hand and felt in the dust, and presently my fingers
touched something. It was a human tooth, very yellow, but sound. I held
it up and showed it to Ayesha, who laughed.

"Yes," she said, "it is his without a doubt. Behold what remaineth of
Noot, and the wisdom of Noot--one little tooth! And yet that man had all
life at his command, and for his conscience' sake would have none of
it. Well, he lay there newly dead, and we descended whither I shall lead
you, and then, gathering up all my courage, and courting death that
I might perchance win so glorious a crown of life, I stepped into the
flames, and behold! life such as ye can never know until ye feel it
also, flowed into me, and I came forth undying, and lovely beyond
imagining. Then did I stretch out mine arms to thee, Kallikrates,
and bid thee take thine immortal bride, and behold, as I spoke, thou,
blinded by my beauty, didst turn from me, and throw thine arms about the
neck of Amenartas. And then a great fury filled me, and made me mad,
and I seized the javelin that thou didst bear, and stabbed thee, so that
there, at my very feet, in the place of Life, thou didst groan and go
down into death. I knew not then that I had strength to slay with mine
eyes and by the power of my will, therefore in my madness slew I with
the javelin.[*]

     [*] It will be observed that Ayesha's account of the death
     of Kallikrates differs materially from that written on the
     potsherd by Amenartas. The writing on the sherd says, "Then
     in her rage did she smite him _by her magic_, and he died."
     We never ascertained which was the correct version, but it
     will be remembered that the body of Kallikrates had a spear-
     wound in the breast, which seems conclusive, unless, indeed,
     it was inflicted after death. Another thing that we never
     ascertained was _how_ the two women--_She_ and the Egyptian
     Amenartas--were able to bear the corpse of the man they both
     loved across the dread gulf and along the shaking spur. What
     a spectacle the two distracted creatures must have presented
     in their grief and loveliness as they toiled along that
     awful place with the dead man between them! Probably however
     the passage was easier then.--L. H. H.

"And when thou wast dead, ah! I wept, because I was undying and thou
wast dead. I wept there in the place of Life so that had I been mortal
any more my heart had surely broken. And she, the swart Egyptian--she
cursed me by her gods. By Osiris did she curse me and by Isis, by
Nephthys and by Anubis, by Sekhet, the cat-headed, and by Set, calling
down evil on me, evil and everlasting desolation. Ah! I can see her dark
face now lowering o'er me like a storm, but she could not hurt me, and
I--I know not if I could hurt her. I did not try; it was naught to me
then; so together we bore thee hence. And afterwards I sent her--the
Egyptian--away through the swamps, and it seems that she lived to bear
a son and to write the tale that should lead thee, her husband, back to
me, her rival and thy murderess.

"Such is the tale, my love, and now is the hour at hand that shall set
a crown upon it. Like all things on the earth, it is compounded of evil
and of good--more of evil than of good, perchance; and writ in letters
of blood. It is the truth; naught have I hidden from thee, Kallikrates.
And now one thing before the final moment of thy trial. We go down
into the presence of Death, for Life and Death are very near together,
and--who knoweth?--that might happen which should separate us for
another space of waiting. I am but a woman, and no prophetess, and I
cannot read the future. But this I know--for I learned it from the
lips of the wise man Noot--that my life is but prolonged and made more
bright. It cannot live for aye. Therefore, before we go, tell me, oh
Kallikrates, that of a truth thou dost forgive me, and dost love me from
thy heart. See, Kallikrates: much evil have I done--perchance it was
evil but two nights ago to strike that girl who loved thee cold in
death--but she disobeyed me and angered me, prophesying misfortune to
me, and I smote. Be careful when power comes to thee also, lest thou
too shouldst smite in thine anger or thy jealousy, for unconquerable
strength is a sore weapon in the hands of erring man. Yea, I have
sinned--out of the bitterness born of a great love have I sinned--but
yet do I know the good from the evil, nor is my heart altogether
hardened. Thy love, Kallikrates, shall be the gate of my redemption,
even as aforetime my passion was the path down which I ran to evil. For
deep love unsatisfied is the hell of noble hearts and a portion of the
accursed, but love that is mirrored back more perfect from the soul of
our desired doth fashion wings to lift us above ourselves, and makes us
what we might be. Therefore, Kallikrates, take me by the hand, and lift
my veil with no more fear than though I were some peasant girl, and not
the wisest and most beauteous woman in this wide world, and look me in
the eyes, and tell me that thou dost forgive me with all thine heart,
and that will all thine heart thou dost worship me."

She paused, and the strange tenderness in her voice seemed to hover
round us like a memory. I know that the sound of it moved me more even
than her words, it was so very human--so very womanly. Leo, too, was
strangely touched. Hitherto he had been fascinated against his better
judgment, something as a bird is fascinated by a snake, but now I think
that all this passed away, and he realised that he really loved this
strange and glorious creature, as, alas! I loved her also. At any rate,
I saw his eyes fill with tears, and he stepped swiftly to her and undid
the gauzy veil, and then took her by the hand, and, gazing into her deep
eyes, said aloud--

"Ayesha, I love thee with all my heart, and so far as forgiveness is
possible I forgive thee the death of Ustane. For the rest, it is between
thee and thy Maker; I know naught of it. I only know that I love thee as
I never loved before, and that I will cleave to thee to the end."

"Now," answered Ayesha, with proud humility--"now when my lord doth
speak thus royally and give with so free a hand, it cannot become me to
lag behind in words, and be beggared of my generosity. Behold!" and she
took his hand and placed it upon her shapely head, and then bent herself
slowly down till one knee for an instant touched the ground--"Behold! in
token of submission do I bow me to my lord! Behold!" and she kissed him
on the lips, "in token of my wifely love do I kiss my lord. Behold!"
and she laid her hand upon his heart, "by the sin I sinned, by my lonely
centuries of waiting wherewith it was wiped out, by the great love
wherewith I love, and by the Spirit--the Eternal Thing that doth beget
all life, from whom it ebbs, to whom it doth return again--I swear:--

"I swear, even in this most holy hour of completed Womanhood, that I
will abandon Evil and cherish Good. I swear that I will be ever guided
by thy voice in the straightest path of Duty. I swear that I will eschew
Ambition, and through all my length of endless days set Wisdom over me
as a guiding star to lead me unto Truth and a knowledge of the Right.
I swear also that I will honour and will cherish thee, Kallikrates, who
hast been swept by the wave of time back into my arms, ay, till the very
end, come it soon or late. I swear--nay, I will swear no more, for what
are words? Yet shalt thou learn that Ayesha hath no false tongue.

"So I have sworn, and thou, my Holly, at witness to my oath. Here, too,
are we wed, my husband, with the gloom for bridal canopy--wed till the
end of all things; here do we write our marriage vows upon the rushing
winds which shall bear them up to heaven, and round and continually
round this rolling world.

"And for a bridal gift I crown thee with my beauty's starry crown, and
enduring life, and wisdom without measure, and wealth that none can
count. Behold! the great ones of the earth shall creep about thy feet,
and its fair women shall cover up their eyes because of the shining
glory of thy countenance, and its wise ones shall be abased before thee.
Thou shalt read the hearts of men as an open writing, and hither and
thither shalt thou lead them as thy pleasure listeth. Like that old
Sphinx of Egypt shalt thou sit aloft from age to age, and ever shall
they cry to thee to solve the riddle of thy greatness that doth not pass
away, and ever shalt thou mock them with thy silence!

"Behold! once more I kiss thee, and by that kiss I give to thee dominion
over sea and earth, over the peasant in his hovel, over the monarch in
his palace halls, and cities crowned with towers, and those who breathe
therein. Where'er the sun shakes out his spears, and the lonesome waters
mirror up the moon, where'er storms roll, and Heaven's painted bows arch
in the sky--from the pure North clad in snows, across the middle spaces
of the world, to where the amorous South, lying like a bride upon her
blue couch of seas, breathes in sighs made sweet with the odour of
myrtles--there shall thy power pass and thy dominion find a home. Nor
sickness, nor icy-fingered fear, nor sorrow, and pale waste of form and
mind hovering ever o'er humanity, shall so much as shadow thee with the
shadow of their wings. As a God shalt thou be, holding good and evil in
the hollow of thy hand, and I, even I, I humble myself before thee.
Such is the power of Love, and such is the bridal gift I give unto thee,
Kallikrates, my Lord and Lord of All.

"And now it is done; now for thee I loose my virgin zone; and come
storm, come shine, come good, come evil, come life, come death, it
never, never can be undone. For, of a truth, that which is, is, and,
being done, is done for aye, and cannot be altered. I have said--Let us
hence, that all things may be accomplished in their order;" and, taking
one of the lamps, she advanced towards the end of the chamber that was
roofed in by the swaying stone, where she halted.

We followed her, and perceived that in the wall of the cone there was a
stair, or, to be more accurate, that some projecting knobs of rock had
been so shaped as to form a good imitation of a stair. Down this Ayesha
began to climb, springing from step to step, like a chamois, and after
her we followed with less grace. When we had descended some fifteen
or sixteen steps we found that they ended in a tremendous rocky slope,
running first outwards and then inwards--like the slope of an inverted
cone, or tunnel. The slope was very steep, and often precipitous, but
it was nowhere impassable, and by the light of the lamps we went down it
with no great difficulty, though it was gloomy work enough travelling on
thus, no one of us knew whither, into the dead heart of a volcano. As
we went, however, I took the precaution of noting our route as well as
I could; and this was not so very difficult, owing to the extraordinary
and most fantastic shape of the rocks that were strewn about, many of
which in that dim light looked more like the grim faces carven upon
mediaeval gargoyles than ordinary boulders.

For a long time we travelled on thus, half an hour I should say, till,
after we had descended for many hundreds of feet, I perceived that we
were reaching the point of the inverted cone. In another minute we were
there, and found that at the very apex of the funnel was a passage, so
low and narrow that we had to stoop as we crept along it in Indian file.
After some fifty yards of this creeping, the passage suddenly widened
into a cave, so huge that we could see neither the roof nor the sides.
We only knew that it was a cave by the echo of our tread and the perfect
quiet of the heavy air. On we went for many minutes in absolute awed
silence, like lost souls in the depths of Hades, Ayesha's white and
ghost-like form flitting in front of us, till once more the place ended
in a passage which opened into a second cavern much smaller than the
first. Indeed, we could clearly make out the arch and stony banks of
this second cave, and, from their rent and jagged appearance, discovered
that, like the first long passage down which we had passed through the
cliff before we reached the quivering spur, it had, to all appearance,
been torn in the bowels of the rock by the terrific force of some
explosive gas. At length this cave ended in a third passage, through
which gleamed a faint glow of light.

I heard Ayesha give a sigh of relief as this light dawned upon us.

"It is well," she said; "prepare to enter the very womb of the Earth,
wherein she doth conceive the Life that ye see brought forth in man and
beast--ay, and in every tree and flower."

Swiftly she sped along, and after her we stumbled as best we might, our
hearts filled like a cup with mingled dread and curiosity. What were we
about to see? We passed down the tunnel; stronger and stronger the light
beamed, reaching us in great flashes like the rays from a lighthouse, as
one by one they are thrown wide upon the darkness of the waters. Nor was
this all, for with the flashes came a soul-shaking sound like that of
thunder and of crashing trees. Now we were through it, and--oh heavens!

We stood in a third cavern, some fifty feet in length by perhaps as
great a height, and thirty wide. It was carpeted with fine white sand,
and its walls had been worn smooth by the action of I know not what. The
cavern was not dark like the others, it was filled with a soft glow of
rose-coloured light, more beautiful to look on than anything that can
be conceived. But at first we saw no flashes, and heard no more of the
thunderous sound. Presently, however, as we stood in amaze, gazing at
the marvellous sight, and wondering whence the rosy radiance flowed, a
dread and beautiful thing happened. Across the far end of the
cavern, with a grinding and crashing noise--a noise so dreadful and
awe-inspiring that we all trembled, and Job actually sank to his
knees--there flamed out an awful cloud or pillar of fire, like a rainbow
many-coloured, and like the lightning bright. For a space, perhaps forty
seconds, it flamed and roared thus, turning slowly round and round, and
then by degrees the terrible noise ceased, and with the fire it passed
away--I know not where--leaving behind it the same rosy glow that we had
first seen.

"Draw near, draw near!" cried Ayesha, with a voice of thrilling
exultation. "Behold the very Fountain and Heart of Life as it beats in
the bosom of the great world. Behold the substance from which all things
draw their energy, the bright Spirit of the Globe, without which it
cannot live, but must grow cold and dead as the dead moon. Draw near,
and wash you in the living flames, and take their virtue into your poor
frames in all its virgin strength--not as it now feebly glows within
your bosoms, filtered thereto through all the fine strainers of a
thousand intermediate lives, but as it is here in the very fount and
seat of earthly Being."

We followed her through the rosy glow up to the head of the cave, till
at last we stood before the spot where the great pulse beat and the
great flame passed. And as we went we became sensible of a wild and
splendid exhilaration, of a glorious sense of such a fierce intensity of
Life that the most buoyant moments of our strength seemed flat and tame
and feeble beside it. It was the mere effluvium of the flame, the subtle
ether that it cast off as it passed, working on us, and making us feel
strong as giants and swift as eagles.

We reached the head of the cave, and gazed at each other in the glorious
glow, and laughed aloud--even Job laughed, and he had not laughed for a
week--in the lightness of our hearts and the divine intoxication of our
brains. I know that I felt as though all the varied genius of which the
human intellect is capable had descended upon me. I could have spoken
in blank verse of Shakesperian beauty, all sorts of great ideas flashed
through my mind; it was as though the bonds of my flesh had been
loosened and left the spirit free to soar to the empyrean of its native
power. The sensations that poured in upon me are indescribable. I seemed
to live more keenly, to reach to a higher joy, and sip the goblet of a
subtler thought than ever it had been my lot to do before. I was another
and most glorified self, and all the avenues of the Possible were for a
space laid open to the footsteps of the Real.

Then, suddenly, whilst I rejoiced in this splendid vigour of a new-found
self, from far, far away there came a dreadful muttering noise, that
grew and grew to a crash and a roar, which combined in itself all that
is terrible and yet splendid in the possibilities of sound. Nearer it
came, and nearer yet, till it was close upon us, rolling down like all
the thunder-wheels of heaven behind the horses of the lightning. On
it came, and with it came the glorious blinding cloud of many-coloured
light, and stood before us for a space, turning, as it seemed to us,
slowly round and round, and then, accompanied by its attendant pomp of
sound, passed away I know not whither.

So astonishing was the wondrous sight that one and all of us, save
_She_, who stood up and stretched her hands towards the fire, sank down
before it, and hid our faces in the sand.

When it was gone, Ayesha spoke.

"Now, Kallikrates," she said, "the mighty moment is at hand. When the
great flame comes again thou must stand in it. First throw aside thy
garments, for it will burn them, though thee it will not hurt. Thou must
stand in the flame while thy senses will endure, and when it embraces
thee suck the fire down into thy very heart, and let it leap and play
around thy every part, so that thou lose no moiety of its virtue.
Hearest thou me, Kallikrates?"

"I hear thee, Ayesha," answered Leo, "but, of a truth--I am no
coward--but I doubt me of that raging flame. How know I that it will
not utterly destroy me, so that I lose myself and lose thee also?
Nevertheless will I do it," he added.

Ayesha thought for a minute, and then said--

"It is not wonderful that thou shouldst doubt. Tell me, Kallikrates:
if thou seest me stand in the flame and come forth unharmed, wilt thou
enter also?"

"Yes," he answered, "I will enter even if it slay me. I have said that I
will enter now."

"And that will I also," I cried.

"What, my Holly!" she laughed aloud; "methought that thou wouldst naught
of length of days. Why, how is this?"

"Nay, I know not," I answered, "but there is that in my heart that
calleth me to taste of the flame and live."

"It is well," she said. "Thou art not altogether lost in folly. See now,
I will for the second time bathe me in this living bath. Fain would I
add to my beauty and my length of days if that be possible. If it be not
possible, at the least it cannot harm me.

"Also," she continued, after a momentary pause, "is there another and
a deeper cause why I would once again dip me in the flame. When first I
tasted of its virtue full was my heart of passion and of hatred of
that Egyptian Amenartas, and therefore, despite my strivings to be rid
thereof, have passion and hatred been stamped upon my soul from that sad
hour to this. But now it is otherwise. Now is my mood a happy mood, and
filled am I with the purest part of thought, and so would I ever be.
Therefore, Kallikrates, will I once more wash and make me pure and
clean, and yet more fit for thee. Therefore also, when thou dost in turn
stand in the fire, empty all thy heart of evil, and let soft contentment
hold the balance of thy mind. Shake loose thy spirit's wings, and take
thy stand upon the utter verge of holy contemplation; ay, dream upon thy
mother's kiss, and turn thee towards the vision of the highest good that
hath ever swept on silver wings across the silence of thy dreams. For
from the germ of what thou art in that dread moment shall grow the fruit
of what thou shalt be for all unreckoned time.

"Now prepare thee, prepare! even as though thy last hour were at hand,
and thou wast to cross to the Land of Shadows, and not through the Gates
of Glory into the realms of Life made beautiful. Prepare, I say!"



XXVI

WHAT WE SAW

Then came a few moments' pause, during which Ayesha seemed to be
gathering up her strength for the fiery trial, while we clung to each
other, and waited in utter silence.

At last, from far far away, came the first murmur of sound, that grew
and grew till it began to crash and bellow in the distance. As she heard
it, Ayesha swiftly threw off her gauzy wrapping, loosened the golden
snake from her kirtle, and then, shaking her lovely hair about her like
a garment, beneath its cover slipped the kirtle off and replaced the
snaky belt around her and outside the masses of her falling hair. There
she stood before us as Eve might have stood before Adam, clad in nothing
but her abundant locks, held round her by the golden band; and no words
of mine can tell how sweet she looked--and yet how divine. Nearer and
nearer came the thunder-wheels of fire, and as they came she pushed one
ivory arm through the dark masses of her hair and flung it round Leo's
neck.

"Oh, my love, my love!" she murmured, "wilt thou ever know how I have
loved thee?" and she kissed him on the forehead, and then went and stood
in the pathway of the flame of Life.

There was, I remember, to my mind something very touching about her
words and that embrace upon the forehead. It was like a mother's kiss,
and seemed to convey a benediction with it.

On came the crashing, rolling noise, and the sound of it was as the
sound of a forest being swept flat by a mighty wind, and then tossed
up like so much grass, and thundered down a mountain-side. Nearer and
nearer it came; now flashes of light, forerunners of the revolving
pillar of flame, were passing like arrows through the rosy air; and now
the edge of the pillar itself appeared. Ayesha turned towards it, and
stretched out her arms to greet it. On it came very slowly, and lapped
her round with flame. I saw the fire run up her form. I saw her lift it
with both hands as though it were water, and pour it over her head. I
even saw her open her mouth and draw it down into her lungs, and a dread
and wonderful sight it was.

Then she paused, and stretched out her arms, and stood there quite
still, with a heavenly smile upon her face, as though she were the very
Spirit of the Flame.

The mysterious fire played up and down her dark and rolling locks,
twining and twisting itself through and around them like threads of
golden lace; it gleamed upon her ivory breast and shoulder, from which
the hair had slipped aside; it slid along her pillared throat and
delicate features, and seemed to find a home in the glorious eyes that
shone and shone, more brightly even than the spiritual essence.

Oh, how beautiful she looked there in the flame! No angel out of heaven
could have worn a greater loveliness. Even now my heart faints before
the recollection of it, as she stood and smiled at our awed faces, and
I would give half my remaining time upon this earth to see her once like
that again.

But suddenly--more suddenly than I can describe--a kind of change came
over her face, a change which I could not define or explain, but none
the less a change. The smile vanished, and in its place there came a
dry, hard look; the rounded face seemed to grow pinched, as though some
great anxiety were leaving its impress upon it. The glorious eyes, too,
lost their light, and, as I thought, the form its perfect shape and
erectness.

I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was the victim of some hallucination,
or that the refraction from the intense light produced an optical
delusion; and, as I did so, the flaming pillar slowly twisted and
thundered off whithersoever it passes to in the bowels of the great
earth, leaving Ayesha standing where it had been.

As soon as it was gone, she stepped forward to Leo's side--it seemed to
me that there was no spring in her step--and stretched out her hand
to lay it on his shoulder. I gazed at her arm. Where was its wonderful
roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and angular. And her face--by
Heaven!--_her face was growing old before my eyes!_ I suppose that Leo
saw it also; certainly he recoiled a step or two.

"What is it, my Kallikrates?" she said, and her voice--what was the
matter with those deep and thrilling notes? They were quite high and
cracked.

"Why, what is it--what is it?" she said confusedly. "I feel dazed.
Surely the quality of the fire hath not altered. Can the principle of
Life alter? Tell me, Kallikrates, is there aught wrong with my eyes?
I see not clear," and she put her hand to her head and touched her
hair--and oh, _horror of horrors!_--it all fell upon the floor.

"Oh, _look!--look!--look!_" shrieked Job, in a shrill falsetto of
terror, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head, and foam upon his
lips. "_Look!--look!--look!_ she's shrivelling up! she's turning into
a monkey!" and down he fell upon the ground, foaming and gnashing in a
fit.

True enough--I faint even as I write it in the living presence of that
terrible recollection--she _was_ shrivelling up; the golden snake that
had encircled her gracious form slipped over her hips and to the ground;
smaller and smaller she grew; her skin changed colour, and in place of
the perfect whiteness of its lustre it turned dirty brown and yellow,
like an piece of withered parchment. She felt at her head: the
delicate hand was nothing but a claw now, a human talon like that of a
badly-preserved Egyptian mummy, and then she seemed to realise what kind
of change was passing over her, and she shrieked--ah, she shrieked!--she
rolled upon the floor and shrieked!

Smaller she grew, and smaller yet, till she was no larger than a monkey.
Now the skin was puckered into a million wrinkles, and on the shapeless
face was the stamp of unutterable age. I never saw anything like it;
nobody ever saw anything like the frightful age that was graven on that
fearful countenance, no bigger now than that of a two-months' child,
though the skull remained the same size, or nearly so, and let all men
pray they never may, if they wish to keep their reason.

At last she lay still, or only feebly moving. She, who but two minutes
before had gazed upon us the loveliest, noblest, most splendid woman the
world has ever seen, she lay still before us, near the masses of her own
dark hair, no larger than a big monkey, and hideous--ah, too hideous for
words. And yet, think of this--at that very moment I thought of it--it
was the _same_ woman!

She was dying: we saw it, and thanked God--for while she lived she could
feel, and what must she have felt? She raised herself upon her bony
hands, and blindly gazed around her, swaying her head slowly from side
to side as a tortoise does. She could not see, for her whitish eyes were
covered with a horny film. Oh, the horrible pathos of the sight! But she
could still speak.

"Kallikrates," she said in husky, trembling notes. "Forget me not,
Kallikrates. Have pity on my shame; I shall come again, and shall once
more be beautiful, I swear it--it is true! _Oh--h--h--_" and she fell
upon her face, and was still.

On the very spot where more than twenty centuries before she had slain
Kallikrates the priest, she herself fell down and died.

* * * * *

I know not how long we remained thus. Many hours, I suppose. When at
last I opened my eyes, the other two were still outstretched upon
the floor. The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn, and the
thunder-wheels of the Spirit of Life yet rolled upon their accustomed
track, for as I awoke the great pillar was passing away. There, too, lay
the hideous little monkey frame, covered with crinkled yellow parchment,
that once had been the glorious _She_. Alas! it was no hideous dream--it
was an awful and unparalleled fact!

What had happened to bring this shocking change about? Had the nature
of the life-giving Fire changed? Did it, perhaps, from time to time send
forth an essence of Death instead of an essence of Life? Or was it that
the frame once charged with its marvellous virtue could bear no more,
so that were the process repeated--it mattered not at what lapse of
time--the two impregnations neutralised each other, and left the body
on which they acted as it was before it ever came into contact with the
very essence of Life? This, and this alone, would account for the sudden
and terrible ageing of Ayesha, as the whole length of her two thousand
years took effect upon her. I have not the slightest doubt myself but
that the frame now lying before me was just what the frame of a woman
would be if by any extraordinary means life could be preserved in her
till she at length died at the age of two-and-twenty centuries.

But who can tell what had happened? There was the fact. Often since that
awful hour I have reflected that it requires no great imagination to see
the finger of Providence in the matter. Ayesha locked up in her living
tomb waiting from age to age for the coming of her lover worked but a
small change in the order of the World. But Ayesha strong and happy in
her love, clothed in immortal youth and goddess beauty, and the wisdom
of the centuries, would have revolutionised society, and even perchance
have changed the destiny of Mankind. Thus she opposed herself against
the eternal law, and, strong though she was, by it was swept back to
nothingness--swept back with shame and hideous mockery!

For some minutes I lay faintly turning these terrors over in my mind,
while my physical strength came back to me, which it quickly did in that
buoyant atmosphere. Then I bethought me of the others, and staggered
to my feet, to see if I could arouse them. But first I took up Ayesha's
kirtle and the gauzy scarf with which she had been wont to hide her
dazzling loveliness from the eyes of men, and, averting my head so that
I might not look upon it, covered up that dreadful relic of the glorious
dead, that shocking epitome of human beauty and human life. I did this
hurriedly, fearing lest Leo should recover, and see it again.

Then, stepping over the perfumed masses of dark hair that lay upon the
sand, I stooped down by Job, who was lying upon his face, and turned him
over. As I did so his arm fell back in a way that I did not like, and
which sent a chill through me, and I glanced sharply at him. One look
was enough. Our old and faithful servant was dead. His nerves, already
shattered by all he had seen and undergone, had utterly broken down
beneath this last dire sight, and he had died of terror, or in a fit
brought on by terror. I had only to look at his face to see it.

It was another blow; but perhaps it may help people to understand how
overwhelmingly awful was the experience through which we had passed--we
did not feel it much at the time. It seemed quite natural that the poor
fellow should be dead. When Leo came to himself, which he did with a
groan and trembling of the limbs about ten minutes afterwards, and I
told him that Job was dead, he merely said, "_Oh!_" And, mind you, this
was from no heartlessness, for he and Job were much attached to each
other; and he often talks of him now with the deepest regret and
affection. It was only that his nerves would bear no more. A harp can
give out but a certain quantity of sound, however heavily it is smitten.

Well, I set myself to recovering Leo, who, to my infinite relief, I
found was not dead, but only fainting, and in the end I succeeded, as I
have said, and he sat up; and then I saw another dreadful thing. When we
entered that awful place his curling hair had been of the ruddiest gold,
now it was turning grey, and by the time we reached the outer air it was
snow white. Besides, he looked twenty years older.

"What is to be done, old fellow?" he said in a hollow, dead sort of
voice, when his mind had cleared a little, and a recollection of what
had happened forced itself upon it.

"Try and get out, I suppose," I answered; "that is, unless you would
like to go in there," and I pointed to the column of fire that was once
more rolling by.

"I would go in if I were sure that it would kill me," he said with a
little laugh. "It was my cursed hesitation that did this. If I had not
been doubtful she might never have tried to show me the road. But I am
not sure. The fire might have the opposite effect upon me. It might make
me immortal; and, old fellow, I have not the patience to wait a couple
of thousand years for her to come back again as she did for me. I had
rather die when my hour comes--and I should fancy that it isn't far off
either--and go my ways to look for her. Do you go in if you like."

But I merely shook my head, my excitement was as dead as ditch-water,
and my distaste for the prolongation of my mortal span had come back
upon me more strongly than ever. Besides, we neither of us knew what the
effects of the fire might be. The result upon _She_ had not been of an
encouraging nature, and of the exact causes that produced that result we
were, of course, ignorant.

"Well, my boy," I said, "we cannot stop here till we go the way of those
two," and I pointed to the little heap under the white garment and to
the stiffing corpse of poor Job. "If we are going we had better go. But,
by the way, I expect that the lamps have burnt out," and I took one up
and looked at it, and sure enough it had.

"There is some more oil in the vase," said Leo indifferently--"if it is
not broken, at least."

I examined the vessel in question--it was intact. With a trembling
hand I filled the lamps--luckily there was still some of the linen wick
unburnt. Then I lit them with one of our wax matches. While I did so
we heard the pillar of fire approaching once more as it went on its
never-ending journey, if, indeed, it was the same pillar that passed and
repassed in a circle.

"Let's see it come once more," said Leo; "we shall never look upon its
like again in this world."

It seemed a bit of idle curiosity, but somehow I shared it, and so we
waited till, turning slowly round upon its own axis, it had flamed and
thundered by; and I remember wondering for how many thousands of years
this same phenomenon had been taking place in the bowels of the earth,
and for how many more thousands it would continue to take place. I
wondered also if any mortal eyes would ever again mark its passage, or
any mortal ears be thrilled and fascinated by the swelling volume of its
majestic sound. I do not think that they will. I believe that we are the
last human beings who will ever see that unearthly sight. Presently it
had gone, and we too turned to go.

But before we did so we each took Job's cold hand in ours and shook it.
It was a rather ghastly ceremony, but it was the only means in our
power of showing our respect to the faithful dead and of celebrating his
obsequies. The heap beneath the white garment we did not uncover. We had
no wish to look upon that terrible sight again. But we went to the pile
of rippling hair that had fallen from her in the agony of that hideous
change which was worse than a thousand natural deaths, and each of us
drew from it a shining lock, and these locks we still have, the sole
memento that is left to us of Ayesha as we knew her in the fulness of
her grace and glory. Leo pressed the perfumed hair to his lips.

"She called to me not to forget her," he said hoarsely; "and swore that
we should meet again. By Heaven! I never will forget her. Here I swear
that if we live to get out of this, I will not for all my days have
anything to say to another living woman, and that wherever I go I will
wait for her as faithfully as she waited for me."

"Yes," I thought to myself, "if she comes back as beautiful as we knew
her. But supposing she came back _like that!_"[*]

     [*] What a terrifying reflection it is, by the way, that
     nearly all our deep love for women who are not our kindred
     depends--at any rate, in the first instance--upon their
     personal appearance. If we lost them, and found them again
     dreadful to look on, though otherwise they were the very
     same, should we still love them? --L. H. H.

Well, and then we went. We went, and left those two in the presence of
the very well and spring of Life, but gathered to the cold company of
Death. How lonely they looked as they lay there, and how ill assorted!
That little heap had been for two thousand years the wisest, loveliest,
proudest creature--I can hardly call her woman--in the whole universe.
She had been wicked, too, in her way; but, alas! such is the frailty
of the human heart, her wickedness had not detracted from her charm.
Indeed, I am by no means certain that it did not add to it. It was after
all of a grand order, there was nothing mean or small about Ayesha.

And poor Job too! His presentiment had come true, and there was an end
of him. Well, he has a strange burial-place--no Norfolk hind ever had a
stranger, or ever will; and it is something to lie in the same sepulchre
as the poor remains of the imperial _She_.

We looked our last upon them and the indescribable rosy glow in which
they lay, and then with hearts far too heavy for words we left them, and
crept thence broken-down men--so broken down that we even renounced the
chance of practically immortal life, because all that made life valuable
had gone from us, and we knew even then that to prolong our days
indefinitely would only be to prolong our sufferings. For we felt--yes,
both of us--that having once looked Ayesha in the eyes, we could not
forget her for ever and ever while memory and identity remained. We
both loved her now and for all time, she was stamped and carven on our
hearts, and no other woman or interest could ever raze that splendid
die. And I--there lies the sting--I had and have no right to think thus
of her. As she told me, I was naught to her, and never shall be through
the unfathomed depths of Time, unless, indeed, conditions alter, and
a day comes at last when two men may love one woman, and all three be
happy in the fact. It is the only hope of my broken-heartedness, and a
rather faint one. Beyond it I have nothing. I have paid down this heavy
price, all that I am worth here and hereafter, and that is my sole
reward. With Leo it is different, and often and often I bitterly envy
him his happy lot, for if _She_ was right, and her wisdom and knowledge
did not fail her at the last, which, arguing from the precedent of her
own case, I think most unlikely, he has some future to look forward to.
But I have none, and yet--mark the folly and the weakness of the human
heart, and let him who is wise learn wisdom from it--yet I would not
have it otherwise. I mean that I am content to give what I have given
and must always give, and take in payment those crumbs that fall from
my mistress's table, the memory of a few kind words, the hope one day
in the far undreamed future of a sweet smile or two of recognition, a
little gentle friendship, and a little show of thanks for my devotion to
her--and Leo.

If that does not constitute true love, I do not know what does, and all
I have to say is that it is a very bad state of affairs for a man on the
wrong side of middle age to fall into.



XXVII

WE LEAP

We passed through the caves without trouble, but when we came to the
slope of the inverted cone two difficulties stared us in the face. The
first of these was the laborious nature of the ascent, and the next the
extreme difficulty of finding our way. Indeed, had it not been for the
mental notes that I had fortunately taken of the shape of various rocks,
I am sure that we never should have managed it at all, but have wandered
about in the dreadful womb of the volcano--for I suppose it must
once have been something of the sort--until we died of exhaustion and
despair. As it was we went wrong several times, and once nearly fell
into a huge crack or crevasse. It was terrible work creeping about
in the dense gloom and awful stillness from boulder to boulder,
and examining it by the feeble light of the lamps to see if I could
recognise its shape. We rarely spoke, our hearts were too heavy
for speech, we simply stumbled about, falling sometimes and cutting
ourselves, in a rather dogged sort of way. The fact was that our spirits
were utterly crushed, and we did not greatly care what happened to us.
Only we felt bound to try and save our lives whilst we could, and indeed
a natural instinct prompted us to it. So for some three or four hours,
I should think--I cannot tell exactly how long, for we had no watch
left that would go--we blundered on. During the last two hours we were
completely lost, and I began to fear that we had got into the funnel of
some subsidiary cone, when at last I suddenly recognised a very large
rock which we had passed in descending but a little way from the top.
It is a marvel that I should have recognised it, and, indeed, we
had already passed it going at right angles to the proper path, when
something about it struck me, and I turned back and examined it in an
idle sort of way, and, as it happened, this proved our salvation.

After this we gained the rocky natural stair without much further
trouble, and in due course found ourselves back in the little chamber
where the benighted Noot had lived and died.

But now a fresh terror stared us in the face. It will be remembered that
owing to Job's fear and awkwardness, the plank upon which we had crossed
from the huge spur to the rocking-stone had been whirled off into the
tremendous gulf below.

How were we to cross without the plank?

There was only one answer--we must try and _jump_ it, or else stop there
till we starved. The distance in itself was not so very great, between
eleven and twelve feet I should think, and I have seen Leo jump over
twenty when he was a young fellow at collage; but then, think of the
conditions. Two weary, worn-out men, one of them on the wrong side of
forty, a rocking-stone to take off from, a trembling point of rock some
few feet across to land upon, and a bottomless gulf to be cleared in a
raging gale! It was bad enough, God knows, but when I pointed out these
things to Leo, he put the whole matter in a nutshell, by replying that,
merciless as the choice was, we must choose between the certainty of a
lingering death in the chamber and the risk of a swift one in the air.
Of course, there was no arguing against this, but one thing was clear,
we could not attempt that leap in the dark; the only thing to do was to
wait for the ray of light which pierced through the gulf at sunset.
How near to or how far from sunset we might be, neither of us had the
faintest notion; all we did know was, that when at last the light came
it would not endure more than a couple of minutes at the outside, so
that we must be prepared to meet it. Accordingly, we made up our minds
to creep on to the top of the rocking-stone and lie there in readiness.
We were the more easily reconciled to this course by the fact that our
lamps were once more nearly exhausted--indeed, one had gone out bodily,
and the other was jumping up and down as the flame of a lamp does when
the oil is done. So, by the aid of its dying light, we hastened to crawl
out of the little chamber and clamber up the side of the great stone.

As we did so the light went out.

The difference in our position was a sufficiently remarkable one.
Below, in the little chamber, we had only heard the roaring of the
gale overhead--here, lying on our faces on the swinging stone, we were
exposed to its full force and fury, as the great draught drew first from
this direction and then from that, howling against the mighty precipice
and through the rocky cliffs like ten thousand despairing souls. We lay
there hour after hour in terror and misery of mind so deep that I will
not attempt to describe it, and listened to the wild storm-voices
of that Tartarus, as, set to the deep undertone of the spur opposite
against which the wind hummed like some awful harp, they called to each
other from precipice to precipice. No nightmare dreamed by man, no wild
invention of the romancer, can ever equal the living horror of that
place, and the weird crying of those voices of the night, as we clung
like shipwrecked mariners to a raft, and tossed on the black, unfathomed
wilderness of air. Fortunately the temperature was not a low one;
indeed, the wind was warm, or we should have perished. So we clung and
listened, and while we were stretched out upon the rock a thing happened
which was so curious and suggestive in itself, though doubtless a mere
coincidence, that, if anything, it added to, rather than deducted from,
the burden on our nerves.

It will be remembered that when Ayesha was standing on the spur, before
we crossed to the stone, the wind tore her cloak from her, and whirled
it away into the darkness of the gulf, we could not see whither. Well--I
hardly like to tell the story; it is so strange. As we lay there upon
the rocking-stone, this very cloak came floating out of the black space,
like a memory from the dead, and fell on Leo--so that it covered him
nearly from head to foot. We could not at first make out what it was,
but soon discovered by its feel, and then poor Leo, for the first time,
gave way, and I heard him sobbing there upon the stone. No doubt the
cloak had been caught upon some pinnacle of the cliff, and was thence
blown hither by a chance gust; but still, it was a most curious and
touching incident.

Shortly after this, suddenly, without the slightest previous warning,
the great red knife of light came stabbing the darkness through and
through--struck the swaying stone on which we were, and rested its sharp
point upon the spur opposite.

"Now for it," said Leo, "now or never."

We rose and stretched ourselves, and looked at the cloud-wreaths stained
the colour of blood by that red ray as they tore through the sickening
depths beneath, and then at the empty space between the swaying stone
and the quivering rock, and, in our hearts, despaired, and prepared for
death. Surely we could not clear it--desperate though we were.

"Who is to go first?" said I.

"Do you, old fellow," answered Leo. "I will sit upon the other side of
the stone to steady it. You must take as much run as you can, and jump
high; and God have mercy on us, say I."

I acquiesced with a nod, and then I did a thing I had never done since
Leo was a little boy. I turned and put my arm round him, and kissed him
on the forehead. It sounds rather French, but as a fact I was taking my
last farewell of a man whom I could not have loved more if he had been
my own son twice over.

"Good-bye, my boy," I said, "I hope that we shall meet again, wherever
it is that we go to."

The fact was I did not expect to live another two minutes.

Next I retreated to the far side of the rock, and waited till one of the
chopping gusts of wind got behind me, and then I ran the length of the
huge stone, some three or four and thirty feet, and sprang wildly out
into the dizzy air. Oh! the sickening terrors that I felt as I launched
myself at that little point of rock, and the horrible sense of despair
that shot through my brain as I realised that I had _jumped short!_ but
so it was, my feet never touched the point, they went down into space,
only my hands and body came in contact with it. I gripped at it with
a yell, but one hand slipped, and I swung right round, holding by the
other, so that I faced the stone from which I had sprung. Wildly I
stretched up with my left hand, and this time managed to grasp a knob of
rock, and there I hung in the fierce red light, with thousands of feet
of empty air beneath me. My hands were holding to either side of
the under part of the spur, so that its point was touching my head.
Therefore, even if I could have found the strength, I could not pull
myself up. The most that I could do would be to hang for about a minute,
and then drop down, down into the bottomless pit. If any man can imagine
a more hideous position, let him speak! All I know is that the torture
of that half-minute nearly turned my brain.

I heard Leo give a cry, and then suddenly saw him in mid air springing
up and out like a chamois. It was a splendid leap that he took under the
influence of his terror and despair, clearing the horrible gulf as if it
were nothing, and, landing well on to the rocky point, he threw himself
upon his face, to prevent his pitching off into the depths. I felt the
spur above me shake beneath the shock of his impact, and as it did so I
saw the huge rocking-stone, that had been violently depressed by him as
he sprang, fly back when relieved of his weight till, for the first time
during all these centuries, it got beyond its balance, fell with a
most awful crash right into the rocky chamber which had once served the
philosopher Noot for a hermitage, and, I have no doubt, for ever sealed
the passage that leads to the Place of Life with some hundreds of tons
of rock.

All this happened in a second, and curiously enough, notwithstanding my
terrible position, I noted it involuntarily, as it were. I even remember
thinking that no human being would go down that dread path again.

Next instant I felt Leo seize me by the right wrist with both hands. By
lying flat on the point of rock he could just reach me.

"You must let go and swing yourself clear," he said in a calm and
collected voice, "and then I will try and pull you up, or we will both
go together. Are you ready?"

By way of answer I let go, first with my left hand and then with the
right, and, as a consequence, swayed out clear of the overshadowing
rock, my weight hanging upon Leo's arms. It was a dreadful moment. He
was a very powerful man, I knew, but would his strength be equal to
lifting me up till I could get a hold on the top of the spur, when owing
to his position he had so little purchase?


For a few seconds I swung to and fro, while he gathered himself for the
effort, and then I heard his sinews cracking above me, and felt myself
lifted up as though I were a little child, till I got my left arm round
the rock, and my chest was resting on it. The rest was easy; in two or
three more seconds I was up, and we were lying panting side by side,
trembling like leaves, and with the cold perspiration of terror pouring
from our skins.

And then, as before, the light went out like a lamp.

For some half-hour we lay thus without speaking a word, and then at
length began to creep along the great spur as best we might in the dense
gloom. As we drew towards the face of the cliff, however, from which the
spur sprang out like a spike from a wall, the light increased, though
only a very little, for it was night overhead. After that the gusts of
wind decreased, and we got along rather better, and at last reached the
mouth of the first cave or tunnel. But now a fresh trouble stared as
in the face: our oil was gone, and the lamps were, no doubt, crushed to
powder beneath the fallen rocking-stone. We were even without a drop of
water to stay our thirst, for we had drunk the last in the chamber
of Noot. How were we to see to make our way through this last
boulder-strewn tunnel?

Clearly all that we could do was to trust to our sense of feeling, and
attempt the passage in the dark, so in we crept, fearing that if
we delayed to do so our exhaustion would overcome us, and we should
probably lie down and die where we were.

Oh, the horrors of that last tunnel! The place was strewn with rocks,
and we fell over them, and knocked ourselves up against them till we
were bleeding from a score of wounds. Our only guide was the side of
the cavern, which we kept touching, and so bewildered did we grow in the
darkness that we were several times seized with the terrifying thought
that we had turned, and were travelling the wrong way. On we went,
feebly, and still more feebly, for hour after hour, stopping every few
minutes to rest, for our strength was spent. Once we fell asleep, and, I
think, must have slept for some hours, for, when we woke, our limbs were
quite stiff, and the blood from our blows and scratches had caked, and
was hard and dry upon our skin. Then we dragged ourselves on again, till
at last, when despair was entering into our hearts, we once more saw the
light of day, and found ourselves outside the tunnel in the rocky fold
on the outer surface of the cliff that, it will be remembered, led into
it.

It was early morning--that we could tell by the feel of the sweet air
and the look of the blessed sky, which we had never hoped to see again.
It was, so near as we knew, an hour after sunset when we entered the
tunnel, so it followed that it had taken us the entire night to crawl
through that dreadful place.

"One more effort, Leo," I gasped, "and we shall reach the slope where
Billali is, if he hasn't gone. Come, don't give way," for he had cast
himself upon his face. He rose, and, leaning on each other, we got down
that fifty feet or so of cliff--somehow, I have not the least notion
how. I only remember that we found ourselves lying in a heap at the
bottom, and then once more began to drag ourselves along on our hands
and knees towards the grove where _She_ had told Billali to wait her
re-arrival, for we could not walk another foot. We had not gone fifty
yards in this fashion when suddenly one of the mutes emerged from
the trees on our left, through which, I presume, he had been taking a
morning stroll, and came running up to see what sort of strange animals
we were. He stared, and stared, and then held up his hands in horror,
and nearly fell to the ground. Next, he started off as hard as he
could for the grove some two hundred yards away. No wonder that he was
horrified at our appearance, for we must have been a shocking sight.
To begin, Leo, with his golden curls turned a snowy white, his clothes
nearly rent from his body, his worn face and his hands a mass of
bruises, cuts, and blood-encrusted filth, was a sufficiently alarming
spectacle, as he painfully dragged himself along the ground, and I
have no doubt that I was little better to look on. I know that two days
afterwards when I inspected my face in some water I scarcely recognised
myself. I have never been famous for beauty, but there was something
beside ugliness stamped upon my features that I have never got rid
of until this day, something resembling that wild look with which a
startled person wakes from deep sleep more than anything else that I can
think of. And really it is not to be wondered at. What I do wonder at is
that we escaped at all with our reason.

Presently, to my intense relief, I saw old Billali hurrying towards
us, and even then I could scarcely help smiling at the expression of
consternation on his dignified countenance.

"Oh, my Baboon! my Baboon!" he cried, "my dear son, is it indeed thee
and the Lion? Why, his mane that was ripe as corn is white like
the snow. Whence come ye? and where is the Pig, and where too
_She-who-must-be-obeyed_?"

"Dead, both dead," I answered; "but ask no questions; help us, and give
us food and water, or we too shall die before thine eyes. Seest thou not
that our tongues are black for want of water? How, then, can we talk?"

"Dead!" he gasped. "Impossible. _She_ who never dies--dead, how can it
be?" and then, perceiving, I think, that his face was being watched by
the mutes who had come running up, he checked himself, and motioned to
them to carry us to the camp, which they did.

Fortunately when we arrived some broth was boiling on the fire, and with
this Billali fed us, for we were too weak to feed ourselves, thereby
I firmly believe saving us from death by exhaustion. Then he bade the
mutes wash the blood and grime from us with wet cloths, and after that
we were laid down upon piles of aromatic grass, and instantly fell into
the dead sleep of absolute exhaustion of mind and body.



XXVIII

OVER THE MOUNTAIN

The next thing I recollect is a feeling of the most dreadful stiffness,
and a sort of vague idea passing through my half-awakened brain that I
was a carpet that had just been beaten. I opened my eyes, and the first
thing they fell on was the venerable countenance of our old friend
Billali, who was seated by the side of the improvised bed upon which I
was sleeping, and thoughtfully stroking his long beard. The sight of
him at once brought back to my mind a recollection of all that we had
recently passed through, which was accentuated by the vision of poor
Leo lying opposite to me, his face knocked almost to a jelly, and his
beautiful crowd of curls turned from yellow to white,[*] and I shut my
eyes again and groaned.

     [*] Curiously enough, Leo's hair has lately been to some
     extent regaining its colour--that is to say, it is now a
     yellowish grey, and I am not without hopes that it will in
     time come quite right.--L. H. H.

"Thou hast slept long, my Baboon," said old Billali.

"How long, my father?" I asked.

"A round of the sun and a round of the moon, a day and a night hast thou
slept, and the Lion also. See, he sleepeth yet."

"Blessed is sleep," I answered, "for it swallows up recollection."

"Tell me," he said, "what hath befallen you, and what is this strange
story of the death of Her who dieth not. Bethink thee, my son: if this
be true, then is thy danger and the danger of the Lion very great--nay,
almost is the pot red wherewith ye shall be potted, and the stomachs of
those who shall eat ye are already hungry for the feast. Knowest thou
not that these Amahagger, my children, these dwellers in the caves,
hate ye? They hate ye as strangers, they hate ye more because of their
brethren whom _She_ put to the torment for your sake. Assuredly, if once
they learn that there is naught to fear from Hiya, from the terrible
One-who-must-be-obeyed, they will slay ye by the pot. But let me hear
thy tale, my poor Baboon."

This adjured, I set to work and told him--not everything, indeed, for
I did not think it desirable to do so, but sufficient for my purpose,
which was to make him understand that _She_ was really no more, having
fallen into some fire, and, as I put it--for the real thing would have
been incomprehensible to him--been burnt up. I also told him some of the
horrors we had undergone in effecting our escape, and these produced a
great impression on him. But I clearly saw that he did not believe in
the report of Ayesha's death. He believed indeed that we thought
that she was dead, but his explanation was that it had suited her to
disappear for a while. Once, he said, in his father's time, she had done
so for twelve years, and there was a tradition in the country that many
centuries back no one had seen her for a whole generation, when she
suddenly reappeared, and destroyed a woman who had assumed the position
of Queen. I said nothing to this, but only shook my head sadly. Alas!
I knew too well that Ayesha would appear no more, or at any rate that
Billali would never see her again.

"And now," concluded Billali, "what wouldst thou do, my Baboon?"

"Nay," I said, "I know not, my father. Can we not escape from this
country?"

He shook his head.

"It is very difficult. By Kor ye cannot pass, for ye would be seen,
and as soon as those fierce ones found that ye were alone, well," and
he smiled significantly, and made a movement as though he were placing a
hat on his head. "But there is a way over the cliff whereof I once spake
to thee, where they drive the cattle out to pasture. Then beyond the
pastures are three days' journey through the marshes, and after that
I know not, but I have heard that seven days' journey from thence is
a mighty river, which floweth to the black water. If ye could come
thither, perchance ye might escape, but how can ye come thither?"

"Billali," I said, "once, thou knowest, I did save thy life. Now pay
back the debt, my father, and save me mine and my friend's, the Lion's.
It shall be a pleasant thing for thee to think of when thine hour comes,
and something to set in the scale against the evil doing of thy days, if
perchance thou hast done any evil. Also, if thou be right, and if _She_
doth but hide herself, surely when she comes again she shall reward
thee."

"My son the Baboon," answered the old man, "think not that I have an
ungrateful heart. Well do I remember how thou didst rescue me when those
dogs stood by to see me drown. Measure for measure will I give thee,
and if thou canst be saved, surely I will save thee. Listen: by dawn
to-morrow be prepared, for litters shall be here to bear ye away across
the mountains, and through the marshes beyond. This will I do, saying
that it is the word of _She_ that it be done, and he who obeyeth not the
word of _She_ food is he for the hyaenas. Then when ye have crossed the
marshes, ye must strike with your own hands, so that perchance, if good
fortune go with you, ye may live to come to that black water whereof ye
told me. And now, see, the Lion wakes, and ye must eat the food I have
made ready for you."

Leo's condition when once he was fairly aroused proved not to be so
bad as might have been expected from his appearance, and we both of us
managed to eat a hearty meal, which indeed we needed sadly enough. After
this we limped down to the spring and bathed, and then came back and
slept again till evening, when we once more ate enough for five. Billali
was away all that day, no doubt making arrangements about litters and
bearers, for we were awakened in the middle of the night by the arrival
of a considerable number of men in the little camp.

At dawn the old man himself appeared, and told us that he had by using
_She's_ dreadful name, though with some difficulty, succeeded in getting
the necessary men and two guides to conduct us across the swamps, and
that he urged us to start at once, at the same time announcing his
intention of accompanying us so as to protect us against treachery. I
was much touched by this act of kindness on the part of that wily old
barbarian towards two utterly defenceless strangers. A three--or in
his case, for he would have to return, six--days' journey through those
deadly swamps was no light undertaking for a man of his age, but he
consented to do it cheerfully in order to promote our safety. It shows
that even among those dreadful Amahagger--who are certainly with their
gloom and their devilish and ferocious rites by far the most terrible
savages that I ever heard of--there are people with kindly hearts. Of
course, self-interest may have had something to do with it. He may have
thought that _She_ would suddenly reappear and demand an account of us
at his hands, but still, allowing for all deductions, it was a great
deal more than we could expect under the circumstances, and I can only
say that I shall for as long as I live cherish a most affectionate
remembrance of my nominal parent, old Billali.

Accordingly, after swallowing some food, we started in the litters,
feeling, so far as our bodies went, wonderfully like our old selves
after our long rest and sleep. I must leave the condition of our minds
to the imagination.

Then came a terrible pull up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was more
natural, more often it was a zig-zag roadway cut, no doubt, in the first
instance by the old inhabitants of Kor. The Amahagger say they drive
their spare cattle over it once a year to pasture outside; all I know is
that those cattle must be uncommonly active on their feet. Of course the
litters were useless here, so we had to walk.

By midday, however, we reached the great flat top of that mighty wall of
rock, and grand enough the view was from it, with the plain of Kor, in
the centre of which we could clearly make out the pillared ruins of the
Temple of Truth to the one side, and the boundless and melancholy marsh
on the other. This wall of rock, which had no doubt once formed the lip
of the crater, was about a mile and a half thick, and still covered with
clinker. Nothing grew there, and the only thing to relieve our eyes were
occasional pools of rain-water (for rain had lately fallen) wherever
there was a little hollow. Over the flat crest of this mighty rampart we
went, and then came the descent, which, if not so difficult a matter
as the getting up, was still sufficiently break-neck, and took us till
sunset. That night, however, we camped in safety upon the mighty slopes
that rolled away to the marsh beneath.

On the following morning, about eleven o'clock, began our dreary journey
across those awful seas of swamps which I have already described.

For three whole days, through stench and mire, and the all-prevailing
flavour of fear, did our bearers struggle along, till at length we came
to open rolling ground quite uncultivated, and mostly treeless, but
covered with game of all sorts, which lies beyond that most desolate,
and without guides utterly impracticable, district. And here on the
following morning we bade farewell, not without some regret, to old
Billali, who stroked his white beard and solemnly blessed us.

"Farewell, my son the Baboon," he said, "and farewell to thee too, oh
Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever ye come to your country,
be advised, and venture no more into lands that ye know not, lest ye
come back no more, but leave your white bones to mark the limit of your
journeyings. Farewell once more; often shall I think of you, nor wilt
thou forget me, my Baboon, for though thy face is ugly thy heart is
true." And then he turned and went, and with him went the tall and
sullen-looking bearers, and that was the last that we saw of the
Amahagger. We watched them winding away with the empty litters like a
procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from the marsh
gathered round them and hid them, and then, left utterly desolate in the
vast wilderness, we turned and gazed round us and at each other.

Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Kor, and
now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through adventures
and experiences so strange and terrible that death himself hath not a
more fearful countenance. Three weeks--and only three weeks! Truly time
should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours. It seemed
like thirty years since we saw the last of our whale-boat.

"We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo," I said, "but God knows if we
shall ever get there."

Leo nodded. He had become very silent of late, and we started with
nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our revolvers and
express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, and so ended
the history of our visit to the ancient ruins of mighty and imperial
Kor.

As for the adventures that subsequently befell us, strange and varied
as they were, I have, after deliberation, determined not to record them
here. In these pages I have only tried to give a short and clear account
of an occurrence which I believe to be unprecedented, and this I have
done, not with a view to immediate publication, but merely to put
on paper while they are yet fresh in our memories the details of our
journey and its result, which will, I believe, prove interesting to
the world if ever we determine to make them public. This, as at present
advised, we do not intend should be done during our joint lives.

For the rest, it is of no public interest, resembling as it does the
experience of more than one Central African traveller. Suffice it to
say, that we did, after incredible hardships and privations, reach the
Zambesi, which proved to be about a hundred and seventy miles south
of where Billali left us. There we were for six months imprisoned by
a savage tribe, who believed us to be supernatural beings, chiefly on
account of Leo's youthful face and snow-white hair. From these people we
ultimately escaped, and, crossing the Zambesi, wandered off southwards,
where, when on the point of starvation, we were sufficiently fortunate
to fall in with a half-cast Portuguese elephant-hunter who had followed
a troop of elephants farther inland than he had ever been before. This
man treated us most hospitably, and ultimately through his assistance
we, after innumerable sufferings and adventures, reached Delagoa Bay,
more than eighteen months from the time when we emerged from the marshes
of Kor, and the very next day managed to catch one of the steamboats
that run round the Cape to England. Our journey home was a prosperous
one, and we set our foot on the quay at Southampton exactly two years
from the date of our departure upon our wild and seemingly ridiculous
quest, and I now write these last words with Leo leaning over my
shoulder in my old room in my college, the very same into which some
two-and-twenty years ago my poor friend Vincey came stumbling on the
memorable night of his death, bearing the iron chest with him.



And that is the end of this history so far as it concerns science and
the outside world. What its end will be as regards Leo and myself is
more than I can guess at. But we feel that is not reached yet. A story
that began more than two thousand years ago may stretch a long way into
the dim and distant future.

Is Leo really a reincarnation of the ancient Kallikrates of whom the
inscription tells? Or was Ayesha deceived by some strange hereditary
resemblance? The reader must form his own opinion on this as on many
other matters. I have mine, which is that she made no such mistake.

Often I sit alone at night, staring with the eyes of the mind into the
blackness of unborn time, and wondering in what shape and form the great
drama will be finally developed, and where the scene of its next act
will be laid. And when that _final_ development ultimately occurs, as I
have no doubt it must and will occur, in obedience to a fate that never
swerves and a purpose that cannot be altered, what will be the part
played therein by that beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, the Princess of the
royal race of the Pharaohs, for the love of whom the Priest Kallikrates
broke his vows to Isis, and, pursued by the inexorable vengeance of the
outraged Goddess, fled down the coast of Libya to meet his doom at Kor?




GO HERE



ALLAN QUATERMAIN

as told by H. RIDER HAGGARD




I inscribe this book of adventure to my son ARTHUR JOHN RIDER
HAGGARD in the hope that in days to come he, and many other
boys whom I shall never know, may, in the acts and thoughts of
Allan Quatermain and his companions, as herein recorded,
find something to help him and them to reach to what, with Sir
Henry Curtis, I hold to be the highest rank whereto we can
attain -- the state and dignity of English gentlemen.




CONTENTS



       INTRODUCTION
I      THE CONSUL'S YARN
II     THE BLACK HAND
III    THE MISSION STATION
IV     ALPHONSE AND HIS ANNETTE
V      UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE
VI     THE NIGHT WEARS ON
VII    A SLAUGHTER GRIM AND GREAT
VIII   ALPHONSE EXPLAINS
IX     INTO THE UNKNOWN
X      THE ROSE OF FIRE
XI     THE FROWNING CITY
XII    THE SISTER QUEENS
XIII   ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE
XIV    THE FLOWER TEMPLE
XV     SORAIS' SONG
XVI    BEFORE THE STATUE
XVII   THE STORM BREAKS
XVIII  WAR! RED WAR!
XIX    A STRANGE WEDDING
XX     THE BATTLE OF THE PASS
XXI    AWAY! AWAY!
XXII   HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR
XXIII  I HAVE SPOKEN




INTRODUCTION



December 23

'I have just buried my boy, my poor handsome boy of whom I was
so proud, and my heart is broken.  It is very hard having only
one son to lose him thus, but God's will be done.  Who am I that
I should complain?  The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut,
and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late -- it does not
matter when, in the end, it crushes us all.  We do not prostrate
ourselves before it like the poor Indians; we fly hither and
thither -- we cry for mercy; but it is of no use, the black Fate
thunders on and in its season reduces us to powder.

'Poor Harry to go so soon! just when his life was opening to
him.  He was doing so well at the hospital, he had passed his
last examination with honours, and I was proud of them, much
prouder than he was, I think.  And then he must needs go to that
smallpox hospital.  He wrote to me that he was not afraid of
smallpox and wanted to gain the experience; and now the disease
has killed him, and I, old and grey and withered, am left to
mourn over him, without a chick or child to comfort me.  I might
have saved him, too -- I have money enough for both of us, and
much more than enough -- King Solomon's Mines provided me with
that; but I said, "No, let the boy earn his living, let him labour
that he may enjoy rest."  But the rest has come to him before
the labour.  Oh, my boy, my boy!

'I am like the man in the Bible who laid up much goods and builded
barns -- goods for my boy and barns for him to store them in;
and now his soul has been required of him, and I am left desolate.
I would that it had been my soul and not my boy's!

'We buried him this afternoon under the shadow of the grey and
ancient tower of the church of this village where my house is.
It was a dreary December afternoon, and the sky was heavy with
snow, but not much was falling.  The coffin was put down by the
grave, and a few big flakes lit upon it.  They looked very white
upon the black cloth!  There was a little hitch about getting
the coffin down into the grave -- the necessary ropes had been
forgotten: so we drew back from it, and waited in silence watching
the big flakes fall gently one by one like heavenly benedictions,
and melt in tears on Harry's pall.  But that was not all.  A
robin redbreast came as bold as could be and lit upon the coffin
and began to sing.  And then I am afraid that I broke down, and
so did Sir Henry Curtis, strong man though he is; and as for
Captain Good, I saw him turn away too; even in my own distress
I could not help noticing it.'


The above, signed 'Allan Quatermain', is an extract from my diary
written two years and more ago.  I copy it down here because
it seems to me that it is the fittest beginning to the history
that I am about to write, if it please God to spare me to finish
it.  If not, well it does not matter.  That extract was penned
seven thousand miles or so from the spot where I now lie painfully
and slowly writing this, with a pretty girl standing by my side
fanning the flies from my august countenance.  Harry is there
and I am here, and yet somehow I cannot help feeling that I am
not far off Harry.

When I was in England I used to live in a very fine house --
at least I call it a fine house, speaking comparatively, and
judging from the standard of the houses I have been accustomed
to all my life in Africa -- not five hundred yards from the old
church where Harry is asleep, and thither I went after the funeral
and ate some food; for it is no good starving even if one has
just buried all one's earthly hopes.  But I could not eat much,
and soon I took to walking, or rather limping -- being permanently
lame from the bite of a lion -- up and down, up and down the
oak-panelled vestibule; for there is a vestibule in my house
in England.  On all the four walls of this vestibule were placed
pairs of horns -- about a hundred pairs altogether, all of which
I had shot myself.  They are beautiful specimens, as I never
keep any horns which are not in every way perfect, unless it
may be now and again on account of the associations connected
with them.  In the centre of the room, however, over the wide
fireplace, there was a clear space left on which I had fixed
up all my rifles.  Some of them I have had for forty years, old
muzzle-loaders that nobody would look at nowadays.  One was an
elephant gun with strips of rimpi, or green hide, lashed round
the stock and locks, such as used to be owned by the Dutchmen
-- a 'roer' they call it.  That gun, the Boer I bought it from
many years ago told me, had been used by his father at the battle
of the Blood River, just after Dingaan swept into Natal and slaughtered
six hundred men, women, and children, so that the Boers named
the place where they died 'Weenen', or the 'Place of Weeping';
and so it is called to this day, and always will be called.
And many an elephant have I shot with that old gun.  She always
took a handful of black powder and a three-ounce ball, and kicked
like the very deuce.

Well, up and down I walked, staring at the guns and the horns
which the guns had brought low; and as I did so there rose up
in me a great craving:  -- I would go away from this place where
I lived idly and at ease, back again to the wild land where I
had spent my life, where I met my dear wife and poor Harry was
born, and so many things, good, bad, and indifferent, had happened
to me.  The thirst for the wilderness was on me; I could tolerate
this place no more; I would go and die as I had lived, among
the wild game and the savages.  Yes, as I walked, I began to
long to see the moonlight gleaming silvery white over the wide
veldt and mysterious sea of bush, and watch the lines of game
travelling down the ridges to the water.  The ruling passion
is strong in death, they say, and my heart was dead that night.
But, independently of my trouble, no man who has for forty years
lived the life I have, can with impunity go coop himself in this
prim English country, with its trim hedgerows and cultivated
fields, its stiff formal manners, and its well-dressed crowds.
He begins to long -- ah, how he longs! -- for the keen breath
of the desert air; he dreams of the sight of Zulu impis breaking
on their foes like surf upon the rocks, and his heart rises up
in rebellion against the strict limits of the civilized life.

Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to?  For forty years
and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their ways;
and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have
in my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the
children of light; and what have I found?  A great gulf fixed?
No, only a very little one, that a plain man's thought may spring
across.  I say that as the savage is, so is the white man, only
the latter is more inventive, and possesses the faculty of combination;
save and except also that the savage, as I have known him, is
to a large extent free from the greed of money, which eats like
a cancer into the heart of the white man.  It is a depressing
conclusion, but in all essentials the savage and the child of
civilization are identical.  I dare say that the highly civilized
lady reading this will smile at an old fool of a hunter's simplicity
when she thinks of her black bead-bedecked sister; and so will
the superfine cultured idler scientifically eating a dinner at
his club, the cost of which would keep a starving family for
a week.  And yet, my dear young lady, what are those pretty things
round your own neck? -- they have a strong family resemblance,
especially when you wear that _very_ low dress, to the savage woman's
beads.  Your habit of turning round and round to the sound of
horns and tom-toms, your fondness for pigments and powders, the
way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior
who has captured you in marriage, and the quickness with which
your taste in feathered head-dresses varies -- all these things
suggest touches of kinship; and you remember that in the fundamental
principles of your nature you are quite identical.  As for you,
sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the
face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and
we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in _you_.

There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good?  Civilization
is only savagery silver-gilt.  A vainglory is it, and like a
northern light, comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark.
Out of the soil of barbarism it has grown like a tree, and,
as I believe, into the soil like a tree it will once more, sooner
or later, fall again, as the Egyptian civilization fell, as the
Hellenic civilization fell, and as the Roman civilization and
many others of which the world has now lost count, fell also.
Do not let me, however, be understood as decrying our modern
institutions, representing as they do the gathered experience
of humanity applied for the good of all.  Of course they have
great advantages -- hospitals for instance; but then, remember,
we breed the sickly people who fill them.  In a savage land they
do not exist.  Besides, the question will arise: How many of
these blessings are due to Christianity as distinct from civilization?
And so the balance sways and the story runs -- here a gain,
there a loss, and Nature's great average struck across the two,
whereof the sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty
equation in which the result will equal the unknown quantity
of her purpose.

I make no apology for this digression, especially as this is
an introduction which all young people and those who never like
to think (and it is a bad habit) will naturally skip.  It seems
to me very desirable that we should sometimes try to understand
the limitations of our nature, so that we may not be carried
away by the pride of knowledge.  Man's cleverness is almost indefinite,
and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like
an iron ring.  You can go round and round it, you can polish
it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby
you will make it bulge out the other, but you will _never_, while
the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference.
It is the one fixed unchangeable thing -- fixed as the stars,
more enduring than the mountains, as unalterable as the way of
the Eternal.  Human nature is God's kaleidoscope, and the little
bits of coloured glass which represent our passions, hopes, fears,
joys, aspirations towards good and evil and what not, are turned
in His mighty hand as surely and as certainly as it turns the
stars, and continually fall into new patterns and combinations.
But the composing elements remain the same, nor will there be
one more bit of coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever.

This being so, supposing for the sake of argument we divide ourselves
into twenty parts, nineteen savage and one civilized, we must
look to the nineteen savage portions of our nature, if we would
really understand ourselves, and not to the twentieth, which,
though so insignificant in reality, is spread all over the other
nineteen, making them appear quite different from what they really
are, as the blacking does a boot, or the veneer a table.  It
is on the nineteen rough serviceable savage portions that we
fall back on emergencies, not on the polished but unsubstantial
twentieth.  Civilization should wipe away our tears, and yet
we weep and cannot be comforted.  Warfare is abhorrent to her,
and yet we strike out for hearth and home, for honour and fair
fame, and can glory in the blow.  And so on, through everything.

So, when the heart is stricken, and the head is humbled in the
dust, civilization fails us utterly.  Back, back, we creep, and
lay us like little children on the great breast of Nature, she
that perchance may soothe us and make us forget, or at least
rid remembrance of its sting.  Who has not in his great grief
felt a longing to look upon the outward features of the universal
Mother; to lie on the mountains and watch the clouds drive across
the sky and hear the rollers break in thunder on the shore, to
let his poor struggling life mingle for a while in her life;
to feel the slow beat of her eternal heart, and to forget his
woes, and let his identity be swallowed in the vast imperceptibly
moving energy of her of whom we are, from whom we came, and with
whom we shall again be mingled, who gave us birth, and will in
a day to come give us our burial also.

And so in my trouble, as I walked up and down the oak-panelled
vestibule of my house there in Yorkshire, I longed once more
to throw myself into the arms of Nature.  Not the Nature which
you know, the Nature that waves in well-kept woods and smiles
out in corn-fields, but Nature as she was in the age when creation
was complete, undefiled as yet by any human sinks of sweltering
humanity.  I would go again where the wild game was, back to
the land whereof none know the history, back to the savages,
whom I love, although some of them are almost as merciless as
Political Economy.  There, perhaps, I should be able to learn
to think of poor Harry lying in the churchyard, without feeling
as though my heart would break in two.

And now there is an end of this egotistical talk, and there shall
be no more of it.  But if you whose eyes may perchance one day
fall upon my written thoughts have got so far as this, I ask
you to persevere, since what I have to tell you is not without
its interest, and it has never been told before, nor will again.




CHAPTER I

THE CONSUL'S YARN


A week had passed since the funeral of my poor boy Harry, and
one evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking,
when there was a ring at the outer door.  Going down the steps
I opened it myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis
and Captain John Good, RN.  They entered the vestibule and sat
themselves down before the wide hearth, where, I remember, a
particularly good fire of logs was burning.

'It is very kind of you to come round,' I said by way of making
a remark; 'it must have been heavy walking in the snow.'

They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe and lit
it with a burning ember.  As he leant forward to do so the fire
got hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing
the whole scene into strong relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking
man he is!  Calm, powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey
eyes, yellow beard and hair -- altogether a magnificent specimen
of the higher type of humanity.  Nor did his form belie his face.
I have never seen wider shoulders or a deeper chest.  Indeed,
Sir Henry's girth is so great that, though he is six feet two
high, he does not strike one as a tall man.  As I looked at him
I could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little dried-up
self presented to his grand face and form.  Imagine to yourself
a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin
hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and
standing up like a half-worn scrubbing-brush -- total weight
in my clothes, nine stone six -- and you will get a very fair
idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly called Hunter Quatermain,
or by the natives 'Macumazahn' -- Anglic/CHAR: e grave/, he who
keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp
fellow who is not to be taken in.

Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being short,
dark, stout -- _very_ stout -- with twinkling black eyes, in one
of which an eyeglass is everlastingly fixed.  I say stout, but
it is a mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good
has been running to fat in a most disgraceful way.  Sir Henry
tells him that it comes from idleness and over-feeding, and
Good does not like it at all, though he cannot deny it.

We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the lamp that
stood ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow dreary,
as it is apt to do when one has a short week ago buried the hope
of one's life.  Next, I opened a cupboard in the wainscoting
and got a bottle of whisky and some tumblers and water.  I always
like to do these things for myself: it is irritating to me to
have somebody continually at my elbow, as though I were an
eighteen-month-old baby.  All this while Curtis and Good had
been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had nothing to say
that could do me any good, and content to give me the comfort
of their presence and unspoken sympathy; for it was only their
second visit since the funeral.  And it is, by the way, from
the _presence_ of others that we really derive support in our dark
hours of grief, and not from their talk, which often only serves
to irritate us.  Before a bad storm the game always herd together,
but they cease their calling.

They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I stood by
the fire also smoking and looking at them.

At last I spoke.  'Old friends,' I said, 'how long is it since
we got back from Kukuanaland?'

'Three years,' said Good.  'Why do you ask?'

'I ask because I think that I have had a long enough spell of
civilization.  I am going back to the veldt.'

Sir Henry laid his head back in his arm-chair and laughed one
of his deep laughs.  'How very odd,' he said, 'eh, Good?'

Good beamed at me mysteriously through his eyeglass and murmured,
'Yes, odd -- very odd.'

'I don't quite understand,' said I, looking from one to the other,
for I dislike mysteries.

'Don't you, old fellow?' said Sir Henry; 'then I will explain.
As Good and I were walking up here we had a talk.'

'If Good was there you probably did,' I put in sarcastically,
for Good is a great hand at talking.  'And what may it have been about?'

'What do you think?' asked Sir Henry.

I shook my head.  It was not likely that I should know what Good
might be talking about.  He talks about so many things.

'Well, it was about a little plan that I have formed -- namely,
that if you were willing we should pack up our traps and go off
to Africa on another expedition.'

I fairly jumped at his words.  'You don't say so!' I said.

'Yes I do, though, and so does Good; don't you, Good?'

'Rather,' said that gentleman.

'Listen, old fellow,' went on Sir Henry, with considerable animation
of manner.  'I'm tired of it too, dead-tired of doing nothing
more except play the squire in a country that is sick of squires.
For a year or more I have been getting as restless as an old
elephant who scents danger.  I am always dreaming of Kukuanaland
and Gagool and King Solomon's Mines.  I can assure you I have
become the victim of an almost unaccountable craving.  I am sick
of shooting pheasants and partridges, and want to have a go at
some large game again.  There, you know the feeling -- when one
has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes insipid to the
palate.  That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems
to me worth all the other years of my life put together.  I dare
say that I am a fool for my pains, but I can't help it; I long
to go, and, what is more, I mean to go.'  He paused, and then
went on again.  'And, after all, why should I not go?  I have
no wife or parent, no chick or child to keep me.  If anything
happens to me the baronetcy will go to my brother George and
his boy, as it would ultimately do in any case.  I am of no importance
to any one.'

'Ah!' I said, 'I thought you would come to that sooner or later.
And now, Good, what is your reason for wanting to trek; have
you got one?'

'I have,' said Good, solemnly.  'I never do anything without
a reason; and it isn't a lady -- at least, if it is, it's several.'

I looked at him again.  Good is so overpoweringly frivolous.
'What is it?' I said.

'Well, if you really want to know, though I'd rather not speak
of a delicate and strictly personal matter, I'll tell you: I'm
getting too fat.'

'Shut up, Good!' said Sir Henry.  'And now, Quatermain, tell
us, where do you propose going to?'

I lit my pipe, which had gone out, before answering.

'Have you people ever heard of Mt Kenia?' I asked.

'Don't know the place,' said Good.

'Did you ever hear of the Island of Lamu?' I asked again.

'No.  Stop, though -- isn't it a place about 300 miles north of Zanzibar?'

'Yes.  Now listen.  What I have to propose is this.  That we
go to Lamu and thence make our way about 250 miles inland to
Mt Kenia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200
miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best
of my belief ever been; and then, if we get so far, right on
into the unknown interior.  What do you say to that, my hearties?'

'It's a big order,' said Sir Henry, reflectively.

'You are right,' I answered, 'it is; but I take it that we are
all three of us in search of a big order.  We want a change of
scene, and we are likely to get one -- a thorough change.  All
my life I have longed to visit those parts, and I mean to do
it before I die.  My poor boy's death has broken the last link
between me and civilization, and I'm off to my native wilds.
And now I'll tell you another thing, and that is, that for years
and years I have heard rumours of a great white race which is
supposed to have its home somewhere up in this direction, and
I have a mind to see if there is any truth in them.  If you fellows
like to come, well and good; if not, I'll go alone.'

'I'm your man, though I don't believe in your white race,' said
Sir Henry Curtis, rising and placing his arm upon my shoulder.

'Ditto,' remarked Good.  'I'll go into training at once.  By
all means let's go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an
unpronounceable name, and look for a white race that does not exist.
It's all one to me.'

'When do you propose to start?' asked Sir Henry.

'This day month,' I answered, 'by the British India steamboat;
and don't you be so certain that things have no existence because
you do not happen to have heard of them.  Remember King Solomon's mines!'


Some fourteen weeks or so had passed since the date of this conversation,
and this history goes on its way in very different surroundings.

After much deliberation and inquiry we came to the conclusion
that our best starting-point for Mt Kenia would be from the neighbourhood
of the mouth of the Tana River, and not from Mombassa, a place
over 100 miles nearer Zanzibar.  This conclusion we arrived at
from information given to us by a German trader whom we met upon
the steamer at Aden.  I think that he was the dirtiest German
I ever knew; but he was a good fellow, and gave us a great deal
of valuable information.  'Lamu,' said he, 'you goes to Lamu
-- oh ze beautiful place!' and he turned up his fat face and
beamed with mild rapture.  'One year and a half I live there
and never change my shirt -- never at all.'

And so it came to pass that on arriving at the island we disembarked
with all our goods and chattels, and, not knowing where to go,
marched boldly up to the house of Her Majesty's Consul, where
we were most hospitably received.

Lamu is a very curious place, but the things which stand out
most clearly in my memory in connection with it are its exceeding
dirtiness and its smells.  These last are simply awful.  Just
below the Consulate is the beach, or rather a mud bank that is
called a beach.  It is left quite bare at low tide, and serves
as a repository for all the filth, offal, and refuse of the town.
Here it is, too, that the women come to bury coconuts in the
mud, leaving them there till the outer husk is quite rotten,
when they dig them up again and use the fibres to make mats with,
and for various other purposes.  As this process has been going
on for generations, the condition of the shore can be better
imagined than described.  I have smelt many evil odours in the
course of my life, but the concentrated essence of stench which
arose from that beach at Lamu as we sat in the moonlit night
-- not under, but _on_ our friend the Consul's hospitable roof
-- and sniffed it, makes the remembrance of them very poor and
faint.  No wonder people get fever at Lamu.  And yet the place
was not without a certain quaintness and charm of its own, though
possibly -- indeed probably -- it was one which would quickly
pall.

'Well, where are you gentlemen steering for?' asked our friend
the hospitable Consul, as we smoked our pipes after dinner.

'We propose to go to Mt Kenia and then on to Mt Lekakisera,'
answered Sir Henry.  'Quatermain has got hold of some yarn about
there being a white race up in the unknown territories beyond.'

The Consul looked interested, and answered that he had heard
something of that, too.

'What have you heard?' I asked.

'Oh, not much.  All I know about it is that a year or so ago
I got a letter from Mackenzie, the Scotch missionary, whose station,
"The Highlands", is placed at the highest navigable point of
the Tana River, in which he said something about it.'

'Have you the letter?' I asked.

'No, I destroyed it; but I remember that he said that a man had
arrived at his station who declared that two months' journey
beyond Mt Lekakisera, which no white man has yet visited -- at
least, so far as I know -- he found a lake called Laga, and that
then he went off to the north-east, a month's journey, over desert
and thorn veldt and great mountains, till he came to a country
where the people are white and live in stone houses.  Here he
was hospitably entertained for a while, till at last the priests
of the country set it about that he was a devil, and the people
drove him away, and he journeyed for eight months and reached
Mackenzie's place, as I heard, dying.  That's all I know; and
if you ask me, I believe that it is a lie; but if you want to
find out more about it, you had better go up the Tana to Mackenzie's
place and ask him for information.'

Sir Henry and I looked at each other.  Here was something tangible.

'I think that we will go to Mr Mackenzie's,' I said.

'Well,' answered the Consul, 'that is your best way, but I warn
you that you are likely to have a rough journey, for I hear that
the Masai are about, and, as you know, they are not pleasant
customers.  Your best plan will be to choose a few picked men
for personal servants and hunters, and to hire bearers from village
to village.  It will give you an infinity of trouble, but perhaps
on the whole it will prove a cheaper and more advantageous course
than engaging a caravan, and you will be less liable to desertion.'

Fortunately there were at Lamu at this time a party of Wakwafi
Askari (soldiers).  The Wakwafi, who are a cross between the
Masai and the Wataveta, are a fine manly race, possessing many
of the good qualities of the Zulu, and a great capacity for civilization.
They are also great hunters.  As it happened, these particular
men had recently been on a long trip with an Englishman named
Jutson, who had started from Mombasa, a port about 150 miles
below Lamu, and journeyed right round Kilimanjaro, one of the
highest known mountains in Africa.  Poor fellow, he had died
of fever when on his return journey, and within a day's march
of Mombasa.  It does seem hard that he should have gone off thus
when within a few hours of safety, and after having survived
so many perils, but so it was.  His hunters buried him, and then
came on to Lamu in a dhow.  Our friend the Consul suggested to
us that we had better try and hire these men, and accordingly
on the following morning we started to interview the party,
accompanied by an interpreter.

In due course we found them in a mud hut on the outskirts of
the town.  Three of the men were sitting outside the hut, and
fine frank-looking fellows they were, having a more or less civilized
appearance.  To them we cautiously opened the object of our visit,
at first with very scant success.  They declared that they could
not entertain any such idea, that they were worn and weary with
long travelling, and that their hearts were sore at the loss
of their master.  They meant to go back to their homes and rest
awhile.  This did not sound very promising, so by way of effecting
a diversion I asked where the remainder of them were.  I was
told there were six, and I saw but three.  One of the men said
they slept in the hut, and were yet resting after their labours
-- 'sleep weighed down their eyelids, and sorrow made their hearts
as lead: it was best to sleep, for with sleep came forgetfulness.
But the men should be awakened.'

Presently they came out of the hut, yawning -- the first two
men being evidently of the same race and style as those already
before us; but the appearance of the third and last nearly made
me jump out of my skin.  He was a very tall, broad man, quite
six foot three, I should say, but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking
limbs.  My first glance at him told me that he was no Wakwafi:
he was a pure bred Zulu.  He came out with his thin aristocratic-looking
hand placed before his face to hide a yawn, so I could only see
that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man {Endnote 1}, and that he
had a great three-cornered hole in his forehead.  In another
second he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu
face, with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard, tinged with
grey, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's.  I knew my man
at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years.  'How
do you do, Umslopogaas?' I said quietly in Zulu.

The tall man (who among his own people was commonly known as
the 'Woodpecker', and also as the 'Slaughterer') started, and
almost let the long-handled battleaxe he held in his hand fall
in his astonishment.  Next second he had recognized me, and was
saluting me in an outburst of sonorous language which made his
companions the Wakwafi stare.

'Koos' (chief), he began, 'Koos-y-Pagete!  Koos-y-umcool!  (Chief
from of old -- mighty chief)  Koos!  Baba!  (father)  Macumazahn,
old hunter, slayer of elephants, eater up of lions, clever one!
watchful one! brave one! quick one! whose shot never misses,
who strikes straight home, who grasps a hand and holds it to
the death (i.e. is a true friend) Koos!  Baba!  Wise is the voice
of our people that says, "Mountain never meets with mountain,
but at daybreak or at even man shall meet again with man."  Behold!
a messenger came up from Natal, "Macumazahn is dead!" cried he.
"The land knows Macumazahn no more."  That is years ago.  And
now, behold, now in this strange place of stinks I find Macumazahn,
my friend.  There is no room for doubt.  The brush of the old
jackal has gone a little grey; but is not his eye as keen, and
are not his teeth as sharp?  Ha! ha! Macumazahn, mindest thou
how thou didst plant the ball in the eye of the charging buffalo
-- mindest thou --'

I had let him run on thus because I saw that his enthusiasm was
producing a marked effect upon the minds of the five Wakwafi,
who appeared to understand something of his talk; but now I thought
it time to put a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate
so much as this Zulu system of extravagant praising -- 'bongering'
as they call it.  'Silence!' I said.  'Has all thy noisy talk
been stopped up since last I saw thee that it breaks out thus,
and sweeps us away?  What doest thou here with these men -- thou
whom I left a chief in Zululand?  How is it that thou art far
from thine own place, and gathered together with strangers?'

Umslopogaas leant himself upon the head of his long battleaxe
(which was nothing else but a pole-axe, with a beautiful handle
of rhinoceros horn), and his grim face grew sad.

'My Father,' he answered, 'I have a word to tell thee, but I
cannot speak it before these low people (umfagozana),' and he
glanced at the Wakwafi Askari; 'it is for thine own ear.  My
Father, this will I say,' and here his face grew stern again,
'a woman betrayed me to the death, and covered my name with shame
-- ay, my own wife, a round-faced girl, betrayed me; but I escaped
from death; ay, I broke from the very hands of those who came
to slay me.  I struck but three blows with this mine axe Inkosikaas
-- surely my Father will remember it -- one to the right, one
to the left, and one in front, and yet I left three men dead.
And then I fled, and, as my Father knows, even now that I am
old my feet are as the feet of the Sassaby {Endnote 2}, and there
breathes not the man who, by running, can touch me again when
once I have bounded from his side.  On I sped, and after me came
the messengers of death, and their voice was as the voice of
dogs that hunt.  From my own kraal I flew, and, as I passed,
she who had betrayed me was drawing water from the spring.  I
fleeted by her like the shadow of Death, and as I went I smote
with mine axe, and lo! her head fell: it fell into the water
pan.  Then I fled north.  Day after day I journeyed on; for three
moons I journeyed, resting not, stopping not, but running on
towards forgetfulness, till I met the party of the white hunter
who is now dead, and am come hither with his servants.  And nought
have I brought with me.  I who was high-born, ay, of the blood
of Chaka, the great king -- a chief, and a captain of the regiment
of the Nkomabakosi -- am a wanderer in strange places, a man
without a kraal.  Nought have I brought save this mine axe; of
all my belongings this remains alone.  They have divided my cattle;
they have taken my wives; and my children know my face no more.
Yet with this axe' -- and he swung the formidable weapon round
his head, making the air hiss as he clove it -- 'will I cut another
path to fortune.  I have spoken.'

I shook my head at him.  'Umslopogaas,' I said, 'I know thee
from of old.  Ever ambitious, ever plotting to be great, I fear
me that thou hast overreached thyself at last.  Years ago, when
thou wouldst have plotted against Cetywayo, son of Panda, I warned
thee, and thou didst listen.  But now, when I was not by thee
to stay thy hand, thou hast dug a pit for thine own feet to fall
in.  Is it not so?  But what is done is done.  Who can make the
dead tree green, or gaze again upon last year's light?  Who can
recall the spoken word, or bring back the spirit of the fallen?
That which Time swallows comes not up again.  Let it be forgotten!

'And now, behold, Umslopogaas, I know thee for a great warrior
and a brave man, faithful to the death.  Even in Zululand, where
all the men are brave, they called thee the "Slaughterer", and
at night told stories round the fire of thy strength and deeds.
Hear me now.  Thou seest this great man, my friend' -- and I
pointed to Sir Henry; 'he also is a warrior as great as thou,
and, strong as thou art, he could throw thee over his shoulder.
Incubu is his name.  And thou seest this one also; him with
the round stomach, the shining eye, and the pleasant face.  Bougwan
(glass eye) is his name, and a good man is he and a true, being
of a curious tribe who pass their life upon the water, and live
in floating kraals.

'Now, we three whom thou seest would travel inland, past Dongo
Egere, the great white mountain (Mt Kenia), and far into the
unknown beyond.  We know not what we shall find there; we go
to hunt and seek adventures, and new places, being tired of sitting
still, with the same old things around us.  Wilt thou come with
us?  To thee shall be given command of all our servants; but
what shall befall thee, that I know not.  Once before we three
journeyed thus, in search of adventure, and we took with us a
man such as thou -- one Umbopa; and, behold, we left him the
king of a great country, with twenty Impis (regiments), each
of 3,000 plumed warriors, waiting on his word.  How it shall
go with thee, I know not; mayhap death awaits thee and us.
Wilt thou throw thyself to Fortune and come, or fearest thou,
Umslopogaas?'

The great man smiled.  'Thou art not altogether right, Macumazahn,'
he said; 'I have plotted in my time, but it was not ambition
that led me to my fall; but, shame on me that I should have to
say it, a fair woman's face.  Let it pass.  So we are going to
see something like the old times again, Macumazahn, when we fought
and hunted in Zululand?  Ay, I will come.  Come life, come death,
what care I, so that the blows fall fast and the blood runs red?
I grow old, I grow old, and I have not fought enough!  And yet
am I a warrior among warriors; see my scars' -- and he pointed
to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts, that marked the skin
of his chest and legs and arms.  'See the hole in my head; the
brains gushed out therefrom, yet did I slay him who smote, and
live.  Knowest thou how many men I have slain, in fair hand-to-hand
combat, Macumazahn?  See, here is the tale of them' -- and he
pointed to long rows of notches cut in the rhinoceros-horn handle
of his axe.  'Number them, Macumazahn -- one hundred and three
-- and I have never counted but those whom I have ripped open
{Endnote 3}, nor have I reckoned those whom another man had struck.'

'Be silent,' I said, for I saw that he was getting the blood-fever
on him; 'be silent; well art thou called the "Slaughterer".
We would not hear of thy deeds of blood.  Remember, if thou comest
with us, we fight not save in self-defence.  Listen, we need
servants.  These men,' and I pointed to the Wakwafi, who had
retired a little way during our 'indaba' (talk), 'say they will not come.'

'Will not come!' shouted Umslopogaas; 'where is the dog who says
he will not come when my Father orders?  Here, thou' -- and with
a single bound he sprang upon the Wakwafi with whom I had first
spoken, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him towards us.
'Thou dog!' he said, giving the terrified man a shake, 'didst
thou say that thou wouldst not go with my Father?  Say it once
more and I will choke thee' -- and his long fingers closed round
his throat as he said it -- 'thee, and those with thee.  Hast
thou forgotten how I served thy brother?'

'Nay, we will come with the white man,' gasped the man.

'White man!' went on Umslopogaas, in simulated fury, which a
very little provocation would have made real enough; 'of whom
speakest thou, insolent dog?'

'Nay, we will go with the great chief.'

'So!' said Umslopogaas, in a quiet voice, as he suddenly released
his hold, so that the man fell backward.  'I thought you would.'

'That man Umslopogaas seems to have a curious moral ascendency
over his companions,' Good afterwards remarked thoughtfully.




CHAPTER II
THE BLACK HAND



In due course we left Lamu, and ten days afterwards we found
ourselves at a spot called Charra, on the Tana River, having
gone through many adventures which need not be recorded here.
Amongst other things we visited a ruined city, of which there
are many on this coast, and which must once, to judge from their
extent and the numerous remains of mosques and stone houses,
have been very populous places.  These ruined cities are immeasurably
ancient, having, I believe, been places of wealth and importance
as far back as the Old Testament times, when they were centres
of trade with India and elsewhere.  But their glory has departed
now -- the slave trade has finished them -- and where wealthy
merchants from all parts of the then civilized world stood and
bargained in the crowded market-places, the lion holds his court
at night, and instead of the chattering of slaves and the eager
voices of the bidders, his awful note goes echoing down the ruined
corridors.  At this particular place we discovered on a mound,
covered up with rank growth and rubbish, two of the most beautiful
stone doorways that it is possible to conceive.  The carving
on them was simply exquisite, and I only regret that we had no
means of getting them away.  No doubt they had once been the
entrances to a palace, of which, however, no traces were now
to be seen, though probably its ruins lay under the rising mound.

Gone! quite gone! the way that everything must go.  Like the
nobles and the ladies who lived within their gates, these cities
have had their day, and now they are as Babylon and Nineveh,
and as London and Paris will one day be.  Nothing may endure.
That is the inexorable law.  Men and women, empires and cities,
thrones, principalities, and powers, mountains, rivers, and unfathomed
seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all have their day, and
all must go.  In this ruined and forgotten place the moralist
may behold a symbol of the universal destiny.  For this system
of ours allows no room for standing still -- nothing can loiter
on the road and check the progress of things upwards towards
Life, or the rush of things downwards towards Death.  The stern
policeman Fate moves us and them on, on, uphill and downhill
and across the level; there is no resting-place for the weary
feet, till at last the abyss swallows us, and from the shores
of the Transitory we are hurled into the sea of the Eternal.

At Charra we had a violent quarrel with the headman of the bearers
we had hired to go as far as this, and who now wished to extort
large extra payment from us.  In the result he threatened to
set the Masai -- about whom more anon -- on to us.  That night
he, with all our hired bearers, ran away, stealing most of the
goods which had been entrusted to them to carry.  Luckily, however,
they had not happened to steal our rifles, ammunition, and personal
effects; not because of any delicacy of feeling on their part,
but owing to the fact that they chanced to be in the charge of
the five Wakwafis.  After that, it was clear to us that we had
had enough of caravans and of bearers.  Indeed, we had not much
left for a caravan to carry.  And yet, how were we to get on?

It was Good who solved the question.  'Here is water,' he said,
pointing to the Tana River; 'and yesterday I saw a party of natives
hunting hippopotami in canoes.  I understand that Mr Mackenzie's
mission station is on the Tana River.  Why not get into canoes
and paddle up to it?'

This brilliant suggestion was, needless to say, received with
acclamation; and I instantly set to work to buy suitable canoes
from the surrounding natives.  I succeeded after a delay of three
days in obtaining two large ones, each hollowed out of a single
log of some light wood, and capable of holding six people and
baggage.  For these two canoes we had to pay nearly all our
remaining cloth, and also many other articles.

On the day following our purchase of the two canoes we effected
a start.  In the first canoe were Good, Sir Henry, and three
of our Wakwafi followers; in the second myself, Umslopogaas,
and the other two Wakwafis.  As our course lay upstream, we had
to keep four paddles at work in each canoe, which meant that
the whole lot of us, except Good, had to row away like galley-slaves;
and very exhausting work it was.  I say, except Good, for, of
course, the moment that Good got into a boat his foot was on
his native heath, and he took command of the party.  And certainly
he worked us.  On shore Good is a gentle, mild-mannered man,
and given to jocosity; but, as we found to our cost, Good in
a boat was a perfect demon.  To begin with, he knew all about
it, and we didn't.  On all nautical subjects, from the torpedo
fittings of a man-of-war down to the best way of handling the
paddle of an African canoe, he was a perfect mine of information,
which, to say the least of it, we were not.  Also his ideas of
discipline were of the sternest, and, in short, he came the royal
naval officer over us pretty considerably, and paid us out amply
for all the chaff we were wont to treat him to on land; but,
on the other hand, I am bound to say that he managed the boats admirably.

After the first day Good succeeded, with the help of some cloth
and a couple of poles, in rigging up a sail in each canoe, which
lightened our labours not a little.  But the current ran very
strong against us, and at the best we were not able to make more
than twenty miles a day.  Our plan was to start at dawn, and
paddle along till about half-past ten, by which time the sun
got too hot to allow of further exertion.  Then we moored our
canoes to the bank, and ate our frugal meal; after which we ate
or otherwise amused ourselves till about three o'clock, when
we again started, and rowed till within an hour of sundown, when
we called a halt for the night.  On landing in the evening, Good
would at once set to work, with the help of the Askari, to build
a little 'scherm', or small enclosure, fenced with thorn bushes,
and to light a fire.  I, with Sir Henry and Umslopogaas, would
go out to shoot something for the pot.  Generally this was an
easy task, for all sorts of game abounded on the banks of the
Tana.  One night Sir Henry shot a young cow-giraffe, of which
the marrow-bones were excellent; on another I got a couple of
waterbuck right and left; and once, to his own intense satisfaction,
Umslopogaas (who, like most Zulus, was a vile shot with a rifle)
managed to kill a fine fat eland with a Martini I had lent him.
Sometimes we varied our food by shooting some guinea-fowl, or
bush-bustard (paau) -- both of which were numerous -- with a
shot-gun, or by catching a supply of beautiful yellow fish, with
which the waters of the Tana swarmed, and which form, I believe,
one of the chief food-supplies of the crocodiles.

Three days after our start an ominous incident occurred.  We
were just drawing in to the bank to make our camp as usual for
the night, when we caught sight of a figure standing on a little
knoll not forty yards away, and intensely watching our approach.
One glance was sufficient -- although I was personally unacquainted
with the tribe -- to tell me that he was a Masai Elmoran, or
young warrior.  Indeed, had I had any doubts, they would have
quickly been dispelled by the terrified ejaculation of '_Masai_!'
that burst simultaneously from the lips of our Wakwafi followers,
who are, as I think I have said, themselves bastard Masai.

And what a figure he presented as he stood there in his savage
war-gear!  Accustomed as I have been to savages all my life,
I do not think that I have ever before seen anything quite so
ferocious or awe-inspiring.  To begin with, the man was enormously
tall, quite as tall as Umslopogaas, I should say, and beautifully,
though somewhat slightly, shaped; but with the face of a devil.
In his right hand he held a spear about five and a half feet
long, the blade being two and a half feet in length, by nearly
three inches in width, and having an iron spike at the end of
the handle that measured more than a foot.  On his left arm was
a large and well-made elliptical shield of buffalo hide, on which
were painted strange heraldic-looking devices.  On his shoulders
was a huge cape of hawk's feathers, and round his neck was a
'naibere', or strip of cotton, about seventeen feet long, by
one and a half broad, with a stripe of colour running down the
middle of it.  The tanned goatskin robe, which formed his ordinary
attire in times of peace, was tied lightly round his waist, so
as to serve the purposes of a belt, and through it were stuck,
on the right and left sides respectively, his short pear-shaped
sime, or sword, which is made of a single piece of steel, and
carried in a wooden sheath, and an enormous knobkerrie.  But
perhaps the most remarkable feature of his attire consisted of
a headdress of ostrich-feathers, which was fixed on the chin,
and passed in front of the ears to the forehead, and, being shaped
like an ellipse, completely framed the face, so that the diabolical
countenance appeared to project from a sort of feather fire-screen.
Round the ankles he wore black fringes of hair, and, projecting
from the upper portion of the calves, to which they were attached,
were long spurs like spikes, from which flowed down tufts of
the beautiful black and waving hair of the Colobus monkey.  Such
was the elaborate array of the Masai Elmoran who stood watching
the approach of our two canoes, but it is one which, to be appreciated,
must be seen; only those who see it do not often live to describe
it.  Of course I could not make out all these details of his
full dress on the occasion of this my first introduction, being,
indeed, amply taken up with the consideration of the general
effect, but I had plenty of subsequent opportunities of becoming
acquainted with the items that went to make it up.

Whilst we were hesitating what to do, the Masai warrior drew
himself up in a dignified fashion, shook his huge spear at us,
and, turning, vanished on the further side of the slope.

'Hulloa!' holloaed Sir Henry from the other boat; 'our friend
the caravan leader has been as good as his word, and set the
Masai after us.  Do you think it will be safe to go ashore?'

I did not think it would be at all safe; but, on the other hand,
we had no means of cooking in the canoes, and nothing that we
could eat raw, so it was difficult to know what to do.  At last
Umslopogaas simplified matters by volunteering to go and reconnoitre,
which he did, creeping off into the bush like a snake, while
we hung off in the stream waiting for him.  In half an hour he
returned, and told us that there was not a Masai to be seen anywhere
about, but that he had discovered a spot where they had recently
been encamped, and that from various indications he judged that
they must have moved on an hour or so before; the man we saw
having, no doubt, been left to report upon our movements.

Thereupon we landed; and, having posted a sentry, proceeded to
cook and eat our evening meal.  This done, we took the situation
into our serious consideration.  Of course, it was possible that
the apparition of the Masai warrior had nothing to do with us,
that he was merely one of a band bent upon some marauding and
murdering expedition against another tribe.  But when we recalled
the threat of the caravan leader, and reflected on the ominous
way in which the warrior had shaken his spear at us, this did
not appear very probable.  On the contrary, what did seem probable
was that the party was after us and awaiting a favourable opportunity
to attack us.  This being so, there were two things that we could
do -- one of which was to go on, and the other to go back.  The
latter idea was, however, rejected at once, it being obvious
that we should encounter as many dangers in retreat as in advance;
and, besides, we had made up our minds to journey onwards at
any price.  Under these circumstances, however, we did not consider
it safe to sleep ashore, so we got into our canoes, and, paddling
out into the middle of the stream, which was not very wide here,
managed to anchor them by means of big stones fastened to ropes
made of coconut-fibre, of which there were several fathoms in
each canoe.

Here the mosquitoes nearly ate us up alive, and this, combined
with anxiety as to our position, effectually prevented me from
sleeping as the others were doing, notwithstanding the attacks
of the aforesaid Tana mosquitoes.  And so I lay awake, smoking
and reflecting on many things, but, being of a practical turn
of mind, chiefly on how we were to give those Masai villains
the slip.  It was a beautiful moonlight night, and, notwithstanding
the mosquitoes, and the great risk we were running from fever
from sleeping in such a spot, and forgetting that I had the cramp
very badly in my right leg from squatting in a constrained position
in the canoe, and that the Wakwafi who was sleeping beside me
smelt horribly, I really began to enjoy myself.  The moonbeams
played upon the surface of the running water that speeded unceasingly
past us towards the sea, like men's lives towards the grave,
till it glittered like a wide sheet of silver, that is in the
open where the trees threw no shadows.  Near the banks, however,
it was very dark, and the night wind sighed sadly in the reeds.
To our left, on the further side of the river, was a little
sandy bay which was clear of trees, and here I could make out
the forms of numerous antelopes advancing to the water, till
suddenly there came an ominous roar, whereupon they all made
off hurriedly.  Then after a pause I caught sight of the massive
form of His Majesty the Lion, coming down to drink his fill after
meat.  Presently he moved on, then came a crashing of the reeds
about fifty yards above us, and a few minutes later a huge black
mass rose out of the water, about twenty yards from me, and snorted.
It was the head of a hippopotamus.  Down it went without a sound,
only to rise again within five yards of where I sat.  This was
decidedly too near to be comfortable, more especially as the
hippopotamus was evidently animated by intense curiosity to know
what on earth our canoes were.  He opened his great mouth, to
yawn, I suppose, and gave me an excellent view of his ivories;
and I could not help reflecting how easily he could crunch up
our frail canoe with a single bite.  Indeed, I had half a mind
to give him a ball from my eight-bore, but on reflection determined
to let him alone unless he actually charged the boat.  Presently
he sank again as noiselessly as before, and I saw no more of
him.  Just then, on looking towards the bank on our right, I
fancied that I caught sight of a dark figure flitting between
the tree trunks.  I have very keen sight, and I was almost sure
that I saw something, but whether it was bird, beast, or man
I could not say.  At the moment, however, a dark cloud passed
over the moon, and I saw no more of it.  Just then, too, although
all the other sounds of the forest had ceased, a species of horned
owl with which I was well acquainted began to hoot with great
persistency.  After that, save for the rustling of trees and
reeds when the wind caught them, there was complete silence.

But somehow, in the most unaccountable way, I had suddenly become
nervous.  There was no particular reason why I should be, beyond
the ordinary reasons which surround the Central African traveller,
and yet I undoubtedly was.  If there is one thing more than another
of which I have the most complete and entire scorn and disbelief,
it is of presentiments, and yet here I was all of a sudden filled
with and possessed by a most undoubted presentiment of approaching
evil.  I would not give way to it, however, although I felt the
cold perspiration stand out upon my forehead.  I would not arouse
the others.  Worse and worse I grew, my pulse fluttered like
a dying man's, my nerves thrilled with the horrible sense of
impotent terror which anybody who is subject to nightmare will
be familiar with, but still my will triumphed over my fears,
and I lay quiet (for I was half sitting, half lying, in the bow
of the canoe), only turning my face so as to command a view of
Umslopogaas and the two Wakwafi who were sleeping alongside of
and beyond me.

In the distance I heard a hippopotamus splash faintly, then the
owl hooted again in a kind of unnatural screaming note {Endnote 4},
and the wind began to moan plaintively through the trees,
making a heart-chilling music.  Above was the black bosom of
the cloud, and beneath me swept the black flood of the water,
and I felt as though I and Death were utterly alone between them.
It was very desolate.

Suddenly my blood seemed to freeze in my veins, and my heart
to stand still.  Was it fancy, or were we moving?  I turned my
eyes to look for the other canoe which should be alongside of
us.  I could not see it, but instead I saw a lean and clutching
black hand lifting itself above the gunwale of the little boat.
Surely it was a nightmare!  At the same instant a dim but
devilish-looking face appeared to rise out of the water, and
then came a lurch of the canoe, the quick flash of a knife, and
an awful yell from the Wakwafi who was sleeping by my side (the
same poor fellow whose odour had been annoying me), and something
warm spurted into my face.  In an instant the spell was broken;
I knew that it was no nightmare, but that we were attacked by
swimming Masai.  Snatching at the first weapon that came to hand,
which happened to be Umslopogaas' battleaxe, I struck with all
my force in the direction in which I had seen the flash of the
knife.  The blow fell upon a man's arm, and, catching it against
the thick wooden gunwale of the canoe, completely severed it
from the body just above the wrist.  As for its owner, he uttered
no sound or cry.  Like a ghost he came, and like a ghost he went,
leaving behind him a bloody hand still gripping a great knife,
or rather a short sword, that was buried in the heart of our
poor servant.

Instantly there arose a hubbub and confusion, and I fancied,
rightly or wrongly, that I made out several dark heads gliding
away towards the right-hand bank, whither we were rapidly drifting,
for the rope by which we were moored had been severed with a
knife.  As soon as I had realized this fact, I also realized
that the scheme had been to cut the boat loose so that it should
drift on to the right bank (as it would have done with the natural
swing of the current), where no doubt a party of Masai were waiting
to dig their shovel-headed spears into us.  Seizing one paddle
myself, I told Umslopogaas to take another (for the remaining
Askari was too frightened and bewildered to be of any use), and
together we rowed vigorously out towards the middle of the stream;
and not an instant too soon, for in another minute we should
have been aground, and then there would have been an end of us.

As soon as we were well out, we set to work to paddle the canoe
upstream again to where the other was moored; and very hard and
dangerous work it was in the dark, and with nothing but the notes
of Good's stentorian shouts, which he kept firing off at intervals
like a fog-horn, to guide us.  But at last we fetched up, and
were thankful to find that they had not been molested at all.
No doubt the owner of the same hand that severed our rope should
have severed theirs also, but was led away from his purpose by
an irresistible inclination to murder when he got the chance,
which, while it cost us a man and him his hand, undoubtedly saved
all the rest of us from massacre.  Had it not been for that ghastly
apparition over the side of the boat -- an apparition that I
shall never forget till my dying hour -- the canoe would undoubtedly
have drifted ashore before I realized what had happened, and
this history would never have been written by me.




CHAPTER III
THE MISSION STATION



We made the remains of our rope fast to the other canoe, and
sat waiting for the dawn and congratulating ourselves upon our
merciful escape, which really seemed to result more from the
special favour of Providence than from our own care or prowess.
At last it came, and I have not often been more grateful to
see the light, though so far as my canoe was concerned it revealed
a ghastly sight.  There in the bottom of the little boat lay
the unfortunate Askari, the sime, or sword, in his bosom, and
the severed hand gripping the handle.  I could not bear the sight,
so hauling up the stone which had served as an anchor to the
other canoe, we made it fast to the murdered man and dropped
him overboard, and down he went to the bottom, leaving nothing
but a train of bubbles behind him.  Alas! when our time comes,
most of us like him leave nothing but bubbles behind, to show
that we have been, and the bubbles soon burst.  The hand of his
murderer we threw into the stream, where it slowly sank.  The
sword, of which the handle was ivory, inlaid with gold (evidently
Arab work), I kept and used as a hunting-knife, and very useful
it proved.

Then, a man having been transferred to my canoe, we once more
started on in very low spirits and not feeling at all comfortable
as to the future, but fondly hoping to arrive at the 'Highlands'
station by night.  To make matters worse, within an hour of sunrise
it came on to rain in torrents, wetting us to the skin, and even
necessitating the occasional baling of the canoes, and as the
rain beat down the wind we could not use the sails, and had to
get along as best as we could with our paddles.

At eleven o'clock we halted on an open piece of ground on the
left bank of the river, and, the rain abating a little, managed
to make a fire and catch and broil some fish.  We did not dare
to wander about to search for game.  At two o'clock we got off
again, taking a supply of broiled fish with us, and shortly afterwards
the rain came on harder than ever.  Also the river began to get
exceedingly difficult to navigate on account of the numerous
rocks, reaches of shallow water, and the increased force of the
current; so that it soon became clear to us that we should not
reach the Rev. Mackenzie's hospitable roof that night -- a prospect
that did not tend to enliven us.  Toil as we would, we could
not make more than an average of a mile an hour, and at five
o'clock in the afternoon (by which time we were all utterly worn
out) we reckoned that we were still quite ten miles below the
station.  This being so, we set to work to make the best arrangements
we could for the night.  After our recent experience, we simply
did not dare to land, more especially as the banks of the Tana
were clothed with dense bush that would have given cover to five
thousand Masai, and at first I thought that we were going to
have another night of it in the canoes.  Fortunately, however,
we espied a little rocky islet, not more than fifteen miles or
so square, situated nearly in the middle of the river.  For this
we paddled, and, making fast the canoes, landed and made ourselves
as comfortable as circumstances would permit, which was very
uncomfortable indeed.  As for the weather, it continued to be
simply vile, the rain coming down in sheets till we were chilled
to the marrow, and utterly preventing us from lighting a fire.
There was, however, one consoling circumstance about this rain;
our Askari declared that nothing would induce the Masai to make
an attack in it, as they intensely disliked moving about in the
wet, perhaps, as Good suggested, because they hate the idea of
washing.  We ate some insipid and sodden cold fish -- that is,
with the exception of Umslopogaas, who, like most Zulus, cannot
bear fish -- and took a pull of brandy, of which we fortunately
had a few bottles left, and then began what, with one exception
-- when we same three white men nearly perished of cold on the
snow of Sheba's Breast in the course of our journey to Kukuanaland
-- was, I think, the most trying night I ever experienced.  It
seemed absolutely endless, and once or twice I feared that two
of the Askari would have died of the wet, cold, and exposure.
Indeed, had it not been for timely doses of brandy I am sure
that they would have died, for no African people can stand much
exposure, which first paralyses and then kills them.  I could
see that even that iron old warrior Umslopogaas felt it keenly;
though, in strange contrast to the Wakwafis, who groaned and
bemoaned their fate unceasingly, he never uttered a single complaint.
To make matters worse, about one in the morning we again heard
the owl's ominous hooting, and had at once to prepare ourselves
for another attack; though, if it had been attempted, I do not
think that we could have offered a very effective resistance.
But either the owl was a real one this time, or else the Masai
were themselves too miserable to think of offensive operations,
which, indeed, they rarely, if ever, undertake in bush veldt.
At any rate, we saw nothing of them.

At last the dawn came gliding across the water, wrapped in wreaths
of ghostly mist, and, with the daylight, the rain ceased; and
then, out came the glorious sun, sucking up the mists and warming
the chill air.  Benumbed, and utterly exhausted, we dragged ourselves
to our feet, and went and stood in the bright rays, and were
thankful for them.  I can quite understand how it is that primitive
people become sun worshippers, especially if their conditions
of life render them liable to exposure.

In half an hour more we were once again making fair progress
with the help of a good wind.  Our spirits had returned with
the sunshine, and we were ready to laugh at difficulties and
dangers that had been almost crushing on the previous day.

And so we went on cheerily till about eleven o'clock.  Just as
we were thinking of halting as usual, to rest and try to shoot
something to eat, a sudden bend in the river brought us in sight
of a substantial-looking European house with a veranda round
it, splendidly situated upon a hill, and surrounded by a high
stone wall with a ditch on the outer side.  Right against and
overshadowing the house was an enormous pine, the tope of which
we had seen through a glass for the last two days, but of course
without knowing that it marked the site of the mission station.
I was the first to see the house, and could not restrain myself
from giving a hearty cheer, in which the others, including the
natives, joined lustily.  There was no thought of halting now.
On we laboured, for, unfortunately, though the house seemed
quite near, it was still a long way off by river, until at last,
by one o'clock, we found ourselves at the bottom of the slope
on which the building stood.  Running the canoes to the bank,
we disembarked, and were just hauling them up on to the shore,
when we perceived three figures, dressed in ordinary English-looking
clothes, hurrying down through a grove of trees to meet us.

'A gentleman, a lady, and a little girl,' ejaculated Good, after
surveying the trio through his eyeglass, 'walking in a civilized
fashion, through a civilized garden, to meet us in this place.
Hang me, if this isn't the most curious thing we have seen yet!'

Good was right: it certainly did seem odd and out of place --
more like a scene out of a dream or an Italian opera than a real
tangible fact; and the sense of unreality was not lessened when
we heard ourselves addressed in good broad Scotch, which, however,
I cannot reproduce.

'How do you do, sirs,' said Mr Mackenzie, a grey-haired, angular
man, with a kindly face and red cheeks; 'I hope I see you very
well.  My natives told me an hour ago they spied two canoes with
white men in them coming up the river; so we have just come down
to meet you.'

'And it is very glad that we are to see a white face again, let
me tell you,' put in the lady -- a charming and refined-looking
person.

We took off our hats in acknowledgment, and proceeded to introduce
ourselves.

'And now,' said Mr Mackenzie, 'you must all be hungry and weary;
so come on, gentlemen, come on, and right glad we are to see
you.  The last white who visited us was Alphonse -- you will
see Alphonse presently -- and that was a year ago.'

Meanwhile we had been walking up the slope of the hill, the lower
portion of which was fenced off, sometimes with quince fences
and sometimes with rough stone walls, into Kaffir gardens, just
now full of crops of mealies, pumpkins, potatoes, etc.  In the
corners of these gardens were groups of neat mushroom-shaped
huts, occupied by Mr Mackenzie's mission natives, whose women
and children came pouring out to meet us as we walked.  Through
the centre of the gardens ran the roadway up which we were walking.
It was bordered on each side by a line of orange trees, which,
although they had only been planted ten years, had in the lovely
climate of the uplands below Mt Kenia, the base of which is about
5,000 feet above the coastline level, already grown to imposing
proportions, and were positively laden with golden fruit.  After
a stiffish climb of a quarter of a mile or so -- for the hillside
was steep -- we came to a splendid quince fence, also covered
with fruit, which enclosed, Mr Mackenzie told us, a space of
about four acres of ground that contained his private garden,
house, church, and outbuildings, and, indeed, the whole hilltop.
And what a garden it was!  I have always loved a good garden,
and I could have thrown up my hands for joy when I saw Mr Mackenzie's.
First there were rows upon rows of standard European fruit-trees,
all grafted; for on top of this hill the climate was so temperate
that nearly all the English vegetables, trees, and flowers flourished
luxuriantly, even including several varieties of the apple, which,
generally, runs to wood in a warm climate and obstinately refuses
to fruit.  Then there were strawberries and tomatoes (such tomatoes!),
and melons and cucumbers, and, indeed, every sort of vegetable
and fruit.

'Well, you have something like a garden!' I said, overpowered
with admiration not untouched by envy.

'Yes,' answered the missionary, 'it is a very good garden, and
has well repaid my labour; but it is the climate that I have
to thank.  If you stick a peach-stone into the ground it will
bear fruit the fourth year, and a rose-cutting will bloom in
a year.  It is a lovely clime.'

Just then we came to a ditch about ten feet wide, and full of
water, on the other side of which was a loopholed stone wall
eight feet high, and with sharp flints plentifully set in mortar
on the coping.

'There,' said Mr Mackenzie, pointing to the ditch and wall, 'this
is my magnum opus; at least, this and the church, which is the
other side of the house.  It took me and twenty natives two years
to dig the ditch and build the wall, but I never felt safe till
it was done; and now I can defy all the savages in Africa, for
the spring that fills the ditch is inside the wall, and bubbles
out at the top of the hill winter and summer alike, and I always
keep a store of four months' provision in the house.'

Crossing over a plank and through a very narrow opening in the
wall, we entered into what Mrs Mackenzie called _her_ domain --
namely, the flower garden, the beauty of which is really beyond
my power to describe.  I do not think I ever saw such roses,
gardenias, or camellias (all reared from seeds or cuttings sent
from England); and there was also a patch given up to a collection
of bulbous roots mostly collected by Miss Flossie, Mr Mackenzie's
little daughter, from the surrounding country, some of which
were surpassingly beautiful.  In the middle of this garden, and
exactly opposite the veranda, a beautiful fountain of clear water
bubbled up from the ground, and fell into a stone-work basin
which had been carefully built to receive it, whence the overflow
found its way by means of a drain to the moat round the outer
wall, this moat in its turn serving as a reservoir, whence an
unfailing supply of water was available to irrigate all the gardens
below.  The house itself, a massively built single-storied building,
was roofed with slabs of stone, and had a handsome veranda in
front.  It was built on three sides of a square, the fourth side
being taken up by the kitchens, which stood separate from the
house -- a very good plan in a hot country.  In the centre of
this square thus formed was, perhaps, the most remarkable object
that we had yet seen in this charming place, and that was a single
tree of the conifer tribe, varieties of which grow freely on
the highlands of this part of Africa.  This splendid tree, which
Mr Mackenzie informed us was a landmark for fifty miles round,
and which we had ourselves seen for the last forty miles of our
journey, must have been nearly three hundred feet in height,
the trunk measuring about sixteen feet in diameter at a yard
from the ground.  For some seventy feet it rose a beautiful tapering
brown pillar without a single branch, but at that height splendid
dark green boughs, which, looked at from below, had the appearance
of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out horizontally from the trunk,
projecting right over the house and flower-garden, to both of
which they furnished a grateful proportion of shade, without
-- being so high up -- offering any impediment to the passage
of light and air.

'What a beautiful tree!' exclaimed Sir Henry.

'Yes, you are right; it is a beautiful tree.  There is not another
like it in all the country round, that I know of,' answered Mr
Mackenzie.  'I call it my watch tower.  As you see, I have a
rope ladder fixed to the lowest bough; and if I want to see anything
that is going on within fifteen miles or so, all I have to do
is to run up it with a spyglass.  But you must be hungry, and
I am sure the dinner is cooked.  Come in, my friends; it is but
a rough place, but well enough for these savage parts; and I
can tell you what, we have got -- a French cook.'  And he led
the way on to the veranda.

As I was following him, and wondering what on earth he could
mean by this, there suddenly appeared, through the door that
opened on to the veranda from the house, a dapper little man,
dressed in a neat blue cotton suit, with shoes made of tanned
hide, and remarkable for a bustling air and most enormous black
mustachios, shaped into an upward curve, and coming to a point
for all the world like a pair of buffalo-horns.

'Madame bids me for to say that dinnar is sarved.  Messieurs,
my compliments;' then suddenly perceiving Umslopogaas, who was
loitering along after us and playing with his battleaxe, he threw
up his hands in astonishment.  'Ah, mais quel homme!' he ejaculated
in French, 'quel sauvage affreux!  Take but note of his huge
choppare and the great pit in his head.'

'Ay,' said Mr Mackenzie; 'what are you talking about, Alphonse?'

'Talking about!' replied the little Frenchman, his eyes still
fixed upon Umslopogaas, whose general appearance seemed to fascinate
him; 'why I talk of him' -- and he rudely pointed -- 'of ce monsieur noir.'

At this everybody began to laugh, and Umslopogaas, perceiving
that he was the object of remark, frowned ferociously, for he
had a most lordly dislike of anything like a personal liberty.

'Parbleu!' said Alphonse, 'he is angered -- he makes the grimace.
I like not his air.  I vanish.'  And he did with considerable rapidity.

Mr Mackenzie joined heartily in the shout of laughter which we
indulged in.  'He is a queer character -- Alphonse,' he said.
'By and by I will tell you his history; in the meanwhile let
us try his cooking.'

'Might I ask,' said Sir Henry, after we had eaten a most excellent
dinner, 'how you came to have a French cook in these wilds?'

'Oh,' answered Mrs Mackenzie, 'he arrived here of his own accord
about a year ago, and asked to be taken into our service.
He had got into some trouble in France, and fled to Zanzibar,
where he found an application had been made by the French Government
for his extradition.  Whereupon he rushed off up-country, and
fell in, when nearly starved, with our caravan of men, who were
bringing us our annual supply of goods, and was brought on here.
You should get him to tell you the story.'

When dinner was over we lit our pipes, and Sir Henry proceeded
to give our host a description of our journey up here, over which
he looked very grave.

'It is evident to me,' he said, 'that those rascally Masai are
following you, and I am very thankful that you have reached this
house in safety.  I do not think that they will dare to attack
you here.  It is unfortunate, though, that nearly all my men
have gone down to the coast with ivory and goods.  There are
two hundred of them in the caravan, and the consequence is that
I have not more than twenty men available for defensive purposes
in case they should attack us.  But, still, I will just give
a few orders;' and, calling a black man who was loitering about
outside in the garden, he went to the window, and addressed him
in a Swahili dialect.  The man listened, and then saluted and
departed.

'I am sure I devoutly hope that we shall bring no such calamity
upon you,' said I, anxiously, when he had taken his seat again.
'Rather than bring those bloodthirsty villains about your ears,
we will move on and take our chance.'

'You will do nothing of the sort.  If the Masai come, they come,
and there is an end on it; and I think we can give them a pretty
warm greeting.  I would not show any man the door for all the
Masai in the world.'

'That reminds me,' I said, 'the Consul at Lamu told me that he
had had a letter from you, in which you said that a man had arrived
here who reported that he had come across a white people in the
interior.  Do you think that there was any truth in his story?
I ask, because I have once or twice in my life heard rumours
from natives who have come down from the far north of the existence
of such a race.'

Mr Mackenzie, by way of answer, went out of the room and returned,
bringing with him a most curious sword.  It was long, and all
the blade, which was very thick and heavy, was to within a quarter
of an inch of the cutting edge worked into an ornamental pattern
exactly as we work soft wood with a fret-saw, the steel, however,
being invariably pierced in such a way as not to interfere with
the strength of the sword.  This in itself was sufficiently curious,
but what was still more so was that all the edges of the hollow
spaces cut through the substance of the blade were most beautifully
inlaid with gold, which was in some way that I cannot understand
welded on to the steel {Endnote 5}.

'There,' said Mr Mackenzie, 'did you ever see a sword like that?'

We all examined it and shook our heads.

'Well, I have got it to show you, because this is what the man
who said he had seen the white people brought with him, and because
it does more or less give an air of truth to what I should otherwise
have set down as a lie.  Look here; I will tell you all that
I know about the matter, which is not much.  One afternoon, just
before sunset, I was sitting on the veranda, when a poor, miserable,
starved-looking man came limping up and squatted down before
me.  I asked him where he came from and what he wanted, and thereon
he plunged into a long rambling narrative about how he belonged
to a tribe far in the north, and how his tribe was destroyed

by another tribe, and he with a few other survivors driven still
further north past a lake named Laga.  Thence, it appears, he
made his way to another lake that lay up in the mountains, "a
lake without a bottom" he called it, and here his wife and brother
died of an infectious sickness -- probably smallpox -- whereon
the people drove him out of their villages into the wilderness,
where he wandered miserably over mountains for ten days, after
which he got into dense thorn forest, and was one day found there
by some _white men_ who were hunting, and who took him to a place
where all the people were white and lived in stone houses.  Here
he remained a week shut up in a house, till one night a man with
a white beard, whom he understood to be a "medicine-man", came
and inspected him, after which he was led off and taken through
the thorn forest to the confines of the wilderness, and given
food and this sword (at least so he said), and turned loose.'

'Well,' said Sir Henry, who had been listening with breathless
interest, 'and what did he do then?'

'Oh! he seems, according to his account, to have gone through
sufferings and hardships innumerable, and to have lived for weeks
on roots and berries, and such things as he could catch and kill.
But somehow he did live, and at last by slow degrees made his
way south and reached this place.  What the details of his journey
were I never learnt, for I told him to return on the morrow,
bidding one of my headmen look after him for the night.  The
headman took him away, but the poor man had the itch so badly
that the headman's wife would not have him in the hut for fear
of catching it, so he was given a blanket and told to sleep outside.
As it happened, we had a lion hanging about here just then,
and most unhappily he winded this unfortunate wanderer, and,
springing on him, bit his head almost off without the people
in the hut knowing anything about it, and there was an end of
him and his story about the white people; and whether or no there
is any truth in it is more than I can tell you.  What do you
think, Mr Quatermain?'

I shook my head, and answered, 'I don't know.  There are so many
queer things hidden away in the heart of this great continent
that I should be sorry to assert that there was no truth in it.
Anyhow, we mean to try and find out.  We intend to journey to
Lekakisera, and thence, if we live to get so far, to this Lake
Laga; and, if there are any white people beyond, we will do our
best to find them.'

'You are very venturesome people,' said Mr Mackenzie,
with a smile, and the subject dropped.




CHAPTER IV
ALPHONSE AND HIS ANNETTE



After dinner we thoroughly inspected all the outbuildings and
grounds of the station, which I consider the most successful
as well as the most beautiful place of the sort that I have seen
in Africa.  We then returned to the veranda, where we found Umslopogaas
taking advantage of this favourable opportunity to clean all
the rifles thoroughly.  This was the only _work_ that he ever did
or was asked to do, for as a Zulu chief it was beneath his dignity
to work with his hands; but such as it was he did it very well.
It was a curious sight to see the great Zulu sitting there upon
the floor, his battleaxe resting against the wall behind him,
whilst his long aristocratic-looking hands were busily employed,
delicately and with the utmost care, cleaning the mechanism of
the breech-loaders.  He had a name for each gun.  One -- a double
four-bore belonging to Sir Henry -- was the Thunderer; another,
my 500 Express, which had a peculiarly sharp report, was 'the
little one who spoke like a whip'; the Winchester repeaters were
'the women, who talked so fast that you could not tell one word
from another'; the six Martinis were 'the common people'; and
so on with them all.  It was very curious to hear him addressing
each gun as he cleaned it, as though it were an individual, and
in a vein of the quaintest humour.  He did the same with his
battle-axe, which he seemed to look upon as an intimate friend,
and to which he would at times talk by the hour, going over all
his old adventures with it -- and dreadful enough some of them
were.  By a piece of grim humour, he had named this axe 'Inkosi-kaas',
which is the Zulu word for chieftainess.  For a long while I
could not make out why he gave it such a name, and at last I
asked him, when he informed me that the axe was very evidently
feminine, because of her womanly habit of prying very deep into
things, and that she was clearly a chieftainess because all men
fell down before her, struck dumb at the sight of her beauty
and power.  In the same way he would consult 'Inkosi-kaas' if
in any dilemma; and when I asked him why he did so, he informed
me it was because she must needs be wise, having 'looked into
so many people's brains'.

I took up the axe and closely examined this formidable weapon.
It was, as I have said, of the nature of a pole-axe.  The haft,
made out of an enormous rhinoceros horn, was three feet three
inches long, about an inch and a quarter thick, and with a knob
at the end as large as a Maltese orange, left there to prevent
the hand from slipping.  This horn haft, though so massive, was
as flexible as cane, and practically unbreakable; but, to make
assurance doubly sure, it was whipped round at intervals of a
few inches with copper wire -- all the parts where the hands
grip being thus treated.  Just above where the haft entered the
head were scored a number of little nicks, each nick representing
a man killed in battle with the weapon.  The axe itself was made
of the most beautiful steel, and apparently of European manufacture,
though Umslopogaas did not know where it came from, having taken
it from the hand of a chief he had killed in battle many years
before.  It was not very heavy, the head weighing two and a half
pounds, as nearly as I could judge.  The cutting part was slightly
concave in shape -- not convex, as it generally the case with
savage battleaxes -- and sharp as a razor, measuring five and
three-quarter inches across the widest part.  From the back of
the axe sprang a stout spike four inches long, for the last two
of which it was hollow, and shaped like a leather punch, with
an opening for anything forced into the hollow at the punch end
to be pushed out above -- in fact, in this respect it exactly
resembled a butcher's pole-axe.  It was with this punch end,
as we afterwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually struck
when fighting, driving a neat round hole in his adversary's skull,
and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or
sometimes in a melee.  I think he considered the punch a neater
and more sportsmanlike tool, and it was from his habit of pecking
at his enemy with it that he got his name of 'Woodpecker'.  Certainly
in his hands it was a terribly efficient one.

Such was Umslopogaas' axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most remarkable and
fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he cherished
as much as his own life.  It scarcely ever left his hand except
when he was eating, and then he always sat with it under his
leg.

Just as I returned his axe to Umslopogaas, Miss Flossie came
up and took me off to see her collection of flowers, African
liliums, and blooming shrubs, some of which are very beautiful,
many of the varieties being quite unknown to me and also, I believe,
to botanical science.  I asked her if she had ever seen or heard
of the 'Goya' lily, which Central African explorers have told
me they have occasionally met with and whose wonderful loveliness
has filled them with astonishment.  This lily, which the natives
say blooms only once in ten years, flourishes in the most arid
soil.  Compared to the size of the bloom, the bulb is small,
generally weighing about four pounds.  As for the flower itself
(which I afterwards saw under circumstances likely to impress
its appearance fixedly in my mind), I know not how to describe
its beauty and splendour, or the indescribable sweetness of its
perfume.  The flower -- for it has only one bloom -- rises from
the crown of the bulb on a thick fleshy and flat-sided stem,
the specimen that I saw measured fourteen inches in diameter,
and is somewhat trumpet-shaped like the bloom of an ordinary
'longiflorum' set vertically.  First there is the green sheath,
which in its early stage is not unlike that of a water-lily,
but which as the bloom opens splits into four portions and curls
back gracefully towards the stem.  Then comes the bloom itself,
a single dazzling arch of white enclosing another cup of richest
velvety crimson, from the heart of which rises a golden-coloured
pistil.  I have never seen anything to equal this bloom in beauty
or fragrance, and as I believe it is but little known, I take
the liberty to describe it at length.  Looking at it for the
first time I well remember that I realized how even in a flower
there dwells something of the majesty of its Maker.  To my great
delight Miss Flossie told me that she knew the flower well and
had tried to grow it in her garden, but without success, adding,
however, that as it should be in bloom at this time of the year
she thought that she could procure me a specimen.

After that I fell to asking her if she was not lonely up here
among all these savage people and without any companions of her
own age.

'Lonely?' she said.  'Oh, indeed no!  I am as happy as the day
is long, and besides I have my own companions.  Why, I should
hate to be buried in a crowd of white girls all just like myself
so that nobody could tell the difference!  Here,' she said, giving
her head a little toss, 'I am I; and every native for miles around
knows the "Water-lily", -- for that is what they call me -- and
is ready to do what I want, but in the books that I have read
about little girls in England it is not like that.  Everybody
thinks them a trouble, and they have to do what their schoolmistress
likes.  Oh! it would break my heart to be put in a cage like
that and not to be free -- free as the air.'

'Would you not like to learn?' I asked.

'So I do learn.  Father teaches me Latin and French and arithmetic.'

'And are you never afraid among all these wild men?'

'Afraid?  Oh no! they never interfere with me.  I think they
believe that I am "Ngai" (of the Divinity) because I am so white
and have fair hair.  And look here,' and diving her little hand
into the bodice of her dress she produced a double-barrelled
nickel-plated Derringer, 'I always carry that loaded, and if
anybody tried to touch me I should shoot him.  Once I shot a
leopard that jumped upon my donkey as I was riding along.  It
frightened me very much, but I shot it in the ear and it fell
dead, and I have its skin upon my bed.  Look there!' she went
on in an altered voice, touching me on the arm and pointing to
some far-away object, 'I said just now that I had companions;
there is one of them.'

I looked, and for the first time there burst upon my sight the
glory of Mount Kenia.  Hitherto the mountain had always been
hidden in mist, but now its radiant beauty was unveiled for many
thousand feet, although the base was still wrapped in vapour
so that the lofty peak or pillar, towering nearly twenty thousand
feet into the sky, appeared to be a fairy vision, hanging between
earth and heaven, and based upon the clouds.  The solemn majesty
and beauty of this white peak are together beyond the power of
my poor pen to describe.  There it rose straight and sheer --
a glittering white glory, its crest piercing the very blue of
heaven.  As I gazed at it with that little girl I felt my whole
heart lifted up with an indescribable emotion, and for a moment
great and wonderful thoughts seemed to break upon my mind, even
as the arrows of the setting sun were breaking upon Kenia's snows.
Mr Mackenzie's natives call the mountain the 'Finger of God',
and to me it did seem eloquent of immortal peace and of the pure
high calm that surely lies above this fevered world.  Somewhere
I had heard a line of poetry,


A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,


and now it came into my mind, and for the first time I thoroughly
understood what it meant.  Base, indeed, would be the man who
could look upon that mighty snow-wreathed pile -- that white
old tombstone of the years -- and not feel his own utter insignificance,
and, by whatever name he calls Him, worship God in his heart.
Such sights are like visions of the spirit; they throw wide
the windows of the chamber of our small selfishness and let in
a breath of that air that rushes round the rolling spheres, and
for a while illumine our darkness with a far-off gleam of the
white light which beats upon the Throne.

Yes, such things of beauty are indeed a joy for ever, and I can
well understand what little Flossie meant when she talked of
Kenia as her companion.  As Umslopogaas, savage old Zulu that
he was, said when I pointed out to him the peak hanging in the
glittering air: 'A man might look thereon for a thousand years
and yet be hungry to see.'  But he gave rather another colour
to his poetical idea when he added in a sort of chant, and with
a touch of that weird imagination for which the man was remarkable,
that when he was dead he should like his spirit to sit upon that
snow-clad peak for ever, and to rush down the steep white sides
in the breath of the whirlwind, or on the flash of the lightning,
and 'slay, and slay, and slay'.

'Slay what, you old bloodhound?' I asked.

This rather puzzled him, but at length he answered --

'The other shadows.'

'So thou wouldst continue thy murdering even after death?' I said.

'I murder not,' he answered hotly; 'I kill in fair fight.  Man
is born to kill.  He who kills not when his blood is hot is a
woman, and no man.  The people who kill not are slaves.  I say
I kill in fair fight; and when I am "in the shadow", as you white
men say, I hope to go on killing in fair fight.  May my shadow
be accursed and chilled to the bone for ever if it should fall
to murdering like a bushman with his poisoned arrows!'  And he
stalked away with much dignity, and left me laughing.

Just then the spies whom our host had sent out in the morning
to find out if there were any traces of our Masai friends about,
returned, and reported that the country had been scoured for
fifteen miles round without a single Elmoran being seen, and
that they believed that those gentry had given up the pursuit
and returned whence they came.  Mr Mackenzie gave a sigh of relief
when he heard this, and so indeed did we, for we had had quite
enough of the Masai to last us for some time.  Indeed, the general
opinion was that, finding we had reached the mission station
in safety, they had, knowing its strength, given up the pursuit
of us as a bad job.  How ill-judged that view was the sequel
will show.

After the spies had gone, and Mrs Mackenzie and Flossie had retired
for the night, Alphonse, the little Frenchman, came out, and
Sir Henry, who is a very good French scholar, got him to tell
us how he came to visit Central Africa, which he did in a most
extraordinary lingo, that for the most part I shall not attempt
to reproduce.

'My grandfather,' he began, 'was a soldier of the Guard, and
served under Napoleon.  He was in the retreat from Moscow, and
lived for ten days on his own leggings and a pair he stole from
a comrade.  He used to get drunk -- he died drunk, and I remember
playing at drums on his coffin.  My father --'

Here we suggested that he might skip his ancestry and come to
the point.

'Bien, messieurs!' replied this comical little man, with a polite
bow.  'I did only wish to demonstrate that the military principle
is not hereditary.  My grandfather was a splendid man, six feet
two high, broad in proportion, a swallower of fire and gaiters.
Also he was remarkable for his moustache.  To me there remains
the moustache and -- nothing more.

'I am, messieurs, a cook, and I was born at Marseilles.  In that
dear town I spent my happy youth.  For years and years I washed
the dishes at the Hotel Continental.  Ah, those were golden days!'
and he sighed.  'I am a Frenchman.  Need I say, messieurs, that
I admire beauty?  Nay, I adore the fair.  Messieurs, we admire
all the roses in a garden, but we pluck one.  I plucked one,
and alas, messieurs, it pricked my finger.  She was a chambermaid,
her name Annette, her figure ravishing, her face an angel's,
her heart -- alas, messieurs, that I should have to own it! --
black and slippery as a patent leather boot.  I loved to desperation,
I adored her to despair.  She transported me -- in every sense;
she inspired me.  Never have I cooked as I cooked (for I had
been promoted at the hotel) when Annette, my adored Annette,
smiled on me.  Never' -- and here his manly voice broke into
a sob -- 'never shall I cook so well again.'  Here he melted
into tears.

'Come, cheer up!' said Sir Henry in French, smacking him smartly
on the back.  'There's no knowing what may happen, you know.
To judge from your dinner today, I should say you were in a
fair way to recovery.'

Alphonse stopped weeping, and began to rub his back.  'Monsieur,'
he said, 'doubtless means to console, but his hand is heavy.
To continue: we loved, and were happy in each other's love.
The birds in their little nest could not be happier than Alphonse
and his Annette.  Then came the blow -- sapristi! -- when I think
of it.  Messieurs will forgive me if I wipe away a tear.
Mine was an evil number; I was drawn for the conscription.  Fortune
would be avenged on me for having won the heart of Annette.

'The evil moment came; I had to go.  I tried to run away, but
I was caught by brutal soldiers, and they banged me with the
butt-end of muskets till my mustachios curled with pain.  I had
a cousin a linen-draper, well-to-do, but very ugly.  He had drawn
a good number, and sympathized when they thumped me.  "To thee,
my cousin," I said, "to thee, in whose veins flows the blue blood
of our heroic grandparent, to thee I consign Annette.  Watch
over her whilst I hunt for glory in the bloody field."

'"Make your mind easy," said he; "I will."  As the sequel shows,
he did!

'I went.  I lived in barracks on black soup.  I am a refined
man and a poet by nature, and I suffered tortures from the coarse
horror of my surroundings.  There was a drill sergeant, and he
had a cane.  Ah, that cane, how it curled!  Alas, never can I
forget it!

'One morning came the news; my battalion was ordered to Tonquin.
The drill sergeant and the other coarse monsters rejoiced.
I -- I made enquiries about Tonquin.  They were not satisfactory.
In Tonquin are savage Chinese who rip you open.  My artistic
tastes -- for I am also an artist -- recoiled from the idea of
being ripped open.  The great man makes up his mind quickly.
I made up my mind.  I determined not to be ripped open.  I deserted.

'I reached Marseilles disguised as an old man.  I went to the
house of my cousin -- he in whom runs my grandfather's heroic
blood -- and there sat Annette.  It was the season of cherries.
They took a double stalk.  At each end was a cherry.  My cousin
put one into his mouth, Annette put the other in hers.  Then
they drew the stalks in till their eyes met -- and alas, alas
that I should have to say it! -- they kissed.  The game was a
pretty one, but it filled me with fury.  The heroic blood of
my grandfather boiled up in me.  I rushed into the kitchen.
I struck my cousin with the old man's crutch.  He fell -- I had
slain him.  Alas, I believe that I did slay him.  Annette screamed.
The gendarmes came.  I fled.  I reached the harbour.  I hid
aboard a vessel.  The vessel put to sea.  The captain found me
and beat me.  He took an opportunity.  He posted a letter from
a foreign port to the police.  He did not put me ashore because
I cooked so well.  I cooked for him all the way to Zanzibar.
When I asked for payment he kicked me.  The blood of my heroic
grandfather boiled within me, and I shook my fist in his face
and vowed to have my revenge.  He kicked me again.  At Zanzibar
there was a telegram.  I cursed the man who invented telegraphs.
Now I curse him again.  I was to be arrested for desertion,
for murder, and que sais-je?  I escaped from the prison.  I fled,
I starved.  I met the men of Monsieur le Cure.  They brought
me here.  I am full of woe.  But I return not to France.  Better
to risk my life in these horrible places than to know the Bagne.'

He paused, and we nearly choked with laughter, having to turn
our faces away.

'Ah! you weep, messieurs,' he said.  'No wonder -- it is a sad
story.'

'Perhaps,' said Sir Henry, 'the heroic blood of your
grandparent will triumph after all; perhaps you will still be
great.  At any rate we shall see.  And now I vote we go to bed.
I am dead tired, and we had not much sleep on that confounded
rock last night.'

And so we did, and very strange the tidy rooms and clean white
sheets seemed to us after our recent experiences.




CHAPTER V
UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE



Next morning at breakfast I missed Flossie and asked where she was.

'Well,' said her mother, 'when I got up this morning I found
a note put outside my door in which --  But here it is, you can
read it for yourself,' and she gave me the slip of paper on which
the following was written: --


'Dearest M--, -- It is just dawn, and I am off to the hills to
get Mr Q-- a bloom of the lily he wants, so don't expect me till
you see me.  I have taken the white donkey; and nurse and a couple
of boys are coming with me -- also something to eat, as I may
be away all day, for I am determined to get the lily if I have
to go twenty miles for it.  -- Flossie.'


'I hope she will be all right,' I said, a little anxiously;
'I never meant her to trouble after the flower.'

'Ah, Flossie can look after herself,' said her mother; 'she often
goes off in this way like a true child of the wilderness.'  But
Mr Mackenzie, who came in just then and saw the note for the
first time, looked rather grave, though he said nothing.

After breakfast was over I took him aside and asked him whether
it would not be possible to send after the girl and get her back,
having in view the possibility of there still being some Masai
hanging about, at whose hands she might come to harm.

'I fear it would be of no use,' he answered.  'She may be fifteen
miles off by now, and it is impossible to say what path she has
taken.  There are the hills;' and he pointed to a long range
of rising ground stretching almost parallel with the course followed
by the river Tana, but gradually sloping down to a dense bush-clad
plain about five miles short of the house.

Here I suggested that we might get up the great tree over the
house and search the country round with a spyglass; and this,
after Mr Mackenzie had given some orders to his people to try
and follow Flossie's spoor, we did.

The ascent of the mighty tree was rather an alarming performance,
even with a sound rope-ladder fixed at both ends to climb up,
at least to a landsman; but Good came up like a lamplighter.

On reaching the height at which the first fern-shaped boughs
sprang from the bole, we stepped without any difficulty upon
a platform made of boards, nailed from one bough to another,
and large enough to accommodate a dozen people.  As for the view,
it was simply glorious.  In every direction the bush rolled away
in great billows for miles and miles, as far as the glass would
show, only here and there broken by the brighter green of patches
of cultivation, or by the glittering surface of lakes.  To the
northwest, Kenia reared his mighty head, and we could trace the
Tana river curling like a silver snake almost from his feet,
and far away beyond us towards the ocean.  It is a glorious country,
and only wants the hand of civilized man to make it a most productive
one.

But look as we would, we could see no signs of Flossie and her
donkey, so at last we had to come down disappointed.  On reaching
the veranda I found Umslopogaas sitting there, slowly and lightly
sharpening his axe with a small whetstone he always carried with
him.

'What doest thou, Umslopogaas?' I asked.

'I smell blood,' was the answer; and I could get no more out
of him.

After dinner we again went up the tree and searched the surrounding
country with a spyglass, but without result.  When we came down
Umslopogaas was still sharpening Inkosi-kaas, although she already
had an edge like a razor.  Standing in front of him, and regarding
him with a mixture of fear and fascination, was Alphonse.  And
certainly he did seem an alarming object -- sitting there, Zulu
fashion, on his haunches, a wild look upon his intensely savage
and yet intellectual face, sharpening, sharpening, sharpening
at the murderous-looking axe.

'Oh, the monster, the horrible man!' said the little French cook,
lifting his hands in amazement.  'See but the hole in his head;
the skin beats on it up and down like a baby's!  Who would nurse
such a baby?' and he burst out laughing at the idea.

For a moment Umslopogaas looked up from his sharpening, and a
sort of evil light played in his dark eyes.

'What does the little "buffalo-heifer" [so named by Umslopogaas,
on account of his mustachios and feminine characteristics] say?
Let him be careful, or I will cut his horns.  Beware, little
man monkey, beware!'

Unfortunately Alphonse, who was getting over his fear of him,
went on laughing at 'ce drole d'un monsieur noir'.  I was about
to warn him to desist, when suddenly the huge Zulu bounded off
the veranda on to the open space where Alphonse was standing,
his features alive with a sort of malicious enthusiasm, and began
swinging the axe round and round over the Frenchman's head.

'Stand still,' I shouted; 'do not move as you value your life
-- he will not hurt you;' but I doubt if Alphonse heard me, being,
fortunately for himself, almost petrified with horror.

Then followed the most extraordinary display of sword, or rather
of axemanship, that I ever saw.  First of all the axe went flying
round and round over the top of Alphonse's head, with an angry
whirl and such extraordinary swiftness that it looked like a
continuous band of steel, ever getting nearer and yet nearer
to that unhappy individual's skull, till at last it grazed it
as it flew.  Then suddenly the motion was changed, and it seemed
to literally flow up and down his body and limbs, never more
than an eighth of an inch from them, and yet never striking them.
It was a wonderful sight to see the little man fixed there,
having apparently realized that to move would be to run the risk
of sudden death, while his black tormentor towered over him,
and wrapped him round with the quick flashes of the axe.  For
a minute or more this went on, till suddenly I saw the moving
brightness travel down the side of Alphonse's face, and then
outwards and stop.  As it did so a tuft of something black fell
to the ground; it was the tip of one of the little Frenchman's
curling mustachios.

Umslopogaas leant upon the handle of Inkosi-kaas, and broke into
a long, low laugh; and Alphonse, overcome with fear, sank into
a sitting posture on the ground, while we stood astonished at
this exhibition of almost superhuman skill and mastery of a weapon.
'Inkosi-kaas is sharp enough,' he shouted; 'the blow that clipped
the "buffalo-heifer's" horn would have split a man from the crown
to the chin.  Few could have struck it but I; none could have
struck it and not taken off the shoulder too.  Look, thou little
heifer!  Am I a good man to laugh at, thinkest thou?  For a space
hast thou stood within a hair's-breadth of death.  Laugh not
again, lest the hair's-breadth be wanting.  I have spoken.'

'What meanest thou by such mad tricks?' I asked of Umslopogaas,
indignantly.  'Surely thou art mad.  Twenty times didst thou
go near to slaying the man.'

'And yet, Macumazahn, I slew not.  Thrice as Inkosi-kaas flew
the spirit entered into me to end him, and send her crashing
through his skull; but I did not.  Nay, it was but a jest; but
tell the "heifer" that it is not well to mock at such as I.
Now I go to make a shield, for I smell blood, Macumazahn -- of
a truth I smell blood.  Before the battle hast thou not seen
the vulture grow of a sudden in the sky?  They smell the blood,
Macumazahn, and my scent is more keen than theirs.  There is
a dry ox-hide down yonder; I go to make a shield.'

'That is an uncomfortable retainer of yours,' said Mr Mackenzie,
who had witnessed this extraordinary scene.  'He has frightened
Alphonse out of his wits; look!' and he pointed to the Frenchman,
who, with a scared white face and trembling limbs, was making
his way into the house.  'I don't think that he will ever laugh
at "le monsieur noir" again.'

'Yes,' answered I, 'it is ill jesting with such as he.  When
he is roused he is like a fiend, and yet he has a kind heart
in his own fierce way.  I remember years ago seeing him nurse
a sick child for a week.  He is a strange character, but true
as steel, and a strong stick to rest on in danger.'

'He says he smells blood,' said Mr Mackenzie.  'I only trust
he is not right.  I am getting very fearful about my little girl.
She must have gone far, or she would be home by now.  It is
half-past three o'clock.'

I pointed out that she had taken food with her, and very likely
would not in the ordinary course of events return till nightfall;
but I myself felt very anxious, and fear that my anxiety betrayed
itself.

Shortly after this, the people whom Mr Mackenzie had sent out
to search for Flossie returned, stating that they had followed
the spoor of the donkey for a couple of miles and had then lost
it on some stony ground, nor could they discover it again.  They
had, however, scoured the country far and wide, but without success.

After this the afternoon wore drearily on, and towards evening,
there still being no signs of Flossie, our anxiety grew very
keen.  As for the poor mother, she was quite prostrated by her
fears, and no wonder, but the father kept his head wonderfully
well.  Everything that could be done was done: people were sent
out in all directions, shots were fired, and a continuous outlook
kept from the great tree, but without avail.

And then it grew dark, and still no sign of fair-haired little
Flossie.

At eight o'clock we had supper.  It was but a sorrowful meal,
and Mrs Mackenzie did not appear at it.  We three also were very
silent, for in addition to our natural anxiety as to the fate
of the child, we were weighed down by the sense that we had brought
this trouble on the head of our kind host.  When supper was nearly
at an end I made an excuse to leave the table.  I wanted to get
outside and think the situation over.  I went on to the veranda
and, having lit my pipe, sat down on a seat about a dozen feet
from the right-hand end of the structure, which was, as the reader
may remember, exactly opposite one of the narrow doors of the
protecting wall that enclosed the house and flower garden.  I
had been sitting there perhaps six or seven minutes when I thought
I heard the door move.  I looked in that direction and I listened,
but, being unable to make out anything, concluded that I must
have been mistaken.  It was a darkish night, the moon not having
yet risen.

Another minute passed, when suddenly something round fell with
a soft but heavy thud upon the stone flooring of the veranda,
and came bounding and rolling along past me.  For a moment I
did not rise, but sat wondering what it could be.  Finally, I
concluded it must have been an animal.  Just then, however, another
idea struck me, and I got up quick enough.  The thing lay quite
still a few feet beyond me.  I put down my hand towards it and
it did not move: clearly it was not an animal.  My hand touched
it.  It was soft and warm and heavy.  Hurriedly I lifted it and
held it up against the faint starlight.

_It was a newly severed human head!_

I am an old hand and not easily upset, but I own that that ghastly
sight made me feel sick.  How had the thing come there?  Whose
was it?  I put it down and ran to the little doorway.  I could
see nothing, hear nobody.  I was about to go out into the darkness
beyond, but remembering that to do so was to expose myself to
the risk of being stabbed, I drew back, shut the door, and bolted it.
Then I returned to the veranda, and in as careless a voice as
I could command called Curtis.  I fear, however, that my tones
must have betrayed me, for not only Sir Henry but also Good and
Mackenzie rose from the table and came hurrying out.

'What is it?' said the clergyman, anxiously.

Then I had to tell them.

Mr Mackenzie turned pale as death under his red skin.  We were
standing opposite the hall door, and there was a light in it
so that I could see.  He snatched the head up by the hair and
held it against the light.

'It is the head of one of the men who accompanied Flossie,' he
said with a gasp.  'Thank God it is not hers!'

We all stood and stared at each other aghast.  What was to be done?

Just then there was a knocking at the door that I had bolted,
and a voice cried, 'Open, my father, open!'

The door was unlocked, and in sped a terrified man.  He was one
of the spies who had been sent out.

'My father,' he cried, 'the Masai are on us!  A great body of
them have passed round the hill and are moving towards the old
stone kraal down by the little stream.  My father, make strong
thy heart!  In the midst of them I saw the white ass, and on
it sat the Water-lily [Flossie].  An Elmoran [young warrior]
led the ass, and by its side walked the nurse weeping.  The men
who went with her in the morning I saw not.'

'Was the child alive?' asked Mr Mackenzie, hoarsely.

'She was white as the snow, but well, my father.  They passed
quite close to me, and looking up from where I lay hid I saw
her face against the sky.'

'God help her and us!' groaned the clergyman.

'How many are there of them?' I asked.

'More than two hundred -- two hundred and half a hundred.'

Once more we looked one on the other.  What was to be done?
Just then there rose a loud insistent cry outside the wall.

'Open the door, white man; open the door!  A herald -- a herald
to speak with thee.'  Thus cried the voice.

Umslopogaas ran to the wall, and, reaching with his long arms
to the coping, lifted his head above it and gazed over.

'I see but one man,' he said.  'He is armed, and carries a basket
in his hand.'

'Open the door,' I said.  'Umslopogaas, take thine axe and stand
thereby.  Let one man pass.  If another follows, slay.'

The door was unbarred.  In the shadow of the wall stood Umslopogaas,
his axe raised above his head to strike.  Just then the moon
came out.  There was a moment's pause, and then in stalked a
Masai Elmoran, clad in the full war panoply that I have already
described, but bearing a large basket in his hand.  The moonlight
shone bright upon his great spear as he walked.  He was physically
a splendid man, apparently about thirty-five years of age.  Indeed,
none of the Masai that I saw were under six feet high, though
mostly quite young.  When he got opposite to us he halted, put
down the basket, and stuck the spike of his spear into the ground,
so that it stood upright.

'Let us talk,' he said.  'The first messenger we sent to you
could not talk;' and he pointed to the head which lay upon the
paving of the stoep -- a ghastly sight in the moonlight; 'but
I have words to speak if ye have ears to hear.  Also I bring
presents;' and he pointed to the basket and laughed with an air
of swaggering insolence that is perfectly indescribable, and
yet which one could not but admire, seeing that he was surrounded
by enemies.

'Say on,' said Mr Mackenzie.

'I am the "Lygonani" [war captain] of a party of the Masai of
the Guasa Amboni.  I and my men followed these three white men,'
and he pointed to Sir Henry, Good, and myself, 'but they were
too clever for us, and escaped hither.  We have a quarrel with
them, and are going to kill them.'

'Are you, my friend?' said I to myself.

'In following these men we this morning caught two black men,
one black woman, a white donkey, and a white girl.  One of the
black men we killed -- there is his head upon the pavement; the
other ran away.  The black woman, the little white girl, and
the white ass we took and brought with us.  In proof thereof
have I brought this basket that she carried.  Is it not thy
daughter's basket?'

Mr Mackenzie nodded, and the warrior went on.

'Good!  With thee and thy daughter we have no quarrel, nor do
we wish to harm thee, save as to thy cattle, which we have already
gathered, two hundred and forty head -- a beast for every man's
father.' {Endnote 6}

Here Mr Mackenzie gave a groan, as he greatly valued this herd
of cattle, which he bred with much care and trouble.

'So, save for the cattle, thou mayst go free; more especially,'
he added frankly, glancing at the wall, 'as this place would
be a difficult one to take.  But as to these men it is otherwise;
we have followed them for nights and days, and must kill them.
Were we to return to our kraal without having done so, all the
girls would make a mock of us.  So, however troublesome it
may be, they must die.

'Now I have a proposition for thee.  We would not harm the
little girl; she is too fair to harm, and has besides a brave spirit.
Give us one of these three men -- a life for a life -- and we
will let her go, and throw in the black woman with her also.
This is a fair offer, white man.  We ask but for one, not for
the three; we must take another opportunity to kill the other
two.  I do not even pick my man, though I should prefer the big
one,' pointing to Sir Henry; 'he looks strong, and would die
more slowly.'

'And if I say I will not yield the man?' said Mr Mackenzie.

'Nay, say not so, white man,' answered the Masai, 'for then thy
daughter dies at dawn, and the woman with her says thou hast
no other child.  Were she older I would take her for a servant;
but as she is so young I will slay her with my own hand -- ay,
with this very spear.  Thou canst come and see, an' thou wilt.
I give thee a safe conduct;' and the fiend laughed aloud as
his brutal jest.

Meanwhile I had been thinking rapidly, as one does in emergencies,
and had come to the conclusion that I would exchange myself against
Flossie.  I scarcely like to mention the matter for fear it should
be misunderstood.  Pray do not let any one be misled into thinking
that there was anything heroic about this, or any such nonsense.
It was merely a matter of common sense and common justice.
My life was an old and worthless one, hers was young and valuable.
Her death would pretty well kill her father and mother also,
whilst nobody would be much the worse for mine; indeed, several
charitable institutions would have cause to rejoice thereat.
It was indirectly through me that the dear little girl was in
her present position.  Lastly, a man was better fitted to meet
death in such a peculiarly awful form than a sweet young girl.
Not, however, that I meant to let these gentry torture me to
death -- I am far too much of a coward to allow that, being naturally
a timid man; my plan was to see the girl safely exchanged and
then to shoot myself, trusting that the Almighty would take the
peculiar circumstances of the case into consideration and pardon
the act.  All this and more went through my mind in very few
seconds.

'All right, Mackenzie,' I said, 'you can tell the man that I
will exchange myself against Flossie, only I stipulate that she
shall be safely in this house before they kill me.'

'Eh?' said Sir Henry and Good simultaneously.  'That you don't.'

'No, no,' said Mr Mackenzie.  'I will have no man's blood upon
my hands.  If it please God that my daughter should die this
awful death, His will be done.  You are a brave man (which I
am not by any means) and a noble man, Quatermain, but you shall
not go.'

'If nothing else turns up I shall go,' I said decidedly.

'This is an important matter,' said Mackenzie, addressing the
Lygonani, 'and we must think it over.  You shall have our answer
at dawn.'

'Very well, white man,' answered the savage indifferently; 'only
remember if thy answer is late thy little white bud will never
grow into a flower, that is all, for I shall cut it with this,'
and he touched the spear.  'I should have thought that thou wouldst
play a trick and attack us at night, but I know from the woman
with the girl that your men are down at the coast, and that thou
hast but twenty men here.  It is not wise, white man,' he added
with a laugh, 'to keep so small a garrison for your "boma" [kraal].
Well, good night, and good night to you also, other white men,
whose eyelids I shall soon close once and for all.  At dawn thou
wilt bring me word.  If not, remember it shall be as I have said.'
Then turning to Umslopogaas, who had all the while been standing
behind him and shepherding him as it were, 'Open the door for
me, fellow, quick now.'

This was too much for the old chief's patience.  For the last
ten minutes his lips had been, figuratively speaking, positively
watering over the Masai Lygonani, and this he could not stand.
Placing his long hand on the Elmoran's shoulder he gripped it
and gave him such a twist as brought him face to face with himself.
Then, thrusting his fierce countenance to within a few inches
of the Masai's evil feather-framed features, he said in a low
growling voice: --

'Seest thou me?'

'Ay, fellow, I see thee.'

'And seest thou this?' and he held Inkosi-kaas before his eyes.

'Ay, fellow, I see the toy; what of it?'

'Thou Masai dog, thou boasting windbag, thou capturer of little
girls, with this "toy" will I hew thee limb from limb.  Well
for thee that thou art a herald, or even now would I strew thy
members about the grass.'

The Masai shook his great spear and laughed loud and long as
he answered, 'I would that thou stoodst against me man to man,
and we would see,' and again he turned to go still laughing.

'Thou shalt stand against me man to man, be not afraid,' replied
Umslopogaas, still in the same ominous voice.  'Thou shalt stand
face to face with Umslopogaas, of the blood of Chaka, of the
people of the Amazulu, a captain in the regiment of the Nkomabakosi,
as many have done before, and bow thyself to Inkosi-kaas, as
many have done before.  Ay, laugh on, laugh on! tomorrow night
shall the jackals laugh as they crunch thy ribs.'

When the Lygonani had gone, one of us thought of opening the
basket he had brought as a proof that Flossie was really their
prisoner.  On lifting the lid it was found to contain a most
lovely specimen of both bulb and flower of the Goya lily, which
I have already described, in full bloom and quite uninjured,
and what was more a note in Flossie's childish hand written in
pencil upon a greasy piece of paper that had been used to wrap
up some food in: --


'Dearest Father and Mother,' ran the note, 'The Masai caught
us when we were coming home with the lily.  I tried to escape
but could not.  They killed Tom: the other man ran away.  They
have not hurt nurse and me, but say that they mean to exchange
us against one of Mr Quatermain's party.  _I will have nothing
of the sort_.  Do not let anybody give his life for me.  Try and
attack them at night; they are going to feast on three bullocks
they have stolen and killed.  I have my pistol, and if no help
comes by dawn I will shoot myself.  They shall not kill me.
If so, remember me always, dearest father and mother.  I am very
frightened, but I trust in God.  I dare not write any more as
they are beginning to notice.  Goodbye.  -- Flossie.'


Scrawled across the outside of this was 'Love to Mr Quatermain.
They are going to take the basket, so he will get the lily.'

When I read those words, written by that brave little girl in
an hour of danger sufficiently near and horrible to have turned
the brain of a strong man, I own I wept, and once more in my
heart I vowed that she should not die while my life could be
given to save her.

Then eagerly, quickly, almost fiercely, we fell to discussing
the situation.  Again I said that I would go, and again Mackenzie
negatived it, and Curtis and Good, like the true men that they
are, vowed that, if I did, they would go with me, and die back
to back with me.

'It is,' I said at last, 'absolutely necessary that an effort
of some sort should be made before the morning.'

'Then let us attack them with what force we can muster, and take
our chance,' said Sir Henry.

'Ay, ay,' growled Umslopogaas, in Zulu; 'spoken like a man, Incubu.
What is there to be afraid of?  Two hundred and fifty Masai,
forsooth!  How many are we?  The chief there [Mr Mackenzie] has
twenty men, and thou, Macumazahn, hast five men, and there are
also five white men -- that is, thirty men in all -- enough,
enough.  Listen now, Macumazahn, thou who art very clever and
old in war.  What says the maid?  These men eat and make merry;
let it be their funeral feast.  What said the dog whom I hope
to hew down at daybreak?  That he feared no attack because we
were so few.  Knowest thou the old kraal where the men have camped?
I saw it this morning; it is thus:' and he drew an oval on the
floor; 'here is the big entrance, filled up with thorn bushes,
and opening on to a steep rise.  Why, Incubu, thou and I with
axes will hold it against an hundred men striving to break out!
Look, now; thus shall the battle go.  Just as the light begins
to glint upon the oxen's horns -- not before, or it will be too
dark, and not later, or they will be awakening and perceive us
-- let Bougwan creep round with ten men to the top end of the
kraal, where the narrow entrance is.  Let them silently slay
the sentry there so that he makes no sound, and stand ready.
Then, Incubu, let thee and me and one of the Askari -- the one
with the broad chest -- he is a brave man -- creep to the wide
entrance that is filled with thorn bushes, and there also slay
the sentry, and armed with battleaxes take our stand also one
on each side of the pathway, and one a few paces beyond to deal
with such as pass the twain at the gate.  It is there that the
rush will come.  That will leave sixteen men.  Let these men
be divided into two parties, with one of which shalt thou go,
Macumazahn, and with one the "praying man" [Mr Mackenzie], and,
all armed with rifles, let them make their way one to the right
side of the kraal and one to the left; and when thou, Macumazahn,
lowest like an ox, all shall open fire with the guns upon the
sleeping men, being very careful not to hit the little maid.
Then shall Bougwan at the far end and his ten men raise the
war-cry, and, springing over the wall, put the Masai there to
the sword.  And it shall happen that, being yet heavy with food
and sleep, and bewildered by the firing of the guns, the falling
of men, and the spears of Bougwan, the soldiers shall rise and
rush like wild game towards the thorn-stopped entrance, and there
the bullets from either side shall plough through them, and there
shall Incubu and the Askari and I wait for those who break across.
Such is my plan, Macumazahn; if thou hast a better, name it.'

When he had done, I explained to the others such portions of
his scheme as they had failed to understand, and they all joined
with me in expressing the greatest admiration of the acute and
skilful programme devised by the old Zulu, who was indeed, in
his own savage fashion, the finest general I ever knew.  After
some discussion we determined to accept the scheme, as it stood,
it being the only one possible under the circumstances, and giving
the best chance of success that such a forlorn hope would admit
of -- which, however, considering the enormous odds and the character
of our foe, was not very great.

'Ah, old lion!' I said to Umslopogaas, 'thou knowest how to lie
in wait as well as how to bite, where to seize as well as where
to hang on.'

'Ay, ay, Macumazahn,' he answered.  'For thirty years have I
been a warrior, and have seen many things.  It will be a good fight.
I smell blood -- I tell thee, I smell blood.'




CHAPTER VI
THE NIGHT WEARS ON



As may be imagined, at the very first sign of a Masai the entire
population of the Mission Station had sought refuge inside the
stout stone wall, and were now to be seen -- men, women, and
countless children -- huddled up together in little groups, and
all talking at once in awed tones of the awfulness of Masai manners
and customs, and of the fate that they had to expect if those
bloodthirsty savages succeeded in getting over the stone wall.

Immediately after we had settled upon the outline of our plan
of action as suggested by Umslopogaas, Mr Mackenzie sent for
four sharp boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age, and despatched
them to various points where they could keep an outlook upon
the Masai camp, with others to report from time to time what
was going on.  Other lads and even women were stationed at intervals
along the wall in order to guard against the possibility of surprise.

After this the twenty men who formed his whole available fighting
force were summoned by our host into the square formed by the
house, and there, standing by the bole of the great conifer,
he earnestly addressed them and our four Askari.  Indeed, it
formed a very impressive scene -- one not likely to be forgotten
by anybody who witnessed it.  Immediately by the tree stood the
angular form of Mr Mackenzie, one arm outstretched as he talked,
and the other resting against the giant bole, his hat off, and
his plain but kindly face clearly betraying the anguish of his
mind.  Next to him was his poor wife, who, seated on a chair,
had her face hidden in her hand.  On the other side of her was
Alphonse, looking exceedingly uncomfortable, and behind him stood
the three of us, with Umslopogaas' grim and towering form in
the background, resting, as usual, on his axe.  In front stood
and squatted the group of armed men -- some with rifles in their
hands, and others with spears and shields -- following with eager
attention every word that fell from the speaker's lips.  The
white light of the moon peering in beneath the lofty boughs threw
a strange wild glamour over the scene, whilst the melancholy
soughing of the night wind passing through the millions of pine
needles overhead added a sadness of its own to what was already
a sufficiently tragic occasion.

'Men,' said Mr Mackenzie, after he had put all the circumstances
of the case fully and clearly before them, and explained to them
the proposed plan of our forlorn hope -- 'men, for years I have
been a good friend to you, protecting you, teaching you, guarding
you and yours from harm, and ye have prospered with me.  Ye have
seen my child -- the Water-lily, as ye call her -- grow year
by year, from tenderest infancy to tender childhood, and from
childhood on towards maidenhood.  She has been your children's
playmate, she has helped to tend you when sick, and ye have loved
her.'

'We have,' said a deep voice, 'and we will die to save her.'

'I thank you from my heart -- I thank you.  Sure am I that now,
in this hour of darkest trouble; now that her young life is like
to be cut off by cruel and savage men -- who of a truth "know
not what they do" -- ye will strive your best to save her, and
to save me and her mother from broken hearts.  Think, too, of
your own wives and children.  If she dies, her death will be
followed by an attack upon us here, and at the best, even if
we hold our own, your houses and gardens will be destroyed, and
your goods and cattle swept away.  I am, as ye well know, a man
of peace.  Never in all these years have I lifted my hand to
shed man's blood; but now I say strike, strike, in the name of
God, Who bade us protect our lives and homes.  Swear to me,'
he went on with added fervour -- 'swear to me that whilst a man
of you remains alive ye will strive your uttermost with me and
with these brave white men to save the child from a bloody and
cruel death.'

'Say no more, my father,' said the same deep voice, that belonged
to a stalwart elder of the Mission; 'we swear it.  May we and
ours die the death of dogs, and our bones be thrown to the jackals
and the kites, if we break the oath!  It is a fearful thing to
do, my father, so few to strike at so many, yet will we do it
or die in the doing.  We swear!'

'Ay, thus say we all,' chimed in the others.

'Thus say we all,' said I.

'It is well,' went on Mr Mackenzie.  'Ye are true men and not
broken reeds to lean on.  And now, friends -- white and black
together -- let us kneel and offer up our humble supplication
to the Throne of Power, praying that He in the hollow of Whose
hand lie all our lives, Who giveth life and giveth death, may
be pleased to make strong our arms that we may prevail in what
awaits us at the morning's light.'

And he knelt down, an example that we all followed except Umslopogaas,
who still stood in the background, grimly leaning on Inkosi-kaas.
The fierce old Zulu had no gods and worshipped nought, unless
it were his battleaxe.

'Oh God of gods!' began the clergyman, his deep voice, tremulous
with emotion, echoing up in the silence even to the leafy roof;
'Protector of the oppressed, Refuge of those in danger, Guardian
of the helpless, hear Thou our prayer!  Almighty Father, to Thee
we come in supplication.  Hear Thou our prayer!  Behold, one
child hast Thou given us -- an innocent child, nurtured in Thy
knowledge -- and now she lies beneath the shadow of the sword,
in danger of a fearful death at the hands of savage men.  Be
with her now, oh God, and comfort her!  Save her, oh Heavenly
Father!  Oh God of battle, Who teacheth our hands to war and
our fingers to fight, in Whose strength are hid the destinies
of men, be Thou with us in the hour of strife.  When we go forth
into the shadow of death, make Thou us strong to conquer.  Breathe
Thou upon our foes and scatter them; turn Thou their strength
to water, and bring their high-blown pride to nought; compass
us about with Thy protection; throw over us the shield of Thy
power; forget us not now in the hour of our sore distress; help
us now that the cruel man would dash our little ones against
the stones!  Hear Thou our prayer!  And for those of us who,
kneeling now on earth in health before Thee, shall at the sunrise
adore Thy Presence on the Throne, hear our prayer!  Make them
clean, oh God; wash away their offences in the blood of the Lamb;
and when their spirits pass, oh receive Thou them into the haven
of the just.  Go forth, oh Father, go forth with us into the
battle, as with the Israelites of old.  Oh God of battle, hear
Thou our prayer!'

He ceased, and after a moment's silence we all rose, and then
began our preparations in good earnest.  As Umslopogaas said,
it was time to stop 'talking' and get to business.  The men who
were to form each little party were carefully selected, and still
more carefully and minutely instructed as to what was to be done.
After much consideration it was agreed that the ten men led
by Good, whose duty it was to stampede the camp, were not to
carry firearms; that is, with the exception of Good himself,
who had a revolver as well as a short sword -- the Masai 'sime'
which I had taken from the body of our poor servant who was murdered
in the canoe.  We feared that if they had firearms the result
of three cross-fires carried on at once would be that some of
our own people would be shot; besides, it appeared to all of
us that the work they had to do would best be carried out with
cold steel -- especially to Umslopogaas, who was, indeed, a great
advocate of cold steel.  We had with us four Winchester repeating
rifles, besides half a dozen Martinis.  I armed myself with one
of the repeaters -- my own; an excellent weapon for this kind
of work, where great rapidity of fire is desirable, and fitted
with ordinary flap-sights instead of the cumbersome sliding mechanism
which they generally have.  Mr Mackenzie took another, and the
two remaining ones were given to two of his men who understood
the use of them and were noted shots.  The Martinis and some
rifles of Mr Mackenzie's were served out, together with a plentiful
supply of ammunition, to the other natives who were to form the
two parties whose duty it was to be to open fire from separate
sides of the kraal on the sleeping Masai, and who were fortunately
all more or less accustomed to the use of a gun.

As for Umslopogaas, we know how he was armed -- with an axe.
It may be remembered that he, Sir Henry, and the strongest of
the Askari were to hold the thorn-stopped entrance to the kraal
against the anticipated rush of men striving to escape.  Of course,
for such a purpose as this guns were useless.  Therefore Sir
Henry and the Askari proceeded to arm themselves in like fashion.
It so happened that Mr Mackenzie had in his little store a selection
of the very best and English-made hammer-backed axe-heads.  Sir
Henry selected one of these weighing about two and a half pounds
and very broad in the blade, and the Askari took another a size
smaller.  After Umslopogaas had put an extra edge on these two
axe-heads, we fixed them to three feet six helves, of which Mr
Mackenzie fortunately had some in stock, made of a light but
exceedingly tough native wood, something like English ash, only
more springy.  When two suitable helves had been selected with
great care and the ends of the hafts notched to prevent the hand
from slipping, the axe-heads were fixed on them as firmly as
possible, and the weapons immersed in a bucket of water for half
an hour.  The result of this was to swell the wood in the socket
in such a fashion that nothing short of burning would get it
out again.  When this important matter had been attended to by
Umslopogaas, I went into my room and proceeded to open a little
tin-lined deal case, which contained -- what do you think? --
nothing more or less than four mail shirts.

It had happened to us three on a previous journey that we had
made in another part of Africa to owe our lives to iron shirts
of native make, and remembering this, I had suggested before
we started on our present hazardous expedition that we should
have some made to fit us.  There was a little difficulty about
this, as armour-making is pretty well an extinct art, but they
can do most things in the way of steel work in Birmingham if
they are put to it and you will pay the price, and the end of
it was that they turned us out the loveliest steel shirts it
is possible to see.  The workmanship was exceedingly fine, the
web being composed of thousands upon thousands of stout but tiny
rings of the best steel made.  These shirts, or rather steel-sleeved
and high-necked jerseys, were lined with ventilated wash leather,
were not bright, but browned like the barrel of a gun; and mine
weighed exactly seven pounds and fitted me so well that I found
I could wear it for days next to my skin without being chafed.
Sir Henry had two, one of the ordinary make, viz. a jersey with
little dependent flaps meant to afford some protection to the
upper part of the thighs, and another of his own design fashioned
on the pattern of the garments advertised as 'combinations' and
weighing twelve pounds.  This combination shirt, of which the
seat was made of wash-leather, protected the whole body down
to the knees, but was rather more cumbersome, inasmuch as it
had to be laced up at the back and, of course, involved some
extra weight.  With these shirts were what looked like four brown
cloth travelling caps with ear pieces.  Each of these caps was,
however, quilted with steel links so as to afford a most valuable
protection for the head.

It seems almost laughable to talk of steel shirts in these days
of bullets, against which they are of course quite useless; but
where one has to do with savages, armed with cutting weapons
such as assegais or battleaxes, they afford the most valuable
protection, being, if well made, quite invulnerable to them.
I have often thought that if only the English Government had
in our savage wars, and more especially in the Zulu war, thought
fit to serve out light steel shirts, there would be many a man
alive today who, as it is, is dead and forgotten.

To return: on the present occasion we blessed our foresight in
bringing these shirts, and also our good luck, in that they had
not been stolen by our rascally bearers when they ran away with
our goods.  As Curtis had two, and after considerable deliberation,
had made up his mind to wear his combination one himself -- the
extra three or four pounds' weight being a matter of no account
to so strong a man, and the protection afforded to the thighs
being a very important matter to a fighting man not armed with
a shield of any kind -- I suggested that he should lend the other
to Umslopogaas, who was to share the danger and the glory of
his post.  He readily consented, and called the Zulu, who came
bearing Sir Henry's axe, which he had now fixed up to his satisfaction,
with him.  When we showed him the steel shirt, and explained
to him that we wanted him to wear it, he at first declined, saying
that he had fought in his own skin for thirty years, and that
he was not going to begin now to fight in an iron one.  Thereupon
I took a heavy spear, and, spreading the shirt upon the floor,
drove the spear down upon it with all my strength, the weapon
rebounding without leaving a mark upon the tempered steel.  This
exhibition half converted him; and when I pointed out to him
how necessary it was that he should not let any old-fashioned
prejudices he might possess stand in the way of a precaution
which might preserve a valuable life at a time when men were
scarce, and also that if he wore this shirt he might dispense
with a shield, and so have both hands free, he yielded at once,
and proceeded to invest his frame with the 'iron skin'.  And
indeed, although made for Sir Henry, it fitted the great Zulu
like a skin.  The two men were almost of a height; and, though
Curtis looked the bigger man, I am inclined to think that the
difference was more imaginary than real, the fact being that,
although he was plumper and rounder, he was not really bigger,
except in the arm.  Umslopogaas had, comparatively speaking,
thin arms, but they were as strong as wire ropes.  At any rate,
when they both stood, axe in hand, invested in the brown mail,
which clung to their mighty forms like a web garment, showing
the swell of every muscle and the curve of every line, they formed
a pair that any ten men might shrink from meeting.

It was now nearly one o'clock in the morning, and the spies reported
that, after having drunk the blood of the oxen and eaten enormous
quantities of meat, the Masai were going to sleep round their
watchfires; but that sentries had been posted at each opening
of the kraal.  Flossie, they added, was sitting not far from
the wall in the centre of the western side of the kraal, and
by her were the nurse and the white donkey, which was tethered
to a peg.  Her feet were bound with a rope, and warriors were
lying about all round her.

As there was absolutely nothing further that could be done then
we all took some supper, and went to lie down for a couple of
hours.  I could not help admiring the way in which old Umslopogaas
flung himself upon the floor, and, unmindful of what was hanging
over him, instantly sank into a deep sleep.  I do not know how
it was with the others, but I could not do as much.  Indeed,
as is usual with me on these occasions, I am sorry to say that
I felt rather frightened; and, now that some of the enthusiasm
had gone out of me, and I began to calmly contemplate what we
had undertaken to do, truth compels me to add that I did not
like it.  We were but thirty men all told, a good many of whom
were no doubt quite unused to fighting, and we were going to
engage two hundred and fifty of the fiercest, bravest, and most
formidable savages in Africa, who, to make matters worse, were
protected by a stone wall.  It was, indeed, a mad undertaking,
and what made it even madder was the exceeding improbability
of our being able to take up our positions without attracting
the notice of the sentries.  Of course if we once did that --
and any slight accident, such as the chance discharge of a gun,
might do it -- we were done for, for the whole camp would be
up in a second, and our only hope lay in surprise.

The bed whereon I lay indulging in these uncomfortable reflections
was near an open window that looked on to the veranda, through
which came an extraordinary sound of groaning and weeping.  For
a time I could not make out what it was, but at last I got up
and, putting my head out of the window, stared about.  Presently
I saw a dim figure kneeling on the end of the veranda and beating
his breast -- in which I recognized Alphonse.  Not being able
to understand his French talk or what on earth he was at, I called
to him and asked him what he was doing.

'Ah, monsieur,' he sighed, 'I do make prayer for the souls of
those whom I shall slay tonight.'

'Indeed,' I said, 'then I wish that you would do it a little
more quietly.'

Alphonse retreated, and I heard no more of his groans.  And so
the time passed, till at length Mr Mackenzie called me in a whisper
through the window, for of course everything had now to be done
in the most absolute silence.  'Three o'clock,' he said: 'we
must begin to move at half-past.'

I told him to come in, and presently he entered, and I am bound
to say that if it had not been that just then I had not got a
laugh anywhere about me, I should have exploded at the sight
he presented armed for battle.  To begin with, he had on a clergyman's
black swallow-tail and a kind of broad-rimmed black felt hat,
both of which he had donned on account, he said, of their dark
colour.  In his hand was the Winchester repeating rifle we had
lent him; and stuck in an elastic cricketing belt, like those
worn by English boys, were, first, a huge buckhorn-handled carving
knife with a guard to it, and next a long-barrelled Colt's revolver.

'Ah, my friend,' he said, seeing me staring at his belt, 'you
are looking at my "carver".  I thought it might come in handy
if we came to close quarters; it is excellent steel, and many
is the pig I have killed with it.'

By this time everybody was up and dressing.  I put on a light
Norfolk jacket over my mail shirt in order to have a pocket handy
to hold my cartridges, and buckled on my revolver.  Good did
the same, but Sir Henry put on nothing except his mail shirt,
steel-lined cap, and a pair of 'veldt-schoons' or soft hide shoes,
his legs being bare from the knees down.  His revolver he strapped
on round his middle outside the armoured shirt.

Meanwhile Umslopogaas was mustering the men in the square under
the big tree and going the rounds to see that each was properly
armed, etc.  At the last moment we made one change.  Finding
that two of the men who were to have gone with the firing parties
knew little or nothing of guns, but were good spearsmen, we took
away their rifles, supplied them with shields and long spears
of the Masai pattern, and took them off to join Curtis, Umslopogaas,
and the Askari in holding the wide opening; it having become
clear to us that three men, however brave and strong, were too
few for the work.




CHAPTER VII
A SLAUGHTER GRIM AND GREAT



Then there was a pause, and we stood there in the chilly silent
darkness waiting till the moment came to start.  It was, perhaps,
the most trying time of all -- that slow, slow quarter of an
hour.  The minutes seemed to drag along with leaden feet, and
the quiet, the solemn hush, that brooded over all -- big, as
it were, with a coming fate, was most oppressive to the spirits.
I once remember having to get up before dawn to see a man hanged,
and I then went through a very similar set of sensations, only
in the present instance my feelings were animated by that more
vivid and personal element which naturally appertains rather
to the person to be operated on than to the most sympathetic
spectator.  The solemn faces of the men, well aware that the
short passage of an hour would mean for some, and perhaps all
of them, the last great passage to the unknown or oblivion; the
bated whispers in which they spoke; even Sir Henry's continuous
and thoughtful examination of his woodcutter's axe and the fidgety
way in which Good kept polishing his eyeglass, all told the same
tale of nerves stretched pretty nigh to breaking-point.  Only
Umslopogaas, leaning as usual upon Inkosi-kaas and taking an
occasional pinch of snuff, was to all appearance perfectly and
completely unmoved.  Nothing could touch his iron nerves.

The moon went down.  For a long while she had been getting nearer
and nearer to the horizon.  Now she finally sank and left the
world in darkness save for a faint grey tinge in the eastern
sky that palely heralded the dawn.

Mr Mackenzie stood, watch in hand, his wife clinging to his arm
and striving to stifle her sobs.

'Twenty minutes to four,' he said, 'it ought to be light enough
to attack at twenty minutes past four.  Captain Good had better
be moving, he will want three or four minutes' start.'

Good gave one final polish to his eyeglass, nodded to us in a
jocular sort of way -- which I could not help feeling it must
have cost him something to muster up -- and, ever polite, took
off his steel-lined cap to Mrs Mackenzie and started for his
position at the head of the kraal, to reach which he had to make
a detour by some paths known to the natives.

Just then one of the boys came in and reported that everybody
in the Masai camp, with the exception of the two sentries who
were walking up and down in front of the respective entrances,
appeared to be fast asleep.  Then the rest of us took the road.
First came the guide, then Sir Henry, Umslopogaas, the Wakwafi
Askari, and Mr Mackenzie's two mission natives armed with long
spears and shields.  I followed immediately after with Alphonse
and five natives all armed with guns, and Mr Mackenzie brought
up the rear with the six remaining natives.

The cattle kraal where the Masai were camped lay at the foot
of the hill on which the house stood, or, roughly speaking, about
eight hundred yards from the Mission buildings.  The first five
hundred yards of this distance we traversed quietly indeed, but
at a good pace; after that we crept forward as silently as a
leopard on his prey, gliding like ghosts from bush to bush and
stone to stone.  When I had gone a little way I chanced to look
behind me, and saw the redoubtable Alphonse staggering along
with white face and trembling knees, and his rifle, which was
at full cock, pointed directly at the small of my back.  Having
halted and carefully put the rifle at 'safety', we started again,
and all went well till we were within one hundred yards or so
of the kraal, when his teeth began to chatter in the most aggressive way.

'If you don't stop that I will kill you,' I whispered savagely;
for the idea of having all our lives sacrificed to a tooth-chattering
cook was too much for me.  I began to fear that he would betray
us, and heartily wished we had left him behind.

'But, monsieur, I cannot help it,' he answered, 'it is the cold.'

Here was a dilemma, but fortunately I devised a plan.  In the
pocket of the coat I had on was a small piece of dirty rag that
I had used some time before to clean a gun with.  'Put this in
your mouth,' I whispered again, giving him the rag; 'and if I
hear another sound you are a dead man.'  I knew that that would
stifle the clatter of his teeth.  I must have looked as if I
meant what I said, for he instantly obeyed me, and continued
his journey in silence.

Then we crept on again.

At last we were within fifty yards of the kraal.  Between us
and it was an open space of sloping grass with only one mimosa
bush and a couple of tussocks of a sort of thistle for cover.
We were still hidden in fairly thick bush.  It was beginning
to grow light.  The stars had paled and a sickly gleam played
about the east and was reflected on the earth.  We could see
the outline of the kraal clearly enough, and could also make
out the faint glimmer of the dying embers of the Masai camp-fires.
We halted and watched, for the sentry we knew was posted at
the opening.  Presently he appeared, a fine tall fellow, walking
idly up and down within five paces of the thorn-stopped entrance.
We had hoped to catch him napping, but it was not to be.  He
seemed particularly wide awake.  If we could not kill that man,
and kill him silently, we were lost.  There we crouched and watched
him.  Presently Umslopogaas, who was a few paces ahead of me,
turned and made a sign, and next second I saw him go down on
his stomach like a snake, and, taking an opportunity when the
sentry's head was turned, begin to work his way through the grass
without a sound.

The unconscious sentry commenced to hum a little tune, and Umslopogaas
crept on.  He reached the shelter of the mimosa bush unperceived
and there waited.  Still the sentry walked up and down.  Presently
he turned and looked over the wall into the camp.  Instantly
the human snake who was stalking him glided on ten yards and
got behind one of the tussocks of the thistle-like plant, reaching
it as the Elmoran turned again.  As he did so his eye fell upon
this patch of thistles, and it seemed to strike him that it did
not look quite right.  He advanced a pace towards it -- halted,
yawned, stooped down, picked up a little pebble and threw it
at it.  It hit Umslopogaas upon the head, luckily not upon the
armour shirt.  Had it done so the clink would have betrayed us.
Luckily, too, the shirt was browned and not bright steel, which
would certainly have been detected.  Apparently satisfied that
there was nothing wrong, he then gave over his investigations
and contented himself with leaning on his spear and standing
gazing idly at the tuft.  For at least three minutes did he stand
thus, plunged apparently in a gentle reverie, and there we lay
in the last extremity of anxiety, expecting every moment that
we should be discovered or that some untoward accident would
happen.  I could hear Alphonse's teeth going like anything on
the oiled rag, and turning my head round made an awful face at
him.  But I am bound to state that my own heart was at much the
same game as the Frenchman's castanets, while the perspiration
was pouring from my body, causing the wash-leather-lined shirt
to stick to me unpleasantly, and altogether I was in the pitiable
state known by schoolboys as a 'blue fright'.

At last the ordeal came to an end.  The sentry glanced at the
east, and appeared to note with satisfaction that his period
of duty was coming to an end -- as indeed it was, once and for
all -- for he rubbed his hands and began to walk again briskly
to warm himself.

The moment his back was turned the long black snake glided on
again, and reached the other thistle tuft, which was within a
couple of paces of his return beat.

Back came the sentry and strolled right past the tuft, utterly
unconscious of the presence that was crouching behind it.  Had
he looked down he could scarcely have failed to see, but he did
not do so.

He passed, and then his hidden enemy erected himself,
and with outstretched hand followed in his tracks.

A moment more, and, just as the Elmoran was about to turn, the
great Zulu made a spring, and in the growing light we could see
his long lean hands close round the Masai's throat.  Then followed
a convulsive twining of the two dark bodies, and in another second
I saw the Masai's head bent back, and heard a sharp crack, something
like that of a dry twig snapping, and he fell down upon the ground,
his limbs moving spasmodically.

Umslopogaas had put out all his iron strength and broken the
warrior's neck.

For a moment he knelt upon his victim, still gripping his throat
till he was sure that there was nothing more to fear from him,
and then he rose and beckoned to us to advance, which we did
on all fours, like a colony of huge apes.  On reaching the kraal
we saw that the Masai had still further choked this entrance,
which was about ten feet wide -- no doubt in order to guard against
attack -- by dragging four or five tops of mimosa trees up to
it.  So much the better for us, I reflected; the more obstruction
there was the slower would they be able to come through.  Here
we separated; Mackenzie and his party creeping up under the shadow
of the wall to the left, while Sir Henry and Umslopogaas took
their stations one on each side of the thorn fence, the two spearmen
and the Askari lying down in front of it.  I and my men crept
on up the right side of the kraal, which was about fifty paces
long.

When I was two-thirds up I halted, and placed my men at distances
of four paces from one another, keeping Alphonse close to me,
however.  Then I peeped for the first time over the wall.  It
was getting fairly light now, and the first thing I saw was the
white donkey, exactly opposite to me, and close by it I could
make out the pale face of little Flossie, who was sitting as
the lad had described, some ten paces from the wall.  Round her
lay many warriors, sleeping.  At distances all over the surface
of the kraal were the remains of fires, round each of which slept
some five-and-twenty Masai, for the most part gorged with food.
Now and then a man would raise himself, yawn, and look at the
east, which was turning primrose; but none got up.  I determined
to wait another five minutes, both to allow the light to increase,
so that we could make better shooting, and to give Good and his
party -- of whom we could see or hear nothing -- every opportunity
to make ready.

The quiet dawn began to throw her ever-widening mantle over plain
and forest and river -- mighty Kenia, wrapped in the silence
of eternal snows, looked out across the earth -- till presently
a beam from the unrisen sun lit upon his heaven-kissing crest
and purpled it with blood; the sky above grew blue, and tender
as a mother's smile; a bird began to pipe his morning song, and
a little breeze passing through the bush shook down the dewdrops
in millions to refresh the waking world.  Everywhere was peace
and the happiness of arising strength, everywhere save in the
heart of cruel man!

Suddenly, just as I was nerving myself for the signal, having
already selected my man on whom I meant to open fire -- a great
fellow sprawling on the ground within three feet of little Flossie
-- Alphonse's teeth began to chatter again like the hoofs of
a galloping giraffe, making a great noise in the silence.  The
rag had dropped out in the agitation of his mind.  Instantly
a Masai within three paces of us woke, and, sitting up, gazed
about him, looking for the cause of the sound.  Moved beyond
myself, I brought the butt-end of my rifle down on to the pit
of the Frenchman's stomach.  This stopped his chattering; but,
as he doubled up, he managed to let off his gun in such a manner
that the bullet passed within an inch of my head.

There was no need for a signal now.  From both sides of the kraal
broke out a waving line of fire, in which I myself joined, managing
with a snap shot to knock over my Masai by Flossie, just as he
was jumping up.  Then from the top end of the kraal there rang
an awful yell, in which I rejoiced to recognize Good's piercing
notes rising clear and shrill above the din, and in another second
followed such a scene as I have never seen before nor shall again.
With an universal howl of terror and fury the brawny crowd of
savages within the kraal sprang to their feet, many of them to
fall again beneath our well-directed hail of lead before they
had moved a yard.  For a moment they stood undecided, and then
hearing the cries and curses that rose unceasingly from the top
end of the kraal, and bewildered by the storm of bullets, they
as by one impulse rushed down towards the thorn-stopped entrance.
As they went we kept pouring our fire with terrible effect into
the thickening mob as fast as we could load.  I had emptied my
repeater of the ten shots it contained and was just beginning
to slip in some more when I bethought me of little Flossie.
Looking up, I saw that the white donkey was lying kicking, having
been knocked over either by one of our bullets or a Masai spear-thrust.
There were no living Masai near, but the black nurse was on
her feet and with a spear cutting the rope that bound Flossie's
feet.  Next second she ran to the wall of the kraal and began
to climb over it, an example which the little girl followed.
But Flossie was evidently very stiff and cramped, and could
only go slowly, and as she went two Masai flying down the kraal
caught sight of her and rushed towards her to kill her.  The
first fellow came up just as the poor little girl, after a desperate
effort to climb the wall, fell back into the kraal.  Up flashed
the great spear, and as it did so a bullet from my rifle found
its home in the holder's ribs, and over he went like a shot rabbit.
But behind him was the other man, and, alas, I had only that
one cartridge in the magazine!  Flossie had scrambled to her
feet and was facing the second man, who was advancing with raised
spear.  I turned my head aside and felt sick as death.  I could
not bear to see him stab her.  Glancing up again, to my surprise
I saw the Masai's spear lying on the ground, while the man himself
was staggering about with both hands to his head.  Suddenly I
saw a puff of smoke proceeding apparently from Flossie, and the
man fell down headlong.  Then I remembered the Derringer pistol
she carried, and saw that she had fired both barrels of it at
him, thereby saving her life.  In another instant she had made
an effort, and assisted by the nurse, who was lying on the top,
had scrambled over the wall, and I knew that she was, comparatively
speaking, safe.

All this takes time to tell, but I do not suppose that it took
more than fifteen seconds to enact.  I soon got the magazine
of the repeater filled again with cartridges, and once more opened
fire, not on the seething black mass which was gathering at the
end of the kraal, but on fugitives who bethought them to climb
the wall.  I picked off several of these men, moving down towards
the end of the kraal as I did so, and arriving at the corner,
or rather the bend of the oval, in time to see, and by means
of my rifle to assist in, the mighty struggle that took place
there.

By this time some two hundred Masai -- allowing that we had up
to the present accounted for fifty -- had gathered together in
front of the thorn-stopped entrance, driven thither by the spears
of Good's men, whom they doubtless supposed were a large force
instead of being but ten strong.  For some reason it never occurred
to them to try and rush the wall, which they could have scrambled
over with comparative ease; they all made for the fence, which
was really a strongly interwoven fortification.  With a bound
the first warrior went at it, and even before he touched the
ground on the other side I saw Sir Henry's great axe swing up
and fall with awful force upon his feather head-piece, and he
sank into the middle of the thorns.  Then with a yell and a crash
they began to break through as they might, and ever as they came
the great axe swung and Inkosi-kaas flashed and they fell dead
one by one, each man thus helping to build up a barrier against
his fellows.  Those who escaped the axes of the pair fell at
the hands of the Askari and the two Mission Kaffirs, and those
who passed scatheless from them were brought low by my own and
Mackenzie's fire.

Faster and more furious grew the fighting.  Single Masai would
spring upon the dead bodies of their comrades, and engage one
or other of the axemen with their long spears; but, thanks chiefly
to the mail shirts, the result was always the same.  Presently
there was a great swing of the axe, a crashing sound, and another
dead Masai.  That is, if the man was engaged with Sir Henry.
If it was Umslopogaas that he fought with the result indeed
would be the same, but it would be differently attained.  It
was but rarely that the Zulu used the crashing double-handed
stroke; on the contrary, he did little more than tap continually
at his adversary's head, pecking at it with the pole-axe end
of the axe as a woodpecker {Endnote 7} pecks at rotten wood.
Presently a peck would go home, and his enemy would drop down
with a neat little circular hole in his forehead or skull, exactly
similar to that which a cheese-scoop makes in a cheese.  He never
used the broad blade of the axe except when hard pressed, or
when striking at a shield.  He told me afterwards that he did
not consider it sportsmanlike.

Good and his men were quite close by now, and our people had
to cease firing into the mass for fear of killing some of them
(as it was, one of them was slain in this way).  Mad and desperate
with fear, the Masai by a frantic effort burst through the thorn
fence and piled-up dead, and, sweeping Curtis, Umslopogaas, and
the other three before them, into the open.  And now it was that
we began to lose men fast.  Down went our poor Askari who was
armed with the axe, a great spear standing out a foot behind
his back; and before long the two spearsmen who had stood with
him went down too, dying fighting like tigers; and others of
our party shared their fate.  For a moment I feared the fight
was lost -- certainly it trembled in the balance.  I shouted
to my men to cast down their rifles, and to take spears and throw
themselves into the melee.  They obeyed, their blood being now
thoroughly up, and Mr Mackenzie's people followed their example.

This move had a momentary good result, but still the fight hung
in the balance.

Our people fought magnificently, hurling themselves upon the
dark mass of Elmoran, hewing, thrusting, slaying, and being slain.
And ever above the din rose Good's awful yell of encouragement
as he plunged to wherever the fight was thickest; and ever, with
an almost machine-like regularity, the two axes rose and fell,
carrying death and disablement at every stroke.  But I could
see that the strain was beginning to tell upon Sir Henry, who
was bleeding from several flesh wounds: his breath was coming
in gasps, and the veins stood out on his forehead like blue and
knotted cords.  Even Umslopogaas, man of iron that he was, was
hard pressed.  I noticed that he had given up 'woodpecking',
and was now using the broad blade of Inkosi-kaas, 'browning'
his enemy wherever he could hit him, instead of drilling scientific
holes in his head.  I myself did not go into the melee, but hovered
outside like the swift 'back' in a football scrimmage, putting
a bullet through a Masai whenever I got a chance.  I was more
use so.  I fired forty-nine cartridges that morning, and I did
not miss many shots.

Presently, do as we would, the beam of the balance began to rise
against us.  We had not more than fifteen or sixteen effectives
left now, and the Masai had at least fifty.  Of course if they
had kept their heads, and shaken themselves together, they could
soon have made an end of the matter; but that is just what they
did not do, not having yet recovered from their start, and some
of them having actually fled from their sleeping-places without
their weapons.  Still by now many individuals were fighting with
their normal courage and discretion, and this alone was sufficient
to defeat us.  To make matters worse just then, when Mackenzie's
rifle was empty, a brawny savage armed with a 'sime', or sword,
made a rush for him.  The clergyman flung down his gun, and drawing
his huge carver from his elastic belt (his revolver had dropped
out in the fight), they closed in desperate struggle.  Presently,
locked in a close embrace, missionary and Masai rolled on the
ground behind the wall, and for some time I, being amply occupied
with my own affairs, and in keeping my skin from being pricked,
remained in ignorance of his fate or how the duel had ended.

To and fro surged the fight, slowly turning round like the vortex
of a human whirlpool, and the matter began to look very bad for
us.  Just then, however, a fortunate thing happened.  Umslopogaas,
either by accident or design, broke out of the ring and engaged
a warrior at some few paces from it.  As he did so, another man
ran up and struck him with all his force between his shoulders
with his great spear, which, falling on the tough steel shirt,
failed to pierce it and rebounded.  For a moment the man stared
aghast -- protective armour being unknown among these tribes
-- and then he yelled out at the top of his voice --

'_They are devils -- bewitched, bewitched!_'  And seized by a
sudden panic, he threw down his spear, and began to fly.  I cut
short his career with a bullet, and Umslopogaas brained his man,
and then the panic spread to the others.

'_Bewitched, bewitched!_' they cried, and tried to escape in every
direction, utterly demoralized and broken-spirited, for the most
part even throwing down their shields and spears.

On the last scene of that dreadful fight I need not dwell.  It
was a slaughter great and grim, in which no quarter was asked
or given.  One incident, however, is worth detailing.  Just as
I was hoping that it was all done with, suddenly from under a
heap of slain where he had been hiding, an unwounded warrior
sprang up, and, clearing the piles of dying dead like an antelope,
sped like the wind up the kraal towards the spot where I was
standing at the moment.  But he was not alone, for Umslopogaas
came gliding on his tracks with the peculiar swallow-like motion
for which he was noted, and as they neared me I recognized in
the Masai the herald of the previous night.  Finding that, run
as he would, his pursuer was gaining on him, the man halted and
turned round to give battle.  Umslopogaas also pulled up.

'Ah, ah,' he cried, in mockery, to the Elmoran, 'it is thou whom
I talked with last night -- the Lygonani! the Herald! the capturer
of little girls -- he who would kill a little girl!  And thou
didst hope to stand man to man and face to face with Umslopogaas,
an Induna of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of the
Amazulu?  Behold, thy prayer is granted!  And I didst swear to
hew thee limb from limb, thou insolent dog.  Behold, I will do
it even now!'

The Masai ground his teeth with fury, and charged at the Zulu
with his spear.  As he came, Umslopogaas deftly stepped aside,
and swinging Inkosi-kaas high above his head with both hands,
brought the broad blade down with such fearful force from behind
upon the Masai's shoulder just where the neck is set into the
frame, that its razor edge shore right through bone and flesh
and muscle, almost severing the head and one arm from the body.

'_Ou!_' ejaculated Umslopogaas, contemplating the corpse of his foe;
'I have kept my word.  It was a good stroke.'




CHAPTER VIII

ALPHONSE EXPLAINS


And so the fight was ended.  On returning from the shocking scene
it suddenly struck me that I had seen nothing of Alphonse since
the moment, some twenty minutes before -- for though this fight
has taken a long while to describe, it did not take long in reality
-- when I had been forced to hit him in the wind with the result
of nearly getting myself shot.  Fearing that the poor little
man had perished in the battle, I began to hunt among the dead
for his body, but, not being able either to see or hear anything
of it, I concluded that he must have survived, and walked down
the side of the kraal where we had first taken our stand, calling
him by name.  Now some fifteen paces back from the kraal wall
stood a very ancient tree of the banyan species.  So ancient
was it that all the inside had in the course of ages decayed
away, leaving nothing but a shell of bark.

'Alphonse,' I called, as I walked down the wall.  'Alphonse!'

'Oui, monsieur,' answered a voice.  'Here am I.'


I looked round but could see nobody.  'Where?' I cried.

'Here am I, monsieur, in the tree.'

I looked, and there, peering out of a hole in the trunk of the
banyan about five feet from the ground, I saw a pale face and
a pair of large mustachios, one clipped short and the other as
lamentably out of curl as the tail of a newly whipped pug.  Then,
for the first time, I realized what I had suspected before --
namely, that Alphonse was an arrant coward.  I walked up to him.
'Come out of that hole,' I said.

'Is it finished, monsieur?' he asked anxiously; 'quite finished?
Ah, the horrors I have undergone, and the prayers I have uttered!'

'Come out, you little wretch,' I said, for I did not feel amiable;
'it is all over.'

'So, monsieur, then my prayers have prevailed?  I emerge,'
and he did.

As we were walking down together to join the others, who were
gathered in a group by the wide entrance to the kraal, which
now resembled a veritable charnel-house, a Masai, who had escaped
so far and been hiding under a bush, suddenly sprang up and charged
furiously at us.  Off went Alphonse with a howl of terror, and
after him flew the Masai, bent upon doing some execution before
he died.  He soon overtook the poor little Frenchman, and would
have finished him then and there had I not, just as Alphonse
made a last agonized double in the vain hope of avoiding the
yard of steel that was flashing in his immediate rear, managed
to plant a bullet between the Elmoran's broad shoulders, which
brought matters to a satisfactory conclusion so far as the Frenchman
was concerned.  But just then he tripped and fell flat, and the
body of the Masai fell right on the top of him, moving convulsively
in the death struggle.  Thereupon there arose such a series of
piercing howls that I concluded that before he died the savage
must have managed to stab poor Alphonse.  I ran up in a hurry
and pulled the Masai off, and there beneath him lay Alphonse
covered with blood and jerking himself about like a galvanized
frog.  Poor fellow! thought I, he is done for, and kneeling down
by him I began to search for his wound as well as his struggles
would allow.

'Oh, the hole in my back!' he yelled.  'I am murdered.  I am
dead.  Oh, Annette!'

I searched again, but could see no wound.  Then the truth dawned
on me -- the man was frightened, not hurt.

'Get up!' I shouted, 'Get up.  Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
You are not touched.'

Thereupon he rose, not a penny the worse.  'But, monsieur, I
thought I was,' he said apologetically; 'I did not know that
I had conquered.'  Then, giving the body of the Masai a kick,
he ejaculated triumphantly, 'Ah, dog of a black savage, thou
art dead; what victory!'

Thoroughly disgusted, I left Alphonse to look after himself,
which he did by following me like a shadow, and proceeded to
join the others by the large entrance.  The first thing that
I saw was Mackenzie, seated on a stone with a handkerchief twisted
round his thigh, from which he was bleeding freely, having, indeed,
received a spear-thrust that passed right through it, and still
holding in his hand his favourite carving knife now bent nearly
double, from which I gathered that he had been successful in
his rough and tumble with the Elmoran.

'Ah, Quatermain!' he sang out in a trembling, excited voice,
'so we have conquered; but it is a sorry sight, a sorry sight;'
and then breaking into broad Scotch and glancing at the bent
knife in his hand, 'It fashes me sair to have bent my best carver
on the breastbone of a savage,' and he laughed hysterically.
Poor fellow, what between his wound and the killing excitement
he had undergone his nerves were much shaken, and no wonder!
It is hard upon a man of peace and kindly heart to be called
upon to join in such a gruesome business.  But there, fate puts
us sometimes into very comical positions!

At the kraal entrance the scene was a strange one.  The slaughter
was over by now, and the wounded men had been put out of their
pain, for no quarter had been given.  The bush-closed entrance
was trampled flat, and in place of bushes it was filled with
the bodies of dead men.  Dead men, everywhere dead men -- they
lay about in knots, they were flung by ones and twos in every
position upon the open spaces, for all the world like the people
on the grass in one of the London parks on a particularly hot
Sunday in August.  In front of this entrance, on a space which
had been cleared of dead and of the shields and spears which
were scattered in all directions as they had fallen or been thrown
from the hands of their owners, stood and lay the survivors of
the awful struggle, and at their feet were four wounded men.
We had gone into the fight thirty strong, and of the thirty
but fifteen remained alive, and five of them (including Mr Mackenzie)
were wounded, two mortally.  Of those who held the entrance,
Curtis and the Zulu alone remained.  Good had lost five men killed,
I had lost two killed, and Mackenzie no less than five out of
the six with him.  As for the survivors they were, with the exception
of myself who had never come to close quarters, red from head
to foot -- Sir Henry's armour might have been painted that colour
-- and utterly exhausted, except Umslopogaas, who, as he grimly
stood on a little mound above a heap of dead, leaning as usual
upon his axe, did not seem particularly distressed, although
the skin over the hole in his head palpitated violently.

'Ah, Macumazahn!' he said to me as I limped up, feeling very
sick, 'I told thee that it would be a good fight, and it has.
Never have I seen a better, or one more bravely fought.  As
for this iron shirt, surely it is "tagati" [bewitched]; nothing
could pierce it.  Had it not been for the garment I should have
been _there_,' and he nodded towards the great pile of dead men
beneath him.

'I give it thee; thou art a brave man,' said Sir Henry, briefly.

'Koos!' answered the Zulu, deeply pleased both at the gift and
the compliment.  'Thou, too, Incubu, didst bear thyself as a
man, but I must give thee some lessons with the axe; thou dost
waste thy strength.'

Just then Mackenzie asked about Flossie, and we were all greatly
relieved when one of the men said he had seen her flying towards
the house with the nurse.  Then bearing such of the wounded as
could be moved at the moment with us, we slowly made our way
towards the Mission-house, spent with toil and bloodshed, but
with the glorious sense of victory against overwhelming odds
glowing in our hearts.  We had saved the life of the little maid,
and taught the Masai of those parts a lesson that they will not
forget for ten years -- but at what a cost!

Painfully we made our way up the hill which, just a little more
than an hour before, we had descended under such different circumstances.
At the gate of the wall stood Mrs Mackenzie waiting for us.
When her eyes fell upon us, however, she shrieked out, and covered
her face with her hands, crying, 'Horrible, horrible!'  Nor were
her fears allayed when she discovered her worthy husband being
borne upon an improvized stretcher; but her doubts as to the
nature of his injury were soon set at rest.  Then when in a few
brief words I had told her the upshot of the struggle (of which
Flossie, who had arrived in safety, had been able to explain
something) she came up to me and solemnly kissed me on the forehead.

'God bless you all, Mr Quatermain; you have saved my child's
life,' she said simply.

Then we went in and got our clothes off and doctored our wounds;
I am glad to say I had none, and Sir Henry's and Good's were,
thanks to those invaluable chain shirts, of a comparatively harmless
nature, and to be dealt with by means of a few stitches and sticking-
plaster. Mackenzie's, however, were serious, though fortunately
the spear had not severed any large artery.  After that we had
a bath, and what a luxury it was!  And having clad ourselves
in ordinary clothes, proceeded to the dining-room, where breakfast
was set as usual.  It was curious sitting down there, drinking
tea and eating toast in an ordinary nineteenth-century sort of
way just as though we had not employed the early hours in a regular
primitive hand-to-hand Middle-Ages kind of struggle.  As Good
said, the whole thing seemed more as though one had had a bad
nightmare just before being called, than as a deed done.  When
we were finishing our breakfast the door opened, and in came
little Flossie, very pale and tottery, but quite unhurt.  She
kissed us all and thanked us.  I congratulated her on the presence
of mind she had shown in shooting the Masai with her Derringer
pistol, and thereby saving her own life.

'Oh, don't talk of it!' she said, beginning to cry hysterically;
'I shall never forget his face as he went turning round and round,
never -- I can see it now.'

I advised her to go to bed and get some sleep, which she did,
and awoke in the evening quite recovered, so far as her strength
was concerned.  It struck me as an odd thing that a girl who
could find the nerve to shoot a huge black ruffian rushing to
kill her with a spear should have been so affected at the thought
of it afterwards; but it is, after all, characteristic of the
sex.  Poor Flossie!  I fear that her nerves will not get over
that night in the Masai camp for many a long year.  She told
me afterwards that it was the suspense that was so awful, having
to sit there hour after hour through the livelong night utterly
ignorant as to whether or not any attempt was to be made to rescue
her.  She said that on the whole she did not expect it, knowing
how few of us, and how many of the Masai -- who, by the way,
came continually to stare at her, most of them never having seen
a white person before, and handled her arms and hair with their
filthy paws.  She said also that she had made up her mind that
if she saw no signs of succour by the time the first rays of
the rising sun reached the kraal she would kill herself with
the pistol, for the nurse had heard the Lygonani say that they
were to be tortured to death as soon as the sun was up if one
of the white men did not come in their place.  It was an awful
resolution to have to take, but she meant to act on it, and I
have little doubt but what she would have done so.  Although
she was at an age when in England girls are in the schoolroom
and come down to dessert, this 'child of the wilderness' had
more courage, discretion, and power of mind than many a woman
of mature age nurtured in idleness and luxury, with minds carefully
drilled and educated out of any originality or self-resource
that nature may have endowed them with.

When breakfast was over we all turned in and had a good sleep,
only getting up in time for dinner; after which meal we once
more adjourned, together with all the available population --
men, women, youths, and girls -- to the scene of the morning's
slaughter, our object being to bury our own dead and get rid
of the Masai by flinging them into the Tana River, which ran
within fifty yards of the kraal.  On reaching the spot we disturbed
thousands upon thousands of vultures and a sort of brown bush
eagle, which had been flocking to the feast from miles and miles
away.  Often have I watched these great and repulsive birds,
and marvelled at the extraordinary speed with which they arrive
on a scene of slaughter.  A buck falls to your rifle, and within
a minute high in the blue ether appears a speck that gradually
grows into a vulture, then another, and another.  I have heard
many theories advanced to account for the wonderful power of
perception nature has given these birds.  My own, founded on
a good deal of observation, is that the vultures, gifted as they
are with powers of sight greater than those given by the most
powerful glass, quarter out the heavens among themselves, and
hanging in mid-air at a vast height -- probably from two to three
miles above the earth -- keep watch, each of them, over an enormous
stretch of country.  Presently one of them spies food, and instantly
begins to sink towards it.  Thereon his next neighbour in the
airy heights sailing leisurely through the blue gulf, at a distance
perhaps of some miles, follows his example, knowing that food
has been sighted.  Down he goes, and all the vultures within
sight of him follow after, and so do all those in sight of them.
In this way the vultures for twenty miles round can be summoned
to the feast in a few minutes.

We buried our dead in solemn silence, Good being selected to
read the Burial Service over them (in the absence of Mr Mackenzie,
confined to bed), as he was generally allowed to possess the
best voice and most impressive manner.  It was melancholy in
the extreme, but, as Good said, it might have been worse, for
we might have had 'to bury ourselves'.  I pointed out that this
would have been a difficult feat, but I knew what he meant.

Next we set to work to load an ox-wagon which had been brought
round from the Mission with the dead bodies of the Masai, having
first collected the spears, shields, and other arms.  We loaded
the wagon five times, about fifty bodies to the load, and emptied
it into the Tana.  From this it was evident that very few of
the Masai could have escaped.  The crocodiles must have been
well fed that night.  One of the last bodies we picked up was
that of the sentry at the upper end.  I asked Good how he managed
to kill him, and he told me that he had crept up much as Umslopogaas
had done, and stabbed him with his sword.  He groaned a good
deal, but fortunately nobody heard him.  As Good said, it was
a horrible thing to have to do, and most unpleasantly like
cold-blooded murder.

And so with the last body that floated away down the current
of the Tana ended the incident of our attack on the Masai camp.
The spears and shields and other arms we took up to the Mission,
where they filled an outhouse.  One incident, however, I must
not forget to mention.  As we were returning from performing
the obsequies of our Masai friends we passed the hollow tree
where Alphonse had secreted himself in the morning.  It so happened
that the little man himself was with us assisting in our unpleasant
task with a far better will than he had shown where live Masai
were concerned.  Indeed, for each body that he handled he found
an appropriate sarcasm.  Alphonse throwing Masai into the Tana
was a very different creature from Alphonse flying for dear life
from the spear of a live Masai.  He was quite merry and gay,
he clapped his hands and warbled snatches of French songs as
the grim dead warriors went 'splash' into the running waters
to carry a message of death and defiance to their kindred a hundred
miles below.  In short, thinking that he wanted taking down a
peg, I suggested holding a court-martial on him for his conduct
in the morning.

Accordingly we brought him to the tree where he had hidden, and
proceeded to sit in judgment on him, Sir Henry explaining to
him in the very best French the unheard-of cowardice and enormity
of his conduct, more especially in letting the oiled rag out
of his mouth, whereby he nearly aroused the Masai camp with
teeth-chattering and brought about the failure of our plans:
ending up with a request for an explanation.

But if we expected to find Alphonse at a loss and put him to
open shame we were destined to be disappointed.  He bowed and
scraped and smiled, and acknowledged that his conduct might at
first blush appear strange, but really it was not, inasmuch as
his teeth were not chattering from fear -- oh, dear no! oh, certainly
not! he marvelled how the 'messieurs' could think of such a thing
-- but from the chill air of the morning.  As for the rag, if
monsieur could have but tasted its evil flavour, being compounded
indeed of a mixture of stale paraffin oil, grease, and gunpowder,
monsieur himself would have spat it out.  But he did nothing
of the sort; he determined to keep it there till, alas! his stomach
'revolted', and the rag was ejected in an access of involuntary
sickness.

'And what have you to say about getting into the hollow tree?'
asked Sir Henry, keeping his countenance with difficulty.

'But, monsieur, the explanation is easy; oh, most easy! it was
thus: I stood there by the kraal wall, and the little grey monsieur
hit me in the stomach so that my rifle exploded, and the battle
began.  I watched whilst recovering myself from monsieur's cruel
blow; then, messieurs, I felt the heroic blood of my grandfather
boil up in my veins.  The sight made me mad.  I ground my teeth!
Fire flashed from my eyes!  I shouted "En avant!" and longed
to slay.  Before my eyes there rose a vision of my heroic grandfather!
In short, I was mad!  I was a warrior indeed!  But then in my
heart I heard a small voice: "Alphonse," said the voice, "restrain
thyself, Alphonse!  Give not way to this evil passion!  These
men, though black, are brothers!  And thou wouldst slay them?
Cruel Alphonse!"  The voice was right.  I knew it; I was about
to perpetrate the most horrible cruelties: to wound! to massacre!
to tear limb from limb!  And how restrain myself?  I looked round;
I saw the tree, I perceived the hole.  "Entomb thyself," said
the voice, "and hold on tight!  Thou wilt thus overcome temptation
by main force!"  It was bitter, just when the blood of my heroic
grandfather boiled most fiercely; but I obeyed!  I dragged my
unwilling feet along; I entombed myself!  Through the hole I
watched the battle!  I shouted curses and defiance on the foe!
I noted them fall with satisfaction!  Why not?  I had not robbed
them of their lives.  Their gore was not upon my head.  The blood
of my heroic --'

'Oh, get along with you, you little cur!' broke out Sir Henry,
with a shout of laughter, and giving Alphonse a good kick which
sent him flying off with a rueful face.

In the evening I had an interview with Mr Mackenzie, who was
suffering a good deal from his wounds, which Good, who was a
skilful though unqualified doctor, was treating him for.  He
told me that this occurrence had taught him a lesson, and that,
if he recovered safely, he meant to hand over the Mission to
a younger man, who was already on his road to join him in his
work, and return to England.

'You see, Quatermain,' he said, 'I made up my mind to it, this
very morning, when we were creeping down those benighted savages.
"If we live through this and rescue Flossie alive," I said to
myself, "I will go home to England; I have had enough of savages."
Well, I did not think that we should live through it at the
time; but thanks be to God and you four, we have lived through
it, and I mean to stick to my resolution, lest a worse thing
befall us.  Another such time would kill my poor wife.  And besides,
Quatermain, between you and me, I am well off; it is thirty thousand
pounds I am worth today, and every farthing of it made by honest
trade and savings in the bank at Zanzibar, for living here costs
me next to nothing.  So though it will be hard to leave this
place, which I have made to blossom like a rose in the wilderness,
and harder still to leave the people I have taught, I shall go.'

'I congratulate you on your decision,' answered I, 'for two reasons.
The first is, that you owe a duty to your wife and daughter,
and more especially to the latter, who should receive some education
and mix with girls of her own race, otherwise she will grow up
wild, shunning her kind.  The other is, that as sure as I am
standing here, sooner or later the Masai will try to avenge the
slaughter inflicted on them today.  Two or three men are sure
to have escaped the confusion who will carry the story back to
their people, and the result will be that a great expedition
will one day be sent against you.  It might be delayed for a
year, but sooner or later it will come.  Therefore, if only for
that reason, I should go.  When once they have learnt that you
are no longer here they may perhaps leave the place alone.'
{Endnote 8}

'You are quite right,' answered the clergyman.  'I will turn
my back upon this place in a month.  But it will be a wrench,
it will be a wrench.'




CHAPTER IX
INTO THE UNKNOWN



A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in the
Mission dining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits,
for the reason that we were going to say goodbye to our kind
friends, the Mackenzies, and depart upon our way at dawn on the
morrow.  Nothing more had been seen or heard of the Masai, and
save for a spear or two which had been overlooked and was rusting
in the grass, and a few empty cartridges where we had stood outside
the wall, it would have been difficult to tell that the old cattle
kraal at the foot of the slope had been the scene of so desperate
a struggle.  Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to his being so temperate
a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and could get about
on a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men, one
had died of gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to recovery.
Mr Mackenzie's caravan of men had also returned from the coast,
so that the station was now amply garrisoned.

Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and pressing as
were the invitations for us to stay, that it was time to move
on, first to Mount Kenia, and thence into the unknown in search
of the mysterious white race which we had set our hearts on discovering.
This time we were going to progress by means of the humble but
useful donkey, of which we had collected no less than a dozen,
to carry our goods and chattels, and, if necessary, ourselves.
We had now but two Wakwafis left for servants, and found it
quite impossible to get other natives to venture with us into
the unknown parts we proposed to explore -- and small blame to
them.  After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three
men, each of whom possessed many of those things that are supposed
to make life worth living -- health, sufficient means, and position,
etc. -- should from their own pleasure start out upon a wild-goose
chase, from which the chances were they never would return.
But then that is what Englishmen are, adventurers to the backbone;
and all our magnificent muster-roll of colonies, each of which
will in time become a great nation, testify to the extraordinary
value of the spirit of adventure which at first sight looks like
a mild form of lunacy.  'Adventurer' -- he that goes out to meet
whatever may come.  Well, that is what we all do in the world
one way or another, and, speaking for myself, I am proud of the
title, because it implies a brave heart and a trust in Providence.
Besides, when many and many a noted Croesus, at whose feet the
people worship, and many and many a time-serving and word-coining
politician are forgotten, the names of those grand-hearted old
adventurers who have made England what she is, will be remembered
and taught with love and pride to little children whose unshaped
spirits yet slumber in the womb of centuries to be.  Not that
we three can expect to be numbered with such as these, yet have
we done something -- enough, perhaps, to throw a garment over
the nakedness of our folly.

That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda, smoking
a pipe before turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse,
and, with a magnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview.
Being requested to 'fire away', he explained at some length
that he was anxious to attach himself to our party -- a statement
that astonished me not a little, knowing what a coward the little
man was.  The reason, however, soon appeared.  Mr Mackenzie was
going down to the coast, and thence on to England.  Now, if he
went down country, Alphonse was persuaded that he would be seized,
extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude.  This was
the idea that haunted him, as King Charles's head haunted Mr
Dick, and he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated
the danger ten times.  As a matter of fact, the probability is
that his offence against the laws of his country had long ago
been forgotten, and that he would have been allowed to pass unmolested
anywhere except in France; but he could not be got to see this.
Constitutional coward as the little man was, he infinitely preferred
to face the certain hardships and great risks and dangers of
such an expedition as ours, than to expose himself, notwithstanding
his intense longing for his native land, to the possible scrutiny
of a police officer -- which is after all only another exemplification
of the truth that, to the majority of men, a far-off foreseen
danger, however shadowy, is much more terrible than the most
serious present emergency.  After listening to what he had to
say, we consulted among ourselves, and finally agreed, with Mr
Mackenzie's knowledge and consent, to accept his offer.  To begin
with, we were very short-handed, and Alphonse was a quick, active
fellow, who could turn his hand to anything, and cook -- ah,
he _could_ cook!  I believe that he would have made a palatable
dish of those gaiters of his heroic grandfather which he was
so fond of talking about.  Then he was a good-tempered little
man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous, vainglorious
talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is more,
he never bore malice.  Of course, his being so pronounced a coward
was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness
we could more or less guard against it.  So, after warning him
of the undoubted risks he was exposing himself to, we told him
that we would accept his offer on condition that he would promise
implicit obedience to our orders.  We also promised to give him
wages at the rate of ten pounds a month should he ever return
to a civilized country to receive them.  To all of this he agreed
with alacrity, and retired to write a letter to his Annette,
which Mr Mackenzie promised to post when he got down country.
He read it to us afterwards, Sir Henry translating, and a wonderful
composition it was.  I am sure the depth of his devotion and
the narration of his sufferings in a barbarous country, 'far,
far from thee, Annette, for whose adored sake I endure such sorrow,'
ought to have touched the feelings of the stoniest-hearted chambermaid.

Well, the morrow came, and by seven o'clock the donkeys were
all loaded, and the time of parting was at hand.  It was a melancholy
business, especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie.
She and I were great friends, and often used to have talks together
-- but her nerves had never got over the shock of that awful
night when she lay in the power of those bloodthirsty Masai.
'Oh, Mr Quatermain,' she cried, throwing her arms round my neck
and bursting into tears, 'I can't bear to say goodbye to you.
I wonder when we shall meet again?'

'I don't know, my dear little girl,' I said, 'I am at one end
of life and you are at the other.  I have but a short time before
me at best, and most things lie in the past, but I hope that
for you there are many long and happy years, and everything lies
in the future.  By-and-by you will grow into a beautiful woman,
Flossie, and all this wild life will be like a far-off dream
to you; but I hope, even if we never do meet again, that you
will think of your old friend and remember what I say to you
now.  Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right,
rather than what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever
sneering people may say, what is good and what is happy are the
same.  Be unselfish, and whenever you can, give a helping hand
to others -- for the world is full of suffering, my dear, and
to alleviate it is the noblest end that we can set before us.
If you do that you will become a sweet and God-fearing woman,
and make many people's lives a little brighter, and then you
will not have lived, as so many of your sex do, in vain.  And
now I have given you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so I
am going to give you something to sweeten it with.  You see this
little piece of paper.  It is what is called a cheque.  When
we are gone give it to your father with this note -- not before,
mind.  You will marry one day, my dear little Flossie, and it
is to buy you a wedding present which you are to wear, and your
daughter after you, if you have one, in remembrance of Hunter
Quatermain.'

Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock of her
bright hair in return, which I still have.  The cheque I gave
her was for a thousand pounds (which being now well off, and
having no calls upon me except those of charity, I could well
afford), and in the note I directed her father to invest it for
her in Government security, and when she married or came of age
to buy her the best diamond necklace he could get for the money
and accumulated interest.  I chose diamonds because I think that
now that King Solomon's Mines are lost to the world, their price
will never be much lower than it is at present, so that if in
after-life she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, she
will be able to turn them into money.

Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking, hat-waving,
and also farewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping
copiously (for he has a warm heart) at parting with his master
and mistress; and I was not sorry for it at all, for I hate those
goodbyes.  Perhaps the most affecting thing of all was to witness
Umslopogaas' distress at parting with Flossie, for whom the grim
old warrior had conceived a strong affection.  He used to say
that she was as sweet to see as the only star on a dark night,
and was never tired of loudly congratulating himself on having
killed the Lygonani who had threatened to murder her.  And that
was the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house -- a true oasis
in the desert -- and of European civilization.  But I often think
of the Mackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and
if they are now safe and well in England, and will ever see these
words.  Dear little Flossie!  I wonder how she fares there where
there are no black folk to do her imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing
snow-clad Kenia for her to look at when she gets up in the morning.
And so goodbye to Flossie.

After leaving the Mission-house we made our way, comparatively
unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai call
'Donyo Egere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the
black patches of rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where
the sides are too precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them;
then on past the lonely lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining
Askari, having unfortunately trodden on a puff-adder, died of
snake-bite, in spite of all our efforts to save him.  Thence
we proceeded a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles to
another magnificent snow-clad mountain called Lekakisera, which
has never, to the best of my belief, been visited before by a
European, but which I cannot now stop to describe.  There we
rested a fortnight, and then started out into the trackless and
uninhabited forest of a vast district called Elgumi.  In this
forest alone there are more elephants than I ever met with or
heard of before.  The mighty mammals literally swarm there
entirely unmolested by man, and only kept down by the natural
law that prevents any animals increasing beyond the capacity
of the country they inhabit to support them.  Needless to say,
however, we did not shoot many of them, first because we could
not afford to waste ammunition, of which our stock was getting
perilously low, a donkey loaded with it having been swept away
in fording a flooded river; and secondly, because we could not
carry away the ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake
of slaughter.  So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one
or two in self-protection.  In this district, the elephants,
being unacquainted with the hunter and his tender mercies, would
allow one to walk up to within twenty yards of them in the open,
while they stood, with their great ears cocked for all the world
like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared at that new
and extraordinary phenomenon -- man.  Occasionally, when the
inspection did not prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a
trumpet and a charge, but this did not often happen.  When it
did we had to use our rifles.  Nor were elephants the only wild
beasts in the great Elgumi forest.  All sorts of large game abounded,
including lions -- confound them!  I have always hated the sight
of a lion since one bit my leg and lamed me for life.  As a consequence,
another thing that abounded was the dreadful tsetse fly, whose
bite is death to domestic animals.  Donkeys have, together with
men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar immunity from
its attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on account
of their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts
is more poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed
to its onslaught.  Fortunately, however, that was not till two
months or so after the bites had been inflicted, when suddenly,
after a two days' cold rain, they all died, and on removing the
skins of several of them I found the long yellow streaks upon
the flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from the
tsetse, marking the spot where the insect had inserted his proboscis.
On emerging from the great Elgumi forest, we, still steering
northwards, in accordance with the information Mr Mackenzie had
collected from the unfortunate wanderer who reached him only
to die so tragically, struck the base in due course of the large
lake, called Laga by the natives, which is about fifty miles
long by twenty broad, and of which, it may be remembered, he
made mention.  Thence we pushed on nearly a month's journey over
great rolling uplands, something like those in the Transvaal,
but diversified by patches of bush country.

All this time we were continually ascending at the rate of about
one hundred feet every ten miles.  Indeed the country was on
a slope which appeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped
mountains, for which we were steering, and where we learnt the
second lake of which the wanderer had spoken as the lake without
a bottom was situated.  At length we arrived there, and, having
ascertained that there _was_ a large lake on top of the mountains,
ascended three thousand feet more till we came to a precipitous
cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of water some twenty miles
square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and evidently occupying
an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast extent.  Perceiving
villages on the border of this lake, we descended with great
difficulty through forests of pine trees, which now clothed the
precipitous sides of the crater, and were well received by the
people, a simple, unwarlike folk, who had never seen or even
heard of a white man before, and treated us with great reverence
and kindness, supplying us with as much food and milk as we could
eat and drink.  This wonderful and beautiful lake lay, according
to our aneroid, at a height of no less than 11,450 feet above
sea-level, and its climate was quite cold, and not at all unlike
that of England.  Indeed, for the first three days of our stay
there we saw little or nothing of the scenery on account of an
unmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed.  It was this rain that
set the tsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so that
they all died.

This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we had now
no means of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had
not much to carry.  Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting
to but one hundred and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some
fifty shot-gun cartridges.  How to get on we did not know; indeed
it seemed to us that we had about reached the end of our tether.
Even if we had been inclined to abandon the object of our search,
which, shadow as it was, was by no means the case, it was ridiculous
to think of forcing our way back some seven hundred miles to
the coast in our present plight; so we came to the conclusion
that the only thing to be done was to stop where we were -- the
natives being so well disposed and food plentiful -- for the
present, and abide events, and try to collect information as
to the countries beyond.

Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large enough
to hold us all and our baggage, from the headman of the village
we were staying in, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn
brass cartridges by way of payment, with which he was perfectly
delighted, we set out to make a tour of the lake in order to
find the most favourable place to make a camp.  As we did not
know if we should return to this village, we put all our gear
into the canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck, which
when young is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having
already gone before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants
of the other villages of our approach.

As we were puddling leisurely along Good remarked upon the extraordinary
deep blue colour of the water, and said that he understood from
the natives, who were great fishermen -- fish, indeed, being
their principal food -- that the lake was supposed to be wonderfully
deep, and to have a hole at the bottom through which the water
escaped and put out some great fire that was raging below.

I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably a legend
arising from a tradition among the people which dated back to
the time when one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was
in activity.  We saw several round the borders of the lake which
had no doubt been working at a period long subsequent to the
volcanic death of the central crater which now formed the bed
of the lake itself.  When it finally became extinct the people
would imagine that the water from the lake had run down and put
out the big fire below, more especially as, though it was constantly
fed by streams running from the snow-tipped peaks about, there
was no visible exit to it.

The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching it, to
consist of a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the
water without any intermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere.  Accordingly
we paddled parallel with this precipice, at a distance of about
a hundred paces from it, shaping our course for the end of the
lake, where we knew that there was a large village.

As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation of floating
rushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish, brought, Good
supposed, to this spot by some current, which he was much puzzled
to account for.  Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry
pointed out a flock of large white swans, which were feeding
on the drift some little way ahead of us.  Now I had already
noticed swans flying about this lake, and, having never come
across them before in Africa, was exceedingly anxious to obtain
a specimen.  I had questioned the natives about them, and learnt
that they came from over the mountain, always arriving at certain
periods of the year in the early morning, when it was very easy
to catch them, on account of their exhausted condition.  I also
asked them what country they came from, when they shrugged their
shoulders, and said that on the top of the great black precipice
was stony inhospitable land, and beyond that were mountains with
snow, and full of wild beasts, where no people lived, and beyond
the mountains were hundreds of miles of dense thorn forest, so
thick that even the elephants could not get through it, much
less men.  Next I asked them if they had ever heard of white
people like ourselves living on the farther side of the mountains
and the thorn forest, whereat they laughed.  But afterwards a
very old woman came and told me that when she was a little girl
her grandfather had told her that in his youth _his_ grandfather
had crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced the thorn
forest, and seen a white people who lived in stone kraals beyond.
Of course, as this took the tale back some two hundred and fifty
years, the information was very indefinite; but still there it
was again, and on thinking it over I grew firmly convinced that
there was some truth in all these rumours, and equally firmly
determined to solve the mystery.  Little did I guess in what
an almost miraculous way my desire was to be gratified.

Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept drawing,
as they fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last
we pushed the canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within
forty yards of them.  Sir Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with
No. 1, and, waiting for a chance, got two in a line, and, firing
at their necks, killed them both.  Up rose the rest, thirty or
more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as they did so, he
gave them the other barrel.  Down came one fellow with a broken
wing, and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start
out of his back; but he went on quite strong.  Up went the swans,
circling ever higher till at last they were mere specks level
with the top of the frowning precipice, when I saw them form
into a triangle and head off for the unknown north-east.  Meanwhile
we had picked up our two dead ones, and beautiful birds they
were, weighing not less than about thirty pounds each, and were
chasing the winged one, which had scrambled over a mass of driftweed
into a pool of clear water beyond.  Finding a difficulty in forcing
the canoe through the rubbish, I told our only remaining Wakwafi
servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, to jump over,
dive under the drift, and catch him, knowing that as there were
no crocodiles in this lake he could come to no harm.  Entering
into the fun of the thing, the man obeyed, and soon was dodging
about after the winged swan in fine style, getting gradually
nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed as he
did so.

Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began to cry
out that he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that,
though he was swimming with all his strength towards us, he was
being drawn slowly to the precipice.  With a few desperate strokes
of our paddles we pushed the canoe through the crust of drift
and rowed towards the man as hard as we could, but, fast as we
went, he was drawn faster to the rock.  Suddenly I saw that before
us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surface of the
lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submerged
cave or railway tunnel.  Evidently, from the watermark on the
rock several feet above it, it was generally entirely submerged;
but there had been a dry season, and the cold had prevented the
snow from melting as freely as usual; so the lake was low and
the arch showed.  Towards this arch our poor servant was being
sucked with frightful rapidity.  He was not more than ten fathoms
from it, and we were about twenty when I saw it, and with little
help from us the canoe flew along after him.  He struggled bravely,
and I thought that we should have saved him, when suddenly I
perceived an expression of despair come upon his face, and there
before our eyes he was sucked down into the cruel swirling blue
depths, and vanished.  At the same moment I felt our canoe seized
as with a mighty hand, and propelled with resistless force towards
the rock.

We realized our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled, furiously
in our attempt to get out of the vortex.  In vain; in another
second we were flying straight for the arch like an arrow, and
I thought that we were lost.  Luckily I retained sufficient presence
of mind to shout out, instantly setting the example by throwing
myself into the bottom of the canoe, 'Down on your faces -- down!'
and the others had the sense to take the hint.  In another instant
there was a grinding noise, and the boat was pushed down till
the water began to trickle over the sides, and I thought that
we were gone.  But no, suddenly the grinding ceased, and we could
again feel the canoe flying along.  I turned my head a little
-- I dared not lift it -- and looked up.  By the feeble light
that yet reached the canoe, I could make out that a dense arch
of rock hung just over our heads, and that was all.  In another
minute I could not even see as much as that, for the faint light
had merged into shadow, and the shadows had been swallowed up
in darkness, utter and complete.

For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our heads
for fear lest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely
able to speak even, on account of the noise of the rushing water
which drowned our voices.  Not, indeed, that we had much inclination
to speak, seeing that we were overwhelmed by the awfulness of
our position and the imminent fear of instant death, either by
being dashed against the sides of the cavern, or on a rock, or
being sucked down in the raging waters, or perhaps asphyxiated
by want of air.  All of these and many other modes of death presented
themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottom of the canoe,
listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ran whither
we knew not.  One only other sound could I hear, and that was
Alphonse's intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre
of the canoe, and even that seemed faint and unnatural.  Indeed,
the whole thing overpowered my brain, and I began to believe
that I was the victim of some ghastly spirit-shaking nightmare.




CHAPTER X
THE ROSE OF FIRE



On we flew, drawn by the mighty current, till at last I noticed
that the sound of the water was not half so deafening as it had
been, and concluded that this must be because there was more
room for the echoes to disperse in.  I could now hear Alphonse's
howls much more distinctly; they were made up of the oddest mixture
of invocations to the Supreme Power and the name of his beloved
Annette that it is possible to conceive; and, in short, though
their evident earnestness saved them from profanity, were, to
say the least, very remarkable.  Taking up a paddle I managed
to drive it into his ribs, whereon he, thinking that the end
had come, howled louder than ever.  Then I slowly and cautiously
raised myself on my knees and stretched my hand upwards, but
could touch no roof.  Next I took the paddle and lifted it above
my head as high as I could, but with the same result.  I also
thrust it out laterally to the right and left, but could touch
nothing except water.  Then I bethought me that there was in
the boat, amongst our other remaining possessions, a bull's-eye
lantern and a tin of oil.  I groped about and found it, and having
a match on me carefully lit it, and as soon as the flame had
got a hold of the wick I turned it on down the boat.  As it happened,
the first thing the light lit on was the white and scared face
of Alphonse, who, thinking that it was all over at last, and
that he was witnessing a preliminary celestial phenomenon, gave
a terrific yell and was with difficulty reassured with the paddle.
As for the other three, Good was lying on the flat of his back,
his eyeglass still fixed in his eye, and gazing blankly into
the upper darkness.  Sir Henry had his head resting on the thwarts
of the canoe, and with his hand was trying to test the speed
of the water.  But when the beam of light fell upon old Umslopogaas
I could really have laughed.  I think I have said that we had
put a roast quarter of water-buck into the canoe.  Well, it so
happened that when we all prostrated ourselves to avoid being
swept out of the boat and into the water by the rock roof, Umslopogaas's
head had come down uncommonly near this roast buck, and so soon
as he had recovered a little from the first shock of our position
it occurred to him that he was hungry.  Thereupon he coolly cut
off a chop with Inkosi-kaas, and was now employed in eating it
with every appearance of satisfaction.  As he afterwards explained,
he thought that he was going 'on a long journey', and preferred
to start on a full stomach.  It reminded me of the people who
are going to be hanged, and who are generally reported in the
English daily papers to have made 'an excellent breakfast'.

As soon as the others saw that I had managed to light the lamp,
we bundled Alphonse into the farther end of the canoe with a
threat which calmed him down wonderfully, that if he would insist
upon making the darkness hideous with his cries we would put
him out of suspense by sending him to join the Wakwafi and wait
for Annette in another sphere, and began to discuss the situation
as well as we could.  First, however, at Good's suggestion, we
bound two paddles mast-fashion in the bows so that they might
give us warning against any sudden lowering of the roof of the
cave or waterway.  It was clear to us that we were in an underground
river or, as Alphonse defined it, 'main drain', which carried
off the superfluous waters of the lake.  Such rivers are well
known to exist in many parts of the world, but it has not often
been the evil fortune of explorers to travel by them.  That the
river was wide we could clearly see, for the light from the bull's-eye
lantern failed to reach from shore to shore, although occasionally,
when the current swept us either to one side or the other, we
could distinguish the rock wall of the tunnel, which, as far
as we could make out, appeared to arch about twenty-five feet
above our heads.  As for the current itself, it ran, Good estimated,
at least eight knots, and, fortunately for us, was, as is usual,
fiercest in the middle of the stream.  Still, our first act was
to arrange that one of us, with the lantern and a pole there
was in the canoe, should always be in the bows ready, if possible,
to prevent us from being stove in against the side of the cave
or any projecting rock.  Umslopogaas, having already dined, took
the first turn.  This was absolutely, with one exception, all
that we could do towards preserving our safety.  The exception
was that another of us took up a position in the stern with a
paddle by means of which it was possible to steer the canoe more
or less and to keep her from the sides of the cave.  These matters
attended to, we made a somewhat sparing meal off the cold buck's
meat (for we did not know how long it might have to last us),
and then feeling in rather better spirits I gave my opinion that,
serious as it undoubtedly was, I did not consider our position
altogether without hope, unless, indeed, the natives were right,
and the river plunged straight down into the bowels of the earth.
If not, it was clear that it must emerge somewhere, probably
on the other side of the mountains, and in that case all we had
to think of was to keep ourselves alive till we got there, wherever
'there' might be.  But, of course, as Good lugubriously pointed
out, on the other hand we might fall victims to a hundred unsuspected
horrors -- or the river might go on winding away inside the earth
till it dried up, in which case our fate would indeed be an
awful one.

'Well, let us hope for the best and prepare ourselves for the
worst,' said Sir Henry, who is always cheerful and even spirited
-- a very tower of strength in the time of trouble.  'We have
come out of so many queer scrapes together, that somehow I almost
fancy we shall come out of this,' he added.

This was excellent advice, and we proceeded to take it each in
our separate way -- that is, except Alphonse, who had by now
sunk into a sort of terrified stupor.  Good was at the helm and
Umslopogaas in the bows, so there was nothing left for Sir Henry
and myself to do except to lie down in the canoe and think.
It certainly was a curious, and indeed almost a weird, position
to be placed in -- rushing along, as we were, through the bowels
of the earth, borne on the bosom of a Stygian river, something
after the fashion of souls being ferried by Charon, as Curtis
said.  And how dark it was!  The feeble ray from our little lamp
did but serve to show the darkness.  There in the bows sat old
Umslopogaas, like Pleasure in the poem, {Endnote 9} watchful
and untiring, the pole ready to his hand, and behind in the shadow
I could just make out the form of Good peering forward at the
ray of light in order to make out how to steer with the paddle
that he held and now and again dipped into the water.

'Well, well,' thought I, 'you have come in search of adventures,
Allan my boy, and you have certainly got them.  At your time
of life, too!  You ought to be ashamed of yourself; but somehow
you are not, and, awful as it all is, perhaps you will pull through
after all; and if you don't, why, you cannot help it, you see!
And when all's said and done an underground river will make
a very appropriate burying-place.'

At first, however, I am bound to say that the strain upon the
nerves was very great.  It is trying to the coolest and most
experienced person not to know from one hour to another if he
has five minutes more to live, but there is nothing in this world
that one cannot get accustomed to, and in time we began to get
accustomed even to that.  And, after all, our anxiety, though
no doubt natural, was, strictly speaking, illogical, seeing that
we never know what is going to happen to us the next minute,
even when we sit in a well-drained house with two policemen patrolling
under the window -- nor how long we have to live.  It is all arranged
for us, my sons, so what is the use of bothering?

It was nearly midday when we made our dive into darkness, and
we had set our watch (Good and Umslopogaas) at two, having agreed
that it should be of a duration of five hours.  At seven o'clock,
accordingly, Sir Henry and I went on, Sir Henry at the bow and
I at the stern, and the other two lay down and went to sleep.
For three hours all went well, Sir Henry only finding it necessary
once to push us off from the side; and I that but little steering
was required to keep us straight, as the violent current did
all that was needed, though occasionally the canoe showed a tendency
which had to be guarded against to veer and travel broadside
on.  What struck me as the most curious thing about this wonderful
river was: how did the air keep fresh?  It was muggy and thick,
no doubt, but still not sufficiently so to render it bad or even
remarkably unpleasant.  The only explanation that I can suggest
is that the water of the lake had sufficient air in it to keep
the atmosphere of the tunnel from absolute stagnation, this air
being given out as it proceeded on its headlong way.  Of course
I only give the solution of the mystery for what it is worth,
which perhaps is not much.

When I had been for three hours or so at the helm, I began to
notice a decided change in the temperature, which was getting
warmer.  At first I took no notice of it, but when, at the expiration
of another half-hour, I found that it was getting hotter and
hotter, I called to Sir Henry and asked him if he noticed it,
or if it was only my imagination.  'Noticed it!' he answered;
'I should think so.  I am in a sort of Turkish bath.'  Just about
then the others woke up gasping, and were obliged to begin to
discard their clothes.  Here Umslopogaas had the advantage, for
he did not wear any to speak of, except a moocha.

Hotter it grew, and hotter yet, till at last we could scarcely
breathe, and the perspiration poured out of us.  Half an hour
more, and though we were all now stark naked, we could hardly
bear it.  The place was like an antechamber of the infernal regions
proper.  I dipped my hand into the water and drew it out almost
with a cry; it was nearly boiling.  We consulted a little thermometer
we had -- the mercury stood at 123 degrees.  From the surface
of the water rose a dense cloud of steam.  Alphonse groaned out
that we were already in purgatory, which indeed we were, though
not in the sense that he meant it.  Sir Henry suggested that
we must be passing near the seat of some underground volcanic
fire, and I am inclined to think, especially in the light of
what subsequently occurred, that he was right.  Our sufferings
for some time after this really pass my powers of description.
We no longer perspired, for all the perspiration had been sweated
out of us.  We simply lay in the bottom of the boat, which we
were now physically incapable of directing, feeling like hot
embers, and I fancy undergoing very much the same sensations
that the poor fish do when they are dying on land -- namely,
that of slow suffocation.  Our skins began to crack, and the
blood to throb in our heads like the beating of a steam-engine.

This had been going on for some time, when suddenly the river
turned a little, and I heard Sir Henry call out from the bows
in a hoarse, startled voice, and, looking up, saw a most wonderful
and awful thing.  About half a mile ahead of us, and a little
to the left of the centre of the stream -- which we could now
see was about ninety feet broad -- a huge pillar-like jet of
almost white flame rose from the surface of the water and sprang
fifty feet into the air, when it struck the roof and spread out
some forty feet in diameter, falling back in curved sheets of
fire shaped like the petals of a full-blown rose.  Indeed this
awful gas jet resembled nothing so much as a great flaming flower
rising out of the black water.  Below was the straight stalk,
a foot or more thick, and above the dreadful bloom.  And as for
the fearfulness of it and its fierce and awesome beauty, who
can describe it?  Certainly I cannot.  Although we were now some
five hundred yards away, it, notwithstanding the steam, lit up
the whole cavern as clear as day, and we could see that the roof
was here about forty feet above us, and washed perfectly smooth
with water.  The rock was black, and here and there I could make
out long shining lines of ore running through it like great veins,
but of what metal they were I know not.

On we rushed towards this pillar of fire, which gleamed fiercer
than any furnace ever lit by man.

'Keep the boat to the right, Quatermain -- to the right,' shouted
Sir Henry, and a minute afterwards I saw him fall forward senseless.
Alphonse had already gone.  Good was the next to go.  There
they lay as though dead; only Umslopogaas and I kept our senses.
We were within fifty yards of it now, and I saw the Zulu's head
fall forward on his hands.  He had gone too, and I was alone.
I could not breathe; the fierce heat dried me up.  For yards
and yards round the great rose of fire the rock-roof was red-hot.
The wood of the boat was almost burning.  I saw the feathers
on one of the dead swans begin to twist and shrivel up; but I
would not give in.  I knew that if I did we should pass within
three or four yards of the gas jet and perish miserably.  I set
the paddle so as to turn the canoe as far from it as possible,
and held on grimly.

My eyes seemed to be bursting from my head, and through my closed
lids I could see the fierce light.  We were nearly opposite now;
it roared like all the fires of hell, and the water boiled furiously
around it.  Five seconds more.  We were past; I heard the roar
behind me.

Then I too fell senseless.  The next thing that I recollect is
feeling a breath of air upon my face.  My eyes opened with great
difficulty.  I looked up.  Far, far above me there was light,
though around me was great gloom.  Then I remembered and looked.
The canoe still floated down the river, and in the bottom of
it lay the naked forms of my companions.  'Were they dead?' I
wondered.  'Was I left alone in this awful place?'  I knew not.
Next I became conscious of a burning thirst.  I put my hand
over the edge of the boat into the water and drew it up again
with a cry.  No wonder: nearly all the skin was burnt off the
back of it.  The water, however, was cold, or nearly so, and
I drank pints and splashed myself all over.  My body seemed to
suck up the fluid as one may see a brick wall suck up rain after
a drought; but where I was burnt the touch of it caused intense
pain.  Then I bethought myself of the others, and, dragging myself
towards them with difficulty, I sprinkled them with water, and
to my joy they began to recover -- Umslopogaas first, then the
others.  Next they drank, absorbing water like so many sponges.
Then, feeling chilly -- a queer contrast to our recent sensations
-- we began as best we could to get into our clothes.  As we
did so Good pointed to the port side of the canoe: it was all
blistered with heat, and in places actually charred.  Had it
been built like our civilized boats, Good said that the planks
would certainly have warped and let in enough water to sink us;
but fortunately it was dug out of the soft, willowy wood of a
single great tree, and had sides nearly three inches and a bottom
four inches thick.  What that awful flame was we never discovered,
but I suppose that there was at this spot a crack or hole in
the bed of the river through which a vast volume of gas forced
its way from its volcanic home in the bowels of the earth towards
the upper air.  How it first became ignited is, of course, impossible
to say -- probably, I should think, from some spontaneous explosion
of mephitic gases.

As soon as we had got some things together and shaken ourselves
together a little, we set to work to make out where we were now.
I have said that there was light above, and on examination we
found that it came from the sky.  Our river that was, Sir Henry
said, a literal realization of the wild vision of the poet
{Endnote 10}, was no longer underground, but was running on its
darksome way, not now through 'caverns measureless to man', but
between two frightful cliffs which cannot have been less than
two thousand feet high.  So high were they, indeed, that though
the sky was above us, where we were was dense gloom -- not darkness
indeed, but the gloom of a room closely shuttered in the daytime.
Up on either side rose the great straight cliffs, grim and forbidding,
till the eye grew dizzy with trying to measure their sheer height.
The little space of sky that marked where they ended lay like
a thread of blue upon their soaring blackness, which was unrelieved
by any tree or creeper.  Here and there, however, grew ghostly
patches of a long grey lichen, hanging motionless to the rock
as the white beard to the chin of a dead man.  It seemed as though
only the dregs or heavier part of the light had sunk to the bottom
of this awful place.  No bright-winged sunbeam could fall so low:
they died far, far above our heads.

By the river's edge was a little shore formed of round fragments
of rock washed into this shape by the constant action of water,
and giving the place the appearance of being strewn with thousands
of fossil cannon balls.  Evidently when the water of the underground
river is high there is no beach at all, or very little, between
the border of the stream and the precipitous cliffs; but now
there was a space of seven or eight yards.  And here, on this
beach, we determined to land, in order to rest ourselves a little
after all that we had gone through and to stretch our limbs.
It was a dreadful place, but it would give an hour's respite
from the terrors of the river, and also allow of our repacking
and arranging the canoe.  Accordingly we selected what looked
like a favourable spot, and with some little difficulty managed
to beach the canoe and scramble out on to the round, inhospitable
pebbles.

'My word,' called out Good, who was on shore the first, 'what
an awful place!  It's enough to give one a fit.'  And he laughed.

Instantly a thundering voice took up his words, magnifying them
a hundred times.  '_Give one a fit -- Ho! ho! ho!' -- 'A fit,
Ho! ho! ho!_' answered another voice in wild accents from far
up the cliff -- _a fit! a fit! a fit!_ chimed in voice after voice
-- each flinging the words to and fro with shouts of awful laughter
to the invisible lips of the other till the whole place echoed
with the words and with shrieks of fiendish merriment, which
at last ceased as suddenly as they had begun.

'Oh, mon Dieu!' yelled Alphonse, startled quite out of such
self-command as he possessed.

'_Mon Dieu!  Mon Dieu!  Mon Dieu!_' the Titanic echoes thundered,
shrieked, and wailed in every conceivable tone.

'Ah,' said Umslopogaas calmly, 'I clearly perceive that devils
live here.  Well, the place looks like it.'

I tried to explain to him that the cause of all the hubbub was
a very remarkable and interesting echo, but he would not believe it.

'Ah,' he said, 'I know an echo when I hear one.  There was one lived
opposite my kraal in Zululand, and the Intombis [maidens] used
to talk with it.  But if what we hear is a full-grown echo, mine
at home can only have been a baby.  No, no -- they are devils
up there.  But I don't think much of them, though,' he added,
taking a pinch of snuff.  'They can copy what one says, but they
don't seem to be able to talk on their own account, and they
dare not show their faces,' and he relapsed into silence, and
apparently paid no further attention to such contemptible fiends.

After this we found it necessary to keep our conversation down
to a whisper -- for it was really unbearable to have every word
one uttered tossed to and fro like a tennis-ball, as precipice
called to precipice.

But even our whispers ran up the rocks in mysterious murmurs
till at last they died away in long-drawn sighs of sound.  Echoes
are delightful and romantic things, but we had more than enough
of them in that dreadful gulf.

As soon as we had settled ourselves a little on the round stones,
we went on to wash and dress our burns as well as we could.
As we had but a little oil for the lantern, we could not spare
any for this purpose, so we skinned one of the swans, and used
the fat off its breast, which proved an excellent substitute.
Then we repacked the canoe, and finally began to take some food,
of which I need scarcely say we were in need, for our insensibility
had endured for many hours, and it was, as our watches showed,
midday.  Accordingly we seated ourselves in a circle, and were
soon engaged in discussing our cold meat with such appetite as
we could muster, which, in my case at any rate, was not much,
as I felt sick and faint after my sufferings of the previous
night, and had besides a racking headache.  It was a curious
meal.  The gloom was so intense that we could scarcely see the
way to cut our food and convey it to our mouths.  Still we got
on pretty well, till I happened to look behind me -- my attention
being attracted by a noise of something crawling over the stones,
and perceived sitting upon a rock in my immediate rear a huge
species of black freshwater crab, only it was five times the
size of any crab I ever saw.  This hideous and loathsome-looking
animal had projecting eyes that seemed to glare at one, very
long and flexible antennae or feelers, and gigantic claws.
Nor was I especially favoured with its company.  From every quarter
dozens of these horrid brutes were creeping up, drawn, I suppose,
by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out
of holes in the precipice.  Some were already quite close to
us.  I stared quite fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I
did so I saw one of the beasts stretch out its huge claw and
give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind that he jumped up
with a howl, and set the 'wild echoes flying' in sober earnest.
Just then, too, another, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse's
leg, and declined to part with it, and, as may be imagined, a
considerable scene ensued.  Umslopogaas took his axe and cracked
the shell of one with the flat of it, whereon it set up a horrid
screaming which the echoes multiplied a thousandfold, and began
to foam at the mouth, a proceeding that drew hundreds more of
its friends out of unsuspected holes and corners.  Those on the
spot perceiving that the animal was hurt fell upon it like creditors
on a bankrupt, and literally rent it limb from limb with their
huge pincers and devoured it, using their claws to convey the
fragments to their mouths.  Seizing whatever weapons were handy,
such as stones or paddles, we commenced a war upon the monsters
-- whose numbers were increasing by leaps and bounds, and whose
stench was overpowering.  So fast as we cracked their armour
others seized the injured ones and devoured them, foaming at
the mouth, and screaming as they did so.  Nor did the brutes
stop at that.  When they could they nipped hold of us -- and
awful nips they were -- or tried to steal the meat.  One enormous
fellow got hold of the swan we had skinned and began to drag
it off.  Instantly a score of others flung themselves upon the
prey, and then began a ghastly and disgusting scene.  How the
monsters foamed and screamed, and rent the flesh, and each other!
It was a sickening and unnatural sight, and one that will haunt
all who saw it till their dying day -- enacted as it was in the
deep, oppressive gloom, and set to the unceasing music of the
many-toned nerve-shaking echoes.  Strange as it may seem to say
so, there was something so shockingly human about these fiendish
creatures -- it was as though all the most evil passions and
desires of man had got into the shell of a magnified crab and
gone mad.  They were so dreadfully courageous and intelligent,
and they looked as if they _understood_.  The whole scene might
have furnished material for another canto of Dante's 'Inferno',
as Curtis said.


'I say, you fellows, let's get out of this or we shall all go
off our heads,' sung out Good; and we were not slow to take the
hint.  Pushing the canoe, around which the animals were now crawling
by hundreds and making vain attempts to climb, off the rocks,
we bundled into it and got out into mid-stream, leaving behind
us the fragments of our meal and the screaming, foaming, stinking
mass of monsters in full possession of the ground.

'Those are the devils of the place,' said Umslopogaas with the
air of one who has solved a problem, and upon my word I felt
almost inclined to agree with him.

Umslopogaas' remarks were like his axe -- very much to the point.

'What's to be done next?' said Sir Henry blankly.

'Drift, I suppose,' I answered, and we drifted accordingly.
All the afternoon and well into the evening we floated on in
the gloom beneath the far-off line of blue sky, scarcely knowing
when day ended and night began, for down in that vast gulf the
difference was not marked, till at length Good pointed out a
star hanging right above us, which, having nothing better to
do, we observed with great interest.  Suddenly it vanished, the
darkness became intense, and a familiar murmuring sound filled
the air.  'Underground again,' I said with a groan, holding up
the lamp.  Yes, there was no doubt about it.  I could just make
out the roof.  The chasm had come to an end and the tunnel had
recommenced.  And then there began another long, long night of
danger and horror.  To describe all its incidents would be too
wearisome, so I will simply say that about midnight we struck
on a flat projecting rock in mid-stream and were as nearly as
possible overturned and drowned.  However, at last we got off,
and went upon the uneven tenor of our way.  And so the hours
passed till it was nearly three o'clock.  Sir Henry, Good, and
Alphonse were asleep, utterly worn out; Umslopogaas was at the
bow with the pole, and I was steering, when I perceived that
the rate at which we were travelling had perceptibly increased.
Then, suddenly, I heard Umslopogaas make an exclamation, and
next second came a sound as of parting branches, and I became
aware that the canoe was being forced through hanging bushes
or creepers.  Another minute, and the breath of sweet open air
fanned my face, and I felt that we had emerged from the tunnel
and were floating upon clear water.  I say felt, for I could
see nothing, the darkness being absolutely pitchy, as it often
is just before the dawn.  But even this could scarcely damp my
joy.  We were out of that dreadful river, and wherever we might
have got to this at least was something to be thankful for.
And so I sat down and inhaled the sweet night air and waited
for the dawn with such patience as I could command.




CHAPTER XI
THE FROWNING CITY



For an hour or more I sat waiting (Umslopogaas having meanwhile
gone to sleep also) till at length the east turned grey, and
huge misty shapes moved over the surface of the water like ghosts
of long-forgotten dawns.  They were the vapours rising from their
watery bed to greet the sun.  Then the grey turned to primrose,
and the primrose grew to red.  Next, glorious bars of light sprang
up across the eastern sky, and through them the radiant messengers
of the dawn came speeding upon their arrowy way, scattering the
ghostly vapours and awaking the mountains with a kiss, as they
flew from range to range and longitude to longitude.  Another
moment, and the golden gates were open and the sun himself came
forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, with pomp and glory and
a flashing as of ten million spears, and embraced the night and
covered her with brightness, and it was day.

But as yet I could see nothing save the beautiful blue sky above,
for over the water was a thick layer of mist exactly as though
the whole surface had been covered with billows of cotton wool.
By degrees, however, the sun sucked up the mists, and then I
saw that we were afloat upon a glorious sheet of blue water of
which I could not make out the shore.  Some eight or ten miles
behind us, however, there stretched as far as the eye could reach
a range of precipitous hills that formed a retaining wall of
the lake, and I have no doubt but that it was through some entrance
in these hills that the subterranean river found its way into
the open water.  Indeed, I afterwards ascertained this to be
the fact, and it will be some indication of the extraordinary
strength and directness of the current of the mysterious river
that the canoe, even at this distance, was still answering to
it.  Presently, too, I, or rather Umslopogaas, who woke up just
then, discovered another indication, and a very unpleasant one
it was.  Perceiving some whitish object upon the water, Umslopogaas
called my attention to it, and with a few strokes of the paddle
brought the canoe to the spot, whereupon we discovered that the
object was the body of a man floating face downwards.  This was
bad enough, but imagine my horror when Umslopogaas having turned
him on to his back with the paddle, we recognized in the sunken
features the lineaments of -- whom do you suppose?  None other
than our poor servant who had been sucked down two days before
in the waters of the subterranean river.  It quite frightened
me.  I thought that we had left him behind for ever, and behold!
borne by the current, he had made the awful journey with us,
and with us had reached the end.  His appearance also was dreadful,
for he bore traces of having touched the pillar of fire -- one
arm being completely shrivelled up and all his hair being burnt
off.  The features were, as I have said, sunken, and yet they
preserved upon them that awful look of despair that I had seen
upon his living face as the poor fellow was sucked down.  Really
the sight unnerved me, weary and shaken as I felt with all that
we had gone through, and I was heartily glad when suddenly and
without any warning the body began to sink just as though it
had had a mission, which having been accomplished, it retired;
the real reason no doubt being that turning it on its back allowed
a free passage to the gas.  Down it went to the transparent depths
-- fathom after fathom we could trace its course till at last
a long line of bright air-bubbles, swiftly chasing each other
to the surface, alone remained where it had passed.  At length
these, too, were gone, and that was an end of our poor servant.
Umslopogaas thoughtfully watched the body vanish.

'What did he follow us for?' he asked.  ''Tis an ill omen for
thee and me, Macumazahn.'  And he laughed.

I turned on him angrily, for I dislike these unpleasant suggestions.
If people have such ideas, they ought in common decency to keep
them to themselves.  I detest individuals who make on the subject
of their disagreeable presentiments, or who, when they dream
that they saw one hanged as a common felon, or some such horror,
will insist upon telling one all about it at breakfast, even
if they have to get up early to do it.

Just then, however, the others woke up and began to rejoice exceedingly
at finding that we were out of that dreadful river and once more
beneath the blue sky.  Then followed a babel of talk and suggestions
as to what we were to do next, the upshot of all of which was
that, as we were excessively hungry, and had nothing whatsoever
left to eat except a few scraps of biltong (dried game-flesh),
having abandoned all that remained of our provisions to those
horrible freshwater crabs, we determined to make for the shore.
But a new difficulty arose.  We did not know where the shore
was, and, with the exception of the cliffs through which the
subterranean river made its entry, could see nothing but a wide
expanse of sparkling blue water.  Observing, however, that the
long flights of aquatic birds kept flying from our left, we concluded
that they were advancing from their feeding-grounds on shore
to pass the day in the lake, and accordingly headed the boat
towards the quarter whence they came, and began to paddle.  Before
long, however, a stiffish breeze sprang up, blowing directly
in the direction we wanted, so we improvized a sail with a blanket
and the pole, which took us along merrily.  This done, we devoured
the remnants of our biltong, washed down with the sweet lake
water, and then lit our pipes and awaited whatever might turn up.

When we had been sailing for an hour, Good, who was searching
the horizon with the spy-glass, suddenly announced joyfully that
he saw land, and pointed out that, from the change in the colour
of the water, he thought we must be approaching the mouth of
a river.  In another minute we perceived a great golden dome,
not unlike that of St Paul's, piercing the morning mists, and
while we were wondering what in the world it could be, Good reported
another and still more important discovery, namely, that a small
sailing-boat was advancing towards us.  This bit of news, which
we were very shortly able to verify with our own eyes, threw
us into a considerable flutter.  That the natives of this unknown
lake should understand the art of sailing seemed to suggest that
they possessed some degree of civilization.  In a few more minutes
it became evident that the occupant or occupants of the advancing
boat had made us out.  For a moment or two she hung in the wind
as though in doubt, and then came tacking towards us with great
swiftness.  In ten more minutes she was within a hundred yards,
and we saw that she was a neat little boat -- not a canoe 'dug
out', but built more or less in the European fashion with planks,
and carrying a singularly large sail for her size.  But our attention
was soon diverted from the boat to her crew, which consisted
of a man and a woman, _nearly as white as ourselves_.

We stared at each other in amazement, thinking that we must be
mistaken; but no, there was no doubt about it.  They were not
fair, but the two people in the boat were decidedly of a white
as distinguished from a black race, as white, for instance, as
Spaniards or Italians.  It was a patent fact.  So it was true,
after all; and, mysteriously led by a Power beyond our own, we
had discovered this wonderful people.  I could have shouted for
joy when I thought of the glory and the wonder of the thing;
and as it was, we all shook hands and congratulated each other
on the unexpected success of our wild search.  All my life had
I heard rumours of a white race that existed in the highlands
of this vast continent, and longed to put them to the proof,
and now here I saw it with my own eyes, and was dumbfounded.
Truly, as Sir Henry said, the old Roman was right when he wrote
'Ex Africa semper aliquid novi', which he tells me means that
out of Africa there always comes some new thing.

The man in the boat was of a good but not particularly fine physique,
and possessed straight black hair, regular aquiline features,
and an intelligent face.  He was dressed in a brown cloth garment,
something like a flannel shirt without the sleeves, and in an
unmistakable kilt of the same material.  The legs and feet were
bare.  Round the right arm and left leg he wore thick rings of
yellow metal that I judged to be gold.  The woman had a sweet
face, wild and shy, with large eyes and curling brown hair.
Her dress was made of the same material as the man's, and consisted,
as we afterwards discovered, first of a linen under-garment that
hung down to her knee, and then of a single long strip of cloth,
about four feet wide by fifteen long, which was wound round the
body in graceful folds and finally flung over the left shoulder
so that the end, which was dyed blue or purple or some other
colour, according to the social standing of the wearer, hung
down in front, the right arm and breast being, however, left
quite bare.  A more becoming dress, especially when, as in the
present case, the wearer was young and pretty, it is quite impossible
to conceive.  Good (who has an eye for such things) was greatly
struck with it, and so indeed was I.  It was so simple and yet
so effective.

Meanwhile, if we had been astonished at the appearance of the
man and woman, it was clear that they were far more astonished
at us.  As for the man, he appeared to be overcome with fear
and wonder, and for a while hovered round our canoe, but would
not approach.  At last, however, he came within hailing distance,
and called to us in a language that sounded soft and pleasing
enough, but of which we could not understand one word.  So we
hailed back in English, French, Latin, Greek, German, Zulu, Dutch,
Sisutu, Kukuana, and a few other native dialects that I am acquainted
with, but our visitor did not understand any of these tongues;
indeed, they appeared to bewilder him.  As for the lady, she was
busily employed in taking stock of us, and Good was returning
the compliment by staring at her hard through his eyeglass,
a proceeding that she seemed rather to enjoy than otherwise.
At length, the man, being unable to make anything of us, suddenly
turned his boat round and began to head off for the shore,
his little boat skimming away before the wind like a swallow.
As she passed across our bows the man turned to attend to the
large sail, and Good promptly took the opportunity to kiss his hand
to the young lady.  I was horrified at this proceeding, both on
general grounds and because I feared that she might take offence,
but to my delight she did not, for, first glancing round and
seeing that her husband, or brother, or whoever he was, was engaged,
she promptly kissed hers back.

'Ah!' said I.  'It seems that we have at last found a language
that the people of this country understand.'

'In which case,' said Sir Henry, 'Good will prove an invaluable
interpreter.'

I frowned, for I do not approve of Good's frivolities, and he
knows it, and I turned the conversation to more serious subjects.
'It is very clear to me,' I said, 'that the man will be back
before long with a host of his fellows, so we had best make up
our minds as to how we are going to receive them.'

'The question is how will they receive us?' said Sir Henry.

As for Good he made no remark, but began to extract a small square
tin case that had accompanied us in all our wanderings from under
a pile of baggage.  Now we had often remonstrated with Good about
this tin case, inasmuch as it had been an awkward thing to carry,
and he had never given any very explicit account as to its contents;
but he had insisted on keeping it, saying mysteriously that it
might come in very useful one day.

'What on earth are you going to do, Good?' asked Sir Henry.

'Do -- why dress, of course!  You don't expect me to appear in
a new country in these things, do you?' and he pointed to his
soiled and worn garments, which were however, like all Good's
things, very tidy, and with every tear neatly mended.

We said no more, but watched his proceedings with breathless
interest.  His first step was to get Alphonse, who was thoroughly
competent in such matters, to trim his hair and beard in the
most approved fashion.  I think that if he had had some hot water
and a cake of soap at hand he would have shaved off the latter;
but he had not.  This done, he suggested that we should lower
the sail of the canoe and all take a bath, which we did, greatly
to the horror and astonishment of Alphonse, who lifted his hands
and ejaculated that these English were indeed a wonderful people.
Umslopogaas, who, though he was, like most high-bred Zulus,
scrupulously cleanly in his person, did not see the fun of swimming
about in a lake, also regarded the proceeding with mild amusement.
We got back into the canoe much refreshed by the cold water,
and sat to dry in the sun, whilst Good undid his tin box, and
produced first a beautiful clean white shirt, just as it had
left a London steam laundry, and then some garments wrapped first
in brown, then in white, and finally in silver paper.  We watched
this undoing with the tenderest interest and much speculation.
One by one Good removed the dull husks that hid their splendours,
carefully folding and replacing each piece of paper as he did
so; and there at last lay, in all the majesty of its golden epaulettes,
lace, and buttons, a Commander of the Royal Navy's full-dress
uniform -- dress sword, cocked hat, shiny patent leather boots
and all.  We literally gasped.

'_What!_' we said, '_what!_  Are you going to put those things on?'

'Certainly,' he answered composedly; 'you see so much depends
upon a first impression, especially,' he added, 'as I observe
that there are ladies about.  One at least of us ought to be
decently dressed.'

We said no more; we were simply dumbfounded, especially when
we considered the artful way in which Good had concealed the
contents of that box for all these months.  Only one suggestion
did we make -- namely, that he should wear his mail shirt next
his skin.  He replied that he feared it would spoil the set of
his coat, now carefully spread in the sun to take the creases
out, but finally consented to this precautionary measure.  The
most amusing part of the affair, however, was to see old Umslopogaas's
astonishment and Alphonse's delight at Good's transformation.
When at last he stood up in all his glory, even down to the
medals on his breast, and contemplated himself in the still waters
of the lake, after the fashion of the young gentleman in ancient
history, whose name I cannot remember, but who fell in love with
his own shadow, the old Zulu could no longer restrain his feelings.

'Oh, Bougwan!' he said.  'Oh, Bougwan!  I always thought thee
an ugly little man, and fat -- fat as the cows at calving time;
and now thou art like a blue jay when he spreads his tail out.
Surely, Bougwan, it hurts my eyes to look at thee.'

Good did not much like this allusion to his fat, which, to tell
the truth, was not very well deserved, for hard exercise had
brought him down three inches; but on the whole he was pleased
at Umslopogaas's admiration.  As for Alphonse, he was quite delighted.

'Ah! but Monsieur has the beautiful air -- the air of the warrior.
It is the ladies who will say so when we come to get ashore.
Monsieur is complete; he puts me in mind of my heroic grand --'

Here we stopped Alphonse.

As we gazed upon the beauties thus revealed by Good, a spirit
of emulation filled our breasts, and we set to work to get ourselves
up as well as we could.  The most, however, that we were able
to do was to array ourselves in our spare suits of shooting clothes,
of which we each had several, all the fine clothes in the world
could never make it otherwise than scrubby and insignificant;
but Sir Henry looked what he is, a magnificent man in his nearly
new tweed suit, gaiters, and boots.  Alphonse also got himself
up to kill, giving an extra turn to his enormous moustaches.
Even old Umslopogaas, who was not in a general way given to
the vain adorning of his body, took some oil out of the lantern
and a bit of tow, and polished up his head-ring with it till
it shone like Good's patent leather boots.  Then he put on the
mail shirt Sir Henry had given him and his 'moocha', and, having
cleaned up Inkosi-kaas a little, stood forth complete.

All this while, having hoisted the sail again as soon as we had
finished bathing, we had been progressing steadily for the land,
or, rather, for the mouth of a great river.  Presently -- in
all about an hour and a half after the little boat had left us
-- we saw emerging from the river or harbour a large number of
boats, ranging up to ten or twelve tons burden.  One of these
was propelled by twenty-four oars, and most of the rest sailed.
Looking through the glass we soon made out that the row-boat
was an official vessel, her crew being all dressed in a sort
of uniform, whilst on the half-deck forward stood an old man
of venerable appearance, and with a flowing white beard, and
a sword strapped to his side, who was evidently the commander
of the craft.  The other boats were apparently occupied by people
brought out by curiosity, and were rowing or sailing towards
us as quickly as they could.

'Now for it,' said I.  'What is the betting?  Are they going
to be friendly or to put an end to us?'

Nobody could answer this question, and, not liking the warlike
appearance of the old gentleman and his sword, we felt a
little anxious.

Just then Good spied a school of hippopotami on the water about
two hundred yards off us, and suggested that it would not be
a bad plan to impress the natives with a sense of our power by
shooting some of them if possible.  This, unluckily enough, struck
us as a good idea, and accordingly we at once got out our eight-bore
rifles, for which we still had a few cartridges left, and prepared
for action.  There were four of the animals, a big bull, a cow,
and two young ones, one three parts grown.  We got up to them
without difficulty, the great animals contenting themselves with
sinking down into the water and rising again a few yards farther
on; indeed, their excessive tameness struck me as being peculiar.
When the advancing boats were about five hundred yards away,
Sir Henry opened the ball by firing at the three parts grown
young one.  The heavy bullet struck it fair between the eyes,
and, crashing through the skull, killed it, and it sank, leaving
a long train of blood behind it.  At the same moment I fired
at the cow, and Good at the old bull.  My shot took effect, but
not fatally, and down went the hippopotamus with a prodigious
splashing, only to rise again presently blowing and grunting
furiously, dyeing all the water round her crimson, when I killed
her with the left barrel.  Good, who is an execrable shot, missed
the head of the bull altogether, the bullet merely cutting the
side of his face as it passed.  On glancing up, after I had fired
my second shot, I perceived that the people we had fallen among
were evidently ignorant of the nature of firearms, for the consternation
caused by our shots and their effect upon the animals was prodigious.
Some of the parties in the boats began to cry out in fear; others
turned and made off as hard as they could; and even the old gentleman
with the sword looked greatly puzzled and alarmed, and halted
his big row-boat.  We had, however, but little time for observation,
for just then the old bull, rendered furious by the wound he
had received, rose fair within forty yards of us, glaring savagely.
We all fired, and hit him in various places, and down he went,
badly wounded.  Curiosity now began to overcome the fear of the
onlookers, and some of them sailed on up close to us, amongst
these being the man and woman whom we had first seen a couple
of hours or so before, who drew up almost alongside.  Just then
the great brute rose again within ten yards of their base, and
instantly with a roar of fury made at it open-mouthed.  The woman
shrieked, and the man tried to give the boat way, but without
success.  In another second I saw the huge red jaws and gleaming
ivories close with a crunch on the frail craft, taking an enormous
mouthful out of its side and capsizing it.  Down went the boat,
leaving its occupants struggling in the water.  Next moment,
before we could do anything towards saving them, the huge and
furious creature was up again and making open-mouthed at the
poor girl, who was struggling in the water.  Lifting my rifle
just as the grinding jaws were about to close on her, I fired
over her head right down the hippopotamus's throat.  Over he
went, and commenced turning round and round, snorting, and blowing
red streams of blood through his nostrils.  Before he could recover
himself, however, I let him have the other barrel in the side
of the throat, and that finished him.  He never moved or struggled
again, but instantly sank.  Our next effort was directed towards
saving the girl, the man having swum off towards another boat;
and in this we were fortunately successful, pulling her into
the canoe (amidst the shouts of the spectators) considerably
exhausted and frightened, but otherwise unhurt.

Meanwhile the boats had gathered together at a distance, and
we could see that the occupants, who were evidently much frightened,
were consulting what to do.  Without giving them time for further
consideration, which we thought might result unfavourably to
ourselves, we instantly took our paddles and advanced towards
them, Good standing in the bow and taking off his cocked hat
politely in every direction, his amiable features suffused by
a bland but intelligent smile.  Most of the craft retreated as
we advanced, but a few held their ground, while the big row-boat
came on to meet us.  Presently we were alongside, and I could
see that our appearance -- and especially Good's and Umslopogaas's
-- filled the venerable-looking commander with astonishment,
not unmixed with awe.  He was dressed after the same fashion
as the man we first met, except that his shirt was not made of
brown cloth, but of pure white linen hemmed with purple.  The
kilt, however, was identical, and so were the thick rings of
gold around the arm and beneath the left knee.  The rowers wore
only a kilt, their bodies being naked to the waist.  Good took
off his hat to the old gentleman with an extra flourish, and
inquired after his health in the purest English, to which he
replied by laying the first two fingers of his right hand horizontally
across his lips and holding them there for a moment, which we
took as his method of salutation.  Then he also addressed some
remarks to us in the same soft accents that had distinguished
our first interviewer, which we were forced to indicate we did
not understand by shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders.
This last Alphonse, being to the manner born, did to perfection,
and in so polite a way that nobody could take any offence.  Then
we came a standstill, till I, being exceedingly hungry, thought
I might as well call attention to the fact, and did so first
by opening my mouth and pointing down it, and then rubbing my
stomach.  These signals the old gentleman clearly understood,
for he nodded his head vigorously, and pointed towards the harbour;
and at the same time one of the men on his boat threw us a line
and motioned to us to make it fast, which we did.  The row-boat
then took us in tow, and went with great rapidity towards the
mouth of the river, accompanied by all the other boats.  In about
twenty minutes more we reached the entrance to the harbour, which
was crowded with boats full of people who had come out to see
us.  We observed that all the occupants were more or less of
the same type, though some were fairer than others.  Indeed,
we noticed certain ladies whose skin was of a most dazzling whiteness;
and the darkest shade of colour which we saw was about that of
a rather swarthy Spaniard.  Presently the wide river gave a sweep,
and when it did so an exclamation of astonishment and delight
burst from our lips as we caught our first view of the place
that we afterwards knew as Milosis, or the Frowning City (from
mi, which means city, and losis, a frown).

At a distance of some five hundred yards from the river's bank
rose a sheer precipice of granite, two hundred feet or so in
height, which had no doubt once formed the bank itself -- the
intermediate space of land now utilized as docks and roadways
having been gained by draining, and deepening and embanking
the stream.

On the brow of this precipice stood a great building of the same
granite that formed the cliff, built on three sides of a square,
the fourth side being open, save for a kind of battlement pierced
at its base by a little door.  This imposing place we afterwards
discovered was the palace of the queen, or rather of the queens.
At the back of the palace the town sloped gently upwards to
a flashing building of white marble, crowned by the golden dome
which we had already observed.  The city was, with the exception
of this one building, entirely built of red granite, and laid
out in regular blocks with splendid roadways between.  So far
as we could see also the houses were all one-storied and detached,
with gardens round them, which gave some relief to the eye wearied
with the vista of red granite.  At the back of the palace a road
of extraordinary width stretched away up the hill for a distance
of a mile and a half or so, and appeared to terminate at an open
space surrounding the gleaming building that crowned the hill.
But right in front of us was the wonder and glory of Milosis
-- the great staircase of the palace, the magnificence of which
took our breath away.  Let the reader imagine, if he can, a splendid
stairway, sixty-five feet from balustrade to balustrade, consisting
of two vast flights, each of one hundred and twenty-five steps
of eight inches in height by three feet broad, connected by a
flat resting-place sixty feet in length, and running from the
palace wall on the edge of the precipice down to meet a waterway
or canal cut to its foot from the river.  This marvellous staircase
was supported upon a single enormous granite arch, of which the
resting-place between the two flights formed the crown; that
is, the connecting open space lay upon it.  From this archway
sprang a subsidiary flying arch, or rather something that resembled
a flying arch in shape, such as none of us had seen in any other
country, and of which the beauty and wonder surpassed all that
we had ever imagined.  Three hundred feet from point to point,
and no less than five hundred and fifty round the curve, that
half-arc soared touching the bridge it supported for a space
of fifty feet only, one end resting on and built into the parent
archway, and the other embedded in the solid granite of the side
of the precipice.

This staircase with its supports was, indeed, a work of which
any living man might have been proud, both on account of its
magnitude and its surpassing beauty.  Four times, as we afterwards
learnt, did the work, which was commenced in remote antiquity,
fail, and was then abandoned for three centuries when half-finished,
till at last there rose a youthful engineer named Rademas, who
said that he would complete it successfully, and staked his life
upon it.  If he failed he was to be hurled from the precipice
he had undertaken to scale; if he succeeded, he was to be rewarded
by the hand of the king's daughter.  Five years was given to
him to complete the work, and an unlimited supply of labour and
material.  Three times did his arch fall, till at last, seeing
failure to be inevitable, he determined to commit suicide on
the morrow of the third collapse.  That night, however, a beautiful
woman came to him in a dream and touched his forehead, and of
a sudden he saw a vision of the completed work, and saw too through
the masonry and how the difficulties connected with the flying
arch that had hitherto baffled his genius were to be overcome.
Then he awoke and once more commenced the work, but on a different
plan, and behold! he achieved it, and on the last day of the
five years he led the princess his bride up the stair and into
the palace.  And in due course he became king by right of his
wife, and founded the present Zu-Vendi dynasty, which is to this
day called the 'House of the Stairway', thus proving once more
how energy and talent are the natural stepping-stones to grandeur.
And to commemorate his triumph he fashioned a statue of himself
dreaming, and of the fair woman who touched him on the forehead,
and placed it in the great hall of the palace, and there it stands
to this day.

Such was the great stair of Milosis, and such the city beyond.
No wonder they named it the 'Frowning City', for certainly those
mighty works in solid granite did seem to frown down upon our
littleness in their sombre splendour.  This was so even in the
sunshine, but when the storm-clouds gathered on her imperial
brow Milosis looked more like a supernatural dwelling-place,
or some imagining of a poet's brain, than what she is --
a mortal city, carven by the patient genius of generations out
of the red silence of the mountain side.




CHAPTER XII
THE SISTER QUEENS



The big rowing-boat glided on up the cutting that ran almost
to the foot of the vast stairway, and then halted at a flight
of steps leading to the landing-place.  Here the old gentleman
disembarked, and invited us to do so likewise, which, having
no alternative, and being nearly starved, we did without hesitation
-- taking our rifles with us, however.  As each of us landed,
our guide again laid his fingers on his lips and bowed deeply,
at the same time ordering back the crowds which had assembled
to gaze on us.  The last to leave the canoe was the girl we had
picked out of the water, for whom her companion was waiting.
Before she went away she kissed my hand, I suppose as a token
of gratitude for having saved her from the fury of the hippopotamus;
and it seemed to me that she had by this time quite got over
any fear she might have had of us, and was by no means anxious
to return in such a hurry to her lawful owners.  At any rate,
she was going to kiss Good's hand as well as mine, when the young
man interfered and led her off.  As soon as we were on shore,
a number of the men who had rowed the big boat took possession
of our few goods and chattels, and started with them up the splendid
staircase, our guide indicating to us by means of motions that
the things were perfectly safe.  This done, he turned to the
right and led the way to a small house, which was, as I afterwards
discovered, an inn.  Entering into a good-sized room, we saw
that a wooden table was already furnished with food, presumably
in preparation for us.  Here our guide motioned us to be seated
on a bench that ran the length of the table.  We did not require
a second invitation, but at once fell to ravenously on the viands
before us, which were served on wooden platters, and consisted
of cold goat's-flesh, wrapped up in some kind of leaf that gave
it a delicious flavour, green vegetables resembling lettuces,
brown bread, and red wine poured from a skin into horn mugs.
This wine was peculiarly soft and good, having something of
the flavour of Burgundy.  Twenty minutes after we sat down at
that hospitable board we rose from it, feeling like new men.
After all that we had gone through we needed two things, food
and rest, and the food of itself was a great blessing to us.
Two girls of the same charming cast of face as the first whom
we had seen waited on us while we ate, and very nicely they did
it.  They were also dressed in the same fashion namely, in a
white linen petticoat coming to the knee, and with the toga-like
garment of brown cloth, leaving bare the right arm and breast.
I afterwards found out that this was the national dress, and
regulated by an iron custom, though of course subject to variations.
Thus, if the petticoat was pure white, it signified that the
wearer was unmarried; if white, with a straight purple stripe
round the edge, that she was married and a first or legal wife;
if with a black stripe, that she was a widow.  In the same way
the toga, or 'kaf', as they call it, was of different shades
of colour, from pure white to the deepest brown, according to
the rank of the wearer, and embroidered at the end in various
ways.  This also applies to the 'shirts' or tunics worn by the
men, which varied in material and colour; but the kilts were
always the same except as regards quality.  One thing, however,
every man and woman in the country wore as the national insignia,
and that was the thick band of gold round the right arm above
the elbow, and the left leg beneath the knee.  People of high
rank also wore a torque of gold round the neck, and I observed
that our guide had one on.

So soon as we had finished our meal our venerable conductor,
who had been standing all the while, regarding us with inquiring
eyes, and our guns with something as like fear as his pride would
allow him to show, bowed towards Good, whom he evidently took
for the leader of the party on account of the splendour of his
apparel, and once more led the way through the door and to the
foot of the great staircase.  Here we paused for a moment to
admire two colossal lions, each hewn from a single block of pure
black marble, and standing rampant on the terminations of the
wide balustrades of the staircase.  These lions are magnificently
executed, and it is said were sculptured by Rademas, the great
prince who designed the staircase, and who was without doubt,
to judge from the many beautiful examples of his art that we
saw afterwards, one of the finest sculptors who ever lived, either
in this or any other country.  Then we climbed almost with a
feeling of awe up that splendid stair, a work executed for all
time and that will, I do not doubt, be admired thousands of years
hence by generations unborn unless an earthquake should throw
it down.  Even Umslopogaas, who as a general rule made it a point
of honour not to show astonishment, which he considered undignified,
was fairly startled out of himself, and asked if the 'bridge
had been built by men or devils', which was his vague way of
alluding to any supernatural power.  But Alphonse did not care
about it.  Its solid grandeur jarred upon the frivolous little
Frenchman, who said that it was all 'tres magnifique, mais triste
-- ah, triste!' and went on to suggest that it would be improved
if the balustrades were _gilt_.

On we went up the first flight of one hundred and twenty steps,
across the broad platform joining it to the second flight, where
we paused to admire the glorious view of one of the most beautiful
stretches of country that the world can show, edged by the blue
waters of the lake.  Then we passed on up the stair till at last
we reached the top, where we found a large standing space to
which there were three entrances, all of small size.  Two of
these opened on to rather narrow galleries or roadways cut in
the face of the precipice that ran round the palace walls and
led to the principal thoroughfares of the city, and were used
by the inhabitants passing up and down from the docks.  These
were defended by gates of bronze, and also, as we afterwards
learnt, it was possible to let down a portion of the roadways
themselves by withdrawing certain bolts, and thus render it quite
impracticable for an enemy to pass.  The third entrance consisted
of a flight of ten curved black marble steps leading to a doorway
cut in the palace wall.  This wall was in itself a work of art,
being built of huge blocks of granite to the height of forty
feet, and so fashioned that its face was concave, whereby it
was rendered practically impossible for it to be scaled.  To
this doorway our guide led us.  The door, which was massive,
and made of wood protected by an outer gate of bronze, was closed;
but on our approach it was thrown wide, and we were met by the
challenge of a sentry, who was armed with a heavy triangular-bladed
spear, not unlike a bayonet in shape, and a cutting sword, and
protected by breast and back plates of skilfully prepared hippopotamus
hide, and a small round shield fashioned of the same tough material.
The sword instantly attracted our attention; it was practically
identical with the one in the possession of Mr Mackenzie which
he had obtained from the ill-starred wanderer.  There was no
mistaking the gold-lined fretwork cut in the thickness of the
blade.  So the man had told the truth after all.  Our guide instantly
gave a password, which the soldier acknowledged by letting the
iron shaft of his spear fall with a ringing sound upon the pavement,
and we passed on through the massive wall into the courtyard
of the palace.  This was about forty yards square, and laid out
in flower-beds full of lovely shrubs and plants, many of which
were quite new to me.  Through the centre of this garden ran
a broad walk formed of powdered shells brought from the lake
in the place of gravel.  Following this we came to another doorway
with a round heavy arch, which is hung with thick curtains, for
there are no doors in the palace itself.  Then came another short
passage, and we were in the great hall of the palace, and once
more stood astonished at the simple and yet overpowering grandeur
of the place.

The hall is, as we afterwards learnt, one hundred and fifty feet
long by eighty wide, and has a magnificent arched roof of carved
wood.  Down the entire length of the building there are on either
side, and at a distance of twenty feet from the wall, slender
shafts of black marble springing sheer to the roof, beautifully
fluted, and with carved capitals.  At one end of this great place
which these pillars support is the group of which I have already
spoken as executed by the King Rademas to commemorate his building
of the staircase; and really, when we had time to admire it,
its loveliness almost struck us dumb.  The group, of which the
figures are in white, and the rest is black marble, is about
half as large again as life, and represents a young man of noble
countenance and form sleeping heavily upon a couch.  One arm
is carelessly thrown over the side of this couch, and his head
reposes upon the other, its curling locks partially hiding it.
Bending over him, her hand resting on his forehead, is a draped
female form of such white loveliness as to make the beholder's
breath stand still.  And as for the calm glory that shines upon
her perfect face -- well, I can never hope to describe it.  But
there it rests like the shadow of an angel's smile; and power,
love, and divinity all have their part in it.  Her eyes are fixed
upon the sleeping youth, and perhaps the most extraordinary thing
about this beautiful work is the success with which the artist
has succeeded in depicting on the sleeper's worn and weary face
the sudden rising of a new and spiritual thought as the spell
begins to work within his mind.  You can see that an inspiration
is breaking in upon the darkness of the man's soul as the dawn
breaks in upon the darkness of night.  It is a glorious piece
of statuary, and none but a genius could have conceived it.
Between each of the black marble columns is some such group of
figures, some allegorical, and some representing the persons
and wives of deceased monarchs or great men; but none of them,
in our opinion, comes up the one I have described, although several
are from the hand of the sculptor and engineer, King Rademas.

In the exact centre of the hall was a solid mass of black marble
about the size of a baby's arm-chair, which it rather resembled
in appearance.  This, as we afterwards learnt, was the sacred
stone of this remarkable people, and on it their monarchs laid
their hand after the ceremony of coronation, and swore by the
sun to safeguard the interests of the empire, and to maintain
its customs, traditions, and laws.  This stone was evidently
exceedingly ancient (as indeed all stones are), and was scored
down its sides with long marks or lines, which Sir Henry said
proved it to have been a fragment that at some remote period
in its history had been ground in the iron jaws of glaciers.
There was a curious prophecy about this block of marble, which
was reported among the people to have fallen from the sun, to
the effect that when it was shattered into fragments a king of
alien race should rule over the land.  As the stone, however,
looked remarkably solid, the native princes seemed to have a
fair chance of keeping their own for many a long year.

At the end of the hall is a dais spread with rich carpets, on
which two thrones are set side by side.  These thrones are shaped
like great chairs, and made of solid gold.  The seats are richly
cushioned, but the backs are left bare, and on each is carved
the emblem of the sun, shooting out his fiery rays in all directions.
The footstools are golden lions couchant, with yellow topazes
set in them for eyes.  There are no other gems about them.

The place is lighted by numerous but narrow windows, placed high
up, cut on the principle of the loopholes to be seen in ancient
castles, but innocent of glass, which was evidently unknown here.

Such is a brief description of this splendid hall in which we
now found ourselves, compiled of course from our subsequent knowledge
of it.  On this occasion we had but little time for observation,
for when we entered we perceived that a large number of men were
gathered together in front of the two thrones, which were unoccupied.
The principal among them were seated on carved wooden chairs
ranged to the right and the left of the thrones, but not in front
of them, and were dressed in white tunics, with various embroideries
and different coloured edgings, and armed with the usual pierced
and gold-inlaid swords.  To judge from the dignity of their appearance,
they seemed one and all to be individuals of very great importance.
Behind each of these great men stood a small knot of followers
and attendants.

Seated by themselves, in a little group to the left of the throne,
were six men of a different stamp.  Instead of wearing the ordinary
kilt, they were clothed in long robes of pure white linen, with
the same symbol of the sun that is to be seen on the back of
the chairs, emblazoned in gold thread upon the breast.  This
garment was girt up at the waist with a simple golden curb-like
chain, from which hung long elliptic plates of the same metal,
fashioned in shiny scales like those of a fish, that, as their
wearers moved, jingled and reflected the light.  They were all
men of mature age and of a severe and impressive cast of features,
which was rendered still more imposing by the long beards they wore.

The personality of one individual among them, however, impressed
us at once.  He seemed to stand out among his fellows and refuse
to be overlooked.  He was very old -- eighty at least -- and
extremely tall, with a long snow-white beard that hung nearly
to his waist.  His features were aquiline and deeply cut, and
his eyes were grey and cold-looking.  The heads of the others
were bare, but this man wore a round cap entirely covered with
gold embroidery, from which we judged that he was a person of
great importance; and indeed we afterwards discovered that he
was Agon, the High Priest of the country.  As we approached,
all these men, including the priests, rose and bowed to us with
the greatest courtesy, at the same time placing the two fingers
across the lips in salutation.  Then soft-footed attendants advanced
from between the pillars, bearing seats, which were placed in
a line in front of the thrones.  We three sat down, Alphonse
and Umslopogaas standing behind us.  Scarcely had we done so
when there came a blare of trumpets from some passage to the
right, and a similar blare from the left.  Next a man with a
long white wand of ivory appeared just in front of the right-hand
throne, and cried out something in a loud voice, ending with
the word _Nyleptha_, repeated three times; and another man, similarly
attired, called out a similar sentence before the other throne,
but ending with the word _Sorais_, also repeated thrice.  Then
came the tramp of armed men from each side entrance, and in filed
about a score of picked and magnificently accoutred guards, who
formed up on each side of the thrones, and let their heavy iron-handled
spears fall simultaneously with a clash upon the black marble
flooring.  Another double blare of trumpets, and in from either
side, each attended by six maidens, swept the two Queens of Zu-Vendis,
everybody in the hall rising to greet them as they came.

I have seen beautiful women in my day, and am no longer thrown
into transports at the sight of a pretty face; but language fails
me when I try to give some idea of the blaze of loveliness that
then broke upon us in the persons of these sister Queens.  Both
were young -- perhaps five-and-twenty years of age -- both were
tall and exquisitely formed; but there the likeness stopped.
One, Nyleptha, was a woman of dazzling fairness; her right arm
and breast bare, after the custom of her people, showed like
snow even against her white and gold-embroidered 'kaf', or toga.
And as for her sweet face, all I can say is, that it was one
that few men could look on and forget.  Her hair, a veritable
crown of gold, clustered in short ringlets over her shapely head,
half hiding the ivory brow, beneath which eyes of deep and glorious
grey flashed out in tender majesty.  I cannot attempt to describe
her other features, only the mouth was most sweet, and curved
like Cupid's bow, and over the whole countenance there shone
an indescribable look of loving-kindness, lit up by a shadow
of delicate humour that lay upon her face like a touch of silver
on a rosy cloud.

She wore no jewels, but on her neck, arm, and knee were the usual
torques of gold, in this instance fashioned like a snake; and
her dress was of pure white linen of excessive fineness, plentifully
embroidered with gold and with the familiar symbols of the sun.

Her twin sister, Sorais, was of a different and darker type of
beauty.  Her hair was wavy like Nyleptha's but coal-black, and
fell in masses on her shoulders; her complexion was olive, her
eyes large, dark, and lustrous; the lips were full, and I thought
rather cruel.  Somehow her face, quiet and even cold as it is,
gave an idea of passion in repose, and caused one to wonder involuntarily
what its aspect would be if anything occurred to break the calm.
It reminded me of the deep sea, that even on the bluest days
never loses its visible stamp of power, and in its murmuring
sleep is yet instinct with the spirit of the storm.  Her figure,
like her sister's, was almost perfect in its curves and outlines,
but a trifle more rounded, and her dress was absolutely the same.

As this lovely pair swept onwards to their respective thrones,
amid the deep attentive silence of the Court, I was bound to
confess to myself that they did indeed fulfil my idea of royalty.
Royal they were in every way -- in form, in grace, and queenly
dignity, and in the barbaric splendour of their attendant pomp.
But methought that they needed no guards or gold to proclaim
their power and bind the loyalty of wayward men.  A glance from
those bright eyes or a smile from those sweet lips, and while
the red blood runs in the veins of youth women such as these
will never lack subjects ready to do their biddings to the death.

But after all they were women first and queens afterwards, and
therefore not devoid of curiosity.  As they passed to their seats
I saw both of them glance swiftly in our direction.  I saw, too,
that their eyes passed by me, seeing nothing to charm them in
the person of an insignificant and grizzled old man.  Then they
looked with evident astonishment on the grim form of old Umslopogaas,
who raised his axe in salutation.  Attracted next by the splendour
of Good's apparel, for a second their glance rested on him like
a humming moth upon a flower, then off it darted to where Sir
Henry Curtis stood, the sunlight from a window playing upon his
yellow hair and peaked beard, and marking the outlines of his
massive frame against the twilight of the somewhat gloomy hall.
He raised his eyes, and they met the fair Nyleptha's full, and
thus for the first time the goodliest man and woman that it has
ever been my lot to see looked one upon another.  And why it
was I know not, but I saw the swift blood run up Nyleptha's skin
as the pink lights run up the morning sky.  Red grew her fair
bosom and shapely arm, red the swanlike neck; the rounded cheeks
blushed red as the petals of a rose, and then the crimson flood
sank back to whence it came and left her pale and trembling.

I glanced at Sir Henry.  He, too, had coloured up to the eyes.

'Oh, my word!' thought I to myself, 'the ladies have come on
the stage, and now we may look to the plot to develop itself.'
And I sighed and shook my head, knowing that the beauty of a
woman is like the beauty of the lightning -- a destructive thing
and a cause of desolation.  By the time that I had finished my
reflections both the Queens were on the thrones, for all this
had happened in about six seconds.  Once more the unseen trumpets
blared out, and then the Court seated itself, and Queen Sorais
motioned to us to do likewise.

Next from among the crowd whither he had withdrawn stepped forward
our guide, the old gentleman who had towed us ashore, holding
by the hand the girl whom we had seen first and afterwards rescued
from the hippopotamus.  Having made obeisance he proceeded to
address the Queens, evidently describing to them the way and
place where we had been found.  It was most amusing to watch
the astonishment, not unmixed with fear, reflected upon their
faces as they listened to his tale.  Clearly they could not understand
how we had reached the lake and been found floating on it, and
were inclined to attribute our presence to supernatural causes.
Then the narrative proceeded, as I judged from the frequent
appeals that our guide made to the girl, to the point where we
had shot the hippopotami, and we at once perceived that there
was something very wrong about those hippopotami, for the history
was frequently interrupted by indignant exclamations from the
little group of white-robed priests and even from the courtiers,
while the two Queens listened with an amazed expression, especially
when our guide pointed to the rifles in our hands as being the
means of destruction.  And here, to make matters clear, I may
as well explain at once that the inhabitants of Zu-Vendis are
sun-worshippers, and that for some reason or another the hippopotamus
is sacred among them.  Not that they do not kill it, because
at a certain season of the year they slaughter thousands -- which
are specially preserved in large lakes up the country -- and
use their hides for armour for soldiers; but this does not prevent
them from considering these animals as sacred to the sun. {Endnote 11}
Now, as ill luck would have it, the particular hippopotami we
had shot were a family of tame animals that were kept in the
mouth of the port and daily fed by priests whose special duty
it was to attend to them.  When we shot them I thought that the
brutes were suspiciously tame, and this was, as we afterwards
ascertained, the cause of it.  Thus it came about that in attempting
to show off we had committed sacrilege of a most aggravated nature.

When our guide had finished his tale, the old man with the long
beard and round cap, whose appearance I have already described,
and who was, as I have said, the High Priest of the country,
and known by the name of Agon, rose and commenced an impassioned
harangue.  I did not like the look of his cold grey eye as he
fixed it on us.  I should have liked it still less had I known
that in the name of the outraged majesty of his god he was demanding
that the whole lot of us should be offered up as a sacrifice
by means of being burnt alive.

After he had finished speaking the Queen Sorais addressed him
in a soft and musical voice, and appeared, to judge from his
gestures of dissent, to be putting the other side of the question
before him.  Then Nyleptha spoke in liquid accents.  Little did
we know that she was pleading for our lives.  Finally, she turned
and addressed a tall, soldierlike man of middle age with a black
beard and a long plain sword, whose name, as we afterwards learnt,
was Nasta, and who was the greatest lord in the country; apparently
appealing to him for support.  Now when Sir Henry had caught
her eye and she had blushed so rosy red, I had seen that the
incident had not escaped this man's notice, and, what is more,
that it was eminently disagreeable to him, for he bit his lip
and his hand tightened on his sword-hilt.  Afterwards we learnt
that he was an aspirant for the hand of this Queen in marriage,
which accounted for it.  This being so, Nyleptha could not have
appealed to a worse person, for, speaking in slow, heavy tones,
he appeared to confirm all that the High Priest Agon had said.
As he spoke, Sorais put her elbow on her knee, and, resting
her chin on her hand, looked at him with a suppressed smile upon
her lips, as though she saw through the man, and was determined
to be his match; but Nyleptha grew very angry, her cheek flushed,
her eyes flashed, and she did indeed look lovely.  Finally she
turned to Agon and seemed to give some sort of qualified assent,
for he bowed at her words; and as she spoke she moved her hands
as though to emphasize what she said; while all the time Sorais
kept her chin on her hand and smiled.  Then suddenly Nyleptha
made a sign, the trumpets blew again, and everybody rose to leave
the hall save ourselves and the guards, whom she motioned to stay.

When they were all gone she bent forward and, smiling sweetly,
partially by signs and partially by exclamations made it clear
to us that she was very anxious to know where we came from.
The difficulty was how to explain, but at last an idea struck
me.  I had my large pocket-book in my pocket and a pencil.  Taking
it out, I made a little sketch of a lake, and then as best I
could I drew the underground river and the lake at the other
end.  When I had done this I advanced to the steps of the throne
and gave it to her.  She understood it at once and clapped her
hands with delight, and then descending from the throne took
it to her sister Sorais, who also evidently understood.  Next
she took the pencil from me, and after examining it with curiosity
proceeded to make a series of delightful little sketches, the
first representing herself holding out both hands in welcome,
and a man uncommonly like Sir Henry taking them.  Next she drew
a lovely little picture of a hippopotamus rolling about dying
in the water, and of an individual, in whom we had no difficulty
in recognizing Agon the High Priest, holding up his hands in
horror on the bank.  Then followed a most alarming picture of
a dreadful fiery furnace and of the same figure, Agon, poking
us into it with a forked stick.  This picture perfectly horrified
me, but I was a little reassured when she nodded sweetly and
proceeded to make a fourth drawing -- a man again uncommonly
like Sir Henry, and of two women, in whom I recognized Sorais
and herself, each with one arm around him, and holding a sword
in protection over him.  To all of these Sorais, who I saw was
employed in carefully taking us all in -- especially Curtis --
signified her approval by nodding.

At last Nyleptha drew a final sketch of a rising sun, indicating
that she must go, and that we should meet on the following morning;
whereat Sir Henry looked so disappointed that she saw it, and,

I suppose by way of consolation, extended her hand to him to
kiss, which he did with pious fervour.  At the same time Sorais,
off whom Good had never taken his eyeglass during the whole indaba
[interview], rewarded him by giving him her hand to kiss, though,
while she did so, her eyes were fixed upon Sir Henry.  I am glad
to say that I was not implicated in these proceedings; neither
of them gave _me_ her hand to kiss.

Then Nyleptha turned and addressed the man who appeared to be
in command of the bodyguard, apparently from her manner and his
frequent obeisances, giving him very stringent and careful orders;
after which, with a somewhat coquettish nod and smile, she left
the hall, followed by Sorais and most of the guards.

When the Queens had gone, the officer whom Nyleptha had addressed
came forward and with many tokens of deep respect led us from
the hall through various passages to a sumptuous set of apartments
opening out of a large central room lighted with brazen swinging
lamps (for it was now dusk) and richly carpeted and strewn with
couches.  On a table in the centre of the room was set a profusion
of food and fruit, and, what is more, flowers.  There was a delicious
wine also in ancient-looking sealed earthenware flagons, and
beautifully chased golden and ivory cups to drink it from.  Servants,
male and female, also were there to minister to us, and whilst
we ate, from some recess outside the apartment


   'The silver lute did speak between
    The trumpet's lordly blowing;'


and altogether we found ourselves in a sort of earthly paradise
which was only disturbed by the vision of that disgusting High
Priest who intended to commit us to the flames.  But so very
weary were we with our labours that we could scarcely keep ourselves
awake through the sumptuous meal, and as soon as it was over
we indicated that we desired to sleep.  As a further precaution
against surprise we left Umslopogaas with his axe to sleep in
the main chamber near the curtained doorways leading to the apartments
which we occupied respectively, Good and I in the one, and Sir
Henry and Alphonse in the other.  Then throwing off our clothes,
with the exception of the mail shirts, which we considered it
safer to keep on, we flung ourselves down upon the low and luxurious
couches, and drew the silk-embroidered coverlids over us.

In two minutes I was just dropping off when I was aroused by
Good's voice.

'I say, Quatermain,' he said, 'did you ever see such eyes?'

'Eyes!' I said, crossly; 'what eyes?'

'Why, the Queen's, of course!  Sorais, I mean -- at least
I think that is her name.'

'Oh, I don't know,' I yawned; 'I didn't notice them much:
I suppose they are good eyes,' and again I dropped off.

Five minutes or so elapsed, and I was once more awakened.

'I say, Quatermain,' said the voice.

'Well,' I answered testily, 'what is it now?'

'Did you notice her ankle?  The shape --'

This was more than I could stand.  By my bed stood the veldtschoons
I had been wearing.  Moved quite beyond myself, I took them up
and threw them straight at Good's head -- and hit it.

Afterwards I slept the sleep of the just, and a very heavy sleep
it must be.  As for Good, I don't know if he went to sleep or
if he continued to pass Sorais' beauties in mental review, and,
what is more, I don't care.




CHAPTER XIII
ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE



And now the curtain is down for a few hours, and the actors in
this novel drama are plunged in dewy sleep.  Perhaps we should
except Nyleptha, whom the reader may, if poetically inclined,
imagine lying in her bed of state encompassed by her maidens,
tiring women, guards, and all the other people and appurtenances
that surround a throne, and yet not able to slumber for thinking
of the strangers who had visited a country where no such strangers
had ever come before, and wondering, as she lay awake, who they
were and what their past has been, and if she was ugly compared
to the women of their native place.  I, however, not being poetically
inclined, will take advantage of the lull to give some account
of the people among whom we found ourselves, compiled, needless
to state, from information which we subsequently collected.

The name of this country, to begin at the beginning, is Zu-Vendis,
from Zu, 'yellow', and Vendis, 'place or country'.  Why it is
called the Yellow Country I have never been able to ascertain
accurately, nor do the inhabitants themselves know.  Three reasons
are, however, given, each of which would suffice to account for
it.  The first is that the name owes its origin to the great
quantity of gold that is found in the land.  Indeed, in this
respect Zu-Vendis is a veritable Eldorado, the precious metal
being extraordinarily plentiful.  At present it is collected
from purely alluvial diggings, which we subsequently inspected,
and which are situated within a day's journey from Milosis, being
mostly found in pockets and in nuggets weighing from an ounce
up to six or seven pounds in weight.  But other diggings of a
similar nature are known to exist, and I have besides seen great
veins of gold-bearing quartz.  In Zu-Vendis gold is a much commoner
metal than silver, and thus it has curiously enough come to pass
that silver is the legal tender of the country.

The second reason given is, that at certain times of the year
the native grasses of the country, which are very sweet and good,
turn as yellow as ripe corn; and the third arises from a tradition
that the people were originally yellow skinned, but grew white
after living for many generations upon these high lands.  Zu-Vendis
is a country about the size of France, is, roughly speaking,
oval in shape; and on every side cut off from the surrounding
territory by illimitable forests of impenetrable thorn, beyond
which are said to be hundreds of miles of morasses, deserts,
and great mountains.  It is, in short, a huge, high tableland
rising up in the centre of the dark continent, much as in southern
Africa flat-topped mountains rise from the level of the surrounding
veldt.  Milosis itself lies, according to my aneroid, at a level
of about nine thousand feet above the sea, but most of the land
is even higher, the greatest elevation of the open country being,
I believe, about eleven thousand feet.  As a consequence the
climate is, comparatively speaking, a cold one, being very similar
to that of southern England, only brighter and not so rainy.
The land is, however, exceedingly fertile, and grows all cereals
and temperate fruits and timber to perfection; and in the lower-lying
parts even produces a hardy variety of sugar-cane.  Coal is found
in great abundance, and in many places crops out from the surface;
and so is pure marble, both black and white.  The same may be
said of almost every metal except silver, which is scarce, and
only to be obtained from a range of mountains in the north.

Zu-Vendis comprises in her boundaries a great variety of scenery,
including two ranges of snow-clad mountains, one on the western
boundary beyond the impenetrable belt of thorn forest, and the
other piercing the country from north to south, and passing at
a distance of about eighty miles from Milosis, from which town
its higher peaks are distinctly visible.  This range forms the
chief watershed of the land.  There are also three large lakes
-- the biggest, namely that whereon we emerged, and which is
named Milosis after the city, covering some two hundred square
miles of country -- and numerous small ones, some of them salt.

The population of this favoured land is, comparatively speaking,
dense, numbering at a rough estimate from ten to twelve millions.
It is almost purely agricultural in its habits, and divided
into great classes as in civilized countries.  There is a territorial
nobility, a considerable middle class, formed principally of
merchants, officers of the army, etc.; but the great bulk of
the people are well-to-do peasants who live upon the lands of
the lords, from whom they hold under a species of feudal tenure.
The best bred people in the country are, as I think I have said,
pure whites with a somewhat southern cast of countenance; but
the common herd are much darker, though they do not show any
negro or other African characteristics.  As to their descent
I can give no certain information.  Their written records, which
extend back for about a thousand years, give no hint of it.
One very ancient chronicler does indeed, in alluding to some
old tradition that existed in his day, talk of it as having probably
originally 'come down with the people from the coast', but that
may mean little or nothing.  In short, the origin of the Zu-Vendi
is lost in the mists of time.  Whence they came or of what race
they are no man knows.  Their architecture and some of their
sculptures suggest an Egyptian or possibly an Assyrian origin;
but it is well known that their present remarkable style of building
has only sprung up within the last eight hundred years, and they
certainly retain no traces of Egyptian theology or customs.
Again, their appearance and some of their habits are rather Jewish;
but here again it seems hardly conceivable that they should have
utterly lost all traces of the Jewish religion.  Still, for aught
I know, they may be one of the lost ten tribes whom people are
so fond of discovering all over the world, or they may not.
I do not know, and so can only describe them as I find them,
and leave wiser heads than mine to make what they can out of
it, if indeed this account should ever be read at all, which
is exceedingly doubtful.

And now after I have said all this, I am, after all, going to
hazard a theory of my own, though it is only a very little one,
as the young lady said in mitigation of her baby.  This theory
is founded on a legend which I have heard among the Arabs on
the east coast, which is to the effect that 'more than two thousand
years ago' there were troubles in the country which was known
as Babylonia, and that thereon a vast horde of Persians came
down to Bushire, where they took ship and were driven by the
north-east monsoon to the east coast of Africa, where, according
to the legend, 'the sun and fire worshippers' fell into conflict
with the belt of Arab settlers who even then were settled on
the east coast, and finally broke their way through them, and,
vanishing into the interior, were no more seen.  Now, I ask,
is it not at least possible that the Zu-Vendi people are the
descendants of these 'sun and fire worshippers' who broke through
the Arabs and vanished?  As a matter of fact, there is a good
deal in their characters and customs that tallies with the somewhat
vague ideas that I have of Persians.  Of course we have no books
of reference here, but Sir Henry says that if his memory does
not fail him, there was a tremendous revolt in Babylon about
500 BC, whereon a vast multitude were expelled from the city.
Anyhow, it is a well-established fact that there have been many
separate emigrations of Persians from the Persian Gulf to the
east coast of Africa up to as lately as seven hundred years ago.
There are Persian tombs at Kilwa, on the east coast, still in
good repair, which bear dates showing them to be just seven hundred
years old. {Endnote 12}

In addition to being an agricultural people, the Zu-Vendi are,
oddly enough, excessively warlike, and as they cannot from the
exigencies of their position make war upon other nations, they
fight among each other like the famed Kilkenny cats, with the
happy result that the population never outgrows the power of
the country to support it.  This habit of theirs is largely fostered
by the political condition of the country.  The monarchy is nominally
an absolute one, save in so far as it is tempered by the power
of the priests and the informal council of the great lords; but,
as in many other institutions, the king's writ does not run unquestioned
throughout the length and breadth of the land.  In short, the
whole system is a purely feudal one (though absolute serfdom
or slavery is unknown), all the great lords holding nominally
from the throne, but a number of them being practically independent,
having the power of life and death, waging war against and making
peace with their neighbours as the whim or their interests lead
them, and even on occasion rising in open rebellion against their
royal master or mistress, and, safely shut up in their castles
and fenced cities, as far from the seat of government, successfully
defying them for years.

Zu-Vendis has had its king-makers as well as England, a fact
that will be well appreciated when I state that eight different
dynasties have sat upon the throne in the last one thousand years,
every one of which took its rise from some noble family that
succeeded in grasping the purple after a sanguinary struggle.
At the date of our arrival in the country things were a little
better than they had been for some centuries, the last king,
the father of Nyleptha and Sorais, having been an exceptionally
able and vigorous ruler, and, as a consequence, he kept down
the power of the priests and nobles.  On his death, two years
before we reached Zu-Vendis, the twin sisters, his children,
were, following an ancient precedent, called to the throne, since
an attempt to exclude either would instantly have provoked a
sanguinary civil war; but it was generally felt in the country
that this measure was a most unsatisfactory one, and could hardly
be expected to be permanent.  Indeed, as it was, the various
intrigues that were set on foot by ambitious nobles to obtain
the hand of one or other of the queens in marriage had disquieted
the country, and the general opinion was that there would be
bloodshed before long.

I will now pass on to the question of the Zu-Vendi religion,
which is nothing more or less than sun-worship of a pronounced
and highly developed character.  Around this sun-worship is grouped
the entire social system of the Zu-Vendi.  It sends its roots
through every institution and custom of the land.  From the cradle
to the grave the Zu-Vendi follows the sun in every sense of the
saying.  As an infant he is solemnly held up in its light and
dedicated to 'the symbol of good, the expression of power, and
the hope of Eternity', the ceremony answering to our baptism.
Whilst still a tiny child, his parents point out the glorious
orb as the presence of a visible and beneficent god, and he worships
it at its up-rising and down-setting.  Then when still quite
small, he goes, holding fast to the pendent end of his mother's
'kaf' (toga), up to the temple of the Sun of the nearest city,
and there, when at midday the bright beams strike down upon the
golden central altar and beat back the fire that burns thereon,
he hears the white-robed priests raise their solemn chant of
praise and sees the people fall down to adore, and then, amidst
the blowing of the golden trumpets, watches the sacrifice thrown
into the fiery furnace beneath the altar.  Here he comes again
to be declared 'a man' by the priests, and consecrated to war
and to good works; here before the solemn altar he leads his
bride; and here too, if differences shall unhappily arise, he
divorces her.

And so on, down life's long pathway till the last mile is travelled,
and he comes again armed indeed, and with dignity, but no longer
a man.  Here they bear him dead and lay his bier upon the falling
brazen doors before the eastern altar, and when the last ray
from the setting sun falls upon his white face the bolts are
drawn and he vanishes into the raging furnace beneath and is ended.

The priests of the Sun do not marry, but are recruited as young
men specially devoted to the work by their parents and supported
by the State.  The nomination to the higher offices of the priesthood
lies with the Crown, but once appointed the nominees cannot be
dispossessed, and it is scarcely too much to say that they really
rule the land.  To begin with, they are a united body sworn to
obedience and secrecy, so that an order issued by the High Priest
at Milosis will be instantly and unhesitatingly acted upon by
the resident priest of a little country town three or four hundred
miles off.  They are the judges of the land, criminal and civil,
an appeal lying only to the lord paramount of the district, and
from him to the king; and they have, of course, practically unlimited
jurisdiction over religious and moral offences, together with
a right of excommunication, which, as in the faiths of more highly
civilized lands, is a very effective weapon.  Indeed, their rights
and powers are almost unlimited, but I may as well state here
that the priests of the Sun are wise in their generation, and
do not push things too far.  It is but very seldom that they
go to extremes against anybody, being more inclined to exercise
the prerogative of mercy than run the risk of exasperating the
powerful and vigorous-minded people on whose neck they have set
their yoke, lest it should rise and break it off altogether.

Another source of the power of the priests is their practical
monopoly of learning, and their very considerable astronomical
knowledge, which enables them to keep a hold on the popular mind
by predicting eclipses and even comets.  In Zu-Vendis only a
few of the upper classes can read and write, but nearly all the
priests have this knowledge, and are therefore looked upon as
learned men.

The law of the country is, on the whole, mild and just, but differs
in several respects from our civilized law.  For instance, the
law of England is much more severe upon offences against property
than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion
is money.  A man may half kick his wife to death or inflict horrible
sufferings upon his children at a much cheaper rate of punishment
than he can compound for the theft of a pair of old boots.
In Zu-Vendis this is not so, for there they rightly or wrongly look
upon the person as of more consequence than goods and chattels,
and not, as in England, as a sort of necessary appendage to the
latter.  For murder the punishment is death, for treason death,
for defrauding the orphan and the widow, for sacrilege, and for
attempting to quit the country (which is looked on as a sacrilege)
death.  In each case the method of execution is the same, and
a rather awful one.  The culprit is thrown alive into the fiery
furnace beneath one of the altars to the Sun.  For all other
offences, including the offence of idleness, the punishment is
forced labour upon the vast national buildings which are always
going on in some part of the country, with or without periodical
floggings, according to the crime.

The social system of the Zu-Vendi allows considerable liberty
to the individual, provided he does not offend against the laws
and customs of the country.  They are polygamous in theory, though
most of them have only one wife on account of the expense.  By
law a man is bound to provide a separate establishment for each
wife.  The first wife also is the legal wife, and her children
are said to be 'of the house of the Father'.  The children of
the other wives are of the houses of their respective mothers.
This does not, however, imply any slur upon either mother or
children.  Again, a first wife can, on entering into the married
state, make a bargain that her husband shall marry no other wife.
This, however, is very rarely done, as the women are the great
upholders of polygamy, which not only provides for their surplus
numbers but gives greater importance to the first wife, who is
thus practically the head of several households.  Marriage is
looked upon as primarily a civil contract, and, subject to certain
conditions and to a proper provision for children, is dissoluble
at the will of both contracting parties, the divorce, or 'unloosing',
being formally and ceremoniously accomplished by going through
certain portions of the marriage ceremony backwards.

The Zu-Vendi are on the whole a very kindly, pleasant, and light-hearted
people.  They are not great traders and care little about money,
only working to earn enough to support themselves in that class
of life in which they were born.  They are exceedingly conservative,
and look with disfavour upon changes.  Their legal tender is
silver, cut into little squares of different weights; gold is
the baser coin, and is about of the same value as our silver.
It is, however, much prized for its beauty, and largely used
for ornaments and decorative purposes.  Most of the trade, however,
is carried on by means of sale and barter, payment being made
in kind.  Agriculture is the great business of the country, and
is really well understood and carried out, most of the available
acreage being under cultivation.  Great attention is also given
to the breeding of cattle and horses, the latter being unsurpassed
by any I have ever seen either in Europe or Africa.

The land belongs theoretically to the Crown, and under the Crown
to the great lords, who again divide it among smaller lords,
and so on down to the little peasant farmer who works his forty
'reestu' (acres) on a system of half-profits with his immediate
lord.  In fact the whole system is, as I have said, distinctly
feudal, and it interested us much to meet with such an old friend
far in the unknown heart of Africa.

The taxes are very heavy.  The State takes a third of a man's
total earnings, and the priesthood about five per cent on the
remainder.  But on the other hand, if a man through any cause
falls into bona fide misfortune the State supports him in the
position of life to which he belongs.  If he is idle, however,
he is sent to work on the Government undertakings, and the State
looks after his wives and children.  The State also makes all
the roads and builds all town houses, about which great care
is shown, letting them out to families at a small rent.  It also
keeps up a standing army of about twenty thousand men, and provides
watchmen, etc.  In return for their five per cent the priests
attend to the service of the temples, carry out all religious
ceremonies, and keep schools, where they teach whatever they
think desirable, which is not very much.  Some of the temples
also possess private property, but priests as individuals cannot
hold property.

And now comes a question which I find some difficulty in answering.
Are the Zu-Vendi a civilized or barbarous people?  Sometimes
I think the one, sometimes the other.  In some branches of art
they have attained the very highest proficiency.  Take for instance
their buildings and their statuary.  I do not think that the
latter can be equalled either in beauty or imaginative power
anywhere in the world, and as for the former it may have been
rivalled in ancient Egypt, but I am sure that it has never been
since.  But, on the other hand, they are totally ignorant of
many other arts.  Till Sir Henry, who happened to know something
about it, showed them how to do it by mixing silica and lime,
they could not make a piece of glass, and their crockery is rather
primitive.  A water-clock is their nearest approach to a watch;
indeed, ours delighted them exceedingly.  They know nothing about
steam, electricity, or gunpowder, and mercifully for themselves
nothing about printing or the penny post.  Thus they are spared
many evils, for of a truth our age has learnt the wisdom of the
old-world saying, 'He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.'

As regards their religion, it is a natural one for imaginative
people who know no better, and might therefore be expected to
turn to the sun and worship him as the all-Father, but it cannot
justly be called elevating or spiritual.  It is true that they
do sometimes speak of the sun as the 'garment of the Spirit',
but it is a vague term, and what they really adore is the fiery
orb himself.  They also call him the 'hope of eternity', but
here again the meaning is vague, and I doubt if the phrase conveys
any very clear impression to their minds.  Some of them do indeed
believe in a future life for the good -- I know Nyleptha does
firmly -- but it is a private faith arising from the promptings
of the spirit, not an essential of their creed.  So on the whole
I cannot say that I consider this sun-worship as a religion indicative
of a civilized people, however magnificent and imposing its ritual,
or however moral and high-sounding the maxims of its priests,
many of whom, I am sure, have their own opinions on the whole
subject; though of course they have nothing but praise for a
system which provides them with so many of the good things of
this world.

There are now only two more matters to which I need allude --
namely, the language and the system of calligraphy.  As for
the former, it is soft-sounding, and very rich and flexible.
Sir Henry says that it sounds something like modern Greek,
but of course it has no connection with it.  It is easy to acquire,
being simple in its construction, and a peculiar quality about it
is its euphony, and the way in which the sound of the words
adapts itself to the meaning to be expressed.  Long before
we mastered the language, we could frequently make out what
was meant by the ring of the sentence.  It is on this account
that the language lends itself so well to poetical declamation,
of which these remarkable people are very fond.  The Zu-Vendi
alphabet seems, Sir henry says, to be derived, like every other
known system of letters, from a Phoenician source, and therefore
more remotely still from the ancient Egyptian hieratic writing.
Whether this is a fact I cannot say, not being learned in such
matters.  All I know about it is that their alphabet consists
of twenty-two characters, of which a few, notably B, E, and O,
are not very unlike our own.  The whole affair is, however, clumsy
and puzzling. {Endnote 13}  But as the people of Zu-Vendi are
not given to the writing of novels, or of anything except business
documents and records of the briefest character, it answers their
purpose well enough.




CHAPTER XIV
THE FLOWER TEMPLE



It was half-past eight by my watch when I woke on the morning
following our arrival at Milosis, having slept almost exactly
twelve hours, and I must say that I did indeed feel better.
Ah, what a blessed thing is sleep! and what a difference twelve
hours of it or so makes to us after days and nights of toil and
danger.  It is like going to bed one man and getting up another.

I sat up upon my silken couch -- never had I slept upon such
a bed before -- and the first thing that I saw was Good's eyeglass
fixed on me from the recesses of his silken couch.  There was
nothing else of him to be seen except his eyeglass, but I knew
from the look of it that he was awake, and waiting till I woke
up to begin.

'I say, Quatermain,' he commenced sure enough, 'did you observe
her skin?  It is as smooth as the back of an ivory hairbrush.'

'Now look here, Good,' I remonstrated, when there came a sound
at the curtain, which, on being drawn, admitted a functionary,
who signified by signs that he was there to lead us to the bath.
We gladly consented, and were conducted to a delightful marble
chamber, with a pool of running crystal water in the centre of
it, into which we gaily plunged.  When we had bathed, we returned
to our apartment and dressed, and then went into the central
room where we had supped on the previous evening, to find a morning
meal already prepared for us, and a capital meal it was, though
I should be puzzled to describe the dishes.  After breakfast
we lounged round and admired the tapestries and carpets and some
pieces of statuary that were placed about, wondering the while
what was going to happen next.  Indeed, by this time our minds
were in such a state of complete bewilderment that we were, as
a matter of fact, ready for anything that might arrive.  As for
our sense of astonishment, it was pretty well obliterated.  Whilst
we were still thus engaged, our friend the captain of the guard
presented himself, and with many obeisances signified that we
were to follow him, which we did, not without doubts and heart-searchings
-- for we guessed that the time had come when we should have
to settle the bill for those confounded hippopotami with our
cold-eyed friend Agon, the High Priest.  However, there was no
help for it, and personally I took great comfort in the promise
of the protection of the sister Queens, knowing that if ladies
have a will they can generally find a way; so off we started
as though we liked it.  A minute's walk through a passage and
an outer court brought us to the great double gates of the palace
that open on to the wide highway which runs uphill through the
heart of Milosis to the Temple of the Sun a mile away, and thence
down the slope on the farther side of the temple to the outer
wall of the city.

These gates are very large and massive, and an extraordinarily
beautiful work in metal.  Between them -- for one set is placed
at the entrance to an interior, and one at that of the exterior
wall -- is a fosse, forty-five feet in width.  This fosse is
filled with water and spanned by a drawbridge, which when lifted
makes the palace nearly impregnable to anything except siege
guns.  As we came, one half of the wide gates were flung open,
and we passed over the drawbridge and presently stood gazing
up one of the most imposing, if not the most imposing, roadways
in the world.  It is a hundred feet from curb to curb, and on
either side, not cramped and crowded together, as is our European
fashion, but each standing in its own grounds, and built equidistant
from and in similar style to the rest, are a series of splendid,
single-storied mansions, all of red granite.  These are the town
houses of the nobles of the Court, and stretch away in unbroken
lines for a mile or more till the eye is arrested by the glorious
vision of the Temple of the Sun that crowns the hill and heads
the roadway.

As we stood gazing at this splendid sight, of which more anon,
there suddenly dashed up to the gateway four chariots, each drawn
by two white horses.  These chariots are two-wheeled, and made
of wood.  They are fitted with a stout pole, the weight of which
is supported by leathern girths that form a portion of the harness.
The wheels are made with four spokes only, are tired with iron,
and quite innocent of springs.  In the front of the chariot,
and immediately over the pole, is a small seat for the driver,
railed round to prevent him from being jolted off.  Inside the
machine itself are three low seats, one at each side, and one
with the back to the horses, opposite to which is the door.
The whole vehicle is lightly and yet strongly made, and, owing
to the grace of the curves, though primitive, not half so ugly
as might be expected.

But if the chariots left something to be desired, the horses
did not.  They were simply splendid, not very large but strongly
built, and well ribbed up, with small heads, remarkably large
and round hoofs, and a great look of speed and blood.  I have
often wondered whence this breed, which presents many
distinct characteristics, came, but like that of its owners,
it history is obscure.  Like the people the horses have always
been there.  The first and last of these chariots were occupied
by guards, but the centre two were empty, except for the driver,
and to these we were conducted.  Alphonse and I got into the
first, and Sir Henry, Good, and Umslopogaas into the one behind,
and then suddenly off we went.  And we did go!  Among the Zu-Vendi
it is not usual to trot horses either riding or driving, especially
when the journey to be made is a short one -- they go at full
gallop.  As soon as we were seated the driver called out, the
horses sprang forward, and we were whirled away at a speed sufficient
to take one's breath, and which, till I got accustomed to it,
kept me in momentary fear of an upset.  As for the wretched Alphonse,
he clung with a despairing face to the side of what he called
this 'devil of a fiacre', thinking that every moment was his
last.  Presently it occurred to him to ask where we were going,
and I told him that, as far as I could ascertain, we were going
to be sacrificed by burning.  You should have seen his face as
he grasped the side of the vehicle and cried out in his terror.

But the wild-looking charioteer only leant forward over his flying
steeds and shouted; and the air, as it went singing past, bore
away the sound of Alphonse's lamentations.

And now before us, in all its marvellous splendour and dazzling
loveliness, shone out the Temple of the Sun -- the peculiar pride
of the Zu-Vendi, to whom it was what Solomon's, or rather Herod's,
Temple was to the Jews.  The wealth, and skill, and labour of
generations had been given to the building of this wonderful
place, which had been only finally completed within the last
fifty years.  Nothing was spared that the country could produce,
and the result was indeed worthy of the effort, not so much on
account of its size -- for there are larger fanes in the world
-- as because of its perfect proportions, the richness and beauty
of its materials, and the wonderful workmanship.  The building
(that stands by itself on a space of some eight acres of garden
ground on the hilltop, around which are the dwelling-places of
the priests) is built in the shape of a sunflower, with a dome-covered
central hall, from which radiate twelve petal-shaped courts,
each dedicated to one of the twelve months, and serving as the
repositories of statues reared in memory of the illustrious dead.
The width of the circle beneath the dome is three hundred feet,
the height of the dome is four hundred feet, and the length of
the rays is one hundred and fifty feet, and the height of their
roofs three hundred feet, so that they run into the central dome
exactly as the petals of the sunflower run into the great raised
heart.  Thus the exact measurement from the centre of the central
altar to the extreme point of any one of the rounded rays would
be three hundred feet (the width of the circle itself), or a
total of six hundred feet from the rounded extremity of one ray
or petal to the extremity of the opposite one. {Endnote 14}

The building itself is of pure and polished white marble, which
shows out in marvellous contrast to the red granite of the frowning
city, on whose brow it glistens indeed like an imperial diadem
upon the forehead of a dusky queen.  The outer surface of the
dome and of the twelve petal courts is covered entirely with
thin sheets of beaten gold; and from the extreme point of the
roof of each of these petals a glorious golden form with a trumpet
in its hand and widespread wings is figured in the very act of
soaring into space.  I really must leave whoever reads this to
imagine the surpassing beauty of these golden roofs flashing
when the sun strikes -- flashing like a thousand fires aflame
on a mountain of polished marble -- so fiercely that the reflection
can be clearly seen from the great peaks of the range a hundred
miles away.

It is a marvellous sight -- this golden flower upborne upon the
cool white marble walls, and I doubt if the world can show such
another.  What makes the whole effect even more gorgeous is that
a belt of a hundred and fifty feet around the marble wall of
the temple is planted with an indigenous species of sunflower,
which were at the time when we first saw them a sheet of golden
bloom.

The main entrance to this wonderful place is between the two
northernmost of the rays or petal courts, and is protected first
by the usual bronze gates, and then by doors made of solid marble,
beautifully carved with allegorical subjects and overlaid with
gold.  When these are passed there is only the thickness of the
wall, which is, however, twenty-five feet (for the Zu-Vendi build
for all time), and another slight wall also of white marble,
introduced in order to avoid causing a visible gap in the inner
skin of the wall, and you stand in the circular hall under the
great dome.  Advancing to the central altar you look upon as
beautiful a sight as the imagination of man can conceive.  You
are in the middle of the holy place, and above you the great
white marble dome (for the inner skin, like the outer, is of
polished marble throughout) arches away in graceful curves something
like that of St Paul's in London, only at a slighter angle, and
from the funnel-like opening at the exact apex a bright beam
of light pours down upon the golden altar.  At the east and the
west are other altars, and other beams of light stab the sacred
twilight to the heart.  In every direction, 'white, mystic, wonderful',
open out the ray-like courts, each pierced through by a single
arrow of light that serves to illumine its lofty silence and
dimly to reveal the monuments of the dead. {Endnote 15}

Overcome at so awe-inspiring a sight, the vast loveliness of
which thrills the nerves like a glance from beauty's eyes, you
turn to the central golden altar, in the midst of which, though
you cannot see it now, there burns a pale but steady flame crowned
with curls of faint blue smoke.  It is of marble overlaid with
pure gold, in shape round like the sun, four feet in height,
and thirty-six in circumference.  Here also, hinged to the foundations
of the altar, are twelve petals of beaten gold.  All night and,
except at one hour, all day also, these petals are closed over
the altar itself exactly as the petals of a water-lily close
over the yellow crown in stormy weather; but when the sun at
midday pierces through the funnel in the dome and lights upon
the golden flower, the petals open and reveal the hidden mystery,
only to close again when the ray has passed.

Nor is this all.  Standing in semicircles at equal distances
from each other on the north and south of the sacred place are
ten golden angels, or female winged forms, exquisitely shaped
and draped.  These figures, which are slightly larger than life-size,
stand with bent heads in an attitude of adoration, their faces
shadowed by their wings, and are most imposing and of exceeding
beauty.

There is but one thing further which calls for description
in this altar, which is, that to the east the flooring in front
of it is not of pure white marble, as elsewhere throughout the
building, but of solid brass, and this is also the case in front
of the other two altars.

The eastern and western altars, which are semicircular in shape,
and placed against the wall of the building, are much less imposing,
and are not enfolded in golden petals.  They are, however, also
of gold, the sacred fire burns on each, and a golden-winged figure
stands on either side of them.  Two great golden rays run up
the wall behind them, but where the third or middle one should
be is an opening in the wall, wide on the outside, but narrow
within, like a loophole turned inwards.  Through the eastern
loophole stream the first beams of the rising sun, and strike
right across the circle, touching the folded petals of the great
gold flower as they pass till they impinge upon the western altar.
In the same way at night the last rays of the sinking sun rest
for a while on the eastern altar before they die away into darkness.
It is the promise of the dawn to the evening and the evening
to the dawn.

With the exception of those three altars and the winged figures
about them, the whole space beneath the vast white dome is utterly
empty and devoid of ornamentation -- a circumstance that to my
fancy adds greatly to its splendour.

Such is a brief description of this wonderful and lovely building,
to the glories of which, to my mind so much enhanced by their
complete simplicity, I only wish I had the power to do justice.
But I cannot, so it is useless talking more about it.  But when
I compare this great work of genius to some of the tawdry buildings
and tinsel ornamentation produced in these latter days by European
ecclesiastical architects, I feel that even highly civilized
art might learn something from the Zu-Vendi masterpieces.  I
can only say that the exclamation which sprang to my lips as
soon as my eyes first became accustomed to the dim light of that
glorious building, and its white and curving beauties, perfect
and thrilling as those of a naked goddess, grew upon me one by
one, was, 'Well! a dog would feel religious here.'  It is vulgarly
put, but perhaps it conveys my meaning more clearly than any
polished utterance.

At the temple gates our party was received by a guard of soldiers,
who appeared to be under the orders of a priest; and by them
we were conducted into one of the ray or 'petal' courts, as the
priests call them, and there left for at least half-an-hour.
Here we conferred together, and realizing that we stood in great
danger of our lives, determined, if any attempt should be made
upon us, to sell them as dearly as we could -- Umslopogaas announcing
his fixed intention of committing sacrilege on the person of
Agon, the High Priest, by splitting his head with Inkosi-kaas.
From where we stood we could perceive that an immense multitude
were pouring into the temple, evidently in expectation of some
unusual event, and I could not help fearing that we had to do
with it.  And here I may explain that every day, when the sunlight
falls upon the central altar, and the trumpets sound, a burnt
sacrifice is offered to the Sun, consisting generally of the
carcase of a sheep or ox, or sometimes of fruit or corn.  This
event comes off about midday; of course, not always exactly at
that hour, but as Zu-Vendis is situated not far from the Line,
although -- being so high above the sea it is very temperate
-- midday and the falling of the sunlight on the altar were generally
simultaneous.  Today the sacrifice was to take place at about
eight minutes past twelve.

Just at twelve o'clock a priest appeared, and made a sign, and
the officer of the guard signified to us that we were expected
to advance, which we did with the best grace that we could muster,
all except Alphonse, whose irrepressible teeth instantly began
to chatter.  In a few seconds we were out of the court and looking
at a vast sea of human faces stretching away to the farthest
limits of the great circle, all straining to catch a glimpse
of the mysterious strangers who had committed sacrilege; the
first strangers, mind you, who, to the knowledge of the multitude,
had ever set foot in Zu-Vendis since such time that the memory
of man runneth not to the contrary.

As we appeared there was a murmur through the vast crowd that
went echoing away up the great dome, and we saw a visible blush
of excitement grow on the thousands of faces, like a pink light
on a stretch of pale cloud, and a very curious effect it was.
On we passed down a lane cut through the heart of the human
mass, till presently we stood upon the brazen patch of flooring
to the east of the central altar, and immediately facing it.
For some thirty feet around the golden-winged figures the space
was roped off, and the multitudes stood outside the ropes.  Within
were a circle of white-robed gold-cinctured priests holding long
golden trumpets in their hands, and immediately in front of us
was our friend Agon, the High Priest, with his curious cap upon
his head.  His was the only covered head in that vast assemblage.
We took our stand upon the brazen space, little knowing what
was prepared for us beneath, but I noticed a curious hissing
sound proceeding apparently from the floor for which I could
not account.  Then came a pause, and I looked around to see if
there was any sign of the two Queens, Nyleptha and Sorais, but
they were not there.  To the right of us, however, was a bare
space that I guessed was reserved for them.

We waited, and presently a far-off trumpet blew, apparently high
up in the dome.  Then came another murmur from the multitude,
and up a long lane, leading to the open space to our right, we
saw the two Queens walking side by side.  Behind them were some
nobles of the Court, among whom I recognized the great lord Nasta,
and behind them again a body of about fifty guards.  These last
I was very glad to see.  Presently they had all arrived and taken
their stand, the two Queens in the front, the nobles to the right
and left, and the guards in a double semicircle behind them.

Then came another silence, and Nyleptha looked up and caught
my eye; it seemed to me that there was meaning in her glance,
and I watched it narrowly.  From my eye it travelled down to
the brazen flooring, on the outer edge of which we stood.  Then
followed a slight and almost imperceptible sidelong movement
of the head.  I did not understand it, and it was repeated.
Then I guessed that she meant us to move back off the brazen
floor.  One more glance and I was sure of it -- there was danger
in standing on the floor.  Sir Henry was placed on one side of
me, Umslopogaas on the other.  Keeping my eyes fixed straight
before me, I whispered to them, first in Zulu and then in English,
to draw slowly back inch by inch till half their feet were resting
on the marble flooring where the brass ceased.  Sir Henry whispered
on to Good and Alphonse, and slowly, very very slowly, we shifted
backwards; so slowly that nobody, except Nyleptha and Sorais,
who saw everything seemed to notice the movement.  Then I glanced
again at Nyleptha, and saw that, by an almost imperceptible nod,
she indicated approval.  All the while Agon's eyes were fixed
upon the altar before him apparently in an ecstasy of contemplation,
and mine were fixed upon the small of his back in another sort
of ecstasy.  Suddenly he flung up his long arm, and in a solemn
and resounding voice commenced a chant, of which for convenience'
sake I append a rough, a _very_ rough, translation here, though,
of course, I did not then comprehend its meaning.  It was
an invocation to the Sun, and ran somewhat as follows: --


  There is silence upon the face of the Earth and the waters thereof!
  Yea, the silence doth brood on the waters like a nesting bird;
  The silence sleepeth also upon the bosom of the profound darkness,
  Only high up in the great spaces star doth speak unto star,
  The Earth is faint with longing and wet with the tears of her desire;
  The star-girdled night doth embrace her, but she is not comforted.
  She lies enshrouded in mists like a corpse in the grave-clothes,
  And stretches her pale hands to the East.

  Lo! away in the farthest East there is the shadow of a light;
  The Earth seeth and lifts herself.  She looks out from beneath
  the hollow of her hand.
  Then thy great angels fly forth from the Holy Place, oh Sun,
  They shoot their fiery swords into the darkness and shrivel it up.
  They climb the heavens and cast down the pale stars from their thrones;
  Yea, they hurl the changeful stars back into the womb of the night;
  They cause the moon to become wan as the face of a dying man,
  And behold!  Thy glory comes, oh Sun!

  Oh, Thou beautiful one, Thou drapest thyself in fire.
  The wide heavens are thy pathway: thou rollest o'er them as a chariot.
  The Earth is thy bride.  Thou dost embrace her and
  she brings forth children;
  Yea, Thou favourest her, and she yields her increase.
  Thou art the All Father and the giver of life, oh Sun.
  The young children stretch out their hands and grow in thy brightness;
  The old men creep forth and seeing remember their strength.
  Only the dead forget Thee, oh Sun!

  When Thou art wroth then Thou dost hide Thy face;
  Thou drawest around Thee a thick curtain of shadows.
  Then the Earth grows cold and the Heavens are dismayed;
  They tremble, and the sound thereof is the sound of thunder:
  They weep, and their tears are outpoured in the rain;
  They sigh, and the wild winds are the voice of their sighing.
  The flowers die, the fruitful fields languish and turn pale;
  The old men and the little children go unto their appointed place
  When Thou withdrawest thy light, oh Sun!

  Say, what art Thou, oh Thou matchless Splendour --
  Who set Thee on high, oh Thou flaming Terror?
  When didst Thou begin, and when is the day of Thy ending?
  Thou art the raiment of the living Spirit. {Endnote 16}
  None did place Thee on high, for Thou was the Beginning.
  Thou shalt not be ended when thy children are forgotten;
  Nay, Thou shalt never end, for thy hours are eternal.
  Thou sittest on high within thy golden house and
  measurest out the centuries.
  Oh Father of Life! oh dark-dispelling Sun!


He ceased this solemn chant, which, though it seems a poor enough
thing after going through my mill, is really beautiful and impressive
in the original; and then, after a moment's pause, he glanced up
towards the funnel-sloped opening in the dome and added --


Oh Sun, descend upon thine Altar!


As he spoke a wonderful and a beautiful thing happened.  Down
from on high flashed a splendid living ray of light, cleaving
the twilight like a sword of fire.  Full upon the closed petals
it fell and ran shimmering down their golden sides, and then
the glorious flower opened as though beneath the bright influence.
Slowly it opened, and as the great petals fell wide and revealed
the golden altar on which the fire ever burns, the priests blew
a blast upon the trumpets, and from all the people there rose
a shout of praise that beat against the domed roof and came echoing
down the marble walls.  And now the flower altar was open, and
the sunlight fell full upon the tongue of sacred flame and beat
it down, so that it wavered, sank, and vanished into the hollow
recesses whence it rose.  As it vanished, the mellow notes of
the trumpets rolled out once more.  Again the old priest flung
up his hands and called aloud --


We sacrifice to thee, oh Sun!


Once more I caught Nyleptha's eye; it was fixed upon the brazen flooring.

'Look out,' I said, aloud; and as I said it, I saw Agon bend
forward and touch something on the altar.  As he did so, the
great white sea of faces around us turned red and then white
again, and a deep breath went up like a universal sigh.
Nyleptha leant forward, and with an involuntary movement covered
her eyes with her hand.  Sorais turned and whispered to the officer
of the royal bodyguard, and then with a rending sound the whole
of the brazen flooring slid from before our feet, and there in
its place was suddenly revealed a smooth marble shaft terminating
in a most awful raging furnace beneath the altar, big enough
and hot enough to heat the iron stern-post of a man-of-war.

With a cry of terror we sprang backwards, all except the wretched
Alphonse, who was paralysed with fear, and would have fallen
into the fiery furnace which had been prepared for us, had not
Sir Henry caught him in his strong hand as he was vanishing and
dragged him back.

Instantly there arose the most fearful hubbub, and we four got
back to back, Alphonse dodging frantically round our little circle
in his attempts to take shelter under our legs.  We all had our
revolvers on -- for though we had been politely disarmed of our
guns on leaving the palace, of course these people did not know
what a revolver was.  Umslopogaas, too, had his axe, of which
no effort had been made to deprive him, and now he whirled it
round his head and sent his piercing Zulu war-shout echoing up
the marble walls in fine defiant fashion.  Next second, the priests,
baffled of their prey, had drawn swords from beneath their white
robes and were leaping on us like hounds upon a stag at bay.
I saw that, dangerous as action might be, we must act or be
lost, so as the first man came bounding along -- and a great
tall fellow he was -- I sent a heavy revolver ball through him,
and down he fell at the mouth of the shaft, and slid, shrieking
frantically, into the fiery gulf that had been prepared for us.

Whether it was his cries, or the, to them, awful sound and effect
of the pistol shot, or what, I know not, but the other priests
halted, paralysed and dismayed, and before they could come on
again Sorais had called out something, and we, together with
the two Queens and most of the courtiers, were being surrounded
with a wall of armed men.  In a moment it was done, and still
the priests hesitated, and the people hung in the balance like
a herd of startled buck as it were, making no sign one way or
the other.

The last yell of the burning priest had died away, the fire had
finished him, and a great silence fell upon the place.

Then the High Priest Agon turned, and his face was as the face
of a devil.  'Let the sacrifice be sacrificed,' he cried to the
Queens.  'Has not sacrilege enough been done by these strangers,
and would ye, as Queens, throw the cloak of your majesty over
evildoers?  Are not the creatures sacred to the Sun dead?  And
is not a priest of the Sun also dead, but now slain by the magic
of these strangers, who come as the winds out of heaven, whence
we know not, and who are what we know not?  Beware, oh Queens,
how ye tamper with the great majesty of the God, even before
His high altar!  There is a Power that is more than your power;
there is a Justice that is higher than your justice.  Beware
how ye lift an impious hand against it!  Let the sacrifice be
sacrificed, oh Queens.'

Then Sorais made answer in her deep quiet tones, that always
seemed to me to have a suspicion of mockery about them, however
serious the theme: 'Oh, Agon, thou hast spoken according to thy
desire, and thou hast spoken truth.  But it is thou who wouldst
lift an impious hand against the justice of thy God.  Bethink
thee the midday sacrifice is accomplished; the Sun hath claimed
his priest as a sacrifice.'

This was a novel idea, and the people applauded it.

'Bethink thee what are these men?  They are strangers found floating
on the bosom of a lake.  Who brought them here?  How came they
here?  How know you that they also are not servants of the Sun?
Is this the hospitality that ye would have our nation show to
those whom chance brings to them, to throw them to the flames?
Shame on you!  Shame on you!  What is hospitality?  To receive
the stranger and show him favour.  To bind up his wounds, and
find a pillow for his head, and food for him to eat.  But thy
pillow is the fiery furnace, and thy food the hot savour of the
flame.  Shame on thee, I say!'

She paused a little to watch the effect of her speech upon the
multitude, and seeing that it was favourable, changed her tone
from one of remonstrance to one of command.

'Ho! place there,' she cried; 'place, I say; make way for the
Queens, and those whom the Queens cover with their "kaf" (mantle).'

'And if I refuse, oh Queen?' said Agon between his teeth.

'Then will I cut a path with my guards,' was the proud answer;
'ay, even in the presence of thy sanctuary, and through the bodies
of thy priests.'

Agon turned livid with baffled fury.  He glanced at the people
as though meditating an appeal to them, but saw clearly that
their sympathies were all the other way.  The Zu-Vendi are a
very curious and sociable people, and great as was their sense
of the enormity that we had committed in shooting the sacred
hippopotami, they did not like the idea of the only real live
strangers they had seen or heard of being consigned to a fiery
furnace, thereby putting an end for ever to their chance of extracting
knowledge and information from, and gossiping about us.  Agon
saw this and hesitated, and then for the first time Nyleptha
spoke in her soft sweet voice.

'Bethink thee, Agon,' she said, 'as my sister Queen has said,
these men may also be servants of the Sun.  For themselves they
cannot speak, for their tongues are tied.  Let the matter be
adjourned till such time as they have learnt our language.  Who
can be condemned without a hearing?  When these men can plead
for themselves, then it will be time to put them to the proof.'

Here was a clever loophole of escape, and the vindictive old
priest took it, little as he liked it.

'So be it, oh Queens,' he said.  'Let the men go in peace, and
when they have learnt our tongue then let them speak.  And I,
even I, will make humble supplication at the altar lest pestilence
fall on the land by cause of the sacrilege.'

These words were received with a murmur of applause, and in another
minute we were marching out of the temple surrounded by the royal
guards.

But it was not till long afterwards that we learnt the exact
substance of what had passed, and how hardly our lives had been
wrung out of the cruel grip of the Zu-Vendi priesthood, in the
face of which even the Queens were practically powerless.  Had
it not been for their strenuous efforts to protect us we should
have been slain even before we set foot in the Temple of the
Sun.  The attempt to drop us bodily into the fiery pit as an
offering was a last artifice to attain this end when several
others quite unsuspected by us had already failed.




CHAPTER XV
SORAIS' SONG



After our escape from Agon and his pious crew we returned to
our quarters in the palace and had a very good time.  The two
Queens, the nobles and the people vied with each other in doing
us honour and showering gifts upon us.  As for that painful little
incident of the hippopotami it sank into oblivion, where we were
quite content to leave it.  Every day deputations and individuals
waited on us to examine our guns and clothing, our chain shirts,
and our instruments, especially our watches, with which they
were much delighted.  In short, we became quite the rage, so
much so that some of the fashionable young swells among the Zu-Vendi
began to copy the cut of some of our clothes, notably Sir Henry's
shooting jacket.  One day, indeed, a deputation waited on us
and, as usual, Good donned his full-dress uniform for the occasion.
This deputation seemed somehow to be a different class to those
who generally came to visit us.  They were little insignificant
men of an excessively polite, not to say servile, demeanour;
and their attention appeared to be chiefly taken up with observing
the details of Good's full-dress uniform, of which they took
copious notes and measurements.  Good was much flattered at the
time, not suspecting that he had to deal with the six leading
tailors of Milosis.  A fortnight afterwards, however, when on
attending court as usual he had the pleasure of seeing some seven
or eight Zu-Vendi 'mashers' arrayed in all the glory of a very
fair imitation of his full-dress uniform, he changed his mind.
I shall never forget his face of astonishment and disgust.
It was after this, chiefly to avoid remark, and also because
our clothes were wearing out and had to be saved up, that we
resolved to adopt the native dress; and a very comfortable one
we found it, though I am bound to say that I looked sufficiently
ridiculous in it, and as for Alphonse!  Only Umslopogaas would
have none of these things; when his moocha was worn out the fierce
old Zulu made him a new one, and went about unconcerned, as grim
and naked as his own battleaxe.

Meanwhile we pursued our study of the language steadily and made
very good progress.  On the morning following our adventure in
the temple, three grave and reverend signiors presented themselves
armed with manuscript books, ink-horns and feather pens, and
indicated that they had been sent to teach us.  So, with the
exception of Umslopogaas, we all buckled to with a will, doing
four hours a day.  As for Umslopogaas, he would have none of
that either.  He did not wish to learn that 'woman's talk', not
he; and when one of the teachers advanced on him with a book
and an ink-horn and waved them before him in a mild persuasive
way, much as a churchwarden invitingly shakes the offertory bag
under the nose of a rich but niggardly parishioner, he sprang
up with a fierce oath and flashed Inkosi-kaas before the eyes
of our learned friend, and there was an end of the attempt to
teach _him_ Zu-Vendi.

Thus we spent our mornings in useful occupation which grew more
and more interesting as we proceeded, and the afternoons were
given up to recreation.  Sometimes we made trips, notably one
to the gold mines and another to the marble quarries both of
which I wish I had space and time to describe; and sometimes
we went out hunting buck with dogs trained for that purpose,
and a very exciting sport it is, as the country is full of agricultural
enclosures and our horses were magnificent.  This is not to be
wondered at, seeing that the royal stables were at our command,
in addition to which we had four splendid saddle horses given
to us by Nyleptha.

Sometimes, again, we went hawking, a pastime that is in great
favour among the Zu-Vendi, who generally fly their birds at a
species of partridge which is remarkable for the swiftness and
strength of its flight.  When attacked by the hawk this bird
appears to lose its head, and, instead of seeking cover, flies
high into the sky, thus offering wonderful sport.  I have seen
one of these partridges soar up almost out of sight when followed
by the hawk.  Still better sport is offered by a variety of solitary
snipe as big as a small woodcock, which is plentiful in this
country, and which is flown at with a very small, agile, and
highly-trained hawk with an almost red tail.  The zigzagging
of the great snipe and the lightning rapidity of the flight and
movements of the red-tailed hawk make the pastime a delightful
one.  Another variety of the same amusement is the hunting of
a very small species of antelope with trained eagles; and it
certainly is a marvellous sight to see the great bird soar and
soar till he is nothing but a black speck in the sunlight, and
then suddenly come dashing down like a cannon-ball upon some
cowering buck that is hidden in a patch of grass from everything
but that piercing eye.  Still finer is the spectacle when the
eagle takes the buck running.

On other days we would pay visits to the country seats at some
of the great lords' beautiful fortified places, and the villages
clustering beneath their walls.  Here we saw vineyards and corn-fields
and well-kept park-like grounds, with such timber in them as
filled me with delight, for I do love a good tree.  There it
stands so strong and sturdy, and yet so beautiful, a very type
of the best sort of man.  How proudly it lifts its bare head
to the winter storms, and with what a full heart it rejoices
when the spring has come again!  How grand its voice is, too,
when it talks with the wind: a thousand aeolian harps cannot
equal the beauty of the sighing of a great tree in leaf.  All
day it points to the sunshine and all night to the stars, and
thus passionless, and yet full of life, it endures through the
centuries, come storm, come shine, drawing its sustenance from
the cool bosom of its mother earth, and as the slow years roll
by, learning the great mysteries of growth and of decay.  And
so on and on through generations, outliving individuals, customs,
dynasties -- all save the landscape it adorns and human nature
-- till the appointed day when the wind wins the long battle
and rejoices over a reclaimed space, or decay puts the last stroke
to his fungus-fingered work.

Ah, one should always think twice before one cuts down a tree!

In the evenings it was customary for Sir Henry, Good, and myself
to dine, or rather sup, with their Majesties -- not every night,
indeed, but about three or four times a week, whenever they had
not much company, or the affairs of state would allow of it.
And I am bound to say that those little suppers were quite the
most charming things of their sort that I ever had to do with.
How true is the saying that the very highest in rank are always
the most simple and kindly.  It is from your half-and-half sort
of people that you get pomposity and vulgarity, the difference
between the two being very much what one sees every day in
England between the old, out-at-elbows, broken-down county family,
and the overbearing, purse-proud people who come and 'take the
place'.  I really think that Nyleptha's greatest charm is her
sweet simplicity, and her kindly genuine interest even in little
things.  She is the simplest woman I ever knew, and where her
passions are not involved, one of the sweetest; but she can look
queenly enough when she likes, and be as fierce as any savage too.

For instance, never shall I forget that scene when I for the
first time was sure that she was really in love with Curtis.
It came about in this way -- all through Good's weakness for
ladies' society.  When we had been employed for some three months
in learning Zu-Vendi, it struck Master Good that he was getting
rather tired of the old gentlemen who did us the honour to lead
us in the way that we should go, so he proceeded, without saying
a word to anybody else, to inform them that it was a peculiar
fact, but that we could not make any real progress in the deeper
intricacies of a foreign language unless we were taught by ladies
-- young ladies, he was careful to explain.  In his own country,
he pointed out, it was habitual to choose the very best-looking
and most charming girls who could be found to instruct any strangers
who happened to come that way, etc.

All of this the old gentlemen swallowed open-mouthed.  There
was, they admitted, reason in what he said, since the contemplation
of the beautiful, as their philosophy taught, induced a certain
porosity of mind similar to that produced upon the physical body
by the healthful influences of sun and air.  Consequently it
was probable that we might absorb the Zu-Vendi tongue a little
faster if suitable teachers could be found.  Another thing was
that, as the female sex was naturally loquacious, good practice
would be gained in the viva voce department of our studies.

To all of this Good gravely assented, and the learned gentlemen
departed, assuring him that their orders were to fall in with
our wishes in every way, and that, if possible, our views should
be met.

Imagine, therefore the surprise and disgust of myself, and I
trust and believe Sir Henry, when, on entering the room where
we were accustomed to carry on our studies the following morning,
we found, instead of our usual venerable tutors, three of the
best-looking young women whom Milosis could produce -- and that
is saying a good deal -- who blushed and smiled and curtseyed,
and gave us to understand that they were there to carry on our
instruction.  Then Good, as we gazed at one another in bewilderment,
thought fit to explain, saying that it had slipped his memory
before -- but the old gentlemen had told him, on the previous
evening, that it was absolutely necessary that our further education
should be carried on by the other sex.  I was overwhelmed, and
appealed to Sir Henry for advice in such a crisis.

'Well,' he said, 'you see the ladies are here, ain't they?  If
we sent them away, don't you think it might hurt their feelings,
eh?  One doesn't like to be rough, you see; and they look regular
_blues_, don't they, eh?'

By this time Good had already begun his lessons with the handsomest
of the three, and so with a sigh I yielded.  That day everything
went very well: the young ladies were certainly very clever,
and they only smiled when we blundered.  I never saw Good so
attentive to his books before, and even Sir Henry appeared to
tackle Zu-Vendi with a renewed zest.  'Ah,' thought I, 'will
it always be thus?'

Next day we were much more lively, our work was pleasingly interspersed
with questions about our native country, what the ladies were
like there, etc., all of which we answered as best as we could
in Zu-Vendi, and I heard Good assuring his teacher that her loveliness
was to the beauties of Europe as the sun to the moon, to which
she replied with a little toss of the head, that she was a plain
teaching woman and nothing else, and that it was not kind 'to
deceive a poor girl so'.  Then we had a little singing that was
really charming, so natural and unaffected.  The Zu-Vendi love-songs
are most touching.  On the third day we were all quite intimate.
Good narrated some of his previous love affairs to his fair
teacher, and so moved was she that her sighs mingled with his
own.  I discoursed with mine, a merry blue-eyed girl, upon Zu-Vendian
art, and never saw that she was waiting for an opportunity to
drop a specimen of the cockroach tribe down my back, whilst in
the corner Sir Henry and his governess appeared, so far as I
could judge, to be going through a lesson framed on the great
educational principles laid down by Wackford Squeers Esq., though
in a very modified or rather spiritualized form.  The lady softly
repeated the Zu-Vendi word for 'hand', and he took hers; 'eyes',
and he gazed deep into her brown orbs; 'lips', and -- but just
at that moment _my_ young lady dropped the cockroach down my back
and ran away laughing.  Now if there is one thing I loathe more
than another it is cockroaches, and moved quite beyond myself,
and yet laughing at her impudence, I took up the cushion she
had been sitting on and threw it after her.  Imagine then my
shame -- my horror, and my distress -- when the door opened,
and, attended by two guards only, in walked _Nyleptha_.  The cushion
could not be recalled (it missed the girl and hit one of the
guards on the head), but I instantly and ineffectually tried
to look as though I had not thrown it.  Good ceased his sighing,
and began to murder Zu-Vendi at the top of his voice, and Sir
Henry whistled and looked silly.  As for the poor girls, they
were utterly dumbfounded.

And Nyleptha! she drew herself up till her frame seemed to tower
even above that of the tall guards, and her face went first red,
and then pale as death.

'Guards,' she said in a quiet choked voice, and pointing at the fair
but unconscious disciple of Wackford Squeers, 'slay me that woman.'

The men hesitated, as well they might.

'Will ye do my bidding,' she said again in the same voice,
'or will ye not?'

Then they advanced upon the girl with uplifted spears.
By this time Sir Henry had recovered himself, and saw that
the comedy was likely to turn into a tragedy.

'Stand back,' he said in a voice of thunder, at the same time
getting in front of the terrified girl.  'Shame on thee,
Nyleptha -- shame!  Thou shalt not kill her.'

'Doubtless thou hast good reason to try to protect her.
Thou couldst hardly do less in honour,' answered the
infuriated Queen; 'but she shall die -- she shall die,'
and she stamped her little foot.

'It is well,' he answered; 'then will I die with her.  I am thy
servant, oh Queen; do with me even as thou wilt.'  And he bowed
towards her, and fixed his clear eyes contemptuously on her face.

'I could wish to slay thee too,' she answered; 'for thou dost
make a mock of me;' and then feeling that she was mastered, and
I suppose not knowing what else to do, she burst into such a
storm of tears and looked so royally lovely in her passionate
distress, that, old as I am, I must say I envied Curtis his task
of supporting her.  It was rather odd to see him holding her
in his arms considering what had just passed -- a thought that
seemed to occur to herself, for presently she wrenched herself
free and went, leaving us all much disturbed.

Presently, however, one of the guards returned with a message
to the girls that they were, on pain of death, to leave the city
and return to their homes in the country, and that no further
harm would come to them; and accordingly they went, one of them
remarking philosophically that it could not be helped, and that
it was a satisfaction to know that they had taught us a little
serviceable Zu-Vendi.  Mine was an exceedingly nice girl, and,
overlooking the cockroach, I made her a present of my favourite
lucky sixpence with a hole in it when she went away.  After that
our former masters resumed their course of instruction, needless
to say to my great relief.

That night, when in fear and trembling we attended the royal
supper table, we found that Nyleptha was laid up with a bad headache.
That headache lasted for three whole days; but on the fourth
she was present at supper as usual, and with the most gracious
and sweet smile gave Sir Henry her hand to lead her to the table.
No allusion was made to the little affair described above beyond
her saying, with a charming air of innocence, that when she came
to see us at our studies the other day she had been seized with
a giddiness from which she had only now recovered.  She supposed,
she added with a touch of the humour that was common to her,
that it was the sight of people working so hard which had affected her.

In reply Sir Henry said, dryly, that he had thought she did not
look quite herself on that day, whereat she flashed one of those
quick glances of hers at him, which if he had the feelings of
a man must have gone through him like a knife, and the subject
dropped entirely.  Indeed, after supper was over Nyleptha condescended
to put us through an examination to see what we had learnt, and
to express herself well satisfied with the results.  Indeed,
she proceeded to give us, especially Sir Henry, a lesson on her
own account, and very interesting we found it.

And all the while that we talked, or rather tried to talk, and
laughed, Sorais would sit there in her carven ivory chair, and
look at us and read us all like a book, only from time to time
saying a few words, and smiling that quick ominous smile of hers
which was more like a flash of summer lightning on a dark cloud
than anything else.  And as near to her as he dared would sit
Good, worshipping through his eyeglass, for he really was getting
seriously devoted to this sombre beauty, of whom, speaking personally,
I felt terribly afraid.  I watched her keenly, and soon I found
out that for all her apparent impassibility she was at heart
bitterly jealous of Nyleptha.  Another thing I found out, and
the discovery filled me with dismay, and that was, that she _also_
was growing devoted to Sir Henry Curtis.  Of course I could not
be sure; it is not easy to read so cold and haughty a woman;
but I noticed one or two little things, and, as elephant hunters
know, dried grass shows which way the wind has set.

And so another three months passed over us, by which time we
had all attained to a very considerable mastery of the Zu-Vendi
language, which is an easy one to learn.  And as the time went
on we became great favourites with the people, and even with
the courtiers, gaining an enormous reputation for cleverness,
because, as I think I have said, Sir Henry was able to show them
how to make glass, which was a national want, and also, by the
help of a twenty-year almanac that we had with us, to predict
various heavenly combinations which were quite unsuspected by
the native astronomers.  We even succeeded in demonstrating the
principle of the steam-engine to a gathering of the learned men,
who were filled with amazement; and several other things of the
same sort we did.  And so it came about that the people made
up their minds that we must on no account be allowed to go out
of the country (which indeed was an apparent impossibility even
if we had wished it), and we were advanced to great honour and
made officers to the bodyguards of the sister Queens while permanent
quarters were assigned to us in the palace, and our opinion was
asked upon questions of national policy.

But blue as the sky seemed, there was a cloud, and a big one,
on the horizon.  We had indeed heard no more of those confounded
hippopotami, but it is not on that account to be supposed that
our sacrilege was forgotten, or the enmity of the great and powerful
priesthood headed by Agon appeased.  On the contrary, it was
burning the more fiercely because it was necessarily suppressed,
and what had perhaps begun in bigotry was ending in downright
direct hatred born of jealousy.  Hitherto, the priests had been
the wise men of the land, and were on this account, as well as
from superstitious causes, looked on with peculiar veneration.
But our arrival, with our outlandish wisdom and our strange
inventions and hints of unimagined things, dealt a serious blow
to this state of affairs, and, among the educated Zu-Vendi, went
far towards destroying the priestly prestige.  A still worse
affront to them, however, was the favour with which we were regarded,
and the trust that was reposed in us.  All these things tended
to make us excessively obnoxious to the great sacerdotal clan,
the most powerful because the most united faction in the kingdom.

Another source of imminent danger to us was the rising envy of
some of the great lords headed by Nasta, whose antagonism to
us had at best been but thinly veiled, and which now threatened
to break out into open flame.  Nasta had for some years been
a candidate for Nyleptha's hand in marriage, and when we appeared
on the scene I fancy, from all I could gather, that though there
were still many obstacles in his path, success was by no means
out of his reach.  But now all this had changed; the coy Nyleptha
smiled no more in his direction, and he was not slow to guess
the cause.  Infuriated and alarmed, he turned his attention to
Sorais, only to find that he might as well try to woo a mountain
side.  With a bitter jest or two about his fickleness, that door
was closed on him for ever.  So Nasta bethought himself of the
thirty thousand wild swordsmen who would pour down at his bidding
through the northern mountain passes, and no doubt vowed to adorn
the gates of Milosis with our heads.

But first he determined, as I learned, to make one more attempt
and to demand the hand of Nyleptha in the open Court after the
formal annual ceremony of the signing of the laws that had been
proclaimed by the Queens during the year.

Of this astounding fact Nyleptha heard with simulated nonchalance,
and with a little trembling of the voice herself informed us
of it as we sat at supper on the night preceding the great ceremony
of the law-giving.

Sir Henry bit his lip, and do what he could to prevent it plainly
showed his agitation.

'And what answer will the Queen be pleased to give to the
great Lord?' asked I, in a jesting manner.

'Answer, Macumazahn' (for we had elected to pass by our Zulu
names in Zu-Vendis), she said, with a pretty shrug of her ivory
shoulder.  'Nay, I know not; what is a poor woman to do, when
the wooer has thirty thousand swords wherewith to urge his love?'
And from under her long lashes she glanced at Curtis.

Just then we rose from the table to adjourn into another room.
'Quatermain, a word, quick,' said Sir Henry to me.  'Listen.
I have never spoken about it, but surely you have guessed: I
love Nyleptha.  What am I to do?'

Fortunately, I had more or less already taken the question into
consideration, and was therefore able to give such answer as
seemed the wisest to me.

'You must speak to Nyleptha tonight,' I said.  'Now is your time,
now or never.  Listen.  In the sitting-chamber get near to her,
and whisper to her to meet you at midnight by the Rademas statue
at the end of the great hall.  I will keep watch for you there.
Now or never, Curtis.'

We passed on into the other room.  Nyleptha was sitting, her
hands before her, and a sad anxious look upon her lovely face.
A little way off was Sorais talking to Good in her slow measured
tones.

The time went on; in another quarter of an hour I knew that,
according to their habit, the Queens would retire.  As yet, Sir
Henry had had no chance of saying a word in private: indeed,
though we saw much of the royal sisters, it was by no means easy
to see them alone.  I racked my brains, and at last an idea came
to me.

'Will the Queen be pleased,' I said, bowing low before Sorais,
'to sing to her servants?  Our hearts are heavy this night; sing
to us, oh Lady of the Night' (Sorais' favourite name among the
people).

'My songs, Macumazahn, are not such as to lighten the heavy heart,
yet will I sing if it pleases thee,' she answered; and she rose
and went a few paces to a table whereon lay an instrument not
unlike a zither, and struck a few wandering chords.

Then suddenly, like the notes of some deep-throated bird, her
rounded voice rang out in song so wildly sweet, and yet with
so eerie and sad a refrain, that it made the very blood stand
still.  Up, up soared the golden notes, that seemed to melt far
away, and then to grow again and travel on, laden with all the
sorrow of the world and all the despair of the lost.  It was
a marvellous song, but I had not time to listen to it properly.
However, I got the words of it afterwards, and here is a translation
of its burden, so far as it admits of being translated at all.


  SORAIS' SONG

  As a desolate bird that through darkness its lost way is winging,
  As a hand that is helplessly raised when Death's sickle is swinging,
  So is life! ay, the life that lends passion and breath to my singing.

  As the nightingale's song that is full of a sweetness unspoken,
  As a spirit unbarring the gates of the skies for a token,
  So is love! ay, the love that shall fall when his pinion is broken.

  As the tramp of the legions when trumpets their challenge are sending,
  As the shout of the Storm-god when lightnings the black sky are rending,
  So is power! ay, the power that shall lie in the dust at its ending.

  So short is our life; yet with space for all things to forsake us,
  A bitter delusion, a dream from which nought can awake us,
  Till Death's dogging footsteps at morn or at eve shall o'ertake us.


Refrain

Oh, the world is fair at the dawning -- dawning -- dawning,
But the red sun sinks in blood -- the red sun sinks in blood.


I only wish that I could write down the music too.

'Now, Curtis, now,' I whispered, when she began the second verse,
and turned my back.

'Nyleptha,' he said -- for my nerves were so much on the stretch
that I could hear every word, low as it was spoken, even through
Sorais' divine notes -- 'Nyleptha, I must speak with thee this
night, upon my life I must.  Say me not nay; oh, say me not nay!'

'How can I speak with thee?' she answered, looking fixedly before
her; 'Queens are not like other people.  I am surrounded and watched.'

'Listen, Nyleptha, thus.  I will be before the statue of Rademas
in the great hall at midnight.  I have the countersign and can
pass in.  Macumazahn will be there to keep guard, and with him
the Zulu.  Oh come, my Queen, deny me not.'

'It is not seemly,' she murmured, 'and tomorrow --'

Just then the music began to die in the last wail of the refrain,
and Sorais slowly turned her round.

'I will be there,' said Nyleptha, hurriedly; 'on thy life see
that thou fail me not.'




CHAPTER XVI
BEFORE THE STATUE



It was night -- dead night -- and the silence lay on the
Frowning City like a cloud.

Secretly, as evildoers, Sir Henry Curtis, Umslopogaas, and myself
threaded our way through the passages towards a by-entrance to
the great Throne Chamber.  Once we were met by the fierce rattling
challenge of the sentry.  I gave the countersign, and the man
grounded his spear and let us pass.  Also we were officers of
the Queens' bodyguard, and in that capacity had a right to come
and go unquestioned.

We gained the hall in safety.  So empty and so still was it,
that even when we had passed the sound of our footsteps yet echoed
up the lofty walls, vibrating faintly and still more faintly
against the carven roof, like ghosts of the footsteps of dead
men haunting the place that once they trod.

It was an eerie spot, and it oppressed me.  The moon was full,
and threw great pencils and patches of light through the high
windowless openings in the walls, that lay pure and beautiful
upon the blackness of the marble floor, like white flowers on
a coffin.  One of these silver arrows fell upon the statue of
the sleeping Rademas, and of the angel form bent over him, illumining
it, and a small circle round it, with a soft clear light, reminding
me of that with which Catholics illumine the altars of their
cathedrals.

Here by the statue we took our stand, and waited.  Sir Henry
and I close together, Umslopogaas some paces off in the darkness,
so that I could only just make out his towering outline leaning
on the outline of an axe.

So long did we wait that I almost fell asleep resting against
the cold marble, but was suddenly aroused by hearing Curtis give
a quick catching breath.  Then from far away there came a little
sound as though the statues that lined the walls were whispering
to each other some message of the ages.

It was the faint sweep of a lady's dress.  Nearer it grew, and
nearer yet.  We could see a figure steal from patch to patch
of moonlight, and even hear the soft fall of sandalled feet.
Another second and I saw the black silhouette of the old Zulu
raise its arm in mute salute, and Nyleptha was before us.

Oh, how beautiful she looked as she paused a moment just within
the circle of the moonlight!  Her hand was pressed upon her heart,
and her white bosom heaved beneath it.  Round her head a broidered
scarf was loosely thrown, partially shadowing the perfect face,
and thus rendering it even more lovely; for beauty, dependent
as it is to a certain extent upon the imagination, is never so
beautiful as when it is half hid.  There she stood radiant but
half doubting, stately and yet so sweet.  It was but a moment,
but I then and there fell in love with her myself, and have remained
so to this hour; for, indeed, she looked more like an angel out
of heaven than a loving, passionate, mortal woman.  Low we bowed
before her, and then she spoke.

'I have come,' she whispered, 'but it was at great risk.  Ye
know not how I am watched.  The priests watch me.  Sorais watches
me with those great eyes of hers.  My very guards are spies upon
me.  Nasta watches me too.  Oh, let him be careful!' and she
stamped her foot.  'Let him be careful; I am a woman, and therefore
hard to drive.  Ay, and I am a Queen, too, and can still avenge.
Let him be careful, I say, lest in place of giving him my hand
I take his head,' and she ended the outburst with a little sob,
and then smiled up at us bewitchingly and laughed.

'Thou didst bid me come hither, my Lord Incubu' (Curtis had taught
her to call him so).  'Doubtless it is about business of the
State, for I know that thou art ever full of great ideas and
plans for my welfare and my people's.  So even as a Queen should
I have come, though I greatly fear the dark alone,' and again
she laughed and gave him a glance from her grey eyes.

At this point I thought it wise to move a little, since secrets
'of the State' should not be made public property; but she would
not let me go far, peremptorily stopping me within five yards
or so, saying that she feared surprise.  So it came to pass that,
however unwillingly, I heard all that passed.

'Thou knowest, Nyleptha,' said Sir Henry, 'that it was for none
of these things that I asked thee to meet me at this lonely place.
Nyleptha, waste not the time in pleasantry, but listen to me,
for -- I love thee.'

As he said the words I saw her face break up, as it were, and
change.  The coquetry went out of it, and in its place there
shone a great light of love which seemed to glorify it, and make
it like that of the marble angel overhead.  I could not help
thinking that it must have been a touch of prophetic instinct
which made the long dead Rademas limn, in the features of the
angel of his inspiring vision, so strange a likeness of his own
descendant.  Sir Henry, also, must have observed and been struck
by the likeness, for, catching the look upon Nyleptha's face,
he glanced quickly from it to the moonlit statue, and then back
again at his beloved.

'Thou sayest thou dost love me,' she said in a low voice, 'and
thy voice rings true, but how am I to know that thou dost speak
the truth?'

'Though,' she went on with proud humility, and in the stately
third person which is so largely used by the Zu-Vendi, 'I be
as nothing in the eyes of my lord,' and she curtseyed towards
him, 'who comes from among a wonderful people, to whom my people
are but children, yet here am I a queen and a leader of men,
and if I would go to battle a hundred thousand spears shall sparkle
in my train like stars glimmering down the path of the bent moon.
And although my beauty be a little thing in the eyes of my lord,'
and she lifted her broidered skirt and curtseyed again, 'yet
here among my own people am I held right fair, and ever since
I was a woman the great lords of my kingdom have made quarrel
concerning me, as though forsooth,' she added with a flash of
passion, 'I were a deer to be pulled down by the hungriest wolf,
or a horse to be sold to the highest bidder.  Let my lord pardon
me if I weary my lord, but it hath pleased my lord to say that
he loves me, Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, and therefore
would I say that though my love and my hand be not much to my
lord, yet to me are they all.'

'Oh!' she cried, with a sudden and thrilling change of voice,
and modifying her dignified mode of address.  'Oh, how can I
know that thou lovest but me?  How can I know that thou wilt
not weary of me and seek thine own place again, leaving me desolate?
Who is there to tell me but that thou lovest some other woman,
some fair woman unknown to me, but who yet draws breath beneath
this same moon that shines on me tonight?  Tell me _how_ am I to
know?'  And she clasped her hands and stretched them out towards
him and looked appealingly into his face.

'Nyleptha,' answered Sir Henry, adopting the Zu-Vendi way of
speech; 'I have told thee that I love thee; how am I to tell
thee how much I love thee?  Is there then a measure for love?
Yet will I try.  I say not that I have never looked upon another
woman with favour, but this I say that I love thee with all my
life and with all my strength; that I love thee now and shall
love thee till I grow cold in death, ay, and as I believe beyond
my death, and on and on for ever: I say that thy voice is music
to my ear, and thy touch as water to a thirsty land, that when
thou art there the world is beautiful, and when I see thee not
it is as though the light was dead.  Oh, Nyleptha, I will never
leave thee; here and now for thy dear sake I will forget my people
and my father's house, yea, I renounce them all.  By thy side
will I live, Nyleptha, and at thy side will I die.'

He paused and gazed at her earnestly, but she hung her head like
a lily, and said never a word.

'Look!' he went on, pointing to the statue on which the moonlight
played so brightly.  'Thou seest that angel woman who rests her
hand upon the forehead of the sleeping man, and thou seest how
at her touch his soul flames up and shines out through his flesh,
even as a lamp at the touch of the fire, so is it with me and
thee, Nyleptha.  Thou hast awakened my soul and called it forth,
and now, Nyleptha, it is not mine, not mine, but _thine_ and thine
only.  There is no more for me to say; in thy hands is my life.'
And he leaned back against the pedestal of the statue, looking
very pale, and his eyes shining, but proud and handsome as a god.

Slowly, slowly she raised her head, and fixed her wonderful eyes,
all alight with the greatness of her passion, full upon his face,
as though to read his very soul.  Then at last she spoke, low
indeed, but clearly as a silver bell.

'Of a truth, weak woman that I am, I do believe thee.  Ill will
be the day for thee and for me also if it be my fate to learn
that I have believed a lie.  And now hearken to me, oh man, who
hath wandered here from far to steal my heart and make me all
thine own.  I put my hand upon thy hand thus, and thus I, whose
lips have never kissed before, do kiss thee on the brow; and
now by my hand and by that first and holy kiss, ay, by my people's
weal and by my throne that like enough I shall lose for thee
-- by the name of my high House, by the sacred Stone and by the
eternal majesty of the Sun, I swear that for thee will I live
and die.  And I swear that I will love thee and thee only till
death, ay, and beyond, if as thou sayest there be a beyond, and
that thy will shall be my will, and thy ways my ways.

'Oh see, see, my lord! thou knowest not how humble is she who
loves; I, who am a Queen, I kneel before thee, even at thy feet
I do my homage;' and the lovely impassioned creature flung herself
down on her knees on the cold marble before him.  And after that
I really do not know, for I could stand it no longer, and cleared
off to refresh myself with a little of old Umslopogaas' society,
leaving them to settle it their own way, and a very long time
they were about it.

I found the old warrior leaning on Inkosi-kaas as usual, and
surveying the scene in the patch of moonlight with a grim smile
of amusement.

'Ah, Macumazahn,' he said, 'I suppose it is because I am getting
old, but I don't think that I shall ever learn to understand
the ways of you white people.  Look there now, I pray thee, they
are a pretty pair of doves, but what is all the fuss about, Macumazahn?
He wants a wife, and she wants a husband, then why does he not
pay his cows down {Endnote 17} like a man and have done with
it?  It would save a deal of trouble, and we should have had
our night's sleep.  But there they go, talk, talk, talk, and
kiss, kiss, kiss, like mad things.  Eugh!'

Some three-quarters of an hour afterwards the 'pair of doves'
came strolling towards us, Curtis looking slightly silly, and
Nyleptha remarking calmly that the moonlight made very pretty
effects on the marble.  Then, for she was in a most gracious
mood, she took my hand and said that I was 'her Lord's' dear
friend, and therefore most dear to her -- not a word for my own
sake, you see.  Next she lifted Umslopogaas' axe, and examined
it curiously, saying significantly as she did so that he might
soon have cause to use it in defence of her.

After that she nodded prettily to us all, and casting a
tender glance at her lover, glided off into the darkness
like a beautiful vision.

When we got back to our quarters, which we did without accident,
Curtis asked me jocularly what I was thinking about.

'I am wondering,' I answered, 'on what principle it is arranged
that some people should find beautiful queens to fall in love
with them, while others find nobody at all, or worse than nobody;
and I am also wondering how many brave men's lives this night's
work will cost.'  It was rather nasty of me, perhaps, but somehow
all the feelings do not evaporate with age, and I could not help
being a little jealous of my old friend's luck.  Vanity, my sons;
vanity of vanities!

On the following morning, Good was informed of the happy occurrence,
and positively rippled with smiles that, originating somewhere
about the mouth, slowly travelled up his face like the rings
in a duckpond, till they flowed over the brim of his eyeglass
and went where sweet smiles go.  The fact of the matter, however,
was that not only was Good rejoiced about the thing on its own
merits but also for personal reasons.  He adored Sorais quite
as earnestly as Sir Henry adored Nyleptha, and his adoration
had not altogether prospered.  Indeed, it had seemed to him and
to me also that the dark Cleopatra-like queen favoured Curtis
in her own curious inscrutable way much more than Good.  Therefore
it was a relief to him to learn that his unconscious rival was
permanently and satisfactorily attached in another direction.
His face fell a little, however, when he was told that the whole
thing was to be kept as secret as the dead, above all from Sorais
for the present, inasmuch as the political convulsion which would
follow such an announcement at the moment would be altogether
too great to face and would very possibly, if prematurely made,
shake Nyleptha from her throne.

That morning we again attended in the Throne Hall, and I could
not help smiling to myself when I compared the visit to our last,
and reflecting that, if walls could speak, they would have strange
tales to tell.

What actresses women are!  There, high upon her golden throne,
draped in her blazoned 'kaf' or robe of state, sat the fair Nyleptha,
and when Sir Henry came in a little late, dressed in the full
uniform of an officer of her guard and humbly bent himself before
her, she merely acknowledged his salute with a careless nod and
turned her head coldly aside.  It was a very large Court, for
not only did the signing of the laws attract many outside of
those whose duty it was to attend, but also the rumour that Nasta
was going to publicly ask the hand of Nyleptha in marriage had
gone abroad, with the result that the great hall was crowded
to its utmost capacity.  There were our friends the priests in
force, headed by Agon, who regarded us with a vindictive eye;
and a most imposing band they were, with their long white embroidered
robes girt with a golden chain from which hung the fish-like
scales.  There, too, were a number of the lords, each with a
band of brilliantly attired attendants, and prominent among them
was Nasta, stroking his black beard meditatively and looking
unusually pleasant.  It was a splendid and impressive sight,
especially when the officer after having read out each law handed
them to the Queens to sign, whereon the trumpets blared out and
the Queens' guard grounded their spears with a crash in salute.
This reading and signing of the laws took a long time, but at
length it came to an end, the last one reciting that 'whereas
distinguished strangers, etc.', and proceeding to confer on the
three of us the rank of 'lords', together with certain military
commands and large estates bestowed by the Queen.  When it was
read the trumpets blared and the spears clashed down as usual,
but I saw some of the lords turn and whisper to each other, while
Nasta ground his teeth.  They did not like the favour that was
shown to us, which under all the circumstances was not perhaps
unnatural.

Then there came a pause, and Nasta stepped forward and bowing
humbly, though with no humility in his eye, craved a boon at
the hands of the Queen Nyleptha.

Nyleptha turned a little pale, but bowed graciously, and prayed
the 'well-beloved lord' to speak on, whereon in a few
straightforward soldier-like words he asked her hand in marriage.

Then, before she could find words to answer, the High Priest
Agon took up the tale, and in a speech of real eloquence and
power pointed out the many advantages of the proposed alliance;
how it would consolidate the kingdom, for Nasta's dominions,
of which he was virtually king, were to Zu-Vendis much what Scotland
used to be to England; how it would gratify the wild mountaineers
and be popular among the soldiery, for Nasta was a famous general;
how it would set her dynasty firmly on the throne, and would
gain the blessing and approval of the 'Sun', i.e. of the office
of the High Priest, and so on.  Many of his arguments were undoubtedly
valid, and there was, looking at it from a political point of
view, everything to be said for the marriage.  But unfortunately
it is difficult to play the game of politics with the persons
of young and lovely queens as though they were ivory effigies
of themselves on a chessboard.  Nyleptha's face, while Agon spouted
away, was a perfect study; she smiled indeed, but beneath the
smile it set like a stone, and her eyes began to flash ominously.

At last he stopped, and she prepared herself to answer.  Before
she did so, however, Sorais leant towards her and said in a voice
sufficiently loud for me to catch what she said, 'Bethink thee
well, my sister, ere thou dost speak, for methinks that our thrones
may hang upon thy words.'

Nyleptha made no answer, and with a shrug and a smile Sorais
leant back again and listened.

'Of a truth a great honour has been done to me,' she said, 'that
my poor hand should not only have been asked in marriage, but
that Agon here should be so swift to pronounce the blessing of
the Sun upon my union.  Methinks that in another minute he would
have wed us fast ere the bride had said her say.  Nasta, I thank
thee, and I will bethink me of thy words, but now as yet I have
no mind for marriage, that is a cup of which none know the taste
until they begin to drink it.  Again I thank thee, Nasta,' and
she made as though she would rise.

The great lord's face turned almost as black as his beard with
fury, for he knew that the words amounted to a final refusal
of his suit.

'Thanks be to the Queen for her gracious words,' he said, restraining
himself with difficulty and looking anything but grateful, 'my
heart shall surely treasure them.  And now I crave another boon,
namely, the royal leave to withdraw myself to my own poor cities
in the north till such time as the Queen shall say my suit nay
or yea.  Mayhap,' he added, with a sneer, 'the Queen will be
pleased to visit me there, and to bring with her these stranger
lords,' and he scowled darkly towards us.  'It is but a poor
country and a rough, but we are a hardy race of mountaineers,
and there shall be gathered thirty thousand swordsmen to shout
a welcome to her.'

This speech, which was almost a declaration of rebellion, was
received in complete silence, but Nyleptha flushed up and answered
it with spirit.

'Oh, surely, Nasta, I will come, and the strange lords in my
train, and for every man of thy mountaineers who calls thee Prince,
will I bring two from the lowlands who call me Queen, and we
will see which is the staunchest breed.  Till then farewell.'

The trumpets blared out, the Queens rose, and the great assembly
broke up in murmuring confusion, and for myself I went home with
a heavy heart foreseeing civil war.

After this there was quiet for a few weeks.  Curtis and the Queen
did not often meet, and exercised the utmost caution not to allow
the true relation in which they stood to each other to leak out;
but do what they would, rumours as hard to trace as a buzzing
fly in a dark room, and yet quite as audible, began to hum
round and round, and at last to settle on her throne.




CHAPTER XVII
THE STORM BREAKS



And now it was that the trouble which at first had been but a
cloud as large as a man's hand began to loom very black and big
upon our horizon, namely, Sorais' preference for Sir Henry.
I saw the storm drawing nearer and nearer; and so, poor fellow,
did he.  The affection of so lovely and highly-placed a woman
was not a thing that could in a general way be considered a calamity
by any man, but, situated as Curtis was, it was a grievous burden
to bear.

To begin with, Nyleptha, though altogether charming, was, it must
be admitted, of a rather jealous disposition, and was sometimes
apt to visit on her lover's head her indignation at the marks
of what Alphonse would have called the 'distinguished consideration'
with which her royal sister favoured him.  Then the enforced
secrecy of his relation to Nyleptha prevented Curtis from taking
some opportunity of putting a stop, or trying to put a stop,
to this false condition of affairs, by telling Sorais, in a casual
but confidential way, that he was going to marry her sister.
A third sting in Sir Henry's honey was that he knew that Good
was honestly and sincerely attached to the ominous-looking but
most attractive Lady of the Night.  Indeed, poor Bougwan was
wasting himself to a shadow of his fat and jolly self about her,
his face getting so thin that his eyeglass would scarcely stick
in it; while she, with a sort of careless coquetry, just gave
him encouragement enough to keep him going, thinking, no doubt,
that he might be useful as a stalking-horse.  I tried to give
him a hint, in as delicate a way as I could, but he flew into
a huff and would not listen to me, so I was determined to let
ill along, for fear of making it worse.  Poor Good, he really
was very ludicrous in his distress, and went in for all sorts
of absurdities, under the belief that he was advancing his suit.
One of them was the writing -- with the assistance of one of
the grave and revered signiors who instructed us, and who, whatever
may have been the measure of his erudition, did not understand
how to scan a line -- of a most interminable Zu-Vendi love-song,
of which the continually recurring refrain was something about
'I will kiss thee; oh yes, I will kiss thee!'  Now among the
Zu-Vendi it is a common and most harmless thing for young men
to serenade ladies at night, as I believe they do in the southern
countries of Europe, and sing all sorts of nonsensical songs
to them.  The young men may or may not be serious; but no offence
is meant and none is taken, even by ladies of the highest rank,
who accept the whole thing as an English girl would a
gracefully-turned compliment.

Availing himself of this custom, Good bethought him that would
serenade Sorais, whose private apartments, together with those
of her maidens, were exactly opposite our own, on the further
side of a narrow courtyard which divided one section of the great
palace from another.  Accordingly, having armed himself with
a native zither, on which, being an adept with the light guitar,
he had easily learned to strum, he proceeded at midnight -- the
fashionable hour for this sort of caterwauling -- to make night
hideous with his amorous yells.  I was fast asleep when they
began, but they soon woke me up -- for Good possesses a tremendous
voice and has no notion of time -- and I ran to my window-place
to see what was the matter.  And there, standing in the full
moonlight in the courtyard, I perceived Good, adorned with an
enormous ostrich feather head-dress and a flowing silken cloak,
which it is the right thing to wear upon these occasions, and
shouting out the abominable song which he and the old gentleman
had evolved, to a jerky, jingling accompaniment.  From the direction
of the quarters of the maids of honour came a succession of faint
sniggerings; but the apartments of Sorais herself -- whom I devoutly
pitied if she happened to be there -- were silent as the grave.
There was absolutely no end to that awful song, with its eternal
'I will kiss thee!' and at last neither I nor Sir Henry, whom
I had summoned to enjoy the sight, could stand it any longer;
so, remembering the dear old story, I put my head to the window
opening, and shouted, 'For Heaven's sake, Good, don't go on talking
about it, but _kiss_ her and let's all go to sleep!'  That choked
him off, and we had no more serenading.

The whole thing formed a laughable incident in a tragic business.
How deeply thankful we ought to be that even the most serious
matters have generally a silver lining about them in the shape
of a joke, if only people could see it.  The sense of humour
is a very valuable possession in life, and ought to be cultivated
in the Board schools -- especially in Scotland.

Well, the more Sir Henry held off the more Sorais came on, as
is not uncommon in such cases, till at last things got very queer
indeed.  Evidently she was, by some strange perversity of mind,
quite blinded to the true state of the case; and I, for one,
greatly dreaded the moment of her awakening.  Sorais was a dangerous
woman to be mixed up with, either with or without one's consent.
At last the evil moment came, as I saw it must come.  One fine
day, Good having gone out hawking, Sir Henry and I were sitting
quietly talking over the situation, especially with reference
to Sorais, when a Court messenger arrived with a written note,
which we with some difficulty deciphered, and which was to the
effect that 'the Queen Sorais commanded the attendance of the
Lord Incubu in her private apartments, whither he would be conducted
by the bearer'.

'Oh my word!' groaned Sir Henry.  'Can't you go instead, old fellow?'

'Not if I know it,' I said with vigour.  'I had rather face a
wounded elephant with a shot-gun.  Take care of your own business,
my boy.  If you will be so fascinating you must take the consequences.
I would not be in your place for an empire.'

'You remind me of when I was going to be flogged at school and
the other boys came to console me,' he said gloomily.  'What
right has this Queen to command my attendance, I should like
to know?  I won't go.'

'But you must; you are one of her officers and bound to obey
her, and she knows it.  And after all it will soon be over.'

'That's just what they used to say,' he said again.  'I only
hope she won't put a knife into me.  I believe that she is quite
capable of it.'  And off he started very faintheartedly,
and no wonder.

I sat and waited, and at the end of about forty-five minutes
he returned, looking a good deal worse than when he went.

'Give me something to drink,' he said hoarsely.

I got him a cup of wine, and asked what was the matter.

'What is the matter?  Why if ever there was trouble there's trouble
now.  You know when I left you?  Well, I was shown straight into
Sorais' private chamber, and a wonderful place it is; and there
she sat, quite alone, upon a silken couch at the end of the room,
playing gently upon that zither of hers.  I stood before her,
and for a while she took no notice of me, but kept on playing
and singing a little, and very sweet music it was.  At last she
looked up and smiled.

'"So thou art come," she said.  "I thought perchance thou hadst
gone about the Queen Nyleptha's business.  Thou art ever on her
business, and I doubt not a good servant and a true."

'To this I merely bowed, and said I was there to receive the
Queen's word.

'"Ah yes, I would talk with thee, but be thou seated.  It wearies
me to look so high," and she made room for me beside her on the
couch, placing herself with her back against the end, so as to
have a view of my face.

'"It is not meet," I said, "that I should make myself equal with
the Queen."

'"I said be seated," was her answer, so I sat down, and she began
to look at me with those dark eyes of hers.  There she sat like
an incarnate spirit of beauty, hardly talking at all, and when
she did, very low, but all the while looking at me.  There was
a white flower in her black hair, and I tried to keep my eyes
on it and count the petals, but it was of no use.  At last, whether
it was her gaze, or the perfume in her hair, or what I do not
know, but I almost felt as though I was being mesmerized.  At
last she roused herself.

'"Incubu," she said, "lovest thou power?"

'I replied that I supposed all men loved power of one sort or another.

'"Thou shalt have it," she said.  "Lovest thou wealth?"

'I said I liked wealth for what it brought.

'"Thou shalt have it," she said.  "And lovest thou beauty?"

'To this I replied that I was very fond of statuary and architecture,
or something silly of that sort, at which she frowned, and there
was a pause.  By this time my nerves were on such a stretch that
I was shaking like a leaf.  I knew that something awful was going
to happen, but she held me under a kind of spell, and I could
not help myself.

'"Incubu," she said at length, "wouldst thou be a king?  Listen,
wouldst thou be a king?  Behold, stranger, I am minded to make
thee king of all Zu-Vendis, ay and husband of Sorais of the Night.
Nay, peace and hear me.  To no man among my people had I thus
opened out my secret heart, but thou art an outlander and therefore
I speak without shame, knowing all I have to offer and how hard
it had been thee to ask.  See, a crown lies at thy feet, my lord
Incubu, and with that fortune a woman whom some have wished to
woo.  Now mayst thou answer, oh my chosen, and soft shall thy
words fall upon mine ears."

'"Oh Sorais," I said, "I pray thee speak not thus" -- you see
I had not time to pick and choose my words -- "for this thing
cannot be.  I am betrothed to thy sister Nyleptha, oh Sorais,
and I love her and her alone."

'Next moment it struck me that I had said an awful thing, and
I looked up to see the results.  When I spoke, Sorais' face was
hidden in her hands, and as my words reached her she slowly raised
it, and I shrank back dismayed.  It was ashy white, and her eyes
were flaming.  She rose to her feet and seemed to be choking,
but the awful thing was that she was so quiet about it all.
Once she looked at a side table, on which lay a dagger, and from
it to me, as though she thought of killing me; but she did not
take it up.  At last she spoke one word, and one only --

'"_Go!_"

'And I went, and glad enough I was to get out of it, and here
I am.  Give me another cup of wine, there's a good fellow,
and tell me, what is to be done?'

I shook my head, for the affair was indeed serious.  As one of the
poets says,


'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned',


more especially if the woman is a queen and a Sorais, and indeed
I feared the very worst, including imminent danger to ourselves.

'Nyleptha had better be told of this at once,' I said, 'and perhaps
I had better tell her; she might receive your account with suspicion.'

'Who is captain of her guard tonight?' I went on.

'Good.'

'Very well then, there will be no chance of her being got at.
Don't look surprised.  I don't think that her sister would stick
at that.  I suppose one must tell Good of what has happened.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Sir Henry.  'It would hurt his feelings,
poor fellow!  You see, he takes a lively personal interest in Sorais.'

'That's true; and after all, perhaps there is no need to tell him.
He will find out the truth soon enough.  Now, you mark my words,
Sorais will throw in her lot with Nasta, who is sulking up in
the North there, and there will be such a war as has not been
known in Zu-Vendis for centuries.  Look there!' and I pointed
to two Court messengers, who were speeding away from the door
of Sorais' private apartments.  'Now follow me,' and I ran up
a stairway into an outlook tower that rose from the roof of our
quarters, taking the spyglass with me, and looked out over the
palace wall.  The first thing we saw was one of the messengers
speeding towards the Temple, bearing, without any doubt, the
Queen's word to the High Priest Agon, but for the other I searched
in vain.  Presently, however, I spied a horseman riding furiously
through the northern gate of the city, and in him I recognized
the other messenger.

'Ah!' I said, 'Sorais is a woman of spirit.  She is acting at
once, and will strike quick and hard.  You have insulted her,
my boy, and the blood will flow in rivers before the stain is
washed away, and yours with it, if she can get hold of you.
Well, I'm off to Nyleptha.  Just you stop where you are, old
fellow, and try to get your nerves straight again.  You'll need
them all, I can tell you, unless I have observed human nature
in the rough for fifty years for nothing.'  And off I went accordingly.

I gained audience of the Queen without trouble.  She was expecting
Curtis, and was not best pleased to see my mahogany-coloured
face instead.

'Is there aught wrong with my Lord, Macumazahn, that he waits
not upon me?  Say, is he sick?'

I said that he was well enough, and then, without further ado,
I plunged into my story and told it from beginning to end.  Oh,
what a rage she flew into!  It was a sight to see her, she looked
so lovely.

'How darest thou come to me with such a tale?' she cried.  'It
is a lie to say that my Lord was making love to Sorais, my sister.'

'Pardon me, oh Queen,' I answered, 'I said that Sorais was making
love to thy lord.'

'Spin me no spiders' webs of words.  Is not the thing the same
thing?  The one giveth, the other taketh; but the gift passes,
and what matters it which is the most guilty?  Sorais! oh, I
hate her -- Sorais is a queen and my sister.  She had not stooped
so low had he not shown the way.  Oh, truly hath the poet said
that man is like a snake, whom to touch is poison, and whom none
can hold.'

'The remark, oh Queen, is excellent, but methinks thou hast misread
the poet.  Nyleptha,' I went on, 'thou knowest well that thy
words are empty foolishness, and that this is no time for folly.'

'How darest thou?' she broke in, stamping her foot.  'Hast my
false lord sent thee to me to insult me also?  Who art thou,
stranger, that thou shouldst speak to me, the Queen, after this
sort?  How darest thou?'

'Yea, I dare.  Listen.  The moments which thou dost waste in
idle anger may well cost thee thy crown and all of us our lives.
Already Sorais' horsemen go forth and call to arms.  In three
days' time Nasta will rouse himself in his fastnesses like a
lion in the evening, and his growling will be heard throughout
the North.  The "Lady of the Night" (Sorais) hath a sweet voice,
and she will not sing in vain.  Her banner will be borne from
range to range and valley to valley, and warriors will spring
up in its track like dust beneath a whirlwind; half the army
will echo her war-cry; and in every town and hamlet of this wide
land the priests will call out against the foreigner and will
preach her cause as holy.  I have spoken, oh Queen!'

Nyleptha was quite calm now; her jealous anger had passed; and
putting off the character of a lovely headstrong lady, with a
rapidity and completeness that distinguished her, she put on
that of a queen and a woman of business.  The transformation
was sudden but entire.

'Thy words are very wise, Macumazahn.  Forgive me my folly.
Ah, what a Queen I should be if only I had no heart!  To be heartless
-- that is to conquer all.  Passion is like the lightning, it
is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds!

'And thou thinkest that my sister Sorais would levy war upon
me.  So be it.  She shall not prevail against me.  I, too, have
my friends and my retainers.  There are many, I say, who will
shout "Nyleptha!" when my pennon runs up on peak and pinnacle,
and the light of my beacon fires leaps tonight from crag to crag,
bearing the message of my war.  I will break her strength and
scatter her armies.  Eternal night shall be the portion of Sorais
of the Night.  Give me that parchment and the ink.  So.
Now summon the officer in the ante-room.  He is a trusty man.'

I did as I was bid! and the man, a veteran and quiet-looking
gentleman of the guard, named Kara, entered, bowing low.

'Take this parchment,' said Nyleptha; 'it is thy warrant; and
guard every place of in and outgoing in the apartments of my
sister Sorais, the "Lady of the Night", and a Queen of the Zu-Vendi.
Let none come in and none go out, or thy life shall pay the
cost.'

The man looked startled, but he merely said, 'The Queen's word
be done,' and departed.  Then Nyleptha sent a messenger to Sir
Henry, and presently he arrived looking uncommonly uncomfortable.
I thought that another outburst was about to follow, but wonderful
are the ways of woman; she said not a word about Sorais and his
supposed inconstancy, greeting him with a friendly nod, and stating
simply that she required his advice upon high matters.  All the
same there was a look in her eye, and a sort of suppressed energy
in her manner towards him, that makes me think that she had not
forgotten the affair, but was keeping it for a private occasion.

Just after Curtis arrived the officer returned, and reported
that Sorais was _gone_.  The bird had flown to the Temple, stating
that she was going, as was sometimes the custom among Zu-Vendi
ladies of rank, to spend the night in meditation before the altar.
We looked at each other significantly.  The blow had fallen
very soon.

Then we set to work.

Generals who could be trusted were summoned from their quarters,
and as much of the State affairs as was thought desirable was
told to each, strict injunctions being given to them to get all
their available force together.  The same was done with such
of the more powerful lords as Nyleptha knew she could rely on,
several of whom left that very day for distant parts of the country
to gather up their tribesmen and retainers.  Sealed orders were
dispatched to the rulers of far-off cities, and some twenty messengers
were sent off before nightfall with instructions to ride early
and late till they reached the distant chiefs to whom their letters
were addressed: also many spies were set to work.  All the afternoon
and evening we laboured, assisted by some confidential scribes,
Nyleptha showing an energy and resource of mind that astonished
me, and it was eight o'clock before we got back to our quarters.
Here we heard from Alphonse, who was deeply aggrieved because
our non-return had spoilt his dinner (for he had turned cook
again now), that Good had come back from his hawking and gone
on duty.  As instructions had already been given to the officer
of the outer guard to double the sentries at the gate, and as
we had no reason to fear any immediate danger, we did not think
it worth while to hunt him up and tell him anything of what had
passed, which at best was, under the peculiar circumstances of
the case, one of those tasks that one prefers to postpone, so
after swallowing our food we turned in to get some much-needed
rest.  Before we did so, however, it occurred to Curtis to tell
old Umslopogaas to keep a look-out in the neighbourhood of Nyleptha's
private apartments.  Umslopogaas was now well known about the
place, and by the Queen's order allowed to pass whither he would
by the guards, a permission of which he often availed himself
by roaming about the palace during the still hours in a nocturnal
fashion that he favoured, and which is by no means uncommon amongst
black men generally.  His presence in the corridors would not,
therefore, be likely to excite remark.  Without any comment the
Zulu took up his axe and departed, and we also departed to bed.

I seemed to have been asleep but a few minutes when I was awakened
by a peculiar sensation of uneasiness.  I felt that somebody
was in the room and looking at me, and instantly sat up, to see
to my surprise that it was already dawn, and that there, standing
at the foot of my couch and looking peculiarly grim and gaunt
in the grey light, was Umslopogaas himself.

'How long hast thou been there?' I asked testily, for it is not
pleasant to be aroused in such a fashion.

'Mayhap the half of an hour, Macumazahn.  I have a word for thee.'

'Speak on,' I said, now wide enough awake.

'As I was bid I went last night to the place of the White Queen
and hid myself behind a pillar in the second anteroom, beyond
which is the sleeping-place of the Queen.  Bougwan (Good) was
in the first anteroom alone, and outside the curtain of that
room was a sentry, but I had a mind to see if I could pass in
unseen, and I did, gliding behind them both.  There I waited
for many hours, when suddenly I perceived a dark figure coming
secretly towards me.  It was the figure of a woman, and in her
hand she held a dagger.  Behind that figure crept another unseen
by the woman.  It was Bougwan following in her tracks.  His shoes
were off, and for so fat a man he followed very well.  The woman
passed me, and the starlight shone upon her face.'

'Who was it?' I asked impatiently.

'The face was the face of the "Lady of the Night", and of a truth
she is well named.

'I waited, and Bougwan passed me also.  Then I followed.
So we went slowly and without a sound up the long chamber.
First the woman, then Bougwan, and then I; and the woman saw
not Bougwan, and Bougwan saw not me.  At last the "Lady of the
Night" came to the curtains that shut off the sleeping place
of the White Queen, and put out her left hand to part them.
She passed through, and so did Bougwan, and so did I.  At the
far end of the room is the bed of the Queen, and on it she lay
very fast asleep.  I could hear her breathe, and see one white
arm lying on the coverlid like a streak of snow on the dry grass.
The "Lady of the Night" doubled herself thus, and with the long
knife lifted crept towards the bed.  So straight did she gaze
thereat that she never thought to look behind her.  When she
was quite close Bougwan touched her on the arm, and she caught
her breath and turned, and I saw the knife flash, and heard it
strike.  Well was it for Bougwan that he had the skin of iron
on him, or he had been pierced.  Then for the first time he saw
who the woman was, and without a word he fell back astonished,
and unable to speak.  She, too, was astonished, and spoke not,
but suddenly she laid her finger on her lip, thus, and walked
towards and through the curtain, and with her went Bougwan.
So close did she pass to me that her dress touched me, and I
was nigh to slaying her as she went.  In the first outer room
she spoke to Bougwan in a whisper and, clasping her hands thus,
she pleaded with him, but what she said I know not.  And so they
passed on to the second outer room, she pleading and he shaking
his head, and saying, "Nay, nay, nay".  And it seemed to me that
he was about to call the guard, when she stopped talking and
looked at him with great eyes, and I saw that he was bewitched
by her beauty.  Then she stretched out her hand and he kissed
it, whereon I gathered myself together to advance and take her,
seeing that now had Bougwan become a woman, and no longer knew
the good from the evil, when behold! she was gone.'

'Gone!' I ejaculated.

'Ay, gone, and there stood Bougwan staring at the wall like one
asleep, and presently he went too, and I waited a while and came
away also.'

'Art thou sure, Umslopogaas,' said I, 'that thou hast not been
a dreamer this night?'

In reply he opened his left hand, and produced about three inches
of a blade of a dagger of the finest steel.  'If I be, Macumazahn,
behold what the dream left with me.  The knife broke upon Bougwan's
bosom and as I passed I picked this up in the sleeping-place
of the White Queen.'




CHAPTER XVIII
WAR!  RED WAR!



Telling Umslopogaas to wait, I tumbled into my clothes and went
off with him to Sir Henry's room, where the Zulu repeated his
story word for word.  It was a sight to watch Curtis' face as
he heard it.

'Great Heavens!' he said: 'here have I been sleeping away while
Nyleptha was nearly murdered -- and all through me, too.  What
a fiend that Sorais must be!  It would have served her well if
Umslopogaas had cut her down in the act.'

'Ay,' said the Zulu.  'Fear not; I should have slain her ere
she struck.  I was but waiting the moment.'

I said nothing, but I could not help thinking that many a thousand
doomed lives would have been saved if he had meted out to Sorais
the fate she meant for her sister.  And, as the issue proved,
I was right.

After he had told his tale Umslopogaas went off unconcernedly
to get his morning meal, and Sir Henry and I fell to talking.

At first he was very bitter against Good, who, he said, was no
longer to be trusted, having designedly allowed Sorais to escape
by some secret stair when it was his duty to have handed her
over to justice.  Indeed, he spoke in the most unmeasured terms
on the matter.  I let him run on awhile, reflecting to myself
how easy we find it to be hard on the weaknesses of others, and
how tender we are to our own.

'Really, my dear fellow,' I said at length, 'one would never
think, to hear you talk, that you were the man who had an interview
with this same lady yesterday, and found it rather difficult
to resist her fascinations, notwithstanding your ties to one
of the loveliest and most loving women in the world.  Now suppose
it was Nyleptha who had tried to murder Sorais, and _you_ had
caught her, and she had pleaded with you, would you have been
so very eager to hand her over to an open shame, and to death
by fire?  Just look at the matter through Good's eyeglass for
a minute before you denounce an old friend as a scoundrel.'

He listened to this jobation submissively, and then frankly
acknowledged that he had spoken hardly.  It is one of the
best points in Sir Henry's character that he is always ready
to admit it when he is in the wrong.

But, though I spoke up thus for Good, I was not blind to the
fact that, however natural his behaviour might be, it was obvious
that he was being involved in a very awkward and disgraceful
complication.  A foul and wicked murder had been attempted, and
he had let the murderess escape, and thereby, among other things,
allowed her to gain a complete ascendency over himself.  In fact,
he was in a fair way to become her tool -- and no more dreadful
fate can befall a man than to become the tool of an unscrupulous
woman, or indeed of any woman.  There is but one end to it: when
he is broken, or has served her purpose, he is thrown away --
turned out on the world to hunt for his lost self-respect.  Whilst
I was pondering thus, and wondering what was to be done -- for
the whole subject was a thorny one -- I suddenly heard a great
clamour in the courtyard outside, and distinguished the voice
of Umslopogaas and Alphonse, the former cursing furiously, and
the latter yelling in terror.

Hurrying out to see what was the matter, I was met by a ludicrous
sight.  The little Frenchman was running up the courtyard at
an extraordinary speed, and after him sped Umslopogaas like a
great greyhound.  Just as I came out he caught him, and, lifting
him right off his legs, carried him some paces to a beautiful
but very dense flowering shrub which bore a flower not unlike
the gardenia, but was covered with short thorns.  Next, despite
his howls and struggles, he with one mighty thrust plunged poor
Alphonse head first into the bush, so that nothing but the calves
of his legs and heels remained in evidence.  Then, satisfied
with what he had done, the Zulu folded his arms and stood grimly
contemplating the Frenchman's kicks, and listening to his yells,
which were awful.

'What art thou doing?' I said, running up.  'Wouldst thou kill
the man?  Pull him out of the bush!'

With a savage grunt he obeyed, seizing the wretched Alphonse
by the ankle, and with a jerk that must have nearly dislocated
it, tearing him out of the heart of the shrub.  Never did I see
such a sight as he presented, his clothes half torn off his back,
and bleeding as he was in every direction from the sharp thorns.
There he lay and yelled and rolled, and there was no getting
anything out of him.

At last, however, he got up and, ensconcing himself behind me,
cursed old Umslopogaas by every saint in the calendar, vowing
by the blood of his heroic grandfather that he would poison him,
and 'have his revenge'.

At last I got to the truth of the matter.  It appeared that Alphonse
habitually cooked Umslopogaas's porridge, which the latter ate
for breakfast in the corner of the courtyard, just as he would
have done at home in Zululand, from a gourd, and with a wooden
spoon.  Now Umslopogaas had, like many Zulus, a great horror
of fish, which he considered a species of water-snake; so Alphonse,
who was as fond of playing tricks as a monkey, and who was also
a consummate cook, determined to make him eat some.  Accordingly
he grated up a quantity of white fish very finely, and mixed
it with the Zulu's porridge, who swallowed it nearly all down
in ignorance of what he was eating.  But, unfortunately for Alphonse,
he could not restrain his joy at this sight, and came capering
and peering round, till at last Umslopogaas, who was very clever
in his way, suspected something, and, after a careful examination
of the remains of his porridge, discovered 'the buffalo heifer's
trick', and, in revenge, served him as I have said.  Indeed,
the little man was fortunate not to get a broken neck for his
pains; for, as one would have thought, he might have learnt from
the episode of his display of axemanship that 'le Monsieur noir'
was an ill person to play practical jokes upon.

This incident was unimportant enough in itself, but I narrate
it because it led to serious consequences.  As soon as he had
stanched the bleeding from his scratches and washed himself,
Alphonse went off still cursing, to recover his temper, a process
which I knew from experience would take a very long time.  When
he had gone I gave Umslopogaas a jobation and told him that I
was ashamed of his behaviour.

'Ah, well, Macumazahn,' he said, 'you must be gentle with me,
for here is not my place.  I am weary of it, weary to death of
eating and drinking, of sleeping and giving in marriage.  I love
not this soft life in stone houses that takes the heart out of
a man, and turns his strength to water and his flesh to fat.
I love not the white robes and the delicate women, the blowing
of trumpets and the flying of hawks.  When we fought the Masai
at the kraal yonder, ah, then life was worth the living, but
here is never a blow struck in anger, and I begin to think I
shall go the way of my fathers and lift Inkosi-kaas no more,'
and he held up the axe and gazed at it in sorrow.

'Ah,' I said, 'that is thy complaint, is it?  Thou hast the
blood-sickness, hast thou?  And the Woodpecker wants a tree.
And at thy age, too.  Shame on thee! Umslopogaas.'

'Ay, Macumazahn, mine is a red trade, yet is it better and more
honest than some.  Better is it to slay a man in fair fight than
to suck out his heart's blood in buying and selling and usury
after your white fashion.  Many a man have I slain, yet is there
never a one that I should fear to look in the face again, ay,
many are there who once were friends, and whom I should be right
glad to snuff with.  But there! there! thou hast thy ways, and
I mine: each to his own people and his own place.  The high-veldt
ox will die in the fat bush country, and so is it with me, Macumazahn.
I am rough, I know it, and when my blood is warm I know not
what to do, but yet wilt thou be sorry when the night swallows
me and I am utterly lost in blackness, for in thy heart thou
lovest me, my father, Macumazahn the fox, though I be nought
but a broken-down Zulu war-dog -- a chief for whom there is no
room in his own kraal, an outcast and a wanderer in strange places:
ay, I love thee, Macumazahn, for we have grown grey together,
and there is that between us that cannot be seen, and yet is
too strong for breaking;' and he took his snuff-box, which was
made of an old brass cartridge, from the slit in his ear where
he always carried it, and handed it to me for me to help myself.

I took the pinch of snuff with some emotion.  It was quite true,
I was much attached to the bloodthirsty old ruffian.  I do not
know what was the charm of his character, but it had a charm;
perhaps it was its fierce honesty and directness; perhaps one
admired his almost superhuman skill and strength, or it may have
been simply that he was so absolutely unique.  Frankly, with
all my experience of savages, I never knew a man quite like him,
he was so wise and yet such a child with it all; and though it
seems laughable to say so, like the hero of the Yankee parody,
he 'had a tender heart'.  Anyway, I was very fond of him, though
I should never have thought of telling him so.

'Ay, old wolf,' I said, 'thine is a strange love.  Thou wouldst
split me to the chin if I stood in thy path tomorrow.'

'Thou speakest truth, Macumazahn, that would I if it came in
the way of duty, but I should love thee all the same when the
blow had gone fairly home.  Is there any chance of some fighting
here, Macumazahn?' he went on in an insinuating voice.  'Methought
that what I saw last night did show that the two great Queens
were vexed one with another.  Else had the "Lady of the Night"
not brought that dagger with her.'

I agreed with him that it showed that more or less pique and
irritation existed between the ladies, and told him how things
stood, and that they were quarrelling over Incubu.

'Ah, is it so?' he exclaimed, springing up in delight; 'then
will there be war as surely as the rivers rise in the rains --
war to the end.  Women love the last blow as well as the last
word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded
buffalo.  See thou, Macumazahn, a woman will swim through blood
to her desire, and think nought of it.  With these eyes have
I seen it once, and twice also.  Ah, Macumazahn, we shall see
this fine place of houses burning yet, and hear the battle cries
come ringing up the street.  After all, I have not wandered for
nothing.  Can this folk fight, think ye?'

Just then Sir Henry joined us, and Good arrived, too, from another
direction, looking very pale and hollow-eyed.  The moment Umslopogaas
saw the latter he stopped his bloodthirsty talk and greeted him.

'Ah, Bougwan,' he cried, 'greeting to thee, Inkoos!  Thou art
surely weary.  Didst thou hunt too much yesterday?'  Then, without
waiting for an answer, he went on --

'Listen, Bougwan, and I will tell thee a story; it is about a
woman, therefore wilt thou hear it, is it not so?

'There was a man and he had a brother, and there was a woman
who loved the man's brother and was beloved of the man.  But
the man's brother had a favourite wife and loved not the woman,
and he made a mock of her.  Then the woman, being very cunning
and fierce-hearted for revenge, took counsel with herself and
said to the man, "I love thee, and if thou wilt make war upon
thy brother I will marry thee."  And he knew it was a lie, yet
because of his great love of the woman, who was very fair, did
he listen to her words and made war.  And when many people had
been killed his brother sent to him, saying, "Why slayest thou
me?  What hurt have I done unto thee?  From my youth up have
I not loved thee?  When thou wast little did I not nurture thee,
and have we not gone down to war together and divided the cattle,
girl by girl, ox by ox, and cow by cow?  Why slayest thou me,
my brother, son of my own mother?"

'Then the man's heart was heavy, and he knew that his path was
evil, and he put aside the tempting of the woman and ceased to
make war on his brother, and lived at peace in the same kraal
with him.  And after a time the woman came to him and said, "I
have lost the past, I will be thy wife."  And in his heart he
knew that it was a lie and that she thought the evil thing,
yet because of his love did he take her to wife.

'And the very night that they were wed, when the man was plunged
into a deep sleep, did the woman arise and take his axe from
his hand and creep into the hut of his brother and slay him in
his rest.  Then did she slink back like a gorged lioness and
place the thong of the red axe back upon his wrist and go her ways.

'And at the dawning the people came shouting, "Lousta is slain
in the night," and they came unto the hut of the man, and there
he lay asleep and by him was the red axe.  Then did they remember
the war and say, "Lo! he hath of a surety slain his brother,"
and they would have taken and killed him, but he rose and fled
swiftly, and as he fleeted by he slew the woman.

'But death could not wipe out the evil she had done, and on him
rested the weight of all her sin.  Therefore is he an outcast
and his name a scorn among his own people; for on him, and him
only, resteth the burden of her who betrayed.  And, therefore,
does he wander afar, without a kraal and without an ox or a wife,
and therefore will he die afar like a stricken buck and his name
be accursed from generation to generation, in that the people
say that he slew his brother, Lousta, by treachery in the night-time.'

The old Zulu paused, and I saw that he was deeply agitated by
his own story.  Presently he lifted his head, which he had bowed
to his breast, and went on:

'I was the man, Bougwan.  Ou!  I was that man, and now hark
thou!  Even as I am so wilt thou be -- a tool, a plaything, an
ox of burden to carry the evil deeds of another.  Listen!  When
thou didst creep after the "Lady of the Night" I was hard upon
thy track.  When she struck thee with the knife in the sleeping
place of the White Queen I was there also; when thou didst
let her slip away like a snake in the stones I saw thee, and
I knew that she had bewitched thee and that a true man had abandoned
the truth, and he who aforetime loved a straight path had taken
a crooked way.  Forgive me, my father, if my words are sharp,
but out of a full heart are they spoken.  See her no more, so
shalt thou go down with honour to the grave.  Else because of
the beauty of a woman that weareth as a garment of fur shalt
thou be even as I am, and perchance with more cause.  I have
said.'

Throughout this long and eloquent address Good had been perfectly
silent, but when the tale began to shape itself so aptly to his
own case, he coloured up, and when he learnt that what had passed
between him and Sorais had been overseen he was evidently much
distressed.  And now, when at last he spoke, it was in a tone
of humility quite foreign to him.

'I must say,' he said, with a bitter little laugh, 'that I scarcely
thought that I should live to be taught my duty by a Zulu; but
it just shows what we can come to.  I wonder if you fellows can
understand how humiliated I feel, and the bitterest part of it
is that I deserve it all.  Of course I should have handed Sorais
over to the guard, but I could not, and that is a fact.  I let
her go and I promised to say nothing, more is the shame to me.
She told me that if I would side with her she would marry me
and make me king of this country, but thank goodness I did find
the heart to say that even to marry her I could not desert my
friends.  And now you can do what you like, I deserve it all.
All I have to say is that I hope that you may never love a woman
with all your heart and then be so sorely tempted of her,' and
he turned to go.

'Look here, old fellow,' said Sir Henry, 'just stop a minute.
I have a little tale to tell you too.'  And he went on to narrate
what had taken place on the previous day between Sorais and himself.

This was a finishing stroke to poor Good.  It is not pleasant
to any man to learn that he has been made a tool of, but when
the circumstances are as peculiarly atrocious as in the present
case, it is about as bitter a pill as anybody can be called on
to swallow.

'Do you know,' he said, 'I think that between you, you fellows
have about worked a cure,' and he turned and walked away, and
I for one felt very sorry for him.  Ah, if the moths would always
carefully avoid the candle, how few burnt wings there would be!

That day was a Court day, when the Queens sat in the great hall
and received petitions, discussed laws, money grants, and so
forth, and thither we adjourned shortly afterwards.  On our way
we were joined by Good, who was looking exceedingly depressed.

When we got into the hall Nyleptha was already on her throne
and proceeding with business as usual, surrounded by councillors,
courtiers, lawyers, priests, and an unusually strong guard.
It was, however, easy to see from the air of excitement and expectation
on the faces of everybody present that nobody was paying much
attention to ordinary affairs, the fact being that the knowledge
that civil war was imminent had now got abroad.  We saluted Nyleptha
and took our accustomed places, and for a little while things
went on as usual, when suddenly the trumpets began to call outside
the palace, and from the great crowd that was gathered there
in anticipation of some unusual event there rose a roar of
'_Sorais!  Sorais!_'

Then came the roll of many chariot wheels, and presently the
great curtains at the end of the hall were drawn wide and through
them entered the 'Lady of the Night' herself.  Nor did she come
alone.  Preceding her was Agon, the High Priest, arrayed in his
most gorgeous vestments, and on either side were other priests.
The reason for their presence was obvious -- coming with them
it would have been sacrilege to attempt to detain her.  Behind
her were a number of the great lords, and behind them a small
body of picked guards.  A glance at Sorais herself was enough
to show that her mission was of no peaceful kind, for in place
of her gold embroidered 'kaf' she wore a shining tunic formed
of golden scales, and on her head a little golden helmet.  In
her hand, too, she bore a toy spear, beautifully made and fashioned
of solid silver.  Up the hall she came, looking like a lioness
in her conscious pride and beauty, and as she came the spectators
fell back bowing and made a path for her.  By the sacred stone
she halted, and laying her hand on it, she cried out with a loud
voice to Nyleptha on the throne, 'Hail, oh Queen!'

'All hail, my royal sister!' answered Nyleptha.  'Draw thou near.
Fear not, I give thee safe conduct.'

Sorais answered with a haughty look, and swept on up the hall
till she stood right before the thrones.

'A boon, oh Queen!' she cried again.

'Speak on, my sister; what is there that I can give thee who
hath half our kingdom?'

'Thou canst tell me a true word -- me and the people of Zu-Vendis.
Art thou, or art thou not, about to take this foreign wolf,'
and she pointed to Sir Henry with her toy spear, 'to be a husband
to thee, and share thy bed and throne?'

Curtis winced at this, and turning towards Sorais, said to her
in a low voice, 'Methinks that yesterday thou hadst other names
than wolf to call me by, oh Queen!' and I saw her bite her lips
as, like a danger flag, the blood flamed red upon her face.
As for Nyleptha, who is nothing if not original, she, seeing
that the thing was out, and that there was nothing further to
be gained by concealment, answered the question in a novel and
effectual manner, inspired thereto, as I firmly believe, by coquetry
and a desire to triumph over her rival.

Up she rose and, descending from the throne, swept in all the
glory of her royal grace on to where her lover stood.  There
she stopped and untwined the golden snake that was wound around
her arm.  Then she bade him kneel, and he dropped on one knee
on the marble before her, and next, taking the golden snake with
both her hands, she bent the pure soft metal round his neck,
and when it was fast, deliberately kissed him on the brow and
called him her 'dear lord'.

'Thou seest,' she said, when the excited murmur of the spectators
had died away, addressing her sister as Sir Henry rose to his
feet, 'I have put my collar round the "wolf's" neck, and behold!
he shall be my watchdog, and that is my answer to thee, Queen
Sorais, my sister, and to those with thee.  Fear not,' she went
on, smiling sweetly on her lover, and pointing to the golden
snake she had twined round his massive throat, 'if my yoke be
heavy, yet is it of pure gold, and it shall not gall thee.'

Then, turning to the audience, she continued in a clear proud
tone, 'Ay, Lady of the Night, Lords, Priests, and People here
gathered together, by this sign do I take the foreigner to husband,
even here in the face of you all.  What, am I a Queen, and yet
not free to choose the man whom I will love?  Then should I be
lower than the meanest girl in all my provinces.  Nay, he hath
won my heart, and with it goes my hand, and throne, and all I
have -- ay, had he been a beggar instead of a great lord fairer
and stronger than any here, and having more wisdom and knowledge
of strange things, I had given him all, how much more so being
what he is!'  And she took his hand and gazed proudly on him,
and holding it, stood there boldly facing the people.  And such
was her sweetness and the power and dignity of her person, and
so beautiful she looked standing hand in hand there at her lover's
side, so sure of him and of herself, and so ready to risk all
things and endure all things for him, that most of those who
saw the sight, which I am sure no one of them will ever forget,
caught the fire from her eyes and the happy colour from her blushing
face, and cheered her like wild things.  It was a bold stroke
for her to make, and it appealed to the imagination; but human
nature in Zu-Vendis, as elsewhere, loves that which is bold and
not afraid to break a rule, and is moreover peculiarly susceptible
to appeals to its poetical side.

And so the people cheered till the roof rang; but Sorais of the
Night stood there with downcast eyes, for she could not bear
to see her sister's triumph, which robbed her of the man whom
she had hoped to win, and in the awfulness of her jealous anger
she trembled and turned white like an aspen in the wind.  I think
I have said somewhere of her that she reminded me of the sea
on a calm day, having the same aspect of sleeping power about
her.  Well, it was all awake now, and like the face of the furious
ocean it awed and yet fascinated me.  A really handsome woman
in a royal rage is always a beautiful sight, but such beauty
and such a rage I never saw combined before, and I can only say
that the effect produced was well worthy of the two.

She lifted her white face, the teeth set, and there were purple
rings beneath her glowing eyes.  Thrice she tried to speak and
thrice she failed, but at last her voice came.  Raising her silver
spear, she shook it, and the light gleamed from it and from the
golden scales of her cuirass.

'And thinkest thou, Nyleptha,' she said in notes which pealed
through the great hall like a clarion, 'thinkest thou that I,
Sorais, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, will brook that this base outlander
shall sit upon my father's throne and rear up half-breeds to
fill the place of the great House of the Stairway?  Never! never!
while there is life in my bosom and a man to follow me and a
spear to strike with.  Who is on my side?  Who?

'Now hand thou over this foreign wolf and those who came hither
to prey with him to the doom of fire, for have they not committed
the deadly sin against the sun? or, Nyleptha, I give thee War
-- red War!  Ay, I say to thee that the path of thy passion shall
be marked out by the blazing of thy towns and watered with the
blood of those who cleave to thee.  On thy head rest the burden
of the deed, and in thy ears ring the groans of the dying and
the cries of the widows and those who are left fatherless for
ever and for ever.

'I tell thee I will tear thee, Nyleptha, the White Queen, from
thy throne, and that thou shalt be hurled -- ay, hurled even
from the topmost stair of the great way to the foot thereof,
in that thou hast covered the name of the House of him who built
it with black shame.  And I tell ye strangers -- all save Bougwan,
whom because thou didst do me a service I will save alive if
thou wilt leave these men and follow me' (here poor Good shook
his head vigorously and ejaculated 'Can't be done' in English)
-- 'that I will wrap you in sheets of gold and hang you yet alive
in chains from the four golden trumpets of the four angels that
fly east and west and north and south from the giddiest pinnacles
of the Temple, so that ye may be a token and a warning to the
land.  And as for thee, Incubu, thou shalt die in yet another
fashion that I will not tell thee now.'

She ceased, panting for breath, for her passion shook her like
a storm, and a murmur, partly of horror and partly of admiration,
ran through the hall.  Then Nyleptha answered calmly and with
dignity:

'Ill would it become my place and dignity, oh sister, so to speak
as thou hast spoken and so to threat as thou hast threatened.
Yet if thou wilt make war, then will I strive to bear up against
thee, for if my hand seem soft, yet shalt thou find it of iron
when it grips thine armies by the throat.  Sorais, I fear thee
not.  I weep for that which thou wilt bring upon our people and
on thyself, but for myself I say -- I fear thee not.  Yet thou,
who but yesterday didst strive to win my lover and my lord from
me, whom today thou dost call a "foreign wolf", to be _thy_ lover
and _thy_ lord' (here there was an immense sensation in the hall),
'thou who but last night, as I have learnt but since thou didst
enter here, didst creep like a snake into my sleeping-place --
ay, even by a secret way, and wouldst have foully murdered me,
thy sister, as I lay asleep --'

'It is false, it is false!' rang out Agon's and a score of other voices.

'It is _not_ false,' said I, producing the broken point of the
dagger and holding it up.  'Where is the haft from which
this flew, oh Sorais?'

'It is not false,' cried Good, determined at last to act like
a loyal man.  'I took the Lady of the Night by the White Queen's
bed, and on my breast the dagger broke.'

'Who is on my side?' cried Sorais, shaking her silver spear,
for she saw that public sympathy was turning against her.  'What,
Bougwan, thou comest not?' she said, addressing Good, who was
standing close to her, in a low, concentrated voice.  'Thou pale-souled
fool, for a reward thou shalt eat out thy heart with love of
me and not be satisfied, and thou mightest have been my husband
and a king!  At least I hold _thee_ in chains that cannot be
broken.

'_War!  War!  War!_' she cried.  'Here, with my hand upon the
sacred stone that shall endure, so runs the prophecy, till the
Zu-Vendi set their necks beneath an alien yoke, I declare war
to the end.  Who follows Sorais of the Night to victory and honour?'

Instantly the whole concourse began to break up in indescribable
confusion.  Many present hastened to throw in their lot with
the 'Lady of the Night', but some came from her following to
us.  Amongst the former was an under officer of Nyleptha's own
guard, who suddenly turned and made a run for the doorway through
which Sorais' people were already passing.  Umslopogaas, who
was present and had taken the whole scene in, seeing with admirable
presence of mind that if this soldier got away others would follow
his example, seized the man, who drew his sword and struck at
him.  Thereon the Zulu sprang back with a wild shout, and, avoiding
the sword cuts, began to peck at his foe with his terrible axe,
till in a few seconds the man's fate overtook him and he fell
with a clash heavily and quite dead upon the marble floor.

This was the first blood spilt in the war.

'Shut the gates,' I shouted, thinking that we might perhaps catch
Sorais so, and not being troubled with the idea of committing
sacrilege.  But the order came too late, her guards were already
passing through them, and in another minute the streets echoed
with the furious galloping of horses and the rolling of her chariots.

So, drawing half the people after her, Sorais was soon passing
like a whirlwind through the Frowning City on her road to her
headquarters at M'Arstuna, a fortress situated a hundred and
thirty miles to the north of Milosis.

And after that the city was alive with the endless tramp of regiments
and preparations for the gathering war, and old Umslopogaas once
more began to sit in the sunshine and go through a show of sharpening
Inkosi-kaas's razor edge.




CHAPTER XIX
A STRANGE WEDDING



One person, however, did not succeed in getting out in time before
the gates were shut, and that was the High Priest Agon, who,
as we had every reason to believe, was Sorais' great ally, and
the heart and soul of her party.  This cunning and ferocious
old man had not forgiven us for those hippopotami, or rather
that was what he said.  What he meant was that he would never
brook the introduction of our wider ways of thought and foreign
learning and influence while there was a possibility of stamping
us out.  Also he knew that we possessed a different system of
religion, and no doubt was in daily terror of our attempting
to introduce it into Zu-Vendis.  One day he asked me if we had
any religion in our country, and I told him that so far as I
could remember we had ninety-five different ones.  You might
have knocked him down with a feather, and really it is difficult
not to pity a high priest of a well-established cult who is haunted
by the possible approach of one or all of ninety-five new religions.

When we knew that Agon was caught, Nyleptha, Sir Henry, and I
discussed what was to be done with him.  I was for closely incarcerating
him, but Nyleptha shook her head, saying that it would produce
a disastrous effect throughout the country.  'Ah!' she added,
with a stamp of her foot, 'if I win and am once really Queen,
I will break the power of those priests, with their rites and
revels and dark secret ways.'  I only wished that old Agon could
have heard her, it would have frightened him.

'Well,' said Sir Henry, 'if we are not to imprison him, I suppose
that we may as well let him go.  He is of no use here.'

Nyleptha looked at him in a curious sort of way, and said in
a dry little voice, 'Thinkest thou so, my lord?'

'Eh?' said Curtis.  'No, I do not see what is the use of keeping him.'

She said nothing, but continued looking at him in a way that
was as shy as it was sweet.

Then at last he understood.

'Forgive me, Nyleptha,' he said, rather tremulously.  'Dost thou
mean that thou wilt marry me, even now?'

'Nay, I know not; let my lord say,' was her rapid answer; 'but
if my lord wills, the priest is there and the altar is there'
-- pointing to the entrance to a private chapel -- 'and am I
not ready to do the will of my lord?  Listen, oh my lord!  In
eight days or less thou must leave me and go down to war, for
thou shalt lead my armies, and in war -- men sometimes fall,
and so I would for a little space have had thee all my own, if
only for memory's sake;' and the tears overflowed her lovely
eyes and rolled down her face like heavy drops of dew down the
red heart of a rose.

'Mayhap, too,' she went on, 'I shall lose my crown, and with
my crown my life and thine also.  Sorais is very strong and very
bitter, and if she prevails she will not spare.  Who can read
the future?  Happiness is the world's White Bird, that alights
seldom, and flies fast and far till one day he is lost in the
clouds.  Therefore should we hold him fast if by any chance he
rests for a little space upon our hand.  It is not wise to neglect
the present for the future, for who knows what the future will
be, Incubu?  Let us pluck our flowers while the dew is on them,
for when the sun is up they wither and on the morrow will others
bloom that we shall never see.'  And she lifted her sweet face
to him and smiled into his eyes, and once more I felt a curious
pang of jealousy and turned and went away.  They never took much
notice of whether I was there or not, thinking, I suppose, that
I was an old fool, and that it did not matter one way or the
other, and really I believe that they were right.

So I went back to our quarters and ruminated over things in general,
and watched old Umslopogaas whetting his axe outside the window
as a vulture whets his beak beside a dying ox.

And in about an hour's time Sir Henry came tearing over, looking
very radiant and wildly excited, and found Good and myself and
even Umslopogaas, and asked us if we should like to assist at
a real wedding.  Of course we said yes, and off we went to the
chapel, where we found Agon looking as sulky as any High Priest
possibly could, and no wonder.  It appeared that he and Nyleptha
had a slight difference of opinion about the coming ceremony.
He had flatly refused to celebrate it, or to allow any of his
priests to do so, whereupon Nyleptha became very angry and told
him that she, as Queen, was head of the Church, and meant to
be obeyed.  Indeed, she played the part of a Zu-Vendi Henry the
Eighth to perfection, and insisted that, if she wanted to be
married, she would be married, and that he should marry her.
{Endnote 18}

He still refused to go through the ceremony, so she clinched
her argument thus --

'Well, I cannot execute a High Priest, because there is an absurd
prejudice against it, and I cannot imprison him because all his
subordinates would raise a crying that would bring the stars
down on Zu-Vendis and crush it; but I _can_ leave him to contemplate
the altar of the Sun without anything to eat, because that is
his natural vocation, and if thou wilt not marry me, O Agon!
thou shalt be placed before the altar yonder with nought but
a little water till such time as thou hast reconsidered the matter.'

Now, as it happened, Agon had been hurried away that morning
without his breakfast, and was already exceedingly hungry, so
he presently modified his views and consented to marry them,
saying at the same time that he washed his hands of all responsibility
in the matter.

So it chanced that presently, attended only by two of her favourite
maidens, came the Queen Nyleptha, with happy blushing face and
downcast eyes, dressed in pure white, without embroidery of any
sort, as seems to be the fashion on these occasions in most countries
of the world.  She did not wear a single ornament, even her gold
circlets were removed, and I thought that if possible she looked
more lovely than ever without them, as really superbly beautiful
women do.

She came, curtseyed low to Sir Henry, and then took his hand
and led him up before the altar, and after a little pause, in
a slow, clear voice uttered the following words, which are customary
in Zu-Vendis if the bride desires and the man consents: --

'Thou dost swear by the Sun that thou wilt take no other woman
to wife unless I lay my hand upon her and bid her come?'

'I swear it,' answered Sir Henry; adding in English, 'One is
quite enough for me.'

Then Agon, who had been sulking in a corner near the altar, came
forward and gabbled off something into his beard at such a rate
that I could not follow it, but it appeared to be an invocation
to the Sun to bless the union and make it fruitful.  I observed
that Nyleptha listened very closely to every word, and afterwards
discovered that she was afraid lest Agon should play her a trick,
and by going through the invocations backwards divorce them instead
of marry them.  At the end of the invocations they were asked,
as in our service, if they took each other for husband and wife,
and on their assenting they kissed each other before the altar,
and the service was over, so far as their rites were concerned.
But it seemed to me that there was yet something wanting, and
so I produced a Prayer-Book, which has, together which the 'Ingoldsby
Legends', that I often read when I lie awake at night, accompanied
me in all my later wanderings.  I gave it to my poor boy Harry
years ago, and after his death I found it among his things and
took it back again.

'Curtis,' I said, 'I am not a clergyman, and I do not know if
what I am going to propose is allowable -- I know it is not legal
-- but if you and the Queen have no objection I should like to read
the English marriage service over you.  It is a solemn step which
you are taking, and I think that you ought, so far as circumstances
will allow, to give it the sanction of your own religion.'

'I have thought of that,' he said, 'and I wish you would.
I do not feel half married yet.'

Nyleptha raised no objection, fully understanding that her husband
wished to celebrate the marriage according to the rites prevailing
in his own country, and so I set to work and read the service,
from 'Dearly beloved' to 'amazement', as well as I could; and
when I came to 'I, Henry, take thee, Nyleptha,' I translated,
and also 'I, Nyleptha, take thee, Henry,' which she repeated
after me very well.  Then Sir Henry took a plain gold ring from
his little finger and placed it on hers, and so on to the end.
The ring had been Curtis' mother's wedding-ring, and I could
not help thinking how astonished the dear old Yorkshire lady
would have been if she could have foreseen that her wedding-ring
was to serve a similar purpose for Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi.

As for Agon, he was with difficulty kept calm while this second
ceremony was going on, for he at once understood that it was
religious in its nature, and doubtless bethought him of the ninety-five
new faiths which loomed so ominously in his eyes.  Indeed, he
at once set me down as a rival High Priest, and hated me accordingly.
However, in the end off he went, positively bristling with indignation,
and I knew that we might look out for danger from his direction.

And off went Good and I, and old Umslopogaas also, leaving the
happy pair to themselves, and very low we all felt.  Marriages
are supposed to be cheerful things, but my experience is that
they are very much the reverse to everybody, except perhaps the
two people chiefly interested.  They mean the breaking-up of
so many old ties as well as the undertaking of so many new ones,
and there is always something sad about the passing away of the
old order.  Now to take this case for instance: Sir Henry Curtis
is the best and kindest fellow and friend in the world, but he
has never been quite the same since that little scene in the
chapel.  It is always Nyleptha this and Nyleptha that -- Nyleptha,
in short, from morning till night in one way or another, either
expressed or understood.  And as for the old friends -- well,
of course they have taken the place that old friends ought to
take, and which ladies are as a rule very careful to see they
do take when a man marries, and that is, the second place.  Yes,
he would be angry if anybody said so, but it is a fact for all
that.  He is not quite the same, and Nyleptha is very sweet and
very charming, but I think that she likes him to understand that
she has married _him_, and not Quatermain, Good, and Co.  But
there! what is the use of grumbling?  It is all very right and
proper, as any married lady would have no difficulty in explaining,
and I am a selfish, jealous old man, though I hope I never show
it.

So Good and I went and ate in silence and then indulged in an
extra fine flagon of old Zu-Vendian to keep our spirits up, and
presently one of our attendants came and told a story that gave
us something to think about.

It may, perhaps, be remembered that, after his quarrel with
Umslopogaas, Alphonse had gone off in an exceedingly ill temper
to sulk over his scratches.  Well, it appears that he walked
right past the Temple to the Sun, down the wide road on the further
side of the slope it crowns, and thence on into the beautiful
park, or pleasure gardens, which are laid out just beyond the
outer wall.  After wandering about there for a little he started
to return, but was met near the outer gate by Sorais' train of
chariots, which were galloping furiously along the great northern
road.  When she caught sight of Alphonse, Sorais halted her train
and called to him.  On approaching he was instantly seized and
dragged into one of the chariots and carried off, 'crying out
loudly', as our informant said, and as from my general knowledge
of him I can well believe.

At first I was much puzzled to know what object Sorais could
have had in carrying off the poor little Frenchman.  She could
hardly stoop so low as to try to wreak her fury on one whom she
knew was only a servant.  At last, however, an idea occurred
to me.  We three were, as I think I have said, much revered by
the people of Zu-Vendis at large, both because we were the first
strangers they had ever seen, and because we were supposed to
be the possessors of almost supernatural wisdom.  Indeed, though
Sorais' cry against the 'foreign wolves' -- or, to translate
it more accurately, 'foreign hyenas' -- was sure to go down very
well with the nobles and the priests, it was not as we learnt,
likely to be particularly effectual amongst the bulk of the population.
The Zu-Vendi people, like the Athenians of old, are ever seeking
for some new thing, and just because we were so new our presence
was on the whole acceptable to them.  Again, Sir Henry's magnificent
personal appearance made a deep impression upon a race who possess
a greater love of beauty than any other I have ever been acquainted
with.  Beauty may be prized in other countries, but in Zu-Vendis
it is almost worshipped, as indeed the national love of statuary
shows.  The people said openly in the market-places that there
was not a man in the country to touch Curtis in personal appearance,
as with the exception of Sorais there was no woman who could
compete with Nyleptha, and that therefore it was meet that they
should marry; and that he had been sent by the Sun as a husband
for their Queen.  Now, from all this it will be seen that the
outcry against us was to a considerable extent fictitious, and
nobody knew it better than Sorais herself.  Consequently it struck
me that it might have occurred to her that down in the country
and among the country people, it would be better to place the
reason of her conflict with her sister upon other and more general
grounds than Nyleptha's marriage with the stranger.  It would
be easy in a land where there had been so many civil wars to
rake out some old cry that would stir up the recollection of
buried feuds, and, indeed, she soon found an effectual one.
This being so, it was of great importance to her to have one
of the strangers with her whom she could show to the common people
as a great Outlander, who had been so struck by the justice of
her cause that he had elected to leave his companions and follow
her standard.

This, no doubt, was the cause of her anxiety to get a hold of
Good, whom she would have used till he ceased to be of service
and then cast off.  But Good having drawn back she grasped at
the opportunity of securing Alphonse, who was not unlike him
in personal appearance though smaller, no doubt with the object
of showing him off in the cities and country as the great Bougwan
himself.  I told Good that I thought that that was her plan,
and his face was a sight to see -- he was so horrified at the
idea.

'What,' he said, 'dress up that little wretch to represent me?
Why, I shall have to get out of the country!  My reputation
will be ruined for ever.'

I consoled him as well as I could, but it is not pleasant to
be personated all over a strange country by an arrant little
coward, and I can quite sympathize with his vexation.

Well, that night Good and I messed as I have said in solitary
grandeur, feeling very much as though we had just returned from
burying a friend instead of marrying one, and next morning the
work began in good earnest.  The messages and orders which had
been despatched by Nyleptha two days before now began to take
effect, and multitudes of armed men came pouring into the city.
We saw, as may be imagined, but very little of Nyleptha and
not too much of Curtis during those next few days, but Good and
I sat daily with the council of generals and loyal lords, drawing
up plans of action, arranging commissariat matters, the distribution
of commands, and a hundred and one other things.  Men came in
freely, and all the day long the great roads leading to Milosis
were spotted with the banners of lords arriving from their distant
places to rally round Nyleptha.

After the first few days it became clear that we should be able
to take the field with about forty thousand infantry and twenty
thousand cavalry, a very respectable force considering how short
was the time we had to collect it, and that about half the regular
army had elected to follow Sorais.

But if our force was large, Sorais' was, according to the reports
brought in day by day by our spies, much larger.  She had taken
up her headquarters at a very strong town called M'Arstuna, situated,
as I have said, to the north of Milosis, and all the countryside
was flocking to her standard.  Nasta had poured down from his
highlands and was on his way to join her with no less than twenty-five
thousand of his mountaineers, the most terrible soldiers to face
in all Zu-Vendis.  Another mighty lord, named Belusha, who lived
in the great horse-breeding district, had come in with twelve
thousand cavalry, and so on.  Indeed, what between one thing
and another, it seemed certain that she would gather a fully
armed host of nearly one hundred thousand men.

And then came news that Sorais was proposing to break up her
camp and march on the Frowning City itself, desolating the country
as she came.  Thereon arose the question whether it would be
best to meet her at Milosis or to go out and give her battle.
When our opinion was asked upon the subject, Good and I unhesitatingly
gave it in favour of an advance.  If we were to shut ourselves
up in the city and wait to be attacked, it seemed to us that
our inaction would be set down to fear.  It is so important,
especially on an occasion of this sort, when a very little will
suffice to turn men's opinions one way or the other, to be up
and doing something.  Ardour for a cause will soon evaporate
if the cause does not move but sits down to conquer.  Therefore
we cast our vote for moving out and giving battle in the open,
instead of waiting till we were drawn from our walls like a badger
from a hole.

Sir Henry's opinion coincided with ours, and so, needless to
say, did that of Nyleptha, who, like a flint, was always ready
to flash out fire.  A great map of the country was brought and
spread out before her.  About thirty miles this side of M'Arstuna,
where Sorais lay, and ninety odd miles from Milosis, the road
ran over a neck of land some two and a half miles in width, and
flanked on either side by forest-clad hills which, without being
lofty, would, if the road were blocked, be quite impracticable
for a great baggage-laden army to cross.  She looked earnestly
at the map, and then, with a quickness of perception that in
some women amounts almost to an instinct, she laid her finger
upon this neck of rising ground, and turning to her husband,
said, with a proud air of confidence and a toss of the golden
head --

'Here shalt thou meet Sorais' armies.  I know the spot, here
shalt thou meet them, and drive them before thee like dust before
the storm.'

But Curtis looked grave and said nothing.




CHAPTER XX
THE BATTLE OF THE PASS



It was on the third morning after this incident of the map that
Sir Henry and I started.  With the exception of a small guard,
all the great host had moved on the night before, leaving the
Frowning City very silent and empty.  Indeed, it was found impossible
to leave any garrison with the exception of a personal guard
for Nyleptha, and about a thousand men who from sickness or one
cause or another were unable to proceed with the army; but as
Milosis was practically impregnable, and as our enemy was in
front of and not behind us, this did not so much matter.

Good and Umslopogaas had gone on with the army, but Nyleptha
accompanied Sir Henry and myself to the city gates, riding a
magnificent white horse called Daylight, which was supposed to
be the fleetest and most enduring animal in Zu-Vendis.  Her face
bore traces of recent weeping, but there were no tears in her
eyes now, indeed she was bearing up bravely against what must
have been a bitter trial to her.  At the gate she reined in her
horse and bade us farewell.  On the previous day she had reviewed
and addressed the officers of the great army, speaking to them
such high, eloquent words, and expressing so complete a confidence
in their valour and in their ultimate victory, that she quite
carried their hearts away, and as she rode from rank to rank
they cheered her till the ground shook.  And now today the same
mood seemed to be on her.

'Fare thee well, Macumazahn!' she said.  'Remember, I trust to
thy wits, which are as a needle to a spear-handle compared to
those of my people, to save us from Sorais.  I know that thou
wilt do thy duty.'

I bowed and explained to her my horror of fighting, and my fear
lest I should lose my head, at which she laughed gently and turned
to Curtis.

'Fare thee well, my lord!' she said.  'Come back with victory,
and as a king, or on thy soldiers' spears.' {Endnote 19}

Sir Henry said nothing, but turned his horse to go; perhaps he
had a bit of a lump in his throat.  One gets over it afterwards,
but these sort of partings are trying when one has only been
married a week.

'Here,' added Nyleptha, 'will I greet thee when ye return in
triumph.  And now, my lords, once more, farewell!'

Then we rode on, but when we had gone a hundred and fifty yards
or so, we turned and perceived her still sitting on her horse
at the same spot, and looking out after us beneath her hand,
and that was the last we saw of her.  About a mile farther on,
however, we heard galloping behind us, and looking round, saw
a mounted soldier coming towards us, leading Nyleptha's matchless
steed -- Daylight.

'The Queen sends the white stallion as a farewell gift to her
Lord Incubu, and bids me tell my lord that he is the fleetest
and most enduring horse in all the land,' said the soldier, bending
to his saddle-bow before us.

At first Sir Henry did not want to take the horse, saying that
he was too good for such rough work, but I persuaded him to do
so, thinking that Nyleptha would be hurt if he did not.  Little
did I guess at the time what service that noble horse would render
in our sorest need.  It is curious to look back and realize upon
what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great
events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its
hinges.

Well, we took the horse, and a beauty he was, it was a perfect
pleasure to see him move, and Curtis having sent back his greetings
and thanks, we proceeded on our journey.

By midday we overtook the rear-guard of the great army of which
Sir Henry then formally took over the command.  It was a heavy
responsibility, and it oppressed him very much, but the Queen's
injunctions on the point were such as did not admit of being
trifled with.  He was beginning to find out that greatness has
its responsibilities as well as its glories.

Then we marched on without meeting with any opposition, almost
indeed without seeing anybody, for the populations of the towns
and villages along our route had for the most part fled, fearing
lest they should be caught between the two rival armies and ground
to powder like grain between the upper and the nether stones.

On the evening of the fourth day, for the progress of so great
a multitude was necessarily slow, we camped two miles this side
of the neck or ridge I have spoken of, and our outposts brought
us word that Sorais with all her power was rolling down upon
us, and had pitched her camp that night ten miles the farther
side of the neck.

Accordingly before dawn we sent forward fifteen hundred cavalry
to seize the position.  Scarcely had they occupied it, however,
before they were attacked by about as many of Sorais' horsemen,
and a very smart little cavalry fight ensued, with a loss to
us of about thirty men killed.  On the advance of our supports,
however, Sorais' force drew off, carrying their dead and wounded
with them.

The main body of the army reached the neck about dinner-time,
and I must say that Nyleptha's judgment had not failed her, it
was an admirable place to give battle in, especially to a superior
force.

The road ran down a mile or more, through ground too broken to
admit of the handling of any considerable force, till it reached
the crest of a great green wave of land, that rolled down a gentle
slope to the banks of a little stream, and then rolled away again
up a still gentler slope to the plain beyond, the distance from
the crest of the land-wave down to the stream being a little
over half a mile, and from the stream up to the plain beyond
a trifle less.  The length of this wave of land at its highest
point, which corresponded exactly with the width of the neck
of the land between the wooded hills, was about two miles and
a quarter, and it was protected on either side by dense, rocky,
bush-clad ground, that afforded a most valuable cover to the
flanks of the army and rendered it almost impossible for them
to be turned.

It was on the hither slope of this neck of land that Curtis encamped
his army in the same formation that he had, after consultation
with the various generals, Good, and myself, determined that
they should occupy in the great pitched battle which now appeared
to be imminent.

Our force of sixty thousand men was, roughly speaking, divided
as follows.  In the centre was a dense body of twenty thousand
foot-soldiers, armed with spears, swords, and hippopotamus-hide
shields, breast and back plates. {Endnote 20}  These formed the
chest of the army, and were supported by five thousand foot,
and three thousand horse in reserve.  On either side of this
chest were stationed seven thousand horse arranged in deep, majestic
squadrons; and beyond and on either side but slightly in front
of them again were two bodies, each numbering about seven thousand
five hundred spearmen, forming the right and left wings of the
army, and each supported by a contingent of some fifteen hundred
cavalry.  This makes in all sixty thousand men.

Curtis commanded in chief, I was in command of the seven thousand
horse between the chest and right wing, which was commanded by
Good, and the other battalions and squadrons were entrusted to
Zu-Vendis generals.

Scarcely had we taken up our positions before Sorais' vast army
began to swarm on the opposite slope about a mile in front of
us, till the whole place seemed alive with the multitude of her
spearpoints, and the ground shook with the tramp of her battalions.
It was evident that the spies had not exaggerated; we were outnumbered
by at least a third.  At first we expected that Sorais was going
to attack us at once, as the clouds of cavalry which hung upon
her flanks executed some threatening demonstrations, but she
thought better of it, and there was no fight that day.  As for
the formation of her great forces I cannot now describe it with
accuracy, and it would only serve to bewilder if I did, but I
may say, generally, that in its leading features it resembled
our own, only her reserve was much greater.

Opposite our right wing, and forming Sorais' left wing, was a
great army of dark, wild-looking men, armed with sword and shield
only, which, I was informed, was composed of Nasta's twenty-five
thousand savage hillsmen.

'My word, Good,' said I, when I saw them, 'you will catch it
tomorrow when those gentlemen charge!' whereat Good not unnaturally
looked rather anxious.

All day we watched and waited, but nothing happened, and at last
night fell, and a thousand watch-fires twinkled brightly on the
slopes, to wane and die one by one like the stars they resembled.
As the hours wore on, the silence gradually gathered more deeply
over the opposing hosts.

It was a very wearying night, for in addition to the endless
things that had to be attended to, there was our gnawing suspense
to reckon with.  The fray which tomorrow would witness would
be so vast, and the slaughter so awful, that stout indeed must
the heart have been that was not overwhelmed at the prospect.
And when I thought of all that hung upon it, I own I felt ill,
and it made me very sad to reflect that these mighty forces were
gathered for destruction, simply to gratify the jealous anger
of a woman.  This was the hidden power which was to send those
dense masses of cavalry, flashing like human thunderbolts across
the plain, and to roll together the fierce battalions as clouds
when hurricane meets hurricane.  It was a dreadful thought, and
set one wondering about the responsibilities of the great ones
of the earth.  Deep into the night we sat, with pale faces and
heavy hearts, and took counsel, whilst the sentries tramped up
and down, down and up, and the armed and plumed generals came
and went, grim and shadow-like.

And so the time wore away, till everything was ready for the
coming slaughter; and I lay down and thought, and tried to get
a little rest, but could not sleep for fear of the morrow --
for who could say what the morrow would bring forth?  Misery
and death, this was certain; beyond that we knew not, and I confess
I was very much afraid.  But as I realized then, it is useless
to question that eternal Sphinx, the future.  From day to day
she reads aloud the riddles of the yesterday, of which the puzzled
wordlings of all ages have not answered one, nor ever will, guess
they never so wildly or cry they never so loud.

And so at length I gave up wondering, being forced humbly to
leave the issue in the balancing hands of Providence and the
morrow.

And at last up came the red sun, and the huge camps awoke with
a clash, and a roar, and gathered themselves together for battle.
It was a beautiful and awe-inspiring scene, and old Umslopogaas,
leaning on his axe, contemplated it with grim delight.

'Never have I seen the like, Macumazahn, never,' he said.  'The
battles of my people are as the play of children to what this
will be.  Thinkest thou that they will fight it out?'

'Ay,' I answered sadly, 'to the death.  Content thyself, "Woodpecker",
for once shalt thou peck thy fill.'

Time went on, and still there was no sign of an attack.  A force
of cavalry crossed the brook, indeed, and rode slowly along our
front, evidently taking stock of our position and numbers.  With
this we did not attempt to interfere, as our decision was to
stand strictly on the defensive, and not to waste a single man.
The men breakfasted and stood to their arms, and the hours wore
on.  About midday, when the men were eating their dinner, for
we thought they would fight better on full stomachs, a shout
of '_Sorais, Sorais_' arose like thunder from the enemy's extreme
right, and taking the glass, I was able to clearly distinguish
the 'Lady of the Night' herself, surrounded by a glittering staff,
and riding slowly down the lines of her battalions.  And as she
went, that mighty, thundering shout rolled along before her like
the rolling of ten thousand chariots, or the roaring of the ocean
when the gale turns suddenly and carries the noise of it to the
listener's ears, till the earth shook, and the air was full of
the majesty of sound.

Guessing that this was a prelude to the beginning of the battle,
we remained still and made ready.

We had not long to wait.  Suddenly, like flame from a cannon's
mouth, out shot two great tongue-like forces of cavalry, and
came charging down the slope towards the little stream, slowly
at first, but gathering speed as they came.  Before they got
to the stream, orders reached me from Sir Henry, who evidently
feared that the shock of such a charge, if allowed to fall unbroken
upon our infantry, would be too much for them, to send five thousand
sabres to meet the force opposite to me, at the moment when it
began to mount the stiffest of the rise about four hundred yards
from our lines.  This I did, remaining behind myself with the
rest of my men.

Off went the five thousand horsemen, drawn up in a wedge-like
form, and I must say that the general in command handled them
very ably.  Starting at a hand gallop, for the first three hundred
yards he rode straight at the tip of the tongue-shaped mass of
cavalry which, numbering, so far as I could judge, about eight
thousand sabres, was advancing to charge us.  Then he suddenly
swerved to the right and put on the pace, and I saw the great
wedge curl round, and before the foe could check himself and
turn to meet it, strike him about halfway down his length, with
a crashing rending sound, like that of the breaking-up of vast
sheets of ice.  In sank the great wedge, into his heart, and
as it cut its way hundreds of horsemen were thrown up on either
side of it, just as the earth is thrown up by a ploughshare,
or more like still, as the foaming water curls over beneath the
bows of a rushing ship.  In, yet in, vainly does the tongue twist
its ends round in agony, like an injured snake, and strive to
protect its centre; still farther in, by Heaven! right through,
and so, amid cheer after cheer from our watching thousands, back
again upon the severed ends, beating them down, driving them
as a gale drives spray, till at last, amidst the rushing of hundreds
of riderless horses, the flashing of swords, and the victorious
clamour of their pursuers, the great force crumples up like an
empty glove, then turns and gallops pell-mell for safety back
to its own lines.

I do not think it reached them more than two-thirds as strong
as it went out ten minutes before.  The lines which were now
advancing to the attack, opened and swallowed them up, and my
force returned, having only suffered a loss of about five hundred
men -- not much, I thought, considering the fierceness of the
struggle.  I could also see that the opposing bodies of cavalry
on our left wing were drawing back, but how the fight went with
them I do not quite know.  It is as much as I can do to describe
what took place immediately around me.

By this time the dense masses of the enemy's left, composed almost
entirely of Nasta's swordsmen, were across the little stream,
and with alternate yells of 'Nasta' and 'Sorais', with dancing
banners and gleaming swords, were swarming up towards us like
ants.

Again I received orders to try and check this movement, and also
the main advance against the chest of our army, by means of cavalry
charges, and this I did to the best of my ability, by continually
sending squadrons of about a thousand sabres out against them.
These squadrons did the enemy much damage, and it was a glorious
sight to see them flash down the hillside, and bury themselves
like a living knife in the heart of the foe.  But, also, we lost
many men, for after the experience of a couple of these charges,
which had drawn a sort of bloody St Andrew's cross of dead and
dying through the centre of Nasta's host, our foes no longer
attempted to offer an unyielding front to their irresistible
weight, but opened out to let the rush go through, throwing themselves
on the ground and hamstringing hundreds of horses as they passed.

And so, notwithstanding all that we could do, the enemy drew
nearer, till at last he hurled himself upon Good's force of seven
thousand five hundred regulars, who were drawn up to receive
them in three strong squares.  About the same time, too, an awful
and heartshaking roar told me that the main battle had closed
in on the centre and extreme left.  I raised myself in my stirrups
and looked down to my left; so far as the eye could see there
was a long dazzling shimmer of steel as the sun glanced upon
falling sword and thrusting spear.

To and fro swung the contending lines in that dread struggle,
now giving way, now gaining a little in the mad yet ordered confusion
of attack and defence.  But it was as much as I could do to keep
count of what was happening to our own wing; and, as for the
moment the cavalry had fallen back under cover of Good's three
squares, I had a fair view of this.

Nasta's wild swordsmen were now breaking in red waves against
the sullen rock-like squares.  Time after time did they yell
out their war-cries, and hurl themselves furiously against the
long triple ridges of spear points, only to be rolled back as
billows are when they meet the cliff.

And so for four long hours the battle raged almost without a
pause, and at the end of that time, if we had gained nothing
we had lost nothing.  Two attempts to turn our left flank by
forcing a way through the wood by which it was protected had
been defeated; and as yet Nasta's swordsmen had, notwithstanding
their desperate efforts, entirely failed to break Good's three
squares, though they had thinned their numbers by quite a third.

As for the chest of the army where Sir Henry was with his staff
and Umslopogaas, it had suffered dreadfully, but it had held
its own with honour, and the same may be said of our left battle.

At last the attacks slackened, and Sorais' army drew back, having,
I began to think, had enough of it.  On this point, however,
I was soon undeceived, for splitting up her cavalry into comparatively
small squadrons, she charged us furiously with them, all along
the line, and then once more sullenly rolled her tens of thousands
of sword and spearmen down upon our weakened squares and squadrons;
Sorais herself directing the movement, as fearless as a lioness
heading the main attack.  On they came like an avalanche -- I saw
her golden helm gleaming in the van -- our counter charges of cavalry
entirely failing to check their forward sweep.  Now they had
struck us, and our centre bent in like a bow beneath the weight
of their rush -- it parted, and had not the ten thousand men
in reserve charged down to its support it must have been utterly
destroyed.  As for Good's three squares, they were swept backwards
like boats upon an incoming tide, and the foremost one was burst
into and lost half its remaining men.  But the effort was too
fierce and terrible to last.  Suddenly the battle came, as it
were, to a turning-point, and for a minute or two stood still.

Then it began to move towards Sorais' camp.  Just then, too,
Nasta's fierce and almost invincible highlanders, either because
they were disheartened by their losses or by way of a ruse, fell
back, and the remains of Good's gallant squares, leaving the
positions they had held for so many hours, cheered wildly, and
rashly followed them down the slope, whereon the swarms of swordsmen
turned to envelop them, and once more flung themselves upon them
with a yell.  Taken thus on every side, what remained of the
first square was quickly destroyed, and I perceived that the
second, in which I could see Good himself mounted on a large
horse, was on the point of annihilation.  A few more minutes
and it was broken, its streaming colours sank, and I lost sight
of Good in the confused and hideous slaughter that ensued.

Presently, however, a cream-coloured horse with a snow-white
mane and tail burst from the ruins of the square and came rushing
past me riderless and with wide streaming reins, and in it I
recognized the charger that Good had been riding.  Then I hesitated
no longer, but taking with me half my effective cavalry force,
which now amounted to between four and five thousand men, I commended
myself to God, and, without waiting for orders, I charged straight
down upon Nasta's swordsmen.  Seeing me coming, and being warned
by the thunder of my horses' hoofs, the majority of them faced
round, and gave us a right warm welcome.  Not an inch would they
yield; in vain did we hack and trample them down as we ploughed
a broad red furrow through their thousands; they seemed to re-arise
by hundreds, driving their terrible sharp swords into our horses,
or severing their hamstrings, and then hacking the troopers who
came to the ground with them almost into pieces.  My horse was
speedily killed under me, but luckily I had a fresh one, my own
favourite, a coal-black mare Nyleptha had given me, being held
in reserve behind, and on this I afterwards mounted.  Meanwhile
I had to get along as best I could, for I was pretty well lost
sight of by my men in the mad confusion of the moment.  My voice,
of course, could not be heard in the midst of the clanging of
steel and the shrieks of rage and agony.  Presently I found myself
mixed up with the remnants of the square, which had formed round
its leader Good, and was fighting desperately for existence.
I stumbled against somebody, and glancing down, caught sight
of Good's eyeglass.  He had been beaten to his knee.  Over him
was a great fellow swinging a heavy sword.  Somehow I managed
to run the man through with the sime I had taken from the Masai
whose hand I had cut off; but as I did so, he dealt me a frightful
blow on the left side and breast with the sword, and though my
chain shirt saved my life, I felt that I was badly hurt.  For
a minute I fell on to my hands and knees among the dead and dying,
and turned sick and faint.  When I came to again I saw that Nasta's
spearmen, or rather those of them who remained, were retreating
back across the stream, and that Good was there by me smiling sweetly.

'Near go that,' he shouted; 'but all's well that ends well.'

I assented, but I could not help feeling that it had not ended
well for me.  I was sorely hurt.

Just then we saw the smaller bodies of cavalry stationed on our
extreme right and left, and which were now reinforced by the
three thousand sabres which we had held in reserve, flash out
like arrows from their posts and fall upon the disordered flanks
of Sorais' forces, and that charge decided the issue of the battle.
In another minute or two the enemy was in slow and sullen retreat
across the little stream, where they once more re-formed.  Then
came another lull, during which I managed to get a second horse,
and received my orders to advance from Sir Henry, and then with
one fierce deep-throated roar, with a waving of banners and a
wide flashing of steel, the remains of our army took the offensive
and began to sweep down, slowly indeed, but irresistibly from
the positions they had so gallantly held all day.

At last it was our turn to attack.

On we moved, over the piled-up masses of dead and dying, and
were approaching the stream, when suddenly I perceived an extraordinary
sight.  Galloping wildly towards us, his arms tightly clasped
around his horse's neck, against which his blanched cheek was
tightly pressed, was a man arrayed in the full costume of a Zu-Vendi
general, but in whom, as he came nearer, I recognized none other
than our lost Alphonse.  It was impossible even then to mistake
those curling mustachios.  In a minute he was tearing through
our ranks and narrowly escaped being cut down, till at last somebody
caught his horse's bridle, and he was brought to me just as a
momentary halt occurred in our advance to allow what remained
of our shattered squares to form into line.

'Ah, monsieur,' he gasped out in a voice that was nearly inarticulate
with fright, 'grace to the sky, it is you!  Ah, what I have endured!
But you win, monsieur, you win; they fly, the laches.  But listen,
monsieur -- I forget, it is no good; the Queen is to be murdered
tomorrow at the first light in the palace of Milosis; her guards
will leave their posts, and the priests are going to kill her.
Ah yes! they little thought it, but I was ensconced beneath
a banner, and I heard it all.'

'What?' I said, horror-struck; 'what do you mean?'

'What I say, monsieur; that devil of a Nasta he went last night
to settle the affair with the Archbishop [Agon].  The guard will
leave open the little gate leading from the great stair and go
away, and Nasta and Agon's priests will come in and kill her.
Themselves they would not kill her.'

'Come with me,' I said, and, shouting to the staff-officer next
to me to take over the command, I snatched his bridle and galloped
as hard as I could for the spot, between a quarter and half a
mile off, where I saw the royal pennon flying, and where I knew
that I should find Curtis if he were still alive.  On we tore,
our horses clearing heaps of dead and dying men, and splashing
through pools of blood, on past the long broken lines of spearmen
to where, mounted on the white stallion Nyleptha had sent to him
as a parting gift, I saw Sir Henry's form towering above the
generals who surrounded him.

Just as we reached him the advance began again.  A bloody cloth
was bound around his head, but I saw that his eye was as bright
and keen as ever.  Beside him was old Umslopogaas, his axe red
with blood, but looking quite fresh and uninjured.

'What's wrong, Quatermain?' he shouted.

'Everything.  There is a plot to murder the Queen tomorrow at
dawn.  Alphonse here, who has just escaped from Sorais, has overheard
it all,' and I rapidly repeated to him what the Frenchman had
told me.

Curtis' face turned deadly pale and his jaw dropped.

'At dawn,' he gasped, 'and it is now sunset; it dawns before
four and we are nearly a hundred miles off -- nine hours at the
outside.  What is to be done?'

An idea entered into my head.  'Is that horse of yours fresh?'
I said.

'Yes, I have only just got on to him -- when my last was killed,
and he has been fed.'

'So is mine.  Get off him, and let Umslopogaas mount; he can
ride well.  We will be at Milosis before dawn, or if we are not
-- well, we cannot help it.  No, no; it is impossible for you
to leave now.  You would be seen, and it would turn the fate
of the battle.  It is not half won yet.  The soldiers would think
you were making a bolt of it.  Quick now.'

In a moment he was down, and at my bidding Umslopogaas sprang
into the empty saddle.

'Now farewell,' I said.  'Send a thousand horsemen with remounts
after us in an hour if possible.  Stay, despatch a general to
the left wing to take over the command and explain my absence.'

'You will do your best to save her, Quatermain?' he said in a
broken voice.

'Ay, that I will.  Go on; you are being left behind.'

He cast one glance at us, and accompanied by his staff galloped
off to join the advance, which by this time was fording the little
brook that now ran red with the blood of the fallen.

As for Umslopogaas and myself, we left that dreadful field as
arrows leave a bow, and in a few minutes had passed right out
of the sight of slaughter, the smell of blood, and the turmoil
and shouting, which only came to our ears as a faint, far-off
roaring like the sound of distant breakers.




CHAPTER XXI
AWAY!  AWAY!



At the top of the rise we halted for a second to breathe our
horses; and, turning, glanced at the battle beneath us, which,
illumined as it was by the fierce rays of the sinking sun staining
the whole scene red, looked from where we were more like some
wild titanic picture than an actual hand-to-hand combat.  The
distinguishing scenic effect from that distance was the countless
distinct flashes of light reflected from the swords and spears,
otherwise the panorama was not so grand as might have been expected.
The great green lap of sward in which the struggle was being
fought out, the bold round outline of the hills behind, and the
wide sweep of the plain beyond, seemed to dwarf it; and what
was tremendous enough when one was in it, grew insignificant
when viewed from the distance.  But is it not thus with all the
affairs and doings of our race about which we blow the loud trumpet
and make such a fuss and worry?  How utterly antlike, and morally
and physically insignificant, must they seem to the calm eyes
that watch them from the arching depths above!

'We win the day, Macumazahn,' said old Umslopogaas, taking in
the whole situation with a glance of his practised eye.  'Look,
the Lady of the Night's forces give on every side, there is no
stiffness left in them, they bend like hot iron, they are fighting
with but half a heart.  But alas! the battle will in a manner
be drawn, for the darkness gathers, and the regiments will not
be able to follow and slay!' -- and he shook his head sadly.
'But,' he added, 'I do not think that they will fight again.
We have fed them with too strong a meat.  Ah! it is well to
have lived!  At last I have seen a fight worth seeing.'

By this time we were on our way again, and as we went side by
side I told him what our mission was, and how that, if it failed,
all the lives that had been lost that day would have been lost
in vain.

'Ah!' he said, 'nigh on a hundred miles and no horses but these,
and to be there before the dawn!  Well -- away! away! man can
but try, Macumazahn; and mayhap we shall be there in time to
split that old "witch-finder's" [Agon's] skull for him.  Once
he wanted to burn us, the old "rain-maker", did he?  And now
he would set a snare for my mother [Nyleptha], would he?  Good!
So sure as my name is the name of the Woodpecker, so surely,
be my mother alive or dead, will I split him to the beard.  Ay,
by T'Chaka's head I swear it!' and he shook Inkosi-kaas as he
galloped.  By now the darkness was closing in, but fortunately
there would be a moon later, and the road was good.

On we sped through the twilight, the two splendid horses we bestrode
had got their wind by this, and were sweeping along with a wide
steady stride that neither failed nor varied for mile upon mile.
Down the side of slopes we galloped, across wide vales that
stretched to the foot of far-off hills.  Nearer and nearer grew
the blue hills; now we were travelling up their steeps, and now
we were over and passing towards others that sprang up like visions
in the far, faint distance beyond.

On, never pausing or drawing rein, through the perfect quiet
of the night, that was set like a song to the falling music of
our horses' hoofs; on, past deserted villages, where only some
forgotten starving dog howled a melancholy welcome; on, past
lonely moated dwellings; on, through the white patchy moonlight,
that lay coldly upon the wide bosom of the earth, as though there
was no warmth in it; on, knee to knee, for hour after hour!

We spake not, but bent us forward on the necks of those two glorious
horses, and listened to their deep, long-drawn breaths as they
filled their great lungs, and to the regular unfaltering ring
of their round hoofs.  Grim and black indeed did old Umslopogaas
look beside me, mounted upon the great white horse, like Death
in the Revelation of St John, as now and again lifting his fierce
set face he gazed out along the road, and pointed with his axe
towards some distant rise or house.

And so on, still on, without break or pause for hour after hour.

At last I felt that even the splendid animal that I rode was
beginning to give out.  I looked at my watch; it was nearly midnight,
and we were considerably more than half way.  On the top of a
rise was a little spring, which I remembered because I had slept
by it a few nights before, and here I motioned to Umslopogaas
to pull up, having determined to give the horses and ourselves
ten minutes to breathe in.  He did so, and we dismounted -- that
is to say, Umslopogaas did, and then helped me off, for what
with fatigue, stiffness, and the pain of my wound, I could not
do so for myself; and then the gallant horses stood panting there,
resting first one leg and then another, while the sweat fell
drip, drip, from them, and the steam rose and hung in pale clouds
in the still night air.

Leaving Umslopogaas to hold the horses, I hobbled to the spring
and drank deep of its sweet waters.  I had had nothing but a
single mouthful of wine since midday, when the battle began,
and I was parched up, though my fatigue was too great to allow
me to feel hungry.  Then, having laved my fevered head and hands,
I returned, and the Zulu went and drank.  Next we allowed the
horses to take a couple of mouthfuls each -- no more; and oh,
what a struggle we had to get the poor beasts away from the water!
There were yet two minutes, and I employed it in hobbling up
and down to try and relieve my stiffness, and in inspecting the
condition of the horses.  My mare, gallant animal though she
was, was evidently much distressed; she hung her head, and her
eye looked sick and dull; but Daylight, Nyleptha's glorious horse
-- who, if he is served aright, should, like the steeds who saved
great Rameses in his need, feed for the rest of his days out
of a golden manger -- was still comparatively speaking fresh,
notwithstanding the fact that he had had by far the heavier weight
to carry.  He was 'tucked up', indeed, and his legs were weary,
but his eye was bright and clear, and he held his shapely head up
and gazed out into the darkness round him in a way that seemed to
say that whoever failed _he_ was good for those five-and-forty miles
that yet lay between us and Milosis.  Then Umslopogaas helped me
into the saddle and -- vigorous old savage that he was! -- vaulted
into his own without touching a stirrup, and we were off once more,
slowly at first, till the horses got into their stride, and then
more swiftly.  So we passed over another ten miles, and then came
a long, weary rise of some six or seven miles, and three times
did my poor black mare nearly come to the ground with me.  But on
the top she seemed to gather herself together, and rattled down
the slope with long, convulsive strides, breathing in gasps.
We did that three or four miles more swiftly than any since we
had started on our wild ride, but I felt it to be a last effort,
and I was right.  Suddenly my poor horse took the bit between her
teeth and bolted furiously along a stretch of level ground for
some three or four hundred yards, and then, with two or three
jerky strides, pulled herself up and fell with a crash right on
to her head, I rolling myself free as she did so.  As I struggled
to my feet the brave beast raised her head and looked at me with
piteous bloodshot eyes, and then her head dropped with a groan
and she was dead.  Her heart was broken.

Umslopogaas pulled up beside the carcase, and I looked at him
in dismay.  There were still more than twenty miles to do by
dawn, and how were we to do it with one horse?  It seemed hopeless,
but I had forgotten the old Zulu's extraordinary running powers.

Without a single word he sprang from the saddle and began to
hoist me into it.

'What wilt thou do?' I asked.

'Run,' he answered, seizing my stirrup-leather.

Then off we went again, almost as fast as before; and oh, the
relief it was to me to get that change of horses!  Anybody who
has ever ridden against time will know what it meant.

Daylight sped along at a long stretching hand-gallop, giving
the gaunt Zulu a lift at every stride.  It was a wonderful thing
to see old Umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly
parted and his nostrils agape like the horse's.  Every five miles
or so we stopped for a few minutes to let him get his breath,
and then flew on again.

'Canst thou go farther,' I said at the third of these stoppages,
'or shall I leave thee to follow me?'

He pointed with his axe to a dim mass before us.  It was the
Temple of the Sun, now not more than five miles away.

'I reach it or I die,' he gasped.

Oh, that last five miles!  The skin was rubbed from the inside
of my legs, and every movement of my horse gave me anguish.
Nor was that all.  I was exhausted with toil, want of food and
sleep, and also suffering very much from the blow I had received
on my left side; it seemed as though a piece of bone or something
was slowly piercing into my lung.  Poor Daylight, too, was pretty
nearly finished, and no wonder.  But there was a smell of dawn
in the air, and we might not stay; better that all three of us
should die upon the road than that we should linger while there
was life in us.  The air was thick and heavy, as it sometimes
is before the dawn breaks, and -- another infallible sign in
certain parts of Zu-Vendis that sunrise is at hand -- hundreds
of little spiders pendant on the end of long tough webs were
floating about in it.  These early-rising creatures, or rather
their webs, caught upon the horse's and our own forms by scores,
and, as we had neither the time nor the energy to brush them
off, we rushed along covered with hundreds of long grey threads
that streamed out a yard or more behind us -- and a very strange
appearance they must have given us.

And now before us are the huge brazen gates of the outer wall
of the Frowning City, and a new and horrible doubt strikes me:
What if they will not let us in?

'_Open! open!_' I shout imperiously, at the same time giving
the royal password.  '_Open! open!_ a messenger, a messenger
with tidings of the war!'

'What news?' cried the guard.  'And who art thou that ridest
so madly, and who is that whose tongue lolls out' -- and it actually
did -- 'and who runs by thee like a dog by a chariot?'

'It is the Lord Macumazahn, and with him is his dog, his black dog.
_Open! open!_ I bring tidings.'

The great gates ran back on their rollers, and the drawbridge
fell with a rattling crash, and we dashed on through the one
and over the other.

'What news, my lord, what news?' cried the guard.

'Incubu rolls Sorais back, as the wind a cloud,' I answered,
and was gone.

One more effort, gallant horse, and yet more gallant man!

So, fall not now, Daylight, and hold thy life in thee for fifteen
short minutes more, old Zulu war-dog, and ye shall both live
for ever in the annals of the land.

On, clattering through the sleeping streets.  We are passing
the Flower Temple now -- one mile more, only one little mile
-- hold on, keep your life in thee, see the houses run past of
themselves.  Up, good horse, up, there -- but fifty yards now.
Ah! you see your stables and stagger on gallantly.

'Thank God, the palace at last!' and see, the first arrows of
the dawn are striking on the Temple's golden dome. {Endnote 21}
But shall I get in here, or is the deed done and the way barred?

Once more I give the password and shout '_Open! open!_'

No answer, and my heart grows very faint.

Again I call, and this time a single voice replies, and to my
joy I recognize it as belonging to Kara, a fellow-officer of
Nyleptha's guards, a man I know to be as honest as the light
-- indeed, the same whom Nyleptha had sent to arrest Sorais on
the day she fled to the temple.

'Is it thou, Kara?' I cry; 'I am Macumazahn.  Bid the guard let
down the bridge and throw wide the gate.  Quick, quick!'

Then followed a space that seemed to me endless, but at length
the bridge fell and one half of the gate opened and we got into
the courtyard, where at last poor Daylight fell down beneath
me, as I thought, dead.  Except Kara, there was nobody to be
seen, and his look was wild, and his garments were all torn.
He had opened the gate and let down the bridge alone, and was
now getting them up and shut again (as, owing to a very ingenious
arrangement of cranks and levers, one man could easily do, and
indeed generally did do).

'Where are the guard?' I gasped, fearing his answer as I never
feared anything before.

'I know not,' he answered; 'two hours ago, as I slept, was I
seized and bound by the watch under me, and but now, this very
moment, have I freed myself with my teeth.  I fear, I greatly
fear, that we are betrayed.'

His words gave me fresh energy.  Catching him by the arm, I staggered,
followed by Umslopogaas, who reeled after us like a drunken man,
through the courtyards, up the great hall, which was silent as
the grave, towards the Queen's sleeping-place.

We reached the first ante-room -- no guards; the second, still
no guards.  Oh, surely the thing was done! we were too late after
all, too late!  The silence and solitude of those great chambers
was dreadful, and weighed me down like an evil dream.  On, right
into Nyleptha's chamber we rushed and staggered, sick at heart,
fearing the very worst; we saw there was a light in it, ay, and
a figure bearing the light.  Oh, thank God, it is the White Queen
herself, the Queen unharmed!  There she stands in her night gear,
roused, by the clatter of our coming, from her bed, the heaviness
of sleep yet in her eyes, and a red blush of fear and shame mantling
her lovely breast and cheek.

'Who is it?' she cries.  'What means this?  Oh, Macumazahn, is
it thou?  Why lookest thou so wildly?  Thou comest as one bearing
evil tidings -- and my lord -- oh, tell me not my lord is dead
-- not dead!' she wailed, wringing her white hands.

'I left Incubu wounded, but leading the advance against Sorais
last night at sundown; therefore let thy heart have rest.
Sorais is beaten back all along her lines, and thy arms prevail.'

'I knew it,' she cried in triumph.  'I knew that he would win;
and they called him Outlander, and shook their wise heads when
I gave him the command!  Last night at sundown, sayest thou,
and it is not yet dawn?  Surely --'

'Throw a cloak around thee, Nyleptha,' I broke in, 'and give
us wine to drink; ay, and call thy maidens quick if thou wouldst
save thyself alive.  Nay, stay not.'

Thus adjured she ran and called through the curtains towards
some room beyond, and then hastily put on her sandals and a thick
cloak, by which time a dozen or so of half-dressed women were
pouring into the room.

'Follow us and be silent,' I said to them as they gazed with
wondering eyes, clinging one to another.  So we went into the
first ante-room.

'Now,' I said, 'give us wine to drink and food, if ye have it,
for we are near to death.'

The room was used as a mess-room for the officers of the guards,
and from a cupboard some flagons of wine and some cold flesh
were brought forth, and Umslopogaas and I drank, and felt life
flow back into our veins as the good red wine went down.

'Hark to me, Nyleptha,' I said, as I put down the empty tankard.
'Hast thou here among these thy waiting-ladies any two of discretion?'

'Ay,' she said, 'surely.'

'Then bid them go out by the side entrance to any citizens whom
thou canst bethink thee of as men loyal to thee, and pray them
come armed, with all honest folk that they can gather, to rescue
thee from death.  Nay, question not; do as I say, and quickly.
Kara here will let out the maids.'

She turned, and selecting two of the crowd of damsels, repeated
the words I had uttered, giving them besides a list of the names
of the men to whom each should run.

'Go swiftly and secretly; go for your very lives,' I added.

In another moment they had left with Kara, whom I told to rejoin
us at the door leading from the great courtyard on to the stairway
as soon as he had made fast behind the girls.  Thither, too,
Umslopogaas and I made our way, followed by the Queen and her
women.  As we went we tore off mouthfuls of food, and between
them I told her what I knew of the danger which encompassed her,
and how we found Kara, and how all the guards and men-servants
were gone, and she was alone with her women in that great place;
and she told me, too, that a rumour had spread through the town
that our army had been utterly destroyed, and that Sorais was
marching in triumph on Milosis, and how in consequence thereof
all men had fallen away from her.

Though all this takes some time to tell, we had not been but
six or seven minutes in the palace; and notwithstanding that
the golden roof of the temple being very lofty was ablaze with
the rays of the rising sun, it was not yet dawn, nor would be
for another ten minutes.  We were in the courtyard now, and here
my wound pained me so that I had to take Nyleptha's arm, while
Umslopogaas rolled along after us, eating as he went.

Now we were across it, and had reached the narrow doorway through
the palace wall that opened on to the mighty stair.

I looked through and stood aghast, as well I might.  The door
was gone, and so were the outer gates of bronze -- entirely gone.
They had been taken from their hinges, and as we afterwards
found, hurled from the stairway to the ground two hundred feet
beneath.  There in front of us was the semicircular standing-space,
about twice the size of a large oval dining-table, and the ten
curved black marble steps leading on to the main stair --
and that was all.




CHAPTER XXII
HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR



We looked at one another.

'Thou seest,' I said, 'they have taken away the door.  Is there
aught with which we may fill the place?  Speak quickly for they
will be on us ere the daylight.'  I spoke thus, because I knew
that we must hold this place or none, as there were no inner
doors in the palace, the rooms being separated one from another
by curtains.  I also knew that if we could by any means defend
this doorway the murderers could get in nowhere else; for the
palace is absolutely impregnable, that is, since the secret door
by which Sorais had entered on that memorable night of attempted
murder had, by Nyleptha's order, been closed up with masonry.

'I have it,' said Nyleptha, who, as usual with her, rose to the
emergency in a wonderful way.  'On the farther side of the courtyard
are blocks of cut marble -- the workmen brought them there for
the bed of the new statue of Incubu, my lord; let us block the
door with them.'

I jumped at the idea; and having despatched one of the remaining
maidens down the great stair to see if she could obtain assistance
from the docks below, where her father, who was a great merchant
employing many men, had his dwelling-place, and set another to
watch through the doorway, we made our way back across the courtyard
to where the hewn marble lay; and here we met Kara returning
from despatching the first two messengers.  There were the marble
blocks, sure enough, broad, massive lumps, some six inches thick,
and weighing about eighty pounds each, and there, too, were a
couple of implements like small stretchers, that the workmen
used to carry them on.  Without delay we got some of the blocks
on to the stretchers, and four of the girls carried them to the
doorway.

'Listen, Macumazahn,' said Umslopogaas, 'if those low fellows
come, it is I who will hold the stair against them till the door
is built up.  Nay, nay, it will be a man's death: gainsay me
not, old friend.  It has been a good day, let it now be good
night.  See, I throw myself down to rest on the marble there;
when their footsteps are nigh, wake thou me, not before, for
I need my strength,' and without a word he went outside and flung
himself down on the marble, and was instantly asleep.

At this time, I too was overcome, and was forced to sit down
by the doorway, and content myself with directing operations.
The girls brought the block, while Kara and Nyleptha built them
up across the six-foot-wide doorway, a triple row of them, for
less would be useless.  But the marble had to be brought forty
yards and then there were forty yards to run back, and though
the girls laboured gloriously, even staggering along alone, each
with a block in her arms, it was slow work, dreadfully slow.

The light was growing now, and presently, in the silence, we
heard a commotion at the far-bottom of the stair, and the faint
clinking of armed men.  As yet the wall was only two feet high,
and we had been eight minutes at the building of it.  So they
had come.  Alphonse had heard aright.

The clanking sound came nearer, and in the ghostly grey of the
dawning we could make out long files of men, some fifty or so
in all, slowly creeping up the stair.  They were now at the half-way
standing place that rested on the great flying arch; and here,
perceiving that something was going on above, they, to our great
gain, halted for three or four minutes and consulted, then slowly
and cautiously advanced again.

We had been nearly a quarter of an hour at the work now, and
it was almost three feet high.

Then I woke Umslopogaas.  The great man rose, stretched himself,
and swung Inkosi-kaas round his head.

'It is well,' he said.  'I feel as a young man once more.  My
strength has come back to me, ay, even as a lamp flares up before
it dies.  Fear not, I shall fight a good fight; the wine and
the sleep have put a new heart into me.

'Macumazahn, I have dreamed a dream.  I dreamed that thou and
I stood together on a star, and looked down on the world, and
thou wast as a spirit, Macumazahn, for light flamed through thy
flesh, but I could not see what was the fashion of mine own face.
The hour has come for us, old hunter.  So be it: we have had
our time, but I would that in it I had seen some more such fights
as yesterday's.

'Let them bury me after the fashion of my people, Macumazahn,
and set my eyes towards Zululand;' and he took my hand and shook it,
and then turned to face the advancing foe.

Just then, to my astonishment, the Zu-Vendi officer Kara clambered
over our improvised wall in his quiet, determined sort of way,
and took his stand by the Zulu, unsheathing his sword as he did
so.

'What, comest thou too?' laughed out the old warrior.  'Welcome
-- a welcome to thee, brave heart!  Ow! for the man who can die
like a man; ow! for the death grip and the ringing of steel.
Ow! we are ready.  We wet our beaks like eagles, our spears
flash in the sun; we shake our assegais, and are hungry to fight.
Who comes to give greeting to the Chieftainess [Inkosi-kaas]?
Who would taste her kiss, whereof the fruit is death?  I, the
Woodpecker, I, the Slaughterer, I the Swiftfooted!  I, Umslopogaas,
of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of Amazulu, a
captain of the regiment of the Nkomabakosi: I, Umslopogaas, the
son of Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi the son of Mosilikaatze,
I of the royal blood of T'Chaka, I of the King's House, I the
Ringed Man, I the Induna, I call to them as a buck calls, I challenge
them, I await them.  Ow! it is thou, it is thou!'

As he spake, or rather chanted, his wild war-song, the armed
men, among whom in the growing light I recognized both Nasta
and Agon, came streaming up the stair with a rush, and one big
fellow, armed with a heavy spear, dashed up the ten semicircular
steps ahead of his comrades and struck at the great Zulu with
the spear.  Umslopogaas moved his body but not his legs, so that
the blow missed him, and next instant Inkosi-kaas crashed through
headpiece, hair and skull, and the man's corpse was rattling
down the steps.  As he dropped, his round hippopotamus-hide shield
fell from his hand on to the marble, and the Zulu stooped down
and seized it, still chanting as he did so.

In another second the sturdy Kara had also slain a man, and then
began a scene the like of which has not been known to me.

Up rushed the assailants, one, two, three at a time, and as fast
as they came, the axe crashed and the sword swung, and down they
rolled again, dead or dying.  And ever as the fight thickened,
the old Zulu's eye seemed to get quicker and his arm stronger.
He shouted out his war-cries and the names of chiefs whom he
had slain, and the blows of his awful axe rained straight and
true, shearing through everything they fell on.  There was none
of the scientific method he was so fond of about this last immortal
fight of his; he had no time for it, but struck with his full
strength, and at every stroke a man sank in his tracks, and went
rattling down the marble steps.

They hacked and hewed at him with swords and spears, wounding
him in a dozen places till he streamed red with blood; but the
shield protected his head and the chain-shirt his vitals, and
for minute after minute, aided by the gallant Zu-Vendi, he still
held the stair.

At last Kara's sword broke, and he grappled with a foe, and they
rolled down together, and he was cut to pieces, dying like the
brave man that he was.

Umslopogaas was alone now, but he never blenched or turned.
Shouting out some wild Zulu battle-cry, he beat down a foe, ay,
and another, and another, till at last they drew back from the
slippery blood-stained steps, and stared at him with amazement,
thinking that he was no mortal man.

The wall of marble block was four feet six high now, and hope
rose in my teeth as I leaned there against it a miserable helpless
log, and ground my teeth, and watched that glorious struggle.
I could do no more for I had lost my revolver in the battle.

And old Umslopogaas, he leaned too on his good axe, and, faint
as he was with wounds, he mocked them, he called them 'women'
-- the grand old warrior, standing there one against so many!
And for a breathing space none would come against him, notwithstanding
Nasta's exhortations, till at last old Agon, who, to do him justice,
was a brave man, mad with baffled rage, and seeing that the
wall would soon be built and his plans defeated, shook the great
spear he held, and rushed up the dripping steps.

'Ah, ah!' shouted the Zulu, as he recognized the priest's flowing
white beard, 'it is thou, old "witch-finder"!  Come on!  I await
thee, white "medicine man"; come on! come on!  I have sworn to
slay thee, and I ever keep my faith.'

On he came, taking him at his word, and drave the big spear with
such force at Umslopogaas that it sunk right through the tough
shield and pierced him in the neck.  The Zulu cast down the transfixed
shield, and that moment was Agon's last, for before he could
free his spear and strike again, with a shout of '_There's for
thee, Rain-maker!_' Umslopogaas gripped Inkosi-kaas with both
hands and whirled on high and drave her right on to his venerable
head, so that Agon rolled down dead among the corpses of his
fellow-murderers, and there was an end to him and his plots altogether.
And even as he fell, a great cry rose from the foot of the stair,
and looking out through the portion of the doorway that was yet
unclosed, we saw armed men rushing up to the rescue, and called
an answer to their shouts.  Then the would-be murderers who yet
remained on the stairway, and amongst whom I saw several priests,
turned to fly, but, having nowhere to go, were butchered as they
fled.  Only one man stayed, and he was the great lord Nasta,
Nyleptha's suitor, and the father of the plot.  For a moment
the black-bearded Nasta stood with bowed face leaning on his
long sword as though in despair, and then, with a dreadful shout,
he too rushed up at the Zulu, and, swinging the glittering sword
around his head, dealt him such a mighty blow beneath his guard,
that the keen steel of the heavy blade bit right through the
chain armour and deep into Umslopogaas' side, for a moment
paralysing him and causing him to drop his axe.

Raising the sword again, Nasta sprang forward to make an end
of him, but little he knew his foe.  With a shake and a yell
of fury, the Zulu gathered himself together and sprang straight
at Nasta's throat, as I have sometimes seen a wounded lion spring.
He struck him full as his foot was on the topmost stair, and
his long arms closing round him like iron bands, down they rolled
together struggling furiously.  Nasta was a strong man and a
desperate, but he could not match the strongest man in Zululand,
sore wounded though he was, whose strength was as the strength
of a bull.  In a minute the end came.  I saw old Umslopogaas
stagger to his feet -- ay, and saw him by a single gigantic effort
swing up the struggling Nasta and with a shout of triumph hurl
him straight over the parapet of the bridge, to be crushed to
powder on the rocks two hundred feet below.

The succour which had been summoned by the girl who had passed
down the stair before the assassins passed up was at hand, and
the loud shouts which reached us from the outer gates told us
that the town was also aroused, and the men awakened by the women
were calling to be admitted.  Some of Nyleptha's brave ladies,
who in their night-shifts and with their long hair streaming
down their backs, just as they had been aroused from rest, went
off to admit them at the side entrance, whilst others, assisted
by the rescuing party outside, pushed and pulled down the marble
blocks they had placed there with so much labour.

Soon the wall was down again, and through the doorway, followed
by a crowd of rescuers, staggered old Umslopogaas, an awful and,
in a way, a glorious figure.  The man was a mass of wounds, and
a glance at his wild eye told me that he was dying.  The 'keshla'
gum-ring upon his head was severed in two places by sword-cuts,
one just over the curious hole in his skull, and the blood poured
down his face from the gashes.  Also on the right side of his
neck was a stab from a spear, inflicted by Agon; there was a
deep cut on his left arm just below where the mail shirt-sleeve
stopped, and on the right side of his body the armour was severed
by a gash six inches long, where Nasta's mighty sword had bitten
through it and deep into its wearer's vitals.

On, axe in hand, he staggered, that dreadful-looking, splendid
savage, and the ladies forgot to turn faint at the scene of blood,
and cheered him, as well they might, but he never stayed or heeded.
With outstretched arms and tottering gait he pursued his way,
followed by us all along the broad shell-strewn walk that ran
through the courtyard, past the spot where the blocks of marble
lay, through the round arched doorway and the thick curtains
that hung within it, down the short passage and into the great
hall, which was now filling with hastily-armed men, who poured
through the side entrance.  Straight up the hall he went, leaving
behind him a track of blood on the marble pavement, till at last
he reached the sacred stone, which stood in the centre of it,
and here his strength seemed to fail him, for he stopped and
leaned upon his axe.  Then suddenly he lifted up his voice and
cried aloud --

'I die, I die -- but it was a kingly fray.  Where are they who
came up the great stair?  I see them not.  Art thou there, Macumazahn,
or art thou gone before to wait for me in the dark whither I
go?  The blood blinds me -- the place turns round -- I hear the
voice of waters.'

Next, as though a new thought had struck him, he lifted the red
axe and kissed the blade.

'Farewell, Inkosi-kaas,' he cried.  'Nay, nay, we will go together;
we cannot part, thou and I.  We have lived too long one with
another, thou and I.

'One more stroke, only one!  A good stroke! a straight stroke!
a strong stroke!' and, drawing himself to his full height, with
a wild heart-shaking shout, he with both hands began to whirl
the axe round his head till it looked like a circle of flaming steel.
Then, suddenly, with awful force he brought it down straight
on to the crown of the mass of sacred stone.  A shower of sparks
flew up, and such was the almost superhuman strength of the blow,
that the massive marble split with a rending sound into a score
of pieces, whilst of Inkosi-kaas there remained but some fragments
of steel and a fibrous rope of shattered horn that had been the
handle.  Down with a crash on to the pavement fell the fragments
of the holy stone, and down with a crash on to them, still grasping
the knob of Inkosi-kaas, fell the brave old Zulu -- _dead_.

And thus the hero died.

A gasp of wonder and astonishment rose from all those who witnessed
the extraordinary sight, and then somebody cried, '_The prophecy!
the prophecy!_  He has shattered the sacred stone!' and at once
a murmuring arose.

'Ay,' said Nyleptha, with that quick wit which distinguishes
her.  'Ay, my people, he has shattered the stone, and behold
the prophecy is fulfilled, for a stranger king rules in Zu-Vendis.
Incubu, my lord, hath beat Sorais back, and I fear her no more,
and to him who hath saved the Crown it shall surely be.  And
this man,' she said, turning to me and laying her hand upon my
shoulder, 'wot ye that, though wounded in the fight of yesterday,
he rode with that old warrior who lies there, one hundred miles
'twixt sun set and rise to save me from the plots of cruel men.
Ay, and he has saved me, by a very little, and therefore because
of the deeds that they have done -- deeds of glory such as our
history cannot show the like -- therefore I say that the name
of Macumazahn and the name of dead Umslopogaas, ay, and the name
of Kara, my servant, who aided him to hold the stair, shall be
blazoned in letters of gold above my throne, and shall be glorious
for ever while the land endures.  I, the Queen, have said it.'

This spirited speech was met with loud cheering, and I said that
after all we had only done our duty, as it is the fashion of
both Englishmen and Zulus to do, and there was nothing to make
an outcry about; at which they cheered still more, and then I
was supported across the outer courtyard to my old quarters,
in order that I might be put to bed.  As I went, my eyes lit
upon the brave horse Daylight that lay there, his white head
outstretched on the pavement, exactly as he had fallen on entering
the yard; and I bade those who supported me take me near him,
that I might look on the good beast once more before he was dragged
away.  And as I looked, to my astonishment he opened his eyes
and, lifting his head a little, whinnied faintly.  I could have
shouted for joy to find that he was not dead, only unfortunately
I had not a shout left in me; but as it was, grooms were sent
for and he was lifted up and wine poured down his throat, and
in a fortnight he was as well and strong as ever, and is the
pride and joy of all the people of Milosis, who, whenever they
see him, point him out to the little children as the 'horse which
saved the White Queen's life'.

Then I went on and got off to bed, and was washed and had my
mail shirt removed.  They hurt me a great deal in getting it
off, and no wonder, for on my left breast and side was a black
bruise the size of a saucer.

The next thing that I remember was the tramp of horsemen outside
the palace wall, some ten hours later.  I raised myself and asked
what was the news, and they told me that a large body of cavalry
sent by Curtis to assist the Queen had arrived from the scene
of the battle, which they had left two hours after sundown.
When they left, the wreck of Sorais' army was in full retreat
upon M'Arstuna, followed by all our effective cavalry.  Sir Henry
was encamping the remains of his worn-out forces on the site
(such is the fortune of war) that Sorais had occupied the night
before, and proposed marching to M'Arstuna on the morrow.  Having
heard this, I felt that I could die with a light heart, and then
everything became a blank.


When next I awoke the first thing I saw was the round disc of
a sympathetic eyeglass, behind which was Good.

'How are you getting on, old chap?' said a voice from the
neighbourhood of the eyeglass.

'What are you doing here?' I asked faintly.  'You ought to be
at M'Arstuna -- have you run away, or what?'

'M'Arstuna,' he replied cheerfully.  'Ah, M'Arstuna fell last
week -- you've been unconscious for a fortnight, you see -- with
all the honours of war, you know -- trumpets blowing, flags flying,
just as though they had had the best of it; but for all that,
weren't they glad to go.  Israel made for his tents, I can tell
you -- never saw such a sight in my life.'

'And Sorais?' I asked.

'Sorais -- oh, Sorais is a prisoner; they gave her up, the scoundrels,'
he added, with a change of tone -- 'sacrificed the Queen to save
their skins, you see.  She is being brought up here, and I don't

know what will happen to her, poor soul!' and he sighed.

'Where is Curtis?' I asked.

'He is with Nyleptha.  She rode out to meet us today, and there
was a grand to-do, I can tell you.  He is coming to see you tomorrow;
the doctors (for there is a medical "faculty" in Zu-Vendis as
elsewhere) thought that he had better not come today.'

I said nothing, but somehow I thought to myself that notwithstanding
the doctors he might have given me a look; but there, when a
man is newly married and has just gained a great victory, he
is apt to listen to the advice of doctors, and quite right too.

Just then I heard a familiar voice informing me that 'Monsieur
must now couch himself,' and looking up perceived Alphonse's
enormous black mustachios curling away in the distance.

'So you are here?' I said.

'Mais oui, Monsieur; the war is now finished, my military instincts
are satisfied, and I return to nurse Monsieur.'

I laughed, or rather tried to; but whatever may have been Alphonse's
failings as a warrior (and I fear that he did not come up to
the level of his heroic grandfather in this particular, showing
thereby how true is the saying that it is a bad thing to be
overshadowed by some great ancestral name), a better or kinder
nurse never lived.  Poor Alphonse!  I hope he will always think
of me as kindly as I think of him.

On the morrow I saw Curtis and Nyleptha with him, and he told
me the whole history of what had happened since Umslopogaas and
I galloped wildly away from the battle to save the life of the
Queen.  It seemed to me that he had managed the thing exceedingly
well, and showed great ability as a general.  Of course, however,
our loss had been dreadfully heavy -- indeed, I am afraid to
say how many perished in the desperate battle I have described,
but I know that the slaughter has appreciably affected the male
population of the country.  He was very pleased to see me, dear
fellow that he is, and thanked me with tears in his eyes for
the little that I had been able to do.  I saw him, however, start
violently when his eyes fell upon my face.

As for Nyleptha, she was positively radiant now that 'her dear
lord' had come back with no other injury than an ugly scar on
his forehead.  I do not believe that she allowed all the fearful
slaughter that had taken place to weigh ever so little in the
balance against this one fact, or even to greatly diminish her
joy; and I cannot blame her for it, seeing that it is the nature
of loving woman to look at all things through the spectacles
of her love, and little does she reck of the misery of the many
if the happiness of the _one_ be assured.  That is human nature,
which the Positivists tell us is just perfection; so no doubt
it is all right.

'And what art thou going to do with Sorais?' I asked her.

Instantly her bright brow darkened to a frown.

'Sorais,' she said, with a little stamp of the foot;
'ah, but Sorais!'

Sir Henry hastened to turn the subject.

'You will soon be about and all right again now, old fellow,'
he said.

I shook my head and laughed.

'Don't deceive yourselves,' I said.  'I may be about for a little,
but I shall never be all right again.  I am a dying man, Curtis.
I may die slow, but die I must.  Do you know I have been spitting
blood all the morning?  I tell you there is something working
away into my lung; I can feel it.  There, don't look distressed;
I have had my day, and am ready to go.  Give me the mirror, will you?
I want to look at myself.'

He made some excuse, but I saw through it and insisted, and at
last he handed me one of the discs of polished silver set in a
wooden frame like a hand-screen, which serve as looking-glasses
in Zu-Vendis.  I looked and put it down.

'Ah,' I said quietly, 'I thought so; and you talk of my getting
all right!'  I did not like to let them see how shocked I really
was at my own appearance.  My grizzled stubby hair was turned
snow-white, and my yellow face was shrunk like an aged woman's
and had two deep purple rings painted beneath the eyes.

Here Nyleptha began to cry, and Sir Henry again turned the subject,
telling me that the artists had taken a cast of the dead body
of old Umslopogaas, and that a great statue in black marble was
to be erected of him in the act of splitting the sacred stone,
which was to be matched by another statue in white marble of
myself and the horse Daylight as he appeared when, at the termination
of that wild ride, he sank beneath me in the courtyard of the
palace.  I have since seen these statues, which at the time of
writing this, six months after the battle, are nearly finished;
and very beautiful they are, especially that of Umslopogaas,
which is exactly like him.  As for that of myself, it is good,
but they have idealized my ugly face a little, which is perhaps
as well, seeing that thousands of people will probably look at
it in the centuries to come, and it is not pleasant to look at
ugly things.

Then they told me that Umslopogaas' last wish had been carried
out, and that, instead of being cremated, as I shall be, after
the usual custom here, he had been tied up, Zulu fashion, with
his knees beneath his chin, and, having been wrapped in a thin
sheet of beaten gold, entombed in a hole hollowed out of the
masonry of the semicircular space at the top of the stair he
defended so splendidly, which faces, as far as we can judge,
almost exactly towards Zululand.  There he sits, and will sit
for ever, for they embalmed him with spices, and put him in an
air-tight stone coffer, keeping his grim watch beneath the spot
he held alone against a multitude; and the people say that at
night his ghost rises and stands shaking the phantom of Inkosi-kaas
at phantom foes.  Certainly they fear during the dark hours to
pass the place where the hero is buried.

Oddly enough, too, a new legend or prophecy has arisen in the
land in that unaccountable way in which such things to arise
among barbarous and semi-civilized people, blowing, like the
wind, no man knows whence.  According to this saying, so long
as the old Zulu sits there, looking down the stairway he defended
when alive, so long will the New House of the Stairway, springing
from the union of the Englishman and Nyleptha, endure and flourish;
but when he is taken from thence, or when, ages after, his bones
at last crumble into dust, the House will fall, and the Stairway
shall fall, and the Nation of the Zu-Vendi shall cease to be
a Nation.




CHAPTER XXIII
I HAVE SPOKEN



It was a week after Nyleptha's visit, when I had begun to get
about a little in the middle of the day, that a message came
to me from Sir Henry to say that Sorais would be brought before
them in the Queen's first antechamber at midday, and requesting
my attendance if possible.  Accordingly, greatly drawn by curiosity
to see this unhappy woman once more, I made shift, with the help
of that kind little fellow Alphonse, who is a perfect treasure
to me, and that of another waiting-man, to reach the antechamber.
I got there, indeed, before anybody else, except a few of the
great Court officials who had been bidden to be present, but
I had scarcely seated myself before Sorais was brought in by
a party of guards, looking as beautiful and defiant as ever,
but with a worn expression on her proud face.  She was, as usual,
dressed in her royal 'kaf', emblazoned with the emblem of the
Sun, and in her right hand she still held the toy spear of silver.
A pang of admiration and pity went through me as I looked at
her, and struggling to my feet I bowed deeply, at the same time
expressing my sorrow that I was not able, owing to my condition,
to remain standing before her.

She coloured a little and then laughed bitterly.  'Thou dost
forget, Macumazahn,' she said, 'I am no more a Queen, save in
blood; I am an outcast and a prisoner, one whom all men should
scorn, and none show deference to.'

'At least,' I replied, 'thou art still a lady, and therefore
one to whom deference is due.  Also, thou art in an evil case,
and therefore it is doubly due.'

'Ah!' she answered, with a little laugh, 'thou dost forget that
I would have wrapped thee in a sheet of gold and hung thee to
the angel's trumpet at the topmost pinnacle of the Temple.'

'No,' I answered, 'I assure thee that I forgot it not; indeed,
I often thought of it when it seemed to me that the battle of
the Pass was turning against us; but the trumpet is there, and
I am still here, though perchance not for long, so why talk of
it now?'

'Ah!' she went on, 'the battle! the battle!  Oh, would that I
were once more a Queen, if only for one little hour, and I would
take such a vengeance on those accursed jackals who deserted
me in my need; that it should only be spoken of in whispers;
those woman, those pigeon-hearted half-breeds who suffered
themselves to be overcome!' and she choked in her wrath.

'Ay, and that little coward beside thee,' she went on, pointing
at Alphonse with the silver spear, whereat he looked very
uncomfortable; 'he escaped and betrayed my plans.  I tried to
make a general of him, telling the soldiers it was Bougwan,
and to scourge valour into him' (here Alphonse shivered at
some unhappy recollection), 'but it was of no avail.  He hid
beneath a banner in my tent and thus overheard my plans.
I would that I had slain him, but, alas! I held my hand.

'And thou, Macumazahn, I have heard of what thou didst; thou art
brave, and hast a loyal heart.  And the black one too, ah, he was
a _man_.  I would fain have seen him hurl Nasta from the stairway.'

'Thou art a strange woman, Sorais,' I said; 'I pray thee now
plead with the Queen Nyleptha, that perchance she may show mercy
unto thee.'

She laughed out loud.  'I plead for mercy!' she said and at
that moment the Queen entered, accompanied by Sir Henry and Good,
and took her seat with an impassive face.  As for poor Good,
he looked intensely ill at ease.

'Greeting, Sorais!' said Nyleptha, after a short pause.  'Thou
hast rent the kingdom like a rag, thou hast put thousands of
my people to the sword, thou hast twice basely plotted to destroy
my life by murder, thou hast sworn to slay my lord and his companions
and to hurl me from the Stairway.  What hast thou to say why
thou shouldst not die?  Speak, O Sorais!'

'Methinks my sister the Queen hath forgotten the chief count
of the indictment,' answered Sorais in her slow musical tones.
'It runs thus: "Thou didst strive to win the love of my lord
Incubu."  It is for this crime that my sister will slay me, not
because I levied war.  It is perchance happy for thee, Nyleptha,
that I fixed my mind upon his love too late.

'Listen,' she went on, raising her voice.  'I have nought to
say save that I would I had won instead of lost.  Do thou with
me even as thou wilt, O Queen, and let my lord the King there'
(pointing to Sir Henry) -- 'for now will he be King -- carry
out the sentence, as it is meet he should, for as he is the beginning
of the evil, let him also be the end.'  And she drew herself
up and shot one angry glance at him from her deep fringed eyes,
and then began to toy with her spear.

Sir Henry bent towards Nyleptha and whispered something that
I could not catch, and then the Queen spoke.

'Sorais, ever have I been a good sister to thee.  When our father
died, and there was much talk in the land as to whether thou
shouldst sit upon the throne with me, I being the elder, I gave
my voice for thee and said, "Nay, let her sit.  She is twin with
me; we were born at a birth; wherefore should the one be preferred
before the other?"  And so has it ever been 'twixt thee and me,
my sister.  But now thou knowest in what sort thou hast repaid
me, but I have prevailed, and thy life is forfeit, Sorais.  And
yet art thou my sister, born at a birth with me, and we played
together when we were little and loved each other much, and at
night we slept in the same cot with our arms each around the
other's neck, and therefore even now does my heart go out to
thee, Sorais.

'But not for that would I spare thy life, for thy offence has
been too heavy; it doth drag down the wide wings of my mercy
even to the ground.  Also, while thou dost live the land will
never be at peace.

'Yet shalt thou not die, Sorais, because my dear lord here hath
begged thy life of me as a boon; therefore as a boon and as a
marriage gift give I it to him, to do with even as he wills,
knowing that, though thou dost love him, he loves thee not, Sorais,
for all thy beauty.  Nay, though thou art lovely as the night
in all her stars, O Lady of the Night, yet it is me his wife
whom he loves, and not thee, and therefore do I give thy life
to him.'

Sorais flushed up to her eyes and said nothing, and I do not
think that I ever saw a man look more miserable than did Sir
Henry at that moment.  Somehow, Nyleptha's way of putting the
thing, though true and forcible enough, was not altogether pleasant.

'I understand,' stammered Curtis, looking at Good, 'I understood
that he were attached -- eh -- attached to -- to the Queen Sorais.
I am -- eh -- not aware what the -- in short, the state of your
feelings may be just now; but if they happened to be that way
inclined, it has struck me that -- in short, it might put a satisfactory
end to an unpleasant business.  The lady also has ample private
estates, where I am sure she would be at liberty to live unmolested
as far as we are concerned, eh, Nyleptha?  Of course, I only
suggest.'

'So far as I am concerned,' said Good, colouring up, 'I am quite
willing to forget the past; and if the Lady of the Night thinks
me worth the taking I will marry her tomorrow, or when she likes,
and try to make her a good husband.'

All eyes were now turned to Sorais, who stood with that same
slow smile upon her beautiful face which I had noticed the first
time that I ever saw her.  She paused a little while, and cleared

her throat, and then thrice she curtseyed low, once to Nyleptha,
once to Curtis, and once to Good, and began to speak in measured tones.

'I thank thee, most gracious Queen and royal sister, for the
loving-kindness thou hast shown me from my youth up, and especially
in that thou hast been pleased to give my person and my fate
as a gift to the Lord Incubu -- the King that is to be.  May
prosperity, peace and plenty deck the life-path of one so merciful
and so tender, even as flowers do.  Long mayst thou reign, O
great and glorious Queen, and hold thy husband's love in both
thy hands, and many be the sons and daughters of thy beauty.
And I thank thee, my Lord Incubu -- the King that is to be --
I thank thee a thousand times in that thou hast been pleased
to accept that gracious gift, and to pass it on to thy comrade
in arms and in adventure, the Lord Bougwan.  Surely the act is
worthy of thy greatness, my Lord Incubu.  And now, lastly, I
thank thee also, my Lord Bougwan, who in thy turn hast deigned
to accept me and my poor beauty.  I thank thee a thousand times,
and I will add that thou art a good and honest man, and I put
my hand upon my heart and swear that I would that I could say
thee "yea".  And now that I have rendered thanks to all in turn'
-- and again she smiled -- 'I will add one short word.

'Little can you understand of me, Queen Nyleptha and my lords,
if ye know not that for me there is no middle path; that I scorn
your pity and hate you for it; that I cast off your forgiveness
as though it were a serpent's sting; and that standing here,
betrayed, deserted, insulted, and alone, I yet triumph over you,
mock you, and defy you, one and all, and _thus_ I answer you.'
And then, of a sudden, before anybody guessed what she intended
to do, she drove the little silver spear she carried in her hand
into her side with such a strong and steady aim that the keen
point projected through her back, and she fell prone upon the
pavement.

Nyleptha shrieked, and poor Good almost fainted at the sight,
while the rest of us rushed towards her.  But Sorais of the Night
lifted herself upon her hand, and for a moment fixed her glorious
eyes intently on Curtis' face, as though there were some message
in the glance, then dropped her head and sighed, and with a sob
her dark but splendid spirit passed.

Well, they gave her a royal funeral, and there was an end of her.


It was a month after the last act of the Sorais tragedy that
a great ceremony was held in the Flower Temple, and Curtis was
formally declared King-Consort of Zu-Vendis.  I was too ill to
go myself; and indeed, I hate all that sort of thing, with the
crowds and the trumpet-blowing and banner-waving; but Good, who
was there (in his full-dress uniform), came back much impressed,
and told me that Nyleptha had looked lovely, and Curtis had borne
himself in a right royal fashion, and had been received with
acclamations that left no doubt as to his popularity.  Also he
told me that when the horse Daylight was led along in the procession,
the populace had shouted '_Macumazahn, Macumazahn!_' till they
were hoarse, and would only be appeased when he, Good, rose in
his chariot and told them that I was too ill to be present.

Afterwards, too, Sir Henry, or rather the King, came to see me,
looking very tired, and vowing that he had never been so bored
in his life; but I dare say that that was a slight exaggeration.
It is not in human nature that a man should be altogether bored
on such an extraordinary occasion; and, indeed, as I pointed
out to him, it was a marvellous thing that a man, who but little
more than one short year before had entered a great country as
an unknown wanderer, should today be married to its beautiful
and beloved Queen, and lifted, amidst public rejoicings, to its
throne.  I even went the length to exhort him in the future not
to be carried away by the pride and pomp of absolute power, but
always to strive to remember that he was first a Christian gentleman,
and next a public servant, called by Providence to a great and
almost unprecedented trust.  These remarks, which he might fairly
have resented, he was so good as to receive with patience, and
even to thank me for making them.

It was immediately after this ceremony that I caused myself to
be moved to the house where I am now writing.  It is a very pleasant
country seat, situated about two miles from the Frowning City,
on to which it looks.  That was five months ago, during the whole
of which time I have, being confined to a kind of couch, employed
my leisure in compiling this history of our wanderings from my
journal and from our joint memories.  It is probable that it
will never be read, but it does not much matter whether it is
or not; at any rate, it has served to while away many hours of
suffering, for I have suffered a deal of pain lately.  Thank God,
however, there will not be much more of it.


It is a week since I wrote the above, and now I take up my pen
for the last time, for I know that the end is at hand.  My brain
is still clear and I can manage to write, though with difficulty.
The pain in my lung, which has been very bad during the last
week, has suddenly quite left me, and been succeeded by a feeling
of numbness of which I cannot mistake the meaning.  And just
as the pain has gone, so with it all fear of that end has departed,
and I feel only as though I were going to sink into the arms
of an unutterable rest.  Happily, contentedly, and with the same
sense of security with which an infant lays itself to sleep in
its mother's arms, do I lay myself down in the arms of the Angel
Death.  All the tremors, all the heart-shaking fears which have
haunted me through a life that seems long as I looked back upon
it, have left me now; the storms have passed, and the Star of
our Eternal Hope shines clear and steady on the horizon that
seems so far from man, and yet is so very near to me tonight.

And so this is the end of it -- a brief space of troubling,
a few restless, fevered, anguished years, and then the arms of
that great Angel Death.  Many times have I been near to them,
and now it is my turn at last, and it is well.  Twenty-four hours
more and the world will be gone from me, and with it all its
hopes and all its fears.  The air will close in over the space
that my form filled and my place know me no more; for the dull
breath of the world's forgetfulness will first dim the brightness
of my memory, and then blot it out for ever, and of a truth I
shall be dead.  So is it with us all.  How many millions have
lain as I lie, and thought these thoughts and been forgotten!
-- thousands upon thousands of years ago they thought them, those
dying men of the dim past; and thousands on thousands of years
hence will their descendants think them and be in their turn
forgotten.  'As the breath of the oxen in winter, as the quick
star that runs along the sky, as a little shadow that loses itself
at sunset,' as I once heard a Zulu called Ignosi put it, such
is the order of our life, the order that passeth away.

Well, it is not a good world -- nobody can say that it is, save
those who wilfully blind themselves to facts.  How can a world
be good in which Money is the moving power, and Self-interest
the guiding star?  The wonder is not that it is so bad, but that
there should be any good left in it.

Still, now that my life is over, I am glad to have lived, glad
to have known the dear breath of woman's love, and that true
friendship which can even surpass the love of woman, glad to
have heard the laughter of little children, to have seen the
sun and the moon and the stars, to have felt the kiss of the
salt sea on my face, and watched the wild game trek down to the
water in the moonlight.  But I should not wish to live again!

Everything is changing to me.  The darkness draws near, and the
light departs.  And yet it seems to me that through that darkness
I can already see the shining welcome of many a long-lost face.
Harry is there, and others; one above all, to my mind the sweetest
and most perfect woman that ever gladdened this grey earth.
But of her I have already written elsewhere, and at length, so
why speak of her now?  Why speak of her after this long silence,
now that she is again so near to me, now that I go where she
has gone?

The sinking sun is turning the golden roof of the great Temple
to a fiery flame, and my fingers tire.

So to all who have known me, or known of me, to all who can think
one kindly thought of the old hunter, I stretch out my hand from
the far-off shore and bid a long farewell.

And now into the hands of Almighty God, who sent it, do I commit
my spirit.

'_I have spoken,_' as the Zulus say.




CHAPTER XXIV

BY ANOTHER HAND



A year has elapsed since our most dear friend Allan Quatermain
wrote the words '_I have spoken_' at the end of his record of
our adventures.  Nor should I have ventured to make any additions
to the record had it not happened that by a most strange accident
a chance has arisen of its being conveyed to England.  The chance
is but a faint one, it is true; but, as it is not probable that
another will arise in our lifetimes, Good and myself think that
we may as well avail ourselves of it, such as it is.  During the
last six months several Frontier Commissions have been at work
on the various boundaries of Zu-Vendis, with a view of discovering
whether there exists any possible means of ingress or egress from
the country, with the result that a channel of communication
with the outer world hitherto overlooked has been discovered.
This channel, apparently the only one (for I have discovered that
it was by it that the native who ultimately reached Mr Mackenzie's
mission station, and whose arrival in the country, together with
the fact of his expulsion -- for he _did_ arrive about three
years before ourselves -- was for reasons of their own kept a
dead secret by the priests to whom he was brought), is about
to be effectually closed.  But before this is done, a messenger
is to be despatched bearing with him this manuscript, and also
one or two letters from Good to his friends, and from myself
to my brother George, whom it deeply grieves me to think I shall
never see again, informing them, as our next heirs, that they
are welcome to our effects in England, if the Court of Probate
will allow them to take them {Endnote 22}, inasmuchas we have
made up our minds never to return to Europe.  Indeed, it would
be impossible for us to leave Zu-Vendis even if we wished to do so.

The messenger who is to go -- and I wish him joy of his journey
-- is Alphonse.  For a long while he has been wearied to death
of Zu-Vendis and its inhabitants.  'Oh, oui, c'est beau,' he
says, with an expressive shrug; 'mais je m'ennuie; ce n'est pas
chic.'  Again, he complains dreadfully of the absence of cafes
and theatres, and moans continually for his lost Annette, of
whom he says he dreams three times a week.  But I fancy his secret
cause of disgust at the country, putting aside the homesickness
to which every Frenchman is subject, is that the people here laugh
at him so dreadfully about his conduct on the occasion of the
great battle of the Pass about eighteen months ago, when he hid
beneath a banner in Sorais's tent in order to avoid being sent
forth to fight, which he says would have gone against his conscience.
Even the little boys call out at him in the streets, thereby
offending his pride and making his life unbearable.  At any rate,
he has determined to brave the horrors of a journey of almost
unprecedented difficulty and danger, and also to run the risk
of falling into the hands of the French police to answer for
a certain little indiscretion of his own some years old (though
I do not consider that a very serious matter), rather than remain
in ce triste pays.  Poor Alphonse! we shall be very sorry to
part with him; but I sincerely trust, for his own sake and also
for the sake of this history, which is, I think, worth giving
to the world, that he may arrive in safety.  If he does, and
can carry the treasure we have provided him with in the shape
of bars of solid gold, he will be, comparatively speaking, a
rich man for life, and well able to marry his Annette, if she
is still in the land of the living and willing to marry her Alphonse.

Anyhow, on the chance, I may as well add a word or two to
dear old Quatermain's narrative.

He died at dawn on the day following that on which he wrote the
last words of the last chapter.  Nyleptha, Good and myself were
present, and a most touching and yet in its way beautiful scene
it was.  An hour before the daybreak it became apparent to us
that he was sinking, and our distress was very keen.  Indeed,
Good melted into tears at the idea -- a fact that called forth
a last gentle flicker of humour from our dying friend, for even
at that hour he could be humorous.  Good's emotion had, by loosening
the muscles, naturally caused his eyeglass to fall from its accustomed
place, and Quatermain, who always observed everything, observed
this also.

'At last,' he gasped, with an attempt at a smile, 'I have seen
Good without his eyeglass.'

After that he said no more till the day broke, when he asked
to be lifted up to watch the rising of the sun for the last time.

'In a very few minutes,' he said, after gazing earnestly at it,
'I shall have passed through those golden gates.'

Ten minutes afterwards he raised himself and looked us fixedly
in the face.

'I am going a stranger journey than any we have ever taken together.
Think of me sometimes,' he murmured.  'God bless you all.
I shall wait for you.'  And with a sigh he fell back dead.

And so passed away a character that I consider went as near perfection
as any it has ever been my lot to encounter.

Tender, constant, humorous, and possessing of many of the qualities
that go to make a poet, he was yet almost unrivalled as a man
of action and a citizen of the world.  I never knew any one so
competent to form an accurate judgment of men and their motives.
'I have studied human nature all my life,' he would say, 'and
I ought to know something about it,' and he certainly did.
He had but two faults -- one was his excessive modesty, and the
other a slight tendency which he had to be jealous of anybody
on whom he concentrated his affections.  As regards the first
of these points, anybody who reads what he has written will be
able to form his own opinion; but I will add one last instance of it.

As the reader will doubtless remember, it is a favourite trick
of his to talk of himself as a timid man, whereas really, though
very cautious, he possessed a most intrepid spirit, and, what
is more, never lost his head.  Well, in the great battle of the
Pass, where he got the wound that finally killed him, one would
imagine from the account which he gives of the occurrence that
it was a chance blow that fell on him in the scrimmage.  As a
matter of fact, however, he was wounded in a most gallant and
successful attempt to save Good's life, at the risk and, as it
ultimately turned out, at the cost of his own.  Good was down
on the ground, and one of Nasta's highlanders was about to dispatch
him, when Quatermain threw himself on to his prostrate form and
received the blow on his own body, and then, rising, killed the
soldier.

As regards his jealousy, a single instance which I give in justice
to myself and Nyleptha will suffice.  The reader will, perhaps,
recollect that in one or two places he speaks as though Nyleptha
monopolized me, and he was left by both of us rather out in the
cold.  Now Nyleptha is not perfect, any more than any other woman
is, and she may be a little exigeante at times, but as regards
Quatermain the whole thing is pure imagination.  Thus when he
complains about my not coming to see him when he is ill, the
fact was that, in spite of my entreaties, the doctors positively
forbade it.  Those little remarks of his pained me very much
when I read them, for I loved Quatermain as dearly as though
he were my own father, and should never have dreamed of allowing
my marriage to interfere with that affection.  But let it pass;
it is, after all, but one little weakness, which makes no great
show among so many and such lovable virtues.

Well, he died, and Good read the Burial Service over him in the
presence of Nyleptha and myself; and then his remains were, in
deference to the popular clamour, accorded a great public funeral,
or rather cremation.  I could not help thinking, however, as
I marched in that long and splendid procession up to the Temple,
how he would have hated the whole thing could he have been there
to see it, for he had a horror of ostentation.

And so, a few minutes before sunset, on the third night after
his death, they laid him on the brazen flooring before the altar,
and waited for the last ray of the setting sun to fall upon his
face.  Presently it came, and struck him like a golden arrow,
crowning the pale brows with glory, and then the trumpets blew,
and the flooring revolved, and all that remained of our beloved
friend fell into the furnace below.

We shall never see his like again if we live a hundred years.
He was the ablest man, the truest gentleman, the firmest friend,
the finest sportsman, and, I believe, the best shot in all Africa.

And so ended the very remarkable and adventurous life of
Hunter Quatermain.


Since then things have gone very well with us.  Good has been,
and still is, busily employed in the construction of a navy on
Lake Milosis and another of the large lakes, by means of which
we hope to be able to increase trade and commerce, and also to
overcome some very troublesome and warlike sections of the population
who live upon their borders.  Poor fellow! he is beginning to
get over the sad death of that misguided but most attractive
woman, Sorais, but it is a sad blow to him, for he was really
deeply attached to her.  I hope, however, that he will in time
make a suitable marriage and get that unhappy business out of
his head.  Nyleptha has one or two young ladies in view, especially
a daughter of Nasta's (who was a widower), a very fine imperial-looking
girl, but with too much of her father's intriguing, and yet haughty,
spirit to suit my taste.

As for myself, I should scarcely know where to begin if I set
to work to describe my doings, so I had best leave them undescribed,
and content myself with saying that, on the whole, I am getting
on very well in my curious position of King-Consort -- better,
indeed, than I had any right to expect.  But, of course, it is
not all plain sailing, and I find the responsibilities very heavy.
Still, I hope to be able to do some good in my time, and I intend
to devote myself to two great ends -- namely, to the consolidation
of the various clans which together make up the Zu-Vendi people,
under one strong central government, and to the sapping of the
power of the priesthood.  The first of these reforms will, if
it can be carried out, put an end to the disastrous civil wars
that have for centuries devastated this country; and the second,
besides removing a source of political danger, will pave the
road for the introduction of true religion in the place of this
senseless Sun worship.  I yet hope to see the shadow of the Cross
of Christ lying on the golden dome of the Flower Temple; or,
if I do not, that my successors may.

There is one more thing that I intend to devote myself to, and
that is the total exclusion of all foreigners from Zu-Vendis.
Not, indeed, that any more are ever likely to get here, but
if they do, I warn them fairly that they will be shown the shortest
way out of the country.  I do not say this from any sense of
inhospitality, but because I am convinced of the sacred duty
that rests upon me of preserving to this, on the whole, upright
and generous-hearted people the blessings of comparative barbarism.
Where would all my brave army be if some enterprising rascal
were to attack us with field-guns and Martini-Henrys?  I cannot
see that gunpowder, telegraphs, steam, daily newspapers, universal
suffrage, etc., etc., have made mankind one whit the happier
than they used to be, and I am certain that they have brought
many evils in their train.  I have no fancy for handing over
this beautiful country to be torn and fought for by speculators,
tourists, politicians and teachers, whose voice is as the voice
of Babel, just as those horrible creatures in the valley of the
underground river tore and fought for the body of the wild swan;
nor will I endow it with the greed, drunkenness, new diseases,
gunpowder, and general demoralization which chiefly mark the
progress of civilization amongst unsophisticated peoples.  If
in due course it pleases Providence to throw Zu-Vendis open to
the world, that is another matter; but of myself I will not take
the responsibility, and I may add that Good entirely approves
of my decision.  Farewell.

Henry Curtis


December 15, 18--.

PS -- I quite forgot to say that about nine months ago Nyleptha
(who is very well and, in my eyes at any rate, more beautiful
than ever) presented me with a son and heir.  He is a regular
curly-haired, blue-eyed young Englishman in looks, and, though
he is destined, if he lives, to inherit the throne of Zu-Vendis,
I hope I may be able to bring him up to become what an English
gentleman should be, and generally is -- which is to my mind
even a prouder and a finer thing than being born heir apparent
to the great House of the Stairway, and, indeed, the highest
rank that a man can reach upon this earth.

H. C.




NOTE BY GEORGE CURTIS, Esq.



The MS of this history, addressed to me in the handwriting of
my dear brother Henry Curtis, whom we had given up for dead,
and bearing the Aden postmark, reached me in safety on December
20, 18--, or a little more than two years after it left his hands
in the far centre of Africa, and I hasten to give the astonishing
story it contains to the world.  Speaking for myself, I have
read it with very mixed feelings; for though it is a great relief
to know that he and Good are alive and strangely prosperous,
I cannot but feel that for me and for all their friends they
might as well be dead, since we can never hope to see them more.

They have cut themselves off from old England and from their
homes and their relations for ever, and perhaps, under the
circumstances, they were right and wise to do so.

How the MS came to be posted I have been quite unable to discover;
but I presume, from the fact of its being posted at all, that
the little Frenchman, Alphonse, accomplished his hazardous journey
in safety.  I have, however, advertised for him and caused various
inquiries to be made in Marseilles and elsewhere with a view
of discovering his whereabouts, but so far without the slightest
success.  Possibly he is dead, and the packet was posted by another
hand; or possibly he is now happily wedded to his Annette, but
still fears the vengeance of the law, and prefers to remain incognito.
I cannot say, I have not yet abandoned my hopes of finding him,
but I am bound to say that they grow fainter day by day, and
one great obstacle to my search is that nowhere in the whole
history does Mr Quatermain mention his surname.  He is always
spoken of as 'Alphonse', and there are so many Alphonses.
The letters which my brother Henry says he is sending with the
packet of manuscript have never arrived, so I presume that they
are lost or destroyed.

George Curtis




AUTHORITIES



A novelist is not usually asked, like a historian, for his 'Quellen'.
As I have, however, judging from certain experiences in the
past, some reason to anticipate such a demand, I wish to acknowledge
my indebtedness to Mr Thomson's admirable history of travel 'Through
Masai Land' for much information as to the habits and customs
of the tribes inhabiting that portion of the East Coast, and
the country where they live; also to my brother, John G. Haggard,
RN, HBM's consul at Madagascar, and formerly consul at Lamu,
for many details furnished by him of the mode of life and war
of those engaging people the Masai; also to my sister-in-law,
Mrs John Haggard, who kindly put the lines of p. 183 into rhyme for
me; also to an extract in a review from some book of travel of
which I cannot recollect the name, to which I owe the idea of
the great crabs in the valley of the subterranean river. {Endnote 23}
But if I remember right, the crabs in the book when irritated
projected their eyes quite out of their heads. I regret that I
was not able to 'plagiarize' this effect, but I felt that,
although crabs may, and doubtless do, behave thus in real life,
in romance they 'will not do so.'

There is an underground river in 'Peter Wilkins', but at the
time of writing the foregoing pages I had not read that quaint
but entertaining work.

It has been pointed out to me that there exists a similarity
between the scene of Umslopogaas frightening Alphonse with his
axe and a scene in Far from the Madding Crowd.  I regret this
coincidence, and believe that the talented author of that work
will not be inclined to accuse me of literary immorality on
its account.

Finally, I may say that Mr Quatermain's little Frenchman appears
to belong to the same class of beings as those English ladies
whose long yellow teeth and feet of enormous size excite our
hearty amusement in the pages of the illustrated Gallic press.

The Writer of 'Allan Quatermain'


Endnote 1

Among the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of a species
of black gum twisted in with the hair, and polished a brilliant
black, when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the
husband of a sufficient number of wives.  Till he is in a position
to wear a ring he is looked on as a boy, though he may be thirty-five
years of age, or even more.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 2

One of the fleetest of the African antelopes.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 3

Alluding to the Zulu custom of opening the stomach of a dead
foe.  They have a superstition that, if this is not done, as
the body of their enemy swells up so will the bodies of those
who killed him swell up.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 4

No doubt this owl was a wingless bird.  I afterwards learnt that
the hooting of an owl is a favourite signal among the Masai tribes.
-- A. Q.


Endnote 5

Since I saw the above I have examined hundreds of these swords,
but have never been able to discover how the gold plates were
inlaid in the fretwork.  The armourers who make them in Zu-vendis
bind themselves by oath not to reveal the secret.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 6

The Masai Elmoran or young warriors can own no property, so all
the booty they may win in battle belongs to their fathers
alone.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 7

As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas's Zulu names
was the 'Woodpecker'.  I could never make out why he was called
so until I saw him in action with Inkosi-kaas, when I at once
recognized the resemblance.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 8

By a sad coincidence, since the above was written by Mr Quatermain,
the Masai have, in April 1886, massacred a missionary and his
wife -- Mr and Mrs Houghton -- on this very Tana River, and at
the spot described.  These are, I believe, the first white people
who are known to have fallen victims to this cruel tribe.  -- Editor.


Endnote 9

Mr Allan Quatermain misquotes -- Pleasure sat at the helm.  -- Editor.


Endnote 10

Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea


Endnote 11

Mr Quatermain does not seem to have been aware that it is common
for animal-worshipping people to annually sacrifice the beasts
they adore.  See Herodotus, ii. 45.  -- Editor.


Endnote 12

There is another theory which might account for the origin of
the Zu-Vendi which does not seem to have struck my friend Mr
Quatermain and his companions, and that is, that they are descendants
of the Phoenicians.  The cradle of the Phoenician race is supposed
to have been on the western shore of the Persian Gulf. Thence,
as there is good evidence to show, they emigrated in two
streams, one of which took possession of the shores of Palestine,
while the other is supposed by savants to have immigrated down
the coast of Eastern Africa where, near Mozambique, signs and
remains of their occupation are not wanting.  Indeed, it would
have been very extraordinary if they did not, when leaving the
Persian Gulf, make straight for the East Coast, seeing that the
north-east monsoon blows for six months in the year dead in that
direction, while for the other six months it blows back again.
And, by the way of illustrating the probability, I may add that
to this day a very extensive trade is carried on between the
Persian Gulf and Lamu and other East African ports as far south
as Madagascar, which is of course the ancient Ebony Isle of the
'Arabian Nights'.  -- Editor.


Endnote 13

There are twenty-two letters in the Phoenician alphabet
(see Appendix, Maspero's Histoire ancienne des peuples de
l'Orient, p. 746, etc.)  Unfortunately Mr Quatermain gives us
no specimen of the Zu-Vendi writing, but what he here states
seems to go a long way towards substantiating the theory advanced
in the note on p. 149.  -- Editor.


Endnote 14


These are internal measurements.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 15

Light was also admitted by sliding shutters under the eaves of
the dome and in the roof.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 16

This line is interesting as being one of the few allusions to
be found in the Zu-Vendi ritual to a vague divine essence independent
of the material splendour of the orb they worship.  'Taia',
the word used here, has a very indeterminate meaning, and signifies
essence, vital principle, spirit, or even God.


Endnote 17

Alluding to the Zulu custom.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 18

In Zu-Vendis members of the Royal House can only be married by
the High Priest or a formally appointed deputy.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 19

Alluding to the Zu-Vendi custom of carrying dead officers on
a framework of spears.


Endnote 20

The Zu-Vendi people do not use bows.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 21

Of course, the roof of the Temple, being so high, caught the
light some time before the breaking of the dawn.  -- A. Q.


Endnote 22

Of course the Court of Probate would allow nothing of the
sort.  -- Editor.


Endnote 23

It is suggested to me that this book is The Cruise of the "Falcon",
with which work I am personally unacquainted.




_________________________________________________________________________






Captain Nemo, saviour of THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND

as told by JULES VERNE





PART 1--DROPPED FROM THE CLOUDS



Chapter 1

"Are we rising again?" "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?" "Worse
than that, captain! we are falling!" "For Heaven's sake heave out the
ballast!" "There! the last sack is empty!" "Does the balloon rise?" "No!"
"I hear a noise like the dashing of waves. The sea is below the car! It
cannot be more than 500 feet from us!" "Overboard with every weight!
. . . everything!"

Such were the loud and startling words which resounded through the air,
above the vast watery desert of the Pacific, about four o'clock in the
evening of the 23rd of March, 1865.

Few can possibly have forgotten the terrible storm from the northeast, in
the middle of the equinox of that year. The tempest raged without
intermission from the 18th to the 26th of March. Its ravages were terrible
in America, Europe, and Asia, covering a distance of eighteen hundred
miles, and extending obliquely to the equator from the thirty-fifth north
parallel to the fortieth south parallel. Towns were overthrown, forests
uprooted, coasts devastated by the mountains of water which were
precipitated on them, vessels cast on the shore, which the published
accounts numbered by hundreds, whole districts leveled by waterspouts which
destroyed everything they passed over, several thousand people crushed on
land or drowned at sea; such were the traces of its fury, left by this
devastating tempest. It surpassed in disasters those which so frightfully
ravaged Havana and Guadalupe, one on the 25th of October, 1810, the other
on the 26th of July, 1825.

But while so many catastrophes were taking place on land and at sea, a
drama not less exciting was being enacted in the agitated air.

In fact, a balloon, as a ball might be carried on the summit of a
waterspout, had been taken into the circling movement of a column of air
and had traversed space at the rate of ninety miles an hour, turning round
and round as if seized by some aerial maelstrom.

Beneath the lower point of the balloon swung a car, containing five
passengers, scarcely visible in the midst of the thick vapor mingled with
spray which hung over the surface of the ocean.

Whence, it may be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest? From
what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started during
the storm. But the storm had raged five days already, and the first
symptoms were manifested on the 18th. It cannot be doubted that the balloon
came from a great distance, for it could not have traveled less than two
thousand miles in twenty-four hours.

At any rate the passengers, destitute of all marks for their guidance,
could not have possessed the means of reckoning the route traversed since
their departure. It was a remarkable fact that, although in the very midst
of the furious tempest, they did not suffer from it. They were thrown about
and whirled round and round without feeling the rotation in the slightest
degree, or being sensible that they were removed from a horizontal
position.

Their eyes could not pierce through the thick mist which had gathered
beneath the car. Dark vapor was all around them. Such was the density of
the atmosphere that they could not be certain whether it was day or night.
No reflection of light, no sound from inhabited land, no roaring of the
ocean could have reached them, through the obscurity, while suspended in
those elevated zones. Their rapid descent alone had informed them of the
dangers which they ran from the waves. However, the balloon, lightened of
heavy articles, such as ammunition, arms, and provisions, had risen into
the higher layers of the atmosphere, to a height of 4,500 feet. The
voyagers, after having discovered that the sea extended beneath them, and
thinking the dangers above less dreadful than those below, did not hesitate
to throw overboard even their most useful articles, while they endeavored
to lose no more of that fluid, the life of their enterprise, which
sustained them above the abyss.

The night passed in the midst of alarms which would have been death to
less energetic souls. Again the day appeared and with it the tempest began
to moderate. From the beginning of that day, the 24th of March, it showed
symptoms of abating. At dawn, some of the lighter clouds had risen into the
more lofty regions of the air. In a few hours the wind had changed from a
hurricane to a fresh breeze, that is to say, the rate of the transit of the
atmospheric layers was diminished by half. It was still what sailors call
"a close-reefed topsail breeze," but the commotion in the elements had none
the less considerably diminished.

Towards eleven o'clock, the lower region of the air was sensibly clearer.
The atmosphere threw off that chilly dampness which is felt after the
passage of a great meteor. The storm did not seem to have gone farther to
the west. It appeared to have exhausted itself. Could it have passed away
in electric sheets, as is sometimes the case with regard to the typhoons of
the Indian Ocean?

But at the same time, it was also evident that the balloon was again
slowly descending with a regular movement. It appeared as if it were,
little by little, collapsing, and that its case was lengthening and
extending, passing from a spherical to an oval form. Towards midday the
balloon was hovering above the sea at a height of only 2,000 feet. It
contained 50,000 cubic feet of gas, and, thanks to its capacity, it could
maintain itself a long time in the air, although it should reach a great
altitude or might be thrown into a horizontal position.

Perceiving their danger, the passengers cast away the last articles which
still weighed down the car, the few provisions they had kept, everything,
even to their pocket-knives, and one of them, having hoisted himself on to
the circles which united the cords of the net, tried to secure more firmly
the lower point of the balloon.

It was, however, evident to the voyagers that the gas was failing, and
that the balloon could no longer be sustained in the higher regions. They
must infallibly perish!

There was not a continent, nor even an island, visible beneath them. The
watery expanse did not present a single speck of land, not a solid surface
upon which their anchor could hold.

It was the open sea, whose waves were still dashing with tremendous
violence! It was the ocean, without any visible limits, even for those
whose gaze, from their commanding position, extended over a radius of forty
miles. The vast liquid plain, lashed without mercy by the storm, appeared
as if covered with herds of furious chargers, whose white and disheveled
crests were streaming in the wind. No land was in sight, not a solitary
ship could be seen. It was necessary at any cost to arrest their downward
course, and to prevent the balloon from being engulfed in the waves. The
voyagers directed all their energies to this urgent work. But,
notwithstanding their efforts, the balloon still fell, and at the same time
shifted with the greatest rapidity, following the direction of the wind,
that is to say, from the northeast to the southwest.

Frightful indeed was the situation of these unfortunate men. They were
evidently no longer masters of the machine. All their attempts were
useless. The case of the balloon collapsed more and more. The gas escaped
without any possibility of retaining it. Their descent was visibly
accelerated, and soon after midday the car hung within 600 feet of the
ocean.

It was impossible to prevent the escape of gas, which rushed through a
large rent in the silk. By lightening the car of all the articles which it
contained, the passengers had been able to prolong their suspension in the
air for a few hours. But the inevitable catastrophe could only be retarded,
and if land did not appear before night, voyagers, car, and balloon must to
a certainty vanish beneath the waves.

They now resorted to the only remaining expedient. They were truly
dauntless men, who knew how to look death in the face. Not a single murmur
escaped from their lips. They were determined to struggle to the last
minute, to do anything to retard their fall. The car was only a sort of
willow basket, unable to float, and there was not the slightest possibility
of maintaining it on the surface of the sea.

Two more hours passed and the balloon was scarcely 400 feet above the
water.

At that moment a loud voice, the voice of a man whose heart was
inaccessible to fear, was heard. To this voice responded others not less
determined. "Is everything thrown out?" "No, here are still 2,000 dollars
in gold." A heavy bag immediately plunged into the sea. "Does the balloon
rise?" "A little, but it will not be long before it falls again." "What
still remains to be thrown out?" "Nothing." "Yes! the car!" "Let us catch
hold of the net, and into the sea with the car."

This was, in fact, the last and only mode of lightening the balloon. The
ropes which held the car were cut, and the balloon, after its fall, mounted
2,000 feet. The five voyagers had hoisted themselves into the net, and
clung to the meshes, gazing at the abyss.

The delicate sensibility of balloons is well known. It is sufficient to
throw out the lightest article to produce a difference in its vertical
position. The apparatus in the air is like a balance of mathematical
precision. It can be thus easily understood that when it is lightened of
any considerable weight its movement will be impetuous and sudden. So it
happened on this occasion. But after being suspended for an instant aloft,
the balloon began to redescend, the gas escaping by the rent which it was
impossible to repair.

The men had done all that men could do. No human efforts could save them
now.

They must trust to the mercy of Him who rules the elements.

At four o'clock the balloon was only 500 feet above the surface of the
water.

A loud barking was heard. A dog accompanied the voyagers, and was held
pressed close to his master in the meshes of the net.

"Top has seen something," cried one of the men. Then immediately a loud
voice shouted,--

"Land! land!" The balloon, which the wind still drove towards the
southwest, had since daybreak gone a considerable distance, which might be
reckoned by hundreds of miles, and a tolerably high land had, in fact,
appeared in that direction. But this land was still thirty miles off. It
would not take less than an hour to get to it, and then there was the
chance of falling to leeward.

An hour! Might not the balloon before that be emptied of all the fluid it
yet retained?

Such was the terrible question! The voyagers could distinctly see that
solid spot which they must reach at any cost. They were ignorant of what it
was, whether an island or a continent, for they did not know to what part
of the world the hurricane had driven them. But they must reach this land,
whether inhabited or desolate, whether hospitable or not.

It was evident that the balloon could no longer support itself! Several
times already had the crests of the enormous billows licked the bottom of
the net, making it still heavier, and the balloon only half rose, like a
bird with a wounded wing. Half an hour later the land was not more than a
mile off, but the balloon, exhausted, flabby, hanging in great folds, had
gas in its upper part alone. The voyagers, clinging to the net, were still
too heavy for it, and soon, half plunged into the sea, they were beaten by
the furious waves. The balloon-case bulged out again, and the wind, taking
it, drove it along like a vessel. Might it not possibly thus reach the
land?

But, when only two fathoms off, terrible cries resounded from four pairs
of lungs at once. The balloon, which had appeared as if it would never
again rise, suddenly made an unexpected bound, after having been struck by
a tremendous sea. As if it had been at that instant relieved of a new part
of its weight, it mounted to a height of 1,500 feet, and here it met a
current of wind, which instead of taking it directly to the coast, carried
it in a nearly parallel direction.

At last, two minutes later, it reproached obliquely, and finally fell
on a sandy beach, out of the reach of the waves.

The voyagers, aiding each other, managed to disengage themselves from the
meshes of the net. The balloon, relieved of their weight, was taken by the
wind, and like a wounded bird which revives for an instant, disappeared
into space.

But the car had contained five passengers, with a dog, and the balloon
only left four on the shore.

The missing person had evidently been swept off by the sea, which had
just struck the net, and it was owing to this circumstance that the
lightened balloon rose the last time, and then soon after reached the land.
Scarcely had the four castaways set foot on firm ground, than they all,
thinking of the absent one, simultaneously exclaimed, "Perhaps he will try
to swim to land! Let us save him! let us save him!"



Chapter 2

Those whom the hurricane had just thrown on this coast were neither
aeronauts by profession nor amateurs. They were prisoners of war whose
boldness had induced them to escape in this extraordinary manner.

A hundred times they had almost perished! A hundred times had they almost
fallen from their torn balloon into the depths of the ocean. But Heaven had
reserved them for a strange destiny, and after having, on the 20th of
March, escaped from Richmond, besieged by the troops of General Ulysses
Grant, they found themselves seven thousand miles from the capital of
Virginia, which was the principal stronghold of the South, during the
terrible War of Secession. Their aerial voyage had lasted five days.

The curious circumstances which led to the escape of the prisoners were
as follows:

That same year, in the month of February, 1865, in one of the coups de
main by which General Grant attempted, though in vain, to possess himself
of Richmond, several of his officers fell into the power of the enemy and
were detained in the town. One of the most distinguished was Captain Cyrus
Harding. He was a native of Massachusetts, a first-class engineer, to whom
the government had confided, during the war, the direction of the railways,
which were so important at that time. A true Northerner, thin, bony, lean,
about forty-five years of age; his close-cut hair and his beard, of which
he only kept a thick mustache, were already getting gray. He had one-of
those finely-developed heads which appear made to be struck on a medal,
piercing eyes, a serious mouth, the physiognomy of a clever man of the
military school. He was one of those engineers who began by handling the
hammer and pickaxe, like generals who first act as common soldiers. Besides
mental power, he also possessed great manual dexterity. His muscles
exhibited remarkable proofs of tenacity. A man of action as well as a man
of thought, all he did was without effort to one of his vigorous and
sanguine temperament. Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he fulfilled in
all emergencies those three conditions which united ought to insure human
success--activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes, and powerful will. He
might have taken for his motto that of William of Orange in the 17th
century: "I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success."
Cyrus Harding was courage personified. He had been in all the battles of
that war. After having begun as a volunteer at Illinois, under Ulysses
Grant, he fought at Paducah, Belmont, Pittsburg Landing, at the siege of
Corinth, Port Gibson, Black River, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, on the
Potomac, everywhere and valiantly, a soldier worthy of the general who
said, "I never count my dead!" And hundreds of times Captain Harding had
almost been among those who were not counted by the terrible Grant; but in
these combats where he never spared himself, fortune favored him till the
moment when he was wounded and taken prisoner on the field of battle near
Richmond. At the same time and on the same day another important personage
fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than Gideon
Spilen, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been ordered to follow
the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern armies.

Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American
chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain exact
information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible
time. The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are genuine
powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with. Gideon Spilett
ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic,
prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the
whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in
action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of
information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a perfect
treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious subjects, of the unpublished,
of the unknown, and of the impossible. He was one of those intrepid
observers who write under fire, "reporting" among bullets, and to whom
every danger is welcome.

He also had been in all the battles, in the first rank, revolver in one
hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble. He
did not fatigue the wires with incessant telegrams, like those who speak
when they have nothing to say, but each of his notes, short, decisive, and
clear, threw light on some important point. Besides, he was not wanting in
humor. It was he who, after the affair of the Black River, determined at
any cost to keep his place at the wicket of the telegraph office, and after
having announced to his journal the result of the battle, telegraphed for
two hours the first chapters of the Bible. It cost the New York Herald two
thousand dollars, but the New York Herald published the first intelligence.

Gideon Spilett was tall. He was rather more than forty years of age.
Light whiskers bordering on red surrounded his face. His eye was steady,
lively, rapid in its changes. It was the eye of a man accustomed to take in
at a glance all the details of a scene. Well built, he was inured to all
climates, like a bar of steel hardened in cold water.

For ten years Gideon Spilett had been the reporter of the New York
Herald, which he enriched by his letters and drawings, for he was as
skilful in the use of the pencil as of the pen. When he was captured, he
was in the act of making a description and sketch of the battle. The last
words in his note-book were these: "A Southern rifleman has just taken aim
at me, but--" The Southerner notwithstanding missed Gideon Spilett, who,
with his usual fortune, came out of this affair without a scratch.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett, who did not know each other except by
reputation, had both been carried to Richmond. The engineer's wounds
rapidly healed, and it was during his convalescence that he made
acquaintance with the reporter. The two men then learned to appreciate each
other. Soon their common aim had but one object, that of escaping,
rejoining Grant's army, and fighting together in the ranks of the Federals.

The two Americans had from the first determined to seize every chance;
but although they were allowed to wander at liberty in the town, Richmond
was so strictly guarded, that escape appeared impossible. In the meanwhile
Captain Harding was rejoined by a servant who was devoted to him in life
and in death. This intrepid fellow was a Negro born on the engineer's
estate, of a slave father and mother, but to whom Cyrus, who was an
Abolitionist from conviction and heart, had long since given his freedom.
The once slave, though free, would not leave his master. He would have died
for him. He was a man of about thirty, vigorous, active, clever,
intelligent, gentle, and calm, sometimes naive, always merry, obliging, and
honest. His name was Nebuchadnezzar, but he only answered to the familiar
abbreviation of Neb.

When Neb heard that his master had been made prisoner, he left
Massachusetts without hesitating an instant, arrived before Richmond, and
by dint of stratagem and shrewdness, after having risked his life twenty
times over, managed to penetrate into the besieged town. The pleasure of
Harding on seeing his servant, and the joy of Neb at finding his master,
can scarcely be described.

But though Neb had been able to make his way into Richmond, it was quite
another thing to get out again, for the Northern prisoners were very
strictly watched. Some extraordinary opportunity was needed to make the
attempt with any chance of success, and this opportunity not only did not
present itself, but was very difficult to find.

Meanwhile Grant continued his energetic operations. The victory of
Petersburg had been very dearly bought. His forces, united to those of
Butler, had as yet been unsuccessful before Richmond, and nothing gave the
prisoners any hope of a speedy deliverance.

The reporter, to whom his tedious captivity did not offer a single
incident worthy of note, could stand it no longer. His usually active mind
was occupied with one sole thought--how he might get out of Richmond at any
cost. Several times had he even made the attempt, but was stopped by some
insurmountable obstacle. However, the siege continued; and if the prisoners
were anxious to escape and join Grant's army, certain of the besieged were
no less anxious to join the Southern forces. Among them was one Jonathan
Forster, a determined Southerner. The truth was, that if the prisoners of
the Secessionists could not leave the town, neither could the Secessionists
themselves while the Northern army invested it. The Governor of Richmond
for a long time had been unable to communicate with General Lee, and he
very much wished to make known to him the situation of the town, so as to
hasten the march of the army to their relief. Thus Jonathan Forster
accordingly conceived the idea of rising in a balloon, so as to pass over
the besieging lines, and in that way reach the Secessionist camp.

The Governor authorized the attempt. A balloon was manufactured and
placed at the disposal of Forster, who was to be accompanied by five other
persons. They were furnished with arms in case they might have to defend
themselves when they alighted, and provisions in the event of their aerial
voyage being prolonged.

The departure of the balloon was fixed for the 18th of March. It should
be effected during the night, with a northwest wind of moderate force, and
the aeronauts calculated that they would reach General Lee's camp in a few
hours.

But this northwest wind was not a simple breeze. From the 18th it was
evident that it was changing to a hurricane. The tempest soon became such
that Forster's departure was deferred, for it was impossible to risk the
balloon and those whom it carried in the midst of the furious elements.

The balloon, inflated on the great square of Richmond, was ready to
depart on the first abatement of the wind, and, as may be supposed, the
impatience among the besieged to see the storm moderate was very great.

The 18th, the 19th of March passed without any alteration in the weather.
There was even great difficulty in keeping the balloon fastened to the
ground, as the squalls dashed it furiously about.

The night of the 19th passed, but the next morning the storm blew with
redoubled force. The departure of the balloon was impossible.

On that day the engineer, Cyrus Harding, was accosted in one of the
streets of Richmond by a person whom he did not in the least know. This was
a sailor named Pencroft, a man of about thirty-five or forty years of age,
strongly built, very sunburnt, and possessed of a pair of bright sparkling
eyes and a remarkably good physiognomy. Pencroft was an American from the
North, who had sailed all the ocean over, and who had gone through every
possible and almost impossible adventure that a being with two feet and no
wings would encounter. It is needless to say that he was a bold, dashing
fellow, ready to dare anything and was astonished at nothing. Pencroft at
the beginning of the year had gone to Richmond on business, with a young
boy of fifteen from New Jersey, son of a former captain, an orphan, whom he
loved as if he had been his own child. Not having been able to leave the
town before the first operations of the siege, he found himself shut up, to
his great disgust; but, not accustomed to succumb to difficulties, he
resolved to escape by some means or other. He knew the engineer-officer by
reputation; he knew with what impatience that determined man chafed under
his restraint. On this day he did not, therefore, hesitate to accost him,
saying, without circumlocution, "Have you had enough of Richmond, captain?"

The engineer looked fixedly at the man who spoke, and who added, in a low
voice,--

"Captain Harding, will you try to escape?"

"When?" asked the engineer quickly, and it was evident that this question
was uttered without consideration, for he had not yet examined the stranger
who addressed him. But after having with a penetrating eye observed the
open face of the sailor, he was convinced that he had before him an honest
man.

"Who are you?" he asked briefly.

Pencroft made himself known.

"Well," replied Harding, "and in what way do you propose to escape?"

"By that lazy balloon which is left there doing nothing, and which looks
to me as if it was waiting on purpose for us--"

There was no necessity for the sailor to finish his sentence. The
engineer understood him at once. He seized Pencroft by the arm, and dragged
him to his house. There the sailor developed his project, which was indeed
extremely simple. They risked nothing but their lives in its execution. The
hurricane was in all its violence, it is true, but so clever and daring an
engineer as Cyrus Harding knew perfectly well how to manage a balloon. Had
he himself been as well acquainted with the art of sailing in the air as he
was with the navigation of a ship, Pencroft would not have hesitated to set
out, of course taking his young friend Herbert with him; for, accustomed to
brave the fiercest tempests of the ocean, he was not to be hindered on
account of the hurricane.

Captain Harding had listened to the sailor without saying a word, but his
eyes shone with satisfaction. Here was the long-sought-for opportunity--he
was not a man to let it pass. The plan was feasible, though, it must be
confessed, dangerous in the extreme. In the night, in spite of their
guards, they might approach the balloon, slip into the car, and then cut
the cords which held it. There was no doubt that they might be killed, but
on the other hand they might succeed, and without this storm!--Without
this storm the balloon would have started already and the looked-for
opportunity would not have then presented itself.

"I am not alone!" said Harding at last.

"How many people do you wish to bring with you?" asked the sailor.

"Two; my friend Spilett, and my servant Neb."

"That will be three," replied Pencroft; "and with Herbert and me five.
But the balloon will hold six--"

"That will be enough, we will go," answered Harding in a firm voice.

This "we" included Spilett, for the reporter, as his friend well knew,
was not a man to draw back, and when the project was communicated to him he
approved of it unreservedly. What astonished him was, that so simple an
idea had not occurred to him before. As to Neb, he followed his master
wherever his master wished to go.

"This evening, then," said Pencroft, "we will all meet out there."

"This evening, at ten o'clock," replied Captain Harding; "and Heaven
grant that the storm does not abate before our departure."

Pencroft took leave of the two friends, and returned to his lodging,
where young Herbert Brown had remained. The courageous boy knew of the
sailor's plan, and it was not without anxiety that he awaited the result of
the proposal being made to the engineer. Thus five determined persons were
about to abandon themselves to the mercy of the tempestuous elements!

No! the storm did not abate, and neither Jonathan Forster nor his
companions dreamed of confronting it in that frail car.

It would be a terrible journey. The engineer only feared one thing; it
was that the balloon, held to the ground and dashed about by the wind,
would be torn into shreds. For several hours he roamed round the nearly-
deserted square, surveying the apparatus. Pencroft did the same on his
side, his hands in his pockets, yawning now and then like a man who did not
know how to kill the time, but really dreading, like his friend, either the
escape or destruction of the balloon. Evening arrived. The night was dark
in the extreme. Thick mists passed like clouds close to the ground. Rain
fell mingled with snow. it was very cold. A mist hung over Richmond. it
seemed as if the violent storm had produced a truce between the besiegers
and the besieged, and that the cannon were silenced by the louder
detonations of the storm. The streets of the town were deserted. It had not
even appeared necessary in that horrible weather to place a guard in the
square, in the midst of which plunged the balloon. Everything favored the
departure of the prisoners, but what might possibly be the termination of
the hazardous voyage they contemplated in the midst of the furious
elements?--

"Dirty weather!" exclaimed Pencroft, fixing his hat firmly on his head
with a blow of his fist; "but pshaw, we shall succeed all the same!"

At half-past nine, Harding and his companions glided from different
directions into the square, which the gas-lamps, extinguished by the wind,
had left in total obscurity. Even the enormous balloon, almost beaten to
the ground, could not be seen. Independently of the sacks of ballast, to
which the cords of the net were fastened, the car was held by a strong
cable passed through a ring in the pavement. The five prisoners met by the
car. They had not been perceived, and such was the darkness that they could
not even see each other.

Without speaking a word, Harding, Spilett, Neb, and Herbert took their
places in the car, while Pencroft by the engineer's order detached
successively the bags of ballast. It was the work of a few minutes only,
and the sailor rejoined his companions.

The balloon was then only held by the cable, and the engineer had nothing
to do but to give the word.

At that moment a dog sprang with a bound into the car. It was Top, a
favorite of the engineer. The faithful creature, having broken his chain,
had followed his master. He, however, fearing that its additional weight
might impede their ascent, wished to send away the animal.

"One more will make but little difference, poor beast!" exclaimed
Pencroft, heaving out two bags of sand, and as he spoke letting go the
cable; the balloon ascending in an oblique direction, disappeared, after
having dashed the car against two chimneys, which it threw down as it swept
by them.

Then, indeed, the full rage of the hurricane was exhibited to the
voyagers. During the night the engineer could not dream of descending, and
when day broke, even a glimpse of the earth below was intercepted by fog.

Five days had passed when a partial clearing allowed them to see the wide
extending ocean beneath their feet, now lashed into the maddest fury by the
gale.

Our readers will recollect what befell these five daring individuals who
set out on their hazardous expedition in the balloon on the 20th of March.
Five days afterwards four of them were thrown on a desert coast, seven
thousand miles from their country! But one of their number was missing, the
man who was to be their guide, their leading spirit, the engineer, Captain
Harding! The instant they had recovered their feet, they all hurried to the
beach in the hopes of rendering him assistance.



Chapter 3

The engineer, the meshes of the net having given way, had been carried off
by a wave. His dog also had disappeared. The faithful animal had
voluntarily leaped out to help his master. "Forward," cried the reporter;
and all four, Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft, and Neb, forgetting their
fatigue, began their search. Poor Neb shed bitter tears, giving way to
despair at the thought of having lost the only being he loved on earth.

Only two minutes had passed from the time when Cyrus Harding disappeared
to the moment when his companions set foot on the ground. They had hopes
therefore of arriving in time to save him. "Let us look for him! let us
look for him!" cried Neb.

"Yes, Neb," replied Gideon Spilett, "and we will find him too!"

"Living, I trust!"

"Still living!"

"Can he swim?" asked Pencroft.

"Yes," replied Neb, "and besides, Top is there."

The sailor, observing the heavy surf on the shore, shook his head.

The engineer had disappeared to the north of the shore, and nearly half a
mile from the place where the castaways had landed. The nearest point of
the beach he could reach was thus fully that distance off.

It was then nearly six o'clock. A thick fog made the night very dark. The
castaways proceeded toward the north of the land on which chance had thrown
them, an unknown region, the geographical situation of which they could not
even guess. They were walking upon a sandy soil, mingled with stones, which
appeared destitute of any sort of vegetation. The ground, very unequal and
rough, was in some places perfectly riddled with holes, making walking
extremely painful. From these holes escaped every minute great birds of
clumsy flight, which flew in all directions. Others, more active, rose in
flocks and passed in clouds over their heads. The sailor thought he
recognized gulls and cormorants, whose shrill cries rose above the roaring
of the sea.

From time to time the castaways stopped and shouted, then listened for
some response from the ocean, for they thought that if the engineer had
landed, and they had been near to the place, they would have heard the
barking of the dog Top, even should Harding himself have been unable to
give any sign of existence. They stopped to listen, but no sound arose
above the roaring of the waves and the dashing of the surf. The little band
then continued their march forward, searching into every hollow of the
shore.

After walking for twenty minutes, the four castaways were suddenly
brought to a standstill by the sight of foaming billows close to their
feet. The solid ground ended here. They found themselves at the extremity
of a sharp point on which the sea broke furiously.

"It is a promontory," said the sailor; "we must retrace our steps,
holding towards the right, and we shall thus gain the mainland."

"But if he is there," said Neb, pointing to the ocean, whose waves shone
of a snowy white in the darkness. "Well, let us call again," and all
uniting their voices, they gave a vigorous shout, but there came no reply.
They waited for a lull, then began again; still no reply.

The castaways accordingly returned, following the opposite side of the
promontory, over a soil equally sandy and rugged. However, Pencroft
observed that the shore was more equal, that the ground rose, and he
declared that it was joined by a long slope to a hill, whose massive front
he thought that he could see looming indistinctly through the mist. The
birds were less numerous on this part of the shore; the sea was also less
tumultuous, and they observed that the agitation of the waves was
diminished. The noise of the surf was scarcely heard. This side of the
promontory evidently formed a semicircular bay, which the sharp point
sheltered from the breakers of the open sea. But to follow this direction
was to go south, exactly opposite to that part of the coast where Harding
might have landed. After a walk of a mile and a half, the shore presented
no curve which would permit them to return to the north. This promontory,
of which they had turned the point, must be attached to the mainland. The
castaways, although their strength was nearly exhausted, still marched
courageously forward, hoping every moment to meet with a sudden angle which
would set them in the first direction. What was their disappointment, when,
after trudging nearly two miles, having reached an elevated point composed
of slippery rocks, they found themselves again stopped by the sea.

"We are on an islet," said Pencroft, "and we have surveyed it from one
extremity to the other."

The sailor was right; they had been thrown, not on a continent, not even
on an island, but on an islet which was not more than two miles in length,
with even a less breadth.

Was this barren spot the desolate refuge of sea-birds, strewn with stones
and destitute of vegetation, attached to a more important archipelago? It
was impossible to say. When the voyagers from their car saw the land
through the mist, they had not been able to reconnoiter it sufficiently.
However, Pencroft, accustomed with his sailor eyes to piece through the
gloom, was almost certain that he could clearly distinguish in the west
confused masses which indicated an elevated coast. But they could not in
the dark determine whether it was a single island, or connected with
others. They could not leave it either, as the sea surrounded them; they
must therefore put off till the next day their search for the engineer,
from whom, alas! not a single cry had reached them to show that he was
still in existence.

"The silence of our friend proves nothing," said the reporter. "Perhaps
he has fainted or is wounded, and unable to reply directly, so we will not
despair."

The reporter then proposed to light a fire on a point of the islet, which
would serve as a signal to the engineer. But they searched in vain for wood
or dry brambles; nothing but sand and stones were to be found. The grief of
Neb and his companions, who were all strongly attached to the intrepid
Harding, can be better pictured than described. It was too evident that
they were powerless to help him. They must wait with what patience they
could for daylight. Either the engineer had been able to save himself, and
had already found a refuge on some point of the coast, or he was lost for
ever! The long and painful hours passed by. The cold was intense. The
castaways suffered cruelly, but they scarcely perceived it. They did not
even think of taking a minute's rest. Forgetting everything but their
chief, hoping or wishing to hope on, they continued to walk up and down on
this sterile spot, always returning to its northern point, where they could
approach nearest to the scene of the catastrophe. They listened, they
called, and then uniting their voices, they endeavored to raise even a
louder shout than before, which would be transmitted to a great distance.
The wind had now fallen almost to a calm, and the noise of the sea began
also to subside. One of Neb's shouts even appeared to produce an echo.
Herbert directed Pencroft's attention to it, adding, "That proves that
there is a coast to the west, at no great distance." The sailor nodded;
besides, his eyes could not deceive him. If he had discovered land, however
indistinct it might appear, land was sure to be there. But that distant
echo was the only response produced by Neb's shouts, while a heavy gloom
hung over all the part east of the island.

Meanwhile, the sky was clearing little by little. Towards midnight the
stars shone out, and if the engineer had been there with his companions he
would have remarked that these stars did not belong to the Northern
Hemisphere. The Polar Star was not visible, the constellations were not
those which they had been accustomed to see in the United States; the
Southern Cross glittered brightly in the sky.

The night passed away. Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 25th of
March, the sky began to lighten; the horizon still remained dark, but with
daybreak a thick mist rose from the sea, so that the eye could scarcely
penetrate beyond twenty feet or so from where they stood. At length the fog
gradually unrolled itself in great heavily moving waves.

It was unfortunate, however, that the castaways could distinguish nothing
around them. While the gaze of the reporter and Neb were cast upon the
ocean, the sailor and Herbert looked eagerly for the coast in the west. But
not a speck of land was visible. "Never mind," said Pencroft, "though I do
not see the land, I feel it... it is there... there... as sure as the fact
that we are no longer at Richmond." But the fog was not long in rising. it
was only a fine-weather mist. A hot sun soon penetrated to the surface of
the island. About half-past six, three-quarters of an hour after sunrise,
the mist became more transparent. It grew thicker above, but cleared away
below. Soon the isle appeared as if it had descended from a cloud, then the
sea showed itself around them, spreading far away towards the east, but
bounded on the west by an abrupt and precipitous coast.

Yes! the land was there. Their safety was at least provisionally insured.
The islet and the coast were separated by a channel about half a mile in
breadth, through which rushed an extremely rapid current.

However, one of the castaways, following the impulse of his heart,
immediately threw himself into the current, without consulting his
companions, without saying a single word. It was Neb. He was in haste to be
on the other side, and to climb towards the north. It had been impossible
to hold him back. Pencroft called him in vain. The reporter prepared to
follow him, but Pencroft stopped him. "Do you want to cross the channel?"
he asked. "Yes," replied Spilett. "All right!" said the seaman; "wait a
bit; Neb is well able to carry help to his master. If we venture into the
channel, we risk being carried into the open sea by the current, which is
running very strong; but, if I'm not wrong, it is ebbing. See, the tide is
going down over the sand. Let us have patience, and at low water it is
possible we may find a fordable passage." "You are right," replied the
reporter, "we will not separate more than we can help."

During this time Neb was struggling vigorously against the current. He
was crossing in an oblique direction. His black shoulders could be seen
emerging at each stroke. He was carried down very quickly, but he also made
way towards the shore. It took more than half an hour to cross from the
islet to the land, and he reached the shore several hundred feet from the
place which was opposite to the point from which he had started.

Landing at the foot of a high wall of granite, he shook himself
vigorously; and then, setting off running, soon disappeared behind a rocky
point, which projected to nearly the height of the northern extremity of
the islet.

Neb's companions had watched his daring attempt with painful anxiety, and
when he was out of sight, they fixed their attention on the land where
their hope of safety lay, while eating some shell-fish with which the sand
was strewn. It was a wretched repast, but still it was better than nothing.
The opposite coast formed one vast bay, terminating on the south by a very
sharp point, which was destitute of all vegetation, and was of a very wild
aspect. This point abutted on the shore in a grotesque outline of high
granite rocks. Towards the north, on the contrary, the bay widened, and a
more rounded coast appeared, trending from the southwest to the northeast,
and terminating in a slender cape. The distance between these two
extremities, which made the bow of the bay, was about eight miles. Half a
mile from the shore rose the islet, which somewhat resembled the carcass
of a gigantic whale. Its extreme breadth was not more than a quarter of
a mile.

Opposite the islet, the beach consisted first of sand, covered with black
stones, which were now appearing little by little above the retreating
tide. The second level was separated by a perpendicular granite cliff,
terminated at the top by an unequal edge at a height of at least 300 feet.
It continued thus for a length of three miles, ending suddenly on the right
with a precipice which looked as if cut by the hand of man. On the left,
above the promontory, this irregular and jagged cliff descended by a long
slope of conglomerated rocks till it mingled with the ground of the
southern point. On the upper plateau of the coast not a tree appeared. It
was a flat tableland like that above Cape Town at the Cape of Good Hope,
but of reduced proportions; at least so it appeared seen from the islet.
However, verdure was not wanting to the right beyond the precipice. They
could easily distinguish a confused mass of great trees, which extended
beyond the limits of their view. This verdure relieved the eye, so long
wearied by the continued ranges of granite. Lastly, beyond and above the
plateau, in a northwesterly direction and at a distance of at least seven
miles, glittered a white summit which reflected the sun's rays. It was that
of a lofty mountain, capped with snow.

The question could not at present be decided whether this land formed an
island, or whether it belonged to a continent. But on beholding the
convulsed masses heaped up on the left, no geologist would have hesitated
to give them a volcanic origin, for they were unquestionably the work of
subterranean convulsions.

Gideon Spilett, Pencroft, and Herbert attentively examined this land, on
which they might perhaps have to live many long years; on which indeed they
might even die, should it be out of the usual track of vessels, as was
likely to be the case.

"Well," asked Herbert, "what do you say, Pencroft?"

"There is some good and some bad, as in everything," replied the sailor.
"We shall see. But now the ebb is evidently making. In three hours we will
attempt the passage, and once on the other side, we will try to get out of
this scrape, and I hope may find the captain." Pencroft was not wrong in
his anticipations. Three hours later at low tide, the greater part of the
sand forming the bed of the channel was uncovered. Between the islet and
the coast there only remained a narrow channel which would no doubt be easy
to cross.

About ten o'clock, Gideon Spilett and his companions stripped themselves
of their clothes, which they placed in bundles on their heads, and then
ventured into the water, which was not more than five feet deep. Herbert,
for whom it was too deep, swam like a fish, and got through capitally. All
three arrived without difficulty on the opposite shore. Quickly drying
themselves in the sun, they put on their clothes, which they had preserved
from contact with the water, and sat down to take counsel together what to
do next.




Chapter 4

All at once the reporter sprang up, and telling the sailor that he would
rejoin them at that same place, he climbed the cliff in the direction which
the Negro Neb had taken a few hours before. Anxiety hastened his steps, for
he longed to obtain news of his friend, and he soon disappeared round an
angle of the cliff. Herbert wished to accompany him.

"Stop here, my boy," said the sailor; "we have to prepare an encampment,
and to try and find rather better grub than these shell-fish. Our friends
will want something when they come back. There is work for everybody."

"I am ready," replied Herbert.

"All right," said the sailor; "that will do. We must set about it
regularly. We are tired, cold, and hungry; therefore we must have shelter,
fire, and food. There is wood in the forest, and eggs in nests; we have
only to find a house."

"Very well," returned Herbert, "I will look for a cave among the rocks,
and I shall be sure to discover some hole into which we can creep."

"All right," said Pencroft; "go on, my boy."

They both walked to the foot of the enormous wall over the beach, far
from which the tide had now retreated; but instead of going towards the
north, they went southward. Pencroft had remarked, several hundred feet
from the place at which they landed, a narrow cutting, out of which he
thought a river or stream might issue. Now, on the one hand it was
important to settle themselves in the neighborhood of a good stream of
water, and on the other it was possible that the current had thrown Cyrus
Harding on the shore there.

The cliff, as has been said, rose to a height of three hundred feet, but
the mass was unbroken throughout, and even at its base, scarcely washed by
the sea, it did not offer the smallest fissure which would serve as a
dwelling. It was a perpendicular wall of very hard granite, which even the
waves had not worn away. Towards the summit fluttered myriads of sea-fowl,
and especially those of the web-footed species with long, flat, pointed
beaks--a clamorous tribe, bold in the presence of man, who probably for the
first time thus invaded their domains. Pencroft recognized the skua and
other gulls among them, the voracious little sea-mew, which in great
numbers nestled in the crevices of the granite. A shot fired among this
swarm would have killed a great number, but to fire a shot a gun was
needed, and neither Pencroft nor Herbert had one; besides this, gulls and
sea-mews are scarcely eatable, and even their eggs have a detestable taste.
However, Herbert, who had gone forward a little more to the left, soon came
upon rocks covered with sea-weed, which, some hours later, would be hidden
by the high tide. On these rocks, in the midst of slippery wrack, abounded
bivalve shell-fish, not to be despised by starving people. Herbert called
Pencroft, who ran up hastily.

"Here are mussels!" cried the sailor; "these will do instead of eggs!"

"They are not mussels," replied Herbert, who was attentively examining
the molluscs attached to the rocks; "they are lithodomes."

"Are they good to eat?" asked Pencroft.

"Perfectly so."

"Then let us eat some lithodomes."

The sailor could rely upon Herbert; the young boy was well up in natural
history, and always had had quite a passion for the science. His father had
encouraged him in it, by letting him attend the lectures of the best
professors in Boston, who were very fond of the intelligent, industrious
lad. And his turn for natural history was, more than once in the course of
time, of great use, and he was not mistaken in this instance. These
lithodomes were oblong shells, suspended in clusters and adhering very
tightly to the rocks. They belong to that species of molluscous perforators
which excavate holes in the hardest stone; their shell is rounded at both
ends, a feature which is not remarked in the common mussel.

Pencroft and Herbert made a good meal of the lithodomes, which were then
half opened to the sun. They ate them as oysters, and as they had a strong
peppery taste, they were palatable without condiments of any sort.

Their hunger was thus appeased for the time, but not their thirst, which
increased after eating these naturally-spiced molluscs. They had then to
find fresh water, and it was not likely that it would be wanting in such a
capriciously uneven region. Pencroft and Herbert, after having taken the
precaution of collecting an ample supply of lithodomes, with which they
filled their pockets and handkerchiefs, regained the foot of the cliff.

Two hundred paces farther they arrived at the cutting, through which, as
Pencroft had guessed, ran a stream of water, whether fresh or not was to be
ascertained. At this place the wall appeared to have been separated by some
violent subterranean force. At its base was hollowed out a little creek,
the farthest part of which formed a tolerably sharp angle. The watercourse
at that part measured one hundred feet in breadth, and its two banks on
each side were scarcely twenty feet high. The river became strong almost
directly between the two walls of granite, which began to sink above the
mouth; it then suddenly turned and disappeared beneath a wood of stunted
trees half a mile off.

"Here is the water, and yonder is the wood we require!" said Pencroft.
"Well, Herbert, now we only want the house."

The water of the river was limpid. The sailor ascertained that at this
time--that is to say, at low tide, when the rising floods did not reach it
--it was sweet. This important point established, Herbert looked for some
cavity which would serve them as a retreat, but in vain; everywhere the
wall appeared smooth, plain, and perpendicular.

However, at the mouth of the watercourse and above the reach of the high
tide, the convulsions of nature had formed, not a grotto, but a pile of
enormous rocks, such as are often met with in granite countries and which
bear the name of "Chimneys."

Pencroft and Herbert penetrated quite far in among the rocks, by sandy
passages in which light was not wanting, for it entered through the
openings which were left between the blocks, of which some were only
sustained by a miracle of equilibrium; but with the light came also air--a
regular corridor-gale--and with the wind the sharp cold from the exterior.
However, the sailor thought that by stopping-up some of the openings with a
mixture of stones and sand, the Chimneys could be rendered habitable. Their
geometrical plan represented the typographical sign "&," which signifies
"et cetera" abridged, but by isolating the upper mouth of the sign, through
which the south and west winds blew so strongly, they could succeed in
making the lower part of use.

"Here's our work," said Pencroft, "and if we ever see Captain Harding
again, he will know how to make something of this labyrinth."

"We shall see him again, Pencroft," cried Herbert, "and when be returns
he must find a tolerable dwelling here. It will be so, if we can make a
fireplace in the left passage and keep an opening for the smoke."

"So we can, my boy," replied the sailor, "and these Chimneys will serve
our turn. Let us set to work, but first come and get a store of fuel. I
think some branches will be very useful in stopping up these openings,
through which the wind shrieks like so many fiends."

Herbert and Pencroft left the Chimneys, and, turning the angle, they
began to climb the left bank of the river. The current here was quite
rapid, and drifted down some dead wood. The rising tide--and it could
already be perceived--must drive it back with force to a considerable
distance. The sailor then thought that they could utilize this ebb and flow
for the transport of heavy objects.

After having walked for a quarter of an hour, the sailor and the boy
arrived at the angle which the river made in turning towards the left. From
this point its course was pursued through a forest of magnificent trees.
These trees still retained their verdure, notwithstanding the advanced
season, for they belonged to the family of "coniferae," which is spread
over all the regions of the globe, from northern climates to the tropics.
The young naturalist recognized especially the "deedara," which are very

numerous in the Himalayan zone, and which spread around them a most
agreeable odor. Between these beautiful trees sprang up clusters of firs,
whose opaque open parasol boughs spread wide around. Among the long grass,
Pencroft felt that his feet were crushing dry branches which crackled like
fireworks.

"Well, my boy," said he to Herbert, "if I don't know the name of these
trees, at any rate I reckon that we may call them 'burning wood,' and just
now that's the chief thing we want."

"Let us get a supply," replied Herbert, who immediately set to work.

The collection was easily made. It was not even necessary to lop the
trees, for enormous quantities of dead wood were lying at their feet; but
if fuel was not wanting, the means of transporting it was not yet found.
The wood, being very dry, would burn rapidly; it was therefore necessary to
carry to the Chimneys a considerable quantity, and the loads of two men
would not be sufficient. Herbert remarked this.

"Well, my boy," replied the sailor, "there must be some way of carrying
this wood; there is always a way of doing everything. If we had a cart or a
boat, it would be easy enough."

"But we have the river," said Herbert.

"Right," replied Pencroft; "the river will be to us like a road which
carries of itself, and rafts have not been invented for nothing."

"Only," observed Herbert, "at this moment our road is going the wrong
way, for the tide is rising!"

"We shall be all right if we wait till it ebbs," replied the sailor, "and
then we will trust it to carry our fuel to the Chimneys. Let us get the
raft ready."

The sailor, followed by Herbert, directed his steps towards the river.
They both carried, each in proportion to his strength, a load of wood bound
in fagots. They found on the bank also a great quantity of dead branches in
the midst of grass, among which the foot of man had probably never before
trod. Pencroft began directly to make his raft. In a kind of little bay,
created by a point of the shore which broke the current, the sailor and the
lad placed some good-sized pieces of wood, which they had fastened together
with dry creepers. A raft was thus formed, on which they stacked all they
had collected, sufficient, indeed, to have loaded at least twenty men. In
an hour the work was finished, and the raft moored to the bank, awaited the
turning of the tide.

There were still several hours to be occupied, and with one consent
Pencroft and Herbert resolved to gain the upper plateau, so as to have a
more extended view of the surrounding country.

Exactly two hundred feet behind the angle formed by the river, the wall,
terminated by a fall of rocks, died away in a gentle slope to the edge of
the forest. It was a natural staircase. Herbert and the sailor began their
ascent; thanks to the vigor of their muscles they reached the summit in a
few minutes; and proceeded to the point above the mouth of the river.

On attaining it, their first look was cast upon the ocean which not long
before they had traversed in such a terrible condition. They observed, with
emotion, all that part to the north of the coast on which the catastrophe
had taken place. It was there that Cyrus Harding had disappeared. They
looked to see if some portion of their balloon, to which a man might
possibly cling, yet existed. Nothing! The sea was but one vast watery
desert. As to the coast, it was solitary also. Neither the reporter nor Neb
could be anywhere seen. But it was possible that at this time they were
both too far away to be perceived.

"Something tells me," cried Herbert, "that a man as energetic as Captain
Harding would not let himself be drowned like other people. He must have
reached some point of the shore; don't you think so, Pencroft?"

The sailor shook his head sadly. He little expected ever to see Cyrus
Harding again; but wishing to leave some hope to Herbert: "Doubtless,
doubtless," said he; "our engineer is a man who would get out of a scrape
to which any one else would yield."

In the meantime he examined the coast with great attention. Stretched out
below them was the sandy shore, bounded on the right of the river's mouth
by lines of breakers. The rocks which were visible appeared like amphibious
monsters reposing in the surf. Beyond the reef, the sea sparkled beneath
the sun's rays. To the south a sharp point closed the horizon, and it could
not be seen if the land was prolonged in that direction, or if it ran
southeast and southwest, which would have made this coast a very long
peninsula. At the northern extremity of the bay the outline of the shore
was continued to a great distance in a wider curve. There the shore was
low, flat, without cliffs, and with great banks of sand, which the tide
left uncovered. Pencroft and Herbert then returned towards the west. Their
attention was first arrested by the snow-topped mountain which rose at a
distance of six or seven miles. From its first declivities to within two
miles of the coast were spread vast masses of wood, relieved by large green
patches, caused by the presence of evergreen trees. Then, from the edge of
this forest to the shore extended a plain, scattered irregularly with
groups of trees. Here and there on the left sparkled through glades the
waters of the little river; they could trace its winding course back
towards the spurs of the mountain, among which it seemed to spring. At the
point where the sailor had left his raft of wood, it began to run between
the two high granite walls; but if on the left bank the wall remained clear
and abrupt, on the right bank, on the contrary, it sank gradually, the
massive sides changed to isolated rocks, the rocks to stones, the stones to
shingle running to the extremity of the point.

"Are we on an island?" murmured the sailor.

"At any rate, it seems to be big enough," replied the lad.

"An island, ever so big, is an island all the same!" said Pencroft.

But this important question could not yet be answered. A more perfect
survey had to be made to settle the point. As to the land itself, island or
continent, it appeared fertile, agreeable in its aspect, and varied in its
productions.

"This is satisfactory," observed Pencroft; "and in our misfortune, we
must thank Providence for it."

"God be praised!" responded Herbert, whose pious heart was full of
gratitude to the Author of all things.

Pencroft and Herbert examined for some time the country on which they had
been cast; but it was difficult to guess after so hasty an inspection what
the future had in store for them.

They then returned, following the southern crest of the granite platform,
bordered by a long fringe of jagged rocks, of the most whimsical shapes.
Some hundreds of birds lived there nestled in the holes of the stone;
Herbert, jumping over the rocks, startled a whole flock of these winged
creatures.

"Oh!" cried he, "those are not gulls nor sea-mews!"

"What are they then?" asked Pencroft.

"Upon my word, one would say they were pigeons!"

"Just so, but these are wild or rock pigeons. I recognize them by the
double band of black on the wing, by the white tail, and by their slate-
colored plumage. But if the rock-pigeon is good to eat, its eggs must be
excellent, and we will soon see how many they may have left in their
nests!"

"We will not give them time to hatch, unless it is in the shape of an
omelet!" replied Pencroft merrily.

"But what will you make your omelet in?" asked Herbert; "in your hat?"

"Well!" replied the sailor, "I am not quite conjuror enough for that; we
must come down to eggs in the shell, my boy, and I will undertake to
despatch the hardest!"

Pencroft and Herbert attentively examined the cavities in the granite,
and they really found eggs in some of the hollows. A few dozen being
collected, were packed in the sailor's handkerchief, and as the time when
the tide would be full was approaching, Pencroft and Herbert began to
redescend towards the watercourse. When they arrived there, it was an hour
after midday. The tide had already turned. They must now avail themselves
of the ebb to take the wood to the mouth. Pencroft did not intend to let
the raft go away in the current without guidance, neither did he mean to
embark on it himself to steer it. But a sailor is never at a loss when
there is a question of cables or ropes, and Pencroft rapidly twisted a
cord, a few fathoms long, made of dry creepers. This vegetable cable was
fastened to the after-part of the raft, and the sailor held it in his hand
while Herbert, pushing off the raft with a long pole, kept it in the
current. This succeeded capitally. The enormous load of wood drifted down
the current. The bank was very equal; there was no fear that the raft would
run aground, and before two o'clock they arrived at the river's mouth, a
few paces from the Chimneys.



Chapter 5

Pencroft's first care, after unloading the raft, was to render the cave
habitable by stopping up all the holes which made it draughty. Sand,
stones, twisted branches, wet clay, closed up the galleries open to the
south winds. One narrow and winding opening at the side was kept, to lead
out the smoke and to make the fire draw. The cave was thus divided into
three or four rooms, if such dark dens with which a donkey would scarcely
have been contented deserved the name. But they were dry, and there was
space to stand upright, at least in the principal room, which occupied the
center. The floor was covered with fine sand, and taking all in all they
were well pleased with it for want of a better.

"Perhaps," said Herbert, while he and Pencroft were working, "our
companions have found a superior place to ours."

"Very likely," replied the seaman; "but, as we don't know, we must work
all the same. Better to have two strings to one's bow than no string at
all!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Herbert, "how jolly it will be if they were to find
Captain Harding and were to bring him back with them!"

"Yes, indeed!" said Pencroft, "that was a man of the right sort."

"Was!" exclaimed Herbert, "do you despair of ever seeing him again?"

"God forbid!" replied the sailor. Their work was soon done, and Pencroft
declared himself very well satisfied.

"Now," said he, "our friends can come back when they like. They will find
a good enough shelter."

They now had only to make a fireplace and to prepare the supper--an easy
task. Large flat stones were placed on the ground at the opening of the
narrow passage which had been kept. This, if the smoke did not take the
heat out with it, would be enough to maintain an equal temperature inside.
Their wood was stowed away in one of the rooms, and the sailor laid in the
fireplace some logs and brushwood. The seaman was busy with this, when
Herbert asked him if he had any matches.

"Certainly," replied Pencroft, "and I may say happily, for without
matches or tinder we should be in a fix."

"Still we might get fire as the savages do," replied Herbert, "by rubbing
two bits of dry stick one against the other."

"All right; try, my boy, and let's see if you can do anything besides
exercising your arms."

"Well, it's a very simple proceeding, and much used in the islands of the
Pacific."

"I don't deny it," replied Pencroft, "but the savages must know how to do
it or employ a peculiar wood, for more than once I have tried to get fire
in that way, but I could never manage it. I must say I prefer matches. By
the bye, where are my matches?"

Pencroft searched in his waistcoat for the box, which was always there,
for he was a confirmed smoker. He could not find it; he rummaged the
pockets of his trousers, but, to his horror, he could nowhere discover the
box.

"Here's a go!" said he, looking at Herbert. "The box must have fallen out
of my pocket and got lost! Surely, Herbert, you must have something--a
tinder-box--anything that can possibly make fire!"

"No, I haven't, Pencroft."

The sailor rushed out, followed by the boy. On the sand, among the rocks,
near the river's bank, they both searched carefully, but in vain. The box
was of copper, and therefore would have been easily seen.

"Pencroft," asked Herbert, "didn't you throw it out of the car?"

"I knew better than that," replied the sailor; "but such a small article
could easily disappear in the tumbling about we have gone through. I would
rather even have lost my pipe! Confound the box! Where can it be?"

"Look here, the tide is going down," said Herbert; "let's run to the
place where we landed."

It was scarcely probable that they would find the box, which the waves
had rolled about among the pebbles, at high tide, but it was as well to
try. Herbert and Pencroft walked rapidly to the point where they had landed
the day before, about two hundred feet from the cave. They hunted there,
among the shingle, in the clefts of the rocks, but found nothing. If the
box had fallen at this place it must have been swept away by the waves. As
the sea went down, they searched every little crevice with no result. It
was a grave loss in their circumstances, and for the time irreparable.
Pencroft could not hide his vexation; he looked very anxious, but said not
a word. Herbert tried to console him by observing, that if they had found
the matches, they would, very likely, have been wetted by the sea and
useless.

"No, my boy," replied the sailor; "they were in a copper box which shut
very tightly; and now what are we to do?"

"We shall certainly find some way of making a fire," said Herbert.
"Captain Harding or Mr. Spilett will not be without them."

"Yes," replied Pencroft; "but in the meantime we are without fire, and
our companions will find but a sorry repast on their return."

"But," said Herbert quickly, "do you think it possible that they have no
tinder or matches?"

"I doubt it," replied the sailor, shaking his head, "for neither Neb nor
Captain Harding smoke, and I believe that Mr. Spilett would rather keep his
note-book than his match-box."

Herbert did not reply. The loss of the box was certainly to be regretted,
but the boy was still sure of procuring fire in some way or other.
Pencroft, more experienced, did not think so, although he was not a man to
trouble himself about a small or great grievance. At any rate, there was
only one thing to be done--to await the return of Neb and the reporter; but
they must give up the feast of hard eggs which they had meant to prepare,
and a meal of raw flesh was not an agreeable prospect either for themselves
or for the others.

Before returning to the cave, the sailor and Herbert, in the event of
fire being positively unattainable, collected some more shell-fish, and
then silently retraced their steps to their dwelling.

Pencroft, his eyes fixed on the ground, still looked for his box. He even
climbed up the left bank of the river from its mouth to the angle where the
raft had been moored. He returned to the plateau, went over it in every
direction, searched among the high grass on the border of the forest, all
in vain.

It was five in the evening when he and Herbert re-entered the cave. It is
useless to say that the darkest corners of the passages were ransacked
before they were obliged to give it up in despair. Towards six o'clock,
when the sun was disappearing behind the high lands of the west, Herbert,
who was walking up and down on the strand, signalized the return of Neb and
Spilett.

They were returning alone! . . . . The boy's heart sank; the sailor had not
been deceived in his forebodings; the engineer, Cyrus Harding, had not been
found!

The reporter, on his arrival, sat down on a rock, without saying
anything. Exhausted with fatigue, dying of hunger, he had not strength to
utter a word.

As to Neb, his red eyes showed how he had cried, and the tears which he
could not restrain told too clearly that he had lost all hope.

The reporter recounted all that they had done in their attempt to recover
Cyrus Harding. He and Neb had surveyed the coast for a distance of eight
miles and consequently much beyond the place where the balloon had fallen
the last time but one, a fall which was followed by the disappearance of
the engineer and the dog Top. The shore was solitary; not a vestige of a
mark. Not even a pebble recently displaced; not a trace on the sand; not a
human footstep on all that part of the beach. It was clear that that
portion of the shore had never been visited by a human being. The sea was
as deserted as the land, and it was there, a few hundred feet from the
coast, that the engineer must have found a tomb.

As Spilett ended his account, Neb jumped up, exclaiming in a voice which
showed how hope struggled within him, "No! he is not dead! he can't be
dead! It might happen to any one else, but never to him! He could get out
of anything!" Then his strength forsaking him, "Oh! I can do no more!" he
murmured.

"Neb," said Herbert, running to him, "we will find him! God will give him
back to us! But in the meantime you are hungry, and you must eat
something."

So saying, he offered the poor Negro a few handfuls of shell-fish, which
was indeed wretched and insufficient food. Neb had not eaten anything for
several hours, but he refused them. He could not, would not live without
his master.

As to Gideon Spilett, he devoured the shell-fish, then he laid himself
down on the sand, at the foot of a rock. He was very weak, but calm.
Herbert went up to him, and taking his hand, "Sir," said he, "we have found
a shelter which will be better than lying here. Night is advancing. Come
and rest! To-morrow we will search farther."

The reporter got up, and guided by the boy went towards the cave. On the
way, Pencroft asked him in the most natural tone, if by chance he happened
to have a match or two.

The reporter stopped, felt in his pockets, but finding nothing said, "I
had some, but I must have thrown them away."

The seaman then put the same question to Neb and received the same
answer.

"Confound it!" exclaimed the sailor.

The reporter heard him and seizing his arm, "Have you no matches?" he
asked.

"Not one, and no fire in consequence."

"Ah!" cried Neb, "if my master was here, he would know what to do!"

The four castaways remained motionless, looking uneasily at each other.
Herbert was the first to break the silence by saying, "Mr. Spilett, you are
a smoker and always have matches about you; perhaps you haven't looked
well, try again, a single match will be enough!"

The reporter hunted again in the pockets of his trousers, waistcoat, and
great-coat, and at last to Pencroft's great joy, no less to his extreme
surprise, he felt a tiny piece of wood entangled in the lining of his
waistcoat. He seized it with his fingers through the stuff, but he could
not get it out. If this was a match and a single one, it was of great
importance not to rub off the phosphorus.

"Will you let me try?" said the boy, and very cleverly, without breaking
it, he managed to draw out the wretched yet precious little bit of wood
which was of such great importance to these poor men. It was unused.

"Hurrah!" cried Pencroft; "it is as good as having a whole cargo!" He
took the match, and, followed by his companions, entered the cave.

This small piece of wood, of which so many in an inhabited country are
wasted with indifference and are of no value, must here be used with the
greatest caution.

The sailor first made sure that it was quite dry; that done, "We must
have some paper," said he.

"Here," replied Spilett, after some hesitation tearing a leaf out of his
note-book.

Pencroft took the piece of paper which the reporter held out to him, and
knelt down before the fireplace. Some handfuls of grass, leaves, and dry
moss were placed under the fagots and disposed in such a way that the air
could easily circulate, and the dry wood would rapidly catch fire.

Pencroft then twisted the piece of paper into the shape of a cone, as
smokers do in a high wind, and poked it in among the moss. Taking a small,
rough stone, he wiped it carefully, and with a beating heart, holding his
breath, he gently rubbed the match. The first attempt did not produce any
effect. Pencroft had not struck hard enough, fearing to rub off the
phosphorus.

"No, I can't do it," said he, "my hand trembles, the match has missed
fire; I cannot, I will not!" and rising, he told Herbert to take his place.

Certainly the boy had never in all his life been so nervous. Prometheus
going to steal the fire from heaven could not have been more anxious. He
did not hesitate, however, but struck the match directly.

A little spluttering was heard and a tiny blue flame sprang up, making a
choking smoke. Herbert quickly turned the match so as to augment the flame,
and then slipped it into the paper cone, which in a few seconds too caught
fire, and then the moss.

A minute later the dry wood crackled and a cheerful flame, assisted by
the vigorous blowing of the sailor, sprang up in the midst of the darkness.

"At last!" cried Pencroft, getting up; "I was never so nervous before in
all my life!"

The flat stones made a capital fireplace. The smoke went quite easily out
at the narrow passage, the chimney drew, and an agreeable warmth was not
long in being felt.

They must now take great care not to let the fire go out, and always to
keep some embers alight. It only needed care and attention, as they had
plenty of wood and could renew their store at any time.

Pencroft's first thought was to use the fire by preparing a more
nourishing supper than a dish of shell-fish. Two dozen eggs were brought by
Herbert. The reporter leaning up in a corner, watched these preparations
without saying anything. A threefold thought weighed on his mind. Was Cyrus
still alive? If he was alive, where was he? If he had survived from his
fall, how was it that he had not found some means of making known his
existence? As to Neb, he was roaming about the shore. He was like a body
without a soul.

Pencroft knew fifty ways of cooking eggs, but this time he had no choice,
and was obliged to content himself with roasting them under the hot
cinders. In a few minutes the cooking was done, and the seaman invited the
reporter to take his share of the supper. Such was the first repast of the
castaways on this unknown coast. The hard eggs were excellent, and as eggs
contain everything indispensable to man's nourishment, these poor people
thought themselves well off, and were much strengthened by them. Oh! if
only one of them had not been missing at this meal! If the five prisoners
who escaped from Richmond had been all there, under the piled-up rocks,
before this clear, crackling fire on the dry sand, what thanksgiving must
they have rendered to Heaven! But the most ingenious, the most learned, he
who was their unquestioned chief, Cyrus Harding, was, alas! missing, and
his body had not even obtained a burial-place.

Thus passed the 25th of March. Night had come on. Outside could be heard
the howling of the wind and the monotonous sound of the surf breaking on
the shore. The waves rolled the shingle backwards and forwards with a
deafening noise.

The reporter retired into a dark corner after having shortly noted down
the occurrences of the day; the first appearance of this new land, the loss
of their leader, the exploration of the coast, the incident of the matches,
etc.; and then overcome by fatigue, he managed to forget his sorrows in
sleep. Herbert went to sleep directly. As to the sailor, he passed the
night with one eye on the fire, on which he did not spare fuel. But one of
the castaways did not sleep in the cave. The inconsolable, despairing Neb,
notwithstanding all that his companions could say to induce him to take
some rest, wandered all night long on the shore calling on his master.



Chapter 6

The inventory of the articles possessed by these castaways from the clouds,
thrown upon a coast which appeared to be uninhabited, was soon made out.
They had nothing, save the clothes which they were wearing at the time of
the catastrophe. We must mention, however, a note-book and a watch which
Gideon Spilett had kept, doubtless by inadvertence, not a weapon, not a
tool, not even a pocket-knife; for while in the car they had thrown out
everything to lighten the balloon. The imaginary heroes of Daniel Defoe or
of Wyss, as well as Selkirk and Raynal shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez and on
the archipelago of the Aucklands, were never in such absolute destitution.
Either they had abundant resources from their stranded vessels, in grain,
cattle, tools, ammunition, or else some things were thrown up on the coast
which supplied them with all the first necessities of life. But here, not
any instrument whatever, not a utensil. From nothing they must supply
themselves with everything.

And yet, if Cyrus Harding had been with them, if the engineer could have
brought his practical science, his inventive mind to bear on their
situation, perhaps all hope would not have been lost. Alas! they must hope
no longer again to see Cyrus Harding. The castaways could expect nothing
but from themselves and from that Providence which never abandons those
whose faith is sincere.

But ought they to establish themselves on this part of the coast, without
trying to know to what continent it belonged, if it was inhabited, or if
they were on the shore of a desert island?

It was an important question, and should be solved with the shortest
possible delay. From its answer they would know what measures to take.
However, according to Pencroft's advice, it appeared best to wait a few
days before commencing an exploration. They must, in fact, prepare some
provisions and procure more strengthening food than eggs and molluscs. The
explorers, before undertaking new fatigues, must first of all recruit their
strength.

The Chimneys offered a retreat sufficient for the present. The fire was
lighted, and it was easy to preserve some embers. There were plenty of
shell-fish and eggs among the rocks and on the beach. It would be easy to
kill a few of the pigeons which were flying by hundreds about the summit of
the plateau, either with sticks or stones. Perhaps the trees of the
neighboring forest would supply them with eatable fruit. Lastly, the sweet
water was there.

It was accordingly settled that for a few days they would remain at the
Chimneys so as to prepare themselves for an expedition, either along the
shore or into the interior of the country. This plan suited Neb
particularly. As obstinate in his ideas as in his presentiments, he was in
no haste to abandon this part of the coast, the scene of the catastrophe.
He did not, he would not believe in the loss of Cyrus Harding. No, it did
not seem to him possible that such a man had ended in this vulgar fashion,
carried away by a wave, drowned in the floods, a few hundred feet from a
shore. As long as the waves had not cast up the body of the engineer, as
long as he, Neb, had not seen with his eyes, touched with his hands the
corpse of his master, he would not believe in his death! And this idea
rooted itself deeper than ever in his determined heart. An illusion
perhaps, but still an illusion to be respected, and one which the sailor
did not wish to destroy. As for him, he hoped no longer, but there was no
use in arguing with Neb. He was like the dog who will not leave the place
where his master is buried, and his grief was such that most probably he
would not survive him.

This same morning, the 26th of March, at daybreak, Neb had set out on the
shore in a northerly direction, and he had returned to the spot where the
sea, no doubt, had closed over the unfortunate Harding.

That day's breakfast was composed solely of pigeon's eggs and lithodomes.
Herbert had found some salt deposited by evaporation in the hollows of the
rocks, and this mineral was very welcome.

The repast ended, Pencroft asked the reporter if he wished to accompany
Herbert and himself to the forest, where they were going to try to hunt.
But on consideration, it was thought necessary that someone should remain
to keep in the fire, and to be at hand in the highly improbable event of
Neb requiring aid. The reporter accordingly remained behind.

"To the chase, Herbert," said the sailor. "We shall find ammunition on
our way, and cut our weapons in the forest." But at the moment of starting,
Herbert observed, that since they had no tinder, it would perhaps be
prudent to replace it by another substance.

"What?" asked Pencroft.

"Burnt linen," replied the boy. "That could in case of need serve for
tinder."

The sailor thought it very sensible advice. Only it had the inconvenience
of necessitating the sacrifice of a piece of handkerchief. Notwithstanding,
the thing was well worth while trying, and a part of Pencroft's large
checked handkerchief was soon reduced to the state of a half-burnt rag.
This inflammable material was placed in the central chamber at the bottom
of a little cavity in the rock, sheltered from all wind and damp.

It was nine o'clock in the morning. The weather was threatening and the
breeze blew from the southeast. Herbert and Pencroft turned the angle of
the Chimneys, not without having cast a look at the smoke which, just at
that place, curled round a point of rock: they ascended the left bank of
the river.

Arrived at the forest, Pencroft broke from the first tree two stout
branches which he transformed into clubs, the ends of which Herbert rubbed
smooth on a rock. Oh! what would they not have given for a knife!

The two hunters now advanced among the long grass, following the bank.
From the turning which directed its course to the southwest, the river
narrowed gradually and the channel lay between high banks, over which the
trees formed a double arch. Pencroft, lest they should lose themselves,
resolved to follow the course of the stream, which would always lead them
back to the point from which they started. But the bank was not without
some obstacles: here, the flexible branches of the trees bent level with
the current; there, creepers and thorns which they had to break down with
their sticks. Herbert often glided among the broken stumps with the agility
of a young cat, and disappeared in the underwood. But Pencroft called him
back directly, begging him not to wander away. Meanwhile, the sailor
attentively observed the disposition and nature of the surrounding
country. On the left bank, the ground, which was flat and marshy, rose
imperceptibly towards the interior. It looked there like a network of
liquid threads which doubtless reached the river by some underground drain.
Sometimes a stream ran through the underwood, which they crossed without
difficulty. The opposite shore appeared to be more uneven, and the valley
of which the river occupied the bottom was more clearly visible. The hill,
covered with trees disposed in terraces, intercepted the view. On the right
bank walking would have been difficult, for the declivities fell suddenly,
and the trees bending over the water were only sustained by the strength
of their roots.

It is needless to add that this forest, as well as the coast already
surveyed, was destitute of any sign of human life. Pencroft only saw traces
of quadrupeds, fresh footprints of animals, of which he could not recognize
the species. In all probability, and such was also Herbert's opinion, some
had been left by formidable wild beasts which doubtless would give them
some trouble; but nowhere did they observe the mark of an axe on the trees,
nor the ashes of a fire, nor the impression of a human foot. On this they
might probably congratulate themselves, for on any land in the middle of
the Pacific the presence of man was perhaps more to be feared than desired.
Herbert and Pencroft speaking little, for the difficulties of the way were
great, advanced very slowly, and after walking for an hour they had
scarcely gone more than a mile. As yet the hunt had not been successful.
However, some birds sang and fluttered in the foliage, and appeared very
timid, as if man had inspired them with an instinctive fear. Among others,
Herbert described, in a marshy part of the forest, a bird with a long
pointed beak, closely resembling the king-fisher, but its plumage was not
fine, though of a metallic brilliancy.

"That must be a jacamar," said Herbert, trying to get nearer.

"This will be a good opportunity to taste jacamar," replied the sailor,
"if that fellow is in a humor to be roasted!"

Just then, a stone cleverly thrown by the boy, struck the creature on the
wing, but the blow did not disable it, and the jacamar ran off and
disappeared in an instant.

"How clumsy I am!" cried Herbert.

"No, no, my boy!" replied the sailor. "The blow was well aimed; many a
one would have missed it altogether! Come, don't be vexed with yourself. We
shall catch it another day!"

As the hunters advanced, the trees were found to be more scattered, many
being magnificent, but none bore eatable fruit. Pencroft searched in vain
for some of those precious palm-trees which are employed in so many ways in
domestic life, and which have been found as far as the fortieth parallel in
the Northern Hemisphere, and to the thirty-fifth only in the Southern
Hemisphere. But this forest was only composed of coniferae, such as
deodaras, already recognized by Herbert, and Douglas pine, similar to those
which grow on the northwest coast of America, and splendid firs, measuring
a hundred and fifty feet in height.

At this moment a flock of birds, of a small size and pretty plumage, with
long glancing tails, dispersed themselves among the branches strewing their
feathers, which covered the ground as with fine down. Herbert picked up a
few of these feathers, and after having examined them,--

"These are couroucous," said he.

"I should prefer a moor-cock or guinea-fowl," replied Pencroft, "still,
if they are good to eat--"

"They are good to eat, and also their flesh is very delicate," replied
Herbert. "Besides, if I don't mistake, it is easy to approach and kill them
with a stick."

The sailor and the lad, creeping among the grass, arrived at the foot of
a tree, whose lower branches were covered with little birds. The couroucous
were waiting the passage of insects which served for their nourishment.
Their feathery feet could be seen clasping the slender twigs which
supported them.

The hunters then rose, and using their sticks like scythes, they mowed
down whole rows of these couroucous, who never thought of flying away, and
stupidly allowed themselves to be knocked off. A hundred were already
heaped on the ground, before the others made up their minds to fly.

"Well," said Pencroft, "here is game, which is quite within the reach of
hunters like us. We have only to put out our hands and take it!"

The sailor having strung the couroucous like larks on flexible twigs,
they then continued their exploration. The stream here made a bend towards
the south, but this detour was probably not prolonged for the river must
have its source in the mountain, and be supplied by the melting of the snow
which covered the sides of the central cone.

The particular object of their expedition was, as has been said, to
procure the greatest possible quantity of game for the inhabitants of the
Chimneys. It must be acknowledged that as yet this object had not been
attained. So the sailor actively pursued his researches, though he
exclaimed, when some animal which he had not even time to recognize fled
into the long grass, "If only we had had the dog Top!" But Top had
disappeared at the same time as his master, and had probably perished with
him.

Towards three o'clock new flocks of birds were seen through certain
trees, at whose aromatic berries they were pecking, those of the juniper-
tree among others. Suddenly a loud trumpet call resounded through the
forest. This strange and sonorous cry was produced by a game bird called
grouse in the United States. They soon saw several couples, whose plumage
was rich chestnut-brown mottled with dark brown, and tail of the same
color. Herbert recognized the males by the two wing-like appendages raised
on the neck. Pencroft determined to get hold of at least one of these
gallinaceae, which were as large as a fowl, and whose flesh is better than
that of a pullet. But it was difficult, for they would not allow themselves
to be approached. After several fruitless attempts, which resulted in
nothing but scaring the grouse, the sailor said to the lad,--

"Decidedly, since we can't kill them on the wing, we must try to take
them with a line."

"Like a fish?" cried Herbert, much surprised at the proposal.

"Like a fish," replied the sailor quite seriously. Pencroft had found
among the grass half a dozen grouse nests, each having three or four eggs.
He took great care not to touch these nests, to which their proprietors
would not fail to return. It was around these that he meant to stretch his
lines, not snares, but real fishing-lines. He took Herbert to some distance
from the nests, and there prepared his singular apparatus with all the care
which a disciple of Izaak Walton would have used. Herbert watched the work
with great interest, though rather doubting its success. The lines were
made of fine creepers, fastened one to the other, of the length of fifteen
or twenty feet. Thick, strong thorns, the points bent back (which were
supplied from a dwarf acacia bush) were fastened to the ends of the
creepers, by way of hooks. Large red worms, which were crawling on the
ground, furnished bait.

This done, Pencroft, passing among the grass and concealing himself
skillfully, placed the end of his lines armed with hooks near the grouse
nests; then he returned, took the other ends and hid with Herbert behind a
large tree. There they both waited patiently; though, it must be said, that
Herbert did not reckon much on the success of the inventive Pencroft.

A whole half-hour passed, but then, as the sailor had surmised, several
couple of grouse returned to their nests. They walked along, pecking the
ground, and not suspecting in any way the presence of the hunters, who,
besides, had taken care to place themselves to leeward of the gallinaceae.

The lad felt at this moment highly interested. He held his breath, and
Pencroft, his eyes staring, his mouth open, his lips advanced, as if about
to taste a piece of grouse, scarcely breathed.

Meanwhile, the birds walked about the hooks, without taking any notice of
them. Pencroft then gave little tugs which moved the bait as if the worms
had been still alive.

The sailor undoubtedly felt much greater anxiety than does the fisherman,
for he does not see his prey coming through the water. The jerks attracted
the attention of the gallinaceae, and they attacked the hooks with their
beaks. Three voracious grouse swallowed at the same moment bait and hook.
Suddenly with a smart jerk, Pencroft "struck" his line, and a flapping of
wings showed that the birds were taken.

"Hurrah!" he cried, rushing towards the game, of which he made himself
master in an instant.

Herbert clapped his hands. It was the first time that he had ever seen
birds taken with a line, but the sailor modestly confessed that it was not
his first attempt, and that besides he could not claim the merit of
invention.

"And at any rate," added he, "situated as we are, we must hope to hit
upon many other contrivances."

The grouse were fastened by their claws, and Pencroft, delighted at not
having to appear before their companions with empty hands, and observing
that the day had begun to decline, judged it best to return to their
dwelling.

The direction was indicated by the river, whose course they had only to
follow, and, towards six o'clock, tired enough with their excursion,
Herbert and Pencroft arrived at the Chimneys.



Chapter 7

Gideon Spilett was standing motionless on the shore, his arms crossed,
gazing over the sea, the horizon of which was lost towards the east in a
thick black cloud which was spreading rapidly towards the zenith. The wind
was already strong, and increased with the decline of day. The whole sky
was of a threatening aspect, and the first symptoms of a violent storm were
clearly visible.

Herbert entered the Chimneys, and Pencroft went towards the reporter. The
latter, deeply absorbed, did not see him approach.

"We are going to have a dirty night, Mr. Spilett!" said the sailor:
"Petrels delight in wind and rain."

The reporter, turning at the moment, saw Pencroft, and his first words
were,--

"At what distance from the coast would you say the car was, when the
waves carried off our companion?"

The sailor had not expected this question. He reflected an instant and
replied,--

"Two cables lengths at the most."

"But what is a cable's length?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"About a hundred and twenty fathoms, or six hundred feet."

"Then," said the reporter, "Cyrus Harding must have disappeared twelve
hundred feet at the most from the shore?"

"About that," replied Pencroft.

"And his dog also?"

"Also."

"What astonishes me," rejoined the reporter, "while admitting that our
companion has perished, is that Top has also met his death, and that
neither the body of the dog nor of his master has been cast on the shore!"

"It is not astonishing, with such a heavy sea," replied the sailor.
"Besides, it is possible that currents have carried them farther down the
coast."

"Then, it is your opinion that our friend has perished in the waves?"
again asked the reporter.

"That is my opinion."

"My own opinion," said Gideon Spilett, "with due deference to your
experience, Pencroft, is that in the double fact of the absolute
disappearance of Cyrus and Top, living or dead, there is something
unaccountable and unlikely."

"I wish I could think like you, Mr. Spilett," replied Pencroft;
"unhappily, my mind is made up on this point." Having said this, the sailor
returned to the Chimneys. A good fire crackled on the hearth. Herbert had
just thrown on an armful of dry wood, and the flame cast a bright light
into the darkest parts of the passage.

Pencroft immediately began to prepare the dinner. It appeared best to
introduce something solid into the bill of fare, for all needed to get up
their strength. The strings of couroucous were kept for the next day, but
they plucked a couple of grouse, which were soon spitted on a stick, and
roasting before a blazing fire.

At seven in the evening Neb had not returned. The prolonged absence of
the Negro made Pencroft very uneasy. It was to be feared that he had met
with an accident on this unknown land, or that the unhappy fellow had been
driven to some act of despair. But Herbert drew very different conclusions
from this absence. According to him, Neb's delay was caused by some new
circumstances which had induced him to prolong his search. Also, everything
new must be to the advantage of Cyrus Harding. Why had Neb not returned
unless hope still detained him? Perhaps he had found some mark, a footstep,
a trace which had put him in the right path. Perhaps he was at this moment
on a certain track. Perhaps even he was near his master.

Thus the lad reasoned. Thus he spoke. His companions let him talk. The
reporter alone approved with a gesture. But what Pencroft thought most
probable was, that Neb had pushed his researches on the shore farther than
the day before, and that he had not as yet had time to return.

Herbert, however, agitated by vague presentiments, several times
manifested an intention to go to meet Neb. But Pencroft assured him that
that would be a useless course, that in the darkness and deplorable weather
he could not find any traces of Neb, and that it would be much better to
wait. If Neb had not made his appearance by the next day, Pencroft would
not hesitate to join him in his search.

Gideon Spilett approved of the sailor's opinion that it was best not to
divide, and Herbert was obliged to give up his project; but two large tears
fell from his eyes.

The reporter could not refrain from embracing the generous boy.

Bad weather now set in. A furious gale from the southeast passed over the
coast. The sea roared as it beat over the reef. Heavy rain was dashed by
the storm into particles like dust. Ragged masses of vapor drove along the
beach, on which the tormented shingles sounded as if poured out in cart-
loads, while the sand raised by the wind added as it were mineral dust to
that which was liquid, and rendered the united attack insupportable.
Between the river's mouth and the end of the cliff, eddies of wind whirled
and gusts from this maelstrom lashed the water which ran through the
narrow valley. The smoke from the fireplace was also driven back through
the opening, filling the passages and rendering them uninhabitable.

Therefore, as the grouse were cooked, Pencroft let the fire die away, and
only preserved a few embers buried under the ashes.

At eight o'clock Neb had not appeared, but there was no doubt that the
frightful weather alone hindered his return, and that he must have taken
refuge in some cave, to await the end of the storm or at least the return
of day. As to going to meet him, or attempting to find him, it was
impossible.

The game constituted the only dish at supper; the meat was excellent, and
Pencroft and Herbert, whose long excursion had rendered them very hungry,
devoured it with infinite satisfaction.

Their meal concluded, each retired to the corner in which he had rested
the preceding night, and Herbert was not long in going to sleep near the
sailor, who had stretched himself beside the fireplace.

Outside, as the night advanced, the tempest also increased in strength,
until it was equal to that which had carried the prisoners from Richmond to
this land in the Pacific. The tempests which are frequent during the
seasons of the equinox, and which are so prolific in catastrophes, are
above all terrible over this immense ocean, which opposes no obstacle to
their fury. No description can give an idea of the terrific violence of
the gale as it beat upon the unprotected coast.

Happily the pile of rocks which formed the Chimneys was solid. It was
composed of enormous blocks of granite, a few of which, insecurely
balanced, seemed to tremble on their foundations, and Pencroft could feel
rapid quiverings under his head as it rested on the rock. But he repeated
to himself, and rightly, that there was nothing to fear, and that their
retreat would not give way. However he heard the noise of stones torn from
the summit of the plateau by the wind, falling down on to the beach. A few
even rolled on to the upper part of the Chimneys, or flew off in fragments
when they were projected perpendicularly. Twice the sailor rose and
intrenched himself at the opening of the passage, so as to take a look in
safety at the outside. But there was nothing to be feared from these
showers, which were not considerable, and he returned to his couch before
the fireplace, where the embers glowed beneath the ashes.

Notwithstanding the fury of the hurricane, the uproar of the tempest, the
thunder, and the tumult, Herbert slept profoundly. Sleep at last took
possession of Pencroft, whom a seafaring life had habituated to anything.
Gideon Spilett alone was kept awake by anxiety. He reproached himself with
not having accompanied Neb. It was evident that he had not abandoned all
hope. The presentiments which had troubled Herbert did not cease to agitate
him also. His thoughts were concentrated on Neb. Why had Neb not returned?
He tossed about on his sandy couch, scarcely giving a thought to the
struggle of the elements. Now and then, his eyes, heavy with fatigue,
closed for an instant, but some sudden thought reopened them almost
immediately.

Meanwhile the night advanced, and it was perhaps two hours from morning,
when Pencroft, then sound asleep, was vigorously shaken.

"What's the matter?" he cried, rousing himself, and collecting his ideas
with the promptitude usual to seamen.

The reporter was leaning over him, and saying,--

"Listen, Pencroft, listen!"

The sailor strained his ears, but could hear no noise beyond those caused
by the storm.

"It is the wind," said he.

"No," replied Gideon Spilett, listening again, "I thought I heard--"

"What?"

"The barking of a dog!"

"A dog!" cried Pencroft, springing up.

"Yes--barking--"

"It's not possible!" replied the sailor. "And besides, how, in the
roaring of the storm--"

"Stop--listen--" said the reporter.

Pencroft listened more attentively, and really thought he heard, during a
lull, distant barking.

"Well!" said the reporter, pressing the sailor's hand.

"Yes--yes!" replied Pencroft.

"It is Top! It is Top!" cried Herbert, who had just awoke; and all three
rushed towards the opening of the Chimneys. They had great difficulty in
getting out. The wind drove them back. But at last they succeeded, and
could only remain standing by leaning against the rocks. They looked about,
but could not speak. The darkness was intense. The sea, the sky, the land
were all mingled in one black mass. Not a speck of light was visible.

The reporter and his companions remained thus for a few minutes,
overwhelmed by the wind, drenched by the rain, blinded by the sand.

Then, in a pause of the tumult, they again heard the barking, which they
found must be at some distance.

It could only be Top! But was he alone or accompanied? He was most
probably alone, for, if Neb had been with him, he would have made his way
more directly towards the Chimneys. The sailor squeezed the reporter's
hand, for he could not make himself heard, in a way which signified "Wait!"
then he reentered the passage.

An instant after he issued with a lighted fagot, which he threw into the
darkness, whistling shrilly.

It appeared as if this signal had been waited for; the barking
immediately came nearer, and soon a dog bounded into the passage. Pencroft,
Herbert, and Spilett entered after him.

An armful of dry wood was thrown on the embers. The passage was lighted
up with a bright flame.

"It is Top!" cried Herbert.

It was indeed Top, a magnificent Anglo-Norman, who derived from these two
races crossed the swiftness of foot and the acuteness of smell which are
the preeminent qualities of coursing dogs. It was the dog of the engineer,
Cyrus Harding. But he was alone! Neither Neb nor his master accompanied
him!

How was it that his instinct had guided him straight to the Chimneys,
which he did not know? It appeared inexplicable, above all, in the midst of
this black night and in such a tempest! But what was still more
inexplicable was, that Top was neither tired, nor exhausted, nor even
soiled with mud or sand!--Herbert had drawn him towards him, and was
patting his head, the dog rubbing his neck against the lad's hands.

"If the dog is found, the master will be found also!" said the reporter.

"God grant it!" responded Herbert. "Let us set off! Top will guide us!"

Pencroft did not make any objection. He felt that Top's arrival
contradicted his conjectures. "Come along then!" said he.

Pencroft carefully covered the embers on the hearth. He placed a few
pieces of wood among them, so as to keep in the fire until their return.
Then, preceded by the dog, who seemed to invite them by short barks to come
with him, and followed by the reporter and the boy, he dashed out, after
having put up in his handkerchief the remains of the supper.

The storm was then in all its violence, and perhaps at its height. Not a
single ray of light from the moon pierced through the clouds. To follow a
straight course was difficult. It was best to rely on Top's instinct. They
did so. The reporter and Herbert walked behind the dog, and the sailor
brought up the rear. It was impossible to exchange a word. The rain was not
very heavy, but the wind was terrific.

However, one circumstance favored the seaman and his two companions. The
wind being southeast, consequently blew on their backs. The clouds of sand,
which otherwise would have been insupportable, from being received behind,
did not in consequence impede their progress. In short, they sometimes went
faster than they liked, and had some difficulty in keeping their feet; but
hope gave them strength, for it was not at random that they made their way
along the shore. They had no doubt that Neb had found his master, and that
he had sent them the faithful dog. But was the engineer living, or had Neb
only sent for his companions that they might render the last duties to the
corpse of the unfortunate Harding?

After having passed the precipice, Herbert, the reporter, and Pencroft
prudently stepped aside to stop and take breath. The turn of the rocks
sheltered them from the wind, and they could breathe after this walk or
rather run of a quarter of an hour.

They could now hear and reply to each other, and the lad having
pronounced the name of Cyrus Harding, Top gave a few short barks, as much
as to say that his master was saved.

"Saved, isn't he?" repeated Herbert; "saved, Top?"

And the dog barked in reply.

They once more set out. The tide began to rise, and urged by the wind it
threatened to be unusually high, as it was a spring tide. Great billows
thundered against the reef with such violence that they probably passed
entirely over the islet, then quite invisible. The mole no longer protected
the coast, which was directly exposed to the attacks of the open sea.

As soon as the sailor and his companions left the precipice, the wind
struck them again with renewed fury. Though bent under the gale they walked
very quickly, following Top, who did not hesitate as to what direction to
take.

They ascended towards the north, having on their left an interminable
extent of billows, which broke with a deafening noise, and on their right a
dark country, the aspect of which it was impossible to guess. But they felt
that it was comparatively flat, for the wind passed completely over them,
without being driven back as it was when it came in contact with the cliff.

At four o'clock in the morning, they reckoned that they had cleared about
five miles. The clouds were slightly raised, and the wind, though less
damp, was very sharp and cold. Insufficiently protected by their clothing,
Pencroft, Herbert and Spilett suffered cruelly, but not a complaint escaped
their lips. They were determined to follow Top, wherever the intelligent
animal wished to lead them.

Towards five o'clock day began to break. At the zenith, where the fog was
less thick, gray shades bordered the clouds; under an opaque belt, a
luminous line clearly traced the horizon. The crests of the billows were
tipped with a wild light, and the foam regained its whiteness. At the same
time on the left the hilly parts of the coast could be seen, though very
indistinctly.

At six o'clock day had broken. The clouds rapidly lifted. The seaman and
his companions were then about six miles from the Chimneys. They were
following a very flat shore bounded by a reef of rocks, whose heads
scarcely emerged from the sea, for they were in deep water. On the left,
the country appeared to be one vast extent of sandy downs, bristling with
thistles. There was no cliff, and the shore offered no resistance to the
ocean but a chain of irregular hillocks. Here and there grew two or three
trees, inclined towards the west, their branches projecting in that
direction. Quite behind, in the southwest, extended the border of the
forest.

At this moment, Top became very excited. He ran forward, then returned,
and seemed to entreat them to hasten their steps. The dog then left the
beach, and guided by his wonderful instinct, without showing the least
hesitation, went straight in among the downs. They followed him. The
country appeared an absolute desert. Not a living creature was to be seen.

The downs, the extent of which was large, were composed of hillocks and
even of hills, very irregularly distributed. They resembled a Switzerland
modeled in sand, and only an amazing instinct could have possibly
recognized the way.

Five minutes after having left the beach, the reporter and his two
companions arrived at a sort of excavation, hollowed out at the back of a
high mound. There Top stopped, and gave a loud, clear bark. Spilett,
Herbert, and Pencroft dashed into the cave.

Neb was there, kneeling beside a body extended on a bed of grass.

The body was that of the engineer, Cyrus Harding.



Chapter 8

Neb did not move. Pencroft only uttered one word.

"Living?" he cried.

Neb did not reply. Spilett and the sailor turned pale. Herbert clasped
his hands, and remained motionless. The poor Negro, absorbed in his grief,
evidently had neither seen his companions nor heard the sailor speak.

The reporter knelt down beside the motionless body, and placed his ear to
the engineer's chest, having first torn open his clothes.

A minute--an age!--passed, during which he endeavored to catch the
faintest throb of the heart.

Neb had raised himself a little and gazed without seeing. Despair had
completely changed his countenance. He could scarcely be recognized,
exhausted with fatigue, broken with grief. He believed his master was dead.

Gideon Spilett at last rose, after a long and attentive examination.

"He lives!" said he.

Pencroft knelt in his turn beside the engineer, he also heard a
throbbing, and even felt a slight breath on his cheek.

Herbert at a word from the reporter ran out to look for water. He found,
a hundred feet off, a limpid stream, which seemed to have been greatly
increased by the rains, and which filtered through the sand; but nothing in
which to put the water, not even a shell among the downs. The lad was
obliged to content himself with dipping his handkerchief in the stream, and
with it hastened back to the grotto.

Happily the wet handkerchief was enough for Gideon Spilett, who only
wished to wet the engineer's lips. The cold water produced an almost
immediate effect. His chest heaved and he seemed to try to speak.

"We will save him!" exclaimed the reporter.

At these words hope revived in Neb's heart. He undressed his master to
see if he was wounded, but not so much as a bruise was to be found, either
on the head, body, or limbs, which was surprising, as he must have been
dashed against the rocks; even the hands were uninjured, and it was
difficult to explain how the engineer showed no traces of the efforts which
he must have made to get out of reach of the breakers.

But the explanation would come later. When Cyrus was able to speak he
would say what had happened. For the present the question was, how to
recall him to life, and it appeared likely that rubbing would bring this
about; so they set to work with the sailor's jersey.

The engineer, revived by this rude shampooing, moved his arm slightly and
began to breathe more regularly. He was sinking from exhaustion, and
certainly, had not the reporter and his companions arrived, it would have
been all over with Cyrus Harding.

"You thought your master was dead, didn't you?" said the seaman to Neb.

"Yes! quite dead!" replied Neb, "and if Top had not found you, and
brought you here, I should have buried my master, and then have lain down
on his grave to die!"

It had indeed been a narrow escape for Cyrus Harding!

Neb then recounted what had happened. The day before, after having left
the Chimneys at daybreak, he had ascended the coast in a northerly
direction, and had reached that part of the shore which he had already
visited.

There, without any hope he acknowledged, Neb had searched the beach,
among the rocks, on the sand, for the smallest trace to guide him. He
examined particularly that part of the beach which was not covered by the
high tide, for near the sea the water would have obliterated all marks. Neb
did not expect to find his master living. It was for a corpse that he
searched, a corpse which he wished to bury with his own hands!

He sought long in vain. This desert coast appeared never to have been
visited by a human creature. The shells, those which the sea had not
reached, and which might be met with by millions above high-water mark,
were untouched. Not a shell was broken.

Neb then resolved to walk along the beach for some miles. It was possible
that the waves had carried the body to quite a distant point. When a corpse
floats a little distance from a low shore, it rarely happens that the tide
does not throw it up, sooner or later. This Neb knew, and he wished to see
his master again for the last time.

"I went along the coast for another two miles, carefully examining the
beach, both at high and low water, and I had despaired of finding anything,
when yesterday, above five in the evening, I saw footprints on the sand."

"Footprints?" exclaimed Pencroft.

"Yes!" replied Neb.

"Did these footprints begin at the water's edge?" asked the reporter.

"No," replied Neb, "only above high-water mark, for the others must have
been washed out by the tide."

"Go on, Neb," said Spilett.

"I went half crazy when I saw these footprints. They were very clear and
went towards the downs. I followed them for a quarter of a mile, running,
but taking care not to destroy them. Five minutes after, as it was getting
dark, I heard the barking of a dog. It was Top, and Top brought me here, to
my master!"

Neb ended his account by saying what had been his grief at finding the
inanimate body, in which he vainly sought for the least sign of life. Now
that he had found him dead he longed for him to be alive. All his efforts
were useless! Nothing remained to be done but to render the last duties to
the one whom he had loved so much! Neb then thought of his companions.
They, no doubt, would wish to see the unfortunate man again. Top was there.
Could he not rely on the sagacity of the faithful animal? Neb several times
pronounced the name of the reporter, the one among his companions whom Top
knew best.

Then he pointed to the south, and the dog bounded off in the direction
indicated to him.

We have heard how, guided by an instinct which might be looked upon
almost as supernatural, Top had found them.

Neb's companions had listened with great attention to this account.

It was unaccountable to them how Cyrus Harding, after the efforts which
he must have made to escape from the waves by crossing the rocks, had not
received even a scratch. And what could not be explained either was how the
engineer had managed to get to this cave in the downs, more than a mile
from the shore.

"So, Neb," said the reporter, "it was not you who brought your master to
this place."

"No, it was not I," replied the Negro.

"It's very clear that the captain came here by himself," said Pencroft.

"It is clear in reality," observed Spilett, "but it is not credible!"

The explanation of this fact could only be produced from the engineer's
own lips, and they must wait for that till speech returned. Rubbing had
re-established the circulation of the blood. Cyrus Harding moved his arm
again, then his head, and a few incomprehensible words escaped him.

Neb, who was bending over him, spoke, but the engineer did not appear to
hear, and his eyes remained closed. Life was only exhibited in him by
movement, his senses had not as yet been restored.

Pencroft much regretted not having either fire, or the means of procuring
it, for he had, unfortunately, forgotten to bring the burnt linen, which
would easily have ignited from the sparks produced by striking together two
flints. As to the engineer's pockets, they were entirely empty, except that
of his waistcoat, which contained his watch. It was necessary to carry
Harding to the Chimneys, and that as soon as possible. This was the opinion
of all.

Meanwhile, the care which was lavished on the engineer brought him back
to consciousness sooner than they could have expected. The water with which
they wetted his lips revived him gradually. Pencroft also thought of mixing
with the water some moisture from the titra's flesh which he had brought.
Herbert ran to the beach and returned with two large bivalve shells. The
sailor concocted something which he introduced between the lips of the
engineer, who eagerly drinking it opened his eyes.

Neb and the reporter were leaning over him.

"My master! my master!" cried Neb.

The engineer heard him. He recognized Neb and Spilett, then his other two
companions, and his hand slightly pressed theirs.

A few words again escaped him, which showed what thoughts were, even
then, troubling his brain. This time he was understood. Undoubtedly they
were the same words he had before attempted to utter.

"Island or continent?" he murmured.

"Bother the continent," cried Pencroft hastily; "there is time enough to
see about that, captain! we don't care for anything, provided you are
living."

The engineer nodded faintly, and then appeased to sleep.

They respected this sleep, and the reporter began immediately to make
arrangements for transporting Harding to a more comfortable place. Neb,
Herbert, and Pencroft left the cave and directed their steps towards a high
mound crowned with a few distorted trees. On the way the sailor could not
help repeating,--

"Island or continent! To think of that, when at one's last gasp! What a
man!"

Arrived at the summit of the mound, Pencroft and his two companions set
to work, with no other tools than their hands, to despoil of its principal
branches a rather sickly tree, a sort of marine fir; with these branches
they made a litter, on which, covered with grass and leaves, they could
carry the engineer.

This occupied them nearly forty minutes, and it was ten o'clock when they
returned to Cyrus Harding whom Spilett had not left.

The engineer was just awaking from the sleep, or rather from the
drowsiness, in which they had found him. The color was returning to his
cheeks, which till now had been as pale as death. He raised himself a
little, looked around him, and appeared to ask where he was.

"Can you listen to me without fatigue, Cyrus?" asked the reporter.

"Yes," replied the engineer.

"It's my opinion," said the sailor, "that Captain Harding will be able to
listen to you still better, if he will have some more grouse jelly,--for we
have grouse, captain," added he, presenting him with a little of this
jelly, to which he this time added some of the flesh.

Cyrus Harding ate a little of the grouse, and the rest was divided among
his companions, who found it but a meager breakfast, for they were
suffering extremely from hunger.

"Well!" said the sailor, "there is plenty of food at the Chimneys, for
you must know, captain, that down there, in the south, we have a house,
with rooms, beds, and fireplace, and in the pantry, several dozen of birds,
which our Herbert calls couroucous. Your litter is ready, and as soon as
you feel strong enough we will carry you home."

"Thanks, my friend," replied the engineer; "wait another hour or two, and
then we will set out. And now speak, Spilett."

The reporter then told him all that had occurred. He recounted all the
events with which Cyrus was unacquainted, the last fall of the balloon, the
landing on this unknown land, which appeared a desert (whatever it was,
whether island or continent), the discovery of the Chimneys, the search for
him, not forgetting of course Neb's devotion, the intelligence exhibited by
the faithful Top, as well as many other matters.

"But," asked Harding, in a still feeble voice, "you did not, then, pick
me up on the beach?"

"No," replied the reporter.

"And did you not bring me to this cave?"

"No."

"At what distance is this cave from the sea?"

"About a mile," replied Pencroft; "and if you are astonished, captain, we
are not less surprised ourselves at seeing you in this place!"

"Indeed," said the engineer, who was recovering gradually, and who took
great interest in these details, "indeed it is very singular!"

"But," resumed the sailor, "can you tell us what happened after you were
carried off by the sea?"

Cyrus Harding considered. He knew very little. The wave had torn him from
the balloon net. He sank at first several fathoms. On returning to the
surface, in the half light, he felt a living creature struggling near him.
It was Top, who had sprung to his help. He saw nothing of the balloon,
which, lightened both of his weight and that of the dog, had darted away
like an arrow.

There he was, in the midst of the angry sea, at a distance which could
not be less than half a mile from the shore. He attempted to struggle
against the billows by swimming vigorously. Top held him up by his clothes;
but a strong current seized him and drove him towards the north, and after
half an hour of exertion, he sank, dragging Top with him into the depths.
From that moment to the moment in which he recovered to find himself in the
arms of his friends he remembered nothing.

"However," remarked Pencroft, "you must have been thrown on to the beach,
and you must have had strength to walk here, since Neb found your
footmarks!"

"Yes... of course  replied the engineer, thoughtfully; "and you found no
traces of human beings on this coast?"

"Not a trace," replied the reporter; "besides, if by chance you had met
with some deliverer there, just in the nick of time, why should he have
abandoned you after having saved you from the waves?"

"You are right, my dear Spilett. Tell me, Neb," added the engineer,
turning to his servant, "it was not you who... you can't have had a moment
of unconsciousness... during which no, that's absurd.... Do any of the
footsteps still remain?" asked Harding.

"Yes, master,  replied Neb; "here, at the entrance, at the back of the
mound, in a place sheltered from the rain and wind. The storm has destroyed
the others."

"Pencroft," said Cyrus Harding, "will you take my shoe and see if it fits
exactly to the footprints?"

The sailor did as the engineer requested. While he and Herbert, guided by
Neb, went to the place where the footprints were to be found, Cyrus
remarked to the reporter,--

"It is a most extraordinary thing!"

"Perfectly inexplicable!" replied Gideon Spilett.

"But do not dwell upon it just now, my dear Spilett, we will talk about
it by-and-by."

A moment after the others entered.

There was no doubt about it. The engineer's shoe fitted exactly to the
footmarks. It was therefore Cyrus Harding who had left them on the sand.

"Come," said he, "I must have experienced this unconsciousness which I
attributed to Neb. I must have walked like a somnambulist, without any
knowledge of my steps, and Top must have guided me here, after having
dragged me from the waves... Come, Top! Come, old dog!"

The magnificent animal bounded barking to his master, and caresses were
lavished on him. It was agreed that there was no other way of accounting
for the rescue of Cyrus Harding, and that Top deserved all the honor of the
affair.

Towards twelve o'clock, Pencroft having asked the engineer if they could
now remove him, Harding, instead of replying, and by an effort which
exhibited the most energetic will, got up. But he was obliged to lean on
the sailor, or he would have fallen.

"Well done!" cried Pencroft; "bring the captain's litter."

The litter was brought; the transverse branches had been covered with
leaves and long grass. Harding was laid on it, and Pencroft, having taken
his place at one end and Neb at the other, they started towards the coast.
There was a distance of eight miles to be accomplished; but, as they could
not go fast, and it would perhaps be necessary to stop frequently, they
reckoned that it would take at least six hours to reach the Chimneys. The
wind was still strong, but fortunately it did not rain. Although lying
down, the engineer, leaning on his elbow, observed the coast, particularly
inland. He did not speak, but he gazed; and, no doubt, the appearance of
the country, with its inequalities of ground, its forests, its various
productions, were impressed on his mind. However, after traveling for two
hours, fatigue overcame him, and he slept.

At half-past five the little band arrived at the precipice, and a short
time after at the Chimneys.

They stopped, and the litter was placed on the sand; Cyrus Harding was
sleeping profoundly, and did not awake.

Pencroft, to his extreme surprise, found that the terrible storm had
quite altered the aspect of the place. Important changes had occurred;
great blocks of stone lay on the beach, which was also covered with a thick
carpet of sea-weed, algae, and wrack. Evidently the sea, passing over the
islet, had been carried right up to the foot of the enormous curtain of
granite. The soil in front of the cave had been torn away by the violence
of the waves. A horrid presentiment flashed across Pencroft's mind. He
rushed into the passage, but returned almost immediately, and stood
motionless, staring at his companions.... The fire was out; the drowned
cinders were nothing but mud; the burnt linen, which was to have served as
tinder, had disappeared! The sea had penetrated to the end of the passages,
and everything was overthrown and destroyed in the interior of the
Chimneys!



Chapter 9

In a few words, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Neb were made acquainted with
what had happened. This accident, which appeared so very serious to
Pencroft, produced different effects on the companions of the honest
sailor.

Neb, in his delight at having found his master, did not listen, or
rather, did not care to trouble himself with what Pencroft was saying.

Herbert shared in some degree the sailor's feelings.

As to the reporter, he simply replied,--

"Upon my word, Pencroft, it's perfectly indifferent to me!"

"But, I repeat, that we haven't any fire!"

"Pooh!"

"Nor any means of relighting it!"

"Nonsense!"

"But I say, Mr. Spilett--"

"Isn't Cyrus here?" replied the reporter.

"Is not our engineer alive? He will soon find some way of making fire for
us!"

"With what?"

"With nothing."

What had Pencroft to say? He could say nothing, for, in the bottom of his
heart he shared the confidence which his companions had in Cyrus Harding.
The engineer was to them a microcosm, a compound of every science, a
possessor of all human knowledge. It was better to be with Cyrus in a
desert island, than without him in the most flourishing town in the United
States. With him they could want nothing; with him they would never
despair. If these brave men had been told that a volcanic eruption would
destroy the land, that this land would be engulfed in the depths of the
Pacific, they would have imperturbably replied,--

"Cyrus is here!"

While in the palanquin, however, the engineer had again relapsed into
unconsciousness, which the jolting to which he had been subjected during
his journey had brought on, so that they could not now appeal to his
ingenuity. The supper must necessarily be very meager. In fact, all the
grouse flesh had been consumed, and there no longer existed any means of
cooking more game. Besides, the couroucous which had been reserved had
disappeared. They must consider what was to be done.

First of all, Cyrus Harding was carried into the central passage. There
they managed to arrange for him a couch of sea-weed which still remained
almost dry. The deep sleep which had overpowered him would no doubt be more
beneficial to him than any nourishment.

Night had closed in, and the temperature, which had modified when the
wind shifted to the northwest, again became extremely cold. Also, the sea
having destroyed the partitions which Pencroft had put up in certain places
in the passages, the Chimneys, on account of the draughts, had become
scarcely habitable. The engineer's condition would, therefore, have been
bad enough, if his companions had not carefully covered him with their
coats and waistcoats.

Supper, this evening, was of course composed of the inevitable
lithodomes, of which Herbert and Neb picked up a plentiful supply on the
beach. However, to these molluscs, the lad added some edible sea-weed,
which he gathered on high rocks, whose sides were only washed by the sea at
the time of high tides. This sea-weed, which belongs to the order of
Fucacae, of the genus Sargassum, produces, when dry, a gelatinous matter,
rich and nutritious. The reporter and his companions, after having eaten a
quantity of lithodomes, sucked the sargassum, of which the taste was very
tolerable. It is used in parts of the East very considerably by the
natives. "Never mind!" said the sailor, "the captain will help us soon."
Meanwhile the cold became very severe, and unhappily they had no means of
defending themselves from it.

The sailor, extremely vexed, tried in all sorts of ways to procure fire.
Neb helped him in this work. He found some dry moss, and by striking
together two pebbles he obtained some sparks, but the moss, not being
inflammable enough, did not take fire, for the sparks were really only
incandescent, and not at all of the same consistency as those which are
emitted from flint when struck in the same manner. The experiment,
therefore, did not succeed.

Pencroft, although he had no confidence in the proceeding, then tried
rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, as savages do. Certainly, the
movement which he and Neb exhibited, if it had been transformed into heat,
according to the new theory, would have been enough to heat the boiler of a
steamer! It came to nothing. The bits of wood became hot, to be sure, but
much less so than the operators themselves.

After working an hour, Pencroft, who was in a complete state of
perspiration, threw down the pieces of wood in disgust.

"I can never be made to believe that savages light their fires in this
way, let them say what they will," he exclaimed. "I could sooner light my

arms by rubbing them against each other!"

The sailor was wrong to despise the proceeding. Savages often kindle wood
by means of rapid rubbing. But every sort of wood does not answer for the
purpose, and besides, there is "the knack," following the usual expression,
and it is probable that Pencroft had not "the knack."

Pencroft's ill humor did not last long. Herbert had taken the bits of
wood which he had turned down, and was exerting himself to rub them. The
hardy sailor could not restrain a burst of laughter on seeing the efforts
of the lad to succeed where he had failed.

"Rub, my boy, rub!" said he.

"I am rubbing," replied Herbert, laughing, "but I don't pretend to do
anything else but warm myself instead of shivering, and soon I shall be as
hot as you are, my good Pencroft!"

This soon happened. However, they were obliged to give up, for this night
at least, the attempt to procure fire. Gideon Spilett repeated, for the
twentieth time, that Cyrus Harding would not have been troubled for so
small a difficulty. And, in the meantime, he stretched himself in one of
the passages on his bed of sand. Herbert, Neb, and Pencroft did the same,
while Top slept at his master's feet.

Next day, the 28th of March, when the engineer awoke, about eight in the
morning, he saw his companions around him watching his sleep, and, as on
the day before, his first words were:--

"Island or continent?" This was his uppermost thought.

"Well!" replied Pencroft, "we don't know anything about it, captain!"

"You don't know yet?"

"But we shall know," rejoined Pencroft, "when you have guided us into the
country."

"I think I am able to try it," replied the engineer, who, without much
effort, rose and stood upright.

"That's capital!" cried the sailor.

"I feel dreadfully weak," replied Harding. "Give me something to eat, my
friends, and it will soon go off. You have fire, haven't you?"

This question was not immediately replied to. But, in a few seconds--

"Alas! we have no fire," said Pencroft, "or rather, captain, we have it
no longer!"

And the sailor recounted all that had passed the day before. He amused
the engineer by the history of the single match, then his abortive attempt
to procure fire in the savages' way.

"We shall consider," replied the engineer, "and if we do not find some
substance similar to tinder--"

"Well?" asked the sailor.

"Well, we will make matches.

"Chemicals?"

"Chemicals!"

"It is not more difficult than that," cried the reporter, striking the
sailor on the shoulder.

The latter did not think it so simple, but he did not protest. All went
out. The weather had become very fine. The sun was rising from the sea's
horizon, and touched with golden spangles the prismatic rugosities of the
huge precipice.

Having thrown a rapid glance around him, the engineer seated himself on a
block of stone. Herbert offered him a few handfuls of shell-fish and
sargassum, saying,--

"It is all that we have, Captain Harding."

"Thanks, my boy," replied Harding; "it will do--for this morning at
least."

He ate the wretched food with appetite, and washed it down with a little
fresh water, drawn from the river in an immense shell.

His companions looked at him without speaking. Then, feeling somewhat
refreshed, Cyrus Harding crossed his arms, and said,--

"So, my friends, you do not know yet whether fate has thrown us on an
island, or on a continent?"

"No, captain," replied the boy.

"We shall know to-morrow," said the engineer; "till then, there is
nothing to be done."

"Yes," replied Pencroft.

"What?"

"Fire," said the sailor, who, also, had a fixed idea.

"We will make it, Pencroft," replied Harding.

"While you were carrying me yesterday, did I not see in the west a
mountain which commands the country?"

"Yes," replied Spilett, "a mountain which must be rather high--"

"Well," replied the engineer, "we will climb to the summit to-morrow, and
then we shall see if this land is an island or a continent. Till then, I
repeat, there is nothing to be done."

"Yes, fire!" said the obstinate sailor again.

"But he will make us a fire!" replied Gideon Spilett, "only have a little
patience, Pencroft!"

The seaman looked at Spilett in a way which seemed to say, "If it
depended upon you to do it, we wouldn't taste roast meat very soon"; but he
was silent.

Meanwhile Captain Harding had made no reply. He appeared to be very
little troubled by the question of fire. For a few minutes he remained
absorbed in thought; then again speaking,--

"My friends," said he, "our situation is, perhaps, deplorable; but, at
any rate, it is very plain. Either we are on a continent, and then, at the
expense of greater or less fatigue, we shall reach some inhabited place, or
we are on an island. In the latter case, if the island is inhabited, we
will try to get out of the scrape with the help of its inhabitants; if it
is desert, we will try to get out of the scrape by ourselves."

"Certainly, nothing could be plainer," replied Pencroft.

"But, whether it is an island or a continent," asked Gideon Spilett,
"whereabouts do you think, Cyrus, this storm has thrown us?"

"I cannot say exactly," replied the engineer, "but I presume it is some
land in the Pacific. In fact, when we left Richmond, the wind was blowing
from the northeast, and its very violence greatly proves that it could not
have varied. If the direction has been maintained from the northeast to the
southwest, we have traversed the States of North Carolina, of South
Carolina, of Georgia, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, itself, in its narrow
part, then a part of the Pacific Ocean. I cannot estimate the distance
traversed by the balloon at less than six to seven thousand miles, and,
even supposing that the wind had varied half a quarter, it must have
brought us either to the archipelago of Mendava, either on the Pomotous, or
even, if it had a greater strength than I suppose, to the land of New
Zealand. If the last hypothesis is correct, it will be easy enough to get
home again. English or Maoris, we shall always find some one to whom we can
speak. If, on the contrary, this is the coast of a desert island in some
tiny archipelago, perhaps we shall be able to reconnoiter it from the
summit of that peak which overlooks the country, and then we shall see how
best to establish ourselves here as if we are never to go away."

"Never?" cried the reporter. "You say 'Never,' my dear Cyrus?"

"Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and
reserve the best for a surprise."

"Well said," remarked Pencroft. "It is to be hoped, too, that this
island, if it be one, is not situated just out of the course of ships; that
would be really unlucky!"

"We shall not know what we have to rely on until we have first made the
ascent of the mountain," replied the engineer.

"But to-morrow, captain," asked Herbert, "shall you be in a state to bear
the fatigue of the ascent?"

"I hope so," replied the engineer, "provided you and Pencroft, my boy,
show yourselves quick and clever hunters."

"Captain," said the sailor, "since you are speaking of game, if on my
return, I was as certain of roasting it as I am of bringing it back--"

"Bring it back all the same, Pencroft," replied Harding.

It was then agreed that the engineer and the reporter were to pass the
day at the Chimneys, so as to examine the shore and the upper plateau. Neb,
Herbert, and the sailor were to return to the forest, renew their store of
wood, and lay violent hands on every creature, feathered or hairy, which
might come within their reach.

They set out accordingly about ten o'clock in the morning, Herbert
confident, Neb joyous, Pencroft murmuring aside,--

"If, on my return, I find a fire at the house, I shall believe that the
thunder itself came to light it." All three climbed the bank; and arrived
at the angle made by the river, the sailor, stopping, said to his two
companions,--

"Shall we begin by being hunters or wood-men?"

"Hunters," replied Herbert. "There is Top already in quest."

"We will hunt, then," said the sailor, "and afterwards we can come back
and collect our wood."

This agreed to, Herbert, Neb, and Pencroft, after having torn three
sticks from the trunk of a young fir, followed Top, who was bounding about
among the long grass.

This time, the hunters, instead of following the course of the river,
plunged straight into the heart of the forest. There were still the same
trees, belonging, for the most part, to the pine family. In certain places,
less crowded, growing in clumps, these pines exhibited considerable
dimensions, and appeared to indicate, by their development, that the
country was situated in a higher latitude than the engineer had supposed.
Glades, bristling with stumps worn away by time, were covered with dry
wood, which formed an inexhaustible store of fuel. Then, the glade passed,
the underwood thickened again, and became almost impenetrable.

It was difficult enough to find the way among the groups of trees, without
any beaten track. So the sailor from time to time broke off branches which
might be easily recognized. But, perhaps, he was wrong not to follow the
watercourse, as he and Herbert had done on their first excursion, for after
walking an hour not a creature had shown itself. Top, running under the
branches, only roused birds which could not be approached. Even the
couroucous were invisible, and it was probable that the sailor would be
obliged to return to the marshy part of the forest, in which he had so
happily performed his grouse fishing.

"Well, Pencroft," said Neb, in a slightly sarcastic tone, "if this is all
the game which you promised to bring back to my master, it won't need a
large fire to roast it!"

"Have patience," replied the sailor, "it isn't the game which will be
wanting on our return."

"Have you not confidence in Captain Harding?"

"Yes."

"But you don't believe that he will make fire?"

"I shall believe it when the wood is blazing in the fireplace."

"It will blaze, since my master has said so."

"We shall see!"

Meanwhile, the sun had not reached the highest point in its course above
the horizon. The exploration, therefore, continued, and was usefully
marked by a discovery which Herbert made of a tree whose fruit was edible.
This was the stone-pine, which produces an excellent almond, very much
esteemed in the temperate regions of America and Europe. These almonds were
in a perfect state of maturity, and Herbert described them to his
companions, who feasted on them.

"Come," said Pencroft, "sea-weed by way of bread, raw mussels for meat,
and almonds for dessert, that's certainly a good dinner for those who have
not a single match in their pocket!"

We mustn't complain," said Herbert.

"I am not complaining, my boy," replied Pencroft, "only I repeat, that
meat is a little too much economized in this sort of meal."

"Top has found something!" cried Neb, who ran towards a thicket, in the
midst of which the dog had disappeared, barking. With Top's barking were
mingled curious gruntings.

The sailor and Herbert had followed Neb. If there was game there this was
not the time to discuss how it was to be cooked, but rather, how they were
to get hold of it.

The hunters had scarcely entered the bushes when they saw Top engaged in
a struggle with an animal which he was holding by the ear. This quadruped
was a sort of pig nearly two feet and a half long, of a blackish brown
color, lighter below, having hard scanty hair; its toes, then strongly
fixed in the ground, seemed to be united by a membrane. Herbert recognized
in this animal the capybara, that is to say, one of the largest members of
the rodent order.

Meanwhile, the capybara did not struggle against the dog. It stupidly
rolled its eyes, deeply buried in a thick bed of fat. Perhaps it saw men
for the first time.

However, Neb having tightened his grasp on his stick, was just going to
fell the pig, when the latter, tearing itself from Top's teeth, by which it
was only held by the tip of its ear, uttered a vigorous grunt, rushed upon
Herbert, almost overthrew him, and disappeared in the wood.

"The rascal!" cried Pencroft.

All three directly darted after Top, but at the moment when they joined
him the animal had disappeared under the waters of a large pond shaded by
venerable pines.

Neb, Herbert, and Pencroft stopped, motionless. Top plunged into the
water, but the capybara, hidden at the bottom of the pond, did not appear.

"Let us wait," said the boy, "for he will soon come to the surface to
breathe."

"Won't he drown?" asked Neb.

"No," replied Herbert, "since he has webbed feet, and is almost an
amphibious animal. But watch him."

Top remained in the water. Pencroft and his two companions went to
different parts of the bank, so as to cut off the retreat of the capybara,
which the dog was looking for beneath the water.

Herbert was not mistaken. In a few minutes the animal appeared on the
surface of the water. Top was upon it in a bound, and kept it from plunging
again. An instant later the capybara, dragged to the bank, was killed by a
blow from Neb's stick.

"Hurrah!" cried Pencroft, who was always ready with this cry of triumph.

"Give me but a good fire, and this pig shall be gnawed to the bones!"

Pencroft hoisted the capybara on his shoulders, and judging by the height
of the sun that it was about two o'clock, he gave the signal to return.

Top's instinct was useful to the hunters, who, thanks to the intelligent
animal, were enabled to discover the road by which they had come. Half an
hour later they arrived at the river.

Pencroft soon made a raft of wood, as he had done before, though if there
was no fire it would be a useless task, and the raft following the current,
they returned towards the Chimneys.

But the sailor had not gone fifty paces when he stopped, and again
uttering a tremendous hurrah, pointed towards the angle of the cliff,--

"Herbert! Neb! Look!" he shouted.

Smoke was escaping and curling up among the rocks.



Chapter 10

In a few minutes the three hunters were before a crackling fire. The
captain and the reporter were there. Pencroft looked from one to the other,
his capybara in his hand, without saying a word.

"Well, yes, my brave fellow," cried the reporter.

"Fire, real fire, which will roast this splendid pig perfectly, and we
will have a feast presently!"

"But who lighted it?" asked Pencroft.

"The sun!"

Gideon Spilett was quite right in his reply. It was the sun which had
furnished the heat which so astonished Pencroft. The sailor could scarcely
believe his eyes, and he was so amazed that he did not think of questioning
the engineer.

"Had you a burning-glass, sir?" asked Herbert of Harding.

"No, my boy," replied he, "but I made one."

And he showed the apparatus which served for a burning-glass. It was
simply two glasses which he had taken from his own and the reporter's
watches. Having filled them with water and rendered their edges adhesive by
means of a little clay, he thus fabricated a regular burning-glass, which,
concentrating the solar rays on some very dry moss, soon caused it to
blaze.

The sailor considered the apparatus; then he gazed at the engineer
without saying a word, only a look plainly expressed his opinion that if
Cyrus Harding was not a magician, he was certainly no ordinary man. At last
speech returned to him, and he cried,--

"Note that, Mr. Spilett, note that down on your paper!"

"It is noted," replied the reporter.

Then, Neb helping him, the seaman arranged the spit, and the capybara,
properly cleaned, was soon roasting like a suckling-pig before a clear,
crackling fire.

The Chimneys had again become more habitable, not only because the
passages were warmed by the fire, but because the partitions of wood and
mud had been re-established.

It was evident that the engineer and his companions had employed their
day well. Cyrus Harding had almost entirely recovered his strength, and had
proved it by climbing to the upper plateau. From this point his eye,
accustomed to estimate heights and distances, was fixed for a long time on
the cone, the summit of which he wished to reach the next day. The
mountain, situated about six miles to the northwest, appeared to him to
measure 3,500 feet above the level of the sea. Consequently the gaze of an
observer posted on its summit would extend over a radius of at least fifty
miles. Therefore it was probable that Harding could easily solve the
question of "island or continent," to which he attached so much importance.

They supped capitally. The flesh of the capybara was declared excellent.
The sargassum and the almonds of the stone-pine completed the repast,
during which the engineer spoke little. He was preoccupied with projects
for the next day.

Once or twice Pencroft gave forth some ideas upon what it would be best
to do; but Cyrus Harding, who was evidently of a methodical mind, only
shook his head without uttering a word.

"To-morrow," he repeated, "we shall know what we have to depend upon, and
we will act accordingly."

The meal ended, fresh armfuls of wood were thrown on the fire, and the
inhabitants of the Chimneys, including the faithful Top, were soon buried
in a deep sleep.

No incident disturbed this peaceful night, and the next day, the 29th of
March, fresh and active they awoke, ready to undertake the excursion which
must determine their fate.

All was ready for the start. The remains of the capybara would be enough
to sustain Harding and his companions for at least twenty-four hours.

Besides, they hoped to find more food on the way. As the glasses had been
returned to the watches of the engineer and reporter, Pencroft burned a
little linen to serve as tinder. As to flint, that would not be wanting in
these regions of Plutonic origin. It was half-past seven in the morning
when the explorers, armed with sticks, left the Chimneys. Following
Pencroft's advice, it appeared best to take the road already traversed
through the forest, and to return by another route. It was also the most
direct way to reach the mountain. They turned the south angle and followed
the left bank of the river, which was abandoned at the point where it
formed an elbow towards the southwest. The path, already trodden under the
evergreen trees, was found, and at nine o'clock Cyrus Harding and his
companions had reached the western border of the forest. The ground, till
then, very little undulated, boggy at first, dry and sandy afterwards, had
a gentle slope, which ascended from the shore towards the interior of the
country. A few very timid animals were seen under the forest-trees. Top
quickly started them, but his master soon called him back, for the time had
not come to commence hunting; that would be attended to later. The engineer
was not a man who would allow himself to be diverted from his fixed idea.
It might even have been said that he did not observe the country at all,
either in its configuration or in its natural productions, his great aim
being to climb the mountain before him, and therefore straight towards it
he went. At ten o'clock a halt of a few minutes was made. On leaving the
forest, the mountain system of the country appeared before the explorers.
The mountain was composed of two cones; the first, truncated at a height of
about two thousand five hundred feet, was sustained by buttresses, which
appeared to branch out like the talons of an immense claw set on the
ground. Between these were narrow valleys, bristling with trees, the last
clumps of which rose to the top of the lowest cone. There appeared to be
less vegetation on that side of the mountain which was exposed to the
northeast, and deep fissures could be seen which, no doubt, were
watercourses.

On the first cone rested a second, slightly rounded, and placed a little
on one side, like a great round hat cocked over the ear. A Scotchman would
have said, "His bonnet was a thocht ajee." It appeared formed of bare
earth, here and there pierced by reddish rocks.

They wished to reach the second cone, and proceeding along the ridge of
the spurs seemed to be the best way by which to gain it.

"We are on volcanic ground," Cyrus Harding had said, and his companions
following him began to ascend by degrees on the back of a spur, which, by a
winding and consequently more accessible path, joined the first plateau.

The ground had evidently been convulsed by subterranean force. Here and
there stray blocks, numerous debris of basalt and pumice-stone, were met
with. In isolated groups rose fir-trees, which, some hundred feet lower, at
the bottom of the narrow gorges, formed massive shades almost impenetrable
to the sun's rays.

During the first part of the ascent, Herbert remarked on the footprints
which indicated the recent passage of large animals.

"Perhaps these beasts will not let us pass by willingly," said Pencroft.

"Well," replied the reporter, who had already hunted the tiger in India,
and the lion in Africa, "we shall soon learn how successfully to encounter
them. But in the meantime we must be upon our guard!"

They ascended but slowly.

The distance, increased by detours and obstacles which could not be
surmounted directly, was long. Sometimes, too, the ground suddenly fell,
and they found themselves on the edge of a deep chasm which they had to go
round. Thus, in retracing their steps so as to find some practicable path,
much time was employed and fatigue undergone for nothing. At twelve
o'clock, when the small band of adventurers halted for breakfast at the
foot of a large group of firs, near a little stream which fell in cascades,
they found themselves still half way from the first plateau, which most
probably they would not reach till nightfall. From this point the view of
the sea was much extended, but on the right the high promontory prevented
their seeing whether there was land beyond it. On the left, the sight
extended several miles to the north; but, on the northwest, at the point
occupied by the explorers, it was cut short by the ridge of a
fantastically-shaped spur, which formed a powerful support of the central
cone.

At one o'clock the ascent was continued. They slanted more towards the
southwest and again entered among thick bushes. There under the shade of
the trees fluttered several couples of gallinaceae belonging to the
pheasant species. They were tragopans, ornamented by a pendant skin which
hangs over their throats, and by two small, round horns, planted behind the
eyes. Among these birds, which were about the size of a fowl, the female
was uniformly brown, while the male was gorgeous in his red plumage,
decorated with white spots. Gideon Spilett, with a stone cleverly and
vigorously thrown, killed one of these tragopans, on which Pencroft, made
hungry by the fresh air, had cast greedy eyes.

After leaving the region of bushes, the party, assisted by resting on
each other's shoulders, climbed for about a hundred feet up a steep
acclivity and reached a level place, with very few trees, where the soil
appeared volcanic. It was necessary to ascend by zigzags to make the slope
more easy, for it was very steep, and the footing being exceedingly
precarious required the greatest caution. Neb and Herbert took the lead,
Pencroft the rear, the captain and the reporter between them. The animals
which frequented these heights--and there were numerous traces of them--
must necessarily belong to those races of sure foot and supple spine,
chamois or goat. Several were seen, but this was not the name Pencroft gave
them, for all of a sudden--"Sheep!" he shouted.

All stopped about fifty feet from half-a-dozen animals of a large size,
with strong horns bent back and flattened towards the point, with a woolly
fleece, hidden under long silky hair of a tawny color.

They were not ordinary sheep, but a species usually found in the
mountainous regions of the temperate zone, to which Herbert gave the name
of the musmon.

"Have they legs and chops?" asked the sailor.

"Yes," replied Herbert.

"Well, then, they are sheep!" said Pencroft.

The animals, motionless among the blocks of basalt, gazed with an
astonished eye, as if they saw human bipeds for the first time. Then their
fears suddenly aroused, they disappeared, bounding over the rocks.

"Good-bye, till we meet again," cried Pencroft, as he watched them, in
such a comical tone that Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Neb
could not help laughing.

The ascent was continued. Here and there were traces of lava. Sulphur
springs sometimes stopped their way, and they had to go round them. In some
places the sulphur had formed crystals among other substances, such as
whitish cinders made of an infinity of little feldspar crystals.

In approaching the first plateau formed by the truncating of the lower
cone, the difficulties of the ascent were very great. Towards four o'clock
the extreme zone of the trees had been passed. There only remained here and
there a few twisted, stunted pines, which must have had a hard life in
resisting at this altitude the high winds from the open sea. Happily for
the engineer and his companions the weather was beautiful, the atmosphere
tranquil; for a high breeze at an elevation of three thousand feet would
have hindered their proceedings. The purity of the sky at the zenith was
felt through the transparent air. A perfect calm reigned around them. They
could not see the sun, then hid by the vast screen of the upper cone, which
masked the half-horizon of the west, and whose enormous shadow stretching
to the shore increased as the radiant luminary sank in its diurnal course.
Vapor--mist rather than clouds--began to appear in the east, and assume all
the prismatic colors under the influence of the solar rays.

Five hundred feet only separated the explorers from the plateau, which
they wished to reach so as to establish there an encampment for the night,
but these five hundred feet were increased to more than two miles by the
zigzags which they had to describe. The soil, as it were, slid under their
feet.

The slope often presented such an angle that they slipped when the stones
worn by the air did not give a sufficient support. Evening came on by
degrees, and it was almost night when Cyrus Harding and his companions,
much fatigued by an ascent of seven hours, arrived at the plateau of the
first cone. It was then necessary to prepare an encampment, and to restore
their strength by eating first and sleeping afterwards. This second stage
of the mountain rose on a base of rocks, among which it would be easy to
find a retreat. Fuel was not abundant. However, a fire could be made by
means of the moss and dry brushwood, which covered certain parts of the
plateau. While the sailor was preparing his hearth with stones which he put
to this use, Neb and Herbert occupied themselves with getting a supply of
fuel. They soon returned with a load of brushwood. The steel was struck,
the burnt linen caught the sparks of flint, and, under Neb's breath, a
crackling fire showed itself in a few minutes under the shelter of the
rocks. Their object in lighting a fire was only to enable them to withstand
the cold temperature of the night, as it was not employed in cooking the
bird, which Neb kept for the next day. The remains of the capybara and some
dozens of the stone-pine almonds formed their supper. It was not half-past
six when all was finished.

Cyrus Harding then thought of exploring in the half-light the large
circular layer which supported the upper cone of the mountain. Before
taking any rest, he wished to know if it was possible to get round the base
of the cone in the case of its sides being too steep and its summit being
inaccessible. This question preoccupied him, for it was possible that from
the way the hat inclined, that is to say, towards the north, the plateau
was not practicable. Also, if the summit of the mountain could not be
reached on one side, and if, on the other, they could not get round the
base of the cone, it would be impossible to survey the western part of the
country, and their object in making the ascent would in part be altogether
unattained.

The engineer, accordingly, regardless of fatigue, leaving Pencroft and
Neb to arrange the beds, and Gideon Spilett to note the incidents of the
day, began to follow the edge of the plateau, going towards the north.
Herbert accompanied him.

The night was beautiful and still, the darkness was not yet deep. Cyrus
Harding and the boy walked near each other, without speaking. In some
places the plateau opened before them, and they passed without hindrance.
In others, obstructed by rocks, there was only a narrow path, in which two
persons could not walk abreast. After a walk of twenty minutes, Cyrus
Harding and Herbert were obliged to stop. From this point the slope of the
two cones became one. No shoulder here separated the two parts of the
mountain. The slope, being inclined almost seventy degrees, the path became
impracticable.

But if the engineer and the boy were obliged to give up thoughts of
following a circular direction, in return an opportunity was given for
ascending the cone.

In fact, before them opened a deep hollow. It was the rugged mouth of the
crater, by which the eruptive liquid matter had escaped at the periods when
the volcano was still in activity. Hardened lava and crusted scoria formed
a sort of natural staircase of large steps, which would greatly facilitate
the ascent to the summit of the mountain.

Harding took all this in at a glance, and without hesitating, followed by
the lad, he entered the enormous chasm in the midst of an increasing
obscurity.

There was still a height of a thousand feet to overcome. Would the
interior acclivities of the crater be practicable? It would soon be seen.
The persevering engineer resolved to continue his ascent until he was
stopped. Happily these acclivities wound up the interior of the volcano and
favored their ascent.

As to the volcano itself, it could not be doubted that it was completely
extinct. No smoke escaped from its sides; not a flame could be seen in the
dark hollows; not a roar, not a mutter, no trembling even issued from this
black well, which perhaps reached far into the bowels of the earth. The
atmosphere inside the crater was filled with no sulphurous vapor. It was
more than the sleep of a volcano; it was its complete extinction. Cyrus
Harding's attempt would succeed.

Little by little, Herbert and he climbing up the sides of the interior,
saw the crater widen above their heads. The radius of this circular portion
of the sky, framed by the edge of the cone, increased obviously. At each
step, as it were, that the explorers made, fresh stars entered the field of
their vision. The magnificent constellations of the southern sky shone
resplendently. At the zenith glittered the splendid Antares in the
Scorpion, and not far was Alpha Centauri, which is believed to be the
nearest star to the terrestrial globe. Then, as the crater widened,
appeared Fomalhaut of the Fish, the Southern Triangle, and lastly, nearly
at the Antarctic Pole, the glittering Southern Cross, which replaces the
Polar Star of the Northern Hemisphere.

It was nearly eight o'clock when Cyrus Harding and Herbert set foot on
the highest ridge of the mountain at the summit of the cone.

It was then perfectly dark, and their gaze could not extend over a radius
of two miles. Did the sea surround this unknown land, or was it connected
in the west with some continent of the Pacific? It could not yet be made
out. Towards the west, a cloudy belt, clearly visible at the horizon,
increased the gloom, and the eye could not discover if the sky and water
were blended together in the same circular line.

But at one point of the horizon a vague light suddenly appeared, which
descended slowly in proportion as the cloud mounted to the zenith.

It was the slender crescent moon, already almost disappearing; but its
light was sufficient to show clearly the horizontal line, then detached
from the cloud, and the engineer could see its reflection trembling for an
instant on a liquid surface. Cyrus Harding seized the lad's hand, and in a
grave voice,--

"An island!" said he, at the moment when the lunar crescent disappeared
beneath the waves.



Chapter 11

Half an hour later Cyrus Harding and Herbert had returned to the
encampment. The engineer merely told his companions that the land upon
which fate had thrown them was an island, and that the next day they would
consult. Then each settled himself as well as he could to sleep, and in
that rocky hole, at a height of two thousand five hundred feet above the
level of the sea, through a peaceful night, the islanders enjoyed profound
repose.

The next day, the 30th of March, after a hasty breakfast, which consisted
solely of the roasted tragopan, the engineer wished to climb again to the
summit of the volcano, so as more attentively to survey the island upon
which he and his companions were imprisoned for life perhaps, should the
island be situated at a great distance from any land, or if it was out of
the course of vessels which visited the archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean.
This time his companions followed him in the new exploration. They also
wished to see the island, on the productions of which they must depend for
the supply of all their wants.

It was about seven o'clock in the morning when Cyrus Harding, Herbert,
Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and Neb quitted the encampment. No one appeared
to be anxious about their situation. They had faith in themselves,
doubtless, but it must be observed that the basis of this faith was not the
same with Harding as with his companions. The engineer had confidence,
because he felt capable of extorting from this wild country everything
necessary for the life of himself and his companions; the latter feared
nothing, just because Cyrus Harding was with them. Pencroft especially,
since the incident of the relighted fire, would not have despaired for an
instant, even if he was on a bare rock, if the engineer was with him on the
rock.

"Pshaw," said he, "we left Richmond without permission from the
authorities! It will be hard if we don't manage to get away some day or
other from a place where certainly no one will detain us!"

Cyrus Harding followed the same road as the evening before. They went
round the cone by the plateau which formed the shoulder, to the mouth of
the enormous chasm. The weather was magnificent. The sun rose in a pure sky
and flooded with his rays all the eastern side of the mountain.

The crater was reached. It was just what the engineer had made it out to
be in the dark; that is to say, a vast funnel which extended, widening, to
a height of a thousand feet above the plateau. Below the chasm, large thick
streaks of lava wound over the sides of the mountain, and thus marked the
course of the eruptive matter to the lower valleys which furrowed the
northern part of the island.

The interior of the crater, whose inclination did not exceed thirty five
to forty degrees, presented no difficulties nor obstacles to the ascent.
Traces of very ancient lava were noticed, which probably had overflowed the
summit of the cone, before this lateral chasm had opened a new way to it.

As to the volcanic chimney which established a communication between the
subterranean layers and the crater, its depth could not be calculated with
the eye, for it was lost in obscurity. But there was no doubt as to the
complete extinction of the volcano.

Before eight o'clock Harding and his companions were assembled at the
summit of the crater, on a conical mound which swelled the northern edge.

"The sea, the sea everywhere!" they cried, as if their lips could not
restrain the words which made islanders of them.

The sea, indeed, formed an immense circular sheet of water all around
them! Perhaps, on climbing again to the summit of the cone, Cyrus Harding
had had a hope of discovering some coast, some island shore, which he had
not been able to perceive in the dark the evening before. But nothing
appeared on the farthest verge of the horizon, that is to say over a radius
of more than fifty miles. No land in sight. Not a sail. Over all this
immense space the ocean alone was visible--the island occupied the center
of a circumference which appeared to be infinite.

The engineer and his companions, mute and motionless, surveyed for some
minutes every point of the ocean, examining it to its most extreme limits.
Even Pencroft, who possessed a marvelous power of sight, saw nothing; and
certainly if there had been land at the horizon, if it appeared only as an
indistinct vapor, the sailor would undoubtedly have found it out, for
nature had placed regular telescopes under his eyebrows.

From the ocean their gaze returned to the island which they commanded
entirely, and the first question was put by Gideon Spilett in these terms:

"About what size is this island?"

Truly, it did not appear large in the midst of the immense ocean.

Cyrus Harding reflected a few minutes; he attentively observed the
perimeter of the island, taking into consideration the height at which he
was placed; then,--

"My friends," said he, "I do not think I am mistaken in giving to the
shore of the island a circumference of more than a hundred miles."

"And consequently an area?"

"That is difficult to estimate," replied the engineer, "for it is so
uneven."

If Cyrus Harding was not mistaken in his calculation, the island had
almost the extent of Malta or Zante, in the Mediterranean, but it was at
the same time much more irregular and less rich in capes, promontories,
points, bays, or creeks. Its strange form caught the eye, and when Gideon
Spilett, on the engineer's advice, had drawn the outline, they found that
it resembled some fantastic animal, a monstrous leviathan, which lay
sleeping on the surface of the Pacific.

This was in fact the exact shape of the island, which it is of
consequence to know, and a tolerably correct map of it was immediately
drawn by the reporter.

The east part of the shore, where the castaways had landed, formed a wide
bay, terminated by a sharp cape, which had been concealed by a high point
from Pencroft on his first exploration. At the northeast two other capes
closed the bay, and between them ran a narrow gulf, which looked like the
half-open jaws of a formidable dog-fish.

From the northeast to the southwest the coast was rounded, like the
flattened cranium of an animal, rising again, forming a sort of
protuberance which did not give any particular shape to this part of the
island, of which the center was occupied by the volcano.

From this point the shore ran pretty regularly north and south, broken at
two-thirds of its perimeter by a narrow creek, from which it ended in a
long tail, similar to the caudal appendage of a gigantic alligator.

This tail formed a regular peninsula, which stretched more than thirty
miles into the sea, reckoning from the cape southeast of the island,
already mentioned; it curled round, making an open roadstead, which marked
out the lower shore of this strangely-formed land.

At the narrowest part, that is to say between the Chimneys and the creek
on the western shore, which corresponded to it in latitude, the island only
measured ten miles; but its greatest length, from the jaws at the northeast
to the extremity of the tail of the southwest, was not less than thirty
miles.

As to the interior of the island, its general aspect was this, very woody
throughout the southern part from the mountain to the shore, and arid and
sandy in the northern part. Between the volcano and the east coast Cyrus
Harding and his companions were surprised to see a lake, bordered with
green trees, the existence of which they had not suspected. Seen from this
height, the lake appeared to be on the same level as the ocean, but, on
reflection, the engineer explained to his companions that the altitude of
this little sheet of water must be about three hundred feet, because the
plateau, which was its basin, was but a prolongation of the coast.

"Is it a freshwater lake?" asked Pencroft.

"Certainly," replied the engineer, "for it must be fed by the water which
flows from the mountain."

"I see a little river which runs into it," said Herbert, pointing out a
narrow stream, which evidently took its source somewhere in the west.

"Yes," said Harding; "and since this stream feeds the lake, most probably
on the side near the sea there is an outlet by which the surplus water
escapes. We shall see that on our return."

This little winding watercourse and the river already mentioned
constituted the water-system, at least such as it was displayed to the eyes
of the explorers. However, it was possible that under the masses of trees
which covered two-thirds of the island, forming an immense forest, other
rivers ran towards the sea. It might even be inferred that such was the
case, so rich did this region appear in the most magnificent specimens of
the flora of the temperate zones. There was no indication of running water
in the north, though perhaps there might be stagnant water among the
marshes in the northeast; but that was all, in addition to the downs, sand,
and aridity which contrasted so strongly with the luxuriant vegetation of
the rest of the island.

The volcano did not occupy the central part; it rose, on the contrary, in
the northwestern region, and seemed to mark the boundary of the two zones.
At the southwest, at the south, and the southeast, the first part of the
spurs were hidden under masses of verdure. At the north, on the contrary,
one could follow their ramifications, which died away on the sandy plains.
It was on this side that, at the time when the mountain was in a state of
eruption, the discharge had worn away a passage, and a large heap of lava
had spread to the narrow jaw which formed the northeastern gulf.

Cyrus Harding and his companions remained an hour at the top of the
mountain. The island was displayed under their eyes, like a plan in relief
with different tints, green for the forests, yellow for the sand, blue for
the water. They viewed it in its tout-ensemble, nothing remained concealed
but the ground hidden by verdure, the hollows of the valleys, and the
interior of the volcanic chasms.

One important question remained to be solved, and the answer would have a
great effect upon the future of the castaways.

Was the island inhabited?

It was the reporter who put this question, to which after the close
examination they had just made, the answer seemed to be in the negative.

Nowhere could the work of a human hand be perceived. Not a group of huts,
not a solitary cabin, not a fishery on the shore. No smoke curling in the
air betrayed the presence of man. It is true, a distance of nearly thirty
miles separated the observers from the extreme points, that is, of the tail
which extended to the southwest, and it would have been difficult, even to
Pencroft's eyes, to discover a habitation there. Neither could the curtain
of verdure, which covered three-quarters of the island, be raised to see if
it did not shelter some straggling village. But in general the islanders
live on the shores of the narrow spaces which emerge above the waters of
the Pacific, and this shore appeared to be an absolute desert.

Until a more complete exploration, it might be admitted that the island
was uninhabited. But was it frequented, at least occasionally, by the
natives of neighboring islands? It was difficult to reply to this question.
No land appeared within a radius of fifty miles. But fifty miles could be
easily crossed, either by Malay proas or by the large Polynesian canoes.
Everything depended on the position of the island, of its isolation in the
Pacific, or of its proximity to archipelagoes. Would Cyrus Harding be able
to find out their latitude and longitude without instruments? It would be
difficult. Since he was in doubt, it was best to take precautions against a
possible descent of neighboring natives.

The exploration of the island was finished, its shape determined, its
features made out, its extent calculated, the water and mountain systems
ascertained. The disposition of the forests and plains had been marked in a
general way on the reporter's plan. They had now only to descend the
mountain slopes again, and explore the soil, in the triple point of view,
of its mineral, vegetable, and animal resources.

But before giving his companions the signal for departure, Cyrus Harding
said to them in a calm, grave voice,--

Here, my friends, is the small corner of land upon which the hand of the
Almighty has thrown us. We are going to live here; a long time, perhaps.
Perhaps, too, unexpected help will arrive, if some ship passes by chance. I
say by chance, because this is an unimportant island; there is not even a
port in which ships could anchor, and it is to be feared that it is
situated out of the route usually followed, that is to say, too much to the
south for the ships which frequent the archipelagoes of the Pacific, and
too much to the north for those which go to Australia by doubling Cape
Horn. I wish to hide nothing of our position from you--"

"And you are right, my dear Cyrus," replied the reporter, with animation.
"You have to deal with men. They have confidence in you, and you can depend
upon them. Is it not so, my friends?"

"I will obey you in everything, captain," said Herbert, seizing the
engineer's hand.

"My master always, and everywhere!" cried Neb.

"As for me," said the sailor, "if I ever grumble at work, my name's not
Jack Pencroft, and if you like, captain, we will make a little America of
this island! We will build towns, we will establish railways, start
telegraphs, and one fine day, when it is quite changed, quite put in order
and quite civilized, we will go and offer it to the government of the
Union. Only, I ask one thing."

"What is that?" said the reporter.

"It is, that we do not consider ourselves castaways, but colonists, who
have come here to settle." Harding could not help smiling, and the sailor's
idea was adopted. He then thanked his companions, and added, that he would
rely on their energy and on the aid of Heaven.

"Well, now let us set off to the Chimneys!" cried Pencroft.

"One minute, my friends," said the engineer. "It seems to me it would be
a good thing to give a name to this island, as well as to, the capes,
promontories, and watercourses, which we can see.

"Very good," said the reporter. "In the future, that will simplify the
instructions which we shall have to give and follow."

"Indeed," said the sailor, "already it is something to be able to say
where one is going, and where one has come from. At least, it looks like
somewhere."

"The Chimneys, for example," said Herbert.

"Exactly!" replied Pencroft. "That name was the most convenient, and it
came to me quite of myself. Shall we keep the name of the Chimneys for our
first encampment, captain?"

"Yes, Pencroft, since you have so christened it."

"Good! as for the others, that will be easy," returned the sailor, who
was in high spirits. "Let us give them names, as the Robinsons did, whose
story Herbert has often read to me; Providence Bay, Whale Point, Cape
Disappointment!"

"Or, rather, the names of Captain Harding," said Herbert, "of Mr.
Spilett, of Neb!--"

"My name!" cried Neb, showing his sparkling white teeth.

"Why not?" replied Pencroft. "Port Neb, that would do very well! And Cape
Gideon--"

"I should prefer borrowing names from our country," said the reporter,
"which would remind us of America."

"Yes, for the principal ones," then said Cyrus Harding; "for those of the
bays and seas, I admit it willingly. We might give to that vast bay on the
east the name of Union Bay, for example; to that large hollow on the south,
Washington Bay; to the mountain upon which we are standing, that of Mount
Franklin; to that lake which is extended under our eyes, that of Lake
Grant; nothing could be better, my friends. These names will recall our
country, and those of the great citizens who have honored it; but for the
rivers, gulfs, capes, and promontories, which we perceive from the top of
this mountain, rather let us choose names which will recall their
particular shape. They will impress themselves better on our memory, and at
the same time will be more practical. The shape of the island is so strange
that we shall not be troubled to imagine what it resembles. As to the
streams which we do not know as yet, in different parts of the forest which
we shall explore later, the creeks which afterwards will he discovered, we
can christen them as we find them. What do you think, my friends?"

The engineer's proposal was unanimously agreed to by his companions. The
island was spread out under their eyes like a map, and they had only to
give names to all its angles and points. Gideon Spilett would write them
down, and the geographical nomenclature of the island would be definitely
adopted. First, they named the two bays and the mountain, Union Bay,
Washington Bay, and Mount Franklin, as the engineer had suggested.

"Now," said the reporter, "to this peninsula at the southwest of the
island, I propose to give the name of Serpentine Peninsula, and that of
Reptile-end to the bent tail which terminates it, for it is just like a
reptile's tail."

"Adopted," said the engineer.

"Now," said Herbert, pointing to the other extremity of the island, "let
us call this gulf which is so singularly like a pair of open jaws, Shark
Gulf."

"Capital!" cried Pencroft, "and we can complete the resemblance by naming
the two parts of the jaws Mandible Cape."

"But there are two capes," observed the reporter.

"Well," replied Pencroft, "we can have North Mandible Cape and South
Mandible Cape."

"They are inscribed," said Spilett.

"There is only the point at the southeastern extremity of the island to
be named," said Pencroft.

"That is, the extremity of Union Bay?" asked Herbert.

"Claw Cape," cried Neb directly, who also wished to be godfather to some
part of his domain.

In truth, Neb had found an excellent name, for this cape was very like
the powerful claw of the fantastic animal which this singularly-shaped
island represented.

Pencroft was delighted at the turn things had taken, and their
imaginations soon gave to the river which furnished the settlers with
drinking water and near which the balloon had thrown them, the name of the
Mercy, in true gratitude to Providence. To the islet upon which the
castaways had first landed, the name of Safety Island; to the plateau which
crowned the high granite precipice above the Chimneys, and from whence the
gaze could embrace the whole of the vast bay, the name of Prospect Heights.

Lastly, all the masses of impenetrable wood which covered the Serpentine
Peninsula were named the forests of the Far West.

The nomenclature of the visible and known parts of the island was thus
finished, and later, they would complete it as they made fresh discoveries.

As to the points of the compass, the engineer had roughly fixed them by
the height and position of the sun, which placed Union Bay and Prospect
Heights to the east. But the next day, by taking the exact hour of the
rising and setting of the sun, and by marking its position between this
rising and setting, he reckoned to fix the north of the island exactly,
for, in consequence of its situation in the Southern Hemisphere, the sun,
at the precise moment of its culmination, passed in the north and not in
the south, as, in its apparent movement, it seems to do, to those places
situated in the Northern Hemisphere.

Everything was finished, and the settlers had only to descend Mount
Franklin to return to the Chimneys, when Pencroft cried out,--

"Well! we are preciously stupid!"

"Why?" asked Gideon Spilett, who had closed his notebook and risen to
depart.

"Why! our island! we have forgotten to christen it!"

Herbert was going to propose to give it the engineer's name and all his
companions would have applauded him, when Cyrus Harding said simply,--

"Let us give it the name of a great citizen, my friend; of him who now
struggles to defend the unity of the American Republic! Let us call it
Lincoln Island!"

The engineer's proposal was replied to by three hurrahs.

And that evening, before sleeping, the new colonists talked of their
absent country; they spoke of the terrible war which stained it with blood;
they could not doubt that the South would soon be subdued, and that the
cause of the North, the cause of justice, would triumph, thanks to Grant,
thanks to Lincoln!

Now this happened the 30th of March, 1865. They little knew that sixteen
days afterwards a frightful crime would be committed in Washington, and
that on Good Friday Abraham Lincoln would fall by the hand of a fanatic.



Chapter 12

They now began the descent of the mountain. Climbing down the crater, they
went round the cone and reached their encampment of the previous night.
Pencroft thought it must be breakfast-time, and the watches of the reporter
and engineer were therefore consulted to find out the hour.

That of Gideon Spilett had been preserved from the sea-water, as he had
been thrown at once on the sand out of reach of the waves. It was an
instrument of excellent quality, a perfect pocket chronometer, which the
reporter had not forgotten to wind up carefully every day.

As to the engineer's watch, it, of course, had stopped during the time
which he had passed on the downs.

The engineer now wound it up, and ascertaining by the height of the sun
that it must be about nine o'clock in the morning, he put his watch at that
hour.

"No, my dear Spilett, wait. You have kept the Richmond time, have you
not?"

"Yes, Cyrus."

"Consequently, your watch is set by the meridian of that town, which is
almost that of Washington?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Very well, keep it thus. Content yourself with winding it up very,
exactly, but do not touch the hands. This may be of use to us.

"What will be the good of that?" thought the sailor.

They ate, and so heartily, that the store of game and almonds was totally
exhausted. But Pencroft was not at all uneasy, they would supply themselves
on the way. Top, whose share had been very much to his taste, would know
how to find some fresh game among the brushwood. Moreover, the sailor
thought of simply asking the engineer to manufacture some powder and one or
two fowling-pieces; he supposed there would be no difficulty in that.

On leaving the plateau, the captain proposed to his companions to return
to the Chimneys by a new way. He wished to reconnoiter Lake Grant, so
magnificently framed in trees. They therefore followed the crest of one of
the spurs, between which the creek that supplied the lake probably had its
source. In talking, the settlers already employed the names which they had
just chosen, which singularly facilitated the exchange of their ideas.
Herbert and Pencroft--the one young and the other very boyish--were
enchanted, and while walking, the sailor said,

"Hey, Herbert! how capital it sounds! It will be impossible to lose
ourselves, my boy, since, whether we follow the way to Lake Grant, or
whether we join the Mercy through the woods of the Far West, we shall be
certain to arrive at Prospect Heights, and, consequently, at Union Bay!"

It had been agreed, that without forming a compact band, the settlers
should not stray away from each other. It was very certain that the thick
forests of the island were inhabited by dangerous animals, and it was
prudent to be on their guard. In general, Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb walked
first, preceded by Top, who poked his nose into every bush. The reporter
and the engineer went together, Gideon Spilett ready to note every
incident, the engineer silent for the most part, and only stepping aside to
pick up one thing or another, a mineral or vegetable substance, which he
put into his pocket, without making any remark.

"What can he be picking up?" muttered Pencroft. "I have looked in vain
for anything that's worth the trouble of stooping for."

Towards ten o'clock the little band descended the last declivities of
Mount Franklin. As yet the ground was scantily strewn with bushes and
trees. They were walking over yellowish calcinated earth, forming a plain
of nearly a mile long, which extended to the edge of the wood. Great blocks
of that basalt, which, according to Bischof, takes three hundred and fifty
millions of years to cool, strewed the plain, very confused in some places.
However, there were here no traces of lava, which was spread more
particularly over the northern slopes.

Cyrus Harding expected to reach, without incident, the course of the
creek, which he supposed flowed under the trees at the border of the plain,
when he saw Herbert running hastily back, while Neb and the sailor were
hiding behind the rocks.

"What's the matter, my boy?" asked Spilett.

"Smoke," replied Herbert. "We have seen smoke among the rocks, a hundred
paces from us."

"Men in this place?" cried the reporter.

"We must avoid showing ourselves before knowing with whom we have to
deal," replied Cyrus Harding. "I trust that there are no natives on this
island; I dread them more than anything else. Where is Top?"

"Top is on before."

"And he doesn't bark?"

"No."

"That is strange. However, we must try to call him back."

In a few moments, the engineer, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert had rejoined
their two companions, and like them, they kept out of sight behind the
heaps of basalt.

From thence they clearly saw smoke of a yellowish color rising in the
air.

Top was recalled by a slight whistle from his master, and the latter,
signing to his companions to wait for him, glided away among the rocks. The
colonists, motionless, anxiously awaited the result of this exploration,
when a shout from the engineer made them hasten forward. They soon joined
him, and were at once struck with a disagreeable odor which impregnated the
atmosphere.

The odor, easily recognized, was enough for the engineer to guess what
the smoke was which at first, not without cause, had startled him.

"This fue," said he, "or rather, this smoke is produced by nature alone.
There is a sulphur spring there, which will cure all our sore throats."

"Captain!" cried Pencroft. "What a pity that I haven't got a cold!"

The settlers then directed their steps towards the place from which the
smoke escaped. They there saw a sulphur spring which flowed abundantly
between the rocks, and its waters discharged a strong sulphuric acid odor,
after having absorbed the oxygen of the air.

Cyrus Harding, dipping in his hand, felt the water oily to the touch. He
tasted it and found it rather sweet. As to its temperature, that he
estimated at ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. Herbert having asked on what
he based this calculation,--

"Its quite simple, my boy," said he, "for, in plunging my hand into the
water, I felt no sensation either of heat or cold. Therefore it has the
same temperature as the human body, which is about ninety-five degrees."

The sulphur spring not being of any actual use to the settlers, they
proceeded towards the thick border of the forest, which began some hundred
paces off.

There, as they had conjectured, the waters of the stream flowed clear and
limpid between high banks of red earth, the color of which betrayed the
presence of oxide of iron. From this color, the name of Red Creek was
immediately given to the watercourse.

It was only a large stream, deep and clear, formed of the mountain water,
which, half river, half torrent, here rippling peacefully over the sand,
there falling against the rocks or dashing down in a cascade, ran towards
the lake, over a distance of a mile and a half, its breadth varying from
thirty to forty feet. Its waters were sweet, and it was supposed that those
of the lake were so also. A fortunate circumstance, in the event of their
finding on its borders a more suitable dwelling than the Chimneys.

As to the trees, which some hundred feet downwards shaded the banks of
the creek, they belonged, for the most part, to the species which abound in
the temperate zone of America and Tasmania, and no longer to those
coniferae observed in that portion of the island already explored to some
miles from Prospect Heights. At this time of the year, the commencement of
the month of April, which represents the month of October, in this
hemisphere, that is, the beginning of autumn, they were still in full leaf.
They consisted principally of casuarinas and eucalypti, some of which next
year would yield a sweet manna, similar to the manna of the East. Clumps of
Australian cedars rose on the sloping banks, which were also covered with
the high grass called "tussac" in New Holland; but the cocoanut, so
abundant in the archipelagoes of the Pacific, seemed to be wanting in the
island, the latitude, doubtless, being too low.

"What a pity!" said Herbert, "such a useful tree, and which has such
beautiful nuts!"

As to the birds, they swarmed among the scanty branches of the eucalypti
and casuarinas, which did not hinder the display of their wings. Black,
white, or gray cockatoos, paroquets, with plumage of all colors,
kingfishers of a sparkling green and crowned with red, blue lories, and
various other birds appeared on all sides, as through a prism, fluttering
about and producing a deafening clamor. Suddenly, a strange concert of
discordant voices resounded in the midst of a thicket. The settlers heard
successively the song of birds, the cry of quadrupeds, and a sort of
clacking which they might have believed to have escaped from the lips of a
native. Neb and Herbert rushed towards the bush, forgetting even the most
elementary principles of prudence. Happily, they found there, neither a
formidable wild beast nor a dangerous native, but merely half a dozen
mocking and singing birds, known as mountain pheasants. A few skillful
blows from a stick soon put an end to their concert, and procured excellent
food for the evening's dinner.

Herbert also discovered some magnificent pigeons with bronzed wings, some
superbly crested, others draped in green, like their congeners at Port-
Macquarie; but it was impossible to reach them, or the crows and magpies
which flew away in flocks.

A charge of small shot would have made great slaughter among these birds,
but the hunters were still limited to sticks and stones, and these
primitive weapons proved very insufficient.

Their insufficiency was still more clearly shown when a troop of
quadrupeds, jumping, bounding, making leaps of thirty feet, regular flying
mammiferae, fled over the thickets, so quickly and at such a height, that
one would have thought that they passed from one tree to another like
squirrels.

"Kangaroos!" cried Herbert.

"Are they good to eat?" asked Pencroft.

"Stewed," replied the reporter, "their flesh is equal to the best
venison!--"

Gideon Spilett had not finished this exciting sentence when the sailor,
followed by Neb and Herbert, darted on the kangaroos tracks. Cyrus Harding
called them back in vain. But it was in vain too for the hunters to pursue
such agile game, which went bounding away like balls. After a chase of five
minutes, they lost their breath, and at the same time all sight of the
creatures, which disappeared in the wood. Top was not more successful than
his masters.

"Captain," said Pencroft, when the engineer and the reporter had rejoined
them, "Captain, you see quite well we can't get on unless we make a few
guns. Will that be possible?"

"Perhaps," replied the engineer, "but we will begin by first
manufacturing some bows and arrows, and I don't doubt that you will become
as clever in the use of them as the Australian hunters."

"Bows and arrows!" said Pencroft scornfully. "That's all very well for
children!"

"Don't be proud, friend Pencroft," replied the reporter. "Bows and arrows
were sufficient for centuries to stain the earth with blood. Powder is but
a thing of yesterday, and war is as old as the human race--unhappily."

"Faith, that's true, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "and I always
speak too quickly. You must excuse me!"

Meanwhile, Herbert constant to his favorite science, Natural History,
reverted to the kangaroos, saying,--

"Besides, we had to deal just now with the species which is most
difficult to catch. They were giants with long gray fur; but if I am not
mistaken, there exist black and red kangaroos, rock kangaroos, and rat
kangaroos, which are more easy to get hold of. It is reckoned that there
are about a dozen species."

"Herbert," replied the sailor sententiously, "there is only one species
of kangaroos to me, that is 'kangaroo on the spit,' and it's just the one
we haven't got this evening!"

They could not help laughing at Master Pencroft's new classification. The
honest sailor did not hide his regret at being reduced for dinner to the
singing pheasants, but fortune once more showed itself obliging to him.

In fact, Top, who felt that his interest was concerned went and ferreted
everywhere with an instinct doubled by a ferocious appetite. It was even
probable that if some piece of game did fall into his clutches, none would
be left for the hunters, if Top was hunting on his own account; but Neb
watched him and he did well.

Towards three o'clock the dog disappeared in the brushwood and gruntings
showed that he was engaged in a struggle with some animal. Neb rushed after
him, and soon saw Top eagerly devouring a quadruped, which ten seconds
later would have been past recognizing in Top's stomach. But fortunately
the dog had fallen upon a brood, and besides the victim he was devouring,
two other rodents--the animals in question belonged to that order--lay
strangled on the turf.

Neb reappeared triumphantly holding one of the rodents in each hand. Their
size exceeded that of a rabbit, their hair was yellow, mingled with green
spots, and they had the merest rudiments of tails.

The citizens of the Union were at no loss for the right name of these
rodents. They were maras, a sort of agouti, a little larger than their
congeners of tropical countries, regular American rabbits, with long ears,
jaws armed on each side with five molars, which distinguish the agouti.

"Hurrah!" cried Pencroft, "the roast has arrived! and now we can go
home."

The walk, interrupted for an instant, was resumed. The limpid waters of
the Red Creek flowed under an arch of casuannas, banksias, and gigantic
gum-trees. Superb lilacs rose to a height of twenty feet. Other arborescent
species, unknown to the young naturalist, bent over the stream, which could
be heard murmuring beneath the bowers of verdure.

Meanwhile the stream grew much wider, and Cyrus Harding supposed that
they would soon reach its mouth. In fact, on emerging from beneath a thick
clump of beautiful trees, it suddenly appeared before their eyes.

The explorers had arrived on the western shore of Lake Grant. The place
was well worth looking at. This extent of water, of a circumference of
nearly seven miles and an area of two hundred and fifty acres, reposed in a
border of diversified trees. Towards the east, through a curtain of
verdure, picturesquely raised in some places, sparkled an horizon of sea.
The lake was curved at the north, which contrasted with the sharp outline
of its lower part. Numerous aquatic birds frequented the shores of this
little Ontario, in which the thousand isles of its American namesake were
represented by a rock which emerged from its surface, some hundred feet
from the southern shore. There lived in harmony several couples of
kingfishers perched on a stone, grave, motionless, watching for fish, then
darting down, they plunged in with a sharp cry, and reappeared with their
prey in their beaks. On the shores and on the islets, strutted wild ducks,
pelicans, water-hens, red-beaks, philedons, furnished with a tongue like a
brush, and one or two specimens of the splendid menura, the tail of which
expands gracefully like a lyre.

As to the water of the lake, it was sweet, limpid, rather dark, and from
certain bubblings, and the concentric circles which crossed each other on
the surface, it could not be doubted that it abounded in fish.

"This lake is really beautiful!" said Gideon Spilett. "We could live on
its borders!"

"We will live there!" replied Harding.

The settlers, wishing to return to the Chimneys by the shortest way,
descended towards the angle formed on the south by the junction of the
lake's bank. It was not without difficulty that they broke a path through
the thickets and brushwood which had never been put aside by the hand of
mm, and they thus went towards the shore, so as to arrive at the north of
Prospect Heights. Two miles were cleared in this direction, and then, after
they had passed the last curtain of trees, appeared the plateau, carpeted
with thick turf, and beyond that the infinite sea.

To return to the Chimneys, it was enough to cross the plateau obliquely
for the space of a mile, and then to descend to the elbow formed by the
first detour of the Mercy. But the engineer desired to know how and where
the overplus of the water from the lake escaped, and the exploration was
prolonged under the trees for a mile and a half towards the north. It was
most probable that an overfall existed somewhere, and doubtless through a
cleft in the granite. This lake was only, in short, an immense center
basin, which was filled by degrees by the creek, and its waters must
necessarily pass to the sea by some fall. If it was so, the engineer
thought that it might perhaps be possible to utilize this fall and borrow
its power, actually lost without profit to any one. They continued then to
follow the shores of Lake Grant by climbing the plateau; but, after having
gone a mile in this direction, Cyrus Harding had not been able to discover
the overfall, which, however, must exist somewhere.

It was then half-past four. In order to prepare for dinner it was
necessary that the settlers should return to their dwelling. The little
band retraced their steps, therefore, and by the left bank of the Mercy,
Cyrus Harding and his companions arrived at the Chimneys.

The fire was lighted, and Neb and Pencroft, on whom the functions of
cooks naturally devolved, to the one in his quality of Negro, to the other
in that of sailor, quickly prepared some broiled agouti, to which they did
great justice.

The repast at length terminated; at the moment when each one was about to
give himself up to sleep, Cyrus Harding drew from his pocket little
specimens of different sorts of minerals, and just said,--

"My friends, this is iron mineral, this a pyrite, this is clay,
this is lime, and this is coal. Nature gives us these things. It is our
business to make a right use of them. To-morrow we will commence
operations."



Chapter 13

"Well, captain, where are we going to begin?" asked Pencroft next morning
of the engineer.

"At the beginning," replied Cyrus Harding.

And in fact, the settlers were compelled to begin "at the very
beginning." They did not possess even the tools necessary for making tools,
and they were not even in the condition of nature, who, "having time,
husbands her strength." They had no time, since they had to provide for the
immediate wants of their existence, and though, profiting by acquired
experience, they had nothing to invent, still they had everything to make;
their iron and their steel were as yet only in the state of minerals, their
earthenware in the state of clay, their linen and their clothes in the
state of textile material.

It must be said, however, that the settlers were "men" in the complete
and higher sense of the word. The engineer Harding could not have been
seconded by more intelligent companions, nor with more devotion and zeal.
He had tried them. He knew their abilities.

Gideon Spilett, a talented reporter, having learned everything so as to
be able to speak of everything, would contribute largely with his head and
hands to the colonization of the island. He would not draw back from any
task: a determined sportsman, he would make a business of what till then
had only been a pleasure to him.

Herbert, a gallant boy, already remarkably well informed in the natural
sciences, would render greater service to the common cause.

Neb was devotion personified. Clever, intelligent, indefatigable, robust,
with iron health, he knew a little about the work of the forge, and could
not fail to be very useful in the colony.

As to Pencroft, he had sailed over every sea, a carpenter in the
dockyards in Brooklyn, assistant tailor in the vessels of the state,
gardener, cultivator, during his holidays, etc., and like all seamen, fit
for anything, he knew how to do everything.

It would have been difficult to unite five men, better fitted to struggle
against fate, more certain to triumph over it.

"At the beginning," Cyrus Harding had said. Now this beginning of which
the engineer spoke was the construction of an apparatus which would serve
to transform the natural substances. The part which heat plays in these
transformations is known. Now fuel, wood or coal, was ready for immediate
use, an oven must be built to use it.

"What is this oven for?" asked Pencroft.

"To make the pottery which we have need of," replied Harding.

"And of what shall we make the oven?"

"With bricks."

"And the bricks?"

"With clay. Let us start, my friends. To save trouble, we will establish
our manufactory at the place of production. Neb will bring provisions, and
there will be no lack of fire to cook the food."

"No," replied the reporter; "but if there is a lack of food for want of
instruments for the chase?"

"Ah, if we only had a knife!" cried the sailor.

"Well?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"Well! I would soon make a bow and arrows, and then there could be plenty
of game in the larder!"

"Yes, a knife, a sharp blade." said the engineer, as if he was speaking
to himself.

At this moment his eyes fell upon Top, who was running about on the
shore. Suddenly Harding's face became animated.

"Top, here," said he.

The dog came at his master's call. The latter took Top's head between his
hands, and unfastening the collar which the animal wore round his neck, he
broke it in two, saying,--

"There are two knives, Pencroft!"

Two hurrahs from the sailor was the reply. Top's collar was made of a
thin piece of tempered steel. They had only to sharpen it on a piece of
sandstone, then to raise the edge on a finer stone. Now sandstone was
abundant on the beach, and two hours after the stock of tools in the colony
consisted of two sharp blades, which were easily fixed in solid handles.

The production of these their first tools was hailed as a triumph. It was
indeed a valuable result of their labor, and a very opportune one. They set
out.

Cyrus Harding proposed that they should return to the western shore of
the lake, where the day before he had noticed the clayey ground of which he
possessed a specimen. They therefore followed the bank of the Mercy,
traversed Prospect Heights, and alter a walk of five miles or more they
reached a glade, situated two hundred feet from Lake Grant.

On the way Herbert had discovered a tree, the branches of which the
Indians of South America employ for making their bows. It was the crejimba,
of the palm family, which does not bear edible fruit. Long straight
branches were cut, the leaves stripped off; it was shaped, stronger in the
middle, more slender at the extremities, and nothing remained to be done
but to find a plant fit to make the bow-string. This was the "hibiscus
heterophyllus," which furnishes fibers of such remarkable tenacity that
they have been compared to the tendons of animals. Pencroft thus obtained
bows of tolerable strength, for which he only wanted arrows. These were
easily made with straight stiff branches, without knots, but the points
with which they must be armed, that is to say, a substance to serve in lieu
of iron, could not be met with so easily. But Pencroft said, that having
done his part of the work, chance would do the rest.

The settlers arrived on the ground which had been discovered the day
before. Being composed of the sort of clay which is used for making bricks
and tiles, it was very useful for the work in question. There was no great
difficulty in it. It was enough to scour the clay with sand, then to mold
the bricks and bake them by the heat of a wood fire.

Generally bricks are formed in molds, but the engineer contented himself
with making them by hand. All that day and the day following were employed
in this work. The clay, soaked in water, was mixed by the feet and hands of
the manipulators, and then divided into pieces of equal size. A practiced
workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve
hours; but in their two days work the five brickmakers on Lincoln Island
had not made more than three thousand, which were ranged near each other,
until the time when their complete desiccation would permit them to be used
in building the oven, that is to say, in three or four days.

It was on the 2nd of April that Harding had employed himself in fixing
the orientation of the island, or, in other words, the precise spot where
the sun rose. The day before he had noted exactly the hour when the sun
disappeared beneath the horizon, making allowance for the refraction. This
morning he noted, no less exactly, the hour at which it reappeared. Between
this setting and rising twelve hours, twenty-four minutes passed. Then, six
hours, twelve minutes after its rising, the sun on this day would exactly
pass the meridian and the point of the sky which it occupied at this moment
would be the north. At the said hour, Cyrus marked this point, and putting
in a line with the sun two trees which would serve him for marks, he thus
obtained an invariable meridian for his ulterior operations.

The settlers employed the two days before the oven was built in
collecting fuel. Branches were cut all round the glade, and they picked up
all the fallen wood under the trees. They were also able to hunt with
greater success, since Pencroft now possessed some dozen arrows armed with
sharp points. It was Top who had famished these points, by bringing in a
porcupine, rather inferior eating, but of great value, thanks to the quills
with which it bristled. These quills were fixed firmly at the ends of the
arrows, the flight of which was made more certain by some cockatoos'
feathers. The reporter and Herbert soon became very skilful archers. Game
of all sorts in consequence abounded at the Chimneys, capybaras, pigeons,
agouties, grouse, etc. The greater part of these animals were killed in the
part of the forest on the left bank of the Mercy, to which they gave the
name of Jacamar Wood, in remembrance of the bird which Pencroft and Herbert
had pursued when on their first exploration.

This game was eaten fresh, but they preserved some capybara hams, by
smoking them above a fire of green wood, after having perfumed them with
sweet-smelling leaves. However, this food, although very strengthening, was
always roast upon roast, and the party would have been delighted to hear
some soup bubbling on the hearth, but they must wait till a pot could be
made, and, consequently, till the oven was built.

During these excursions, which were not extended far from the brick-
field, the hunters could discern the recent passage of animals of a large
size, armed with powerful claws, but they could not recognize the species.
Cyrus Harding advised them to be very careful, as the forest probably
enclosed many dangerous beasts.

And he did right. Indeed, Gideon Spilett and Herbert one day saw an
animal which resembled a jaguar. Happily the creature did not attack them,
or they might not have escaped without a severe wound. As soon as he could
get a regular weapon, that is to say, one of the guns which Pencroft begged
for, Gideon Spilett resolved to make desperate war against the ferocious
beasts, and exterminate them from the island.

The Chimneys during these few days was not made more comfortable, for
the engineer hoped to discover, or build if necessary, a more convenient
dwelling. They contented themselves with spreading moss and dry leaves on
the sand of the passages, and on these primitive couches the tired workers
slept soundly.

They also reckoned the days they had passed on Lincoln Island, and from
that time kept a regular account. The 5th of April, which was Wednesday,
was twelve days from the time when the wind threw the castaways on this
shore.

On the 6th of April, at daybreak, the engineer and his companions were
collected in the glade, at the place where they were going to perform the
operation of baking the bricks. Naturally this had to be in the open air,
and not in a kiln, or rather, the agglomeration of bricks made an enormous
kiln, which would bake itself. The fuel, made of well-prepared fagots, was
laid on the ground and surrounded with several rows of dried bricks, which
soon formed an enormous cube, to the exterior of which they contrived air-
holes. The work lasted all day, and it was not till the evening that they
set fire to the fagots. No one slept that night, all watching carefully to
keep up the fire.

The operation lasted forty-eight hours, and succeeded perfectly. It then
became necessary to leave the smoking mass to cool, and during this time
Neb and Pencroft, guided by Cyrus Harding, brought, on a hurdle made of
interlaced branches, loads of carbonate of lime and common stones, which
were very abundant, to the north of the lake. These stones, when decomposed
by heat, made a very strong quicklime, greatly increased by slacking, at
least as pure as if it had been produced by the calcination of chalk or
marble. Mixed with sand the lime made excellent mortar.

The result of these different works was, that, on the 9th of April, the
engineer had at his disposal a quantity of prepared lime and some thousands
of bricks.

Without losing an instant, therefore, they began the construction of a
kiln to bake the pottery, which was indispensable for their domestic use.
They succeeded without much difficulty. Five days after, the kiln was
supplied with coal, which the engineer had discovered lying open to the sky
towards the mouth of the Red Creek, and the first smoke escaped from a
chimney twenty feet high. The glade was transformed into a manufactory, and
Pencroft was not far wrong in believing that from this kiln would issue all
the products of modern industry.

In the meantime what the settlers first manufactured was a common pottery
in which to cook their food. The chief material was clay, to which Harding
added a little lime and quartz. This paste made regular "pipe-clay," with
which they manufactured bowls, cups molded on stones of a proper size,
great jars and pots to hold water, etc. The shape of these objects was
clumsy and defective, but after they had been baked in a high temperature,
the kitchen of the Chimneys was provided with a number of utensils, as
precious to the settlers as the most beautifully enameled china. We must
mention here that Pencroft, desirous to know if the clay thus prepared was
worthy of its name of pipe-clay, made some large pipes, which he thought
charming, but for which, alas! he had no tobacco, and that was a great
privation to Pencroft. "But tobacco will come, like everything else!" he
repeated, in a burst of absolute confidence.

This work lasted till the 15th of April, and the time was well employed.
The settlers, having become potters, made nothing but pottery. When it
suited Cyrus Harding to change them into smiths, they would become smiths.
But the next day being Sunday, and also Easter Sunday, all agreed to
sanctify the day by rest. These Americans were religious men, scrupulous
observers of the precepts of the Bible, and their situation could not but
develop sentiments of confidence towards the Author of all things.

On the evening of the 15th of April they returned to the Chimneys,
carrying with them the pottery, the furnace being extinguished until they
could put it to a new use. Their return was marked by a fortunate incident;
the engineer discovered a substance which replaced tinder. It is known that
a spongy, velvety flesh is procured from a certain mushroom of the genus
polyporous. Properly prepared, it is extremely inflammable, especially when
it has been previously saturated with gunpowder, or boiled in a solution of
nitrate or chlorate of potash. But, till then, they had not found any of
these polypores or even any of the morels which could replace them. On this
day, the engineer, seeing a plant belonging to the wormwood genus, the
principal species of which are absinthe, balm-mint, tarragon, etc.,
gathered several tufts, and, presenting them to the sailor, said,--

"Here, Pencroft, this will please you."

Pencroft looked attentively at the plant, covered with long silky hair,
the leaves being clothed with soft down.

"What's that, captain?" asked Pencroft. "Is it tobacco?"

"No," replied Harding, "it is wormwood; Chinese wormwood to the learned,
but to us it will be tinder."

When the wormwood was properly dried it provided them with a very
inflammable substance, especially afterwards when the engineer had
impregnated it with nitrate of potash, of which the island possessed
several beds, and which is in truth saltpeter.

The colonists had a good supper that evening. Neb prepared some agouti
soup, a smoked capybara ham, to which was added the boiled tubercules of
the "caladium macrorhizum," an herbaceous plant of the arum family. They
had an excellent taste, and were very nutritious, being something similar
to the substance which is sold in England under the name of "Portland
sago"; they were also a good substitute for bread, which the settlers in
Lincoln Island did not yet possess.

When supper was finished, before sleeping, Harding and his companions
went to take the air on the beach. it was eight o'clock in the evening; the
night was magnificent. The moon, which had been full five days before, had
not yet risen, but the horizon was already silvered by those soft, pale
shades which might be called the dawn of the moon. At the southern zenith
glittered the circumpolar constellations, and above all the Southern Cross,
which some days before the engineer had greeted on the summit of Mount
Franklin.

Cyrus Harding gazed for some time at this splendid constellation, which
has at its summit and at its base two stars of the first magnitude, at its
left arm a star of the second, and at its right arm a star of the third
magnitude.

Then, after some minutes thought--

"Herbert," he asked of the lad, "is not this the 15th of April?"

"Yes, captain," replied Herbert.

"Well, if I am not mistaken, to-morrow will be one of the four days in
the year in which the real time is identical with average time; that is to
say, my boy, that to-morrow, to within some seconds, the sun will pass the
meridian just at midday by the clocks. If the weather is fine I think that
I shall obtain the longitude of the island with an approximation of some
degrees."

"Without instruments, without sextant?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"Yes," replied the engineer. "Also, since the night is clear, I will try,
this very evening, to obtain our latitude by calculating the height of the
Southern Cross, that is, from the southern pole above the horizon. You
understand, my friends, that before undertaking the work of installation in
earnest it is not enough to have found out that this land is an island; we
must, as nearly as possible, know at what distance it is situated, either
from the American continent or Australia, or from the principal
archipelagoes of the Pacific."

"In fact," said the reporter, "instead of building a house it would be
more important to build a boat, if by chance we are not more than a hundred
miles from an inhabited coast."

"That is why," returned Harding, "I am going to try this evening to
calculate the latitude of Lincoln Island, and to-morrow, at midday, I will
try to calculate the longitude."

If the engineer had possessed a sextant, an apparatus with which the
angular distance of objects can be measured with great precision, there
would have been no difficulty in the operation. This evening by the height
of the pole, the next day by the passing of the sun at the meridian, he
would obtain the position of the island. But as they had not one he would
have to supply the deficiency.

Harding then entered the Chimneys. By the light of the fire he cut two
little flat rulers, which he joined together at one end so as to form a
pair of compasses, whose legs could separate or come together. The
fastening was fixed with a strong acacia thorn which was found in the wood
pile. This instrument finished, the engineer returned to the beach, but as
it was necessary to take the height of the pole from above a clear horizon,
that is, a sea horizon, and as Claw Cape hid the southern horizon, he was
obliged to look for a more suitable station. The best would evidently have
been the shore exposed directly to the south; but the Mercy would have to
be crossed, and that was a difficulty. Harding resolved, in consequence, to
make his observation from Prospect Heights, taking into consideration its
height above the level of the sea--a height which he intended to calculate
next day by a simple process of elementary geometry.

The settlers, therefore, went to the plateau, ascending the left bank of
the Mercy, and placed themselves on the edge which looked northwest and
southeast, that is, above the curiously-shaped rocks which bordered the
river.

This part of the plateau commanded the heights of the left bank, which
sloped away to the extremity of Claw Cape, and to the southern side of the
island. No obstacle intercepted their gaze, which swept the horizon in a
semi-circle from the cape to Reptile End. To the south the horizon, lighted
by the first rays of the moon, was very clearly defined against the sky.

At this moment the Southern Cross presented itself to the observer in an
inverted position, the star Alpha marking its base, which is nearer to the
southern pole.

This constellation is not situated as near to the antarctic pole as the
Polar Star is to the arctic pole. The star Alpha is about twenty-seven
degrees from it, but Cyrus Harding knew this and made allowance for it in
his calculation. He took care also to observe the moment when it passed the
meridian below the pole, which would simplify the operation.

Cyrus Harding pointed one leg of the compasses to the horizon, the other
to Alpha, and the space between the two legs gave him the angular distance
which separated Alpha from the horizon. In order to fix the angle obtained,
he fastened with thorns the two pieces of wood on a third placed
transversely, so that their separation should be properly maintained.

That done, there was only the angle to calculate by bringing back the
observation to the level of the sea, taking into consideration the
depression of the horizon, which would necessitate measuring the height of
the cliff. The value of this angle would give the height of Alpha, and
consequently that of the pole above the horizon, that is to say, the
latitude of the island, since the latitude of a point of the globe is
always equal to the height of the pole above the horizon of this point.

The calculations were left for the next day, and at ten o'clock every one
was sleeping soundly.



Chapter 14


The next day, the 16th of April, and Easter Sunday, the settlers issued
from the Chimneys at daybreak, and proceeded to wash their linen. The
engineer intended to manufacture soap as soon as he could procure the
necessary materials--soda or potash, fat or oil. The important question of
renewing their wardrobe would be treated of in the proper time and place.
At any rate their clothes would last at least six months longer, for they
were strong, and could resist the wear of manual labor. But all would
depend on the situation of the island with regard to inhabited land. This
would be settled to-day if the weather permitted.

The sun rising above a clear horizon, announced a magnificent day, one of
those beautiful autumn days which are like the last farewells of the warm
season.

It was now necessary to complete the observations of the evening before
by measuring the height of the cliff above the level of the sea.

"Shall you not need an instrument similar to the one which you used
yesterday?" said Herbert to the engineer.

"No, my boy," replied the latter, "we are going to proceed differently,
but in as precise a way."

Herbert, wishing to learn everything he could, followed the engineer to
the beach. Pencroft, Neb, and the reporter remained behind and occupied
themselves in different ways.

Cyrus Harding had provided himself with a straight stick, twelve feet
long, which he had measured as exactly as possible by comparing it with his
own height, which he knew to a hair. Herbert carried a plumb-line which
Harding had given him, that is to say, a simple stone fastened to the end
of a flexible fiber. Having reached a spot about twenty feet from the edge
of the beach, and nearly five hundred feet from the cliff, which rose
perpendicularly, Harding thrust the pole two feet into the sand, and
wedging it up carefully, he managed, by means of the plumb-line, to erect
it perpendicularly with the plane of the horizon.


That done, he retired the necessary distance, when, lying on the sand,
his eye glanced at the same time at the top of the pole and the crest of
the cliff. He carefully marked the place with a little stick.

Then addressing Herbert--"Do you know the first principles of geometry?"
he asked.

"Slightly, captain," replied Herbert, who did not wish to put himself
forward.

"You remember what are the properties of two similar triangles?"

"Yes," replied Herbert; "their homologous sides are proportional."

"Well, my boy, I have just constructed two similar right-angled
triangles; the first, the smallest, has for its sides the perpendicular
pole, the distance which separates the little stick from the foot of the
pole and my visual ray for hypothenuse; the second has for its sides the
perpendicular cliff, the height of which we wish to measure, the distance
which separates the little stick from the bottom of the cliff, and my
visual ray also forms its hypothenuse, which proves to be prolongation of
that of the first triangle."

"Ah, captain, I understand!" cried Herbert. "As the distance from the
stick to the pole is to the distance from the stick to the base of the
cliff, so is the height of the pole to the height of the cliff."

"Just so, Herbert," replied the engineer; "and when we have measured the
two first distances, knowing the height of the pole, we shall only have a
sum in proportion to do, which will give us the height of the cliff, and
will save us the trouble of measuring it directly."

The two horizontal distances were found out by means of the pole, whose
length above the sand was exactly ten feet.

The first distance was fifteen feet between the stick and the place where
the pole was thrust into the sand.

The second distance between the stick and the bottom of the cliff was
five hundred feet.

These measurements finished, Cyrus Harding and the lad returned to the
Chimneys.

The engineer then took a flat stone which he had brought back from one of
his previous excursions, a sort of slate, on which it was easy to trace
figures with a sharp shell. He then proved the following proportions:--


          15:500::10:x

         500 x 10 = 5000

        5000 / 15 = 333.3


From which it was proved that the granite cliff measured 333 feet in
height.

Cyrus Harding then took the instrument which he had made the evening
before, the space between its two legs giving the angular distance between
the star Alpha and the horizon. He measured, very exactly, the opening of
this angle on a circumference which he divided into 360 equal parts. Now,
this angle by adding to it the twenty-seven degrees which separated Alpha
from the antarctic pole, and by reducing to the level of the sea the height
of the cliff on which the observation had been made, was found to be fifty-
three degrees. These fifty-three degrees being subtracted from ninety
degrees--the distance from the pole to the equator--there remained thirty-
seven degrees. Cyrus Harding concluded, therefore, that Lincoln Island was
situated on the thirty-seventh degree of the southern latitude, or taking
into consideration through the imperfection of the performance, an error of
five degrees, that it must be situated between the thirty-fifth and the
fortieth parallel.

There was only the longitude to be obtained, and the position of the
island would be determined, The engineer hoped to attempt this the same
day, at twelve o'clock, at which moment the sun would pass the meridian.

It was decided that Sunday should be spent in a walk, or rather an
exploring expedition, to that side of the island between the north of the
lake and Shark Gulf, and if there was time they would push their
discoveries to the northern side of Cape South Mandible. They would
breakfast on the downs, and not return till evening.

At half-past eight the little band was following the edge of the channel.
On the other side, on Safety Islet, numerous birds were gravely strutting.
They were divers, easily recognized by their cry, which much resembles the
braying of a donkey. Pencroft only considered them in an eatable point of
view, and learnt with some satisfaction that their flesh, though blackish,
is not bad food.

Great amphibious creatures could also be seen crawling on the sand;
seals, doubtless, who appeared to have chosen the islet for a place of
refuge. It was impossible to think of those animals in an alimentary point
of view, for their oily flesh is detestable; however, Cyrus Harding
observed them attentively, and without making known his idea, he announced
to his companions that very soon they would pay a visit to the islet. The
beach was strewn with innumerable shells, some of which would have rejoiced
the heart of a conchologist; there were, among others, the phasianella, the
terebratual, etc. But what would be of more use, was the discovery, by Neb,
at low tide, of a large oysterbed among the rocks, nearly five miles from
the Chimneys.

"Neb will not have lost his day," cried Pencroft, looking at the spacious
oyster-bed.

"It is really a fortunate discovery," said the reporter, "and as it is
said that each oyster produces yearly from fifty to sixty thousand eggs, we
shall have an inexhaustible supply there."

"Only I believe that the oyster is not very nourishing," said Herbert.

"No," replied Harding. "The oyster contains very little nitrogen, and if
a man lived exclusively on them, he would have to eat not less than fifteen
to sixteen dozen a day."

"Capital!" replied Pencroft. "We might swallow dozens and dozens without
exhausting the bed. Shall we take some for breakfast?"

And without waiting for a reply to this proposal, knowing that it would
be approved of, the sailor and Neb detached a quantity of the molluscs.
They put them in a sort of net of hibiscus fiber, which Neb had
manufactured, and which already contained food; they then continued to
climb the coast between the downs and the sea.

From time to time Harding consulted his watch, so as to be prepared in
time for the solar observation, which had to be made exactly at midday.

All that part of the island was very barren as far as the point which
closed Union Bay, and which had received the name of Cape South Mandible.
Nothing could be seen there but sand and shells, mingled with debris of
lava. A few sea-birds frequented this desolate coast, gulls, great
albatrosses, as well as wild duck, for which Pencroft had a great fancy. He
tried to knock some over with an arrow, but without result, for they seldom
perched, and he could not hit them on the wing.

This led the sailor to repeat to the engineer,--

"You see, captain, so long as we have not one or two fowling-pieces, we
shall never get anything!"

"Doubtless, Pencroft," replied the reporter, "but it depends on you.
Procure us some iron for the barrels, steel for the hammers, saltpeter.
coal and sulphur for powder, mercury and nitric acid for the fulminate, and
lead for the shot, and the captain will make us first-rate guns."

"Oh!" replied the engineer, "we might, no doubt, find all these
substances on the island, but a gun is a delicate instrument, and needs
very particular tools. However, we shall see later!"

"Why," cried Pencroft, "were we obliged to throw overboard all the
weapons we had with us in the car, all our implements, even our pocket-
knives?"

"But if we had not thrown them away, Pencroft, the balloon would have
thrown us to the bottom of the sea!" said Herbert.

"What you say is true, my boy," replied the sailor.

Then passing to another idea,--"Think," said he, "how astounded Jonathan
Forster and his companions must have been when, next morning, they found
the place empty, and the machine flown away!"

"I am utterly indifferent about knowing what they may have thought," said
the reporter.

"It was all my idea, that!" said Pencroft, with a satisfied air.

"A splendid idea, Pencroft!" replied Gideon Spilett, laughing, "and which
has placed us where we are."

"I would rather be here than in the hands of the Southerners," cried the
sailor, "especially since the captain has been kind enough to come and join
us again."

"So would I, truly!" replied the reporter. "Besides, what do we want?
Nothing."

"If that is not--everything!" replied Pencroft, laughing and shrugging
his shoulders. "But, some day or other, we shall find means of going away!"

"Sooner, perhaps, than you imagine, my friends," remarked the engineer,
"if Lincoln Island is but a medium distance from an inhabited island, or
from a continent. We shall know in an hour. I have not a map of the
Pacific, but my memory has preserved a very clear recollection of its
southern part. The latitude which I obtained yesterday placed New Zealand
to the west of Lincoln Island, and the coast of Chile to the east. But
between these two countries, there is a distance of at least six thousand
miles. It has, therefore, to be determined what point in this great space
the island occupies, and this the longitude will give us presently, with a
sufficient approximation, I hope."

"Is not the archipelago of the Pomoutous the nearest point to us in
latitude?" asked Herbert.

"Yes," replied the engineer, "but the distance which separates us from it
is more than twelve hundred miles."

"And that way?" asked Neb, who followed the conversation with extreme
interest, pointing to the south.

"That way, nothing," replied Pencroft.

"Nothing, indeed," added the engineer.

"Well, Cyrus," asked the reporter, "if Lincoln Island is not more than
two or three thousand miles from New Zealand or Chile?"

"Well," replied the engineer, "instead of building a house we will build
a boat, and Master Pencroft shall be put in command--"

"Well then," cried the sailor, "I am quite ready to be captain--as soon
as you can make a craft that's able to keep at sea!"

"We shall do it, if it is necessary," replied Cyrus Harding.

But while these men, who really hesitated at nothing, were talking, the
hour approached at which the observation was to be made. What Cyrus Harding
was to do to ascertain the passage of the sun at the meridian of the
island, without an instrument of any sort, Herbert could not guess.

The observers were then about six miles from the Chimneys, not far from
that part of the downs in which the engineer had been found after his
enigmatical preservation. They halted at this place and prepared for
breakfast, for it was half-past eleven. Herbert went for some fresh water
from a stream which ran near, and brought it back in a jug, which Neb had
provided.

During these preparations Harding arranged everything for his
astronomical observation. He chose a clear place on the shore, which the
ebbing tide had left perfectly level. This bed of fine sand was as smooth
as ice, not a grain out of place. It was of little importance whether it
was horizontal or not, and it did not matter much whether the stick six
feet high, which was planted there, rose perpendicularly. On the contrary,
the engineer inclined it towards the south, that is to say, in the
direction of the coast opposite to the sun, for it must not be forgotten
that the settlers in Lincoln Island, as the island was situated in the
Southern Hemisphere, saw the radiant planet describe its diurnal arc above
the northern, and not above the southern horizon.

Herbert now understood how the engineer was going to proceed to ascertain
the culmination of the sun, that is to say its passing the meridian of the
island or, in other words, determine due south. It was by means of the
shadow cast on the sand by the stick, a way which, for want of an
instrument, would give him a suitable approach to the result which he
wished to obtain.

In fact, the moment when this shadow would reach its minimum of length
would be exactly twelve o'clock, and it would be enough to watch the
extremity of the shadow, so as to ascertain the instant when, alter having
successively diminished, it began to lengthen. By inclining his stick to
the side opposite to the sun, Cyrus Harding made the shadow longer, and
consequently its modifications would be more easily ascertained. In fact,
the longer the needle of a dial is, the more easily can the movement of its
point be followed. The shadow of the stick was nothing but the needle of a
dial. The moment had come, and Cyrus Harding knelt on the sand, and with
little wooden pegs, which he stuck into the sand, he began to mark the
successive diminutions of the stick's shadow. His companions, bending over
him, watched the operation with extreme interest. The reporter held his
chronometer in his hand, ready to tell the hour which it marked when the
shadow would be at its shortest. Moreover, as Cyrus Harding was working on
the 16th of April, the day on which the true and the average time are
identical, the hour given by Gideon Spilett would be the true hour then at
Washington, which would simplify the calculation. Meanwhile as the sun
slowly advanced, the shadow slowly diminished, and when it appeared to
Cyrus Harding that it was beginning to increase, he asked, "What o'clock is
it?"

"One minute past five," replied Gideon Spilett directly. They had now
only to calculate the operation. Nothing could be easier. It could be seen
that there existed, in round numbers, a difference of five hours between
the meridian of Washington and that of Lincoln Island, that is to say, it
was midday in Lincoln Island when it was already five o'clock in the
evening in Washington. Now the sun, in its apparent movement round the
earth, traverses one degree in four minutes, or fifteen degrees an hour.
Fifteen degrees multiplied by five hours give seventy-five degrees.

Then, since Washington is 77deg 3' 11" as much as to say seventy-seven
degrees counted from the meridian of Greenwich which the Americans take for
their starting-point for longitudes concurrently with the English--it
followed that the island must be situated seventy-seven and seventy-five
degrees west of the meridian of Greenwich, that is to say, on the hundred
and fifty-second degree of west longitude.

Cyrus Harding announced this result to his companions, and taking into
consideration errors of observation, as he had done for the latitude, he
believed he could positively affirm that the position of Lincoln Island was
between the thirty-fifth and the thirty-seventh parallel, and between the
hundred and fiftieth and the hundred and fifty-fifth meridian to the west
of the meridian of Greenwich.

The possible fault which he attributed to errors in the observation was,
it may be seen, of five degrees on both sides, which, at sixty miles to a
degree, would give an error of three hundred miles in latitude and
longitude for the exact position.

But this error would not influence the determination which it was
necessary to take. It was very evident that Lincoln Island was at such a
distance from every country or island that it would be too hazardous to
attempt to reach one in a frail boat.

In fact, this calculation placed it at least twelve hundred miles from
Tahiti and the islands of the archipelago of the Pomoutous, more than
eighteen hundred miles from New Zealand, and more than four thousand five
hundred miles from the American coast!

And when Cyrus Harding consulted his memory, he could not remember in any
way that such an island occupied, in that part of the Pacific, the
situation assigned to Lincoln Island.



Chapter 15

The next day, the 17th of April, the sailor's first words were addressed to
Gideon Spilett.

"Well, sir," he asked, "what shall we do to-day?"

"What the captain pleases," replied the reporter.

Till then the engineer's companions had been brickmakers and potters,
now they were to become metallurgists.

The day before, after breakfast, they had explored as far as the point of
Mandible Cape, seven miles distant from the Chimneys. There, the long
series of downs ended, and the soil had a volcanic appearance. There were
no longer high cliffs as at Prospect Heights, but a strange and capricious
border which surrounded the narrow gulf between the two capes, formed of
mineral matter, thrown up by the volcano. Arrived at this point the
settlers retraced their steps, and at nightfall entered the Chimneys; but
they did not sleep before the question of knowing whether they could think
of leaving Lincoln Island or not was definitely settled.

The twelve hundred miles which separated the island from the Pomoutous
Island was a considerable distance. A boat could not cross it, especially
at the approach of the bad season. Pencroft had expressly declared this.
Now, to construct a simple boat even with the necessary tools, was a
difficult work, and the colonists not having tools they must begin by
making hammers, axes, adzes, saws, augers, planes, etc., which would take
some time. It was decided, therefore, that they would winter at Lincoln
Island, and that they would look for a more comfortable dwelling than the
Chimneys, in which to pass the winter months.

Before anything else could be done it was necessary to make the iron ore,
of which the engineer had observed some traces in the northwest part of the
island, fit for use by converting it either into iron or into steel.

Metals are not generally found in the ground in a pure state. For the
most part they are combined with oxygen or sulphur. Such was the case with
the two specimens which Cyrus Harding had brought back, one of magnetic
iron, not carbonated, the other a pyrite, also called sulphuret of iron. It
was, therefore the first, the oxide of iron, which they must reduce with
coal, that is to say, get rid of the oxygen, to obtain it in a pure state.
This reduction is made by subjecting the ore with coal to a high
temperature, either by the rapid and easy Catalan method, which has the
advantage of transforming the ore into iron in a single operation, or by
the blast furnace, which first smelts the ore, then changes it into iron,
by carrying away the three to four per cent. of coal, which is combined
with it.

Now Cyrus Harding wanted iron, and he wished to obtain it as soon as
possible. The ore which he had picked up was in itself very pure and rich.
It was the oxydulous iron, which is found in confused masses of a deep gray
color; it gives a black dust, crystallized in the form of the regular
octahedron. Native lodestones consist of this ore, and iron of the first
quality is made in Europe from that with which Sweden and Norway are so
abundantly supplied. Not far from this vein was the vein of coal already
made use of by the settlers. The ingredients for the manufacture being
close together would greatly facilitate the treatment of the ore. This is
the cause of the wealth of the mines in Great Britain, where the coal aids
the manufacture of the metal extracted from the same soil at the same time
as itself.

"Then, captain," said Pencroft, "we are going to work iron ore?"

"Yes, my friend," replied the engineer, "and for that--something which
will please you--we must begin by having a seal hunt on the islet."

"A seal hunt!" cried the sailor, turning towards Gideon Spilett. "Are
seals needed to make iron?"

"Since Cyrus has said so!" replied the reporter.

But the engineer had already left the Chimneys, and Pencroft prepared for
the seal hunt, without having received any other explanation.

Cyrus Harding, Herbert, Gideon Spilett, Neb, and the sailor were soon
collected on the shore, at a place where the channel left a ford passable
at low tide. The hunters could therefore traverse it without getting wet
higher than the knee.

Harding then put his foot on the islet for the first, and his companions
for the second time.

On their landing some hundreds of penguins looked fearlessly at them. The
hunters, armed with sticks, could have killed them easily, but they were
not guilty of such useless massacre, as it was important not to frighten
the seals, who were lying on the sand several cable lengths off. They also
respected certain innocent-looking birds, whose wings were reduced to the
state of stumps, spread out like fins, ornamented with feathers of a scaly
appearance. The settlers, therefore, prudently advanced towards the north
point, walking over ground riddled with little holes, which formed nests
for the sea-birds. Towards the extremity of the islet appeared great black
heads floating just above the water, having exactly the appearance of rocks
in motion.

These were the seals which were to be captured. It was necessary,
however, first to allow them to land, for with their close, short hair, and
their fusiform conformation, being excellent swimmers, it is difficult to
catch them in the sea, while on land their short, webbed feet prevent their
having more than a slow, waddling movement.

Pencroft knew the habits of these creatures, and he advised waiting till
they were stretched on the sand, when the sun, before long, would send them
to sleep. They must then manage to cut off their retreat and knock them on
the head.

The hunters, having concealed themselves behind the rocks, waited
silently.

An hour passed before the seals came to play on the sand. They could
count half a dozen. Pencroft and Herbert then went round the point of the
islet, so as to take them in the rear, and cut off their retreat. During
this time Cyrus Harding, Spilett, and Neb, crawling behind the rocks,
glided towards the future scene of combat.

All at once the tall figure of the sailor appeared. Pencroft shouted. The
engineer and his two companions threw themselves between the sea and the
seals. Two of the animals soon lay dead on the sand, but the rest regained
the sea in safety.

"Here are the seals required, captain!" said the sailor, advancing
towards the engineer.

"Capital," replied Harding. "We will make bellows of them!"

"Bellows!" cried Pencroft. "Well! these are lucky seals!"

It was, in fact, a blowing-machine, necessary for the treatment of the
ore that the engineer wished to manufacture with the skins of the
amphibious creatures. They were of a medium size, for their length did not
exceed six feet. They resembled a dog about the head.

As it was useless to burden themselves with the weight of both the
animals, Neb and Pencroft resolved to skin them on the spot, while Cyrus
Harding and the reporter continued to explore the islet.

The sailor and the Negro cleverly performed the operation, and three
hours afterwards Cyrus Harding had at his disposal two seals' skins, which
he intended to use in this state, without subjecting them to any tanning
process.

The settlers waited till the tide was again low, and crossing the channel
they entered the Chimneys.

The skins had then to be stretched on a frame of wood and sewn by means
of fibers so as to preserve the air without allowing too much to escape.
Cyrus Harding had nothing but the two steel blades from Top's collar, and
yet he was so clever, and his companions aided him with so much
intelligence, that three days afterwards the little colony's stock of tools
was augmented by a blowing-machine, destined to inject the air into the
midst of the ore when it should be subjected to heat--an indispensable
condition to the success of the operation.

On the morning of the 20th of April began the "metallic period," as the
reporter called it in his notes. The engineer had decided, as has been
said, to operate near the veins both of coal and ore. Now, according to his
observations, these veins were situated at the foot of the northeast spurs
of Mount Franklin, that is to say, a distance of six miles from their home.
It was impossible, therefore, to return every day to the Chimneys, and it
was agreed that the little colony should camp under a hut of branches, so
that the important operation could be followed night and day.

This settled, they set out in the morning. Neb and Pencroft dragged the
bellows on a hurdle; also a quantity of vegetables and animals, which they
besides could renew on the way.

The road led through Jacamar Wood, which they traversed obliquely from
southeast to northwest, and in the thickest part. It was necessary to beat
a path, which would in the future form the most direct road to Prospect
Heights and Mount Franklin. The trees, belonging to the species already
discovered, were magnificent. Herbert found some new ones, among others
some which Pencroft called "sham leeks"; for, in spite of their size, they
were of the same liliaceous family as the onion, chive, shallot, or
asparagus. These trees produce ligneous roots which, when cooked, are
excellent; from them, by fermentation, a very agreeable liquor is made.
They therefore made a good store of the roots.

The journey through the wood was long; it lasted the whole day, and so
allowed plenty of time for examining the flora and fauna. Top, who took
special charge of the fauna, ran through the grass and brushwood, putting
up all sorts of game. Herbert and Gideon Spilett killed two kangaroos with
bows and arrows, and also an animal which strongly resembled both a
hedgehog and an ant-eater. It was like the first because it rolled itself
into a ball, and bristled with spines, and the second because it had sharp
claws, a long slender snout which terminated in a bird's beak, and an
extendible tongue, covered with little thorns which served to hold the
insects.

"And when it is in the pot," asked Pencroft naturally, "what will it be
like?"

"An excellent piece of beef," replied Herbert.

"We will not ask more from it," replied the sailor,

During this excursion they saw several wild boars, which however, did not
offer to attack the little band, and it appeared as if they would not meet
with any dangerous beasts; when, in a thick part of the wood, the reporter
thought he saw, some paces from him, among the lower branches of a tree, an
animal which he took for a bear, and which he very tranquilly began to
draw. Happily for Gideon Spilett, the animal in question did not belong to
the redoubtable family of the plantigrades. It was only a koala, better
known under the name of the sloth, being about the size of a large dog, and
having stiff hair of a dirty color, the paws armed with strong claws, which
enabled it to climb trees and feed on the leaves. Having identified the
animal, which they did not disturb, Gideon Spilett erased "bear" from the
title of his sketch, putting koala in its place, and the journey was
resumed.

At five o'clock in the evening, Cyrus Harding gave the signal to halt.
They were now outside the forest, at the beginning of the powerful spurs
which supported Mount Franklin towards the west. At a distance of some
hundred feet flowed the Red Creek, and consequently plenty of fresh water
was within their reach.

The camp was soon organized. In less than an hour, on the edge of the
forest, among the trees, a hut of branches interlaced with creepers, and
pasted over with clay, offered a tolerable shelter. Their geological
researches were put off till the next day. Supper was prepared, a good fire
blazed before the hut, the roast turned, and at eight o'clock, while one of
the settlers watched to keep up the fire, in case any wild beasts should
prowl in the neighborhood, the others slept soundly.

The next day, the 21st of April, Cyrus Harding accompanied by Herbert,
went to look for the soil of ancient formation, on which he had already
discovered a specimen of ore. They found the vein above ground, near the
source of the creek, at the foot of one of the northeastern spurs. This
ore, very rich in iron, enclosed in its fusible veinstone, was perfectly
suited to the mode of reduction which the engineer intended to employ; that
is, the Catalan method, but simplified, as it is used in Corsica. In fact,
the Catalan method, properly so called, requires the construction of kilns
and crucibles, in which the ore and the coal, placed in alternate layers,
are transformed and reduced, But Cyrus Harding intended to economize these
constructions, and wished simply to form, with the ore and the coal, a
cubic mass, to the center of which he would direct the wind from his
bellows. Doubtless, it was the proceeding employed by Tubalcain, and the
first metallurgists of the inhabited world. Now that which had succeeded
with the grandson of Adam, and which still yielded good results in
countries which in ore and fuel, could not but succeed with the settlers in
Lincoln Island.

The coal, as well as the ore, was collected without trouble on the
surface of the ground. They first broke the ore into little pieces, and
cleansed them with the hand from the impurities which soiled their surface.
Then coal and ore were arranged in heaps and in successive layers, as the
charcoal-burner does with the wood which he wishes to carbonize. In this
way, under the influence of the air projected by the blowing-machine, the
coal would be transformed into carbonic acid, then into oxide of carbon,
its use being to reduce the oxide of iron, that is to say, to rid it of the
oxygen.

Thus the engineer proceeded. The bellows of sealskin, furnished at its
extremity with a nozzle of clay, which had been previously fabricated in
the pottery kiln, was established near the heap of ore. Using the mechanism
which consisted of a frame, cords of fiber and counterpoise, he threw into
the mass an abundance of air, which by raising the temperature also
concurred with the chemical transformation to produce in time pure iron.

The operation was difficult. All the patience, all the ingenuity of the
settlers was needed; but at last it succeeded, and the result was a lump of
iron, reduced to a spongy state, which it was necessary to shingle and
fagot, that is to say, to forge so as to expel from it the liquefied
veinstone. These amateur smiths had, of course, no hammer; but they were in
no worse a situation than the first metallurgist, and therefore did what,
no doubt, he had to do.

A handle was fixed to the first lump, and was used as a hammer to forge
the second on a granite anvil, and thus they obtained a coarse but useful
metal. At length, after many trials and much fatigue, on the 25th of April
several bars of iron were forged, and transformed into tools, crowbars,
pincers, pickaxes, spades, etc., which Pencroft and Neb declared to be real
jewels. But the metal was not yet in its most serviceable state, that is,
of steel. Now steel is a combination of iron and coal, which is extracted,
either from the liquid ore, by taking from it the excess of coal, or from
the iron by adding to it the coal which was wanting. The first, obtained by
the decarburation of the metal, gives natural or puddled steel; the second,
produced by the carburation of the iron, gives steel of cementation.

It was the last which Cyrus Harding intended to forge, as he possessed
iron in a pure state. He succeeded by heating the metal with powdered coal
in a crucible which had previously been manufactured from clay suitable for
the purpose.

He then worked this steel, which is malleable both when hot or cold, with
the hammer. Neb and Pencroft, cleverly directed, made hatchets, which,
heated red-hot, and plunged suddenly into cold water, acquired an excellent
temper.

Other instruments, of course roughly fashioned, were also manufactured;
blades for planes, axes, hatchets, pieces of steel to be transformed into
saws, chisels; then iron for spades, pickaxes, hammers, nails, etc. At
last, on the 5th of May, the metallic period ended, the smiths returned to
the Chimneys, and new work would soon authorize them to take a fresh title.



Chapter 16

It was the 6th of May, a day which corresponds to the 6th of November in
the countries of the Northern Hemisphere. The sky had been obscured for
some days, and it was of importance to make preparations for the winter.
However, the temperature was not as yet much lower, and a centigrade
thermometer, transported to Lincoln Island, would still have marked an
average of ten to twelve degrees above zero. This was not surprising, since
Lincoln Island, probably situated between the thirty-fifth and fortieth
parallel, would be subject, in the Southern Hemisphere, to the same climate
as Sicily or Greece in the Northern Hemisphere. But as Greece and Sicily
have severe cold, producing snow and ice, so doubtless would Lincoln Island
in the severest part of the winter and it was advisable to provide against
it.

In any case if cold did not yet threaten them, the rainy season would
begin, and on this lonely island, exposed to all the fury of the elements,
in mid-ocean, bad weather would be frequent, and probably terrible. The
question of a more comfortable dwelling than the Chimneys must therefore be
seriously considered and promptly resolved on.

Pencroft, naturally, had some predilection for the retreat which he had
discovered, but he well understood that another must be found. The Chimneys
had been already visited by the sea, under circumstances which are known,
and it would not do to be exposed again to a similar accident.

"Besides," added Cyrus Harding, who this day was talking of these things
with his companions, "we have some precautions to take."

"Why? The island is not inhabited," said the reporter.

"That is probable," replied the engineer, "although we have not yet
explored the interior; but if no human beings are found, I fear that
dangerous animals may abound. It is necessary to guard against a possible
attack, so that we shall not be obliged to watch every night, or to keep up
a fire. And then, my friends, we must foresee everything. We are here in a
part of the Pacific often frequented by Malay pirates--"

"What!" said Herbert, "at such a distance from land?"

"Yes, my boy," replied the engineer. "These pirates are bold sailors as
well as formidable enemies, and we must take measures accordingly."

"Well," replied Pencroft, "we will fortify ourselves against savages with
two legs as well as against savages with four. But, captain, will it not be
best to explore every part of the island before undertaking anything else?"

"That would be best," added Gideon Spilett.

"Who knows if we might not find on the opposite side one of the caverns
which we have searched for in vain here?"

"That is true," replied the engineer, "but you forget, my friends, that
it will be necessary to establish ourselves in the neighborhood of a
watercourse, and that, from the summit of Mount Franklin, we could not see
towards the west, either stream or river. Here, on the contrary, we are
placed between the Mercy and Lake Grant, an advantage which must not be
neglected. And, besides, this side, looking towards the east, is not
exposed as the other is to the trade-winds, which in this hemisphere blow
from the northwest."

"Then, captain," replied the sailor, "let us build a house on the edge of
the lake. Neither bricks nor tools are wanting now. After having been
brickmakers, potters, smelters, and smiths, we shall surely know how to be
masons!"

"Yes, my friend; but before coming to any decision we must consider the
matter thoroughly. A natural dwelling would spare us much work, and would
be a surer retreat, for it would be as well defended against enemies from
the interior as those from outside."

"That is true, Cyrus," replied the reporter, "but we have already
examined all that mass of granite, and there is not a hole, not a cranny!"

"No, not one!" added Pencroft. "Ah, if we were able to dig out a dwelling
in that cliff, at a good height, so as to be out of the reach of harm, that
would be capital! I can see that on the front which looks seaward, five or
six rooms--"

"With windows to light them!" said Herbert, laughing.

"And a staircase to climb up to them!" added Neb.

"You are laughing," cried the sailor, "and why? What is there impossible
in what I propose? Haven't we got pickaxes and spades? Won't Captain
Harding be able to make powder to blow up the mine? Isn't it true, captain,
that you will make powder the very day we want it?"

Cyrus Harding listened to the enthusiastic Pencroft developing his
fanciful projects. To attack this mass of granite, even by a mine, was
Herculean work, and it was really vexing that nature could not help them at
their need. But the engineer did not reply to the sailor except by
proposing to examine the cliff more attentively, from the mouth of the
river to the angle which terminated it on the north.

They went out, therefore, and the exploration was made with extreme care,
over an extent of nearly two miles. But in no place in the bare, straight
cliff, could any cavity be found. The nests of the rock pigeons which
fluttered at its summit were only, in reality, holes bored at the very top,
and on the irregular edge of the granite.

It was a provoking circumstance, and as to attacking this cliff, either
with pickaxe or with powder, so as to effect a sufficient excavation, it
was not to be thought of. It so happened that, on all this part of the
shore, Pencroft had discovered the only habitable shelter, that is to say,
the Chimneys, which now had to be abandoned.

The exploration ended, the colonists found themselves at the north angle
of the cliff, where it terminated in long slopes which died away on the
shore. From this place, to its extreme limit in the west, it only formed a
sort of declivity, a thick mass of stones, earth, and sand, bound together
by plants, bushes, and grass inclined at an angle of only forty-five
degrees. Clumps of trees grew on these slopes, which were also carpeted
with thick grass. But the vegetation did not extend far, and a long, sandy
plain, which began at the foot of these slopes, reached to the beach.

Cyrus Harding thought, not without reason, that the overplus of the lake
must overflow on this side. The excess of water furnished by the Red Creek
must also escape by some channel or other. Now the engineer had not yet
found this channel on any part of the shore already explored, that is to
say, from the mouth of the stream on the west of Prospect Heights.

The engineer now proposed to his companions to climb the slope, and to
return to the Chimneys by the heights, while exploring the northern and
eastern shores of the lake. The proposal was accepted, and in a few minutes
Herbert and Neb were on the upper plateau. Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett,
and Pencroft followed with more sedate steps.

The beautiful sheet of water glittered through the trees under the rays
of the sun. In this direction the country was charming. The eye feasted on
the groups of trees. Some old trunks, bent with age, showed black against
the verdant grass which covered the ground. Crowds of brilliant cockatoos
screamed among the branches, moving prisms, hopping from one bough to
another.

The settlers instead of going directly to the north bank of the lake,
made a circuit round the edge of the plateau, so as to join the mouth of
the creek on its left bank. It was a detour of more than a mile and a half.
Walking was easy, for the trees widely spread, left a considerable space
between them. The fertile zone evidently stopped at this point, and
vegetation would be less vigorous in the part between the course of the
Creek and the Mercy.

Cyrus Harding and his companions walked over this new ground with great
care. Bows, arrows, and sticks with sharp iron points were their only
weapons. However, no wild beast showed itself, and it was probable that
these animals frequented rather the thick forests in the south; but the
settlers had the disagreeable surprise of seeing Top stop before a snake of
great size, measuring from fourteen to fifteen feet in length. Neb killed
it by a blow from his stick. Cyrus Harding examined the reptile, and
declared it not venomous, for it belonged to that species of diamond
serpents which the natives of New South Wales rear. But it was possible
that others existed whose bite was mortal such as the deaf vipers with
forked tails, which rise up under the feet, or those winged snakes,
furnished with two ears, which enable them to proceed with great rapidity.
Top, the first moment of surprise over, began a reptile chase with such
eagerness, that they feared for his safety. His master called him back
directly.

The mouth of the Red Creek, at the place where it entered into the lake,
was soon reached. The explorers recognized on the opposite shore the point
which they had visited on their descent from Mount Franklin. Cyrus Harding
ascertained that the flow of water into it from the creek was considerable.
Nature must therefore have provided some place for the escape of the
overplus. This doubtless formed a fall, which, if it could be discovered,
would be of great use.

The colonists, walking apart, but not straying far from each other, began
to skirt the edge of the lake, which was very steep. The water appeared to
be full of fish, and Pencroft resolved to make some fishing-rods, so as to
try and catch some.

The northeast point was first to be doubled. It might have been supposed
that the discharge of water was at this place, for the extremity of the
lake was almost on a level with the edge of the plateau. But no signs of
this were discovered, and the colonists continued to explore the bank,
which, after a slight bend, descended parallel to the shore.

On this side the banks were less woody, but clumps of trees, here and
there, added to the picturesqueness of the country. Lake Grant was viewed
from thence in all its extent, and no breath disturbed the surface of its
waters. Top, in beating the bushes, put up flocks of birds of different
kinds, which Gideon Spilett and Herbert saluted with arrows. One was hit
by the lad, and fell into some marshy grass. Top rushed forward, and
brought a beautiful swimming bird, of a slate color, short beak, very
developed frontal plate, and wings edged with white. It was a "coot," the
size of a large partridge, belonging to the group of macrodactyls which
form the transition between the order of wading birds and that of
palmipeds. Sorry game, in truth, and its flavor is far from pleasant. But
Top was not so particular in these things as his masters, and it was agreed
that the coot should be for his supper.

The settlers were now following the eastern bank of the lake, and they
would not be long in reaching the part which they already knew. The
engineer was much surprised at not seeing any indication of the discharge
of water. The reporter and the sailor talked with him, and he could not
conceal his astonishment.

At this moment Top, who had been very quiet till then, gave signs of
agitation. The intelligent animal went backwards and forwards on the shore,
stopped suddenly, and looked at the water, one paw raised, as if he was
pointing at some invisible game; then he barked furiously, and was suddenly
silent.

Neither Cyrus Harding nor his companions had at first paid any attention
to Top's behavior; but the dog's barking soon became so frequent that the
engineer noticed it.

"What is there, Top?" he asked.

The dog bounded towards his master, seeming to be very uneasy, and then
rushed again towards the bank. Then, all at once, he plunged into the lake.

"Here, Top!" cried Cyrus Harding, who did not like his dog to venture
into the treacherous water.

"What's happening down there?" asked Pencroft, examining the surface of
the lake.

"Top smells some amphibious creature," replied Herbert.

"An alligator, perhaps," said the reporter.

"I do not think so," replied Harding. "Alligators are only met with in
regions less elevated in latitude."

Meanwhile Top had returned at his master's call, and had regained the
shore: but he could not stay quiet; he plunged in among the tall grass, and
guided by instinct, he appeared to follow some invisible being which was
slipping along under the surface of the water. However the water was calm;
not a ripple disturbed its surface. Several times the settlers stopped on
the bank, and observed it attentively. Nothing appeared. There was some
mystery there.

The engineer was puzzled.

"Let us pursue this exploration to the end," said he.

Half an hour after they had all arrived at the southeast angle of the
lake, on Prospect Heights. At this point the examination of the banks of
the lake was considered finished, and yet the engineer had not been able to
discover how and where the waters were discharged. "There is no doubt this
overflow exists," he repeated, and since it is not visible it must go
through the granite cliff at the west!"

"But what importance do you attach to knowing that, my dear Cyrus?" asked
Gideon Spilett.

"Considerable importance," replied the engineer; "for if it flows through
the cliff there is probably some cavity, which it would be easy to render
habitable after turning away the water."

"But is it not possible, captain, that the water flows away at the bottom
of the lake," said Herbert, "and that it reaches the sea by some
subterranean passage?"

"That might be," replied the engineer, "and should it be so we shall be
obliged to build our house ourselves, since nature has not done it for us."

The colonists were about to begin to traverse the plateau to return to
the Chimneys, when Top gave new signs of agitation. He barked with fury,
and before his master could restrain him, he had plunged a second time into
the lake.

All ran towards the bank. The dog was already more than twenty feet off,
and Cyrus was calling him back, when an enormous head emerged from the
water, which did not appear to be deep in that place.

Herbert recognized directly the species of amphibian to which the
tapering head, with large eyes, and adorned with long silky mustaches,
belonged.

"A lamantin!" he cried.

It was not a lamantin, but one of that species of the order of cetaceans,
which bear the name of the "dugong," for its nostrils were open at the
upper part of its snout. The enormous animal rushed on the dog, who tried
to escape by returning towards the shore. His master could do nothing to
save him, and before Gideon Spilett or Herbert thought of bending their
bows, Top, seized by the dugong, had disappeared beneath the water.

Neb, his iron-tipped spear in his hand, wished to go to Top's help, and
attack the dangerous animal in its own element.

"No, Neb," said the engineer, restraining his courageous servant.

Meanwhile, a struggle was going on beneath the water, an inexplicable
struggle, for in his situation Top could not possibly resist; and judging
by the bubbling of the surface it must be also a terrible struggle, and
could not but terminate in the death of the dog! But suddenly, in the
middle of a foaming circle, Top reappeared. Thrown in the air by some
unknown power, he rose ten feet above the surface of the lake, fell again
into the midst of the agitated waters, and then soon gained the shore,
without any severe wounds, miraculously saved.

Cyrus Harding and his companions could not understand it. What was not
less inexplicable was that the struggle still appeared to be going on.
Doubtless, the dugong, attacked by some powerful animal, after having
released the dog, was fighting on its own account. But it did not last
long. The water became red with blood, and the body of the dugong, emerging
from the sheet of scarlet which spread around, soon stranded on a little
beach at the south angle of the lake. The colonists ran towards it. The
dugong was dead. It was an enormous animal, fifteen or sixteen feet long,
and must have weighed from three to four thousand pounds. At its neck was a
wound, which appeared to have been produced by a sharp blade.

What could the amphibious creature have been, who, by this terrible blow
had destroyed the formidable dugong? No one could tell, and much interested
in this incident, Harding and his companions returned to the Chimneys.



Chapter 17

The next day, the 7th of May, Harding and Gideon Spilett, leaving Neb to
prepare breakfast, climbed Prospect Heights, while Herbert and Pencroft
ascended by the river, to renew their store of wood.

The engineer and the reporter soon reached the little beach on which the
dugong had been stranded. Already flocks of birds had attacked the mass of
flesh, and had to be driven away with stones, for Cyrus wished to keep the
fat for the use of the colony. As to the animal's flesh it would furnish
excellent food, for in the islands of the Malay Archipelago and elsewhere,
it is especially reserved for the table of the native princes. But that was
Neb's affair.

At this moment Cyrus Harding had other thoughts. He was much interested
in the incident of the day before. He wished to penetrate the mystery of
that submarine combat, and to ascertain what monster could have given the
dugong so strange a wound. He remained at the edge of the lake, looking,
observing; but nothing appeared under the tranquil waters, which sparkled
in the first rays of the rising sun.

At the beach, on which lay the body of the dugong, the water was
tolerably shallow, but from this point the bottom of the lake sloped
gradually, and it was probable that the depth was considerable in the
center. The lake might be considered as a large center basin, which was
filled by the water from the Red Creek.

"Well, Cyrus," said the reporter, "there seems to be nothing suspicious
in this water."

"No, my dear Spilett," replied the engineer, "and I really do not know how
to account for the incident of yesterday."

"I acknowledge," returned Spilett, "that the wound given this creature
is, at least, very strange, and I cannot explain either how Top was so
vigorously cast up out of the water. One could have thought that a powerful
arm hurled him up, and that the same arm with a dagger killed the dugong!"

"Yes," replied the engineer, who had become thoughtful; "there is
something there that I cannot understand. But do you better understand
either, my dear Spilett, in what way I was saved myself--how I was drawn
from the waves, and carried to the downs? No! Is it not true? Now, I feel
sure that there is some mystery there, which, doubtless, we shall discover
some day. Let us observe, but do not dwell on these singular incidents
before our companions. Let us keep our remarks to ourselves, and continue
our work."

It will be remembered that the engineer had not as yet been able to
discover the place where the surplus water escaped, but he knew it must
exist somewhere. He was much surprised to see a strong current at this
place. By throwing in some bits of wood he found that it set towards the
southern angle. He followed the current, and arrived at the south point of
the lake.

There was there a sort of depression in the water, as if it was suddenly
lost in some fissure in the ground.

Harding listened; placing his ear to the level of the lake, he very
distinctly heard the noise of a subterranean fall.

"There," said he, rising, "is the discharge of the water; there,
doubtless, by a passage in the granite cliff, it joins the sea, through
cavities which we can use to our profit. Well, I can find it!"

The engineer cut a long branch, stripped it of its leaves, and plunging
it into the angle between the two banks, he found that there was a large
hole one foot only beneath the surface of the water. This hole was the
opening so long looked for in vain, and the force of the current was such
that the branch was torn from the engineer's hands and disappeared.

"There is no doubt about it now," repeated Harding. "There is the outlet,
and I will lay it open to view!"

"How?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"By lowering the level of the water of the lake three feet." "And how
will you lower the level?"

"By opening another outlet larger than this."

"At what place, Cyrus?"

"At the part of the bank nearest the coast."

"But it is a mass of granite!" observed Spilett.

"Well," replied Cyrus Harding, "I will blow up the granite, and the water
escaping, will subside, so as to lay bare this opening--"

"And make a waterfall, by falling on to the beach," added the reporter.

"A fall that we shall make use of!" replied Cyrus. "Come, come!"

The engineer hurried away his companion, whose confidence in Harding was
such that he did not doubt the enterprise would succeed. And yet, how was
this granite wall to be opened without powder, and with imperfect
instruments? Was not this work upon which the engineer was so bent above
their strength?

When Harding and the reporter entered the Chimneys, they found Herbert
and Pencroft unloading their raft of wood.

"The woodmen have just finished, captain." said the sailor, laughing, "and
when you want masons--"

"Masons,--no, but chemists," replied the engineer.

"Yes," added the reporter, "we are going to blow up the island--"

"Blow up the island?" cried Pencroft.

"Part of it, at least," replied Spilett.

"Listen to me, my friends," said the engineer. And he made known to them
the result of his observations.

According to him, a cavity, more or less considerable, must exist in the
mass of granite which supported Prospect Heights, and he intended to
penetrate into it. To do this, the opening through which the water rushed
must first be cleared, and the level lowered by making a larger outlet.
Therefore an explosive substance must be manufactured, which would make a
deep trench in some other part of the shore. This was what Harding was
going to attempt with the minerals which nature placed at his disposal.

It is useless to say with what enthusiasm all, especially Pencroft,
received this project. To employ great means, open the granite, create a
cascade, that suited the sailor. And he would just as soon be a chemist as
a mason or bootmaker, since the engineer wanted chemicals. He would be all
that they liked, "even a professor of dancing and deportment," said he to
Neb, if that was ever necessary.

Neb and Pencroft were first of all told to extract the grease from the
dugong, and to keep the flesh, which was destined for food. Such perfect
confidence had they in the engineer, that they set out directly, without
even asking a question. A few minutes after them, Cyrus Harding, Herbert,
and Gideon Spilett, dragging the hurdle, went towards the vein of coals,
where those shistose pyrites abound which are met with in the most recent
transition soil, and of which Harding had already found a specimen. All the
day being employed in carrying a quantity of these stones to the Chimneys,
by evening they had several tons.

The next day, the 8th of May, the engineer began his manipulations. These
shistose pyrites being composed principally of coal, flint, alumina, and
sulphuret of iron--the latter in excess--it was necessary to separate the
sulphuret of iron, and transform it into sulphate as rapidly as possible.
The sulphate obtained, the sulphuric acid could then be extracted.

This was the object to be attained. Sulphuric acid is one of the agents
the most frequently employed, and the manufacturing importance of a nation
can be measured by the consumption which is made of it. This acid would
later be of great use to the settlers, in the manufacturing of candles,
tanning skins, etc., but this time the engineer reserved it for another
use.

Cyrus Harding chose, behind the Chimneys, a site where the ground was
perfectly level. On this ground he placed a layer of branches and chopped
wood, on which were piled some pieces of shistose pyrites, buttressed one
against the other, the whole being covered with a thin layer of pyrites,
previously reduced to the size of a nut.

This done, they set fire to the wood, the heat was communicated to the
shist, which soon kindled, since it contains coal and sulphur. Then new
layers of bruised pyrites were arranged so as to form an immense heap, the
exterior of which was covered with earth and grass, several air-holes being
left, as if it was a stack of wood which was to be carbonized to make
charcoal.

They then left the transformation to complete itself, and it would not
take less than ten or twelve days for the sulphuret of iron to be changed
to sulphate of iron and the alumina into sulphate of alumina, two equally
soluble substances, the others, flint, burnt coal, and cinders, not being
so.

While this chemical work was going on, Cyrus Harding proceeded with other
operations, which were pursued with more than zeal,--it was eagerness.

Neb and Pencroft had taken away the fat from the dugong, and placed it in
large earthen pots. It was then necessary to separate the glycerine from
the fat by saponifying it. Now, to obtain this result, it had to be treated
either with soda or lime. In fact, one or other of these substances, after
having attacked the fat, would form a soap by separating the glycerine, and
it was just this glycerine which the engineer wished to obtain. There was
no want of lime, only treatment by lime would give calcareous soap,
insoluble, and consequently useless, while treatment by soda would furnish,
on the contrary, a soluble soap, which could be put to domestic use. Now, a
practical man, like Cyrus Harding, would rather try to obtain soda. Was
this difficult? No; for marine plants abounded on the shore, glass-wort,
ficoides, and all those fucaceae which form wrack. A large quantity of
these plants was collected, first dried, then burnt in holes in the open
air. The combustion of these plants was kept up for several days, and the
result was a compact gray mass, which has been long known under the name of
"natural soda."

This obtained, the engineer treated the fat with soda, which gave both a
soluble soap and that neutral substance, glycerine.

But this was not all. Cyrus Harding still needed, in view of his future
preparation, another substance, nitrate of potash, which is better known
under the name of salt niter, or of saltpeter.

Cyrus Harding could have manufactured this substance by treating the
carbonate of potash, which would be easily extracted from the cinders of
the vegetables, by azotic acid. But this acid was wanting, and he would
have been in some difficulty, if nature had not happily furnished the
saltpeter, without giving them any other trouble than that of picking it
up. Herbert found a vein of it at the foot of Mount Franklin, and they had
nothing to do but purify this salt.

These different works lasted a week. They were finished before the
transformation of the sulphuret into sulphate of iron had been
accomplished. During the following days the settlers had time to construct
a furnace of bricks of a particular arrangement, to serve for the
distillation of the sulphate or iron when it had been obtained. All this
was finished about the 18th of May, nearly at the time when the chemical
transformation terminated. Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Neb, and Pencroft,
skillfully directed by the engineer, had become most clever workmen. Before
all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the
best.

When the heap of pyrites had been entirely reduced by fire, the result of
the operation, consisting of sulphate of iron, sulphate of alumina, flint,
remains of coal, and cinders was placed in a basinful of water. They
stirred this mixture, let it settle, then decanted it, and obtained a clear
liquid containing in solution sulphate of iron and sulphate of alumina, the
other matters remaining solid, since they are insoluble. Lastly, this
liquid being partly evaporated, crystals of sulphate of iron were
deposited, and the not evaporated liquid, which contained the sulphate of
alumina, was thrown away.

Cyrus Harding had now at his disposal a large quantity of these sulphate
of iron crystals, from which the sulphuric acid had to be extracted. The
making of sulphuric acid is a very expensive manufacture. Considerable
works are necessary--a special set of tools, an apparatus of platina,
leaden chambers, unassailable by the acid, and in which the transformation
is performed, etc. The engineer had none of these at his disposal, but he
knew that, in Bohemia especially, sulphuric acid is manufactured by very
simple means, which have also the advantage of producing it to a superior
degree of concentration. It is thus that the acid known under the name of
Nordhausen acid is made.

To obtain sulphuric acid, Cyrus Harding had only one operation to make,
to calcine the sulphate of iron crystals in a closed vase, so that the
sulphuric acid should distil in vapor, which vapor, by condensation, would
produce the acid.

The crystals were placed in pots, and the heat from the furnace would
distil the sulphuric acid. The operation was successfully completed, and on
the 20th of May, twelve days after commencing it, the engineer was the
possessor of the agent which later he hoped to use in so many different
ways.

Now, why did he wish for this agent? Simply to produce azotic acid; and
that was easy, since saltpeter, attacked by sulphuric acid, gives azotic,
or nitric, acid by distillation.

But, after all, how was he going to employ this azotic acid? His
companions were still ignorant of this, for he had not informed them of the
result at which he aimed.

However, the engineer had nearly accomplished his purpose, and by a last
operation he would procure the substance which had given so much trouble.

Taking some azotic acid, he mixed it with glycerine, which had been
previously concentrated by evaporation, subjected to the water-bath, and he
obtained, without even employing a refrigerant mixture, several pints of an
oily yellow mixture.

This last operation Cyrus Harding had made alone, in a retired place, at
a distance from the Chimneys, for he feared the danger of an explosion, and
when he showed a bottle of this liquid to his friends, he contented himself
with saying,--

"Here is nitro-glycerine!"

It was really this terrible production, of which the explosive power is
perhaps tenfold that of ordinary powder, and which has already caused so
many accidents. However, since a way has been found to transform it into
dynamite, that is to say, to mix with it some solid substance, clay or
sugar, porous enough to hold it, the dangerous liquid has been used with
some security. But dynamite was not yet known at the time when the settlers
worked on Lincoln Island.

"And is it that liquid that is going to blow up our rocks?" said Pencroft
incredulously.

"Yes, my friend," replied the engineer, "and this nitro-glycerine will
produce so much the more effect, as the granite is extremely hard, and will
oppose a greater resistance to the explosion."

"And when shall we see this, captain?"

"To-morrow, as soon as we have dug a hole for the mine, replied the
engineer."

The next day, the 21st of May, at daybreak, the miners went to the point
which formed the eastern shore of Lake Grant, and was only five hundred
feet from the coast. At this place, the plateau inclined downwards from the
waters, which were only restrained by their granite case. Therefore, if
this case was broken, the water would escape by the opening and form a
stream, which, flowing over the inclined surface of the plateau, would rush
on to the beach. Consequently, the level of the lake would be greatly
lowered, and the opening where the water escaped would be exposed, which
was their final aim.

Under the engineer's directions, Pencroft, armed with a pickaxe, which he
handled skillfully and vigorously, attacked the granite. The hole was made
on the point of the shore, slanting, so that it should meet a much lower
level than that of the water of the lake. In this way the explosive force,
by scattering the rock, would open a large place for the water to rush out.

The work took some time, for the engineer, wishing to produce a great
effect, intended to devote not less than seven quarts of nitro-glycerine to
the operation. But Pencroft, relieved by Neb, did so well, that towards
four o'clock in the evening, the mine was finished.

Now the question of setting fire to the explosive substance was raised.
Generally, nitro-glycerine is ignited by caps of fulminate, which in
bursting cause the explosion. A shock is therefore needed to produce the
explosion, for, simply lighted, this substance would burn without
exploding.

Cyrus Harding could certainly have fabricated a percussion cap. In
default of fulminate, he could easily obtain a substance similar to
guncotton, since he had azotic acid at his disposal. This substance,
pressed in a cartridge, and introduced among the nitro-glycerine, would
burst by means of a fuse, and cause the explosion.

But Cyrus Harding knew that nitro-glycerine would explode by a shock. He
resolved to employ this means, and try another way, if this did not
succeed.

In fact, the blow of a hammer on a few drops of nitro-glycerine, spread
out on a hard surface, was enough to create an explosion. But the operator
could not be there to give the blow, without becoming a victim to the
operation. Harding, therefore, thought of suspending a mass of iron,
weighing several pounds, by means of a fiber, to an upright just above the
mine. Another long fiber, previously impregnated with sulphur, was attached
to the middle of the first, by one end, while the other lay on the ground
several feet distant from the mine. The second fiber being set on fire, it
would burn till it reached the first. This catching fire in its turn, would
break, and the mass of iron would fall on the nitro-glycerine. This
apparatus being then arranged, the engineer, after having sent his
companions to a distance, filled the hole, so that the nitro-glycerine was
on a level with the opening; then he threw a few drops of it on the surface
of the rock, above which the mass of iron was already suspended.

This done, Harding lit the end of the sulphured fiber, and leaving the
place, he returned with his companions to the Chimneys.

The fiber was intended to burn five and twenty minutes, and, in fact,
five and twenty minutes afterwards a most tremendous explosion was heard.
The island appeared to tremble to its very foundation. Stones were
projected in the air as if by the eruption of a volcano. The shock produced
by the displacing of the air was such, that the rocks of the Chimneys
shook. The settlers, although they were more than two miles from the mine,
were thrown on the ground.

They rose, climbed the plateau, and ran towards the place where the bank
of the lake must have been shattered by the explosion.

A cheer escaped them! A large rent was seen in the granite! A rapid
stream of water rushed foaming across the plateau and dashed down a height
of three hundred feet on to the beach!



Chapter 18

Cyrus Harding's project had succeeded, but, according to his usual habit he
showed no satisfaction; with closed lips and a fixed look, he remained
motionless. Herbert was in ecstasies, Neb bounded with joy, Pencroft nodded
his great head, murmuring these words,--

"Come, our engineer gets on capitally!"

The nitro-glycerine had indeed acted powerfully. The opening which it had
made was so large that the volume of water which escaped through this new
outlet was at least treble that which before passed through the old one.
The result was, that a short time after the operation the level of the lake
would be lowered two feet, or more.

The settlers went to the Chimneys to take some pickaxes, iron-tipped
spears, string made of fibers, flint and steel; they then returned to the
plateau, Top accompanying them.

On the way the sailor could not help saying to the engineer,--

"Don't you think, captain, that by means of that charming liquid you have
made, one could blow up the whole of our island?"

"Without any doubt, the island, continents, and the world itself,"
replied the engineer. "It is only a question of quantity."

"Then could you not use this nitro-glycerine for loading firearms?" asked
the sailor.

"No, Pencroft; for it is too explosive a substance. But it would be easy
to make some guncotton, or even ordinary powder, as we have azotic acid,
saltpeter, sulphur, and coal. Unhappily, it is the guns which we have not
got.

"Oh, captain," replied the sailor, "with a little determination--"

Pencroft had erased the word "impossible" from the dictionary of Lincoln
Island.

The settlers, having arrived at Prospect Heights, went immediately
towards that point of the lake near which was the old opening now
uncovered. This outlet had now become practicable, since the water no
longer rushed through it, and it would doubtless be easy to explore the
interior.

In a few minutes the settlers had reached the lower point of the lake,
and a glance showed them that the object had been attained.

In fact, in the side of the lake, and now above the surface of the water,
appeared the long-looked-for opening. A narrow ridge, left bare by the
retreat of the water, allowed them to approach it. This orifice was nearly
twenty feet in width, but scarcely two in height. It was like the mouth of
a drain at the edge of the pavement, and therefore did not offer an easy
passage to the settlers; but Neb and Pencroft, taking their pickaxes, soon
made it of a suitable height.

The engineer then approached, and found that the sides of the opening, in
its upper part at least, had not a slope of more than from thirty to
thirty-five degrees. It was therefore practicable, and, provided that the
declivity did not increase, it would be easy to descend even to the level
of the sea. If then, as was probable, some vast cavity existed in the
interior of the granite, it might, perhaps, be of great use.

"Well, captain, what are we stopping for?" asked the sailor, impatient to
enter the narrow passage. You see Top has got before us!"

"Very well," replied the engineer. "But we must see our way. Neb, go and
cut some resinous branches."

Neb and Herbert ran to the edge of the lake, shaded with pines and other
green trees, and soon returned with some branches, which they made into
torches. The torches were lighted with flint and steel, and Cyrus Harding
leading, the settlers ventured into the dark passage, which the overplus of
the lake had formerly filled.

Contrary to what might have been supposed, the diameter of the passage
increased as the explorers proceeded, so that they very soon were able to
stand upright. The granite, worn by the water for an infinite time, was
very slippery, and falls were to be dreaded. But the settlers were all
attached to each other by a cord, as is frequently done in ascending
mountains. Happily some projections of the granite, forming regular steps,
made the descent less perilous. Drops, still hanging from the rocks, shone
here and there under the light of the torches, and the explorers guessed
that the sides were clothed with innumerable stalactites. The engineer
examined this black granite. There was not a stratum, not a break in it.
The mass was compact, and of an extremely close grain. The passage dated,
then, from the very origin of the island. It was not the water which little
by little had hollowed it. Pluto and not Neptune had bored it with his own
hand, and on the wall traces of an eruptive work could be distinguished,
which all the washing of the water had not been able totally to efface.

The settlers descended very slowly. They could not but feel a certain
awe, in this venturing into these unknown depths, for the first time
visited by human beings. They did not speak, but they thought; and the
thought came to more than one, that some polypus or other gigantic
cephalopod might inhabit the interior cavities, which were in communication
with the sea. However, Top kept at the head of the little band, and they
could rely on the sagacity of the dog, who would not fail to give the alarm
if there was any need for it.

After having descended about a hundred feet, following a winding road,
Harding who was walking on before, stopped, and his companions came up with
him. The place where they had halted was wider, so as to form a cavern of
moderate dimensions. Drops of water fell from the vault, but that did not
prove that they oozed through the rock. They were simply the last traces
left by the torrent which had so long thundered through this cavity, and
the air there was pure though slightly damp, but producing no mephitic
exhalation.

"Well, my dear Cyrus," said Gideon Spilett, "here is a very secure
retreat, well hid in the depths of the rock, but it is, however,
uninhabitable."

"Why uninhabitable?" asked the sailor.

"Because it is too small and too dark."

"Couldn't we enlarge it, hollow it out, make openings to let in light and
air?" replied Pencroft, who now thought nothing impossible.

"Let us go on with our exploration," said Cyrus Harding. "Perhaps lower
down, nature will have spared us this labor."

"We have only gone a third of the way," observed Herbert.

"Nearly a third," replied Harding, "for we have descended a hundred feet
from the opening, and it is not impossible that a hundred feet farther
down--"

"Where is Top?" asked Neb, interrupting his master.

They searched the cavern, but the dog was not there.

"Most likely he has gone on," said Pencroft.

"Let us join him," replied Harding.

The descent was continued. The engineer carefully observed all the
deviations of the passage, and notwithstanding so many detours, he could
easily have given an account of its general direction, which went towards
the sea.

The settlers had gone some fifty feet farther, when their attention was
attracted by distant sounds which came up from the depths. They stopped and
listened. These sounds, carried through the passage as through an acoustic
tube, came clearly to the ear.

"That is Top barking!" cried Herbert.

"Yes," replied Pencroft, "and our brave dog is barking furiously!"

"We have our iron-tipped spears," said Cyrus Harding. "Keep on your
guard, and forward!"

"It is becoming more and more interesting," murmured Gideon Spilett in
the sailor's ear, who nodded. Harding and his companions rushed to the help
of their dog. Top's barking became more and more perceptible, and it seemed
strangely fierce. Was he engaged in a struggle with some animal whose
retreat he had disturbed? Without thinking of the danger to which they
might be exposed, the explorers were now impelled by an irresistible
curiosity, and in a few minutes, sixteen feet lower they rejoined Top.

There the passage ended in a vast and magnificent cavern.

Top was running backwards and forwards, barking furiously. Pencroft and
Neb, waving their torches, threw the light into every crevice; and at the
same time, Harding, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert, their spears raised, were
ready for any emergency which might arise. The enormous cavern was empty.
The settlers explored it in every direction. There was nothing there, not
an animal, not a human being; and yet Top continued to bark. Neither
caresses nor threats could make him be silent.

"There must be a place somewhere, by which the waters of the lake reached
the sea," said the engineer.

"Of course," replied Pencroft, "and we must take care not to tumble into
a hole."

"Go, Top, go!" cried Harding.

The dog, excited by his master's words, ran towards the extremity of the
cavern, and there redoubled his barking.

They followed him, and by the light of the torches, perceived the mouth
of a regular well in the granite. It was by this that the water escaped;
and this time it was not an oblique and practicable passage, but a
perpendicular well, into which it was impossible to venture.

The torches were held over the opening: nothing could be seen. Harding
took a lighted branch, and threw it into the abyss. The blazing resin,
whose illuminating power increased still more by the rapidity of its fall,
lighted up the interior of the well, but yet nothing appeared. The flame
then went out with a slight hiss, which showed that it had reached the
water, that is to say, the level of the sea.

The engineer, calculating the time employed in its fall, was able to
calculate the depth of the well, which was found to be about ninety feet.

The floor of the cavern must thus be situated ninety feet above the level
of the sea.

"Here is our dwelling," said Cyrus Harding.

"But it was occupied by some creature," replied Gideon Spilett, whose
curiosity was not yet satisfied.

"Well, the creature, amphibious or otherwise, has made off through this
opening," replied the engineer, "and has left the place for us."

"Never mind," added the sailor, "I should like very much to be Top just
for a quarter of an hour, for he doesn't bark for nothing!"

Cyrus Harding looked at his dog, and those of his companions who were
near him might have heard him murmur these words,--

"Yes, I believe that Top knows more than we do about a great many
things."

However, the wishes of the settlers were for the most part satisfied.
Chance, aided by the marvelous sagacity of their leader, had done them
great service. They had now at their disposal a vast cavern, the size of
which could not be properly calculated by the feeble light of their
torches, but it would certainly be easy to divide it into rooms, by means
of brick partitions, or to use it, if not as a house, at least as a
spacious apartment. The water which had left it could not return. The place
was free.

Two difficulties remained; firstly, the possibility of lighting this
excavation in the midst of solid rock; secondly, the necessity of rendering
the means of access more easy. It was useless to think of lighting it from
above, because of the enormous thickness of the granite which composed the
ceiling; but perhaps the outer wall next the sea might be pierced. Cyrus
Harding, during the descent, had roughly calculated its obliqueness, and
consequently the length of the passage, and was therefore led to believe
that the outer wall could not be very thick. If light was thus obtained, so
would a means of access, for it would be as easy to pierce a door as
windows, and to establish an exterior ladder.

Harding made known his ideas to his companions.

"Then, captain, let us set to work!" replied Pencroft. "I have my
pickaxe, and I shall soon make my way through this wall. Where shall I
strike?"

"Here," replied the engineer, showing the sturdy sailor a considerable
recess in the side, which would much diminish the thickness.

Pencroft attacked the granite, and for half an hour, by the light of the
torches, he made the splinters fly around him. Neb relieved him, then
Spilett took Neb's place.

This work had lasted two hours, and they began to fear that at this spot
the wall would not yield to the pickaxe, when at a last blow given by
Gideon Spilett, the instrument, passing through the rock, fell outside.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Pencroft.

The wall only measured there three feet in thickness.

Harding applied his eye to the aperture, which overlooked the ground from
a height of eighty feet. Before him was extended the sea-coast, the islet,
and beyond the open sea.

Floods of light entered by this hole, inundating the splendid cavern and
producing a magic effect! On its left side it did not measure more than
thirty feet in height and breadth, but on the right it was enormous, and
its vaulted roof rose to a height of more than eighty feet.

In some places granite pillars, irregularly disposed, supported the
vaulted roof, as those in the nave of a cathedral, here forming lateral
piers, there elliptical arches, adorned with pointed moldings, losing
themselves in dark bays, amid the fantastic arches of which glimpses could
be caught in the shade, covered with a profusion of projections formed like
so many pendants. This cavern was a picturesque mixture of all the styles
of Byzantine, Roman, or Gothic architecture ever produced by the hand of
man. And yet this was only the work of nature. She alone had hollowed this
fairy Aihambra in a mass of granite.

The settlers were overwhelmed with admiration. Where they had only
expected to find a narrow cavity, they had found a sort of marvelous
palace, and Neb had taken off his hat, as if he had been transported into a
temple!

Cries of admiration issued from every mouth. Hurrahs resounded, and the
echo was repeated again and again till it died away in the dark naves.

"Ah, my friends!" exclaimed Cyrus Harding, "when we have lighted the
interior of this place, and have arranged our rooms and storehouses in the
left part, we shall still have this splendid cavern, which we will make our
study and our museum!"

"And we will call it?--" asked Herbert.

"Granite House," replied Harding; a name which his companions again
saluted with a cheer.

The torches were now almost consumed, and as they were obliged to return
by the passage to reach the summit of the plateau, it was decided to put
off the work necessary for the arrangement of their new dwelling till the
next day.

Before departing, Cyrus Harding leaned once more over the dark well,
which descended perpendicularly to the level of the sea. He listened
attentively. No noise was heard, not even that of the water, which the
undulations of the surge must sometimes agitate in its depths. A flaming
branch was again thrown in. The sides of the well were lighted up for an
instant, but as at the first time, nothing suspicious was seen.

If some marine monster had been surprised unawares by the retreat of the
water, he would by this time have regained the sea by the subterranean
passage, before the new opening had been offered to him.

Meanwhile, the engineer was standing motionless, his eyes fixed on the
gulf, without uttering a word.

The sailor approached him, and touching his arm, "Captain!" said he.

"What do you want, my friend?" asked the engineer, as if he had returned
from the land of dreams.

"The torches will soon go out."

"Forward!" replied Cyrus Harding.

The little band left the cavern and began to ascend through the dark
passage. Top closed the rear, still growling every now and then. The ascent
was painful enough. The settlers rested a few minutes in the upper grotto,
which made a sort of landing-place halfway up the long granite staircase.
Then they began to climb again.

Soon fresher air was felt. The drops of water, dried by evaporation, no
longer sparkled on the walls. The flaring torches began to grow dim. The
one which Neb carried went out, and if they did not wish to find their way
in the dark, they must hasten.

This was done, and a little before four o'clock, at the moment when the
sailor's torch went out in its turn, Cyrus Harding and his companions
passed out of the passage.



Chapter 19

The next day, the 22nd of May, the arrangement of their new dwelling was
commenced. In fact, the settlers longed to exchange the insufficient
shelter of the Chimneys for this large and healthy retreat, in the midst of
solid rock, and sheltered from the water both of the sea and sky. Their
former dwelling was not, however, to be entirely abandoned, for the
engineer intended to make a manufactory of it for important works. Cyrus
Harding's first care was to find out the position of the front of Granite
House from the outside. He went to the beach, and as the pickaxe when it
escaped from the hands of the reporter must have fallen perpendicularly to
the foot of the cliff, the finding it would be sufficient to show the place
where the hole had been pierced in the granite.

The pickaxe was easily found, and the hole could be seen in a
perpendicular line above the spot where it was stuck in the sand. Some rock
pigeons were already flying in and out of the narrow opening; they
evidently thought that Granite House had been discovered on purpose for
them. It was the engineer's intention to divide the right portion of the
cavern into several rooms, preceded by an entrance passage, and to light it
by means of five windows and a door, pierced in the front. Pencroft was
much pleased with the five windows, but he could not understand the use of
the door, since the passage offered a natural staircase, through which it
would always be easy to enter Granite House.

"My friend," replied Harding, "if it is easy for us to reach our dwelling
by this passage, it will be equally easy for others besides us. I mean, on
the contrary, to block up that opening, to seal it hermetically, and, if it
is necessary, to completely hide the entrance by making a dam, and thus
causing the water of the lake to rise."

"And how shall we get in?" asked the sailor.

"By an outside ladder," replied Cyrus Harding, "a rope ladder, which,
once drawn up, will render access to our dwelling impossible."

"But why so many precautions?" asked Pencroft. "As yet we have seen no
dangerous animals. As to our island being inhabited by natives, I don't
believe it!"

"Are you quite sure of that, Pencroft?" asked the engineer, looking at
the sailor.

"Of course we shall not be quite sure, till we have explored it in every
direction," replied Pencroft.

"Yes," said Harding, "for we know only a small portion of it as yet. But
at any rate, if we have no enemies in the interior, they may come from the
exterior, for parts of the Pacific are very dangerous. We must be provided
against every contingency."

Cyrus Harding spoke wisely; and without making any further objection,
Pencroft prepared to execute his orders.

The front of Granite House was then to be lighted by five windows and a
door, besides a large bay window and some smaller oval ones, which would
admit plenty of light to enter into the marvelous nave which was to be
their chief room. This facade, situated at a height of eighty feet above
the ground, was exposed to the east, and the rising sun saluted it with its
first rays. It was found to be just at that part of the cliff which was
between the projection at the mouth of the Mercy and a perpendicular line
traced above the heap of rocks which formed the Chimneys. Thus the winds
from the northeast would only strike it obliquely, for it was protected by
the projection. Besides, until the window-frames were made, the engineer
meant to close the openings with thick shutters, which would prevent either
wind or rain from entering, and which could be concealed in need.

The first work was to make the openings. This would have taken too long
with the pickaxe alone, and it is known that Harding was an ingenious man.
He had still a quantity of nitro-glycerine at his disposal, and he employed
it usefully. By means of this explosive substance the rock was broken open
at the very places chosen by the engineer. Then, with the pickaxe and
spade, the windows and doors were properly shaped, the jagged edges were
smoothed off, and a few days alter the beginning of the work, Granite House
was abundantly lighted by the rising sun, whose rays penetrated into its
most secret recesses. Following the plan proposed by Cyrus Harding, the
space was to be divided into five compartments looking out on the sea; to
the right, an entry with a door, which would meet the ladder; then a
kitchen, thirty feet long; a dining-room, measuring forty feet; a sleeping-
room, of equal size; and lastly, a "Visitor's room," petitioned for by
Pencroft, and which was next to the great hall. These rooms, or rather this
suite of rooms, would not occupy all the depth of the cave. There would be
also a corridor and a storehouse, in which their tools, provisions, and
stores would be kept. All the productions of the island, the flora as well
as the fauna, were to be there in the best possible state of preservation,
and completely sheltered from the damp. There was no want of space, so that
each object could be methodically arranged. Besides, the colonists had
still at their disposal the little grotto above the great cavern, which was
like the garret of the new dwelling.

This plan settled, it had only to be put into execution. The miners
became brickmakers again, then the bricks were brought to the foot of
Granite House. Till then, Harding and his companions had only entered the
cavern by the long passage. This mode of communication obliged them first
to climb Prospect Heights, making a detour by the river's bank, and then to
descend two hundred feet through the passage, having to climb as far when
they wished to return to the plateau. This was a great loss of time, and
was also very fatiguing. Cyrus Harding, therefore, resolved to proceed
without any further delay to the fabrication of a strong rope ladder,
which, once raised, would render Granite House completely inaccessible.

This ladder was manufactured with extreme care, and its uprights, formed
of the twisted fibers of a species of cane, had the strength of a thick
cable. As to the rounds, they were made of a sort of red cedar, with light,
strong branches; and this apparatus was wrought by the masterly hand of
Pencroft.

Other ropes were made with vegetable fibers, and a sort of crane with a
tackle was fixed at the door. In this way bricks could easily be raised
into Granite House. The transport of the materials being thus simplified,
the arrangement of the interior could begin immediately. There was no want
of lime, and some thousands of bricks were there ready to be used. The
framework of the partitions was soon raised, very roughly at first, and in
a short time, the cave was divided into rooms and storehouses, according to
the plan agreed upon.

These different works progressed rapidly under the direction of the
engineer, who himself handled the hammer and the trowel. No labor came
amiss to Cyrus Harding, who thus set an example to his intelligent and
zealous companions. They worked with confidence, even gaily, Pencroft
always having some joke to crack, sometimes carpenter, sometimes rope-
maker, sometimes mason, while he communicated his good humor to all the
members of their little world. His faith in the engineer was complete;
nothing could disturb it. He believed him capable of undertaking anything
and succeeding in everything. The question of boots and clothes--assuredly
a serious question,--that of light during the winter months, utilizing the
fertile parts of the island, transforming the wild flora into cultivated
flora, it all appeared easy to him; Cyrus Harding helping, everything would
be done in time. He dreamed of canals facilitating the transport of the
riches of the ground; workings of quarries and mines; machines for every
industrial manufacture; railroads; yes, railroads! of which a network would
certainly one day cover Lincoln Island.

The engineer let Pencroft talk. He did not put down the aspirations of
this brave heart. He knew how communicable confidence is; he even smiled to
hear him speak, and said nothing of the uneasiness for the future which he
felt. In fact, in that part of the Pacific, out of the course of vessels,
it was to be feared that no help would ever come to them. It was on
themselves, on themselves alone, that the settlers must depend, for the
distance of Lincoln Island from all other land was such, that to hazard
themselves in a boat, of a necessarily inferior construction, would be a
serious and perilous thing.

"But," as the sailor said, "they quite took the wind out of the sails of
the Robinsons, for whom everything was done by a miracle."

In fact, they were energetic; an energetic man will succeed where an
indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.

Herbert distinguished himself in these works. He was intelligent and
active; understanding quickly, he performed well; and Cyrus Harding became
more and more attached to the boy. Herbert had a lively and reverent love
for the engineer. Pencroft saw the close sympathy which existed between the
two, but he was not in the least jealous. Neb was Neb: he was what he would
be always, courage, zeal, devotion, self-denial personified. He had the
same faith in his master that Pencroft had, but he showed it less
vehemently. When the sailor was enthusiastic, Neb always looked as if he
would say, "Nothing could be more natural." Pencroft and he were great
friends.

As to Gideon Spilett, he took part in the common work, and was not less
skilful in it than his companions, which always rather astonished the
sailor. A "journalist," clever, not only in understanding, but in
performing everything.

The ladder was finally fixed on the 28th of May. There were not less than
a hundred rounds in this perpendicular height of eighty feet. Harding had
been able, fortunately, to divide it in two parts, profiting by an
overhanging of the cliff which made a projection forty feet above the
ground. This projection, carefully leveled by the pickaxe, made a sort of
platform, to which they fixed the first ladder, of which the oscillation
was thus diminished one-half, and a rope permitted it to be raised to the
level of Granite House. As to the second ladder, it was secured both at its
lower part, which rested on the projection, and at its upper end, which was
fastened to the door. In short the ascent had been made much easier.
Besides, Cyrus Harding hoped later to establish an hydraulic apparatus,
which would avoid all fatigue and loss of time, for the inhabitants of
Granite House.

The settlers soon became habituated to the use of this ladder. They were
light and active, and Pencroft, as a sailor, accustomed to run up the masts
and shrouds, was able to give them lessons. But it was also necessary to
give them to Top. The poor dog, with his four paws, was not formed for this
sort of exercise. But Pencroft was such a zealous master, that Top ended by
properly performing his ascents, and soon mounted the ladder as readily as
his brethren in the circus. It need not be said that the sailor was proud
of his pupil. However, more than once Pencroft hoisted him on his back,
which Top never complained of.

It must be mentioned here, that during these works, which were actively
conducted, for the bad season was approaching, the alimentary question was
not neglected. Every day, the reporter and Herbert, who had been voted
purveyors to the colony, devoted some hours to the chase. As yet, they only
hunted in Jacamar Wood, on the left of the river, because, for want of a
bridge or boat, the Mercy had not yet been crossed. All the immense woods,
to which the name of the Forests of the Far West had been given, were not
explored. They reserved this important excursion for the first fine days of
the next spring. But Jacamar Wood was full of game; kangaroos and boars
abounded, and the hunters iron-tipped spears and bows and arrows did
wonders. Besides, Herbert discovered towards the southwest point of the
lagoon a natural warren, a slightly damp meadow, covered with willows and
aromatic herbs which scented the air, such as thyme, basil, savory, all the
sweet-scented species of the labiated plants, which the rabbits appeared to
be particularly fond of.

On the reporter observing that since the table was spread for the
rabbits, it was strange that the rabbits themselves should be wanting, the
two sportsmen carefully explored the warren. At any rate, it produced an
abundance of useful plants, and a naturalist would have had a good
opportunity of studying many specimens of the vegetable kingdom. Herbert
gathered several shoots of the basil, rosemary, balm, betony, etc., which
possess different medicinal properties, some pectoral, astringent,
febrifuge, others anti-spasmodic, or anti-rheumatic. When, afterwards,
Pencroft asked the use of this collection of herbs,--

"For medicine," replied the lad, "to treat us when we are ill."

"Why should we be ill, since there are no doctors in the island?" asked
Pencroft quite seriously.

There was no reply to be made to that, but the lad went on with his
collection all the same, and it was well received at Granite House. Besides
these medicinal herbs, he added a plant known in North America as "Oswego
tea," which made an excellent beverage.

At last, by searching thoroughly, the hunters arrived at the real site of
the warren. There the ground was perforated like a sieve.

"Here are the burrows!" cried Herbert.

"Yes," replied the reporter, "so I see."

"But are they inhabited?"

"That is the question."

This was soon answered. Almost immediately, hundreds of little animals,
similar to rabbits, fled in every direction, with such rapidity that even
Top could not overtake them. Hunters and dog ran in vain; these rodents
escaped them easily. But the reporter resolved not to leave the place,
until he had captured at least half-a-dozen of the quadrupeds. He wished to
stock their larder first, and domesticate those which they might take
later. It would not have been difficult to do this, with a few snares
stretched at the openings of the burrows. But at this moment they had
neither snares, nor anything to make them of. They must, therefore, be
satisfied with visiting each hole, and rummaging in it with a stick, hoping
by dint of patience to do what could not be done in any other way.

At last, after half an hour, four rodents were taken in their holes. They
were similar to their European brethren, and are commonly known by the name
of American rabbits.

This produce of the chase was brought back to Granite House, and figured
at the evening repast. The tenants of the warren were not at all to be
despised, for they were delicious. It was a valuable resource of the
colony, and it appeared to be inexhaustible.

On the 31st of May the partitions were finished. The rooms had now only
to be furnished, and this would be work for the long winter days. A chimney
was established in the first room, which served as a kitchen. The pipe
destined to conduct the smoke outside gave some trouble to these amateur
bricklayers. It appeared simplest to Harding to make it of brick clay; as
creating an outlet for it to the upper plateau was not to be thought of, a
hole was pierced in the granite above the window of the kitchen, and the
pipe met it like that of an iron stove. Perhaps the winds which blew
directly against the facade would make the chimney smoke, but these winds
were rare, and besides, Master Neb, the cook, was not so very particular
about that.

When these interior arrangements were finished, the engineer occupied
himself in blocking up the outlet by the lake, so as to prevent any access
by that way. Masses of rock were rolled to the entrance and strongly
cemented together. Cyrus Harding did not yet realize his plan of drowning
this opening under the waters of the lake, by restoring them to their
former level by means of a dam. He contented himself with hiding the
obstruction with grass and shrubs, which were planted in the interstices of
the rocks, and which next spring would sprout thickly. However, he used the
waterfall so as to lead a small stream of fresh water to the new dwelling.
A little trench, made below their level, produced this result; and this
derivation from a pure and inexhaustible source yielded twenty-five or
thirty gallons a day. There would never be any want of water at Granite
House. At last all was finished, and it was time, for the bad season was
near. Thick shutters closed the windows of the facade, until the engineer
had time to make glass.

Gideon Spilett had very artistically arranged on the rocky projections
around the windows plants of different kinds, as well as long streaming
grass, so that the openings were picturesquely framed in green, which had a
pleasing effect.

The inhabitants of this solid, healthy, and secure dwelling, could not
but be charmed with their work. The view from the windows extended over a
boundless horizon, which was closed by the two Mandible Capes on the north,
and Claw Cape on the south. All Union Bay was spread before them. Yes, our
brave settlers had reason to be satisfied, and Pencroft was lavish in his
praise of what he humorously called, "his apartments on the fifth floor
above the ground!"



Chapter 20

The winter season set in with the month of June, which corresponds with the
month of December in the Northern Hemisphere. It began with showers and
squalls, which succeeded each other without intermission. The tenants of
Granite House could appreciate the advantages of a dwelling which sheltered
them from the inclement weather. The Chimneys would have been quite
insufficient to protect them against the rigor of winter, and it was to be
feared that the high tides would make another irruption. Cyrus Harding had
taken precautions against this contingency, so as to preserve as much as
possible the forge and furnace which were established there.

During the whole of the month of June the time was employed in different
occupations, which excluded neither hunting nor fishing, the larder being,
therefore, abundantly supplied. Pencroft, so soon as he had leisure,
proposed to set some traps, from which he expected great results. He soon
made some snares with creepers, by the aid of which the warren henceforth
every day furnished its quota of rodents. Neb employed nearly all his time
in salting or smoking meat, which insured their always having plenty of
provisions. The question of clothes was now seriously discussed, the
settlers having no other garments than those they wore when the balloon
threw them on the island. These clothes were warm and good; they had taken
great care of them as well as of their linen, and they were perfectly
whole, but they would soon need to be replaced. Moreover, if the winter was
severe, the settlers would suffer greatly from cold.

On this subject the ingenuity of Harding was at fault. They must provide
for their most pressing wants, settle their dwelling, and lay in a store of
food; thus the cold might come upon them before the question of clothes had
been settled. They must therefore make up their minds to pass this first
winter without additional clothing. When the fine season came round again,
they would regularly hunt those musmons which had been seen on the
expedition to Mount Franklin, and the wool once collected, the engineer
would know how to make it into strong warm stuff.... How? He would
consider.

"Well, we are free to roast ourselves at Granite House!" said Pencroft.
"There are heaps of fuel, and no reason for sparing it."

"Besides," added Gideon Spilett, "Lincoln Island is not situated under a
very high latitude, and probably the winters here are not severe. Did you
not say, Cyrus, that this thirty-fifth parallel corresponded to that of
Spain in the other hemisphere?"

"Doubtless," replied the engineer, "but some winters in Spain are very
cold! No want of snow and ice; and perhaps Lincoln Island is just as
rigourously tried. However, it is an island, and as such, I hope that the
temperature will be more moderate."

"Why, captain?" asked Herbert.

"Because the sea, my boy, may be considered as an immense reservoir, in
which is stored the heat of the summer. When winter comes, it restores this
heat, which insures for the regions near the ocean a medium temperature,
less high in summer, but less low in winter."

"We shall prove that," replied Pencroft. "But I don't want to bother
myself about whether it will be cold or not. One thing is certain, that is
that the days are already short, and the evenings long. Suppose we talk
about the question of light."

"Nothing is easier," replied Harding.

"To talk about?" asked the sailor.

"To settle."

"And when shall we begin?"

"To-morrow, by having a seal hunt."

"To make candles?"

"Yes."

Such was the engineer's project; and it was quite feasible, since he had
lime and sulphuric acid, while the amphibians of the islet would furnish
the fat necessary for the manufacture.

They were now at the 4th of June. It was Whit Sunday and they agreed to
observe this feast. All work was suspended, and prayers were offered to
Heaven. But these prayers were now thanksgivings. The settlers in Lincoln
Island were no longer the miserable castaways thrown on the islet. They
asked for nothing more--they gave thanks. The next day, the 5th of June, in
rather uncertain weather, they set out for the islet. They had to profit by
the low tide to cross the Channel, and it was agreed that they would
construct, for this purpose, as well as they could, a boat which would
render communication so much easier, and would also permit them to ascend
the Mercy, at the time of their grand exploration of the southwest of the
island, which was put off till the first fine days.

The seals were numerous, and the hunters, armed with their iron-tipped
spears, easily killed half-a-dozen. Neb and Pencroft skinned them, and only
brought back to Granite House their fat and skin, this skin being intended
for the manufacture of boots.

The result of the hunt was this: nearly three hundred pounds of fat, all
to be employed in the fabrication of candles.

The operation was extremely simple, and if it did not yield absolutely
perfect results, they were at least very useful. Cyrus Harding would only
have had at his disposal sulphuric acid, but by heating this acid with the
neutral fatty bodies he could separate the glycerine; then from this new
combination, he easily separated the olein, the margarin, and the stearin,
by employing boiling water. But to simplify the operation, he preferred to
saponify the fat by means of lime. By this he obtained a calcareous soap,
easy to decompose by sulphuric acid, which precipitated the lime into the
state of sulphate, and liberated the fatty acids.

From these three acids-oleic, margaric, and stearic-the first, being
liquid, was driven out by a sufficient pressure. As to the two others, they
formed the very substance of which the candles were to be molded.

This operation did not last more than four and twenty hours. The wicks,
after several trials, were made of vegetable fibers, and dipped in the
liquefied substance, they formed regular stearic candles, molded by the
hand, which only wanted whiteness and polish. They would not doubtless have
the advantages of the wicks which are impregnated with boracic acid, and
which vitrify as they burn and are entirely consumed, but Cyrus Harding
having manufactured a beautiful pair of snuffers, these candles would be
greatly appreciated during the long evenings in Granite House.

During this month there was no want of work in the interior of their new
dwelling. The joiners had plenty to do. They improved their tools, which
were very rough, and added others also.

Scissors were made among other things, and the settlers were at last able
to cut their hair, and also to shave, or at least trim their beards.
Herbert had none, Neb but little, but their companions were bristling in a
way which justified the making of the said scissors.

The manufacture of a hand-saw cost infinite trouble, but at last an
instrument was obtained which, when vigorously handled, could divide the
ligneous fibers of the wood. They then made tables, seats, cupboards, to
furnish the principal rooms, and bedsteads, of which all the bedding
consisted of grass mattresses. The kitchen, with its shelves, on which
rested the cooking utensils, its brick stove, looked very well, and Neb
worked away there as earnestly as if he was in a chemist's laboratory.

But the joiners had soon to be replaced by carpenters. In fact, the
waterfall created by the explosion rendered the construction of two bridges
necessary, one on Prospect Heights, the other on the shore. Now the plateau
and the shore were transversely divided by a watercourse, which had to be
crossed to reach the northern part of the island. To avoid it the colonists
had been obliged to make a considerable detour, by climbing up to the
source of the Red Creek. The simplest thing was to establish on the
plateau, and on the shore, two bridges from twenty to five and twenty feet
in length. All the carpenter's work that was needed was to clear some trees
of their branches: this was a business of some days. Directly the bridges
were established, Neb and Pencroft profited by them to go to the oyster-bed
which had been discovered near the downs. They dragged with them a sort of
rough cart, which replaced the former inconvenient hurdle, and brought back
some thousands of oysters, which soon increased among the rocks and formed
a bed at the mouth of the Mercy. These molluscs were of excellent quality,
and the colonists consumed some daily.

It has been seen that Lincoln Island, although its inhabitants had as yet
only explored a small portion of it, already contributed to almost all
their wants. It was probable that if they hunted into its most secret
recesses, in all the wooded part between the Mercy and Reptile Point, they
would find new treasures.

The settlers in Lincoln Island had still one privation. There was no want
of meat, nor of vegetable products; those ligneous roots which they had
found, when subjected to fermentation, gave them an acid drink, which was
preferable to cold water; they also made sugar, without canes or beet-
roots, by collecting the liquor which distils from the "acer saceharinum,"
a son of maple-tree, which flourishes in all the temperate zones, and of
which the island possessed a great number; they made a very agreeable tea
by employing the herbs brought from the warren; lastly, they had an
abundance of salt, the only mineral which is used in food . . . but bread
was wanting.

Perhaps in time the settlers could replace this want by some equivalent,
it was possible that they might find the sago or the breadfruit tree among
the forests of the south, but they had not as yet met with these precious
trees. However, Providence came directly to their aid, in an infinitesimal
proportion it is true, but Cyrus Harding, with all his intelligence, all
his ingenuity, would never have been able to produce that which, by the
greatest chance, Herbert one day found in the lining of his waistcoat,
which he was occupied in setting to rights.

On this day, as it was raining in torrents, the settlers were assembled
in the great hall in Granite House, when the lad cried out all at once,--

"Look here, captain--A grain of corn!"

And he showed his companions a grain--a single grain--which from a hole
in his pocket had got into the lining of his waistcoat.

The presence of this grain was explained by the fact that Herbert, when
at Richmond, used to feed some pigeons, of which Pencroft had made him a
present.

"A grain of corn?" said the engineer quickly.

"Yes, captain; but one, only one!"

"Well, my boy," said Pencroft, laughing, "we're getting on capitally,
upon my word! What shall we make with one grain of corn?"

"We will make bread of it," replied Cyrus Harding.

"Bread, cakes, tarts!" replied the sailor. "Come, the bread that this
grain of corn will make won't choke us very soon!"

Herbert, not attaching much importance to his discovery, was going to
throw away the grain in question; but Harding took it, examined it, found
that it was in good condition, and looking the sailor full in the face--
"Pencroft," he asked quietly, "do you know how many ears one grain of corn
can produce?"

"One, I suppose!" replied the sailor, surprised at the question.

"Ten, Pencroft! And do you know how many grains one ear bears?"

"No, upon my word."

"About eighty!" said Cyrus Harding. "Then, if we plant this grain, at the
first crop we shall reap eight hundred grains which at the second will
produce six hundred and forty thousand; at the third, five hundred and
twelve millions; at the fourth, more than four hundred thousands of
millions! There is the proportion."

Harding's companions listened without answering. These numbers astonished
them. They were exact, however.

"Yes, my friends," continued the engineer, "such are the arithmetical
progressions of prolific nature; and yet what is this multiplication of the
grain of corn, of which the ear only bears eight hundred grains, compared
to the poppy-plant, which bears thirty-two thousand seeds; to the tobacco-
plant, which produces three hundred and sixty thousand? In a few years,
without the numerous causes of destruction, which arrests their fecundity,
these plants would overrun the earth."

But the engineer had not finished his lecture.

"And now, Pencroft," he continued, "do you know how many bushels four
hundred thousand millions of grains would make?"

"No," replied the sailor; "but what I do know is, that I am nothing
better than a fool!"

"Well, they would make more than three millions, at a hundred and thirty
thousand a bushel, Pencroft."

"Three millions!" cried Pencroft.

"Three millions."

"In four years?"

"In four years," replied Cyrus Harding, "and even in two years, if, as I
hope, in this latitude we can obtain two crops a year."

At that, according to his usual custom, Pencroft could not reply
otherwise than by a tremendous hurrah.

"So, Herbert," added the engineer, "you have made a discovery of great
importance to us. Everything, my friends, everything can serve us in the
condition in which we are. Do not forget that, I beg of you."

"No, captain, no, we shan't forget it," replied Pencroft; "and if ever I
find one of those tobacco-seeds, which multiply by three hundred and sixty
thousand, I assure you I won't throw it away! And now, what must we do?"

"We must plant this grain," replied Herbert.

"Yes," added Gideon Spilett, "and with every possible care, for it bears
in itself our future harvests."

"Provided it grows!" cried the sailor.

"It will grow," replied Cyrus Harding.

This was the 20th of June. The time was then propitious for sowing this
single precious grain of corn. It was first proposed to plant it in a pot,
but upon reflection it was decided to leave it to nature, and confide it to
the earth. This was done that very day, and it is needless to add, that
every precaution was taken that the experiment might succeed.

The weather having cleared, the settlers climbed the height above Granite
House. There, on the plateau, they chose a spot, well sheltered from the
wind, and exposed to all the heat of the midday sun. The place was cleared,
carefully weeded, and searched for insects and worms; then a bed of good
earth, improved with a little lime, was made; it was surrounded by a
railing; and the grain was buried in the damp earth.

Did it not seem as if the settlers were laying the first stone of some
edifice? It recalled to Pencroft the day on which he lighted his only
match, and all the anxiety of the operation. But this time the thing was
more serious. In fact, the castaways would have been always able to procure
fire, in some mode or other, but no human power could supply another grain
of corn, if unfortunately this should be lost!



Chapter 21

From this time Pencroft did not let a single day pass without going to
visit what he gravely called his "corn-field." And woe to the insects which
dared to venture there! No mercy was shown them.

Towards the end of the month of June, after incessant rain, the weather
became decidedly colder, and on the 29th a Fahrenheit thermometer would
certainly have announced only twenty degrees above zero, that is
considerably below the freezing-point. The next day, the 30th of June, the
day which corresponds to the 31st of December in the northern year, was a
Friday. Neb remarked that the year finished on a bad day, but Pencroft
replied that naturally the next would begin on a good one, which was
better.

At any rate it commenced by very severe cold. Ice accumulated at the
mouth of the Mercy, and it was not long before the whole expanse of the
lake was frozen.

The settlers had frequently been obliged to renew their store of wood.
Pencroft also had wisely not waited till the river was frozen, but had
brought enormous rafts of wood to their destination. The current was an
indefatigable moving power, and it was employed in conveying the floating
wood to the moment when the frost enchained it. To the fuel which was so
abundantly supplied by the forest, they added several cartloads of coal,
which had to be brought from the foot of the spurs of Mount Franklin. The
powerful heat of the coal was greatly appreciated in the low temperature,
which on the 4th of July fell to eight degrees of Fahrenheit, that is,
thirteen degrees below zero. A second fireplace had been established in the
dining-room, where they all worked together at their different avocations.
During this period of cold, Cyrus Harding had great cause to congratulate
himself on having brought to Granite House the little stream of water from
Lake Grant. Taken below the frozen surface, and conducted through the
passage, it preserved its fluidity, and arrived at an interior reservoir
which had been hollowed out at the back part of the storeroom, while the
overflow ran through the well to the sea.

About this time, the weather being extremely dry, the colonists, clothed
as warmly as possible, resolved to devote a day to the exploration of that
part of the island between the Mercy and Claw Cape. It was a wide extent of
marshy land, and they would probably find good sport, for water-birds ought
to swarm there.

They reckoned that it would be about eight or nine miles to go there, and
as much to return, so that the whole of the day would be occupied. As an
unknown part of the island was about to be explored, the whole colony took
part in the expedition. Accordingly, on the 5th of July, at six o'clock in
the morning, when day had scarcely broken, Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett,
Herbert, Neb, and Pencroft, armed with spears, snares, bows and arrows, and
provided with provisions, left Granite House, preceded by Top, who bounded
before them.

Their shortest way was to cross the Mercy on the ice, which then covered
it.

"But," as the engineer justly observed, "that could not take the place of
a regular bridge!" So, the construction of a regular bridge was noted in
the list of future works.

It was the first time that the settlers had set foot on the right bank of
the Mercy, and ventured into the midst of those gigantic and superb
coniferae now sprinkled over with snow.

But they had not gone half a mile when from a thicket a whole family of
quadrupeds, who had made a home there, disturbed by Top, rushed forth into
the open country.

"Ah! I should say those are foxes!" cried Herbert, when he saw the troop
rapidly decamping.

They were foxes, but of a very large size, who uttered a sort of barking,
at which Top seemed to be very much astonished, for he stopped short in the
chase, and gave the swift animals time to disappear.

The dog had reason to be surprised, as he did not know Natural History.
But, by their barking, these foxes, with reddish-gray hair, black tails
terminating in a white tuft, had betrayed their origin. So Herbert was
able, without hesitating, to give them their real name of "Arctic foxes."
They are frequently met with in Chile, in the Falkland Islands, and in all
parts of America traversed by the thirtieth and fortieth parallels. Herbert
much regretted that Top had not been able to catch one of these carnivora.

"Are they good to eat?" asked Pencroft, who only regarded the
representatives of the fauna in the island from one special point of view.

"No," replied Herbert; "but zoologists have not yet found out if the eye
of these foxes is diurnal or nocturnal, or whether it is correct to class
them in the genus dog, properly so called."

Harding could not help smiling on hearing the lad's reflection, which
showed a thoughtful mind. As to the sailor, from the moment when he found
that the foxes were not classed in the genus eatable, they were nothing to
him. However, when a poultry-yard was established at Granite House, he
observed that it would be best to take some precautions against a probable
visit from these four-legged plunderers, and no one disputed this.

After having turned the point, the settlers saw a long beach washed by
the open sea. It was then eight o'clock in the morning. The sky was very
clear, as it often is after prolonged cold; but warmed by their walk,
neither Harding nor his companions felt the sharpness of the atmosphere too
severely. Besides there was no wind, which made it much more bearable. A
brilliant sun, but without any calorific action, was just issuing from the
ocean. The sea was as tranquil and blue as that of a Mediterranean gulf,
when the sky is clear. Claw Cape, bent in the form of a yataghan, tapered
away nearly four miles to the southeast. To the left the edge of the marsh
was abruptly ended by a little point. Certainly, in this part of Union Bay,
which nothing sheltered from the open sea, not even a sandbank, ships
beaten by the east winds would have found no shelter. They perceived by the
tranquillity of the sea, in which no shallows troubled the waters, by its
uniform color, which was stained by no yellow shades, by the absence of
even a reef, that the coast was steep and that the ocean there covered a
deep abyss. Behind in the west, but at a distance of four miles, rose the
first trees of the forests of the Far West. They might have believed
themselves to be on the desolate coast of some island in the Antarctic
regions which the ice had invaded. The colonists halted at this place for
breakfast. A fire of brushwood and dried seaweed was lighted, and Neb
prepared the breakfast of cold meat, to which he added some cups of Oswego
tea.

While eating they looked around them. This part of Lincoln Island was
very sterile, and contrasted with all the western part. The reporter was
thus led to observe that if chance had thrown them at first on the shore,
they would have had but a deplorable idea of their future domain.

"I believe that we should not have been able to reach it," replied the
engineer, "for the sea is deep, and there is not a rock on which we could
have taken refuge. Before Granite House, at least, there were sandbanks, an
islet, which multiplied our chances of safety. Here, nothing but the
depths!"

"It is singular enough," remarked Spilett, "that this comparatively small
island should present such varied ground. This diversity of aspect,
logically only belongs to continents of a certain extent. One would really
say, that the western part of Lincoln Island, so rich and so fertile, is
washed by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and that its shores to the
north and the southeast extend over a sort of Arctic sea."

"You are right, my dear Spilett," replied Cyrus Harding, "I have also
observed this. I think the form and also the nature of this island strange.
It is a summary of all the aspects which a continent presents, and I should
not be surprised if it was a continent formerly."

"What! a continent in the middle of the Pacific?" cried Pencroft.

"Why not?" replied Cyrus Harding. "Why should not Australia, New Ireland,
Australasia, united to the archipelagoes of the Pacific, have once formed a
sixth part of the world, as important as Europe or Asia, as Africa or the
two Americas? To my mind, it is quite possible that all these islands,
emerging from this vast ocean, are but the summits of a continent, now
submerged, but which was above the waters at a prehistoric period."

"As the Atlantis was formerly," replied Herbert.

"Yes, my boy... if, however, it existed."

"And would Lincoln Island have been a part of that continent?" asked
Pencroft.

"It is probable," replied Cyrus Harding, "and that would sufficiently,
explain the variety of productions which are seen on its surface."

"And the great number of animals which still inhabit it," added Herbert.

"Yes, my boy," replied the engineer, "and you furnish me with an argument
to support my theory. It is certain, after what we have seen, that animals
are numerous in this island, and what is more strange, that the species are
extremely varied. There is a reason for that, and to me it is that Lincoln
Island may have formerly been a part of some vast continent which had
gradually sunk below the Pacific."

"Then, some fine day," said Pencroft, who did not appear to be entirely
convinced, "the rest of this ancient continent may disappear in its turn,
and there will be nothing between America and Asia."

"Yes," replied Harding, "there will be new continents which millions and
millions of animalculae are building at this moment."

"And what are these masons?" asked Pencroft.

"Coral insects," replied Cyrus Harding. "By constant work they made the
island of Clermont-Tonnerre, and numerous other coral islands in the
Pacific Ocean. Forty-seven millions of these insects are needed to weigh a
grain, and yet, with the sea-salt they absorb, the solid elements of water
which they assimilate, these animalculae produce limestone, and this
limestone forms enormous submarine erections, of which the hardness and
solidity equal granite. Formerly, at the first periods of creation, nature
employing fire, heaved up the land, but now she entrusts to these
microscopic creatures the task of replacing this agent, of which the
dynamic power in the interior of the globe has evidently diminished--which
is proved by the number of volcanoes on the surface of the earth, now
actually extinct. And I believe that centuries succeeding to centuries, and
insects to insects, this Pacific may one day be changed into a vast
continent, which new generations will inhabit and civilize in their turn."

"That will take a long time," said Pencroft.

"Nature has time for it," replied the engineer.

"But what would be the use of new continents?" asked Herbert. "It appears
to me that the present extent of habitable countries is sufficient for
humanity. Yet nature does nothing uselessly."

"Nothing uselessly, certainly," replied the engineer, "but this is how
the necessity of new continents for the future, and exactly on the tropical
zone occupied by the coral islands, may be explained. At least to me this
explanation appears plausible."

"We are listening, captain," said Herbert.

"This is my idea: philosophers generally admit that some day our globe
will end, or rather that animal and vegetable life will no longer be
possible, because of the intense cold to which it will be subjected. What
they are not agreed upon, is the cause of this cold. Some think that it
will arise from the falling of the temperature, which the sun will
experience alter millions of years; others, from the gradual extinction of
the fires in the interior of our globe, which have a greater influence on
it than is generally supposed. I hold to this last hypothesis, grounding it
on the fact that the moon is really a cold star, which is no longer
habitable, although the sun continues to throw on its surface the same
amount of heat. If, then, the moon has become cold, it is because the
interior fires to which, as do all the stars of the stellar world, it owes
its origin, are completely extinct. Lastly, whatever may be the cause, our
globe will become cold some day, but this cold will only operate gradually.
What will happen, then? The temperate zones, at a more or less distant
period, will not be more habitable than the polar regions now are. Then the
population of men, as well as the animals, will flow towards the latitudes
which are more directly under the solar influence. An immense emigration
will take place. Europe, Central Asia, North America, will gradually be
abandoned, as well as Australasia and the lower parts of South America. The
vegetation will follow the human emigration. The flora will retreat towards
the Equator at the same time as the fauna. The central parts of South
America and Africa will be the continents chiefly inhabited. The Laplanders
and the Samoides will find the climate of the polar regions on the shores
of the Mediterranean. Who can say, that at this period, the equatorial
regions will not be too small, to contain and nourish terrestrial humanity?
Now, may not provident nature, so as to give refuge to all the vegetable
and animal emigration, be at present laying the foundation of a new
continent under the Equator, and may she not have entrusted these insects
with the construction of it? I have often thought of all these things, my
friends, and I seriously believe that the aspect of our globe will some day
be completely changed; that by the raising of new continents the sea will
cover the old, and that, in future ages, a Columbus will go to discover the
islands of Chimborazo, of the Himalayas, or of Mont Blanc, remains of a
submerged America, Asia, and Europe. Then these new continents will become,
in their turn, uninhabitable; heat will die away, as does the heat from a
body when the soul has left it; and life will disappear from the globe, if
not for ever, at least for a period. Perhaps then, our spheroid will rest--
will be left to death--to revive some day under superior conditions! But all
that, my friends, is the secret of the Author of all things; and beginning
by the work of the insects, I have perhaps let myself be carried too far,
in investigating the secrets of the future.

"My dear Cyrus," replied Spilett, "these theories are prophecies to me,
and they will be accomplished some day."

"That is the secret of God," said the engineer.

"All that is well and good," then said Pencroft, who had listened with
all his might, "but will you tell me, captain, if Lincoln Island has been
made by your insects?"

"No," replied Harding; "it is of a purely volcanic origin."

"Then it will disappear some day?"

"That is probable.

"I hope we won't be here then."

"No, don't be uneasy, Pencroft; we shall not be here then, as we have no
wish to die here, and hope to get away some time."

"In the meantime," replied Gideon Spilett, "let us establish ourselves
here as if forever. There is no use in doing things by halves."

This ended the conversation. Breakfast was finished, the exploration was
continued, and the settlers arrived at the border of the marshy region. It
was a marsh of which the extent, to the rounded coast which terminated the
island at the southeast, was about twenty square miles. The soil was formed
of clayey flint-earth, mingled with vegetable matter, such as the remains
of rushes, reeds, grass, etc. Here and there beds of grass, thick as a
carpet, covered it. In many places icy pools sparkled in the sun. Neither
rain nor any river, increased by a sudden swelling, could supply these
ponds. They therefore naturally concluded that the marsh was fed by the
infiltrations of the soil and it was really so. It was also to be feared
that during the heat miasmas would arise, which might produce fevers.

Above the aquatic plants, on the surface of the stagnant water, fluttered
numbers of birds. Wild duck, teal, snipe lived there in flocks, and those
fearless birds allowed themselves to be easily approached.

One shot from a gun would certainly have brought down some dozen of the
birds, they were so close together. The explorers were, however, obliged to
content themselves with bows and arrows. The result was less, but the
silent arrow had the advantage of not frightening the birds, while the
noise of firearms would have dispersed them to all parts of the marsh. The
hunters were satisfied, for this time, with a dozen ducks, which had white
bodies with a band of cinnamon, a green head, wings black, white, and red,
and flattened beak. Herbert called them tadorns. Top helped in the capture
of these birds, whose name was given to this marshy part of the island. The
settlers had here an abundant reserve of aquatic game. At some future time
they meant to explore it more carefully, and it was probable that some of
the birds there might be domesticated, or at least brought to the shores of
the lake, so that they would be more within their reach.

About five o'clock in the evening Cyrus Harding and his companions
retraced their steps to their dwelling by traversing Tadorn's Fens, and
crossed the Mercy on the ice-bridge.

At eight in the evening they all entered Granite House.



Chapter 22

This intense cold lasted till the 15th of August, without, however, passing
the degree of Fahrenheit already mentioned. When the atmosphere was calm,
the low temperature was easily borne, but when the wind blew, the poor
settlers, insufficiently clothed, felt it severely. Pencroft regretted that
Lincoln Island was not the home of a few families of bears rather than of
so many foxes and seals.

"Bears," said he, "are generally very well dressed, and I ask no more
than to borrow for the winter the warm cloaks which they have on their
backs."

"But," replied Neb, laughing, "perhaps the bears would not consent to
give you their cloaks, Pencroft. These beasts are not St. Martins."

"We would make them do it, Neb, we would make them," replied Pencroft, in
quite an authoritative tone.

But these formidable carnivora did not exist in the island, or at any
rate they had not yet shown themselves.

In the meanwhile, Herbert, Pencroft, and the reporter occupied themselves
with making traps on Prospect Heights and at the border of the forest.

According to the sailor, any animal, whatever it was, would be a lawful
prize, and the rodents or carnivora which might get into the new snares
would be well received at Granite House.

The traps were besides extremely simple; being pits dug in the ground, a
platform of branches and grass above, which concealed the opening, and at
the bottom some bait, the scent of which would attract animals. It must be
mentioned also, that they had not been dug at random, but at certain places
where numerous footprints showed that quadrupeds frequented the ground.
They were visited every day, and at three different times, during the first
days, specimens of those Antarctic foxes which they had already seen on the
right bank of the Mercy were found in them.

"Why, there are nothing but foxes in this country!" cried Pencroft, when
for the third time he drew one of the animals out of the pit. Looking at it
in great disgust, he added, "beasts which are good for nothing!"

"Yes," said Gideon Spilett, "they are good for something!"

"And what is that?"

"To make bait to attract other creatures!"

The reporter was right, and the traps were henceforward baited with the
foxes carcasses.

The sailor had also made snares from the long tough fibers of a certain
plant, and they were even more successful than the traps. Rarely a day
passed without some rabbits from the warren being caught. It was always
rabbit, but Neb knew how to vary his sauces and the settlers did not think
of complaining.

However, once or twice in the second week of August, the traps supplied
the hunters with other animals more useful than foxes, namely, several of
those small wild boars which had already been seen to the north of the
lake. Pencroft had no need to ask if these beasts were eatable. He could
see that by their resemblance to the pig of America and Europe.

"But these are not pigs," said Herbert to him, "I warn you of that,
Pencroft."

"My boy," replied the sailor, bending over the trap and drawing out one
of these representatives of the family of sus by the little appendage which
served it as a tail. "Let me believe that these are pigs."

"Why?"

"Because that pleases me!"

"Are you very fond of pig then, Pencroft?"

"I am very fond of pig," replied the sailor, "particularly of its feet,
and if it had eight instead of four, I should like it twice as much!"

As to the animals in question, they were peccaries belonging to one of
the four species which are included in the family, and they were also of
the species of Tajacu, recognizable by their deep color and the absence of
those long teeth with which the mouths of their congeners are armed. These
peccaries generally live in herds, and it was probable that they abounded
in the woody parts of the island.

At any rate, they were eatable from head to foot, and Pencroft did not
ask more from them.

Towards the 15th of August, the state of the atmosphere was suddenly
moderated by the wind shifting to the northwest. The temperature rose some
degrees, and the accumulated vapor in the air was not long in resolving
into snow. All the island was covered with a sheet of white, and showed
itself to its inhabitants under a new aspect. The snow fell abundantly for
several days, and it soon reached a thickness of two feet.

The wind also blew with great violence, and at the height of Granite
House the sea could be heard thundering against the reefs. In some places,
the wind, eddying round the corners, formed the snow into tall whirling
columns, resembling those waterspouts which turn round on their base, and
which vessels attack with a shot from a gun. However, the storm, coming
from the northwest, blew across the island, and the position of Granite
House preserved it from a direct attack.

But in the midst of this snow-storm, as terrible as if it had been
produced in some polar country, neither Cyrus Harding nor his companions
could, notwithstanding their wish for it, venture forth, and they remained
shut up for five days, from the 20th to the 25th of August. They could hear
the tempest raging in Jacamar Wood, which would surely suffer from it. Many
of the trees would no doubt be torn up by the roots, but Pencroft consoled
himself by thinking that he would not have the trouble of cutting them
down.

"The wind is turning woodman, let it alone," he repeated.

Besides, there was no way of stopping it, if they had wished to do so.

How grateful the inhabitants of Granite House then were to Heaven for
having prepared for them this solid and immovable retreat! Cyrus Harding
had also his legitimate share of thanks, but after all, it was Nature who
had hollowed out this vast cavern, and he had only discovered it. There all
were in safety, and the tempest could not reach them. If they had
constructed a house of bricks and wood on Prospect Heights, it certainly
would not have resisted the fury of this storm. As to the Chimneys, it must
have been absolutely uninhabitable, for the sea, passing over the islet,
would beat furiously against it. But here, in Granite House, in the middle
of a solid mass, over which neither the sea nor air had any influence,
there was nothing to fear.

During these days of seclusion the settlers did not remain inactive.

There was no want of wood, cut up into planks, in the storeroom, and
little by little they completed their furnishing; constructing the most
solid of tables and chairs, for material was not spared. Neb and Pencroft
were very proud of this rather heavy furniture, which they would not have
changed on any account.

Then the carpenters became basket-makers, and they did not succeed badly
in this new manufacture. At the point of the lake which projected to the
north, they had discovered an osier-bed in which grew a large number of
purple osiers. Before the rainy season, Pencroft and Herbert had cut down
these useful shrubs, and their branches, well prepared, could now be

effectively employed. The first attempts were somewhat crude, but in
consequence of the cleverness and intelligence of the workmen, by
consulting, and recalling the models which they had seen, and by emulating
each other, the possessions of the colony were soon increased by several
baskets of different sizes. The storeroom was provided with them, and in
special baskets Neb placed his collection of rhizomes, stone-pine almonds,
etc.

During the last week of the month of August the weather moderated again.
The temperature fell a little, and the tempest abated. The colonists
sallied out directly. There was certainly two feet of snow on the shore,
but they were able to walk without much difficulty on the hardened surface.
Cyrus Harding and his companions climbed Prospect Heights.

What a change! The woods, which they had left green, especially in the
part at which the firs predominated, had disappeared under a uniform color.
All was white, from the summit of Mount Franklin to the shore, the forests,
the plains, the lake, the river. The waters of the Mercy flowed under a
roof of ice, which, at each rising and ebbing of the tide, broke up with
loud crashes. Numerous birds fluttered over the frozen surface of the lake.
Ducks and snipe, teal and guillemots were assembled in thousands. The rocks
among which the cascade flowed were bristling with icicles. One might have
said that the water escaped by a monstrous gargoyle, shaped with all the
imagination of an artist of the Renaissance. As to the damage caused by the
storm in the forest, that could not as yet be ascertained; they would have
to wait till the snowy covering was dissipated.

Gideon Spilett, Pencroft, and Herbert did not miss this opportunity of
going to visit their traps. They did not find them easily, under the snow
with which they were covered. They had also to be careful not to fall into
one or other of them, which would have been both dangerous and humiliating;
to be taken in their own snares! But happily they avoided this
unpleasantness, and found their traps perfectly intact. No animal had
fallen into them, and yet the footprints in the neighborhood were very
numerous, among others, certain very clear marks of claws. Herbert did not
hesitate to affirm that some animal of the feline species had passed there,
which justified the engineer's opinion that dangerous beasts existed in
Lincoln Island. These animals doubtless generally lived in the forests of
the Far West, but pressed by hunger, they had ventured as far as Prospect
Heights. Perhaps they had smelled out the inhabitants of Granite House.
"Now, what are these feline creatures?" asked Pencroft. "They are tigers,"
replied Herbert. "I thought those beasts were only found in hot countries?"

"On the new continent," replied the lad, "they are found from Mexico to
the Pampas of Buenos Aires. Now, as Lincoln Island is nearly under the same
latitude as the provinces of La Plata, it is not surprising that tigers are
to be met with in it."

"Well, we must look out for them," replied Pencroft.

However, the snow soon disappeared, quickly dissolving under the
influence of the rising temperature. Rain fell, and the sheet of white soon
vanished. Notwithstanding the bad weather, the settlers renewed their
stores of different things, stone-pine almonds, rhizomes, syrup from the
maple-tree, for the vegetable part; rabbits from the warren, agouties, and
kangaroos for the animal part. This necessitated several excursions into
the forest, and they found that a great number of trees had been blown down
by the last hurricane. Pencroft and Neb also pushed with the cart as far as
the vein of coal, and brought back several tons of fuel. They saw in
passing that the pottery kiln had been severely damaged by the wind, at
least six feet of it having been blown off.

At the same time as the coal, the store of wood was renewed at Granite
House, and they profited by the current of the Mercy having again become
free, to float down several rafts. They could see that the cold period was
not ended.

A visit was also paid to the Chimneys, and the settlers could not but
congratulate themselves on not having been living there during the
hurricane. The sea had left unquestionable traces of its ravages. Sweeping
over the islet, it had furiously assailed the passages, half filling them
with sand, while thick beds of seaweed covered the rocks. While Neb,
Herbert, and Pencroft hunted or collected wood, Cyrus Harding and Gideon
Spilett busied themselves in putting the Chimneys to rights, and they found
the forge and the bellows almost unhurt, protected as they had been from
the first by the heaps of sand.

The store of fuel had not been made uselessly. The settlers had not done
with the rigorous cold. It is known that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the
month of February is principally distinguished by rapid fallings of the
temperature. It is the same in the Southern Hemisphere, and the end of the
month of August, which is the February of North America, does not escape
this climatic law.

About the 25th, after another change from snow to rain, the wind shifted
to the southeast, and the cold became, suddenly, very severe. According to
the engineer's calculation, the mercurial column of a Fahrenheit
thermometer would not have marked less than eight degrees below zero, and
this intense cold, rendered still more painful by a sharp gale, lasted for
several days. The colonists were again shut up in Granite House, and as it
was necessary to hermetically seal all the openings of the facade, only
leaving a narrow passage for renewing the air, the consumption of candles
was considerable. To economize them, the cavern was often only lighted by
the blazing hearths, on which fuel was not spared. Several times, one or
other of the settlers descended to the beach in the midst of ice which the
waves heaped up at each tide, but they soon climbed up again to Granite
House, and it was not without pain and difficulty that their hands could
hold to the rounds of the ladder. In consequence of the intense cold,
their fingers felt as if burned when they touched the rounds. To occupy the
leisure hours, which the tenants of Granite House now had at their
disposal, Cyrus Harding undertook an operation which could be performed
indoors.

We know that the settlers had no other sugar at their disposal than the
liquid substance which they drew from the maple, by making deep incisions
in the tree. They contented themselves with collecting this liquor in jars
and employing it in this state for different culinary purposes, and the
more so, as on growing old, this liquid began to become white and to be of
a syrupy consistence.

But there was something better to be made of it, and one day Cyrus
Harding announced that they were going to turn into refiners.

"Refiners!" replied Pencroft. "That is rather a warm trade, I think."

"Very warm," answered the engineer.

"Then it will be seasonable!" said the sailor.

This word refining need not awake in the mind thoughts of an elaborate
manufactory with apparatus and numerous workmen. No! to crystallize this
liquor, only an extremely easy operation is required. Placed on the fire in
large earthen pots, it was simply subjected to evaporation, and soon a scum
arose to its surface. As soon as this began to thicken, Neb carefully
removed it with a wooden spatula; this accelerated the evaporation, and at
the same time prevented it from contracting an empyreumatic flavor.

After boiling for several hours on a hot fire, which did as much good to
the operators as the substance operated upon, the latter was transformed
into a thick syrup. This syrup was poured into clay molds, previously
fabricated in the kitchen stove, and to which they had given various
shapes. The next day this syrup had become cold, and formed cakes and
tablets. This was sugar of rather a reddish color, but nearly transparent
and of a delicious taste.

The cold continued to the middle of September, and the prisoners in
Granite House began to find their captivity rather tedious. Nearly every
day they attempted sorties which they could not prolong. They constantly
worked at the improvement of their dwelling. They talked while working.
Harding instructed his companions in many things, principally explaining to
them the practical applications of science. The colonists had no library at
their disposal; but the engineer was a book which was always at hand,
always open at the page which one wanted, a book which answered all their
questions, and which they often consulted. The time thus passed away
pleasantly, these brave men not appearing to have any fears for the future.

However, all were anxious to see, if not the fine season, at least the
cessation of the insupportable cold. If only they had been clothed in a way
to meet it, how many excursions they would have attempted, either to the
downs or to Tadorn's Fens! Game would have been easily approached, and the
chase would certainly have been most productive. But Cyrus Harding
considered it of importance that no one should injure his health, for he
had need of all his hands, and his advice was followed.

But it must be said, that the one who was most impatient of this
imprisonment, after Pencroft perhaps, was Top. The faithful dog found
Granite House very narrow. He ran backwards and forwards from one room to
another, showing in his way how weary he was of being shut up. Harding
often remarked that when he approached the dark well which communicated
with the sea, and of which the orifice opened at the back of the storeroom,
Top uttered singular growlings. He ran round and round this hole, which had
been covered with a wooden lid. Sometimes even he tried to put his paws
under the lid, as if he wished to raise it. He then yelped in a peculiar
way, which showed at once anger and uneasiness.

The engineer observed this maneuver several times.

What could there be in this abyss to make such an impression on the
intelligent animal? The well led to the sea, that was certain. Could narrow
passages spread from it through the foundations of the island? Did some
marine monster come from time to time, to breathe at the bottom of this
well? The engineer did not know what to think, and could not refrain from
dreaming of many strange improbabilities. Accustomed to go far into the
regions of scientific reality, he would not allow himself to be drawn into
the regions of the strange and almost of the supernatural; but yet how to
explain why Top, one of those sensible dogs who never waste their time in
barking at the moon, should persist in trying with scent and hearing to
fathom this abyss, if there was nothing there to cause his uneasiness?
Top's conduct puzzled Cyrus Harding even more than he cared to acknowledge
to himself.

At all events, the engineer only communicated his impressions to Gideon
Spilett, for he thought it useless to explain to his companions the
suspicions which arose from what perhaps was only Top's fancy.

At last the cold ceased. There had been rain, squalls mingled with snow,
hailstorms, gusts of wind, but these inclemencies did not last. The ice
melted, the snow disappeared; the shore, the plateau, the banks of the
Mercy, the forest, again became practicable. This return of spring
delighted the tenants of Granite House, and they soon only passed it in the
hours necessary for eating and sleeping.

They hunted much in the second part of September, which led Pencroft to
again entreat for the firearms, which he asserted had been promised by
Cyrus Harding. The latter, knowing well that without special tools it would
be nearly impossible for him to manufacture a gun which would be of any
use, still drew back and put off the operation to some future time,
observing in his usual dry way, that Herbert and Spilett had become very
skilful archers, so that many sorts of excellent animals, agouties,
kangaroos, capybaras, pigeons, bustards, wild ducks, snipes, in short, game
both with fur and feathers, fell victims to their arrows, and that,
consequently, they could wait. But the obstinate sailor would listen to
nothing of this, and he would give the engineer no peace till he promised
to satisfy his desire. Gideon Spilett, however, supported Pencroft.

"If, which may be doubted," said he, "the island is inhabited by wild
beasts, we must think how to fight with and exterminate them. A time may
come when this will be our first duty."

But at this period, it was not the question of firearms which occupied
Harding, but that of clothes. Those which the settlers wore had passed this
winter, but they would not last until next winter. Skins of carnivora or
the wool of ruminants must be procured at any price, and since there were
plenty of musmons, it was agreed to consult on the means of forming a flock
which might be brought up for the use of the colony. An enclosure for the
domestic animals, a poultry-yard for the birds, in a word to establish a
sort of farm in the island, such were the two important projects for the
fine season.

In consequence and in view of these future establishments, it became of
much importance that they should penetrate into all the yet unknown parts
of Lincoln Island, that is to say, through that thick forest which extended
on the right bank of the Mercy, from its mouth to the extremity of the
Serpentine Peninsula, as well as on the whole of its western side. But this
needed settled weather, and a month must pass before this exploration could
be profitably undertaken.

They therefore waited with some impatience, when an incident occurred
which increased the desire the settlers had to visit the whole of their
domain.

It was the 24th of October. On this day, Pencroft had gone to visit his
traps, which he always kept properly baited. In one of them he found three
animals which would be very welcome for the larder. They were a female
peccary and her two young ones.

Pencroft then returned to Granite House, enchanted with his capture, and,
as usual, he made a great show of his game.

"Come, we shall have a grand feast, captain!" he exclaimed. "And you too,
Mr. Spilett, you will eat some!"

"I shall be very happy," replied the reporter; "but what is it that I am
going to eat?"

"Suckling-pig."

"Oh, indeed, suckling-pig, Pencroft? To hear you, I thought that you were
bringing back a young partridge stuffed with truffles!"

"What?" cried Pencroft. "Do you mean to say that you turn up your nose at
suckling-pig?'

"No," replied Gideon Spilett, without showing any enthusiasm; "provided
one doesn't eat too much"

"That's right, that's right," returned the sailor, who was not pleased
whenever he heard his chase made light of. "You like to make objections.
Seven months ago, when we landed on the island, you would have been only
too glad to have met with such game!"

"Well, well," replied the reporter, "man is never perfect, nor
contented."

"Now," said Pencroft, "I hope that Neb will distinguish himself. Look
here! These two little peccaries are not more than three months old! They
will be as tender as quails! Come along, Neb, come! I will look after the
cooking myself."

And the sailor, followed by Neb, entered the kitchen, where they were
soon absorbed in their culinary labors.

They were allowed to do it in their own way. Neb, therefore, prepared a
magnificent repast--the two little peccaries, kangaroo soup, a smoked ham,
stone-pine almonds, Oswego tea; in fact, all the best that they had, but
among all the dishes figured in the first rank the savory peccaries.

At five o'clock dinner was served in the dining-room of Granite House.
The kangaroo soup was smoking on the table. They found it excellent.

To the soup succeeded the peccaries, which Pencroft insisted on carving
himself, and of which he served out monstrous portions to each of the
guests.

These suckling-pigs were really delicious, and Pencroft was devouring his
share with great gusto, when all at once a cry and an oath escaped him.

"What's the matter?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"The matter? the matter is that I have just broken a tooth!" replied the
sailor.

"What, are there pebbles in your peccaries?" said Gideon Spilett.

"I suppose so," replied Pencroft, drawing from his lips the object which
had cost him a grinder!--

It was not a pebble--it was a leaden bullet.





PART 2

ABANDONED



Chapter 1

It was now exactly seven months since the balloon voyagers had been thrown
on Lincoln Island. During that time, notwithstanding the researches they
had made, no human being had been discovered. No smoke even had betrayed
the presence of man on the surface of the island. No vestiges of his
handiwork showed that either at an early or at a late period had man lived
there. Not only did it now appear to be uninhabited by any but themselves,
but the colonists were compelled to believe that it never had been
inhabited. And now, all this scaffolding of reasonings fell before a simple
ball of metal, found in the body of an inoffensive rodent! In fact, this
bullet must have issued from a firearm, and who but a human being could
have used such a weapon?

When Pencroft had placed the bullet on the table, his companions looked
at it with intense astonishment. All the consequences likely to result from
this incident, notwithstanding its apparent insignificance, immediately
took possession of their minds. The sudden apparition of a supernatural
being could not have startled them more completely.

Cyrus Harding did not hesitate to give utterance to the suggestions which
this fact, at once surprising and unexpected, could not fail to raise in
his mind. He took the bullet, turned it over and over, rolled it between
his finger and thumb; then, turning to Pencroft, he asked,--

Are you sure that the peccary wounded by this bullet was not more than
three months old?"

"Not more, captain," replied Pencroft. "It was still sucking its mother
when I found it in the trap."

"Well," said the engineer, "that proves that within three months a gun-
shot was fired in Lincoln Island."

"And that a bullet," added Gideon Spilett, "wounded, though not mortally,
this little animal."

"That is unquestionable," said Cyrus Harding, "and these are the
deductions which must be drawn from this incident: that the island was
inhabited before our arrival, or that men have landed here within three
months. Did these men arrive here voluntarily or involuntarily, by
disembarking on the shore or by being wrecked? This point can only be
cleared up later. As to what they were, Europeans or Malays, enemies or
friends of our race, we cannot possibly guess; and if they still inhabit
the island, or if they have left it, we know not. But these questions are
of too much importance to be allowed to remain long unsettled."

"No! a hundred times no! a thousand times no!" cried the sailor,
springing up from the table. "There are no other men than ourselves on
Lincoln Island! By my faith! The island isn't large and if it had been
inhabited, we should have seen some of the inhabitants long before this!"

"In fact, the contrary would be very astonishing," said Herbert.

"But it would be much more astonishing, I should think, observed the
reporter, "if this peccary had been born with a bullet in its inside!"

"At least," said Neb seriously, "if Pencroft has not had--"

"Look here, Neb," burst out Pencroft. "Do you think I could have a bullet
in my jaw for five or six months without finding it out? Where could it be
hidden?" he asked, opening his mouth to show the two-and-thirty teeth with
which it was furnished. "Look well, Neb, and if you find one hollow tooth
in this set, I will let you pull out half a dozen!"

"Neb's supposition is certainly inadmissible," replied Harding, who,
notwithstanding the gravity of his thoughts, could not restrain a smile.
"It is certain that a gun has been fired in the island, within three months
at most. But I am inclined to think that the people who landed on this
coast were only here a very short time ago, or that they just touched here;
for if, when we surveyed the island from the summit of Mount Franklin, it
had been inhabited, we should have seen them or we should have been seen
ourselves. It is therefore, probable that within only a few weeks castaways
have been thrown by a storm on some part of the coast. However that may
be, it is of consequence to us to have this point settled."

"I think that we should act with caution," said the reporter.

"Such is my advice," replied Cyrus Harding, "for it is to be feared that
Malay pirates have landed on the island!"

"Captain," asked the sailor, "would it not be a good plan, before setting
out, to build a canoe in which we could either ascend the river, or, if we
liked, coast round the inland? It will not do to be unprovided."

"Your idea is good, Pencroft," replied the engineer, "but we cannot wait
for that. It would take at least a month to build a boat."

"Yes, a real boat," replied the sailor;  "but we do not want one for a
sea voyage, and in five days at the most, I will undertake to construct a
canoe fit to navigate the Mercy."

"Five days," cried Neb, "to build a boat?"

"Yes, Neb; a boat in the Indian fashion."

"Of wood?" asked the Negro, looking still unconvinced.

"Of wood," replied Pencroft, "of rather of bark. I repeat, captain, that
in five days the work will be finished!"

"In five days, then, be it," replied the engineer.

"But till that time we must be very watchful," said Herbert.

"Very watchful indeed, my friends," replied Harding; "and I beg you to
confine your hunting excursions to the neighborhood of Granite House."

The dinner ended less gaily than Pencroft had hoped.

So, then, the island was, or had been, inhabited by others than the
settlers. Proved as it was by the incident of the bullet, it was hereafter
an unquestionable fact, and such a discovery could not but cause great
uneasiness among the colonists.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett, before sleeping, conversed long about
the matter. They asked themselves if by chance this incident might not have
some connection with the inexplicable way in which the engineer had been
saved, and the other peculiar circumstances which had struck them at
different times. However, Cyrus Harding, after having discussed the pros
and cons of the question, ended by saying,--

"In short, would you like to know my opinion, my dear Spilett?"

"Yes, Cyrus."

"Well, then, it is this: however minutely we explore the island, we
shall find nothing."

The next day Pencroft set to work. He did not mean to build a boat with
boards and planking, but simply a flat-bottomed canoe, which would be well
suited for navigating the Mercy--above all, for approaching its source,
where the water would naturally be shallow. Pieces of bark, fastened one to
the other, would form a light boat; and in case of natural obstacles, which
would render a portage necessary, it would be easily carried. Pencroft
intended to secure the pieces of bark by means of nails, to insure the
canoe being water-tight.

It was first necessary to select the trees which would afford a strong
and supple bark for the work. Now the last storm had brought down a number
of large birch-trees, the bark of which would be perfectly suited for their
purpose. Some of these trees lay on the ground, and they had only to be
barked, which was the most difficult thing of all, owing to the imperfect
tools which the settlers possessed. However, they overcame all
difficulties.

While the sailor, seconded by the engineer, thus occupied himself without
losing an hour, Gideon Spilett and Herbert were not idle.

They were made purveyors to the colony. The reporter could not but admire
the boy, who had acquired great skill in handling the bow and spear.
Herbert also showed great courage and much of that presence of mind which
may justly be called "the reasoning of bravery." These two companions of
the chase, remembering Cyrus Harding's recommendations, did not go beyond a
radius of two miles round Granite House; but the borders of the forest
furnished a sufficient tribute of agoutis, capybaras, kangaroos, peccaries,
etc.; and if the result from the traps was less than during the cold, still
the warren yielded its accustomed quota, which might have fed all the
colony in Lincoln Island.

Often during these excursions, Herbert talked with Gideon Spilett on the
incident of the bullet, and the deductions which the engineer drew from it,
and one day--it was the 26th of October--he said--"But, Mr. Spilett, do you
not think it very extraordinary that, if any castaways have landed on the
island, they have not yet shown themselves near Granite House?"

"Very astonishing if they are still here," replied the reporter, "but not
astonishing at all if they are here no longer!"

"So you think that these people have already quitted the island?"
returned Herbert.

"It is more than probable, my boy; for if their stay was prolonged, and
above all, if they were still here, some accident would have at last
betrayed their presence."

"But if they were able to go away," observed the lad, "they could not
have been castaways."

"No, Herbert; or, at least, they were what might be called provisional
castaways. It is very possible that a storm may have driven them to the
island without destroying their vessel, and that, the storm over, they went
away again."

"I must acknowledge one thing," said Herbert, "it is that Captain Harding
appears rather to fear than desire the presence of human beings on our
island."

"In short," responded the reporter, "there are only Malays who frequent
these seas, and those fellows are ruffians which it is best to avoid."

"It is not impossible, Mr. Spilett," said Herbert, "that some day or
other we may find traces of their landing."

"I do not say no, my boy. A deserted camp, the ashes of a fire, would put
us on the track, and this is what we will look for in our next expedition."

The day on which the hunters spoke thus, they were in a part of the
forest near the Mercy, remarkable for its beautiful trees. There, among
others, rose, to a height of nearly 200 feet above the ground, some of
those superb coniferae, to which, in New Zealand, the natives give the name
of Kauris.

"I have an idea, Mr. Spilett," said Herbert. "If I were to climb to the
top of one of these kauris, I could survey the country for an immense
distance round."

"The idea is good," replied the reporter; "but could you climb to the top
of those giants?"

"I can at least try," replied Herbert.

The light and active boy then sprang on the first branches, the
arrangement of which made the ascent of the kauri easy, and in a few
minutes he arrived at the summit, which emerged from the immense plain of
verdure.

From this elevated situation his gaze extended over all the southern
portion of the island, from Claw Cape on the southeast, to Reptile End on
the southwest. To the northwest rose Mount Franklin, which concealed a
great part of the horizon.

But Herbert, from the height of his observatory, could examine all the
yet unknown portion of the island, which might have given shelter to the
strangers whose presence they suspected.

The lad looked attentively. There was nothing in sight on the sea, not a
sail, neither on the horizon nor near the island. However, as the bank of
trees hid the shore, it was possible that a vessel, especially if deprived
of her masts, might lie close to the land and thus be invisible to Herbert.

Neither in the forests of the Far West was anything to be seen. The wood
formed an impenetrable screen, measuring several square miles, without a
break or an opening. It was impossible even to follow the course of the
Mercy, or to ascertain in what part of the mountain it took its source.
Perhaps other creeks also ran towards the west, but they could not be seen.

But at last, if all indication of an encampment escaped Herbert's sight
could he not even catch a glimpse of smoke, the faintest trace of which
would be easily discernible in the pure atmosphere?

For an instant Herbert thought he could perceive a slight smoke in the
west, but a more attentive examination showed that he was mistaken. He
strained his eyes in every direction, and his sight was excellent. No,
decidedly there was nothing there.

Herbert descended to the foot of the kauri, and the two sportsmen
returned to Granite House. There Cyrus Harding listened to the lad's
account, shook his head and said nothing. It was very evident that no
decided opinion could be pronounced on this question until after a complete
exploration of the island.

Two days after--the 28th of October--another incident occurred, for which
an explanation was again required.

While strolling along the shore about two miles from Granite House,
Herbert and Neb were fortunate enough to capture a magnificent specimen of
the order of chelonia. It was a turtle of the species Midas, the edible
green turtle, so called from the color both of its shell and fat.

Herbert caught sight of this turtle as it was crawling among the rocks to
reach the sea.

"Help, Neb, help!" he cried.

Neb ran up.

"What a fine animal!" said Neb; "but how are we to catch it?"

"Nothing is easier, Neb," replied Herbert. "We have only to turn the
turtle on its back, and it cannot possibly get away. Take your spear and do
as I do."

The reptile, aware of danger, had retired between its carapace and
plastron. They no longer saw its head or feet, and it was motionless as a
rock.

Herbert and Neb then drove their sticks underneath the animal, and by
their united efforts managed without difficulty to turn it on its back. The
turtle, which was three feet in length, would have weighed at least four
hundred pounds.

"Capital!" cried Neb; "this is something which will rejoice friend
Pencroft's heart."

In fact, the heart of friend Pencroft could not fail to be rejoiced, for
the flesh of the turtle, which feeds on wrack-grass, is extremely savory.
At this moment the creature's head could be seen, which was small, flat,
but widened behind by the large temporal fossae hidden under the long roof.

"And now, what shall we do with our prize?" said Neb. "We can't drag it
to Granite House!"

"Leave it here, since it cannot turn over," replied Herbert, "and we will
come back with the cart to fetch it."

"That is the best plan."

However, for greater precaution, Herbert took the trouble, which Neb
deemed superfluous, to wedge up the animal with great stones; after which
the two hunters returned to Granite House, following the beach, which the
tide had left uncovered. Herbert, wishing to surprise Pencroft, said
nothing about the "superb specimen of a chelonian" which they had turned
over on the sand; but, two hours later, he and Neb returned with the cart
to the place where they had left it. The "superb specimen of a chelonian"
was no longer there!

Neb and Herbert stared at each other first; then they stared about them.
It was just at this spot that the turtle had been left. The lad even found
the stones which he had used, and therefore he was certain of not being
mistaken.

"Well!" said Neb, "these beasts can turn themselves over, then?''

"It appears so," replied Herbert, who could not understand it at all, and
was gazing at the stones scattered on the sand.

"Well, Pencroft will be disgusted!"

"And Captain Harding will perhaps be very perplexed how to explain this
disappearance," thought Herbert.

"Look here," said Neb, who wished to hide his ill-luck, "we won't speak
about it."

"On the contrary, Neb, we must speak about it," replied Herbert.

And the two, taking the cart, which there was now no use for, returned to
Granite House.

Arrived at the dockyard, where the engineer and the sailor were working
together, Herbert recounted what had happened.

"Oh! the stupids!" cried the sailor, "to have let at least fifty meals
escape!"

"But, Pencroft," replied Neb, "it wasn't our fault that the beast got
away; as I tell you, we had turned it over on its back!"

"Then you didn't turn it over enough!" returned the obstinate sailor.

"Not enough!" cried Herbert.

And he told how he had taken care to wedge up the turtle with stones.

"It is a miracle, then!" replied Pencroft.

"I thought, captain," said Herbert, "that turtles, once placed on their
backs, could not regain their feet, especially when they are of a large
size?'

"That is true, my boy," replied Cyrus Harding.

"Then how did it manage?"

"At what distance from the sea did you leave this turtle?" asked the
engineer, who, having suspended his work, was reflecting on this incident.

"Fifteen feet at the most," replied Herbert.

"And the tide was low at the time?"

"Yes, captain."

"Well," replied the engineer, "what the turtle could not do on the sand
it might have been able to do in the water. It turned over when the tide
overtook it, and then quietly returned to the deep sea."

"Oh! what stupids we were!" cried Neb.

"That is precisely what I had the honor of telling you before!" returned
the sailor.

Cyrus Harding had given this explanation, which, no doubt, was
admissible. But was he himself convinced of the accuracy of this
explanation? It cannot be said that he was.



Chapter 2

On the 9th of October the bark canoe was entirely finished. Pencroft had
kept his promise, and a light boat, the shell of which was joined together
by the flexible twigs of the crejimba, had been constructed in five days. A
seat in the stern, a second seat in the middle to preserve the equilibrium,
a third seat in the bows, rowlocks for the two oars, a scull to steer with,
completed the little craft, which was twelve feet long, and did not weigh
more than two hundred pounds. The operation of launching it was extremely
simple. The canoe was carried to the beach and laid on the sand before
Granite House, and the rising tide floated it. Pencroft, who leaped in
directly, maneuvered it with the scull and declared it to be just the
thing for the purpose to which they wished to put it.

"Hurrah!" cried the sailor, who did not disdain to celebrate thus his own
triumph. "With this we could go round--"

"The world?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"No, the island. Some stones for ballast, a mast and a sail, which the
captain will make for us some day, and we shall go splendidly! Well,
captain--and you, Mr. Spilett; and you, Herbert; and you, Neb--aren't you
coming to try our new vessel? Come along! we must see if it will carry all
five of us!"

This was certainly a trial which ought to be made. Pencroft soon brought
the canoe to the shore by a narrow passage among the rocks, and it was
agreed that they should make a trial of the boat that day by following the
shore as far as the first point at which the rocks of the south ended.

As they embarked, Neb cried,--

"But your boat leaks rather, Pencroft."

"That's nothing, Neb," replied the sailor; "the wood will get seasoned.
In two days there won't be a single leak, and our boat will have no more
water in her than there is in the stomach of a drunkard. Jump in!"

They were soon all seated, and Pencroft shoved off. The weather was
magnificent, the sea as calm as if its waters were contained within the
narrow limits of a lake. Thus the boat could proceed with as much security
as if it was ascending the tranquil current of the Mercy.

Neb took one of the oars, Herbert the other, and Pencroft remained in the
stern in order to use the scull.

The sailor first crossed the channel, and steered close to the southern
point of the islet. A light breeze blew from the south. No roughness was
found either in the channel or the green sea. A long swell, which the canoe
scarcely felt, as it was heavily laden, rolled regularly over the surface
of the water. They pulled out about half a mile distant from the shore,
that they might have a good view of Mount Franklin.

Pencroft afterwards returned towards the mouth of the river. The boat
then skirted the shore, which, extending to the extreme point, hid all
Tadorn's Fens.

This point, of which the distance was increased by the irregularity of
the coast, was nearly three miles from the Mercy. The settlers resolved to
go to its extremity, and only go beyond it as much as was necessary to take
a rapid survey of the coast as far as Claw Cape.

The canoe followed the windings of the shore, avoiding the rocks which
fringed it, and which the rising tide began to cover. The cliff gradually
sloped away from the mouth of the river to the point. This was formed of
granite reeks, capriciously distributed, very different from the cliff at
Prospect Heights, and of an extremely wild aspect. It might have been said
that an immense cartload of rocks had been emptied out there. There was no
vegetation on this sharp promontory, which projected two miles from the
forest, and it thus represented a giant's arm stretched out from a leafy
sleeve.

The canoe, impelled by the two oars, advanced without difficulty. Gideon
Spilett, pencil in one hand and notebook in the other, sketched the coast in
bold strokes. Neb, Herbert, and Pencroft chatted, while examining this part
of their domain, which was new to them, and, in proportion as the canoe
proceeded towards the south, the two Mandible Capes appeared to move, and
surround Union Bay more closely.

As to Cyrus Harding, he did not speak; he simply gazed, and by the
mistrust which his look expressed, it appeared that he was examining some
strange country.

In the meantime, after a voyage of three-quarters of an hour, the canoe
reached the extremity of the point, and Pencroft was preparing to return,
when Herbert, rising, pointed to a black object, saying,--

"What do I see down there on the beach?"

All eyes turned towards the point indicated.

"Why," said the reporter, "there is something. It looks like part of a
wreck half buried in the sand."

"Ah!" cried Pencroft, "I see what it is!"

"What?" asked Neb.

"Barrels, barrels, which perhaps are full," replied the sailor.

"Pull to the shore, Pencroft!" said Cyrus.

A few strokes of the oar brought the canoe into a little creek, and its
passengers leaped on shore.

Pencroft was not mistaken. Two barrels were there, half buried in the
sand, but still firmly attached to a large chest, which, sustained by them,
had floated to the moment when it stranded on the beach.

"There has been a wreck, then, in some part of the island," said Herbert.

"Evidently," replied Spilett.

"But what's in this chest?" cried Pencroft, with very natural impatience.
"What's in this chest? It is shut up, and nothing to open it with! Well,
perhaps a stone--"

And the sailor, raising a heavy block, was about to break in one of the
sides of the chest, when the engineer arrested his hand.

"Pencroft," said he, "can you restrain your impatience for one hour
only?"

But, captain, just think! Perhaps there is everything we want in there!"

"We shall find that out, Pencroft," replied the engineer; "but trust to
me, and do not break the chest, which may be useful to us. We must convey
it to Granite House, where we can open it easily, and without breaking it.
It is quite prepared for a voyage; and since it has floated here, it may
just as well float to the mouth of the river."

"You are right, captain, and I was wrong, as usual," replied the sailor.

The engineer's advice was good. In fact, the canoe probably would not
have been able to contain the articles possibly enclosed in the chest,
which doubtless was heavy, since two empty barrels were required to buoy it
up. It was, therefore, much better to tow it to the beach at Granite House.

And now, whence had this chest come? That was the important question.
Cyrus Harding and his companions looked attentively around them, and
examined the shore for several hundred steps. No other articles or pieces
of wreck could be found. Herbert and Neb climbed a high rock to survey the
sea, but there was nothing in sight--neither a dismasted vessel nor a ship
under sail.

However, there was no doubt that there had been a wreck. Perhaps this
incident was connected with that of the bullet? Perhaps strangers had
landed on another part of the island? Perhaps they were still there? But
the thought which came naturally to the settlers was, that these strangers
could not be Malay pirates, for the chest was evidently of American or
European make.

All the party returned to the chest, which was of an unusually large
size. It was made of oak wood, very carefully closed and covered with a
thick hide, which was secured by copper nails. The two great barrels,
hermetically sealed, but which sounded hollow and empty, were fastened to
its sides by strong ropes, knotted with a skill which Pencroft directly
pronounced sailors alone could exhibit. It appeared to be in a perfect
state of preservation, which was explained by the fact that it had stranded
on a sandy beach, and not among rocks. They had no doubt whatever, on
examining it carefully, that it had not been long in the water, and that
its arrival on this coast was recent. The water did not appear to have
penetrated to the inside, and the articles which it contained were no doubt
uninjured.

It was evident that this chest had been thrown overboard from some
dismasted vessel driven towards the island, and that, in the hope that it
would reach the land, where they might afterwards find it, the passengers
had taken the precaution to buoy it up by means of this floating apparatus.

"We will tow this chest to Granite House," said the engineer, "where we
can make an inventory of its contents; then, if we discover any of the
survivors from the supposed wreck, we can return it to those to whom it
belongs. If we find no one--"

"We will keep it for ourselves!" cried Pencroft. "But what in the world
can there be in it?"

The sea was already approaching the chest, and the high tide would
evidently float it. One of the ropes which fastened the barrels was partly
unlashed and used as a cable to unite the floating apparatus with the
canoe. Pencroft and Neb then dug away the sand with their oars, so as to
facilitate the moving of the chest, towing which the boat soon began to
double the point, to which the name of Flotsam Point was given.

The chest was heavy, and the barrels were scarcely sufficient to keep it
above water. The sailor also feared every instant that it would get loose
and sink to the bottom of the sea. But happily his fears were not realized,
and an hour and a half after they set out--all that time had been taken up
in going a distance of three miles--the boat touched the beach below Granite
House.

Canoe and chest were then hauled up on the sands; and as the tide was
then going out, they were soon left high and dry. Neb, hurrying home,
brought back some tools with which to open the chest in such a way that it
might be injured as little as possible, and they proceeded to its
inventory. Pencroft did not try to hide that he was greatly excited.

The sailor began by detaching the two barrels, which, being in good
condition, would of course be of use. Then the locks were forced with a
cold chisel and hammer, and the lid thrown back. A second casing of zinc
lined the interior of the chest, which had been evidently arranged that the
articles which it enclosed might under any circumstances be sheltered from
damp.

"Oh!" cried Neb, "suppose it's jam!

"I hope not," replied the reporter.

"If only there was--" said the sailor in a low voice.

"What?" asked Neb, who overheard him.

"Nothing!"

The covering of zinc was torn off and thrown back over the sides of the
chest, and by degrees numerous articles of very varied character were
produced and strewn about on the sand. At each new object Pencroft uttered
fresh hurrahs, Herbert clapped his hands, and Neb danced up and down. There
were books which made Herbert wild with joy, and cooking utensils which Neb
covered with kisses!

In short, the colonists had reason to be extremely satisfied, for this
chest contained tools, weapons, instruments, clothes, books; and this is
the exact list of them as stated in Gideon Spilett's note-book:

--Tools:--3 knives with several blades, 2 woodmen's axes, 2 carpenter's
hatchets, 3 planes, 2 adzes, 1 twibil or mattock, 6 chisels, 2 files, 3
hammers, 3 gimlets, 2 augers, 10 bags of nails and screws, 3 saws of
different sizes, 2 boxes of needles.

Weapons:--2 flint-lock guns, 2 for percussion caps, 2 breach-loader
carbines, 5 boarding cutlasses, 4 sabers, 2 barrels of powder, each
containing twenty-five pounds; 12 boxes of percussion caps.

Instruments:--1 sextant, 1 double opera-glass, 1 telescope, 1 box of
mathematical instruments, 1 mariner's compass, 1 Fahrenheit thermometer, 1
aneroid barometer, 1 box containing a photographic apparatus, object-glass,
plates, chemicals, etc.

Clothes:-2 dozen shirts of a peculiar material resembling wool, but
evidently of a vegetable origin; 3 dozen stockings of the same material.

Utensils:-1 iron pot, 6 copper saucepans, 3 iron dishes, 10 metal plates,
2 kettles, 1 portable stove, 6 table-knives,

Books:-1 Bible, 1 atlas, 1 dictionary of the different Polynesian idioms,
1 dictionary of natural science, in six volumes; 3 reams of white paper, 2
books with blank pages.

"It must be allowed," said the reporter, after the inventory had been
made, "that the owner of this chest was a practical man! Tools, weapons,
instruments, clothes, utensils, books--nothing is wanting! It might really
be said that he expected to be wrecked, and had prepared for it
beforehand."

"Nothing is wanting, indeed," murmured Cyrus Harding thoughtfully.

"And for a certainty," added Herbert, "the vessel which carried this
chest and its owner was not a Malay pirate!"

"Unless," said Pencroft, "the owner had been taken prisoner by pirates--"

"That is not admissible," replied the reporter. "It is more probable that
an American or European vessel has been driven into this quarter, and that
her passengers, wishing to save necessaries at least, prepared this chest
and threw it overboard."

"Is that your opinion, captain?" asked Herbert.

"Yes, my boy," replied the engineer, "that may have been the case. It is
possible that at the moment, or in expectation of a wreck, they collected
into this chest different articles of the greatest use in hopes of finding
it again on the coast--"

"Even the photographic box!" exclaimed the sailor incredulously.

"As to that apparatus," replied Harding, "I do not quite see the use of
it; and a more complete supply of clothes or more abundant ammunition would
have been more valuable to us as well as to any other castaways!"

"But isn't there any mark or direction on these instruments, tools, or
books, which would tell us something about them?" asked Gideon Spilett.

That might be ascertained. Each article was carefully examined,
especially the books, instruments and weapons. Neither the weapons nor the
instruments, contrary to the usual custom, bore the name of the maker; they
were, besides, in a perfect state, and did not appear to have been used.
The same peculiarity marked the tools and utensils; all were new, which
proved that the articles had not been taken by chance and thrown into the
chest, but, on the contrary, that the choice of things had been well
considered and arranged with care. This was also indicated by the second
case of metal which had preserved them from damp, and which could not have
been soldered in a moment of haste.

As to the dictionaries of natural science and Polynesian idioms, both
were English; but they neither bore the name of the publisher nor the date
of publication.

The same with the Bible printed in English, in quarto, remarkable from a
typographic point of view, and which appeared to have been often used.

The atlas was a magnificent work, comprising maps of every country in the
world, and several planispheres arranged upon Mercator's projection, and of
which the nomenclature was in French--but which also bore neither date nor
name of publisher.

There was nothing, therefore, on these different articles by which they
could be traced, and nothing consequently of a nature to show the
nationality of the vessel which must have recently passed these shores.

But, wherever the chest might have come from, it was a treasure to the
settlers on Lincoln Island. Till then, by making use of the productions of
nature, they had created everything for themselves, and, thanks to their
intelligence, they had managed without difficulty. But did it not appear as
if Providence had wished to reward them by sending them these productions
of human industry? Their thanks rose unanimously to Heaven.

However, one of them was not quite satisfied: it was Pencroft. It
appeared that the chest did not contain something which he evidently held
in great esteem, for in proportion as they approached the bottom of the
box, his hurrahs diminished in heartiness, and, the inventory finished, he
was heard to mutter these words:--"That's all very fine, but you can see
that there is nothing for me in that box!"

This led Neb to say,--

"Why, friend Pencroft, what more do you expect?"

"Half a pound of tobacco," replied Pencroft seriously, "and nothing would
have been wanting to complete my happiness!"

No one could help laughing at this speech of the sailor's.

But the result of this discovery of the chest was, that it was now more
than ever necessary to explore the island thoroughly. It was therefore
agreed that the next morning at break of day, they should set out, by
ascending the Mercy so as to reach the western shore. If any castaways had
landed on the coast, it was to be feared they were without resources, and
it was therefore the more necessary to carry help to them without delay.

During the day the different articles were carried to Granite House,
where they were methodically arranged in the great hall. This day--the 29th
of October--happened to be a Sunday, and, before going to bed, Herbert asked
the engineer if he would not read them something from the Gospel.

"Willingly," replied Cyrus Harding.

He took the sacred volume, and was about to open it, when Pencroft
stopped him, saying,--"Captain, I am superstitious. Open at random and read
the first verse which, your eye falls upon. We will see if it applies to
our situation."

Cyrus Harding smiled at the sailor's idea, and, yielding to his wish, he
opened exactly at a place where the leaves were separated by a marker.

Immediately his eyes were attracted by a cross which, made with a pencil,
was placed against the eighth verse of the seventh chapter of the Gospel of
St. Matthew. He read the verse, which was this:--

"For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth."



Chapter 3

The next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring
expedition, which recent events had rendered so necessary. In fact, things
had so come about that the settlers in Lincoln Island no longer needed help
for themselves, but were even able to carry it to others.

It was therefore agreed that they should ascend the Mercy as far as the
river was navigable. A great part of the distance would thus be traversed
without fatigue, and the explorers could transport their provisions and
arms to an advanced point in the west of the island.

It was necessary to think not only of the things which they should take
with them, but also of those which they might have by chance to bring back
to Granite House. If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was supposed,
there would be many things cast up, which would be lawfully their prizes.
In the event of this, the cart would have been of more use than the light
canoe, but it was heavy and clumsy to drag, and therefore more difficult to
use; this led Pencroft to express his regret that the chest had not
contained, besides "his halfpound of tobacco," a pair of strong New Jersey
horses, which would have been very useful to the colony!

The provisions, which Neb had already packed up, consisted of a store of
meat and of several gallons of beer, that is to say enough to sustain them
for three days, the time which Harding assigned for the expedition. They
hoped besides to supply themselves on the road, and Neb took care not to
forget the portable stove.

The only tools the settlers took were the two woodmen's axes, which they
could use to cut a path through the thick forests, as also the instruments,
the telescope and pocket-compass.

For weapons they selected the two flint-lock guns, which were likely to
be more useful to them than the percussion fowling-pieces, the first only
requiring flints which could be easily replaced, and the latter needing
fulminating caps, a frequent use of which would soon exhaust their limited
stock. However, they took also one of the carbines and some cartridges. As
to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a small
supply of it had to be taken, but the engineer hoped to manufacture an
explosive substance which would allow them to husband it. To the firearms
were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus supplied,
the settlers could venture into the vast forest with some chance of
success.

It is useless to add that Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, thus armed, were at
the summit of their happiness, although Cyrus Harding made them promise not
to fire a shot unless it was necessary.

At six in the morning the canoe put off from the shore; all had embarked,
including Top, and they proceeded to the mouth of the Mercy.

The tide had begun to come up half an hour before. For several hours,
therefore, there would be a current, which it was well to profit by, for
later the ebb would make it difficult to ascend the river. The tide was
already strong, for in three days the moon would be full, and it was enough
to keep the boat in the center of the current, where it floated swiftly
along between the high banks without its being necessary to increase its
speed by the aid of the oars. In a few minutes the explorers arrived at the
angle formed by the Mercy and exactly at the place where, seven months
before, Pencroft had made his first raft of wood.

After this sudden angle the river widened and flowed under the shade of
great evergreen firs.

The aspect of the banks was magnificent. Cyrus Harding and his companions
could not but admire the lovely effects so easily produced by nature with
water and trees. As they advanced the forest element diminished. On the
right bank of the river grew magnificent specimens of the ulmaceae tribe,
the precious elm, so valuable to builders, and which withstands well the
action of water. Then there were numerous groups belonging to the same
family, among others one in particular, the fruit of which produces a very
useful oil. Further on, Herbert remarked the lardizabala, a twining shrub
which, when bruised in water, furnishes excellent cordage; and two or three
ebony trees of a beautiful black, crossed with capricious veins.

From time to time, in certain places where the landing was easy, the
canoe was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft, their guns
in their hands, and preceded by Top, jumped on shore. Without expecting
game, some useful plant might be met with, and the young naturalist was
delighted with discovering a sort of wild spinach, belonging to the order
of chenopodiaceae, and numerous specimens of cruciferae, belonging to the
cabbage tribe, which it would certainly be possible to cultivate by
transplanting. There were cresses, horseradish, turnips, and lastly, little
branching hairy stalks, scarcely more than three feet high, which produced
brownish grains.

Do you know what this plant is?" asked Herbert of the sailor.

"Tobacco!" cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favorite
plant except in the bowl of his pipe.

"No, Pencroft," replied Herbert; "this is not tobacco, it is mustard."

"Mustard be hanged!" returned the sailor; "but if by chance you happen to
come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don't scorn that!"

"We shall find it some day!" said Gideon Spilett.

"Well!" exclaimed Pencroft, "when that day comes, I do not know what more
will be wanting in our island!"

These different plants, which had been carefully rooted up, were carried
to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had remained buried in thought.

The reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft in this manner frequently
disembarked, sometimes on the right bank, sometimes on the left bank of the
Mercy.

The latter was less abrupt, but the former more wooded. The engineer
ascertained by consulting his pocket-compass that the direction of the
river from the first turn was obviously southwest and northeast, and nearly
straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be supposed that
this direction changed beyond that point, and that the Mercy continued to
the north-west, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the river
rose.

During one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two
couples of living gallinaceae. They were birds with long, thin beaks,
lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail.
Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamous, and it was resolved that
they should be the first tenants of their future poultry-yard.

But till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke
the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of
a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher.

"I recognize him!" cried Pencroft, and it seemed as if his gun went off
by itself.

"What do you recognize?" asked the reporter.

"The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and from which we gave
the name to that part of the forest."

"A jacamar!" cried Herbert.

It was indeed a jacamar, of which the plumage shines with a metallic
luster. A shot brought it to the ground, and Top carried it to the canoe.
At the same time half a dozen lories were brought down. The lory is of the
size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings crimson,
and its crest bordered with white. To the young boy belonged the honor of
this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lories are better food than the
jacamar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was difficult to
persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds. It was
ten o'clock in the morning when the canoe reached a second angle of the
Mercy, nearly five miles from its mouth. Here a halt was made for breakfast
under the shade of some splendid trees. The river still measured from sixty
to seventy feet in breadth, and its bed from five to six feet in depth. The
engineer had observed that it was increased by numerous affluents, but they
were unnavigable, being simply little streams. As to the forest, including
Jacamar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far West, it extended as far as
the eye could reach. In no place, either in the depths of the forests or
under the trees on the banks of the Mercy, was the presence of man
revealed. The explorers could not discover one suspicious trace. It was
evident that the woodman's axe had never touched these trees, that the
pioneer's knife had never severed the creepers hanging from one trunk to
another in the midst of tangled brushwood and long grass. If castaways had
landed on the island, they could not have yet quitted the shore, and it was
not in the woods that the survivors of the supposed shipwreck should be
sought.

The engineer therefore manifested some impatience to reach the western
coast of Lincoln Island, which was at least five miles distant according to
his estimation.

The voyage was continued, and as the Mercy appeared to flow not towards
the shore, but rather towards Mount Franklin, it was decided that they
should use the boat as long as there was enough water under its keel to
float it. It was both fatigue spared and time gained, for they would have
been obliged to cut a path through the thick wood with their axes. But soon
the flow completely failed them, either the tide was going down, and it was
about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this distance from the
mouth of the Mercy. They had therefore to make use of the oars. Herbert and
Neb each took one, and Pencroft took the scull. The forest soon became less
dense, the trees grew further apart and often quite isolated. But the
further they were from each other the more magnificent they appeared,
profiting, as they did, by the free, pure air which circulated around them.

What splendid specimens of the flora of this latitude! Certainly their
presence would have been enough for a botanist to name without hesitation
the parallel which traversed Lincoln Island.

"Eucalypti!" cried Herbert.

They were, in fact, those splendid trees, the giants of the extratropical
zone, the congeners of the Australian and New Zealand eucalyptus, both
situated under the same latitude as Lincoln Island. Some rose to a height
of two hundred feet. Their trunks at the base measured twenty feet in
circumference, and their bark was covered by a network of farrows
containing a red, sweet-smelling gum. Nothing is more wonderful or more
singular than those enormous specimens of the order of the myrtaceae, with
their leaves placed vertically and not horizontally, so that an edge and
not a surface looks upwards, the effect being that the sun's rays penetrate
more freely among the trees.

The ground at the foot of the eucalypti was carpeted with grass, and from
the bushes escaped flights of little birds, which glittered in the sunlight
like winged rubies.

"These are something like trees!" cried Neb; "but are they good for
anything?"

"Pooh!" replied Pencroft. "Of course there are vegetable giants as well
as human giants, and they are no good, except to show themselves at fairs!"

"I think that you are mistaken, Pencroft," replied Gideon Spilett, "and
that the wood of the eucalyptus has begun to be very advantageously
employed in cabinet-making."

"And I may add," said Herbert, "that the eucalyptus belongs to a family
which comprises many useful members; the guava-tree, from whose fruit guava
jelly is made; the clove-tree, which produces the spice; the pomegranate-
tree, which bears pomegranates; the Eugeacia Cauliflora, the fruit of which
is used in making a tolerable wine; the Ugui myrtle, which contains an
excellent alcoholic liquor; the Caryophyllus myrtle, of which the bark
forms an esteemed cinnamon; the Eugenia Pimenta, from whence comes Jamaica
pepper; the common myrtle, from whose buds and berries spice is sometimes
made; the Eucalyptus manifera, which yields a sweet sort of manna; the
Guinea Eucalyptus, the sap of which is transformed into beer by
fermentation; in short, all those trees known under the name of gum-trees
or iron-bark trees in Australia, belong to this family of the myrtaceae,
which contains forty-six genera and thirteen hundred species!"

The lad was allowed to run on, and he delivered his little botanical
lecture with great animation. Cyrus Harding listened smiling, and Pencroft
with an indescribable feeling of pride.

"Very good, Herbert," replied Pencroft, "but I could swear that all those
useful specimens you have just told us about are none of them giants like
these!"

"That is true, Pencroft."

"That supports what I said," returned the sailor, "namely, that these
giants are good for nothing!"

"There you are wrong, Pencroft," said the engineer; "these gigantic
eucalypti, which shelter us, are good for something."

"And what is that?"

"To render the countries which they inhabit healthy. Do you know what
they are called in Australia and New Zealand?"

"No, captain."

"They are called 'fever trees.'"

"Because they give fevers?"

"No, because they prevent them!"

"Good. I must note that," said the reporter.

"Note it then, my dear Spilett; for it appears proved that the presence
of the eucalyptus is enough to neutralize miasmas. This natural antidote
has been tried in certain countries in the middle of Europe and the north
of Africa where the soil was absolutely unhealthy, and the sanitary
condition of the inhabitants has been gradually ameliorated. No more
intermittent fevers prevail in the regions now covered with forests of the
myrtaceae. This fact is now beyond doubt, and it is a happy circumstance
for us settlers in Lincoln Island."

"Ah! what an island! What a blessed island!" cried Pencroft. "I tell you,
it wants nothing--unless it is--"

"That will come, Pencroft, that will be found," replied the engineer;
"but now we must continue our voyage and push on as far as the river will
carry our boat!"

The exploration was therefore continued for another two miles in the
midst of country covered with eucalypti, which predominated in the woods of
this portion of the island. The space which they occupied extended as far
as the eye could reach on each side of the Mercy, which wound along between
high green banks. The bed was often obstructed by long weeds, and even by
pointed rocks, which rendered the navigation very difficult. The action of
the oars was prevented, and Pencroft was obliged to push with a pole. They
found also that the water was becoming shallower and shallower, and that
the canoe must soon stop. The sun was already sinking towards the horizon,
and the trees threw long shadows on the ground. Cyrus Harding, seeing that
he could not hope to reach the western coast of the island in one journey,
resolved to camp at the place where any further navigation was prevented
by want of water. He calculated that they were still five or six miles from
the coast, and this distance was too great for them to attempt during the
night in the midst of unknown woods.

The boat was pushed on through the forest, which gradually became thicker
again, and appeared also to have more inhabitants; for if the eyes of the
sailor did not deceive him, he thought he saw bands of monkeys springing
among the trees. Sometimes even two or three of these animals stopped at a
little distance from the canoe and gazed at the settlers without
manifesting any terror, as if, seeing men for the first time, they had not
yet learned to fear them. It would have been easy to bring down one of
these quadramani with a gunshot, and Pencroft was greatly tempted to fire,
but Harding opposed so useless a massacre. This was prudent, for the
monkeys, or apes rather, appearing to be very powerful and extremely
active, it was useless to provoke an unnecessary aggression, and the
creatures might, ignorant of the power of the explorers' firearms, have
attacked them. It is true that the sailor considered the monkeys from a
purely alimentary point of view, for those animals which are herbivorous
make very excellent game; but since they had an abundant supply of
provisions, it was a pity to waste their ammunition.

Towards four o'clock, the navigation of the Mercy became exceedingly
difficult, for its course was obstructed by aquatic plants and rocks. The
banks rose higher and higher, and already they were approaching the spurs
of Mount Franklin. The source could not be far off, since it was fed by the
water from the southern slopes of the mountain.

"In a quarter of an hour," said the sailor, "we shall be obliged to stop,
captain."

"Very well, we will stop, Pencroft, and we will make our encampment for
the night."

"At what distance are we from Granite House?" asked Herbert.

"About seven miles," replied the engineer, "taking into calculation,
however, the detours of the river, which has carried us to the northwest."

"Shall we go on?" asked the reporter.

"Yes, as long as we can," replied Cyrus Harding. "To-morrow, at break of
day, we will leave the canoe, and in two hours I hope we shall cross the
distance which separates us from the coast, and then we shall have the
whole day in which to explore the shore."

"Go ahead!" replied Pencroft.

But soon the boat grated on the stony bottom of the river, which was now
not more than twenty feet in breadth. The trees met like a bower overhead,
and caused a half-darkness. They also heard the noise of a waterfall, which
showed that a few hundred feet up the river there was a natural barrier.

Presently, after a sudden turn of the river, a cascade appeared through
the trees. The canoe again touched the bottom, and in a few minutes it was
moored to a trunk near the right bank.

It was nearly five o'clock. The last rays of the sun gleamed through the
thick foliage and glanced on the little waterfall, making the spray sparkle
with all the colors of the rainbow. Beyond that, the Mercy was lost in the
bushwood, where it was fed from some hidden source. The different streams
which flowed into it increased it to a regular river further down, but here
it was simply a shallow, limpid brook.

It was agreed to camp here, as the place was charming. The
colonists disembarked, and a fire was soon lighted under a clump
of trees, among the branches of which Cyrus Harding and his
companions could, if it was necessary, take refuge for the night.

Supper was quickly devoured, for they were very hungry, and then there
was only sleeping to think of. But, as roarings of rather a suspicious
nature had been heard during the evening, a good fire was made up for the
night, so as to protect the sleepers with its crackling flames. Neb and
Pencroft also watched by turns, and did not spare fuel. They thought they
saw the dark forms of some wild animals prowling round the camp among the
bushes, but the night passed without incident, and the next day, the 31st
of October, at five o'clock in the morning, all were on foot, ready for a
start.



Chapter 4

It was six o' clock in the morning when the settlers, after a hasty
breakfast, set out to reach by the shortest way, the western coast of the
island. And how long would it take to do this? Cyrus Harding had said two
hours, but of course that depended on the nature of the obstacles they
might meet with As it was probable that they would have to cut a path
through the grass, shrubs, and creepers, they marched axe in hand, and with
guns also ready, wisely taking warning from the cries of the wild beasts
heard in the night.

The exact position of the encampment could be determined by the bearing
of Mount Franklin, and as the volcano arose in the north at a distance of
less than three miles, they had only to go straight towards the southwest
to reach the western coast. They set out, having first carefully secured
the canoe. Pencroft and Neb carried sufficient provision for the little
band for at least two days. It would not thus be necessary to hunt. The
engineer advised his companions to refrain from firing, that their presence
might not be betrayed to any one near the shore. The first hatchet blows
were given among the brushwood in the midst of some mastic-trees, a little
above the cascade; and his compass in his hand, Cyrus Harding led the way.

The forest here was composed for the most part of trees which had already
been met with near the lake and on Prospect Heights. There were deodars,
Douglas firs, casuarinas, gum trees, eucalypti, hibiscus, cedars, and other
trees, generally of a moderate size, for their number prevented their
growth.

Since their departure, the settlers had descended the slopes which
constituted the mountain system of the island, on to a dry soil, but the
luxuriant vegetation of which indicated it to be watered either by some
subterranean marsh or by some stream. However, Cyrus Harding did not
remember having seen, at the time of his excursion to the crater, any other
watercourses but the Red Creek and the Mercy.

During the first part of their excursion, they saw numerous troops of
monkeys who exhibited great astonishment at the sight of men, whose
appearance was so new to them. Gideon Spilett jokingly asked whether these
active and merry quadrupeds did not consider him and his companions as
degenerate brothers.

And certainly, pedestrians, hindered at each step by bushes, caught by
creepers, barred by trunks of trees, did not shine beside those supple
animals, who, bounding from branch to branch, were hindered by nothing on
their course. The monkeys were numerous, but happily they did not manifest
any hostile disposition.

Several pigs, agoutis, kangaroos, and other rodents were seen, also two
or three koalas, at which Pencroft longed to have a shot.

"But," said he, "you may jump and play just now; we shall have one or two
words to say to you on our way back!"

At half-past nine the way was suddenly found to be barred by an unknown
stream, from thirty to forty feet broad, whose rapid current dashed foaming
over the numerous rocks which interrupted its course. This creek was deep
and clear, but it was absolutely unnavigable.

"We are cut off!" cried Neb.

"No," replied Herbert, "it is only a stream, and we can easily swim
over."

"What would be the use of that?" returned Harding. "This creek evidently
runs to the sea. Let us remain on this side and follow the bank, and I
shall be much astonished if it does not lead us very quickly to the coast.
Forward!"

"One minute," said the reporter. "The name of this creek, my friends? Do
not let us leave our geography incomplete."

"All right!" said Pencroft.

"Name it, my boy," said the engineer, addressing the lad.

"Will it not be better to wait until we have explored it to its mouth?"
answered Herbert.

"Very well," replied Cyrus Harding. "Let us follow it as fast as we can
without stopping."

"Still another minute!" said Pencroft.

"What's the matter?" asked the reporter.

"Though hunting is forbidden, fishing is allowed, I suppose," said the
sailor.

"We have no time to lose," replied the engineer.

"Oh! five minutes!" replied Pencroft, "I only ask for five minutes to use
in the interest of our breakfast!"

And Pencroft, lying down on the bank, plunged his arm into the water, and
soon pulled up several dozen of fine crayfish from among the stones.

"These will be good!" cried Neb, going to the sailor's aid.

"As I said, there is everything in this island, except tobacco!" muttered
Pencroft with a sigh.

The fishing did not take five minutes, for the crayfish were swarming in
the creek. A bag was filled with the crustaceae, whose shells were of a
cobalt blue. The settlers then pushed on.

They advanced more rapidly and easily along the bank of the river than in
the forest. From time to time they came upon the traces of animals of a
large size who had come to quench their thirst at the stream, but none were
actually seen, and it was evidently not in this part of the forest that the
peccary had received the bullet which had cost Pencroft a grinder.

In the meanwhile, considering the rapid current, Harding was led to
suppose that he and his companions were much farther from the western coast
than they had at first supposed. In fact, at this hour, the rising tide
would have turned back the current of the creek, if its mouth had only been
a few miles distant. Now, this effect was not produced, and the water
pursued its natural course. The engineer was much astonished at this, and
frequently consulted his compass, to assure himself that some turn of the
river was not leading them again into the Far West.

However, the creek gradually widened and its waters became less
tumultuous. The trees on the right bank were as close together as on the
left bank, and it was impossible to distinguish anything beyond them; but
these masses of wood were evidently uninhabited, for Top did not bark, and
the intelligent animal would not have failed to signal the presence of any
stranger in the neighborhood.

At half-past ten, to the great surprise of Cyrus Harding, Herbert, who
was a little in front, suddenly stopped and exclaimed,--

"The sea!"

In a few minutes more, the whole western shore of the island lay extended
before the eyes of the settlers.

But what a contrast between this and the eastern coast, upon which chance
had first thrown them. No granite cliff, no rocks, not even a sandy beach.
The forest reached the shore, and the tall trees bending over the water
were beaten by the waves. It was not such a shore as is usually formed by
nature, either by extending a vast carpet of sand, or by grouping masses of
rock, but a beautiful border consisting of the most splendid trees. The
bank was raised a little above the level of the sea, and on this luxuriant
soil, supported by a granite base, the fine forest trees seemed to be as
firmly planted as in the interior of the island.

The colonists were then on the shore of an unimportant little harbor,
which would scarcely have contained even two or three fishing-boats. It
served as a neck to the new creek, of which the curious thing was that its
waters, instead of joining the sea by a gentle slope, fell from a height of
more than forty feet, which explained why the rising tide was not felt up
the stream. In fact, the tides of the Pacific, even at their maximum
elevation, could never reach the level of the river, and, doubtless,
millions of years would pass before the water would have worn away the
granite and hollowed a practicable mouth.

It was settled that the name of Falls River should be given to this
stream. Beyond, towards the north, the forest border was prolonged for a
space of nearly two miles; then the trees became scarcer, and beyond that
again the picturesque heights described a nearly straight line, which ran
north and south. On the contrary, all the part of the shore between Falls
River and Reptile End was a mass of wood, magnificent trees, some straight,
others bent, so that the long sea-swell bathed their roots. Now, it was
this coast, that is, all the Serpentine Peninsula, that was to be explored,
for this part of the shore offered a refuge to castaways, which the other
wild and barren side must have refused.

The weather was fine and clear, and from a height of a hillock on which
Neb and Pencroft had arranged breakfast, a wide view was obtained. There
was, however, not a sail in sight; nothing could be seen along the shore as
far as the eye could reach. But the engineer would take nothing for granted
until he had explored the coast to the very extremity of the Serpentine
Peninsula.

Breakfast was soon despatched, and at half-past eleven the captain gave
the signal for departure. Instead of proceeding over the summit of a cliff
or along a sandy beach, the settlers were obliged to remain under cover of
the trees so that they might continue on the shore.

The distance which separated Falls River from Reptile End was about
twelve miles. It would have taken the settlers four hours to do this, on a
clear ground and without hurrying themselves; but as it was they needed
double the time, for what with trees to go round, bushes to cut down, and
creepers to chop away, they were impeded at every step, these obstacles
greatly lengthening their journey.

There was, however, nothing to show that a shipwreck had taken place
recently. It is true that, as Gideon Spilett observed, any remains of it
might have drifted out to sea, and they must not take it for granted that
because they could find no traces of it, a ship had not been castaway on
the coast.

The reporter's argument was just, and besides, the incident of the bullet
proved that a shot must have been fired in Lincoln Island within three
months.

It was already five o'clock, and there were still two miles between the
settlers and the extremity of the Serpentine Peninsula. It was evident that
after having reached Reptile End, Harding and his companions would not have
time to return before dark to their encampment near the source of the
Mercy. It would therefore be necessary to pass the night on the promontory.
But they had no lack of provisions, which was lucky, for there were no
animals on the shore, though birds, on the contrary, abound--jacamars,
couroucous, tragopans, grouse, lories, parrots, cockatoos, pheasants,
pigeons, and a hundred others. There was not a tree without a nest, and not
a nest which was not full of flapping wings.

Towards seven o'clock the weary explorers arrived at Reptile End. Here
the seaside forest ended, and the shore resumed the customary appearance of
a coast, with rocks, reefs, and sands. It was possible that something might
be found here, but darkness came on, and the further exploration had to be
put off to the next day.

Pencroft and Herbert hastened on to find a suitable place for their camp.
Among the last trees of the forest of the Far West, the boy found several
thick clumps of bamboos.

"Good," said he; "this is a valuable discovery."

"Valuable?" returned Pencroft.

"Certainly," replied Herbert. "I may say, Pencroft, that the bark of the
bamboo, cut into flexible laths, is used for making baskets; that this
bark, mashed into a paste, is used for the manufacture of Chinese paper;
that the stalks furnish, according to their size, canes and pipes and are
used for conducting water; that large bamboos make excellent material for
building, being light and strong, and being never attacked by insects. I
will add that by sawing the bamboo in two at the joint, keeping for the
bottom the part of the transverse film which forms the joint, useful cups
are obtained, which are much in use among the Chinese. No! you don't care
for that. But--"

"But what?"

"But I can tell you, if you are ignorant of it, that in India these
bamboos are eaten like asparagus."

"Asparagus thirty feet high!" exclaimed the sailor. "And are they good?"

"Excellent," replied Herbert. "Only it is not the stems of thirty feet
high which are eaten, but the young shoots."

"Perfect, my boy, perfect!" replied Pencroft.

"I will also add that the pith of the young stalks, preserved in vinegar,
makes a good pickle."

"Better and better, Herbert!"

"And lastly, that the bamboos exude a sweet liquor which can be made
into a very agreeable drink."

"Is that all?" asked the sailor.

"That is all!"

"And they don't happen to do for smoking?"

"No, my poor Pencroft."

Herbert and the sailor had not to look long for a place in which to pass
the night. The rocks, which must have been violently beaten by the sea
under the influence of the winds of the southwest, presented many cavities
in which shelter could be found against the night air. But just as they
were about to enter one of these caves a loud roaring arrested them.

"Back!" cried Pencroft. "Our guns are only loaded with small shot, and
beasts which can roar as loud as that would care no more for it than for
grains of salt!" And the sailor, seizing Herbert by the arm, dragged him
behind a rock, just as a magnificent animal showed itself at the entrance
of the cavern.

It was a jaguar of a size at least equal to its Asiatic congeners, that
is to say, it measured five feet from the extremity of its head to the
beginning of its tail. The yellow color of its hair was relieved by streaks
and regular oblong spots of black, which contrasted with the white of its
chest. Herbert recognized it as the ferocious rival of the tiger, as
formidable as the puma, which is the rival of the largest wolf!

The jaguar advanced and gazed around him with blazing eyes, his hair
bristling as if this was not the first time he had scented men.

At this moment the reporter appeared round a rock, and Herbert, thinking
that he had not seen the jaguar, was about to rush towards him, when Gideon
Spilett signed to him to remain where he was. This was not his first tiger,
and advancing to within ten feet of the animal he remained motionless, his
gun to his shoulder, without moving a muscle. The jaguar collected itself
for a spring, but at that moment a shot struck it in the eyes, and it fell
dead.

Herbert and Pencroft rushed towards the jaguar. Neb and Harding also ran
up, and they remained for some instants contemplating the animal as it lay
stretched on the ground, thinking that its magnificent skin would be a
great ornament to the hall at Granite House.

"Oh, Mr. Spilett, how I admire and envy you!" cried Herbert, in a fit of
very natural enthusiasm.

"Well, my boy," replied the reporter, "you could have done the same."

"I! with such coolness!--"

"Imagine to yourself, Herbert, that the jaguar is only a hare, and you
would fire as quietly as possible."

"That is," rejoined Pencroft, "that it is not more dangerous than a
hare!"

"And now," said Gideon Spilett, "since the jaguar has left its abode, I
do not see, my friends, why we should not take possession of it for the
night."

"But others may come," said Pencroft.

"It will be enough to light a fire at the entrance of the cavern," said
the reporter, "and no wild beasts will dare to cross the threshold."

"Into the jaguar's house, then!" replied the sailor, dragging after him
the body of the animal.

While Neb skinned the jaguar, his companions collected an abundant supply
of dry wood from the forest, which they heaped up at the cave.

Cyrus Harding, seeing the clump of bamboos, cut a quantity, which he
mingled with the other fuel.

This done, they entered the grotto, of which the floor was strewn with
bones, the guns were carefully loaded, in case of a sudden attack, they had
supper, and then just before they lay down to rest, the heap of wood piled
at the entrance was set fire to. Immediately, a regular explosion, or
rather a series of reports, broke the silence! The noise was caused by the
bamboos, which, as the flames reached them, exploded like fireworks. The
noise was enough to terrify even the boldest of wild beasts.

It was not the engineer who had invented this way of causing loud
explosions, for, according to Marco Polo, the Tartars have employed it for
many centuries to drive away from their encampments the formidable wild
beasts of Central Asia.



Chapter 5

Cyrus Harding and his companions slept like innocent marmots in the cave
which the jaguar had so politely left at their disposal.

At sunrise all were on the shore at the extremity of the promontory, and
their gaze was directed towards the horizon, of which two-thirds of the
circumference were visible. For the last time the engineer could ascertain
that not a sail nor the wreck of a ship was on the sea, and even with the
telescope nothing suspicious could be discovered.

There was nothing either on the shore, at least, in the straight line of
three miles which formed the south side of the promontory, for beyond that,
rising ground had the rest of the coast, and even from the extremity of the
Serpentine Peninsula Claw Cape could not be seen.

The southern coast of the island still remained to be explored. Now
should they undertake it immediately, and devote this day to it?

This was not included in their first plan. In fact, when the boat was
abandoned at the sources of the Mercy, it had been agreed that after having
surveyed the west coast, they should go back to it, and return to Granite
House by the Mercy. Harding then thought that the western coast would have
offered refuge, either to a ship in distress, or to a vessel in her regular
course; but now, as he saw that this coast presented no good anchorage, he
wished to seek on the south what they had not been able to find on the
west.

Gideon Spilett proposed to continue the exploration, that the question of
the supposed wreck might be completely settled, and he asked at what
distance Claw Cape might be from the extremity of the peninsula.

"About thirty miles," replied the engineer, "if we take into
consideration the curvings of the coast."


"Thirty miles!" returned Spilett. "That would be a long day's march.
Nevertheless, I think that we should return to Granite House by the south
coast."

"But," observed Herbert, "from Claw Cape to Granite House there must be
at least another ten miles.

"Make it forty miles in all," replied the engineer, "and do not hesitate
to do it. At least we should survey the unknown shore, and then we shall
not have to begin the exploration again."

"Very good," said Pencroft. "But the boat?"

"The boat has remained by itself for one day at the sources of the
Mercy," replied Gideon Spilett; "it may just as well stay there two days!
As yet, we have had no reason to think that the island is infested by
thieves!"

"Yet," said the sailor, "when I remember the history of the turtle, I am
far from confident of that."

"The turtle! the turtle!" replied the reporter. "Don't you know that the
sea turned it over?"

"Who knows?" murmured the engineer.

"But,--" said Neb.

Neb had evidently something to say, for he opened his mouth to speak and
yet said nothing.

"What do you want to say, Neb?" asked the engineer.

"If we return by the shore to Claw Cape," replied Neb, "after having
doubled the Cape, we shall be stopped--"

"By the Mercy! of course," replied Herbert, "and we shall have neither
bridge nor boat by which to cross."

"But, captain," added Pencroft, "with a few floating trunks we shall have
no difficulty in crossing the river."

"Never mind," said Spilett, "it will be useful to construct a bridge if we
wish to have an easy access to the Far West!"

"A bridge!" cried Pencroft. "Well, is not the captain the best engineer
in his profession? He will make us a bridge when we want one. As to
transporting you this evening to the other side of the Mercy, and that
without wetting one thread of your clothes, I will take care of that. We
have provisions for another day, and besides we can get plenty of game.
Forward!"

The reporter's proposal, so strongly seconded by the sailor, received
general approbation, for each wished to have their doubts set at rest, and
by returning by Claw Cape the exploration would he ended. But there was not
an hour to lose, for forty miles was a long march, and they could not hope
to reach Granite House before night.

At six o'clock in the morning the little band set out. As a precaution
the guns were loaded with ball, and Top, who led the van, received orders
to beat about the edge of the forest.

From the extremity of the promontory which formed the tail of the
peninsula the coast was rounded for a distance of five miles, which was
rapidly passed over, without even the most minute investigations bringing
to light the least trace of any old or recent landings; no debris, no mark
of an encampment, no cinders of a fire, nor even a footprint!

From the point of the peninsula on which the settlers now were their gaze
could extend along the southwest. Twenty-five miles off the coast
terminated in the Claw Cape, which loomed dimly through the morning mists,
and which, by the phenomenon of the mirage, appeared as if suspended
between land and water.

Between the place occupied by the colonists and the other side of the
immense bay, the shore was composed, first, of a tract of low land,
bordered in the background by trees; then the shore became more irregular,
projecting sharp points into the sea, and finally ended in the black rocks
which, accumulated in picturesque disorder, formed Claw Cape.

Such was the development of this part of the island, which the settlers
took in at a glance, while stopping for an instant.

"If a vessel ran in here," said Pencroft, "she would certainly be lost.
Sandbanks and reefs everywhere! Bad quarters!"

"But at least something would be left of the ship," observed the
reporter.

"There might be pieces of wood on the rocks, but nothing on the sands,"
replied the sailor.

"Why?"

"Because the sands are still more dangerous than the rocks, for they
swallow up everything that is thrown on them. In a few days the hull of a
ship of several hundred tons would disappear entirely in there!"

"So, Pencroft," asked the engineer, "if a ship has been wrecked on these
banks, is it not astonishing that there is now no trace of her remaining?"

"No, captain, with the aid of time and tempest. However, it would be
surprising, even in this case, that some of the masts or spars should not
have been thrown on the beach, out of reach of the waves."

"Let us go on with our search, then," returned Cyrus Harding.

At one o'clock the colonists arrived at the other side of Washington Bay,
they having now gone a distance of twenty miles.

They then halted for breakfast.

Here began the irregular coast, covered with lines of rocks and
sandbanks. The long sea-swell could be seen breaking over the rocks in the
bay, forming a foamy fringe. From this point to Claw Cape the beach was
very narrow between the edge of the forest and the reefs.

Walking was now more difficult, on account of the numerous rocks which
encumbered the beach. The granite cliff also gradually increased in height,
and only the green tops of the trees which crowned it could be seen.

After half an hour's rest, the settlers resumed their journey, and not a
spot among the rocks was left unexamined. Pencroft and Neb even rushed into
the surf whenever any object attracted their attention. But they found
nothing, some curious formations of the rocks having deceived them. They
ascertained, however, that eatable shellfish abounded there, but these
could not be of any great advantage to them until some easy means of
communication had been established between the two banks of the Mercy, and
until the means of transport had been perfected.

Nothing therefore which threw any light on the supposed wreck could be
found on this shore, yet an object of any importance, such as the hull of a
ship, would have been seen directly, or any of her masts and spans would
have been washed on shore, just as the chest had been, which was found
twenty miles from here. But there was nothing.

Towards three o'clock Harding and his companions arrived at a snug little
creek. It formed quite a natural harbor, invisible from the sea, and was
entered by a narrow channel.

At the back of this creek some violent convulsion had torn up the rocky
border, and a cutting, by a gentle slope, gave access to an upper plateau,
which might be situated at least ten miles from Claw Cape, and consequently
four miles in a straight line from Prospect Heights. Gideon Spilett
proposed to his companions that they should make a halt here. They agreed
readily, for their walk had sharpened their appetites; and although it was
not their usual dinner-hour, no one refused to strengthen himself with a
piece of venison. This luncheon would sustain them until their supper,
which they intended to take at Granite House. In a few minutes the
settlers, seated under a clump of fine sea-pines, were devouring the
provisions which Neb produced from his bag.

This spot was raised from fifty to sixty feet above the level of the sea.
The view was very extensive, but beyond the cape it ended in Union Bay.
Neither the islet nor Prospect Heights was visible, and could not be from
thence, for the rising ground and the curtain of trees closed the northern
horizon.

It is useless to add that notwithstanding the wide extent of sea which
the explorers could survey, and though the engineer swept the horizon with
his glass, no vessel could be found.

The shore was of course examined with the same care from the edge of the
water to the cliff, and nothing could be discovered even with the aid of
the instrument.

"Well," said Gideon Spilett, "it seems we must make up our minds to
console ourselves with thinking that no one will come to dispute with us
the possession of Lincoln Island!"

"But the bullet," cried Herbert. "That was not imaginary, I suppose!"

"Hang it, no!" exclaimed Pencroft, thinking of his absent tooth.

"Then what conclusion may be drawn?" asked the reporter.

"This," replied the engineer, "that three months or more ago, a vessel,
either voluntarily or not, came here."


"What! then you admit, Cyrus, that she was swallowed up without leaving
any trace?" cried the reporter.

"No, my dear Spilett; but you see that if it is certain that a human
being set foot on the island, it appears no less certain that he has now
left it."

"Then, if I understand you right, captain," said Herbert, "the vessel has
left again?"

"Evidently."

"And we have lost an opportunity to get back to our country?" said Neb.

"I fear so."

"Very well, since the opportunity is lost, let us go on; it can't be
helped," said Pencroft, who felt home-sickness for Granite House.

But just as they were rising, Top was heard loudly barking; and the dog
issued from the wood, holding in his mouth a rag soiled with mud.

Neb seized it. It was a piece of strong cloth!

Top still barked, and by his going and coming, seemed to invite his
master to follow him into the forest.

"Now there's something to explain the bullet!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"A castaway!" replied Herbert.

"Wounded, perhaps!" said Neb.

"Or dead!" added the reporter.

All ran after the dog, among the tall pines on the border of the forest.
Harding and his companions made ready their firearms, in case of an
emergency.

They advanced some way into the wood, but to their great disappointment,
they as yet saw no signs of any human being having passed that way. Shrubs
and creepers were uninjured, and they had even to cut them away with the
axe, as they had done in the deepest recesses of the forest. It was
difficult to fancy that any human creature had ever passed there, but yet
Top went backward and forward, not like a dog who searches at random, but
like a dog being endowed with a mind, who is following up an idea.

In about seven or eight minutes Top stopped in a glade surrounded with
tall trees. The settlers gazed around them, but saw nothing, neither under
the bushes nor among the trees.

"What is the matter, Top?" said Cyrus Harding.

Top barked louder, bounding about at the foot of a gigantic pine. All at
once Pencroft shouted,--"Ho, splendid! capital!"

"What is it?" asked Spilett.

"We have been looking for a wreck at sea or on land!"

"Well?"

"Well; and here we've found one in the air!"

And the sailor pointed to a great white rag, caught in the top of the
pine, a fallen scrap of which the dog had brought to them.

"But that is not a wreck!" cried Gideon Spilett.

"I beg your pardon!" returned Pencroft.

"Why? is it--?"

"It is all that remains of our airy boat, of our balloon, which has been
caught up aloft there, at the top of that tree!"

Pencroft was not mistaken, and he gave vent to his feelings in a
tremendous hurrah, adding,--

"There is good cloth! There is what will furnish us with linen for years.
There is what will make us handkerchiefs and shirts! Ha, ha, Mr. Spilett,
what do you say to an island where shirts grow on the trees?"

It was certainly a lucky circumstance for the settlers in Lincoln Island
that the balloon, after having made its last bound into the air, had fallen
on the island and thus given them the opportunity of finding it again,
whether they kept the case under its present form, or whether they wished
to attempt another escape by it, or whether they usefully employed the
several hundred yards of cotton, which was of fine quality. Pencroft's joy
was therefore shared by all.

But it was necessary to bring down the remains of the balloon from the
tree, to place it in security, and this was no slight task. Neb, Herbert,
and the sailor, climbing to the summit of the tree, used all their skill to
disengage the now reduced balloon.

The operation lasted two hours, and then not only the case, with its
valve, its springs, its brasswork, lay on the ground, but the net, that is
to say a considerable quantity of ropes and cordage, and the circle and the
anchor. The case, except for the fracture, was in good condition, only the
lower portion being torn.

It was a fortune which had fallen from the sky.

"All the same, captain," said the sailor, "if we ever decide to leave the
island, it won't be in a balloon, will it? These airboats won't go where we
want them to go, and we have had some experience in that way! Look here, we
will build a craft of some twenty tons, and then we can make a main-sail, a
foresail, and a jib out of that cloth. As to the rest of it, that will help
to dress us."

"We shall see, Pencroft," replied Cyrus Harding; "we shall see."

"In the meantime, we must put it in a safe place," said Neb.

They certainly could not think of carrying this load of cloth, ropes, and
cordage, to Granite House, for the weight of it was very considerable, and
while waiting for a suitable vehicle in which to convey it, it was of
importance that this treasure should not be left longer exposed to the
mercies of the first storm. The settlers, uniting their efforts, managed to
drag it as far as the shore, where they discovered a large rocky cavity,
which owing to its position could not be visited either by the wind or
rain.

"We needed a locker, and now we have one," said Pencroft; "but as we
cannot lock it up, it will be prudent to hide the opening. I don't mean
from two-legged thieves, but from those with four paws!"

At six o'clock, all was stowed away, and after having given the creek the
very suitable name of "Port Balloon," the settlers pursued their way along
Claw Cape. Pencroft and the engineer talked of the different projects which
it was agreed to put into execution with the briefest possible delay. It
was necessary first of all to throw a bridge over the Mercy, so as to
establish an easy communication with the south of the island; then the cart
must be taken to bring back the balloon, for the canoe alone could not
carry it, then they would build a decked boat, and Pencroft would rig it as
a cutter, and they would be able to undertake voyages of circumnavigation
round the island, etc.

In the meanwhile night came on, and it was already dark when the settlers
reached Flotsam Point, where they had found the precious chest.

The distance between Flotsam Point and Granite House was another four
miles, and it was midnight when, after having followed the shore to the
mouth of the Mercy, the settlers arrived at the first angle formed by the
Mercy.

There the river was eighty feet in breadth, which was awkward to cross,
but as Pencroft had taken upon himself to conquer this difficulty, he was
compelled to do it. The settlers certainly had reason to be pretty tired.
The journey had been long, and the task of getting down the balloon had not
rested either their arms or legs. They were anxious to reach Granite House
to eat and sleep, and if the bridge had been constructed, in a quarter of
an hour they would have been at home.

The night was very dark. Pencroft prepared to keep his promise by
constructing a sort of raft, on which to make the passage of the Mercy. He
and Neb, armed with axes, chose two trees near the water, and began to
attack them at the base.

Cyrus Harding and Spilett, seated on the bank, waited till their
companions were ready for their help, while Herbert roamed about, though
without going to any distance. All at once, the lad, who had strolled by
the river, came running back, and, pointing up the Mercy, exclaimed,--

"What is floating there?"

Pencroft stopped working, and seeing an indistinct object moving through
the gloom,--

"A canoe!" cried he.

All approached, and saw to their extreme surprise, a boat floating down
the current.

"Boat ahoy!" shouted the sailor, without thinking that perhaps it would
be best to keep silence.

No reply. The boat still drifted onward, and it was not more than twelve
feet off, when the sailor exclaimed,--

"But it is our own boat! she has broken her moorings, and floated down
the current. I must say she has arrived very opportunely."

"Our boat?" murmured the engineer.

Pencroft was right. It was indeed the canoe, of which the rope had
undoubtedly broken, and which had come alone from the sources of the Mercy.
It was very important to seize it before the rapid current should have
swept it away out of the mouth of the river, but Neb and Pencroft cleverly
managed this by means of a long pole.

The canoe touched the shore. The engineer leaped in first, and found, on
examining the rope, that it had been really worn through by rubbing against
the rocks.

"Well," said the reporter to him, in a low voice, "this is a strange
thing."

"Strange indeed!" returned Cyrus Harding.

Strange or not, it was very fortunate. Herbert, the reporter, Neb, and
Pencroft, embarked in turn. There was no doubt about the rope having been
worn through, but the astonishing part of the affair was, that the boat
should arrive just at the moment when the settlers were there to seize it
on its way, for a quarter of an hour earlier or later it would have been
lost in the sea.

If they had been living in the time of genii, this incident would have
given them the right to think that the island was haunted by some
supernatural being, who used his power in the service of the castaways!

A few strokes of the oar brought the settlers to the mouth of the Mercy.
The canoe was hauled up on the beach near the Chimneys, and all proceeded
towards the ladder of Granite House.

But at that moment, Top barked angrily, and Neb, who was looking for the
first steps, uttered a cry.

There was no longer a ladder!



Chapter 6

Cyrus Harding stood still, without saying a word. His companions searched
in the darkness on the wall, in case the wind should have moved the ladder,
and on the ground, thinking that it might have fallen down.... But the
ladder had quite disappeared. As to ascertaining if a squall had blown it
on the landing-place, half way up, that was impossible in the dark.

"If it is a joke," cried Pencroft, "it is a very stupid one! To come home
and find no staircase to go up to your room by--that's nothing for weary
men to laugh at."

Neb could do nothing but cry out "Oh! oh! oh!"

"I begin to think that very curious things happen in Lincoln Island!"
said Pencroft.

"Curious?" replied Gideon Spilett, "not at all, Pencroft, nothing can be
more natural. Some one has come during our absence, taken possession of our
dwelling and drawn up the ladder."

"Some one," cried the sailor. "But who?"

"Who but the hunter who fired the bullet?" replied the reporter.

"Well, if there is any one up there," replied Pencroft, who began to lose
patience, "I will give them a hail, and they must answer."

And in a stentorian voice the sailor gave a prolonged "Halloo!" which was
echoed again and again from the cliff and rocks.

The settlers listened and they thought they heard a sort of chuckling
laugh, of which they could not guess the origin. But no voice replied to
Pencroft, who in vain repeated his vigorous shouts.

There was something indeed in this to astonish the most apathetic of men,
and the settlers were not men of that description. In their situation every
incident had its importance, and, certainly, during the seven months which
they had spent on the island, they had not before met with anything of so
surprising a character.

Be that as it may, forgetting their fatigue in the singularity of the
event, they remained below Granite House, not knowing what to think, not
knowing what to do, questioning each other without any hope of a
satisfactory reply, every one starting some supposition each more unlikely
than the last. Neb bewailed himself, much disappointed at not being able to
get into his kitchen, for the provisions which they had had on their
expedition were exhausted, and they had no means of renewing them.

"My friends," at last said Cyrus Harding, "there is only one thing to be
done at present; wait for day, and then act according to circumstances. But
let us go to the Chimneys. There we shall be under shelter, and if we
cannot eat, we can at least sleep."

"But who is it that has played us this cool trick?" again asked Pencroft,
unable to make up his mind to retire from the spot.

Whoever it was, the only thing practicable was to do as the engineer
proposed, to go to the Chimneys and there wait for day. In the meanwhile
Top was ordered to mount guard below the windows of Granite House, and when
Top received an order he obeyed it without any questioning. The brave dog
therefore remained at the foot of the cliff while his master with his
companions sought a refuge among the rocks.

To say that the settlers, notwithstanding their fatigue, slept well on
the sandy floor of the Chimneys would not be true. It was not only that
they were extremely anxious to find out the cause of what had happened,
whether it was the result of an accident which would be discovered at the
return of day, or whether on the contrary it was the work of a human being;
but they also had very uncomfortable beds. That could not be helped,
however, for in some way or other at that moment their dwelling was
occupied, and they could not possibly enter it.

Now Granite House was more than their dwelling, it was their warehouse.
There were all the stores belonging to the colony, weapons, instruments,
tools, ammunition, provisions, etc. To think that all that might be
pillaged and that the settlers would have all their work to do over again,
fresh weapons and tools to make, was a serious matter. Their uneasiness led
one or other of them also to go out every few minutes to see if Top was
keeping good watch. Cyrus Harding alone waited with his habitual patience,
although his strong mind was exasperated at being confronted with such an
inexplicable fact, and he was provoked at himself for allowing a feeling to
which he could not give a name, to gain an influence over him. Gideon
Spilett shared his feelings in this respect, and the two conversed together
in whispers of the inexplicable circumstance which baffled even their
intelligence and experience.

"It is a joke," said Pencroft; "it is a trick some one has played us.
Well, I don't like such jokes, and the joker had better look out for
himself, if he falls into my hands, I can tell him."

As soon as the first gleam of light appeared in the east, the colonists,
suitably armed, repaired to the beach under Granite House. The rising sun
now shone on the cliff and they could see the windows, the shutters of
which were closed, through the curtains of foliage.

All here was in order; but a cry escaped the colonists when they saw that
the door, which they had closed on their departure, was now wide open.

Some one had entered Granite House--there could be no more doubt about
that.

The upper ladder, which generally hung from the door to the landing, was
in its place, but the lower ladder was drawn up and raised to the
threshold. It was evident that the intruders had wished to guard themselves
against a surprise.

Pencroft hailed again.

No reply.

"The beggars," exclaimed the sailor. "There they are sleeping quietly as
if they were in their own house. Hallo there, you pirates, brigands,
robbers, sons of John Bull!"

When Pencroft, being a Yankee, treated any one to the epithet of "son of
John Bull," he considered he had reached the last limits of insult.

The sun had now completely risen, and the whole facade of Granite House
became illuminated by its rays; but in the interior as well as on the
exterior all was quiet and calm.

The settlers asked if Granite House was inhabited or not, and yet the
position of the ladder was sufficient to show that it was; it was also
certain that the inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not been able to
escape. But how were they to be got at?

Herbert then thought of fastening a cord to an arrow, and shooting the
arrow so that it should pass between the first rounds of the ladder which
hung from the threshold. By means of the cord they would then be able to
draw down the ladder to the ground, and so re-establish the communication
between the beach and Granite House. There was evidently nothing else to be
done, and, with a little skill, this method might succeed. Very fortunately
bows and arrows had been left at the Chimneys, where they also found a
quantity of light hibiscus cord. Pencroft fastened this to a well-feathered
arrow. Then Herbert fixing it to his bow, took a careful aim for the lower
part of the ladder.

Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, Pencroft, and Neb drew back, so as to see
if anything appeared at the windows. The reporter lifted his gun to his
shoulder and covered the door.

The bow was bent, the arrow flew, taking the cord with it, and passed
between the two last rounds.

The operation had succeeded.

Herbert immediately seized the end of the cord, but, at that moment when
he gave it a pull to bring down the ladder, an arm, thrust suddenly out
between the wall and the door, grasped it and dragged it inside Granite
House.

"The rascals!" shouted the sailor. "If a ball can do anything for you,
you shall not have long to wait for it.

"But who was it?" asked Neb.

"Who was it? Didn't you see?"

"No."

"It was a monkey, a sapajou, an orangoutang, a baboon, a gorilla, a
sagoin. Our dwelling has been invaded by monkeys, who climbed up the ladder
during our absence."

And, at this moment, as if to bear witness to the truth of the sailor's
words, two or three quadrumana showed themselves at the windows, from which
they had pushed back the shutters, and saluted the real proprietors of the
place with a thousand hideous grimaces.

"I knew that it was only a joke," cried Pencroft; "but one of the jokers
shall pay the penalty for the rest."

So saying, the sailor, raising his piece, took a rapid aim at one of the
monkeys and fired. All disappeared, except one who fell mortally wounded on
the beach. This monkey, which was of a large size, evidently belonged to
the first order of the quadrumana. Whether this was a chimpanzee, an
orangoutang, or a gorilla, he took rank among the anthropoid apes, who are
so called from their resemblance to the human race. However, Herbert
declared it to be an orangoutang.

"What a magnificent beast!" cried Neb.

"Magnificent, if you like," replied Pencroft; "but still I do not see how
we are to get into our house."

"Herbert is a good marksman," said the reporter, "and his bow is here. He
can try again."

"Why, these apes are so cunning," returned Pencroft; "they won't show
themselves again at the windows and so we can't kill them; and when I think
of the mischief they may do in the rooms and storehouse--"

"Have patience," replied Harding; "these creatures cannot keep us long at
bay."

"I shall not be sure of that till I see them down here," replied the
sailor. "And now, captain, do you know how many dozens of these fellows are
up there?"

It was difficult to reply to Pencroft, and as for the young boy making
another attempt, that was not easy; for the lower part of the ladder had
been drawn again into the door, and when another pull was given, the line
broke and the ladder remained firm. The case was really perplexing.
Pencroft stormed. There was a comic side to the situation, but he did not
think it funny at all. It was certain that the settlers would end by
reinstating themselves in their domicile and driving out the intruders, but
when and how? this is what they were not able to say.

Two hours passed, during which the apes took care not to show themselves,
but they were still there, and three or four times a nose or a paw was
poked out at the door or windows, and was immediately saluted by a gun-
shot.

"Let us hide ourselves," at last said the engineer. "Perhaps the apes
will think we have gone quite away and will show themselves again. Let
Spilett and Herbert conceal themselves behind those rocks and fire on all
that may appear."

The engineer's orders were obeyed, and while the reporter and the lad,
the best marksmen in the colony, posted themselves in a good position, but
out of the monkeys' sight, Neb, Pencroft, and Cyrus climbed the plateau and
entered the forest in order to kill some game, for it was now time for
breakfast and they had no provisions remaining.

In half an hour the hunters returned with a few rock pigeons, which they
roasted as well as they could. Not an ape had appeared. Gideon Spilett and
Herbert went to take their share of the breakfast, leaving Top to watch
under the windows. They then, having eaten, returned to their post.

Two hours later, their situation was in no degree improved. The
quadrumana gave no sign of existence, and it might have been supposed that
they had disappeared; but what seemed more probable was that, terrified by
the death of one of their companions, and frightened by the noise of the
firearms, they had retreated to the back part of the house or probably even
into the store-room. And when they thought of the valuables which this
storeroom contained, the patience so much recommended by the engineer, fast
changed into great irritation, and there certainly was room for it.

"Decidedly it is too bad," said the reporter; "and the worst of it is,
there is no way of putting an end to it."

"But we must drive these vagabonds out somehow," cried the sailor. "We
could soon get the better of them, even if there are twenty of the rascals;
but for that, we must meet them hand to hand. Come now, is there no way of
getting at them?"

"Let us try to enter Granite House by the old opening at the lake,"
replied the engineer.

"Oh!" shouted the sailor, "and I never thought of that."

This was in reality the only way by which to penetrate into Granite House
so as to fight with and drive out the intruders. The opening was, it is
true, closed up with a wall of cemented stones, which it would be necessary
to sacrifice, but that could easily be rebuilt. Fortunately, Cyrus Harding
had not as yet effected his project of hiding this opening by raising the
waters of the lake, for the operation would then have taken some time.

It was already past twelve o'clock, when the colonists, well armed and
provided with picks and spades, left the Chimneys, passed beneath the
windows of Granite House, after telling Top to remain at his post, and
began to ascend the left bank of the Mercy, so as to reach Prospect
Heights.

But they had not made fifty steps in this direction, when they heard the
dog barking furiously.

And all rushed down the bank again.

Arrived at the turning, they saw that the situation had changed.

In fact, the apes, seized with a sudden panic, from some unknown cause,
were trying to escape. Two or three ran and clambered from one window to
another with the agility of acrobats. They were not even trying to replace
the ladder, by which it would have been easy to descend; perhaps in their
terror they had forgotten this way of escape. The colonists, now being able
to take aim without difficulty, fired. Some, wounded or killed, fell back
into the rooms, uttering piercing cries. The rest, throwing themselves out,
were dashed to pieces in their fall, and in a few minutes, so far as they
knew, there was not a living quadrumana in Granite House.

At this moment the ladder was seen to slip over the threshold, then
unroll and fall to the ground.

"Hullo!" cried the sailor, "this is queer!"

"Very strange!" murmured the engineer, leaping first up the ladder.

"Take care, captain!" cried Pencroft, "perhaps there are still some of
these rascals.

"We shall soon see," replied the engineer, without stopping however.

All his companions followed him, and in a minute they had arrived at the
threshold. They searched everywhere. There was no one in the rooms nor in
the storehouse, which had been respected by the band of quadrumana.

"Well now, and the ladder," cried the sailor; "who can the gentleman have
been who sent us that down?"

But at that moment a cry was heard, and a great orang, who had hidden
himself in the passage, rushed into the room, pursued by Neb.

"Ah, the robber!" cried Pencroft.

And hatchet in hand, he was about to cleave the head of the animal, when
Cyrus Harding seized his arm, saying,--

"Spare him, Pencroft."

"Pardon this rascal?"

"Yes! it was he who threw us the ladder!"

And the engineer said this in such a peculiar voice that it was difficult
to know whether he spoke seriously or not.

Nevertheless, they threw themselves on the orang, who defended himself
gallantly, but was soon overpowered and bound.

"There!" said Pencroft. "And what shall we make of him, now we've got
him?"

"A servant!" replied Herbert.

The lad was not joking in saying this, for he knew how this intelligent
race could be turned to account.

The settlers then approached the ape and gazed at it attentively. He
belonged to the family of anthropoid apes, of which the facial angle is not
much inferior to that of the Australians and Hottentots. It was an
orangoutang, and as such, had neither the ferocity of the gorilla, nor the
stupidity of the baboon. It is to this family of the anthropoid apes that
so many characteristics belong which prove them to be possessed of an
almost human intelligence. Employed in houses, they can wait at table,
sweep rooms, brush clothes, clean boots, handle a knife, fork, and spoon
properly, and even drink wine . . . doing everything as well as the best
servant that ever walked upon two legs. Buffon possessed one of these apes,
who served him for a long time as a faithful and zealous servant.

The one which had been seized in the hall of Granite House was a great
fellow, six feet high, with an admirably poportioned frame, a broad chest,
head of a moderate size, the facial angle reaching sixty-five degrees,
round skull, projecting nose, skin covered with soft glossy hair, in short,
a fine specimen of the anthropoids. His eyes, rather smaller than human
eyes, sparkled with intelligence; his white teeth glittered under his
mustache, and he wore a little curly brown beard.

"A handsome fellow!" said Pencroft; "if we only knew his language, we
could talk to him."

"But, master," said Neb, "are you serious? Are we going to take him as a
servant?"

"Yes, Neb," replied the engineer, smiling. "But you must not be jealous."

"And I hope he will make an excellent servant," added Herbert. "He
appears young, and will be easy to educate, and we shall not be obliged to
use force to subdue him, nor draw his teeth, as is sometimes done. He will
soon grow fond of his masters if they are kind to him."

"And they will be," replied Pencroft, who had forgotten all his rancor
against "the jokers."

Then, approaching the orang,--

"Well, old boy!" he asked, "how are you?"

The orang replied by a little grunt which did not show any anger.

"You wish to join the colony?" again asked the sailor. "You are going to
enter the service of Captain Cyrus Harding?"

Another respondent grunt was uttered by the ape.

"And you will be satisfied with no other wages than your food?"

Third affirmative grunt.

"This conversation is slightly monotonous," observed Gideon Spilett.

"So much the better," replied Pencroft; "the best servants are those who
talk the least. And then, no wages, do you hear, my boy? We will give you
no wages at first, but we will double them afterwards if we are pleased
with you."

Thus the colony was increased by a new member. As to his name the sailor
begged that in memory of another ape which he had known, he might be called
Jupiter, and Jup for short.

And so, without more ceremony, Master Jup was installed in Granite House.



Chapter 7

The settlers in Lincoln Island had now regained their dwelling, without
having been obliged to reach it by the old opening, and were therefore
spared the trouble of mason's work. It was certainly lucky, that at the
moment they were about to set out to do so, the apes had been seized with
that terror, no less sudden than inexplicable, which had driven them out of
Granite House. Had the animals discovered that they were about to be
attacked from another direction? This was the only explanation of their
sudden retreat.

During the day the bodies of the apes were carried into the wood, where
they were buried; then the settlers busied themselves in repairing the
disorder caused by the intruders, disorder but not damage, for although
they had turned everything in the rooms topsy-turvy, yet they had broken
nothing. Neb relighted his stove, and the stores in the larder furnished a
substantial repast, to which all did ample justice.

Jup was not forgotten, and he ate with relish some stonepine almonds and
rhizome roots, with which he was abundantly supplied. Pencroft had
unfastened his arms, but judged it best to have his legs tied until they
were more sure of his submission.

Then, before retiring to rest, Harding and his companions seated round
their table, discussed those plans, the execution of which was most
pressing. The most important and most urgent was the establishment of a
bridge over the Mercy, so as to form a communication with the southern part
of the island and Granite House; then the making of an enclosure for the
musmons or other woolly animals which they wished to capture.

These two projects would help to solve the difficulty as to their
clothing, which was now serious. The bridge would render easy the transport
of the balloon case, which would furnish them with linen, and the
inhabitants of the enclosure would yield wool which would supply them with
winter clothes.

As to the enclosure, it was Cyrus Harding's intention to establish it at
the sources of the Red Creek, where the ruminants would find fresh and
abundant pasture. The road between Prospect Heights and the sources of the
stream was already partly beaten, and with a better cart than the first,
the material could be easily conveyed to the spot, especially if they could
manage to capture some animals to draw it.

But though there might be no inconvenience in the enclosure being so far
from Granite House, it would not be the same with the poultry-yard, to
which Neb called the attention of the colonists. It was indeed necessary
that the birds should be close within reach of the cook, and no place
appeared more favorable for the establishment of the said poultry-yard than
that portion of the banks of the lake which was close to the old opening.

Water-birds would prosper there as well as others, and the couple of
tinamous taken in their last excursion would be the first to be
domesticated.

The next day, the 3rd of November, the new works were begun by the
construction of the bridge, and all hands were required for this important
task. Saws, hatchets, and hammers were shouldered by the settlers, who, now
transformed into carpenters, descended to the shore.

There Pencroft observed,--

"Suppose, that during our absence, Master Jup takes it into his head to
draw up the ladder which he so politely returned to us yesterday?"

"Let us tie its lower end down firmly," replied Cyrus Harding.

This was done by means of two stakes securely fixed in the sand. Then the
settlers, ascending the left bank of the Mercy, soon arrived at the angle
formed by the river.

There they halted, in order to ascertain if the bridge could be thrown
across. The place appeared suitable.

In fact, from this spot, to Port Balloon, discovered the day before on
the southern coast, there was only a distance of three miles and a half,
and from the bridge to the Port, it would be easy to make a good cart-road
which would render the communication between Granite House and the south of
the island extremely easy.

Cyrus Harding now imparted to his companions a scheme for completely
isolating Prospect Heights so as to shelter it from the attacks both of
quadrupeds and quadrumana. In this way, Granite House, the Chimneys, the
poultry-yard, and all the upper part of the plateau which was to be used
for cultivation, would be protected against the depredations of animals.
Nothing could be easier than to execute this project, and this is how the
engineer intended to set to work.

The plateau was already defended on three sides by water-courses, either
artificial or natural. On the northwest, by the shores of Lake Grant, from
the entrance of the passage to the breach made in the banks of the lake for
the escape of the water.

On the north, from this breach to the sea, by the new water-course which
had hollowed out a bed for itself across the plateau and shore, above and
below the fall, and it would be enough to dig the bed of this creek a
little deeper to make it impracticable for animals, on all the eastern
border by the sea itself, from the mouth of the aforesaid creek to the
mouth of the Mercy.

Lastly, on the south, from the mouth to the turn of the Mercy where the
bridge was to be established.

The western border of the plateau now remained between the turn of the
river and the southern angle of the lake, a distance of about a mile, which
was open to all comers. But nothing could be easier than to dig a broad
deep ditch, which could be filled from the lake, and the overflow of which
would throw itself by a rapid fall into the bed of the Mercy. The level of
the lake would, no doubt, be somewhat lowered by this fresh discharge of
its waters, but Cyrus Harding had ascertained that the volume of water in
the Red Creek was considerable enough to allow of the execution of this
project.

"So then," added the engineer, "Prospect Heights will become a regular
island, being surrounded with water on all sides, and only communicating
with the rest of our domain by the bridge which we are about to throw
across the Mercy, the two little bridges already established above and
below the fall; and, lastly, two other little bridges which must be
constructed, one over the canal which I propose to dig, the other across to
the left bank of the Mercy. Now, if these bridges can be raised at will,
Prospect Heights will be guarded from any surprise."

The bridge was the most urgent work. Trees were selected, cut down,
stripped of their branches, and cut into beams, joists, and planks. The end
of the bridge which rested on the right bank of the Mercy was to be firm,
but the other end on the left bank was to be movable, so that it might be
raised by means of a counterpoise, as some canal bridges are managed.

This was certainly a considerable work, and though it was skillfully
conducted, it took some time, for the Mercy at this place was eighty feet
wide. It was therefore necessary to fix piles in the bed of the river so as
to sustain the floor of the bridge and establish a pile-driver to act on
the tops of these piles, which would thus form two arches and allow the
bridge to support heavy loads.

Happily there was no want of tools with which to shape the wood, nor of
iron-work to make it firm, nor of the ingenuity of a man who had a
marvelous knowledge of the work, nor lastly, the zeal of his companions,
who in seven months had necessarily acquired great skill in the use of
their tools; and it must be said that not the least skilful was Gideon
Spilett, who in dexterity almost equaled the sailor himself. "Who would
ever have expected so much from a newspaper man!" thought Pencroft.

The construction of the Mercy bridge lasted three weeks of regular hard
work. They even breakfasted on the scene of their labors, and the weather
being magnificent, they only returned to Granite House to sleep.

During this period it may be stated that Master Jup grew more accustomed
to his new masters, whose movements he always watched with very inquisitive
eyes. However, as a precautionary measure, Pencroft did not as yet allow
him complete liberty, rightly wishing to wait until the limits of the
plateau should be settled by the projected works. Top and Jup were good
friends and played willingly together, but Jup did everything solemnly.

On the 20th of November the bridge was finished. The movable part,
balanced by the counterpoise, swung easily, and only a slight effort was
needed to rise it; between its hinge and the last cross-bar on which it
rested when closed, there existed a space of twenty feet, which was
sufficiently wide to prevent any animals from crossing.

The settlers now began to talk of fetching the balloon-case, which they
were anxious to place in perfect security; but to bring it, it would be
necessary to take a cart to Port Balloon, and consequently, necessary to
beat a road through the dense forests of the Far West. This would take some
time. Also, Neb and Pencroft having gone to examine into the state of
things at Port Balloon, and reported that the stock of cloth would suffer
no damage in the grotto where it was stored, it was decided that the work
at Prospect Heights should not be discontinued.

"That," observed Pencroft, "will enable us to establish our poultry-yard
under better conditions, since we need have no fear of visits from foxes
nor the attacks of other beasts."

"Then," added Neb, "we can clear the plateau, and transplant wild plants
to it."

"And prepare our second corn-field!" cried the sailor with a triumphant
air.

In fact, the first corn-field sown with a single grain had prospered
admirably, thanks to Pencroft's care. It had produced the ten ears foretold
by the engineer, and each ear containing eighty grains, the colony found
itself in possession of eight hundred grains, in six months, which promised
a double harvest each year.

These eight hundred grains, except fifty, which were prudently reserved,
were to be sown in a new field, but with no less care than was bestowed on
the single grain.

The field was prepared, then surrounded with a strong palisade, high and
pointed, which quadrupeds would have found difficulty in leaping. As to
birds, some scarecrows, due to Pencroft's ingenious brain, were enough to
frighten them. The seven hundred and fifty grains deposited in very regular
furrows were then left for nature to do the rest.

On the 21st of November, Cyrus Harding began to plan the canal which was
to close the plateau on the west, from the south angle of Lake Grant to the
angle of the Mercy. There was there two or three feet of vegetable earth,
and below that granite. It was therefore necessary to manufacture some more
nitro-glycerine, and the nitro-glycerine did its accustomed work. In less
than a fortnight a ditch, twelve feet wide and six deep, was dug out in the
hard ground of the plateau. A new trench was made by the same means in the
rocky border of the lake, forming a small stream, to which they gave the
name of Creek Glycerine, and which was thus an affluent of the Mercy. As
the engineer had predicted, the level of the lake was lowered, though very
slightly. To complete the enclosure the bed of the stream on the beach was
considerably enlarged, and the sand supported by means of stakes.

By the end of the first fortnight of December these works were finished,
and Prospect Heights--that is to say, a sort of irregular pentagon, having
a perimeter of nearly four miles, surrounded by a liquid belt--was
completely protected from depredators of every description.

During the month of December, the heat was very great. In spite of it,
however, the settlers continued their work, and as they were anxious to
possess a poultry-yard they forthwith commenced it.

It is useless to say that since the enclosing of the plateau had been
completed, Master Jup had been set at liberty. He did not leave his
masters, and evinced no wish to escape. He was a gentle animal, though very
powerful and wonderfully active. He was already taught to make himself
useful by drawing loads of wood and carting away the stones which were
extracted from the bed of Creek Glycerine.

The poultry-yard occupied an area of two hundred square yards, on the
southeastern bank of the lake. It was surrounded by a palisade, and in it
were constructed various shelters for the birds which were to populate it.
These were simply built of branches and divided into compartments, made
ready for the expected guests.

The first were the two tinamous, which were not long in having a number
of young ones; they had for companions half a dozen ducks, accustomed to
the borders of the lake. Some belonged to the Chinese species, of which the
wings open like a fan, and which by the brilliancy of their plumage rival
the golden pheasants. A few days afterwards, Herbert snared a couple of
gallinaceae, with spreading tails composed of long feathers, magnificent
alectors, which soon became tame. As to pelicans, kingfishers, water-hens,
they came of themselves to the shores of the poultry-yard, and this little
community, after some disputes, cooing, screaming, clucking, ended by
settling down peacefully, and increased in encouraging proportion for the
future use of the colony.

Cyrus Harding, wishing to complete his performance, established a pigeon-
house in a corner of the poultry-yard. There he lodged a dozen of those
pigeons which frequented the rocks of the plateau. These birds soon became
accustomed to returning every evening to their new dwelling, and showed
more disposition to domesticate themselves than their congeners, the wood-
pigeons.

Lastly, the time had come for turning the balloon-case to use, by cutting
it up to make shirts and other articles; for as to keeping it in its
present form, and risking themselves in a balloon filled with gas, above a
sea of the limits of which they had no idea, it was not to be thought of.

It was necessary to bring the case to Granite House, and the colonists
employed themselves in rendering their heavy cart lighter and more
manageable. But though they had a vehicle, the moving power was yet to be
found.

But did there not exist in the island some animal which might supply the
place of the horse, ass, or ox? That was the question.

"Certainly," said Pencroft, "a beast of burden would be very useful to us
until the captain has made a steam cart, or even an engine, for some day we
shall have a railroad from Granite House to Port Balloon, with a branch
line to Mount Franklin!"

One day, the 23rd of December, Neb and Top were heard shouting and
barking, each apparently trying to see who could make the most noise. The
settlers, who were busy at the Chimneys, ran, fearing some vexatious
incident.

What did they see? Two fine animals of a large size that had imprudently
ventured on the plateau, when the bridges were open. One would have said
they were horses, or at least donkeys, male and female, of a fine shape,
dove-colored, the legs and tail white, striped with black on the head and
neck. They advanced quietly without showing any uneasiness, and gazed at
the men, in whom they could not as yet recognize their future masters.

"These are onagers!" cried Herbert, "animals something between the zebra
and the quagga!"

"Why not donkeys?" asked Neb.

"Because they have not long ears, and their shape is more graceful!"

"Donkeys or horses," interrupted Pencroft, "they are 'moving powers,' as
the captain would say, and as such must be captured!"

The sailor, without frightening the animals, crept through the grass to
the bridge over Creek Glycerine, lowered it, and the onagers were
prisoners.

Now, should they seize them with violence and master them by force? No.
It was decided that for a few days they should be allowed to roam freely
about the plateau, where there was an abundance of grass, and the engineer
immediately began to prepare a stable near the poultry-yard, in which the
onagers might find food, with a good litter, and shelter during the night.

This done, the movements of the two magnificent creatures were left
entirely free, and the settlers avoided even approaching them so as to
terrify them. Several times, however, the onagers appeared to wish to leave
the plateau, too confined for animals accustomed to the plains and forests.
They were then seen following the water-barrier which everywhere presented
itself before them, uttering short neighs, then galloping through the
grass, and becoming calmer, they would remain entire hours gazing at the
woods, from which they were cut off for ever!

In the meantime harness of vegetable fiber had been manufactured, and
some days after the capture of the onagers, not only the cart was ready,
but a straight road, or rather a cutting, had been made through the forests
of the Far West, from the angle of the Mercy to Port Balloon. The cart
might then be driven there, and towards the end of December they tried the
onagers for the first time.

Pencroft had already coaxed the animals to come and eat out of his hand,
and they allowed him to approach without making any difficulty, but once
harnessed they reared and could with difficulty be held in. However, it was
not long before they submitted to this new service, for the onager, being
less refractory than the zebra, is frequently put in harness in the
mountainous regions of Southern Africa, and it has even been acclimatized
in Europe, under zones of a relative coolness.

On this day all the colony, except Pencroft who walked at the animals'
heads, mounted the cart, and set out on the road to Port Balloon.

Of course they were jolted over the somewhat rough road, but the vehicle
arrived without any accident, and was soon loaded with the case and rigging
of the balloon.

At eight o'clock that evening the cart, after passing over the Mercy
bridge, descended the left bank of the river, and stopped on the beach. The
onagers being unharnessed, were thence led to their stable, and Pencroft
before going to sleep gave vent to his feelings in a deep sigh of
satisfaction that awoke all the echoes of Granite House.



Chapter 8

The first week of January was devoted to the manufacture of the linen
garments required by the colony. The needles found in the box were used by
sturdy if not delicate fingers, and we may be sure that what was sewn was
sewn firmly.

There was no lack of thread, thanks to Cyrus Harding's idea of re-
employing that which had been already used in the covering of the balloon.
This with admirable patience was all unpicked by Gideon Spilett and
Herbert, for Pencroft had been obliged to give this work up, as it
irritated him beyond measure; but he had no equal in the sewing part of the
business. Indeed, everybody knows that sailors have a remarkable aptitude
for tailoring.

The cloth of which the balloon-case was made was then cleaned by means of
soda and potash, obtained by the incineration of plants, in such a way that
the cotton, having got rid of the varnish, resumed its natural softness and
elasticity; then, exposed to the action of the atmosphere, it soon became
perfectly white. Some dozen shirts and sock--the latter not knitted, of
course, but made of cotton--were thus manufactured. What a comfort it was
to the settlers to clothe themselves again in clean linen, which was
doubtless rather rough, but they were not troubled about that! and then to
go to sleep between sheets, which made the couches at Granite House into
quite comfortable beds!

It was about this time also that they made boots of seal-leather, which
were greatly needed to replace the shoes and boots brought from America. We
may be sure that these new shoes were large enough and never pinched the
feet of the wearers.

With the beginning of the year 1866 the heat was very great, but the
hunting in the forests did not stand still. Agouties, peccaries, capybaras,
kangaroos, game of all sorts, actually swarmed there, and Spilett and
Herbert were too good marksmen ever to throw away their shot uselessly.

Cyrus Harding still recommended them to husband the ammunition, and he
took measures to replace the powder and shot which had been found in the
box, and which he wished to reserve for the future. How did he know where
chance might one day cast his companions and himself in the event of their
leaving their domain? They should, then, prepare for the unknown future by
husbanding their ammunition and by substituting for it some easily
renewable substance.

To replace lead, of which Harding had found no traces in the island, he
employed granulated iron, which was easy to manufacture. These bullets, not
having the weight of leaden bullets, were made larger, and each charge
contained less, but the skill of the sportsmen made up this deficiency. As
to powder, Cyrus Harding would have been able to make that also, for he had
at his disposal saltpeter, sulphur, and coal; but this preparation requires
extreme care, and without special tools it is difficult to produce it of a
good quality. Harding preferred, therefore, to manufacture pyroxyle, that
is to say gun-cotton, a substance in which cotton is not indispensable, as
the elementary tissue of vegetables may be used, and this is found in an
almost pure state, not only in cotton, but in the textile fiber of hemp and
flax, in paper, the pith of the elder, etc. Now, the elder abounded in the
island towards the mouth of Red Creek, and the colonists had already made
coffee of the berries of these shrubs, which belong to the family of the
caprifoliaceae.

The only thing to be collected, therefore, was elder-pith, for as to the
other substance necessary for the manufacture of pyroxyle, it was only
fuming azotic acid. Now, Harding having sulphuric acid at his disposal, had
already been easily able to produce azotic acid by attacking the saltpeter
with which nature supplied him. He accordingly resolved to manufacture and
employ pyroxyle, although it has some inconveniences, that is to say, a
great inequality of effect, an excessive inflammability, since it takes
fire at one hundred and seventy degrees instead of two hundred and forty,
and lastly, an instantaneous deflagration which might damage the firearms.
On the other hand, the advantages of pyroxyle consist in this, that it is
not injured by damp, that it does not make the gun-barrels dirty, and that
its force is four times that of ordinary powder.

To make pyroxyle, the cotton must be immersed in the fuming azotic acid
for a quarter of an hour, then washed in cold water and dried. Nothing
could be more simple.

Cyrus Harding had only at his disposal the ordinary azotic acid and not
the fuming or monohydrate azotic acid, that is to say, acid which emits
white vapors when it comes in contact with damp air; but by substituting
for the latter ordinary azotic acid, mixed, in the proportion of from three
to five volumes of concentrated sulphuric acid, the engineer obtained the
same result. The sportsmen of the island therefore soon had a perfectly
prepared substance, which, employed discreetly, produced admirable results.

About this time the settlers cleared three acres of the plateau, and the
rest was preserved in a wild state, for the benefit of the onagers. Several
excursions were made into the Jacamar Wood and the forests of the Far West,
and they brought back from thence a large collection of wild vegetables,
spinach, cress, radishes, and turnips, which careful culture would soon
improve, and which would temper the regimen on which the settlers had till
then subsisted. Supplies of wood and coal were also carted. Each excursion
was at the same time a means of improving the roads, which gradually became
smoother under the wheels of the cart.

The rabbit-warren still continued to supply the larder of Granite House.
As fortunately it was situated on the other side of Creek Glycerine, its
inhabitants could not reach the plateau nor ravage the newly-made
plantation. The oyster-bed among the rocks was frequently renewed and
furnished excellent molluscs. Besides that, the fishing, either in the lake
or the Mercy, was very profitable, for Pencroft had made some lines, armed
with iron hooks, with which they frequently caught fine trout, and a
species of fish whose silvery sides were speckled with yellow, and which
were also extremely savory. Master Neb, who was skilled in the culinary
art, knew how to vary agreeably the bill of fare. Bread alone was wanting
at the table of the settlers, and as has been said, they felt this
privation greatly.

The settlers hunted too the turtles which frequented the shores of Cape
Mandible. At this place the beach was covered with little mounds,
concealing perfectly spherical turtles' eggs, with white hard shells, the
albumen of which does not coagulate as that of birds' eggs. They were
hatched by the sun, and their number was naturally considerable, as each
turtle can lay annually two hundred and fifty.

"A regular egg-field," observed Gideon Spilett, "and we have nothing to
do but to pick them up."

But not being contented with simply the produce, they made chase after
the producers, the result of which was that they were able to bring back to
Granite House a dozen of these chelonians, which were really valuable from
an alimentary point of view. The turtle soup, flavored with aromatic herbs,
often gained well-merited praises for its preparer, Neb.

We must here mention another fortunate circumstance by which new stores
for the winter were laid in. Shoals of salmon entered the Mercy, and
ascended the country for several miles. It was the time at which the
females, going to find suitable places in which to spawn, precede the males
and make a great noise through the fresh water. A thousand of these fish,
which measured about two feet and a half in length, came up the river, and
a large quantity were retained by fixing dams across the stream. More than
a hundred were thus taken, which were salted and stored for the time when
winter, freezing up the streams, would render fishing impracticable. By
this time the intelligent Jup was raised to the duty of valet. He had been
dressed in a jacket, white linen breeches, and an apron, the pockets of
which were his delight. The clever orang had been marvelously trained by
Neb, and any one would have said that the Negro and the ape understood each
other when they talked together. Jup had besides a real affection for Neb,
and Neb returned it. When his services were not required, either for
carrying wood or for climbing to the top of some tree, Jup passed the
greatest part of his time in the kitchen, where he endeavored to imitate
Neb in all that he saw him do. The black showed the greatest patience and
even extreme zeal in instructing his pupil, and the pupil exhibited
remarkable intelligence in profiting by the lessons he received from his
master.

Judge then of the pleasure Master Jup gave to the inhabitants of Granite
House when, without their having had any idea of it, he appeared one day,
napkin on his arm, ready to wait at table. Quick, attentive, he acquitted
himself perfectly, changing the plates, bringing dishes, pouring out water,
all with a gravity which gave intense amusement to the settlers, and which
enraptured Pencroft.

"Jup, some soup!"

"Jup, a little agouti!"

"Jup, a plate!"

"Jup! Good Jup! Honest Jup!"

Nothing was heard but that, and Jup without ever being disconcerted,
replied to every one, watched for everything, and he shook his head in a
knowing way when Pencroft, referring to his joke of the first day, said to
him,--

"Decidedly, Jup, your wages must be doubled."

It is useless to say that the orang was now thoroughly domesticated at
Granite House, and that he often accompanied his masters to the forest
without showing any wish to leave them. It was most amusing to see him
walking with a stick which Pencroft had given him, and which he carried on
his shoulder like a gun. If they wished to gather some fruit from the
summit of a tree, how quickly he climbed for it. If the wheel of the cart
stuck in the mud, with what energy did Jup with a single heave of his
shoulder put it right again.

"What a jolly fellow he is!" cried Pencroft often. "If he was as
mischievous as he is good, there would be no doing anything with him!"

It was towards the end of January the colonists began their labors in the
center of the island. It had been decided that a corral should be
established near the sources of the Red Creek, at the foot of Mount
Franklin, destined to contain the ruminants, whose presence would have been
troublesome at Granite House, and especially for the musmons, who were to
supply the wool for the settlers' winter garments.

Each morning, the colony, sometimes entire, but more often represented
only by Harding, Herbert, and Pencroft, proceeded to the sources of the
Creek, a distance of not more than five miles, by the newly beaten road to
which the name of Corral Road had been given.

There a site was chosen, at the back of the southern ridge of the
mountain. It was a meadow land, dotted here and there with clumps of trees,
and watered by a little stream, which sprung from the slopes which closed
it in on one side. The grass was fresh, and it was not too much shaded by
the trees which grew about it. This meadow was to be surrounded by a
palisade, high enough to prevent even the most agile animals from leaping
over. This enclosure would be large enough to contain a hundred musmons and
wild goats, with all the young ones they might produce.

The perimeter of the corral was then traced by the engineer, and they
would then have proceeded to fell the trees necessary for the construction
of the palisade, but as the opening up of the road had already necessitated
the sacrifice of a considerable number, those were brought and supplied a
hundred stakes, which were firmly fixed in the ground.

The construction of this corral did not take less than three weeks, for
besides the palisade, Cyrus Harding built large sheds, in which the animals
could take shelter. These buildings had also to be made very strong, for
musmons are powerful animals, and their first fury was to be feared. The
stakes, sharpened at their upper end and hardened by fire, had been fixed
by means of cross-bars, and at regular distances props assured the solidity
of the whole.

The corral finished, a raid had to be made on the pastures frequented by
the ruminants. This was done on the 7th of February, on a beautiful
summer's day, and every one took part in it. The onagers, already well
trained, were ridden by Spilett and Herbert, and were of great use.

The maneuver consisted simply in surrounding the musmons and goats, and
gradually narrowing the circle around them. Cyrus Harding, Pencroft, Neb,
and Jup, posted themselves in different parts of the wood, while the two
cavaliers and Top galloped in a radius of half a mile round the corral.

The musmons were very numerous in this part of the island. These fine
animals were as large as deer; their horns were stronger than those of the
ram, and their gray-colored fleece was mixed with long hair.

This hunting day was very fatiguing. Such going and coming, and running
and riding and shouting! Of a hundred musmons which had been surrounded,
more than two-thirds escaped, but at last, thirty of these animals and ten
wild goats were gradually driven back towards the corral, the open door of
which appearing to offer a means of escape, they rushed in and were
prisoners.

In short, the result was satisfactory, and the settlers had no reason to
complain. There was no doubt that the flock would prosper, and that at no
distant time not only wool but hides would be abundant.

That evening the hunters returned to Granite House quite exhausted.
However, notwithstanding their fatigue, they returned the next day to visit
the corral. The prisoners had been trying to overthrow the palisade, but of
course had not succeeded, and were not long in becoming more tranquil.

During the month of February, no event of any importance occurred. The
daily labors were pursued methodically, and, as well as improving the roads
to the corral and to Port Balloon, a third was commenced, which, starting
from the enclosure, proceeded towards the western coast. The yet unknown
portion of Lincoln Island was that of the wood-covered Serpentine
Peninsula, which sheltered the wild beasts, from which Gideon Spilett was
so anxious to clear their domain.

Before the cold season should appear the most assiduous care was given to
the cultivation of the wild plants which had been transplanted from the
forest to Prospect Heights. Herbert never returned from an excursion
without bringing home some useful vegetable. One day, it was some specimens
of the chicory tribe, the seeds of which by pressure yield an excellent
oil; another, it was some common sorrel, whose antiscorbutic qualities were
not to be despised; then, some of those precious tubers, which have at all
times been cultivated in South America, potatoes, of which more than two
hundred species are now known. The kitchen garden, now well stocked and
carefully defended from the birds, was divided into small beds, where grew
lettuces, kidney potatoes, sorrel, turnips, radishes, and other coneiferae.
The soil on the plateau was particularly fertile, and it was hoped that the
harvests would be abundant.

They had also a variety of different beverages, and so long as they did
not demand wine, the most hard to please would have had no reason to
complain. To the Oswego tea, and the fermented liquor extracted from the
roots of the dragonnier, Harding had added a regular beer, made from the
young shoots of the spruce-fir, which, after having been boiled and
fermented, made that agreeable drink called by the Anglo-Americans spring-
beer.

Towards the end of the summer, the poultry-yard was possessed of a couple
of fine bustards, which belonged to the houbara species, characterized by a
sort of feathery mantle; a dozen shovelers, whose upper mandible was
prolonged on each side by a membraneous appendage; and also some
magnificent cocks, similar to the Mozambique cocks, the comb, caruncle, and
epidermis being black. So far, everything had succeeded, thanks to the
activity of these courageous and intelligent men. Nature did much for them,
doubtless; but faithful to the great precept, they made a right use of what
a bountiful Providence gave them.

After the heat of these warm summer days, in the evening when their work
was finished and the sea-breeze began to blow, they liked to sit on the
edge of Prospect Heights, in a sort of veranda, covered with creepers,
which Neb had made with his own hands. There they talked, they instructed
each other, they made plans, and the rough good-humor of the sailor always
amused this little world, in which the most perfect harmony had never
ceased to reign.

They often spoke of their country, of their dear and great America. What
was the result of the War of Secession? It could not have been greatly
prolonged. Richmond had doubtless soon fallen into the hands of General
Grant. The taking of the capital of the Confederates must have been the
last action of this terrible struggle. Now the North had triumphed in the
good cause, how welcome would have been a newspaper to the exiles in
Lincoln Island! For eleven months all communication between them and the
rest of their fellow-creatures had been interrupted, and in a short time
the 24th of March would arrive, the anniversary of the day on which the
balloon had thrown them on this unknown coast. They were then mere
castaways, not even knowing how they should preserve their miserable lives
from the fury of the elements! And now, thanks to the knowledge of their
captain, and their own intelligence, they were regular colonists, furnished
with arms, tools, and instruments; they had been able to turn to their
profit the animals, plants, and minerals of the island, that is to say, the
three kingdoms of Nature.

Yes; they often talked of all these things and formed still more plans.

As to Cyrus Harding he was for the most part silent, and listened to his
companions more often than he spoke to them. Sometimes he smiled at
Herbert's ideas or Pencroft's nonsense, but always and everywhere he
pondered over those inexplicable facts, that strange enigma, of which the
secret still escaped him!



Chapter 9

The weather changed during the first week of March. There had been a full
moon at the commencement of the month, and the heat was excessive. The
atmosphere was felt to be full of electricity, and a period of some length
of tempestuous weather was to be feared.

Indeed, on the 2nd, peals of thunder were heard, the wind blew from the
east, and hail rattled against the facade of Granite House like volleys of
grape-shot. The door and windows were immediately closed, or everything in
the rooms would have been drenched. On seeing these hailstones, some of
which were the size of a pigeon's egg, Pencroft's first thought was that
his cornfield was in serious danger.

He directly rushed to his field, where little green heads were already
appearing, and by means of a great cloth, he managed to protect his crop.

This bad weather lasted a week, during which time the thunder rolled
without cessation in the depths of the sky.

The colonists, not having any pressing work out of doors, profited by the
bad weather to work at the interior of Granite House, the arrangement of
which was becoming more complete from day to day. The engineer made a
turning-lathe, with which he turned several articles both for the toilet
and the kitchen, particularly buttons, the want of which was greatly felt.
A gunrack had been made for the firearms, which were kept with extreme
care, and neither tables nor cupboards were left incomplete. They sawed,
they planed, they filed, they turned; and during the whole of this bad
season, nothing was heard but the grinding of tools or the humming of the
turning-lathe which responded to the growling of the thunder.

Master Jup had not been forgotten, and he occupied a room at the back,
near the storeroom, a sort of cabin with a cot always full of good litter,
which perfectly suited his taste.

"With good old Jup there is never any quarreling," often repeated
Pencroft, "never any improper reply. What a servant, Neb, what a servant!"

Of course Jup was now well used to service. He brushed their clothes, he
turned the spit, he waited at table, he swept the rooms, he gathered wood,
and he performed another admirable piece of service which delighted
Pencroft--he never went to sleep without first coming to tuck up the worthy
sailor in his bed.

As to the health of the members of the colony, bipeds or bimana,
quadrumana or quadrupeds, it left nothing to be desired. With their life in
the open air, on this salubrious soil, under that temperate zone, working
both with head and hands, they could not suppose that illness would ever
attack them.

All were indeed wonderfully well. Herbert had already grown two inches in
the year. His figure was forming and becoming more manly, and he promised
to be an accomplished man, physically as well as morally. Besides he
improved himself during the leisure hours which manual occupations left to
him; he read the books found in the case; and after the practical lessons
which were taught by the very necessity of their position, he found in the
engineer for science, and the reporter for languages, masters who were
delighted to complete his education.

The tempest ended about the 9th of March, but the sky remained covered
with clouds during the whole of this last summer month. The atmosphere,
violently agitated by the electric commotions, could not recover its former
purity, and there was almost invariably rain and fog, except for three or
four fine days on which several excursions were made. About this time the
female onager gave birth to a young one which belonged to the same sex as
its mother, and which throve capitally. In the corral, the flock of musmons
had also increased, and several lambs already bleated in the sheds, to the
great delight of Neb and Herbert, who had each their favorite among these
newcomers. An attempt was also made for the domestication of the peccaries,
which succeeded well. A sty was constructed under the poultry-yard, and
soon contained several young ones in the way to become civilized, that is
to say, to become fat under Neb's care. Master Jup, entrusted with carrying
them their daily nourishment, leavings from the kitchen, etc., acquitted
himself conscientiously of his task. He sometimes amused himself at the
expense of his little pensioners by tweaking their tails; but this was
mischief, and not wickedness, for these little twisted tails amused him
like a plaything, and his instinct was that of a child. One day in this
month of March, Pencroft, talking to the engineer, reminded Cyrus Harding
of a promise which the latter had not as yet had time to fulfil.

"You once spoke of an apparatus which would take the place of the long
ladders at Granite House, captain," said he; "won't you make it some day?"

"Nothing will be easier; but is this a really useful thing?"

"Certainly, captain. After we have given ourselves necessaries, let us
think a little of luxury. For us it may be luxury, if you like, but for
things it is necessary. It isn't very convenient to climb up a long ladder
when one is heavily loaded."

"Well, Pencroft, we will try to please you," replied Cyrus Harding.

"But you have no machine at your disposal."

"We will make one."

"A steam machine?"

"No, a water machine."

And, indeed, to work his apparatus there was already a natural force at
the disposal of the engineer which could be used without great difficulty.
For this, it was enough to augment the flow of the little stream which
supplied the interior of Granite House with water. The opening among the
stones and grass was then increased, thus producing a strong fall at the
bottom of the passage, the overflow from which escaped by the inner well.
Below this fall the engineer fixed a cylinder with paddles, which was
joined on the exterior with a strong cable rolled on a wheel, supporting a
basket. In this way, by means of a long rope reaching to the ground, which
enabled them to regulate the motive power, they could rise in the basket to
the door of Granite House.

It was on the 17th of March that the lift acted for the first time, and
gave universal satisfaction. Henceforward all the loads, wood, coal,
provisions, and even the settlers themselves, were hoisted by this simple
system, which replaced the primitive ladder, and, as may be supposed, no
one thought of regretting the change. Top particularly was enchanted with
this improvement, for he had not, and never could have possessed Master
Jup's skill in climbing ladders, and often it was on Neb's back, or even on
that of the orang that he had been obliged to make the ascent to Granite
House. About this time, too, Cyrus Harding attempted to manufacture glass,
and he at first put the old pottery-kiln to this new use. There were some
difficulties to be encountered; but, after several fruitless attempts, he
succeeded in setting up a glass manufactory, which Gideon Spilett and
Herbert, his usual assistants, did not leave for several days. As to the
substances used in the composition of glass, they are simply sand, chalk,
and soda, either carbonate or sulphate. Now the beach supplied sand, lime
supplied chalk, sea-weeds supplied soda, pyrites supplied sulphuric acid,
and the ground supplied coal to heat the kiln to the wished-for
temperature. Cyrus Harding thus soon had everything ready for setting to
work.

The tool, the manufacture of which presented the most difficulty, was the
pipe of the glass-maker, an iron tube, five or six feet long, which
collects on one end the material in a state of fusion. But by means of a
long, thin piece of iron rolled up like the barrel of a gun, Pencroft
succeeded in making a tube soon ready for use.

On the 28th of March the tube was heated. A hundred parts of sand,
thirty-five of chalk, forty of sulphate of soda, mixed with two or three
parts of powdered coal, composed the substance, which was placed in
crucibles. When the high temperature of the oven had reduced it to a
liquid, or rather a pasty state, Cyrus Harding collected with the tube a
quantity of the paste: he turned it about on a metal plate, previously
arranged, so as to give it a form suitable for blowing, then he passed the
tube to Herbert, telling him to blow at the other extremity.

And Herbert, swelling out his cheeks, blew so much and so well into the
tube-taking care to twirl it round at the same time--that his breath
dilated the glassy mass. Other quantities of the substance in a state of
fusion were added to the first, and in a short time the result was a bubble
which measured a foot in diameter. Harding then took the tube out of
Herbert's hands, and, giving it a pendulous motion, he ended by lengthening
the malleable bubble so as to give it a cylindroconic shape.

The blowing operation had given a cylinder of glass terminated by two
hemispheric caps, which were easily detached by means of a sharp iron
dipped in cold water; then, by the same proceeding, this cylinder was cut
lengthways, and after having been rendered malleable by a second heating,
it was extended on a plate and spread out with a wooden roller.

The first pane was thus manufactured, and they had only to perform this
operation fifty times to have fifty panes. The windows at Granite House
were soon furnished with panes; not very white, perhaps, but still
sufficiently transparent.

As to bottles and tumblers, that was only play. They were satisfied with
them, besides, just as they came from the end of the tube. Pencroft had
asked to be allowed to "blow" in his turn, and it was great fun for him;
but he blew so hard that his productions took the most ridiculous shapes,
which he admired immensely.

Cyrus Harding and Herbert, while hunting one day, had entered the forest
of the Far West, on the left bank of the Mercy, and, as usual, the lad was
asking a thousand questions of the engineer, who answered them heartily.
Now, as Harding was not a sportsman, and as, on the other side, Herbert was
talking chemistry and natural philosophy, numbers of kangaroos, capybaras,
and agouties came within range, which, however, escaped the lad's gun; the
consequence was that the day was already advanced, and the two hunters were
in danger of having made a useless excursion, when Herbert, stopping, and
uttering a cry of joy, exclaimed,--

"Oh, Captain Harding, do you see that tree?" and he pointed to a shrub,
rather than a tree, for it was composed of a single stem, covered with a
scaly bark, which bore leaves streaked with little parallel veins.

"And what is this tree which resembles a little palm?" asked Harding.

"It is a 'cycas revoluta,' of which I have a picture in our dictionary of
Natural History!" said Herbert.

"But I can't see any fruit on this shrub!" observed his companion.

"No, captain," replied Herbert; "but its stem contains a flour with which
nature has provided us all ready ground."

"It is, then, the bread-tree?"

"Yes, the bread-tree."

"Well, my boy," replied the engineer, "this is a valuable discovery,
since our wheat harvest is not yet ripe; I hope that you are not mistaken!"

Herbert was not mistaken: he broke the stem of a cycas, which was
composed of a glandulous tissue, containing a quantity of floury pith,
traversed with woody fiber, separated by rings of the same substance,
arranged concentrically. With this fecula was mingled a mucilaginous juice
of disagreeable flavor, but which it would be easy to get rid of by
pressure. This cellular substance was regular flour of a superior quality,
extremely nourishing; its exportation was formerly forbidden by the
Japanese laws.

Cyrus Harding and Herbert, after having examined that part of the Far
West where the cycas grew, took their bearings, and returned to Granite
House, where they made known their discovery.

The next day the settlers went to collect some, and returned to Granite
House with an ample supply of cycas stems. The engineer constructed a
press, with which to extract the mucilaginous juice mingled with the
fecula, and he obtained a large quantity of flour, which Neb soon
transformed into cakes and puddings. This was not quite real wheaten bread,
but it was very like it.

Now, too, the onager, the goats, and the sheep in the corral furnished
daily the milk necessary to the colony. The cart, or rather a sort of light
carriole which had replaced it, made frequent journeys to the corral, and
when it was Pencroft's turn to go he took Jup, and let him drive, and Jup,
cracking his whip, acquitted himself with his customary intelligence.

Everything prospered, as well in the corral as in Granite House, and
certainly the settlers, if it had not been that they were so far from their
native land, had no reason to complain. They were so well suited to this
life, and were, besides, so accustomed to the island, that they could not
have left its hospitable soil without regret!

And yet so deeply is the love of his country implanted in the heart of
man, that if a ship had unexpectedly come in sight of the island, the
colonists would have made signals, would have attracted her attention, and
would have departed!

It was the 1st of April, a Sunday, Easter Day, which Harding and his
companions sanctified by rest and prayer. The day was fine, such as an
October day in the Northern Hemisphere might be.

All, towards the evening after dinner, were seated under the veranda on
the edge of Prospect Heights, and they were watching the darkness creeping
up from the horizon. Some cups of the infusion of elder-berries, which took
the place of coffee, had been served by Neb. They were speaking of the
island and of its isolated situation in the Pacific, which led Gideon
Spilett to say,--

"My dear Cyrus, have you ever, since you possessed the sextant found in
the case, again taken the position of our island?"

"No," replied the engineer.

"But it would perhaps be a good thing to do it with this instrument,
which is more perfect than that which you before used."

"What is the good?" said Pencroft. "The island is quite comfortable where
it is!"

"Well, who knows," returned the reporter, "who knows but that we may be
much nearer inhabited land than we think?"

"We shall know to-morrow," replied Cyrus Harding, "and if it had not been
for the occupations which left me no leisure, we should have known it
already."

"Good!" said Pencroft. "The captain is too good an observer to be
mistaken, and, if it has not moved from its place, the island is just where
he put it."

"We shall see."

On the next day, therefore, by means of the sextant, the engineer made
the necessary observations to verify the position which he had already
obtained, and this was the result of his operation. His first observation
had given him the situation of Lincoln Island,--


In west longitude: from 1500 to 1550;

In south latitude: from 300 to 350


  The second gave exactly:


In longitude: 1500 30'

In south latitude: 340 57'

So then, notwithstanding the imperfection of his apparatus, Cyrus Harding
had operated with so much skill that his error did not exceed five degrees.

"Now," said Gideon Spilett, "since we possess an atlas as well as a
sextant, let us see, my dear Cyrus, the exact position which Lincoln Island
occupies in the Pacific."

Herbert fetched the atlas, and the map of the Pacific was opened, and the
engineer, compass in hand, prepared to determine their position.

Suddenly the compasses stopped, and he exclaimed,

"But an island exists in this part of the Pacific already!"

"An island?" cried Pencroft.

"Tabor Island."

"An important island?"

"No, an islet lost in the Pacific, and which perhaps has never been
visited."

"Well, we will visit it," said Pencroft.

"We?"

"Yes, captain. We will build a decked boat, and I will undertake to steer
her. At what distance are we from this Tabor Island?"

"About a hundred and fifty miles to the northeast," replied Harding.

"A hundred and fifty miles! And what's that?" returned Pencroft. "In
forty-eight hours, with a good wind, we should sight it!"

And, on this reply, it was decided that a vessel should be constructed in
time to be launched towards the month of next October, on the return of the
fine season.



Chapter 10

When Pencroft had once got a plan in his head, he had no peace till it was
executed. Now he wished to visit Tabor Island, and as a boat of a certain
size was necessary for this voyage, he determined to build one.

What wood should he employ? Elm or fir, both of which abounded in the
island? They decided for the fir, as being easy to work, but which stands
water as well as the elm.

These details settled, it was agreed that since the fine season would not
return before six months, Cyrus Harding and Pencroft should work alone at
the boat. Gideon Spilett and Herbert were to continue to hunt, and neither
Neb nor Master Jup, his assistant, were to leave the domestic duties which
had devolved upon them.

Directly the trees were chosen, they were felled, stripped of their
branches, and sawn into planks as well as sawyers would have been able to
do it. A week after, in the recess between the Chimneys and the cliff, a
dockyard was prepared, and a keel five-and-thirty feet long, furnished with
a stern-post at the stern and a stem at the bows, lay along the sand.

Cyrus Harding was not working in the dark at this new trade. He knew as
much about ship-building as about nearly everything else, and he had at
first drawn the model of his ship on paper. Besides, he was ably seconded
by Pencroft, who, having worked for several years in a dockyard in
Brooklyn, knew the practical part of the trade. It was not until after
careful calculation and deep thought that the timbers were laid on the
keel.

Pencroft, as may be believed, was all eagerness to carry out his new
enterprise, and would not leave his work for an instant.

A single thing had the honor of drawing him, but for one day only, from
his dockyard. This was the second wheat-harvest, which was gathered in on
the 15th of April. It was as much a success as the first, and yielded the
number of grains which had been predicted.

"Five bushels, captain," said Pencroft, alter having scrupulously
measured his treasure.

"Five bushels," replied the engineer; "and a hundred and thirty thousand
grains a bushel will make six hundred and fifty thousand grains."

"Well, we will sow them all this time," said the sailor, "except a little
in reserve."

"Yes, Pencroft, and if the next crop gives a proportionate yield, we
shall have four thousand bushels."

"And shall we eat bread?"

"We shall eat bread."

"But we must have a mill.

"We will make one."

The third corn-field was very much larger than the two first, and the
soil, prepared with extreme care, received the precious seed. That done,
Pencroft returned to his work.

During this time Spilett and Herbert hunted in the neighborhood, and they
ventured deep into the still unknown parts of the Far West, their guns
loaded with ball, ready for any dangerous emergency. It was a vast thicket
of magnificent trees, crowded together as if pressed for room. The
exploration of these dense masses of wood was difficult in the extreme, and
the reporter never ventured there without the pocket-compass, for the sun
scarcely pierced through the thick foliage and it would have been very
difficult for them to retrace their way. It naturally happened that game
was more rare in those situations where there was hardly sufficient room to
move; two or three large herbivorous animals were however killed during the
last fortnight of April. These were koalas, specimens of which the settlers
had already seen to the north of the lake, and which stupidly allowed
themselves to be killed among the thick branches of the trees in which they
took refuge. Their skins were brought back to Granite House, and there, by
the help of sulphuric acid, they were subjected to a sort of tanning
process which rendered them capable of being used.

On the 30th of April, the two sportsmen were in the depth of the Far
West, when the reporter, preceding Herbert a few paces, arrived in a sort
of clearing, into which the trees more sparsely scattered had permitted a
few rays to penetrate. Gideon Spilett was at first surprised at the odor
which exhaled from certain plants with straight stalks, round and branchy,
bearing grape-like clusters of flowers and very small berries. The reporter
broke off one or two of these stalks and returned to the lad, to whom he
said,--

"What can this be, Herbert?"

"Well, Mr. Spilett," said Herbert, "this is a treasure which will secure
you Pencroft's gratitude forever."

"Is it tobacco?"

"Yes, and though it may not be of the first quality, it is none the less
tobacco!"

"Oh, good old Pencroft! Won't he be pleased! But we must not let him
smoke it all, he must give us our share."

"Ah! an idea occurs to me, Mr, Spilett," replied Herbert. "Don't let us
say anything to Pencroft yet; we will prepare these leaves, and one fine
day we will present him with a pipe already filled!"

"All right, Herbert, and on that day our worthy companion will have
nothing left to wish for in this world."

The reporter and the lad secured a good store of the precious plant, and
then returned to Granite House, where they smuggled it in with as much
precaution as if Pencroft had been the most vigilant and severe of custom-
house officers.

Cyrus Harding and Neb were taken into confidence, and the sailor
suspected nothing during the whole time, necessarily somewhat long, which
was required in order to dry the small leaves, chop them up, and subject
them to a certain torrefaction on hot stones. This took two months; but all
these manipulations were successfully carried on unknown to Pencroft, for,
occupied with the construction of his boat, he only returned to Granite
House at the hour of rest.

For some days they had observed an enormous animal two or three miles out
in the open sea swimming around Lincoln Island. This was a whale of the
largest size, which apparently belonged to the southern species, called
the "Cape Whale."

"What a lucky chance it would be if we could capture it!" cried the
sailor. "Ah! if we only had a proper boat and a good harpoon, I would say
'After the beast,' for he would be well worth the trouble of catching!"

"Well, Pencroft," observed Harding, "I should much like to watch you
handling a harpoon. It would be very interesting."

"I am astonished," said the reporter, "to see a whale in this
comparatively high latitude."

"Why so, Mr. Spilett?" replied Herbert. "We are exactly in that part of
the Pacific which English and American whalemen call the whale field, and
it is here, between New Zealand and South America, that the whales of the
Southern Hemisphere are met with in the greatest numbers."

And Pencroft returned to his work, not without uttering a sigh of regret,
for every sailor is a born fisherman, and if the pleasure of fishing is in
exact proportion to the size of the animal, one can judge how a whaler
feels in sight of a whale. And if this had only been for pleasure! But they
could not help feeling how valuable such a prize would have been to the
colony, for the oil, fat, and bones would have been put to many uses.

Now it happened that this whale appeared to have no wish to leave the
waters of the island. Therefore, whether from the windows of Granite House,
or from Prospect Heights, Herbert and Gideon Spilett, when they were not
hunting, or Neb, unless presiding over his fires, never left the telescope,
but watched all the animal's movements. The cetacean, having entered far
into Union Bay, made rapid furrows across it from Mandible Cape to Claw
Cape, propelled by its enormously powerful flukes, on which it supported
itself, and making its way through the water at the rate little short of
twelve knots an hour. Sometimes also it approached so near to the island
that it could be clearly distinguished. It was the southern whale, which is
completely black, the head being more depressed than that of the northern
whale.

They could also see it throwing up from its air-holes to a great height a
cloud of vapor, or of water, for, strange as it may appear, naturalists and
whalers are not agreed on this subject. Is it air or is it water which is
thus driven out? It is generally admitted to be vapor, which, condensing
suddenly by contact with the cold air, falls again as rain.

However, the presence of this mammifer preoccupied the colonists. It
irritated Pencroft especially, as he could think of nothing else while at
work. He ended by longing for it, like a child for a thing which it has
been denied. At night he talked about it in his sleep, and certainly if he
had had the means of attacking it, if the sloop had been in a fit state to
put to sea, he would not have hesitated to set out in pursuit.

But what the colonists could not do for themselves chance did for them,
and on the 3rd of May shouts from Neb, who had stationed himself at the
kitchen window, announced that the whale was stranded on the beach of the
island.

Herbert and Gideon Spilett, who were just about to set out hunting, left
their guns, Pencroft threw down his ax, and Harding and Neb joining their
companions, all rushed towards the scene of action.

The stranding had taken place on the beach of Flotsam Point, three miles
from Granite House, and at high tide. It was therefore probable that the
cetacean would not be able to extricate itself easily; at any rate it was
best to hasten, so as to cut off its retreat if necessary. They ran with
pick-axes and iron-tipped poles in their hands, passed over the Mercy
bridge, descended the right bank of the river, along the beach, and in less
than twenty minutes the settlers were close to the enormous animal, above
which flocks of birds already hovered.

"What a monster!" cried Neb.

And the exclamation was natural, for it was a southern whale, eighty feet
long, a giant of the species, probably not weighing less than a hundred and
fifty thousand pounds!

In the meanwhile, the monster thus stranded did not move, nor attempt by
struggling to regain the water while the tide was still high.

It was dead, and a harpoon was sticking out of its left side.

"There are whalers in these quarters, then?" said Gideon Spilett
directly.

"Oh, Mr. Spilett, that doesn't prove anything!" replied Pencroft. "Whales
have been known to go thousands of miles with a harpoon in the side, and
this one might even have been struck in the north of the Atlantic and come
to die in the south of the Pacific, and it would be nothing astonishing."

Pencroft, having torn the harpoon from the animal's side, read this
inscription on it:


           MARIA STELLA, VINEYARD


"A vessel from the Vineyard! A ship from my country!" he cried. "The
'Maria Stella!' A fine whaler, 'pon my word; I know her well! Oh, my
friends, a vessel from the Vineyard!--a whaler from the Vineyard!"

And the sailor brandishing the harpoon, repeated, not without emotion,
the name which he loved so well--the name of his birthplace.

But as it could not be expected that the "Maria Stella" would come to
reclaim the animal harpooned by her, they resolved to begin cutting it up
before decomposition should commence. The birds, who had watched this rich
prey for several days, had determined to take possession of it without
further delay, and it was necessary to drive them off by firing at them
repeatedly.

The whale was a female, and a large quantity of milk was taken from it,
which, according to the opinion of the naturalist Duffenbach, might pass
for cow's milk, and, indeed, it differs from it neither in taste, color,
nor density.

Pencroft had formerly served on board a whaling-ship, and he could
methodically direct the operation of cutting up, a sufficiently
disagreeable operation lasting three days, but from which the settlers did
not flinch, not even Gideon Spilett, who, as the sailor said, would end by
making a "real good castaway."

The blubber, cut in parallel slices of two feet and a half in thickness,
then divided into pieces which might weigh about a thousand pounds each,
was melted down in large earthen pots brought to the spot, for they did not
wish to taint the environs of Granite House, and in this fusion it lost
nearly a third of its weight.

But there was an immense quantity of it; the tongue alone yielded six
thousand pounds of oil, and the lower lip four thousand. Then, besides the
fat, which would insure for a long time a store of stearine and glycerine,
there were still the bones, for which a use could doubtless be found,
although there were neither umbrellas nor stays used at Granite House. The
upper part of the mouth of the cetacean was, indeed, provided on both sides
with eight hundred horny blades, very elastic, of a fibrous texture, and
fringed at the edge like great combs, at which the teeth, six feet long,
served to retain the thousands of animalculae, little fish, and molluscs,
on which the whale fed.

The operation finished, to the great satisfaction of the operators, the
remains of the animal were left to the birds, who would soon make every
vestige of it disappear, and their usual daily occupations were resumed by
the inmates of Granite House.

However, before returning to the dockyard, Cyrus Harding conceived the
idea of fabricating certain machines, which greatly excited the curiosity
of his companions. He took a dozen of the whale's bones, cut them into six
equal parts, and sharpened their ends.

"This machine is not my own invention, and it is frequently employed by
the Aleutian hunters in Russian America. You see these bones, my friends;
well, when it freezes, I will bend them, and then wet them with water till
they are entirely covered with ice, which will keep them bent, and I will
strew them on the snow, having previously covered them with fat. Now, what
will happen if a hungry animal swallows one of these baits? Why, the heat
of his stomach will melt the ice, and the bone, springing straight, will
pierce him with its sharp points."

"Well! I do call that ingenious!" said Pencroft.

"And it will spare the powder and shot," rejoined Cyrus Harding.

"That will be better than traps!" added Neb.

In the meanwhile the boat-building progressed, and towards the end of the
month half the planking was completed. It could already be seen that her
shape was excellent, and that she would sail well.

Pencroft worked with unparalleled ardor, and only a sturdy frame could
have borne such fatigue; but his companions were preparing in secret a
reward for his labors, and on the 31st of May he was to meet with one of
the greatest joys of his life.

On that day, after dinner, just as he was about to leave the table,
Pencroft felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was the hand of Gideon Spilett, who said,--

"One moment, Master Pencroft, you mustn't sneak off like that! You've
forgotten your dessert."

"Thank you, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "I am going back to my
work."

"Well, a cup of coffee, my friend?"

"Nothing more."

"A pipe, then?"

Pencroft jumped up, and his great good-natured face grew pale when he saw
the reporter presenting him with a ready-filled pipe, and Herbert with a
glowing coal.

The sailor endeavored to speak, but could not get out a word; so, seizing
the pipe, he carried it to his lips, then applying the coal, he drew five
or six great whiffs. A fragrant blue cloud soon arose, and from its depths
a voice was heard repeating excitedly,--

"Tobacco! real tobacco!"

"Yes, Pencroft," returned Cyrus Harding, "and very good tobacco too!"

"O, divine Providence; sacred Author of all things!" cried the sailor.
"Nothing more is now wanting to our island."

And Pencroft smoked, and smoked, and smoked.

"And who made this discovery?" he asked at length. "You, Herbert, no
doubt?"

"No, Pencroft, it was Mr. Spilett."

"Mr. Spilett!" exclaimed the sailor, seizing the reporter, and clasping
him to his breast with such a squeeze that he had never felt anything like
it before.

"Oh Pencroft," said Spilett, recovering his breath at last, "a truce for
one moment. You must share your gratitude with Herbert, who recognized the
plant, with Cyrus, who prepared it, and with Neb, who took a great deal of
trouble to keep our secret."

"Well, my friends, I will repay you some day," replied the sailor. "Now
we are friends for life."



Chapter 11

Winter arrived with the month of June, which is the December of the
northern zones, and the great business was the making of warm and solid
clothing.

The musmons in the corral had been stripped of their wool, and this
precious textile material was now to be transformed into stuff.

Of course Cyrus Harding, having at his disposal neither carders,
combers, polishers, stretchers, twisters, mule-jenny, nor self-acting
machine to spin the wool, nor loom to weave it, was obliged to proceed in a
simpler way, so as to do without spinning and weaving. And indeed he
proposed to make use of the property which the filaments of wool possess
when subjected to a powerful pressure of mixing together, and of
manufacturing by this simple process the material called felt. This felt
could then be obtained by a simple operation which, if it diminished the
flexibility of the stuff, increased its power of retaining heat in
proportion. Now the wool furnished by the musmons was composed of very
short hairs, and was in a good condition to be felted.

The engineer, aided by his companions, including Pencroft, who was once
more obliged to leave his boat, commenced the preliminary operations, the
subject of which was to rid the wool of that fat and oily substance with
which it is impregnated, and which is called grease. This cleaning was done
in vats filled with water, which was maintained at the temperature of
seventy degrees, and in which the wool was soaked for four-and-twenty
hours; it was then thoroughly washed in baths of soda, and, when
sufficiently dried by pressure, it was in a state to be compressed, that is
to say, to produce a solid material, rough, no doubt, and such as would
have no value in a manufacturing center of Europe or America, but which
would be highly esteemed in the Lincoln Island markets.

This sort of material must have been known from the most ancient times,
and, in fact, the first woolen stuffs were manufactured by the process
which Harding was now about to employ. Where Harding's engineering
qualifications now came into play was in the construction of the machine
for pressing the wool; for he knew how to turn ingeniously to profit the
mechanical force, hitherto unused, which the waterfall on the beach
possessed to move a fulling-mill.

Nothing could be more rudimentary. The wool was placed in troughs, and
upon it fell in turns heavy wooden mallets; such was the machine in
question, and such it had been for centuries until the time when the
mallets were replaced by cylinders of compression, and the material was no
longer subjected to beating, but to regular rolling.

The operation, ably directed by Cyrus Harding, was a complete success.
The wool, previously impregnated with a solution of soap, intended on the
one hand to facilitate the interlacing, the compression, and the softening
of the wool, and on the other to prevent its diminution by the beating,
issued from the mill in the shape of thick felt cloth. The roughnesses with
which the staple of wool is naturally filled were so thoroughly entangled
and interlaced together that a material was formed equally suitable either
for garments or bedclothes. It was certainly neither merino, muslin,
cashmere, rep, satin, alpaca, cloth, nor flannel. It was "Lincolnian felt,"
and Lincoln Island possessed yet another manufacture. The colonists had now
warm garments and thick bedclothes, and they could without fear await the
approach of the winter of 1866-67.

The severe cold began to be felt about the 20th of June, and, to his
great regret, Pencroft was obliged to suspend his boat-building, which he
hoped to finish in time for next spring.

The sailor's great idea was to make a voyage of discovery to Tabor
Island, although Harding could not approve of a voyage simply for
curiosity's sake, for there was evidently nothing to be found on this
desert and almost arid rock. A voyage of a hundred and fifty miles in a
comparatively small vessel, over unknown seas, could not but cause him some
anxiety. Suppose that their vessel, once out at sea, should be unable to
reach Tabor Island, and could not return to Lincoln Island, what would
become of her in the midst of the Pacific, so fruitful of disasters?

Harding often talked over this project with Pencroft, and he found him
strangely bent upon undertaking this voyage, for which determination he
himself could give no sufficient reason.

"Now," said the engineer one day to him, "I must observe, my friend, that
after having said so much, in praise of Lincoln Island, after having spoken
so often of the sorrow you would feel if you were obliged to forsake it,
you are the first to wish to leave it."

"Only to leave it for a few days," replied Pencroft, "only for a few
days, captain. Time to go and come back, and see what that islet is like!"

"But it is not nearly as good as Lincoln Island."

"I know that beforehand."

"Then why venture there?"

"To know what is going on in Tabor Island."

"But nothing is going on there; nothing could happen there."

"Who knows?"

"And if you are caught in a hurricane?"

"There is no fear of that in the fine season," replied Pencroft. "But,
captain, as we must provide against everything, I shall ask your permission
to take Herbert only with me on this voyage."

"Pencroft," replied the engineer, placing his hand on the sailor's
shoulder, "if any misfortune happens to you, or to this lad, whom chance
has made our child, do you think we could ever cease to blame ourselves?"

"Captain Harding," replied Pencroft, with unshaken confidence, "we shall
not cause you that sorrow. Besides, we will speak further of this voyage,
when the time comes to make it. And I fancy, when you have seen our tight-
rigged little craft, when you have observed how she behaves at sea, when we
sail round our island, for we will do so together--I fancy, I say, that you
will no longer hesitate to let me go. I don't conceal from you that your
boat will be a masterpiece."

"Say 'our' boat, at least, Pencroft," replied the engineer, disarmed for
the moment. The conversation ended thus, to be resumed later on, without
convincing either the sailor or the engineer.

The first snow fell towards the end of the month of June. The corral had
previously been largely supplied with stores, so that daily visits to it
were not requisite; but it was decided that more than a week should never
be allowed to pass without someone going to it.

Traps were again set, and the machines manufactured by Harding were
tried. The bent whalebones, imprisoned in a case of ice, and covered with a
thick outer layer of fat, were placed on the border of the forest at a spot
where animals usually passed on their way to the lake.

To the engineer's great satisfaction, this invention, copied from the
Aleutian fishermen, succeeded perfectly. A dozen foxes, a few wild boars,
and even a jaguar, were taken in this way, the animals being found dead,
their stomachs pierced by the unbent bones.

An incident must here be related, not only as interesting in itself, but
because it was the first attempt made by the colonists to communicate with
the rest of mankind.

Gideon Spilett had already several times pondered whether to throw into
the sea a letter enclosed in a bottle, which currents might perhaps carry
to an inhabited coast, or to confide it to pigeons.

But how could it be seriously hoped that either pigeons or bottles could
cross the distance of twelve hundred miles which separated the island from
any inhabited land? It would have been pure folly.

But on the 30th of June the capture was effected, not without difficulty,
of an albatross, which a shot from Herbert's gun had slightly wounded in
the foot. It was a magnificent bird, measuring ten feet from wing to wing,
and which could traverse seas as wide as the Pacific.

Herbert would have liked to keep this superb bird, as its wound would
soon heal, and he thought he could tame it; but Spilett explained to him
that they should not neglect this opportunity of attempting to communicate
by this messenger with the lands of the Pacific; for if the albatross had
come from some inhabited region, there was no doubt but that it would
return there so soon as it was set free.

Perhaps in his heart Gideon Spilett, in whom the journalist sometimes
came to the surface, was not sorry to have the opportunity of sending forth
to take its chance an exciting article relating the adventures of the
settlers in Lincoln Island. What a success for the authorized reporter of
the New York Herald, and for the number which should contain the article,
if it should ever reach the address of its editor, the Honorable James
Bennett!

Gideon Spilett then wrote out a concise account, which was placed in a
strong waterproof bag, with an earnest request to whoever might find it to
forward it to the office of the New York Herald. This little bag was
fastened to the neck of the albatross, and not to its foot, for these birds
are in the habit of resting on the surface of the sea; then liberty was
given to this swift courier of the air, and it was not without some emotion
that the colonists watched it disappear in the misty west.

"Where is he going to?" asked Pencroft.

"Towards New Zealand," replied Herbert.

"A good voyage to you," shouted the sailor, who himself did not expect
any great result from this mode of correspondence.

With the winter, work had been resumed in the interior of Granite House,
mending clothes and different occupations, among others making the sails
for their vessel, which were cut from the inexhaustible balloon-case.

During the month of July the cold was intense, but there was no lack of
either wood or coal. Cyrus Harding had established a second fireplace in
the dining-room, and there the long winter evenings were spent. Talking
while they worked, reading when the hands remained idle, the time passed
with profit to all.

It was real enjoyment to the settlers when in their room, well lighted
with candles, well warmed with coal, after a good dinner, elderberry coffee
smoking in the cups, the pipes giving forth an odoriferous smoke, they
could hear the storm howling without. Their comfort would have been
complete, if complete comfort could ever exist for those who are far from
their fellow-creatures, and without any means of communication with them.
They often talked of their country, of the friends whom they had left, of
the grandeur of the American Republic, whose influence could not but
increase; and Cyrus Harding, who had been much mixed up with the affairs of
the Union, greatly interested his auditors by his recitals, his views, and
his prognostics.

It chanced one day that Spilett was led to say--

"But now, my dear Cyrus, all this industrial and commercial movement to
which you predict a continual advance, does it not run the danger of being
sooner or later completely stopped?"

"Stopped! And by what?"

"By the want of coal, which may justly be called the most precious of
minerals."

"Yes, the most precious indeed," replied the engineer; "and it would seem
that nature wished to prove that it was so by making the diamond, which is
simply pure carbon crystallized."

"You don't mean to say, captain," interrupted Pencroft, "that we burn
diamonds in our stoves in the shape of coal?"

"No, my friend," replied Harding.

"However," resumed Gideon Spilett, "you do not deny that some day the
coal will be entirely consumed?"

"Oh! the veins of coal are still considerable, and the hundred thousand
miners who annually extract from them a hundred millions of hundredweights
have not nearly exhausted them."

"With the increasing consumption of coal," replied Gideon Spilett, "it
can be foreseen that the hundred thousand workmen will soon become two
hundred thousand, and that the rate of extraction will be doubled."

"Doubtless; but after the European mines, which will be soon worked more
thoroughly with new machines, the American and Australian mines will for a
long time yet provide for the consumption in trade."

"For how long a time?" asked the reporter.

"For at least two hundred and fifty or three hundred years."

"That is reassuring for us, but a bad look-out for our great-
grandchildren!" observed Pencroft.

"They will discover something else," said Herbert.

"It is to be hoped so," answered Spilett, "for without coal there would be
no machinery, and without machinery there would be no railways, no
steamers, no manufactories, nothing of that which is indispensable to
modern civilization!"

"But what will they find?" asked Pencroft. "Can you guess, captain?"

"Nearly, my friend."

"And what will they burn instead of coal?"

"Water," replied Harding.

"Water!" cried Pencroft, "water as fuel for steamers and engines! water
to heat water!"

"Yes, but water decomposed into its primitive elements," replied Cyrus
Harding, "and decomposed doubtless, by electricity, which will then have
become a powerful and manageable force, for all great discoveries, by some
inexplicable laws, appear to agree and become complete at the same time.
Yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel,
that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will
furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which
coal is not capable. Some day the coalrooms of steamers and the tenders of
locomotives will, instead of coal, be stored with these two condensed
gases, which will burn in the furnaces with enormous calorific power. There
is, therefore, nothing to fear. As long as the earth is inhabited it will
supply the wants of its inhabitants, and there will be no want of either
light or heat as long as the productions of the vegetable, mineral or
animal kingdoms do not fail us. I believe, then, that when the deposits of
coal are exhausted we shall heat and warm ourselves with water. Water will
be the coal of the future."

"I should like to see that," observed the sailor.

"You were born too soon, Pencroft," returned Neb, who only took part in
the discussion by these words.

However, it was not Neb's speech which interrupted the conversation, but
Top's barking, which broke out again with that strange intonation which had
before perplexed the engineer. At the same time Top began to run round the
mouth of the well, which opened at the extremity of the interior passage.

"What can Top be barking in that way for?" asked Pencroft.

"And Jup be growling like that?" added Herbert.

In fact the orang, joining the dog, gave unequivocal signs of agitation,
and, singular to say, the two animals appeared more uneasy than angry.

"It is evident," said Gideon Spilett, "that this well is in direct
communication with the sea, and that some marine animal comes from time to
time to breathe at the bottom."

"That's evident," replied the sailor, "and there can be no other
explanation to give. Quiet there, Top!" added Pencroft, turning to the dog,
"and you, Jup, be off to your room!"

The ape and the dog were silent. Jup went off to bed, but Top remained in
the room, and continued to utter low growls at intervals during the rest of
the evening. There was no further talk on the subject, but the incident,
however, clouded the brow of the engineer.

During the remainder of the month of July there was alternate rain and
frost. The temperature was not so low as during the preceding winter, and
its maximum did not exceed eight degrees Fahrenheit. But although this
winter was less cold, it was more troubled by storms and squalls; the sea
besides often endangered the safety of the Chimneys. At times it almost
seemed as if an under-current raised these monstrous billows which
thundered against the wall of Granite House.

When the settlers, leaning from their windows, gazed on the huge watery
masses breaking beneath their eyes, they could not but admire the
magnificent spectacle of the ocean in its impotent fury. The waves
rebounded in dazzling foam, the beach entirely disapppearing under the
raging flood, and the cliff appearing to emerge from the sea itself, the
spray rising to a height of more than a hundred feet.

During these storms it was difficult and even dangerous to venture out,
owing to the frequently falling trees; however, the colonists never allowed
a week to pass without having paid a visit to the corral. Happily, this
enclosure, sheltered by the southeastern spur of Mount Franklin, did not
greatly suffer from the violence of the hurricanes, which spared its trees,
sheds, and palisades; but the poultry-yard on Prospect Heights, being
directly exposed to the gusts of wind from the east, suffered considerable
damage. The pigeon-house was twice unroofed and the paling blown down. All
this required to be remade more solidly than before, for, as may be clearly
seen, Lincoln Island was situated in one of the most dangerous parts of the
Pacific. It really appeared as if it formed the central point of vast
cyclones, which beat it perpetually as the whip does the top, only here it
was the top which was motionless and the whip which moved. During the first
week of the month of August the weather became more moderate, and the
atmosphere recovered the calm which it appeared to have lost forever. With
the calm the cold again became intense, and the thermometer fell to eight
degrees Fahrenheit, below zero.

On the 3rd of August an excursion which had been talked of for several
days was made into the southeastern part of the island, towards Tadorn
Marsh. The hunters were tempted by the aquatic game which took up their
winter quarters there. Wild duck, snipe, teal and grebe abounded there, and
it was agreed that a day should be devoted to an expedition against these
birds.

Not only Gideon Spilett and Herbert, but Pencroft and Neb also took part
in this excursion. Cyrus Harding alone, alleging some work as an excuse,
did not join them, but remained at Granite House.

The hunters proceeded in the direction of Port Balloon, in order to reach
the marsh, after having promised to be back by the evening. Top and Jup
accompanied them. As soon as they had passed over the Mercy Bridge, the
engineer raised it and returned, intending to put into execution a project
for the performance of which he wished to be alone.

Now this project was to minutely explore the interior well, the mouth of
which was on a level with the passage of Granite House, and which
communicated with the sea, since it formerly supplied a way to the waters
of the lake.

Why did Top so often run round this opening? Why did he utter such
strange barks when a sort of uneasiness seemed to draw him towards this
well? Why did Jup join Top in a sort of common anxiety? Had this well
branches besides the communication with the sea? Did it spread towards
other parts of the island? This is what Cyrus Harding wished to know. He
had resolved, therefore, to attempt the exploration of the well during the
absence of his companions, and an opportunity for doing so had now
presented itself.

It was easy to descend to the bottom of the well by employing the rope
ladder which had not been used since the establishment of the lift. The
engineer drew the ladder to the hole, the diameter of which measured nearly
six feet, and allowed it to unroll itself after having securely fastened
its upper extremity. Then, having lighted a lantern, taken a revolver, and
placed a cutlass in his belt, he began the descent.

The sides were everywhere entire; but points of rock jutted out here and
there, and by means of these points it would have been quite possible for
an active creature to climb to the mouth of the well.

The engineer remarked this; but although he carefully examined these
points by the light of his lantern, he could find no impression, no
fracture which could give any reason to suppose that they had either
recently or at any former time been used as a staircase. Cyrus Harding
descended deeper, throwing the light of his lantern on all sides.

He saw nothing suspicious.

When the engineer had reached the last rounds he came upon the water,
which was then perfectly calm. Neither at its level nor in any other part
of the well, did any passage open, which could lead to the interior of the
cliff. The wall which Harding struck with the hilt of his cutlass sounded
solid. It was compact granite, through which no living being could force a
way. To arrive at the bottom of the well and then climb up to its mouth it
was necessary to pass through the channel under the rocky subsoil of the
beach, which placed it in communication with the sea, and this was only
possible for marine animals. As to the question of knowing where this
channel ended, at what point of the shore, and at what depth beneath the
water, it could not be answered.

Then Cyrus Harding, having ended his survey, re-ascended, drew up the
ladder, covered the mouth of the well, and returned thoughtfully to the
diningroom, saying to himself,--

"I have seen nothing, and yet there is something there!"



Chapter 12

In the evening the hunters returned, having enjoyed good sport, and being
literally loaded with game; indeed, they had as much as four men could
possibly carry. Top wore a necklace of teal and Jup wreaths of snipe round
his body.

"Here, master," cried Neb; "here's something to employ our time!
Preserved and made into pies we shall have a welcome store! But I must have
some one to help me. I count on you, Pencroft."

"No, Neb," replied the sailor; "I have the rigging of the vessel to
finish and to look after, and you will have to do without me."

"And you, Mr. Herbert?"

"I must go to the corral to-morrow, Neb," replied the lad.

"It will be you then, Mr. Spilett, who will help me?"

"To oblige you, Neb, I will," replied the reporter; "but I warn you that
if you disclose your receipts to me, I shall publish them."

"Whenever you like, Mr. Spilett," replied Neb; "whenever you like."

And so the next day Gideon Spilett became Neb's assistant and was
installed in his culinary laboratory. The engineer had previously made
known to him the result of the exploration which he had made the day
before, and on this point the reporter shared Harding's opinion, that
although he had found nothing, a secret still remained to be discovered!

The frost continued for another week, and the settlers did not leave
Granite House unless to look after the poultry-yard. The dwelling was
filled with appetizing odors, which were emitted from the learned
manipulation of Neb and the reporter. But all the results of the chase were
not made into preserved provisions; and as the game kept perfectly in the
intense cold, wild duck and other fowl were eaten fresh, and declared
superior to all other aquatic birds in the known world.

During this week, Pencroft, aided by Herbert, who handled the sailmaker's
needle with much skill, worked with such energy that the sails of the
vessel were finished. There was no want of cordage. Thanks to the rigging
which had been discovered with the case of the balloon, the ropes and
cables from the net were all of good quality, and the sailor turned them
all to account. To the sails were attached strong bolt ropes, and there
still remained enough from which to make the halyards, shrouds, and sheets,
etc. The blocks were manufactured by Cyrus Harding under Pencroft's
directions by means of the turning lathe. It therefore happened that the
rigging was entirely prepared before the vessel was finished. Pencroft also
manufactured a flag, that flag so dear to every true American, containing
the stars and stripes of their glorious Union. The colors for it were
supplied from certain plants used in dyeing, and which were very abundant
in the island; only to the thirty-seven stars, representing the thirty-
seven States of the Union, which shine on the American flag, the sailor
added a thirty-eighth, the star of "the State of Lincoln," for he
considered his island as already united to the great republic. "And," said
he, "it is so already in heart, if not in deed!"

In the meantime, the flag was hoisted at the central window of Granite
House, and the settlers saluted it with three cheers.

The cold season was now almost at an end, and it appeared as if this
second winter was to pass without any unusual occurrence, when on the night
of the 11th of August, the plateau of Prospect Heights was menaced with
complete destruction.

After a busy day the colonists were sleeping soundly, when towards four
o'clock in the morning they were suddenly awakened by Top's barking.

The dog was not this time barking near the mouth of the well, but at the
threshold of the door, at which he was scratching as if he wished to burst
it open. Jup was also uttering piercing cries.

"Hello, Top!" cried Neb, who was the first awake. But the dog continued
to bark more furiously than ever.

"What's the matter now?" asked Harding.

And all dressing in haste rushed to the windows, which they opened.

Beneath their eyes was spread a sheet of snow which looked gray in the
dim light. The settlers could see nothing, but they heard a singular
yelping noise away in the darkness. It was evident that the beach had been
invaded by a number of animals which could not be seen.

"What are they?" cried Pencroft.

"Wolves, jaguars, or apes?" replied Neb.

"They have nearly reached the plateau," said the reporter.

"And our poultry-yard," exclaimed Herbert, "and our garden!"

"Where can they have crossed?" asked Pencroft.

"They must have crossed the bridge on the shore," replied the engineer,
"which one of us must have forgotten to close."

"True," said Spilett, "I remember having left it open."

"A fine job you have made of it, Mr. Spilett," cried the sailor.

"What is done cannot be undone," replied Cyrus Harding. "We must consult
what it will now be best to do."

Such were the questions and answers which were rapidly exchanged between
Harding and his companions. It was certain that the bridge had been
crossed, that the shore had been invaded by animals, and that whatever they
might be they could by ascending the left bank of the Mercy reach Prospect
Heights. They must therefore be advanced against quickly and fought with if
necessary.

"But what are these beasts?" was asked a second time, as the yelpings
were again heard more loudly than before. These yelps made Herbert start,
and he remembered having heard them before during his first visit to the
sources of the Red Creek.

"They are colpeo foxes!" he exclaimed.

"Forward!" shouted the sailor.

And all arming themselves with hatchets, carbines, and revolvers, threw
themselves into the lift and soon set foot on the shore.

Colpeos are dangerous animals when in great numbers and irritated by
hunger, nevertheless the colonists did not hesitate to throw themselves
into the midst of the troop, and their first shots vividly lighting up the
darkness made their assailants draw back.

The chief thing was to hinder these plunderers from reaching the plateau,
for the garden and the poultry-yard would then have been at their mercy,
and immense, perhaps irreparable mischief, would inevitably be the result,
especially with regard to the corn-field. But as the invasion of the
plateau could only be made by the left bank of the Mercy, it was sufficient
to oppose the colpeos on the narrow bank between the river and the cliff of
granite.

This was plain to all, and, by Cyrus Harding's orders, they reached the
spot indicated by him, while the colpeos rushed fiercely through the gloom.
Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft and Neb posted themselves in
impregnable line. Top, his formidable jaws open, preceded the colonists,
and he was followed by Jup, armed with knotty cudgel, which he brandished
like a club.

The night was extremely dark, it was only by the flashes from the
revolvers as each person fired that they could see their assailants, who
were at least a hundred in number, and whose eyes were glowing like hot
coals.

"They must not pass!" shouted Pencroft.

"They shall not pass!" returned the engineer.

But if they did not pass it was not for want of having attempted it.
Those in the rear pushed on the foremost assailants, and it was an
incessant struggle with revolvers and hatchets. Several colpeos already lay
dead on the ground, but their number did not appear to diminish, and it
might have been supposed that reinforcements were continually arriving over
the bridge.

The colonists were soon obliged to fight at close quarters, not without
receiving some wounds, though happily very slight ones. Herbert had, with a
shot from his revolver, rescued Neb, on whose back a colpeo had sprung like
a tiger cat. Top fought with actual fury, flying at the throats of the
foxes and strangling them instantaneously. Jup wielded his weapon
valiantly, and it was in vain that they endeavored to keep him in the rear.
Endowed doubtless with sight which enabled him to pierce the obscurity, he
was always in the thick of the fight uttering from time to time--a sharp
hissing sound, which was with him the sign of great rejoicing.

At one moment he advanced so far, that by the light from a revolver he
was seen surrounded by five or six large colpeos, with whom he was coping
with great coolness.

However, the struggle was ended at last, and victory was on the side of
the settlers, but not until they had fought for two long hours! The first
signs of the approach of day doubtless determined the retreat of their
assailants, who scampered away towards the North, passing over the bridge,
which Neb ran immediately to raise. When day had sufficiently lighted up
the field of battle, the settlers counted as many as fifty dead bodies
scattered about on the shore.

"And Jup!" cried Pencroft; "where is Jup?" Jup had disappeared. His
friend Neb called him, and for the first time Jup did not reply to his
friend's call.

Everyone set out in search of Jup, trembling lest he should be found
among the slain; they cleared the place of the bodies which stained the
snow with their blood. Jup was found in the midst of a heap of colpeos
whose broken jaws and crushed bodies showed that they had to do with the
terrible club of the intrepid animal.

Poor Jup still held in his hand the stump of his broken cudgel, but
deprived of his weapon he had been overpowered by numbers, and his chest
was covered with severe wounds.

"He is living," cried Neb, who was bending over him.

"And we will save him," replied the sailor. "We will nurse him as if he
was one of ourselves."

It appeared as if Jup understood, for he leaned his head on Pencroft's
shoulder as if to thank him. The sailor was wounded himself, but his wound
was insignificant, as were those of his companions; for thanks to their
firearms they had been almost always able to keep their assailants at a
distance. it was therefore only the orang whose condition was serious.

Jup, carried by Neb and Pencroft, was placed in the lift, and only a
slight moan now and then escaped his lips. He was gently drawn up to
Granite House. There he was laid on a mattress taken from one of the beds,
and his wounds were bathed with the greatest care. It did not appear that
any vital part had been reached, but Jup was very weak from loss of blood,
and a high fever soon set in after his wounds had been dressed. He was laid
down, strict diet was imposed, "just like a real person," as Neb said, and
they made him swallow several cups of a cooling drink, for which the
ingredients were supplied from the vegetable medicine chest of Granite
House. Jup was at first restless, but his breathing gradually became more
regular, and he was left sleeping quietly. From time to time Top, walking
on tip-toe, as one might say, came to visit his friend, and seemed to
approve of all the care that had been taken of him. One of Jup's hands hung
over the side of his bed, and Top licked it with a sympathizing air.

They employed the day in interring the dead, who were dragged to the
forest of the Far West, and there buried deep.

This attack, which might have had such serious consequences, was a lesson
to the settlers, who from this time never went to bed until one of their
number had made sure that all the bridges were raised, and that no invasion
was possible.

However, Jup, after having given them serious anxiety for several days,
began to recover. His constitution brought him through, the fever gradually
subsided, and Gideon Spilett, who was a bit of a doctor, pronounced him
quite out of danger. On the 16th of August, Jup began to eat. Neb made him
nice little sweet dishes, which the invalid devoured with great relish, for
if he had a pet failing it was that of being somewhat of a gourmend, and
Neb had never done anything to cure him of this fault.

"What would you have?" said he to Gideon Spilett, who sometimes
expostulated with him for spoiling the ape. "Poor Jup has no other pleasure
than that of the palate, and I am only too glad to be able to reward his
services in this way!"

Ten days after taking to his bed, on the 21st of August, Master Jup
arose. His wounds were healed, and it was evident that he would not be long
in regaining his usual strength and agility. Like all convalescents, he was
tremendously hungry, and the reporter allowed him to eat as much as he
liked, for he trusted to that instinct, which is too often wanting in
reasoning beings, to keep the orang from any excess. Neb was delighted to
see his pupil's appetite returning.

"Eat away, my Jup," said he, "and don't spare anything; you have shed
your blood for us, and it is the least I can do to make you strong again!"

On the 25th of August Neb's voice was heard calling to his companions.

"Captain, Mr. Spilett, Mr. Herbert, Pencroft, come! come!"

The colonists, who were together in the dining-room, rose at Neb's call,
who was then in Jup's room.

"What's the matter?" asked the reporter.

"Look," replied Neb, with a shout of laughter. And what did they see?
Master Jup smoking calmly and seriously, sitting crosslegged like a Turk at
the entrance to Granite House!

"My pipe," cried Pencroft. "He has taken my pipe! Hello, my honest Jup, I
make you a present of it! Smoke away, old boy, smoke away!"

And Jup gravely puffed out clouds of smoke which seemed to give him great
satisfaction. Harding did not appear to be much astonished at this
incident, and he cited several examples of tame apes, to whom the use of
tobacco had become quite familiar.

But from this day Master Jup had a pipe of his own, the sailor's ex-pipe,
which was hung in his room near his store of tobacco. He filled it himself,
lighted it with a glowing coal, and appeared to be the happiest of
quadrumana. It may readily be understood that this similarity of tastes of
Jup and Pencroft served to tighten the bonds of friendship which already
existed between the honest ape and the worthy sailor.

"Perhaps he is really a man," said Pencroft sometimes to Neb. "Should you
be surprised to hear him beginning to speak to us some day?"

"My word, no," replied Neb. "What astonishes me is that he hasn't spoken
to us before, for now he wants nothing but speech!"

"It would amuse me all the same," resumed the sailor, "if some fine day
he said to me, "Suppose we change pipes, Pencroft."

"Yes," replied Neb, "what a pity he was born dumb!"

With the month of September the winter ended, and the works were again
eagerly commenced. The building of the vessel advanced rapidly, she was
already completely decked over, and all the inside parts of the hull were
firmly united with ribs bent by means of steam, which answered all the
purposes of a mold.

As there was no want of wood, Pencroft proposed to the engineer to give a
double lining to the hull, to insure the strength of the vessel.

Harding, not knowing what the future might have in store for them,
approved the sailor's idea of making the craft as strong as possible. The
interior and deck of the vessel was entirely finished towards the 15th of
September. For calking the seams they made oakum of dry seaweed, which was
hammered in between the planks; then these seams were covered with boiling
tar, which was obtained in great abundance from the pines in the forest.

The management of the vessel was very simple. She had from the first been
ballasted with heavy blocks of granite walled up, in a bed of lime, twelve
thousand pounds of which they stowed away.

A deck was placed over this ballast, and the interior was divided into
two cabins; two benches extended along them and served also as lockers. The
foot of the mast supported the partition which separated the two cabins,
which were reached by two hatchways let into the deck.

Pencroft had no trouble in finding a tree suitable for the mast. He chose
a straight young fir, with no knots, and which he had only to square at the
step, and round off at the top. The ironwork of the mast, the rudder and
the hull had been roughly but strongly forged at the Chimneys. Lastly,
yards, masts, boom, spars, oars, etc., were all furnished by the first week
in October, and it was agreed that a trial trip should be taken round the
island, so as to ascertain how the vessel would behave at sea, and how far
they might depend upon her.

During all this time the necessary works had not been neglected. The
corral was enlarged, for the flock of musmons and goats had been increased
by a number of young ones, who had to be housed and fed. The colonists had
paid visits also to the oyster bed, the warren, the coal and iron mines,
and to the till then unexplored districts of the Far West forest, which
abounded in game. Certain indigenous plants were discovered, and those fit
for immediate use contributed to vary the vegetable stores of Granite
House.

They were a species of ficoide, some similar to those of the Cape, with
eatable fleshy leaves, others bearing seeds containing a sort of flour.

On the 10th of October the vessel was launched. Pencroft was radiant with
joy, the operation was perfectly successful; the boat completely rigged,
having been pushed on rollers to the water's edge, was floated by the
rising tide, amid the cheers of the colonists, particularly of Pencroft,
who showed no modesty on this occasion. Besides his importance was to last
beyond the finishing of the vessel, since, after having built her, he was
to command her. The grade of captain was bestowed upon him with the
approbation of all. To satisfy Captain Pencroft, it was now necessary to
give a name to the vessel, and, after many propositions had been discussed,
the votes were all in favor of the "Bonadventure." As soon as the
"Bonadventure" had been lifted by the rising tide, it was seen that she lay
evenly in the water, and would be easily navigated. However, the trial trip
was to be made that very day, by an excursion off the coast. The weather
was fine, the breeze fresh, and the sea smooth, especially towards the
south coast, for the wind was blowing from the northwest.

"All hands on board," shouted Pencroft; but breakfast was first
necessary, and it was thought best to take provisions on board, in the
event of their excursion being prolonged until the evening.

Cyrus Harding was equally anxious to try the vessel, the model of which
had originated with him, although on the sailor's advice he had altered
some parts of it, but he did not share Pencroft's confidence in her, and as
the latter had not again spoken of the voyage to Tabor Island, Harding
hoped he had given it up. He would have indeed great reluctance in letting
two or three of his companions venture so far in so small a boat, which was
not of more than fifteen tons' burden.

At half-past ten everybody was on board, even Top and Jup, and Herbert
weighed the anchor, which was fast in the sand near the mouth of the Mercy.
The sail was hoisted, the Lincolnian flag floated from the masthead, and
the "Bonadventure," steered by Pencroft, stood out to sea.

The wind blowing out of Union Bay she ran before it, and thus showed her
owners, much to their satisfaction, that she possessed a remarkably fast
pair of heels, according to Pencroft's mode of speaking. After having
doubled Flotsam Point and Claw Cape, the captain kept her close hauled, so
as to sail along the southern coast of the island, when it was found she
sailed admirably within five points of the wind. All hands were enchanted,
they had a good vessel, which, in case of need, would be of great service
to them, and with fine weather and a fresh breeze the voyage promised to be
charming.

Pencroft now stood off the shore, three or four miles across from Port
Balloon. The island then appeared in all its extent and under a new aspect,
with the varied panorama of its shore from Claw Cape to Reptile End, the
forests in which dark firs contrasted with the young foliage of other
trees and overlooked the whole, and Mount Franklin whose lofty head was
still whitened with snow.

"How beautiful it is!" cried Herbert.

"Yes, our island is beautiful and good," replied Pencroft. "I love it as
I loved my poor mother. It received us poor and destitute, and now what is
wanting to us five fellows who fell on it from the sky?"

"Nothing," replied Neb; "nothing, captain."

And the two brave men gave three tremendous cheers in honor of their
island!

During all this time Gideon Spilett, leaning against the mast, sketched
the panorama which was developed before his eyes.

Cyrus Harding gazed on it in silence.

"Well, Captain Harding," asked Pencroft, "what do you think of our
vessel?"

"She appears to behave well," replied the engineer.

"Good! And do you think now that she could undertake a voyage of some
extent?"

"What voyage, Pencroft?"

"One to Tabor Island, for instance."

"My friend," replied Harding, "I think that in any pressing emergency we
need not hesitate to trust ourselves to the 'Bonadventure' even for a
longer voyage; but you know I should see you set off to Tabor Island with
great uneasiness, since nothing obliges you to go there."

"One likes to know one's neighbors," returned the sailor, who was
obstinate in his idea. "Tabor Island is our neighbor, and the only one!
Politeness requires us to go at least to pay a visit."

"By Jove," said Spilett, "our friend Pencroft has become very particular
about the proprieties all at once!"

"I am not particular about anything at all," retorted the sailor, who was
rather vexed by the engineer's opposition, but who did not wish to cause
him anxiety.

"Consider, Pencroft," resumed Harding, "you cannot go alone to Tabor
Island."

"One companion will be enough for me."

"Even so," replied the engineer, "you will risk depriving the colony of
Lincoln Island of two settlers out of five."

"Out of six," answered Pencroft; "you forget Jup."

"Out of seven," added Neb; "Top is quite worth another."

"There is no risk at all in it, captain," replied Pencroft.

"That is possible, Pencroft; but I repeat it is to expose ourselves
uselessly."

The obstinate sailor did not reply, and let the conversation drop, quite
determined to resume it again. But he did not suspect that an incident
would come to his aid and change into an act of humanity that which was at
first only a doubtful whim.

After standing off the shore the "Bonadventure" again approached it in
the direction of Port Balloon. It was important to ascertain the channels
between the sandbanks and reefs, that buoys might be laid down since this
little creek was to be the harbor.

They were not more than half a mile from the coast, and it was necessary
to tack to beat against the wind. The "Bonadventure" was then going at a
very moderate rate, as the breeze, partly intercepted by the high land,
scarcely swelled her sails, and the sea, smooth as glass, was only rippled
now and then by passing gusts.

Herbert had stationed himself in the bows that he might indicate the
course to be followed among the channels, when all at once he shouted,--

"Luff, Pencroft, luff!"

"What's the matter," replied the sailor; "a rock?"

"No--wait," said Herbert; "I don't quite see. Luff again--right--now."

So saying, Herbert, leaning over the side, plunged his arm into the
water, and pulled it out, exclaiming,--

"A bottle!"

He held in his hand a corked bottle which he had just seized a few
cables' length from the shore.

Cyrus Harding took the bottle. Without uttering a single word he drew the
cork, and took from it a damp paper, on which were written these words:--

"Castaway . . . . Tabor island: 153deg W. long., 37deg 11' S. lat."



Chapter 13

"A castaway!" exclaimed Pencroft; "left on this Tabor Island not two
hundred miles from us! Ah, Captain Harding, you won't now oppose my going."

"No, Pencroft," replied Cyrus Harding; "and you shall set out as soon as
possible."

"To-morrow?"

"To-morrow!"

The engineer still held in his hand the paper which he had taken from the
bottle. He contemplated it for some instants, then resumed,

"From this document, my friends, from the way in which it is worded, we
may conclude this: first, that the castaway on Tabor Island is a man
possessing a considerable knowledge of navigation, since he gives the
latitude and longitude of the island exactly as we ourselves found it, and
to a second of approximation; secondly, that he is either English or
American, as the document is written in the English language."

"That is perfectly logical," answered Spilett; "and the presence of this
castaway explains the arrival of the case on the shores of our island.
There must have been a wreck, since there is a castaway. As to the latter,
whoever he may be, it is lucky for him that Pencroft thought of building
this boat and of trying her this very day, for a day later and this bottle
might have been broken on the rocks."

"Indeed," said Herbert, "it is a fortunate chance that the 'Bonadventure'
passed exactly where the bottle was still floating!"

"Does not this appear strange to you?" asked Harding of Pencroft.

"It appears fortunate, that's all," answered the sailor. "Do you see
anything extraordinary in it, captain? The bottle must go somewhere, and
why not here as well as anywhere else?"

"Perhaps you are right, Pencroft," replied the engineer; "and yet--"

"But," observed Herbert, "there's nothing to prove that this bottle has
been floating long in the sea."

"Nothing," replied Gideon Spilett, "and the document appears even to have
been recently written. What do you think about it, Cyrus?"

During this conversation Pencroft had not remained inactive. He had put
the vessel about, and the "Bonadventure," all sails set, was running
rapidly towards Claw Cape.

Every one was thinking of the castaway on Tabor Island. Should they be in
time to save him? This was a great event in the life of the colonists! They
themselves were but castaways, but it was to be feared that another might
not have been so fortunate, and their duty was to go to his succor.

Claw Cape was doubled, and about four o'clock the "Bonadventure" dropped
her anchor at the mouth of the Mercy.

That same evening the arrangements for the new expedition were made. It
appeared best that Pencroft and Herbert, who knew how to work the vessel,
should undertake the voyage alone. By setting out the next day, the 10th of
October, they would arrive on the 13th, for with the present wind it would
not take more than forty-eight hours to make this passage of a hundred and
fifty miles. One day in the island, three or four to return, they might
hope therefore that on the 17th they would again reach Lincoln Island. The
weather was fine, the barometer was rising, the wind appeared settled,
everything then was in favor of these brave men whom an act of humanity was
taking far from their island.

Thus it had been agreed that Cyrus Harding, Neb, and Gideon Spilett should
remain at Granite House, but an objection was raised, and Spilett, who had
not forgotten his business as reporter to the New York Herald, having
declared that he would go by swimming rather than lose such an opportunity,
he was admitted to take a part in the voyage.

The evening was occupied in transporting on board the "Bonadventure,"
articles of bedding, utensils, arms, ammunition, a compass, provisions for
a week; this being rapidly done, the colonists ascended to Granite House.

The next day, at five o'clock in the morning, the farewells were said,
not without some emotion on both sides, and Pencroft setting sail made
towards Claw Cape, which had to be doubled in order to proceed to the
southwest.

The "Bonadventure" was already a quarter of a mile from the coast when
the passengers perceived on the heights of Granite House two men waving
their farewells; they were Cyrus Harding and Neb.

"Our friends," exclaimed Spilett, "this is our first separation in
fifteen months."

Pencroft, the reporter and Herbert waved in return, and Granite House
soon disappeared behind the high rocks of the Cape.

During the first part of the day the "Bonadventure" was still in sight of
the southern coast of Lincoln Island, which soon appeared just like a green
basket, with Mount Franklin rising from the center. The heights, diminished
by distance, did not present an appearance likely to tempt vessels to touch
there. Reptile End was passed in about an hour, though at a distance of
about ten miles.

At this distance it was no longer possible to distinguish anything of the
Western Coast, which stretched away to the ridges of Mount Franklin, and
three hours after the last of Lincoln Island sank below the horizon.

The "Bonadventure" behaved capitally. Bounding over the waves she
proceeded rapidly on her course. Pencroft had hoisted the foresail, and
steering by the compass followed a rectilinear direction. From time to time
Herbert relieved him at the helm, and the lad's hand was so firm that the
sailor had not a point to find fault with.

Gideon Spilett chatted sometimes with one, sometimes with the other, if
wanted he lent a hand with the ropes, and Captain Pencroft was perfectly
satisfied with his crew.

In the evening the crescent moon, which would not be in its first quarter
until the 16th, appeared in the twilight and soon set again. The night was
dark but starry, and the next day again promised to be fine.

Pencroft prudently lowered the foresail, not wishing to be caught by a
sudden gust while carrying too much canvas; it was perhaps an unnecessary
precaution on such a calm night, but Pencroft was a prudent sailor and
cannot be blamed for it.

The reporter slept part of the night. Pencroft and Herbert took turns for
a spell of two hours each at the helm. The sailor trusted Herbert as he
would himself, and his confidence was justified by the coolness and
judgment of the lad. Pencroft gave him his directions as a commander to his
steersman, and Herbert never allowed the "Bonadventure" to swerve even a
point. The night passed quickly, as did the day of the 12th of October. A
south-easterly direction was strictly maintained. Unless the "Bonadventure"
fell in with some unknown current she would come exactly within sight of
Tabor Island.

As to the sea over which the vessel was then sailing, it was absolutely
deserted. Now and then a great albatross or frigate bird passed within
gunshot, and Gideon Spilett wondered if it was to one of them that he had
confided his last letter addressed to the New York Herald. These birds were
the only beings that appeared to frequent this part of the ocean between
Tabor and Lincoln Islands.

"And yet," observed Herbert, "this is the time that whalers usually
proceed towards the southern part of the Pacific. Indeed I do not think
there could be a more deserted sea than this."

"It is not quite so deserted as all that," replied Pencroft.

"What do you mean?" asked the reporter.

"We are on it. Do you take our vessel for a wreck and us for porpoises?"

And Pencroft laughed at his joke.

By the evening, according to calculation, it was thought that the
"Bonadventure" had accomplished a distance of a hundred and twenty miles
since her departure from Lincoln Island, that is to say in thirty-six
hours, which would give her a speed of between three and four knots an
hour. The breeze was very slight and might soon drop altogether. However,
it was hoped that the next morning by break of day, if the calculation had
been correct and the course true, they would sight Tabor Island.

Neither Gideon Spilett, Herbert, nor Pencroft slept that night. In the
expectation of the next day they could not but feel some emotion. There was
so much uncertainty in their enterprise! Were they near Tabor Island? Was
the island still inhabited by the castaway to whose succor they had come?
Who was this man? Would not his presence disturb the little colony till
then so united? Besides, would he be content to exchange his prison for
another? All these questions, which would no doubt be answered the next
day, kept them in suspense, and at the dawn of day they all fixed their
gaze on the western horizon.

"Land!" shouted Pencroft at about six o'clock in the morning.

And it was impossible that Pencroft should be mistaken, it was evident
that land was there. Imagine the joy of the little crew of the
"Bonadventure." In a few hours they would land on the beach of the island!

The low coast of Tabor Island, scarcely emerging from the sea, was not
more than fifteen miles distant.

The head of the "Bonadventure," which was a little to the south of the
island, was set directly towards it, and as the sun mounted in the east,
its rays fell upon one or two headlands.

"This is a much less important isle than Lincoln Island," observed
Herbert, "and is probably due like ours to some submarine convulsion."

At eleven o'clock the "Bonadventure" was not more than two miles off, and
Pencroft, while looking for a suitable place at which to land, proceeded
very cautiously through the unknown waters. The whole of the island could
now be surveyed, and on it could be seen groups of gum and other large
trees, of the same species as those growing on Lincoln Island. But the
astonishing thing was that no smoke arose to show that the island was
inhabited, no signal whatever appeared on the shore!

And yet the document was clear enough; there was a castaway, and this
castaway should have been on the watch.

In the meanwhile the "Bonadventure" entered the winding channels among
the reefs, and Pencroft observed every turn with extreme care. He had put
Herbert at the helm, posting himself in the bows, inspecting the water,
while he held the halliard in his hand, ready to lower the sail at a
moment's notice. Gideon Spilett with his glass eagerly scanned the shore,
though without perceiving anything.

However, at about twelve o'clock the keel of the "Bonadventure" grated on
the bottom. The anchor was let go, the sails furled, and the crew of the
little vessel landed.

And there was no reason to doubt that this was Tabor Island, since
according to the most recent charts there was no island in this part of the
Pacific between New Zealand and the American Coast.

The vessel was securely moored, so that there should be no danger of her
being carried away by the receding tide; then Pencroft and his companions,
well armed, ascended the shore, so as to gain an elevation of about two
hundred and fifty or three hundred feet which rose at a distance of half a
mile.

"From the summit of that hill," said Spilett, "we can no doubt obtain a
complete view of the island, which will greatly facilitate our search."

"So as to do here," replied Herbert, "that which Captain Harding did the
very first thing on Lincoln Island, by climbing Mount Franklin."

"Exactly so," answered the reporter, "and it is the best plan."

While thus talking the explorers had advanced along a clearing which
terminated at the foot of the hill. Flocks of rock-pigeons and sea-
swallows, similar to those of Lincoln Island, fluttered around them. Under
the woods which skirted the glade on the left they could hear the bushes
rustling and see the grass waving, which indicated the presence of timid
animals, but still nothing to show that the island was inhabited.

Arrived at the foot of the hill, Pencroft, Spilett, and Herbert climbed
it in a few minutes, and gazed anxiously round the horizon.

They were on an islet, which did not measure more than six miles in
circumference, its shape not much bordered by capes or promontories, bays
or creeks, being a lengthened oval. All around, the lonely sea extended to
the limits of the horizon. No land nor even a sail was in sight.

This woody islet did not offer the varied aspects of Lincoln Island, arid
and wild in one part, but fertile and rich in the other. On the contrary
this was a uniform mass of verdure, out of which rose two or three hills of
no great height. Obliquely to the oval of the island ran a stream through a
wide meadow falling into the sea on the west by a narrow mouth.

"The domain is limited," said Herbert.

"Yes," rejoined Pencroft: "It would have been too small for us."

"And moreover," said the reporter, "it appears to be uninhabited."

"Indeed," answered Herbert, "nothing here betrays the presence of man."

"Let us go down," said Pencroft, "and search."

The sailor and his two companions returned to the shore, to the place
where they had left the "Bonadventure."

They had decided to make the tour of the island on foot, before exploring
the interior; so that not a spot should escape their investigations. The
beach was easy to follow, and only in some places was their way barred by
large rocks, which, however, they easily passed round. The explorers
proceeded towards the south, disturbing numerous flocks of sea-birds and
herds of seals, which threw themselves into the sea as soon as they saw the
strangers at a distance.

"Those beasts yonder," observed the reporter, "do not see men for the
first time. They fear them, therefore they must know them."

An hour after their departure they arrived on the southern point of the
islet, terminated by a sharp cape, and proceeded towards the north along
the western coast, equally formed by sand and rocks, the background
bordered with thick woods.

There was not a trace of a habitation in any part, not the print of a
human foot on the shore of the island, which after four hours' walking had
been gone completely round.

It was to say the least very extraordinary, and they were compelled to
believe that Tabor Island was not or was no longer inhabited. Perhaps,
after all the document was already several months or several years old, and
it was possible in this case, either that the castaway had been enabled to
return to his country, or that he had died of misery.

Pencroft, Spilett, and Herbert, forming more or less probable conjectures,
dined rapidly on board the "Bonadventure" so as to be able to continue
their excursion until nightfall. This was done at five o'clock in the
evening, at which hour they entered the wood.

Numerous animals fled at their approach, being principally, one might
say, only goats and pigs, which were obviously European species.

Doubtless some whaler had landed them on the island, where they had
rapidly increased. Herbert resolved to catch one or two living, and take
them back to Lincoln Island.

It was no longer doubtful that men at some period or other had visited
this islet, and this became still more evident when paths appeared trodden
through the forest, felled trees, and everywhere traces of the hand of man;
but the trees were becoming rotten, and had been felled many years ago; the
marks of the axe were velveted with moss, and the grass grew long and thick
on the paths, so that it was difficult to find them.

"But," observed Gideon Spilett, "this not only proves that men have
landed on the island, but also that they lived on it for some time. Now,
who were these men? How many of them remain?"

"The document," said Herbert, "only spoke of one castaway."

"Well, if he is still on the island," replied Pencroft, "it is impossible
but that we shall find him."

The exploration was continued. The sailor and his companions naturally
followed the route which cut diagonally across the island, and they were
thus obliged to follow the stream which flowed towards the sea.

If the animals of European origin, if works due to a human hand, showed
incontestably that men had already visited the island, several specimens of
the vegetable kingdom did not prove it less. In some places, in the midst
of clearings, it was evident that the soil had been planted with culinary
plants, at probably the same distant period.

What, then, was Herbert's joy, when he recognized potatoes, chicory,
sorrel, carrots, cabbages, and turnips, of which it was sufficient to
collect the seed to enrich the soil of Lincoln Island.

"Capital, jolly!" exclaimed Pencroft. "That will suit Neb as well as us.
Even if we do not find the castaway, at least our voyage will not have been
useless, and God will have rewarded us."

"Doubtless," replied Gideon Spilett, "but to see the state in which we
find these plantations, it is to be feared that the island has not been
inhabited for some time."

"Indeed," answered Herbert, "an inhabitant, whoever he was, could not have
neglected such an important culture!"

"Yes," said Pencroft, "the castaway has gone."

"We must suppose so."

"It must then be admitted that the document has already a distant date?"

"Evidently."

"And that the bottle only arrived at Lincoln Island after having floated
in the sea a long time."

"Why not?" returned Pencroft. "But night is coming on," added he, "and I
think that it will be best to give up the search for the present."

"Let us go on board, and to-morrow we will begin again," said the
reporter.

This was the wisest course, and it was about to be followed when Herbert,
pointing to a confused mass among the trees, exclaimed,--

"A hut!"

All three immediately ran towards the dwelling. In the twilight it was
just possible to see that it was built of planks and covered with a thick
tarpaulin.

The half-closed door was pushed open by Pencroft, who entered with a
rapid step.

The hut was empty!



Chapter 14

Pencroft, Herbert, and Gideon Spilett remained silent in the midst of the
darkness.

Pencroft shouted loudly.

No reply was made.

The sailor then struck a light and set fire to a twig. This lighted for a
minute a small room, which appeared perfectly empty. At the back was a rude
fireplace, with a few cold cinders, supporting an armful of dry wood.
Pencroft threw the blazing twig on it, the wood crackled and gave forth a
bright light.

The sailor and his two companions then perceived a disordered bed, of
which the damp and yellow coverlets proved that it had not been used for a
long time. In the corner of the fireplace were two kettles, covered with
rust, and an overthrown pot. A cupboard, with a few moldy sailor's clothes;
on the table a tin plate and a Bible, eaten away by damp; in a corner a few
tools, a spade, pickaxe, two fowling-pieces, one of which was broken; on a
plank, forming a shelf, stood a barrel of powder, still untouched, a barrel
of shot, and several boxes of caps, all thickly covered with dust,
accumulated, perhaps, by many long years.

"There is no one here," said the reporter.

"No one," replied Pencroft.

"It is a long time since this room has been inhabited," observed Herbert.

"Yes, a very long time!" answered the reporter.

"Mr. Spilett," then said Pencroft, "instead of returning on board, I
think that it would be well to pass the night in this hut."

"You are right, Pencroft," answered Gideon Spilett, "and if its owner
returns, well! perhaps he will not be sorry to find the place taken
possession of."

"He will not return," said the sailor, shaking his head.

"You think that he has quitted the island?" asked the reporter.

"If he had quitted the island he would have taken away his weapons and
his tools," replied Pencroft. "You know the value which castaways set on
such articles as these the last remains of a wreck. No! no!" repeated the
sailor, in a tone of conviction; "no, he has not left the island! If he had
escaped in a boat made by himself, he would still less have left these
indispensable and necessary articles. No! he is on the island!"

"Living?" asked Herbert.

"Living or dead. But if he is dead, I suppose he has not buried himself,
and so we shall at least find his remains!"

It was then agreed that the night should be passed in the deserted
dwelling, and a store of wood found in a corner was sufficient to warm it.
The door closed, Pencroft, Herbert and Spilett remained there, seated on a
bench, talking little but wondering much. They were in a frame of mind to
imagine anything or expect anything. They listened eagerly for sounds
outside. The door might have opened suddenly, and a man presented himself
to them without their being in the least surprised, notwithstanding all
that the hut revealed of abandonment, and they had their hands ready to
press the hands of this man, this castaway, this unknown friend, for whom
friends were waiting.

But no voice was heard, the door did not open. The hours thus passed
away.

How long the night appeared to the sailor and his companions! Herbert
alone slept for two hours, for at his age sleep is a necessity. They were
all three anxious to continue their exploration of the day before, and to
search the most secret recesses of the islet! The inferences deduced by
Pencroft were perfectly reasonable, and it was nearly certain that, as the
hut was deserted, and the tools, utensils, and weapons were still there,
the owner had succumbed. It was agreed, therefore, that they should search
for his remains, and give them at least Christian burial.

Day dawned; Pencroft and his companions immediately proceeded to survey
the dwelling. It had certainly been built in a favorable situation, at the
back of a little hill, sheltered by five or six magnificent gum-trees.
Before its front and through the trees the axe had prepared a wide
clearing, which allowed the view to extend to the sea. Beyond a lawn,
surrounded by a wooden fence falling to pieces, was the shore, on the left
of which was the mouth of the stream.

The hut had been built of planks, and it was easy to see that these
planks had been obtained from the hull or deck of a ship. It was probable
that a disabled vessel had been cast on the coast of the island, that one
at least of the crew had been saved, and that by means of the wreck this
man, having tools at his disposal, had built the dwelling.

And this became still more evident when Gideon Spilett, after having
walked around the hut, saw on a plank, probably one of those which had
formed the armor of the wrecked vessel, these letters already half effaced:


              BR--TAN--A


"Britannia," exclaimed Pencroft, whom the reporter had called; "it is a
common name for ships, and I could not say if she was English or American!"

"It matters very little, Pencroft!"

"Very little indeed," answered the sailor, "and we will save the survivor
of her crew if he is still living, to whatever country he may belong. But
before beginning our search again let us go on board the 'Bonadventure'."

A sort of uneasiness had seized Pencroft upon the subject of his vessel.
Should the island be inhabited after all, and should some one have taken
possession of her? But he shrugged his shoulders at such an unreasonable
supposition. At any rate the sailor was not sorry to go to breakfast on
board. The road already trodden was not long, scarcely a mile. They set out
on their walk, gazing into the wood and thickets through which goats and
pigs fled in hundreds.

Twenty minutes after leaving the hut Pencroft and his companions reached
the western coast of the island, and saw the "Bonadventure" held fast by
her anchor, which was buried deep in the sand.

Pencroft could not restrain a sigh of satisfaction. After all this vessel
was his child, and it is the right of fathers to be often uneasy when there
is no occasion for it.

They returned on board, breakfasted, so that it should not be necessary
to dine until very late; then the repast being ended, the exploration was
continued and conducted with the most minute care. Indeed, it was very
probable that the only inhabitant of the island had perished. It was
therefore more for the traces of a dead than of a living man that Pencroft
and his companions searched. But their searches were vain, and during the
half of that day they sought to no purpose among the thickets of trees
which covered the islet. There was then scarcely any doubt that, if the
castaway was dead, no trace of his body now remained, but that some wild
beast had probably devoured it to the last bone.

"We will set off to-morrow at daybreak," said Pencroft to his two
companions, as about two o'clock they were resting for a few minutes under
the shade of a clump of firs.

"I should think that we might without scruple take the utensils which
belonged to the castaway," added Herbert.

"I think so, too," returned Gideon Spilett, "and these arms and tools
will make up the stores of Granite House. The supply of powder and shot is
also most important."

"Yes," replied Pencroft, "but we must not forget to capture a couple or
two of those pigs, of which Lincoln Island is destitute."

"Nor to gather those seeds," added Herbert, "which will give us all the
vegetables of the Old and the New Worlds."

"Then perhaps it would be best," said the reporter, "to remain a day
longer on Tabor Island, so as to collect all that may be useful to us."

"No, Mr. Spilett," answered Pencroft, "I will ask you to set off to-morrow
at daybreak. The wind seems to me to be likely to shift to the west, and
after having had a fair wind for coming we shall have a fair wind for
going back."

"Then do not let us lose time," said Herbert, rising.

"We won't waste time," returned Pencroft. "You, Herbert, go and gather
the seeds, which you know better than we do. While you do that, Mr. Spilett
and I will go and have a pig hunt, and even without Top I hope we shall
manage to catch a few!"

Herbert accordingly took the path which led towards the cultivated part
of the islet, while the sailor and the reporter entered the forest.

Many specimens of the porcine race fled before them, and these animals,
which were singularly active, did not appear to be in a humor to allow
themselves to be approached.

However, after an hour's chase, the hunters had just managed to get hold
of a couple lying in a thicket, when cries were heard resounding from the
north part of the island, With the cries were mingled terrible yells, in
which there was nothing human.

Pencroft and Gideon Spilett were at once on their feet, and the pigs by
this movement began to run away, at the moment when the sailor was getting
ready the rope to bind them.

"That's Herbert's voice," said the reporter.

"Run!" exclaimed Pencroft.

And the sailor and Spilett immediately ran at full speed towards the spot
from whence the cries proceeded.

They did well to hasten, for at a turn of the path near a clearing they
saw the lad thrown on the ground and in the grasp of a savage being,
apparently a gigantic ape, who was about to do him some great harm.

To rush on this monster, throw him on the ground in his turn, snatch
Herbert from him, then bind him securely, was the work of a minute for
Pencroft and Gideon Spilett. The sailor was of Herculean strength, the
reporter also very powerful, and in spite of the monster's resistance he
was firmly tied so that he could not even move.

"You are not hurt, Herbert?" asked Spilett.

"No, no!"

"Oh, if this ape had wounded him!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"But he is not an ape," answered Herbert.

At these words Pencroft and Gideon Spilett looked at the singular being
who lay on the ground. Indeed it was not an ape; it was a human being, a
man. But what a man! A savage in all the horrible acceptation of the word,
and so much the more frightful that he seemed fallen to the lowest degree
of brutishness!

Shaggy hair, untrimmed beard descending to the chest, the body almost
naked except a rag round the waist, wild eyes, enormous hands with
immensely long nails, skin the color of mahogany, feet as hard as if made
of horn, such was the miserable creature who yet had a claim to be called a
man. But it might justly be asked if there were yet a soul in this body, or
if the brute instinct alone survived in it!

"Are you quite sure that this is a man, or that he has ever been one?"
said Pencroft to the reporter.

"Alas! there is no doubt about it," replied Spilett.

"Then this must be the castaway?" asked Herbert.

"Yes," replied Gideon Spilett, "but the unfortunate man has no longer
anything human about him!"

The reporter spoke the truth. It was evident that if the castaway had
ever been a civilized being, solitude had made him a savage, or worse,
perhaps a regular man of the woods. Hoarse sounds issued from his
throat between his teeth, which were sharp as the teeth of a wild
beast made to tear raw flesh.

Memory must have deserted him long before, and for a long time also he
had forgotten how to use his gun and tools, and he no longer knew how to
make a fire! It could be seen that he was active and powerful, but the
physical qualities had been developed in him to the injury of the moral
qualities. Gideon Spilett spoke to him. He did not appear to understand or
even to hear. And yet on looking into his eyes, the reporter thought he
could see that all reason was not extinguished in him. However, the
prisoner did not struggle, nor even attempt to break his bonds. Was he
overwhelmed by the presence of men whose fellow he had once been? Had he
found in some corner of his brain a fleeting remembrance which recalled him
to humanity? If free, would he attempt to fly, or would he remain? They
could not tell, but they did not make the experiment; and after gazing
attentively at the miserable creature,--

"Whoever he may be," remarked Gideon Spilett, "whoever he may have been,
and whatever he may become, it is our duty to take him with us to Lincoln
Island."

"Yes, yes!" replied Herbert, "and perhaps with care we may arouse in him
same gleam of intelligence."

"The soul does not die," said the reporter, "and it would be a great
satisfaction to rescue one of God's creatures from brutishness."

Pencroft shook his head doubtfully.

"We must try at any rate," returned the reporter; "humanity commands us."

It was indeed their duty as Christians and civilized beings. All three
felt this, and they well knew that Cyrus Harding would approve of their
acting thus.

"Shall we leave him bound?" asked the sailor.

"Perhaps he would walk if his feet were unfastened," said Herbert.

"Let us try,"  replied Pencroft.

The cords which shackled the prisoner's feet were cut off, but his arms
remained securely fastened. He got up by himself and did not manifest any
desire to run away. His hard eyes darted a piercing glance at the three
men, who walked near him, but nothing denoted that he recollected being
their fellow, or at least having been so. A continual hissing sound issued
from his lips, his aspect was wild, but he did not attempt to resist.

By the reporter's advice the unfortunate man was taken to the hut.
Perhaps the sight of the things that belonged to him would make some
impression on him! Perhaps a spark would be sufficient to revive his
obscured intellect, to rekindle his dulled soul. The dwelling was not far
off. In a few minutes they arrived there, but the prisoner remembered
nothing, and it appeared that he had lost consciousness of everything.

What could they think of the degree of brutishness into which this
miserable being had fallen, unless that his imprisonment on the islet dated
from a very distant period and after having arrived there a rational being
solitude had reduced him to this condition.

The reporter then thought that perhaps the sight of fire would have some
effect on him, and in a moment one of those beautiful flames, that attract
even animals, blazed up on the hearth. The sight of the flame seemed at
first to fix the attention of the unhappy object, but soon he turned away
and the look of intelligence faded. Evidently there was nothing to be done,
for the time at least, but to take him on board the "Bonadventure." This
was done, and he remained there in Pencroft's charge.

Herbert and Spilett returned to finish their work; and some hours after
they came back to the shore, carrying the utensils and guns, a store of
vegetables, of seeds, some game, and two couple of pigs.

All was embarked, and the "Bonadventure" was ready to weigh anchor and
sail with the morning tide.

The prisoner had been placed in the fore-cabin, where he remained quiet,
silent, apparently deaf and dumb.

Pencroft offered him something to eat, but he pushed away the cooked meat
that was presented to him and which doubtless did not suit him. But on the
sailor showing him one of the ducks which Herbert had killed, he pounced on
it like a wild beast, and devoured it greedily.

"You think that he will recover his senses?" asked Pencroft. "It is not
impossible that our care will have an effect upon him, for it is solitude
that has made him what he is, and from this time forward he will be no
longer alone."

"The poor man must no doubt have been in this state for a long time,"
said Herbert.

"Perhaps," answered Gideon Spilett.

"About what age is he?" asked the lad.

"It is difficult to say," replied the reporter, "for it is impossible to
see his features under the thick beard which covers his face, but he is no
longer young, and I suppose he might be about fifty."

"Have you noticed, Mr. Spilett, how deeply sunk his eyes are?" asked
Herbert.

"Yes, Herbert, but I must add that they are more human than one could
expect from his appearance."

"However, we shall see," replied Pencroft, "and I am anxious to know what
opinion Captain Harding will have of our savage. We went to look for a
human creature, and we are bringing back a monster! After all, we did what
we could."

The night passed, and whether the prisoner slept or not could not be
known, but at any rate, although he had been unbound, he did not move. He
was like a wild animal, which appears stunned at first by its capture, and
becomes wild again afterwards.


At daybreak the next morning, the 15th of October, the change of weather
predicted by Pencroft occurred. The wind having shifted to the northwest
favored the return of the "Bonadventure," but at the same time it
freshened, which might render navigation more difficult.

At five o'clock in the morning the anchor was weighed. Pencroft took a
reef in the mainsail, and steered towards the north-east, so as to sail
straight for Lincoln Island.

The first day of the voyage was not marked by any incident. The prisoner
remained quiet in the fore-cabin, and as he had been a sailor it appeared
that the motion of the vessel might produce on him a salutary reaction. Did
some recollection of his former calling return to him? However that might
be, he remained tranquil, astonished rather than depressed.

The next day the wind increased, blowing more from the north,
consequently in a less favorable direction for the "Bonadventure." Pencroft
was soon obliged to sail close-hauled, and without saying anything about it
he began to be uneasy at the state of the sea, which frequently broke over
the bows. Certainly, if the wind did not moderate, it would take a longer
time to reach Lincoln Island than it had taken to make Tabor Island.

Indeed, on the morning of the 17th, the "Bonadventure" had been forty-
eight hours at sea, and nothing showed that she was near the island. It was
impossible, besides, to estimate the distance traversed, or to trust to the
reckoning for the direction, as the speed had been very irregular.

Twenty-four hours after there was yet no land in sight. The wind was
right ahead and the sea very heavy. The sails were close-reefed, and they
tacked frequently. On the 18th, a wave swept completely over the
"Bonadventure"; and if the crew had not taken the precaution of lashing
themselves to the deck, they would have been carried away.

On this occasion Pencroft and his companions, who were occupied with
loosing themselves, received unexpected aid from the prisoner, who emerged
from the hatchway as if his sailor's instinct had suddenly returned, broke
a piece out of the bulwarks with a spar so as to let the water which filled
the deck escape. Then the vessel being clear, he descended to his cabin
without having uttered a word. Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert,
greatly astonished, let him proceed.

Their situation was truly serious, and the sailor had reason to fear that
he was lost on the wide sea without any possibility of recovering his
course.

The night was dark and cold. However, about eleven o'clock, the wind
fell, the sea went down, and the speed of the vessel, as she labored less,
greatly increased.

Neither Pencroft, Spilett, nor Herbert thought of taking an hour's sleep.
They kept a sharp look-out, for either Lincoln Island could not be far
distant and would be sighted at daybreak, or the "Bonadventure," carried
away by currents, had drifted so much that it would be impossible to
rectify her course. Pencroft, uneasy to the last degree, yet did not
despair, for he had a gallant heart, and grasping the tiller he anxiously
endeavored to pierce the darkness which surrounded them.

About two o'clock in the morning he started forward,--

"A light! a light!" he shouted.

Indeed, a bright light appeared twenty miles to the northeast. Lincoln
Island was there, and this fire, evidently lighted by Cyrus Harding, showed
them the course to be followed. Pencroft, who was bearing too much to the
north, altered his course and steered towards the fire, which burned
brightly above the horizon like a star of the first magnitude.



Chapter 15

The next day, the 20th of October, at seven o'clock in the morning, after a
voyage of four days, the "Bonadventure" gently glided up to the beach at
the mouth of the Mercy.

Cyrus Harding and Neb, who had become very uneasy at the bad weather and
the prolonged absence of their companions, had climbed at daybreak to the
plateau of Prospect Heights, and they had at last caught sight of the
vessel which had been so long in returning.

"God be praised! there they are!" exclaimed Cyrus Harding.

As to Neb in his joy, he began to dance, to twirl round, clapping his
hands and shouting, "Oh! my master!" A more touching pantomime than the
finest discourse.

The engineer's first idea, on counting the people on the deck of the
"Bonadventure," was that Pencroft had not found the castaway of Tabor
Island, or at any rate that the unfortunate man had refused to leave his
island and change one prison for another.

Indeed Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert were alone on the deck of
the "Bonadventure."

The moment the vessel touched, the engineer and Neb were waiting on the
beach, and before the passengers had time to leap on to the sand, Harding
said: "We have been very uneasy at your delay, my friends! Did you meet
with any accident?"

"No," replied Gideon Spilett; "on the contrary, everything went
wonderfully well. We will tell you all about it."

"However," returned the engineer, "your search has been unsuccessful,
since you are only three, just as you went!"

"Excuse me, captain," replied the sailor, "we are four."

"You have found the castaway?"

"Yes."

"And you have brought him?"

"Yes."

"Living?"

"Yes."

"Where is he? Who is he?"

"He is," replied the reporter, "or rather he was a man! There, Cyrus,
that is all we can tell you!"

The engineer was then informed of all that had passed during the voyage,
and under what conditions the search had been conducted; how the only
dwelling in the island had long been abandoned; how at last a castaway had
been captured, who appeared no longer to belong to the human species.

"And that's just the point," added Pencroft, "I don't know if we have
done right to bring him here."

"Certainly you have, Pencroft," replied the engineer quickly.

"But the wretched creature has no sense!"

"That is possible at present," replied Cyrus Harding, "but only a few
months ago the wretched creature was a man like you and me. And who knows
what will become of the survivor of us after a long solitude on this
island? It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be
believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason, since you have found
this poor creature in such a state!"

"But, captain," asked Herbert, "what leads you to think that the
brutishness of the unfortunate man began only a few months back?"

"Because the document we found had been recently written," answered the
engineer, "and the castaway alone can have written it."

"Always supposing," observed Gideon Spilett, "that it had not been
written by a companion of this man, since dead."

"That is impossible, my dear Spilett."

"Why so?" asked the reporter.

"Because the document would then have spoken of two castaways," replied
Harding, "and it mentioned only one."

Herbert then in a few words related the incidents of the voyage, and
dwelt on the curious fact of the sort of passing gleam in the prisoner's
mind, when for an instant in the height of the storm he had become a
sailor.

"Well, Herbert," replied the engineer, "you are right to attach great
importance to this fact. The unfortunate man cannot be incurable, and
despair has made him what he is; but here he will find his fellow-men, and
since there is still a soul in him, this soul we shall save!"

The castaway of Tabor Island, to the great pity of the engineer and the
great astonishment of Neb, was then brought from the cabin which he
occupied in the fore part of the "Bonadventure"; when once on land he
manifested a wish to run away.

But Cyrus Harding approaching, placed his hand on his shoulder with a
gesture full of authority, and looked at him with infinite tenderness.
Immediately the unhappy man, submitting to a superior will, gradually
became calm, his eyes fell, his head bent, and he made no more resistance.

"Poor fellow!" murmured the engineer.

Cyrus Harding had attentively observed him. To judge by his appearance
this miserable being had no longer anything human about him, and yet
Harding, as had the reporter already, observed in his look an indefinable
trace of intelligence.

It was decided that the castaway, or rather the stranger as he was
thenceforth termed by his companions, should live in one of the rooms of
Granite House, from which, however, he could not escape. He was led there
without difficulty, and with careful attention, it might, perhaps, be hoped
that some day he would be a companion to the settlers in Lincoln Island.

Cyrus Harding, during breakfast, which Neb had hastened to prepare, as
the reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft were dying of hunger, heard in detail
all the incidents which had marked the voyage of exploration to the islet.
He agreed with his friends on this point, that the stranger must be either
English or American, the name Britannia leading them to suppose this, and,
besides, through the bushy beard, and under the shaggy, matted hair, the
engineer thought he could recognize the characteristic features of the
Anglo-Saxon.

"But, by the bye," said Gideon Spilett, addressing Herbert, "you never
told us how you met this savage, and we know nothing, except that you would
have been strangled, if we had not happened to come up in time to help
you!"

"Upon my word," answered Herbert, "it is rather difficult to say how it
happened. I was, I think, occupied in collecting my plants, when I heard a
noise like an avalanche falling from a very tall tree. I scarcely had time
to look round. This unfortunate man, who was without doubt concealed in a
tree, rushed upon me in less time than I take to tell you about it, and
unless Mr. Spilett and Pencroft--"

"My boy!" said Cyrus Harding, "you ran a great danger, but, perhaps,
without that, the poor creature would have still hidden himself from your
search, and we should not have had a new companion."

"You hope, then, Cyrus, to succeed in reforming the man?" asked the
reporter.

"Yes," replied the engineer.

Breakfast over, Harding and his companions left Granite House and
returned to the beach. They there occupied themselves in unloading the
"Bonadventure," and the engineer, having examined the arms and tools, saw
nothing which could help them to establish the identity of the stranger.

The capture of pigs, made on the islet, was looked upon as being very
profitable to Lincoln Island, and the animals were led to the sty, where
they soon became at home.

The two barrels, containing the powder and shot, as well as the box of
caps, were very welcome. It was agreed to establish a small powder-
magazine, either outside Granite House or in the Upper Cavern, where there
would be no fear of explosion. However, the use of pyroxyle was to be
continued, for this substance giving excellent results, there was no reason
for substituting ordinary powder.

When the unloading of the vessel was finished,--

"Captain," said Pencroft, "I think it would be prudent to put our
'Bonadventure' in a safe place."

"Is she not safe at the mouth of the Mercy?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"No, captain," replied the sailor. "Half of the time she is stranded on
the sand, and that works her. She is a famous craft, you see, and she
behaved admirably during the squall which struck us on our return."

"Could she not float in the river?"

"No doubt, captain, she could; but there is no shelter there, and in the
east winds, I think that the 'Bonadventure' would suffer much from the
surf."

"Well, where would you put her, Pencroft?"

"In Port Balloon," replied the sailor. "That little creek, shut in by
rocks, seems to me to be just the harbor we want."

"Is it not rather far?"

"Pooh! it is not more than three miles from Granite House, and we have a
fine straight road to take us there!"

"Do it then, Pencroft, and take your 'Bonadventure' there," replied the
engineer, "and yet I would rather have her under our more immediate
protection. When we have time, we must make a little harbor for her."

"Famous!" exclaimed Pencroft. "A harbor with a lighthouse, a pier, and
dock! Ah! really with you, captain, everything becomes easy."

"Yes, my brave Pencroft," answered the engineer, "but on condition,
however, that you help me, for you do as much as three men in all our
work."

Herbert and the sailor then re-embarked on board the "Bonadventure," the
anchor was weighed, the sail hoisted, and the wind drove her rapidly
towards Claw Cape. Two hours after, she was reposing on the tranquil waters
of Port Balloon.

During the first days passed by the stranger in Granite House, had he
already given them reason to think that his savage nature was becoming
tamed? Did a brighter light burn in the depths of that obscured mind? In
short, was the soul returning to the body?

Yes, to a certainty, and to such a degree, that Cyrus Harding and the
reporter wondered if the reason of the unfortunate man had ever been
totally extinguished. At first, accustomed to the open air, to the
unrestrained liberty which he had enjoyed on Tabor Island, the stranger
manifested a sullen fury, and it was feared that he might throw himself
onto the beach, out of one of the windows of Granite House. But gradually
he became calmer, and more freedom was allowed to his movements.

They had reason to hope, and to hope much. Already, forgetting his
carnivorous instincts, the stranger accepted a less bestial nourishment
than that on which he fed on the islet, and cooked meat did not produce in
him the same sentiment of repulsion which he had showed on board the
"Bonadventure." Cyrus Harding had profited by a moment when he was
sleeping, to cut his hair and matted beard, which formed a sort of mane and
gave him such a savage aspect. He had also been clothed more suitably,
after having got rid of the rag which covered him. The result was that,
thanks to these attentions, the stranger resumed a more human appearance,
and it even seemed as if his eyes had become milder. Certainly, when
formerly lighted up by intelligence, this man's face must have had a sort
of beauty.

Every day, Harding imposed on himself the task of passing some hours in
his company. He came and worked near him, and occupied himself in different
things, so as to fix his attention. A spark, indeed, would be sufficient to
reillumine that soul, a recollection crossing that brain to recall reason.
That had been seen, during the storm, on board the "Bonadventure!" The
engineer did not neglect either to speak aloud, so as to penetrate at the
same time by the organs of hearing and sight the depths of that torpid
intelligence. Sometimes one of his companions, sometimes another, sometimes
all joined him. They spoke most often of things belonging to the navy,
which must interest a sailor.

At times, the stranger gave some slight attention to what was said, and
the settlers were soon convinced that he partly understood them. Sometimes
the expression of his countenance was deeply sorrowful, a proof that he
suffered mentally, for his face could not be mistaken; but he did not
speak, although at different times, however, they almost thought that words
were about to issue from his lips. At all events, the poor creature was
quite quiet and sad!

But was not his calm only apparent? Was not his sadness only the result
of his seclusion? Nothing could yet be ascertained. Seeing only certain
objects and in a limited space, always in contact with the colonists, to
whom he would soon become accustomed, having no desires to satisfy, better
fed, better clothed, it was natural that his physical nature should
gradually improve; but was he penetrated with the sense of a new life? or
rather, to employ a word which would be exactly applicable to him, was he
not becoming tamed, like an animal in company with his master? This was an
important question, which Cyrus Harding was anxious to answer, and yet he
did not wish to treat his invalid roughly! Would he ever be a convalescent?

How the engineer observed him every moment! How he was on the watch for
his soul, if one may use the expression! How he was ready to grasp it! The
settlers followed with real sympathy all the phases of the cure undertaken
by Harding. They aided him also in this work of humanity, and all, except
perhaps the incredulous Pencroft, soon shared both his hope and his faith.

The calm of the stranger was deep, as has been said, and he even showed a
sort of attachment for the engineer, whose influence he evidently felt.
Cyrus Harding resolved then to try him, by transporting him to another
scene, from that ocean which formerly his eyes had been accustomed to
contemplate, to the border of the forest, which might perhaps recall those
where so many years of his life had been passed!

"But," said Gideon Spilett, "can we hope that he will not escape, if once
set at liberty?"

"The experiment must be tried," replied the engineer.

"Well!" said Pencroft. "When that fellow is outside, and feels the fresh
air, he will be off as fast as his legs can carry him!"

"I do not think so," returned Harding.

"Let us try," said Spilett.

"We will try," replied the engineer.

This was on the 30th of October, and consequently the castaway of Tabor
Island had been a prisoner in Granite House for nine days. It was warm, and
a bright sun darted its rays on the island. Cyrus Harding and Pencroft went
to the room occupied by the stranger, who was found lying near the window
and gazing at the sky.

"Come, my friend," said the engineer to him.

The stranger rose immediately. His eyes were fixed on Cyrus Harding, and
he followed him, while the sailor marched behind them, little confident as
to the result of the experiment.

Arrived at the door, Harding and Pencroft made him take his place in the
lift, while Neb, Herbert, and Gideon Spilett waited for them before Granite
House. The lift descended, and in a few moments all were united on the
beach.

The settlers went a short distance from the stranger, so as to leave him
at liberty.

He then made a few steps toward the sea, and his look brightened with
extreme animation, but he did not make the slightest attempt to escape. He
was gazing at the little waves which, broken by the islet, rippled on the
sand.

"This is only the sea," observed Gideon Spilett, "and possibly it does
not inspire him with any wish to escape!"

"Yes," replied Harding, "we must take him to the plateau, on the border
of the forest. There the experiment will be more conclusive."

"Besides, he could not run away," said Neb, "since the bridge is raised."

"Oh!" said Pencroft, "that isn't a man to be troubled by a stream like
Creek Glycerine! He could cross it directly, at a single bound!"

"We shall soon see," Harding contented himself with replying, his eyes
not quitting those of his patient.

The latter was then led towards the mouth of the Mercy, and all climbing
the left bank of the river, reached Prospect Heights.

Arrived at the spot on which grew the first beautiful trees of the
forest, their foliage slightly agitated by the breeze, the stranger
appeared greedily to drink in the penetrating odor which filled the
atmosphere, and a long sigh escaped from his chest.

The settlers kept behind him, ready to seize him if he made any movement
to escape!

And, indeed, the poor creature was on the point of springing into the
creek which separated him from the forest, and his legs were bent for an
instant as if for a spring, but almost immediately he stepped back, half
sank down, and a large tear fell from his eyes.

"Ah!" exclaimed Cyrus Harding, "you have become a man again, for you can
weep!"



Chapter 16

Yes! the unfortunate man had wept! Some recollection doubtless had flashed
across his brain, and to use Cyrus Harding's expression, by those tears he
was once more a man.

The colonists left him for some time on the plateau, and withdrew
themselves to a short distance, so that he might feel himself free; but he
did not think of profiting by this liberty, and Harding soon brought him
back to Granite House. Two days after this occurrence, the stranger
appeared to wish gradually to mingle with their common life. He evidently
heard and understood, but no less evidently was he strangely determined not
to speak to the colonists; for one evening, Pencroft, listening at the door
of his room, heard these words escape from his lips:--

"No! here! I! never!"

The sailor reported these words to his companions.

"There is some painful mystery there!" said Harding.

The stranger had begun to use the laboring tools, and he worked in the
garden. When he stopped in his work, as was often the case, he remained
retired within himself, but on the engineer's recommendation, they
respected the reserve which he apparently wished to keep. If one of the
settlers approached him, he drew back, and his chest heaved with sobs, as
if overburdened!

Was it remorse that overwhelmed him thus? They were compelled to believe
so, and Gideon Spilett could not help one day making this observation,--

"If he does not speak it is because he has, I fear, things too serious to
be told!"

They must be patient and wait.

A few days later, on the 3rd of November, the stranger, working on the
plateau, had stopped, letting his spade drop to the ground, and Harding,
who was observing him from a little distance, saw that tears were again
flowing from his eyes. A sort of irresistible pity led him towards the
unfortunate man, and he touched his arm lightly.

"My friend!" said he.

The stranger tried to avoid his look, and Cyrus Harding having endeavored
to take his hand, he drew back quickly.

"My friend," said Harding in a firmer voice, "look at me, I wish it!"

The stranger looked at the engineer, and seemed to be under his power, as
a subject under the influence of a mesmerist. He wished to run away. But
then his countenance suddenly underwent a transformation. His eyes flashed.
Words struggled to escape from his lips. He could no longer contain
himself! At last he folded his arms; then, in a hollow voice,--"Who are
you?" he asked Cyrus Harding.

"Castaways, like you," replied the engineer, whose emotion was deep. "We
have brought you here, among your fellow-men."

"My fellow-men!. . . . I have none!"

"You are in the midst of friends."

"Friends!--for me! friends!" exclaimed the stranger, hiding his face in
his hands. "No--never--leave me! leave me!"

Then he rushed to the side of the plateau which overlooked the sea, and
remained there a long time motionless.

Harding rejoined his companions and related to them what had just
happened.

"Yes! there is some mystery in that man's life," said Gideon Spilett,
"and it appears as if he had only re-entered society by the path of
remorse."

"I don't know what sort of a man we have brought here," said the sailor.
"He has secrets--"

"Which we will respect," interrupted Cyrus Harding quickly. "If he has
committed any crime, he has most fearfully expiated it, and in our eyes he
is absolved."

For two hours the stranger remained alone on the shore, evidently under
the influence of recollections which recalled all his past life--a
melancholy life doubtless--and the colonists, without losing sight of him,
did not attempt to disturb his solitude. However, after two hours,
appearing to have formed a resolution, he came to find Cyrus Harding. His
eyes were red with the tears he had shed, but he wept no longer. His
countenance expressed deep humility. He appeared anxious, timorous,
ashamed, and his eyes were constantly fixed on the ground.

"Sir," said he to Harding, "your companions and you, are you English?"

"No," answered the engineer, "we are Americans."

"Ah!" said the stranger, and he murmured, "I prefer that!"

"And you, my friend?" asked the engineer.

"English," replied he hastily.

And as if these few words had been difficult to say, he retreated to the
beach, where he walked up and down between the cascade and the mouth of the
Mercy, in a state of extreme agitation.

Then, passing one moment close to Herbert, he stopped and in a stifled
voice,--

"What month?" he asked.

"December," replied Herbert.

"What year?"

"1866."

"Twelve years! twelve years!" he exclaimed.

Then he left him abruptly.

Herbert reported to the colonists the questions and answers which had
been made.

"This unfortunate man," observed Gideon Spilett, "was no longer
acquainted with either months or years!"

"Yes!" added Herbert, "and he had been twelve years already on the islet
when we found him there!"

"Twelve years!" rejoined Harding. "Ah! twelve years of solitude, after a
wicked life, perhaps, may well impair a man's reason!"

"I am induced to think," said Pencroft, "that this man was not wrecked on
Tabor Island, but that in consequence of some crime he was left there."

"You must be right, Pencroft," replied the reporter, "and if it is so it
is not impossible that those who left him on the island may return to fetch
him some day!"

"And they will no longer find him," said Herbert.

"But then," added Pencroft, "they must return, and--"

"My friends," said Cyrus Harding, "do not let us discuss this question
until we know more about it. I believe that the unhappy man has suffered,
that he has severely expiated his faults, whatever they may have been, and
that the wish to unburden himself stifles him. Do not let us press him to
tell us his history! He will tell it to us doubtless, and when we know it,
we shall see what course it will be best to follow. He alone besides can
tell us, if he has more than a hope, a certainty, of returning some day to
his country, but I doubt it!"

"And why?" asked the reporter.

"Because that, in the event of his being sure of being delivered at a
certain time, he would have waited the hour of his deliverance and would
not have thrown this document into the sea. No, it is more probable that he
was condemned to die on that islet, and that he never expected to see his
fellow-creatures again!"

"But," observed the sailor, "there is one thing which I cannot explain."

"What is it?"

"If this man had been left for twelve years on Tabor Island, one may well
suppose that he had been several years already in the wild state in which
we found him!"

"That is probable," replied Cyrus Harding.

"It must then be many years since he wrote that document!"

"No doubt," and yet the document appears to have been recently written!

"Besides, how do you know that the bottle which enclosed the document may
not have taken several years to come from Tabor Island to Lincoln Island?"

"That is not absolutely impossible," replied the reporter.

"Might it not have been a long time already on the coast of the island?"

"No," answered Pencroft, "for it was still floating. We could not even
suppose that after it had stayed for any length of time on the shore, it
would have been swept off by the sea, for the south coast is all rocks, and
it would certainly have been smashed to pieces there!"

"That is true," rejoined Cyrus Harding thoughtfully.

"And then," continued the sailor, "if the document was several years old,
if it had been shut up in that bottle for several years, it would have been
injured by damp. Now, there is nothing of the kind, and it was found in a
perfect state of preservation."

The sailor's reasoning was very just, and pointed out an incomprehensible
fact, for the document appeared to have been recently written, when the
colonists found it in the bottle. Moreover, it gave the latitude and
longitude of Tabor Island correctly, which implied that its author had a
more complete knowledge of hydrography than could be expected of a common
sailor.

"There is in this, again, something unaccountable," said the engineer,
"but we will not urge our companions to speak. When he likes, my friends,
then we shall be ready to hear him!"

During the following days the stranger did not speak a word, and did not
once leave the precincts of the plateau. He worked away, without losing a
moment, without taking a minute's rest, but always in a retired place. At
meal times he never came to Granite House, although invited several times
to do so, but contented himself with eating a few raw vegetables. At
nightfall he did not return to the room assigned to him, but remained under
some clump of trees, or when the weather was bad crouched in some cleft of
the rocks. Thus he lived in the same manner as when he had no other shelter
than the forests of Tabor Island, and as all persuasion to induce him to
improve his life was in vain, the colonists waited patiently. And the time
was near, when, as it seemed, almost involuntarily urged by his conscience,
a terrible confession escaped him.

On the 10th of November, about eight o'clock in the evening, as night was
coming on, the stranger appeared unexpectedly before the settlers, who were
assembled under the veranda. His eyes burned strangely, and he had quite
resumed the wild aspect of his worst days.

Cyrus Harding and his companions were astounded on seeing that, overcome
by some terrible emotion, his teeth chattered like those of a person in a
fever. What was the matter with him? Was the sight of his fellow-creatures
insupportable to him? Was he weary of this return to a civilized mode of
existence? Was he pining for his former savage life? It appeared so, as
soon he was heard to express himself in these incoherent sentences:--

"Why am I here?.... By what right have you dragged me from my islet?....
Do you think there could be any tie between you and me?.... Do you know who
I am--what I have done--why I was there--alone? And who told you that I was
not abandoned there--that I was not condemned to die there?.... Do you know
my past?.... How do you know that I have not stolen, murdered--that I am
not a wretch--an accursed being--only fit to live like a wild beast, far
from all--speak--do you know it?"

The colonists listened without interrupting the miserable creature, from
whom these broken confessions escaped, as it were, in spite of himself.
Harding wishing to calm him, approached him, but he hastily drew back.

"No! no!" he exclaimed; "one word only--am I free?"

"You are free," answered the engineer.

"Farewell, then!" he cried, and fled like a madman.

Neb, Pencroft, and Herbert ran also towards the edge of the wood--but
they returned alone.

"We must let him alone!" said Cyrus Harding.

"He will never come back!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"He will come back," replied the engineer.

Many days passed; but Harding--was it a sort of presentiment?
--presentiment in the fixed idea that sooner or later the unhappy man
would return.

"It is the last revolt of his wild nature," said he, "which remorse has
touched, and which renewed solitude will terrify."

In the meanwhile, works of all sorts were continued, as well on Prospect
Heights as at the corral, where Harding intended to build a farm. It is
unnecessary to say that the seeds collected by Herbert on Tabor Island had
been carefully sown. The plateau thus formed one immense kitchen-garden,
well laid out and carefully tended, so that the arms of the settlers were
never in want of work. There was always something to be done. As the
esculents increased in number, it became necessary to enlarge the simple
beds, which threatened to grow into regular fields and replace the meadows.
But grass abounded in other parts of the island, and there was no fear of
the onagers being obliged to go on short allowance. It was well worth
while, besides, to turn Prospect Heights into a kitchen-garden, defended by
its deep belt of creeks, and to remove them to the meadows, which had no
need of protection against the depredations of quadrumana and quadrapeds.

On the 15th of November, the third harvest was gathered in. How
wonderfully had the field increased in extent, since eighteen months ago,
when the first grain of wheat was sown! The second crop of six hundred
thousand grains produced this time four thousand bushels, or five hundred
millions of grains!

The colony was rich in corn, for ten bushels alone were sufficient for
sowing every year to produce an ample crop for the food both of men and
beasts. The harvest was completed, and the last fortnight of the month of
November was devoted to the work of converting it into food for man. In
fact, they had corn, but not flour, and the establishment of a mill was
necessary. Cyrus Harding could have utilized the second fall which flowed
into the Mercy to establish his motive power, the first being already
occupied with moving the felting mill, but, after some consultation, it was
decided that a simple windmill should be built on Prospect Heights. The
building of this presented no more difficulty than the building of the
former, and it was moreover certain that there would be no want of wind on
the plateau, exposed as it was to the sea breezes.

"Not to mention," said Pencroft, "that the windmill will be more lively
and will have a good effect in the landscape!"

They set to work by choosing timber for the frame and machinery of the
mill. Some large stones, found at the north of the lake, could be easily
transformed into millstones, and as to the sails, the inexhaustible case of
the balloon furnished the necessary material.

Cyrus Harding made his model, and the site of the mill was chosen a
little to the right of the poultry-yard, near the shore of the lake. The
frame was to rest on a pivot supported with strong timbers, so that it
could turn with all the machinery it contained according as the wind
required it. The work advanced rapidly. Neb and Pencroft had become very
skilful carpenters, and had nothing to do but to copy the models provided
by the engineer.

Soon a sort of cylindrical box, in shape like a pepper-pot, with a
pointed roof, rose on the spot chosen. The four frames which formed the
sails had been firmly fixed in the center beam, so as to form a certain
angle with it, and secured with iron clamps. As to the different parts of
the internal mechanism, the box destined to contain the two millstones, the
fixed stone and the moving stone, the hopper, a sort of large square
trough, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, which would allow the grain
to fall on the stones, the oscillating spout intended to regulate the
passing of the grain, and lastly the bolting machine, which by the
operation of sifting, separates the bran from the flour, were made without
difficulty. The tools were good, and the work not difficult, for in
reality, the machinery of a mill is very simple. This was only a question
of time.

Every one had worked at the construction of the mill, and on the 1st of
December it was finished. As usual, Pencroft was delighted with his work,
and had no doubt that the apparatus was perfect.

"Now for a good wind," said he, "and we shall grind our first harvest
splendidly!"

"A good wind, certainly," answered the engineer, "but not too much,
Pencroft."

"Pooh! our mill would only go the faster!"

"There is no need for it to go so very fast," replied Cyrus Harding. "It
is known by experience that the greatest quantity of work is performed by a
mill when the number of turns made by the sails in a minute is six times
the number of feet traversed by the wind in a second. A moderate breeze,
which passes over twenty-four feet to the second, will give sixteen turns
to the sails during a minute, and there is no need of more."

"Exactly!" cried Herbert, "a fine breeze is blowing from the northeast,
which will soon do our business for us."

There was no reason for delaying the inauguration of the mill, for the
settlers were eager to taste the first piece of bread in Lincoln Island. On
this morning two or three bushels of wheat were ground, and the next day at
breakfast a magnificent loaf, a little heavy perhaps, although raised with
yeast, appeared on the table at Granite House. Every one munched away at it
with a pleasure which may be easily understood.

In the meanwhile, the stranger had not reappeared. Several times Gideon
Spilett and Herbert searched the forest in the neighborhood of Granite
House, without meeting or finding any trace of him. They became seriously
uneasy at this prolonged absence. Certainly, the former savage of Tabor
island could not be perplexed how to live in the forest, abounding in game,
but was it not to be feared that he had resumed his habits, and that this
freedom would revive in him his wild instincts? However, Harding, by a sort
of presentiment, doubtless, always persisted in saying that the fugitive
would return.

"Yes, he will return!" he repeated with a confidence which his companions
could not share. "When this unfortunate man was on Tabor Island, he knew
himself to be alone! Here, he knows that fellow-men are awaiting him! Since
he has partially spoken of his past life, the poor penitent will return to
tell the whole, and from that day he will belong to us!"

The event justified Cyrus Harding's predictions. On the 3rd of December,
Herbert had left the plateau to go and fish on the southern bank of the
lake. He was unarmed, and till then had never taken any precautions for
defense, as dangerous animals had not shown themselves on that part of the
island.

Meanwhile, Pencroft and Neb were working in the poultry-yard, while
Harding and the reporter were occupied at the Chimneys in making soda, the
store of soap being exhausted.

Suddenly cries resounded,--

"Help! help!"

Cyrus Harding and the reporter, being at too great a distance, had not
been able to hear the shouts. Pencroft and Neb, leaving the poultry-yard in
all haste, rushed towards the lake.

But before then, the stranger, whose presence at this place no one had
suspected, crossed Creek Glycerine, which separated the plateau from the
forest, and bounded up the opposite bank.

Herbert was there face to face with a fierce jaguar, similar to the one
which had been killed on Reptile End. Suddenly surprised, he was standing
with his back against a tree, while the animal gathering itself together
was about to spring.

But the stranger, with no other weapon than a knife, rushed on the
formidable animal, who turned to meet this new adversary.

The struggle was short. The stranger possessed immense strength and
activity. He seized the jaguar's throat with one powerful hand, holding it
as in a vise, without heeding the beast's claws which tore his flesh, and
with the other he plunged his knife into its heart.

The jaguar fell. The stranger kicked away the body, and was about to fly
at the moment when the settlers arrived on the field of battle, but
Herbert, clinging to him, cried,--

"No, no! you shall not go!"

Harding advanced towards the stranger, who frowned when he saw him
approaching. The blood flowed from his shoulder under his torn shirt, but
he took no notice of it.

"My friend," said Cyrus Harding, "we have just contracted a debt of
gratitude to you. To save our boy you have risked your life!"

"My life!" murmured the stranger. "What is that worth? Less than
nothing!"

"You are wounded?"

"It is no matter."

"Will you give me your hand?"

And as Herbert endeavored to. seize the hand which had just saved him,
the stranger folded his arms, his chest heaved, his look darkened, and he
appeared to wish to escape, but making a violent effort over himself, and
in an abrupt tone,--

"Who are you?" he asked, "and what do you claim to be to me?"

It was the colonists' history which he thus demanded, and for the first
time. Perhaps this history recounted, he would tell his own.

In a few words Harding related all that had happened since their
departure from Richmond; how they had managed, and what resources they now
had at their disposal.

The stranger listened with extreme attention.

Then the engineer told who they all were, Gideon Spilett, Herbert,
Pencroft, Neb, himself, and, he added, that the greatest happiness they had
felt since their arrival in Lincoln Island was on the return of the vessel
from Tabor Island, when they had been able to include among them a new
companion.

At these words the stranger's face flushed, his head sunk on his breast,
and confusion was depicted on his countenance.

"And now that you know us," added Cyrus Harding, "will you give us your
hand?"

"No," replied the, stranger in a hoarse voice; "no! You are honest men!
And I--"



Chapter 17

These last words justified the colonists' presentiment. There had been some
mournful past, perhaps expiated in the sight of men, but from which his
conscience had not yet absolved him. At any rate the guilty man felt
remorse, he repented, and his new friends would have cordially pressed the
hand which they sought; but he did not feel himself worthy to extend it to
honest men! However, after the scene with the jaguar, he did not return to
the forest, and from that day did not go beyond the enclosure of Granite
House.

What was the mystery of his life? Would the stranger one day speak of it?
Time alone could show. At any rate, it was agreed that his secret should
never be asked from him, and that they would live with him as if they
suspected nothing.

For some days their life continued as before. Cyrus Harding and Gideon
Spilett worked together, sometimes chemists, sometimes experimentalists. The
reporter never left the engineer except to hunt with Herbert, for it would
not have been prudent to allow the lad to ramble alone in the forest; and
it was very necessary to be on their guard. As to Neb and Pencroft, one day
at the stables and poultry-yard, another at the corral, without reckoning
work in Granite House, they were never in want of employment.

The stranger worked alone, and he had resumed his usual life, never
appearing at meals, sleeping under the trees in the plateau, never mingling
with his companions. It really seemed as if the society of those who had
saved him was insupportable to him!

"But then," observed Pencroft, "why did he entreat the help of his
fellow-creatures? Why did he throw that paper into the sea?"

"He will tell us why," invariably replied Cyrus Harding.

"When?"

"Perhaps sooner than you think, Pencroft."

And, indeed, the day of confession was near.

On the 10th of December, a week after his return to Granite House,
Harding saw the stranger approaching, who, in a calm voice and humble tone,
said to him: "Sir, I have a request to make of you."

"Speak," answered the engineer, "but first let me ask you a question."

At these words the stranger reddened, and was on the point of
withdrawing. Cyrus Harding understood what was passing in the mind of the
guilty man, who doubtless feared that the engineer would interrogate him on
his past life.

Harding held him back.

"Comrade," said he, "we are not only your companions but your friends. I
wish you to believe that, and now I will listen to you."

The stranger pressed his hand over his eyes. He was seized with a sort of
trembling, and remained a few moments without being able to articulate a
word.

"Sir," said he at last, "I have come to beg you to grant me a favor."

"What is it?"

"You have, four or five miles from here, a corral for your domesticated
animals. These animals need to be taken care of. Will you allow me to live
there with them?"

Cyrus Harding gazed at the unfortunate man for a few moments with a
feeling of deep commiseration; then,--


"My friend," said he, "the corral has only stables hardly fit for
animals."

"It will be good enough for me, sir."

"My friend," answered Harding, "we will not constrain you in anything.
You wish to live at the corral, so be it. You will, however, be always
welcome at Granite House. But since you wish to live at the corral we will
make the necessary arrangements for your being comfortably established
there."

"Never mind that, I shall do very well."

"My friend," answered Harding, who always intentionally made use of this
cordial appellation, "you must let us judge what it will be best to do in
this respect."

"Thank you, sir," replied the stranger as he withdrew.

The engineer then made known to his companions the proposal which had
been made to him, and it was agreed that they should build a wooden house
at the corral, which they would make as comfortable as possible.

That very day the colonists repaired to the corral with the necessary
tools, and a week had not passed before the house was ready to receive its
tenant. It was built about twenty feet from the sheds, and from there it
was easy to overlook the flock of sheep, which then numbered more than
eighty. Some furniture, a bed, table, bench, cupboard, and chest were
manufactured, and a gun, ammunition, and tools were carried to the corral.

The stranger, however, had seen nothing of his new dwelling, and he had
allowed the settlers to work there without him, while he occupied himself
on the plateau, wishing, doubtless, to put the finishing stroke to his
work. Indeed, thanks to him, all the ground was dug up and ready to he
sowed when the time came.

It was on the 20th of December that all the arrangements at the corral
were completed. The engineer announced to the stranger that his dwelling
was ready to receive him, and the latter replied that he would go and sleep
there that very evening.

On this evening the colonists were gathered in the diningroom of Granite
House. It was then eight o'clock, the hour at which their companion was to
leave them. Not wishing to trouble him by their presence, and thus imposing
on him the necessity of saying farewells which might perhaps be painful to
him, they had left him alone and ascended to Granite House.

Now, they had been talking in the room for a few minutes, when a light
knock was heard at the door. Almost immediately the stranger entered, and
without any preamble,--

"Gentlemen," said he, "before I leave you, it is right that you should
know my history. I will tell it you."

These simple words profoundly impressed Cyrus Harding and his companions.
The engineer rose.

"We ask you nothing, my friend," said he; "it is your right to be
silent."

"It is my duty to speak."

"Sit down, then."

"No, I will stand."

"We are ready to hear you," replied Harding.

The stranger remained standing in a corner of the room, a little in the
shade. He was bareheaded, his arms folded across his chest, and it was in
this posture that in a hoarse voice, speaking like some one who obliges
himself to speak, he gave the following recital, which his auditors did not
once interrupt:--

"On the 20th of December, 1854, a steam-yacht, belonging to a Scotch
nobleman, Lord Glenarvan, anchored off Cape Bernouilli, on the western
coast of Australia, in the thirty-seventh parallel. On board this yacht
were Lord Glenarvan and his wife, a major in the English army, a French
geographer, a young girl, and a young boy. These two last were the children
of Captain Grant, whose ship, the 'Britannia,' had been lost, crew and
cargo, a year before. The 'Duncan' was commanded by Captain John Mangles,
and manned by a crew of fifteen men.

"This is the reason the yacht at this time lay off the coast of
Australia. Six months before, a bottle, enclosing a document written in
English, German, and French, had been found in the Irish Sea, and picked up
by the 'Duncan.' This document stated in substance that there still existed
three survivors from the wreck of the 'Britannia,' that these survivors
were Captain Grant and two of his men, and that they had found refuge on
some land, of which the document gave the latitude, but of which the
longitude, effaced by the sea, was no longer legible.

"This latitude was 37deg 11' south; therefore, the longitude being unknown,
if they followed the thirty-seventh parallel over continents and seas, they
would be certain to reach the spot inhabited by Captain Grant and his two
companions. The English Admiralty having hesitated to undertake this
search, Lord Glenarvan resolved to attempt everything to find the captain.
He communicated with Mary and Robert Grant, who joined him. The 'Duncan'
yacht was equipped for the distant voyage, in which the nobleman's family
and the captain's children wished to take part, and the 'Duncan,' leaving
Glasgow, proceeded towards the Atlantic, passed through the Straits of
Magellan, and ascended the Pacific as far as Patagonia, where, according to
a previous interpretation of the document, they supposed that Captain Grant
was a prisoner among the Indians.

"The 'Duncan' disembarked her passengers on the western coast of
Patagonia, and sailed to pick them up again on the eastern coast at Cape
Corrientes. Lord Glenarvan traversed Patagonia, following the thirty-
seventh parallel, and having found no trace of the captain, he re-embarked
on the 13th of November, so as to pursue his search through the Ocean.

"After having unsuccessfully visited the islands of Tristan d'Acunha and
Amsterdam, situated in her course, the 'Duncan,' as I have said, arrived at
Cape Bernouilli, on the Australian coast, on the 20th of December, 1854.

"It was Lord Glenarvan's intention to traverse Australia as he had
traversed America, and he disembarked. A few miles from the coast was
established a farm, belonging to an Irishman, who offered hospitality to
the travelers. Lord Glenarvan made known to the Irishman the cause which
had brought him to these parts, and asked if he knew whether a three-masted
English vessel, the 'Britannia,' had been lost less than two years before
on the west coast of Australia.

"The Irishman had never heard of this wreck, but, to the great surprise
of the bystanders, one of his servants came forward and said,--

"'My lord, praise and thank God! If Captain Grant is still living, he is
living on the Australian shores.'

"'Who are you?' asked Lord Glenarvan.

"'A Scotchman like yourself, my lord,' replied the man; 'I am one of
Captain Grant's crew--one of the castaways of the "Britannia."'

"This man was called Ayrton. He was, in fact, the boatswain's mate of the
'Britannia,' as his papers showed. But, separated from Captain Grant at the
moment when the ship struck upon the rocks, he had till then believed that
the captain with all his crew had perished, and that he, Ayrton, was the
sole survivor of the 'Britannia.'

"'Only,' he added, 'it was not on the west coast, but on the east coast
of Australia that the vessel was lost, and if Captain Grant is still
living, as his document indicates, he is a prisoner among the natives, and
it is on the other coast that he must be looked for.'

"This man spoke in a frank voice and with a confident look; his words
could not be doubted. The irishman, in whose service he had been for more
than a year, answered for his trustworthiness. Lord Glenarvan, therefore,
believed in the fidelity of this man and, by his advice, resolved to cross
Australia, following the thirty-seventh parallel. Lord Glenarvan, his wife,
the two children, the major, the Frenchman, Captain Mangles, and a few
sailors composed the little band under the command of Ayrton, while the
'Duncan,' under charge of the mate, Tom Austin, proceeded to Melbourne,
there to await Lord Glenarvan's instructions.

"They set out on the 23rd of December, 1854.

"It is time to say that Ayrton was a traitor. He was, indeed, the
boatswain's mate of the 'Britannia,' but, after some dispute with his
captain, he endeavored to incite the crew to mutiny and seize the ship, and
Captain Grant had landed him, on the 8th of April, 1852, on the west coast
of Australia, and then sailed, leaving him there, as was only just.

"Therefore this wretched man knew nothing of the wreck of the
'Britannia'; he had just heard of it from Glenarvan's account. Since his
abandonment, he had become, under the name of Ben Joyce, the leader of the
escaped convicts; and if he boldly maintained that the wreck had taken
place on the east coast, and led Lord Glenarvan to proceed in that
direction, it was that he hoped to separate him from his ship, seize the
'Duncan,' and make the yacht a pirate in the Pacific."

Here the stranger stopped for a moment. His voice trembled, but he
continued,--

"The expedition set out and proceeded across Australia. It was inevitably
unfortunate, since Ayrton, or Ben Joyce, as he may be called, guided it,
sometimes preceded, sometimes followed by his band of convicts, who had
been told what they had to do.

"Meanwhile, the 'Duncan' had been sent to Melbourne for repairs. It was
necessary, then, to get Lord Glenarvan to order her to leave Melbourne and
go to the east coast of Australia, where it would be easy to seize her.
After having led the expedition near enough to the coast, in the midst of
vast forests with no resources, Ayrton obtained a letter, which he was
charged to carry to the mate of the 'Duncan'--a letter which ordered the
yacht to repair immediately to the east coast, to Twofold Bay, that is to
say a few days' journey from the place where the expedition had stopped. It
was there that Ayrton had agreed to meet his accomplices, and two days
after gaining possession of the letter, he arrived at Melbourne.

"So far the villain had succeeded in his wicked design. He would be able
to take the 'Duncan' into Twofold Bay, where it would be easy for the
convicts to seize her, and her crew massacred, Ben Joyce would become
master of the seas. But it pleased God to prevent the accomplishment of
these terrible projects.

"Ayrton, arrived at Melbourne, delivered the letter to the mate, Tom
Austin, who read it and immediately set sail, but judge of Ayrton's rage
and disappointment, when the next day he found that the mate was taking the
vessel, not to the east coast of Australia, to Twofold Bay, but to the east
coast of New Zealand. He wished to stop him, but Austin showed him the
letter!... And indeed, by a providential error of the French geographer,
who had written the letter, the east coast of New Zealand was mentioned as
the place of destination.

"All Ayrton's plans were frustrated! He became outrageous. They put him
in irons. He was then taken to the coast of New Zealand, not knowing what
would become of his accomplices, or what would become of Lord Glenarvan.

"The 'Duncan' cruised about on this coast until the 3rd of March. On that
day Ayrton heard the report of guns. The guns on the 'Duncan' were being
fired, and soon Lord Glenarvan and his companions came on board.

"This is what had happened.

"After a thousand hardships, a thousand dangers, Lord Glenarvan had

accomplished his journey, and arrived on the east coast of Australia, at
Twofold Bay. 'Not "Duncan!"' He telegraphed to Melbourne. They answered,
'"Duncan" sailed on the 18th instant. Destination unknown.'

"Lord Glenarvan could only arrive at one conclusion; that his honest
yacht had fallen into the hands of Ben Joyce, and had become a pirate
vessel!

"However, Lord Glenarvan would not give up. He was a bold and generous
man. He embarked in a merchant vessel, sailed to the west coast of New
Zealand, traversed it along the thirty-seventh parallel, without finding
any trace of Captain Grant; but on the other side, to his great surprise,
and by the will of Heaven, he found the 'Duncan,' under command of the
mate, who had been waiting for him for five weeks!

"This was on the 3rd of March, 1855. Lord Glenarvan was now on board the
'Duncan,' but Ayrton was there also. He appeared before the nobleman, who
wished to extract from him all that the villain knew about Captain Grant.
Ayrton refused to speak. Lord Glenarvan then told him, that at the first
port they put into, he would be delivered up to the English authorities.
Ayrton remained mute.

"The 'Duncan' continued her voyage along the thirty-seventh parallel. In
the meanwhile, Lady Glenarvan undertook to vanquish the resistance of the
ruffian.

"At last, her influence prevailed, and Ayrton, in exchange for what he
could tell, proposed that Lord Glenarvan should leave him on some island in
the Pacific, instead of giving him up to the English authorities. Lord
Glenarvan, resolving to do anything to obtain information about Captain
Grant, consented.

"Ayrton then related all his life, and it was certain that he knew
nothing from the day on which Captain Grant had landed him on the
Australian coast.

"Nevertheless, Lord Glenarvan kept the promise which he had given. The
'Duncan' continued her voyage and arrived at Tabor Island. It was there
that Ayrton was to be landed, and it was there also that, by a veritable
miracle, they found Captain Grant and two men, exactly on the thirty-
seventh parallel.

"The convict, then, went to take their place on this desert islet, and at
the moment he left the yacht these words were pronounced by Lord
Glenarvan:--

"'Here, Ayrton, you will be far from any land, and without any possible
communication with your fellow-creatures. You can-not escape from this
islet on which the 'Duncan' leaves you. You will be alone, under the eye of
a God who reads the depths of the heart, but you will be neither lost nor
forgotten, as was Captain Grant. Unworthy as you are to be remembered by
men, men will remember you. I know where you are Ayrton, and I know where
to find you. I will never forget it!

"And the 'Duncan,' making sail, soon disappeared. This was 18th of March,
1855.


(The events which have just been briefly related are taken from a

 work which some of our readers have no doubt read, and which is

 entitled, "Captain Grant's children." They will remark on this

 occasion, as well as later, some discrepancy in the dates; but

 later again, they will understand why the real dates were not at

 first given.)


"Ayrton was alone, but he had no want of either ammunition, weapons,
tools, or seeds.

"At his, the convict's disposal, was the house built by honest Captain
Grant. He had only to live and expiate in solitude the crimes which he had
committed.

"Gentlemen, he repented, he was ashamed of his crimes and was very
miserable! He said to himself, that if men came some day to take him from
that islet, he must be worthy to return among them! How he suffered, that
wretched man! How he labored to recover himself by work! How he prayed to
be reformed by prayer! For two years, three years, this went on, but
Ayrton, humbled by solitude, always looking for some ship to appear on the
horizon, asking himself if the time of expiation would soon be complete,
suffered as none other suffered! Oh! how dreadful was this solitude, to a
heart tormented by remorse!

"But doubtless Heaven had not sufficiently punished this unhappy man, for
he felt that he was gradually becoming a savage! He felt that brutishness
was gradually gaining on him!

"He could not say if it was after two or three years of solitude, but at
last he became the miserable creature you found!

"I have no need to tell you, gentlemen, that Ayrton, Ben Joyce, and I,
are the same."

Cyrus Harding and his companions rose at the end of this account. It is
impossible to say how much they were moved! What misery, grief, and despair
lay revealed before them!

"Ayrton," said Harding, rising, "you have been a great criminal, but
Heaven must certainly think that you have expiated your crimes! That has
been proved by your having been brought again among your fellow-creatures.
Ayrton, you are forgiven! And now you will be our companion?"

Ayrton drew back.

"Here is my hand!" said the engineer.

Ayrton grasped the hand which Harding extended to him, and great tears
fell from his eyes.

"Will you live with us?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"Captain Harding, leave me some time longer," replied Ayrton, "leave me
alone in the hut in the corral!"

"As you like, Ayrton," answered Cyrus Harding. Ayrton was going to
withdraw, when the engineer addressed one more question to him:--

"One word more, my friend. Since it was your intention to live alone, why
did you throw into the sea the document which put us on your track?"

"A document?" repeated Ayrton, who did not appear to know what he meant.

"Yes, the document which we found enclosed in a bottle, giving us the
exact position of Tabor Island!"

Ayrton passed his hand over his brow, then after having thought, "I never
threw any document into the sea!" he answered.

"Never?" exclaimed Pencroft.

"Never!"

And Ayrton, bowing, reached the door and departed.



Chapter 8

"Poor man!" said Herbert, who had rushed to the door, but returned, having
seen Ayrton slide down the rope on the lift and disappear in the darkness.

"He will come back," said Cyrus Harding.

"Come, now, captain," exclaimed Pencroft, "what does that mean? What!
wasn't it Ayrton who threw that bottle into the sea? Who was it then?"

Certainly, if ever a question was necessary to be made, it was that one!

"It was he," answered Neb, "only the unhappy man was half-mad."

"Yes!" said Herbert, "and he was no longer conscious of what he was
doing."

"It can only be explained in that way, my friends," replied Harding
quickly, "and I understand now how Ayrton was able to point out exactly the
situation of Tabor Island, since the events which had preceded his being
left on the island had made it known to him."

"However," observed Pencroft, "if he was not yet a brute when he wrote
that document, and if he threw it into the sea seven or eight years ago,
how is it that the paper has not been injured by damp?"

"That proves," answered Cyrus Harding, "that Ayrton was deprived of
intelligence at a more recent time than he thinks."

"Of course it must be so," replied Pencroft, "without that the fact would
be unaccountable."

"Unaccountable indeed," answered the engineer, who did not appear
desirous to prolong the conversation.

"But has Ayrton told the truth?" asked the sailor.

"Yes," replied the reporter. "The story which he has told is true in
every point. I remember quite well the account in the newspapers of the
yacht expedition undertaken by Lord Glenarvan, and its result."

"Ayrton has told the truth," added Harding. "Do not doubt it, Pencroft,
for it was painful to him. People tell the truth when they accuse
themselves like that!"

The next day--the 21st of December--the colonists descended to the beach,
and having climbed the plateau they found nothing of Ayrton. He had reached
his house in the corral during the night and the settlers judged it best
not to agitate him by their presence. Time would doubtless perform what
sympathy had been unable to accomplish.

Herbert, Pencroft, and Neb resumed their ordinary occupations. On this
day the same work brought Harding and the reporter to the workshop at the
Chimneys.

"Do you know, my dear Cyrus," said Gideon Spilett, "that the explanation
you gave yesterday on the subject of the bottle has not satisfied me at
all! How can it be supposed that the unfortunate man was able to write that
document and throw the bottle into the sea without having the slightest
recollection of it?"

"Nor was it he who threw it in, my dear Spilett."

"You think then--"

"I think nothing, I know nothing!" interrupted Cyrus Harding. "I am
content to rank this incident among those which I have not been able to
explain to this day!"

"Indeed, Cyrus," said Spilett, "these things are incredible! Your rescue,
the case stranded on the sand, Top's adventure, and lastly this bottle...
Shall we never have the answer to these enigmas?"

"Yes!" replied the engineer quickly, "yes, even if I have to penetrate
into the bowels of this island!"

"Chance will perhaps give us the key to this mystery!"

"Chance! Spilett! I do not believe in chance, any more than I believe in
mysteries in this world. There is a reason for everything unaccountable
which has happened here, and that reason I shall discover. But in the
meantime we must work and observe."

The month of January arrived. The year 1867 commenced. The summer
occupations were assiduously continued. During the days which followed,
Herbert and Spilett having gone in the direction of the corral, ascertained
that Ayrton had taken possession of the habitation which had been prepared
for him. He busied himself with the numerous flock confided to his care,
and spared his companions the trouble of coming every two or three days to
visit the corral. Nevertheless, in order not to leave Ayrton in solitude
for too long a time, the settlers often paid him a visit.

It was not unimportant either, in consequence of some suspicions
entertained by the engineer and Gideon Spilett, that this part of the
island should be subject to a surveillance of some sort, and that Ayrton,
if any incident occurred unexpectedly, should not neglect to inform the
inhabitants of Granite House of it.

Nevertheless it might happen that something would occur which it would be
necessary to bring rapidly to the engineer's knowledge. Independently of
facts bearing on the mystery of Lincoln Island, many others might happen,
which would call for the prompt interference of the colonists,--such as the
sighting of a vessel, a wreck on the western coast, the possible arrival of
pirates, etc.

Therefore Cyrus Harding resolved to put the corral in instantaneous
communication with Granite House.

It was on the 10th of January that he made known his project to his
companions.

"Why! how are you going to manage that, captain?" asked Pencroft. "Do you
by chance happen to think of establishing a telegraph?"

"Exactly so," answered the engineer.

"Electric?" cried Herbert.

"Electric," replied Cyrus Harding. "We have all the necessary materials
for making a battery, and the most difficult thing will be to stretch the
wires, but by means of a drawplate I think we shall manage it."

"Well, after that," returned the sailor, "I shall never despair of seeing
ourselves some day rolling along on a railway!"

They then set to work, beginning with the most difficult thing, for, if
they failed in that, it would be useless to manufacture the battery and
other accessories.

The iron of Lincoln Island, as has been said, was of excellent quality,
and consequently very fit for being drawn out. Harding commenced by
manufacturing a drawplate, that is to say, a plate of steel, pierced with
conical holes of different sizes, which would successively bring the wire
to the wished-for tenacity. This piece of steel, after having been
tempered, was fixed in as firm a way as possible in a solid framework
planted in the ground, only a few feet from the great fall, the motive
power of which the engineer intended to utilize. In fact as the fulling-
mill was there, although not then in use, its beam moved with extreme power
would serve to stretch out the wire by rolling it round itself. It was a
delicate operation, and required much care. The iron, prepared previously
in long thin rods, the ends of which were sharpened with the file, having
been introduced into the largest hole of the drawplate, was drawn out by
the beam which wound it round itself, to a length of twenty-five or thirty
feet, then unrolled, and the same operation was performed successively
through the holes of a less size. Finally, the engineer obtained wires from
forty to fifty feet long, which could be easily fastened together and
stretched over the distance of five miles, which separated the corral from
the bounds of Granite House.

It did not take more than a few days to perform this work, and indeed as
soon as the machine had been commenced, Cyrus Harding left his companions
to follow the trade of wiredrawers, and occupied himself with manufacturing
his battery.

It was necessary to obtain a battery with a constant current. It is known
that the elements of modern batteries are generally composed of retort
coal, zinc, and copper. Copper was absolutely wanting to the engineer, who,
notwithstanding all his researches, had never been able to find any trace
of it in Lincoln Island, and was therefore obliged to do without it. Retort
coal, that is to say, the hard graphite which is found in the retorts of
gas manufactories, after the coal has been dehydrogenized, could have been
obtained, but it would have been necessary to establish a special
apparatus, involving great labor. As to zinc, it may be remembered that the
case found at Flotsam Point was lined with this metal, which could not be
better utilized than for this purpose.

Cyrus Harding, after mature consideration, decided to manufacture a very
simple battery, resembling as nearly as possible that invented by Becquerel
in 1820, and in which zinc only is employed. The other substances, azotic
acid and potash, were all at his disposal.

The way in which the battery was composed was as follows, and the results
were to be attained by the reaction of acid and potash on each other. A
number of glass bottles were made and filled with azotic acid. The engineer
corked them by means of a stopper through which passed a glass tube, bored
at its lower extremity, and intended to be plunged into the acid by means
of a clay stopper secured by a rag. Into this tube, through its upper
extremity, he poured a solution of potash, previously obtained by burning
and reducing to ashes various plants, and in this way the acid and potash
could act on each other through the clay.

Cyrus Harding then took two slips of zinc, one of which was plunged into
azotic acid, the other into a solution of potash. A current was immediately
produced, which was transmitted from the slip of zinc in the bottle to that
in the tube, and the two slips having been connected by a metallic wire the
slip in the tube became the positive pole, and that in the bottle the
negative pole of the apparatus. Each bottle, therefore, produced as many
currents as united would be sufficient to produce all the phenomena of the
electric telegraph. Such was the ingenious and very simple apparatus
constructed by Cyrus Harding, an apparatus which would allow them to
establish a telegraphic communication between Granite House and the corral.

On the 6th of February was commenced the planting along the road to the
corral, of posts furnished with glass insulators, and intended to support
the wire. A few days after, the wire was extended, ready to produce the
electric current at a rate of twenty thousand miles a second.

Two batteries had been manufactured, one for Granite House, the other for
the corral; for if it was necessary the corral should be able to
communicate with Granite House it might also be useful that Granite House
should be able to communicate with the corral.

As to the receiver and manipulator, they were very simple. At the two
stations the wire was wound round a magnet, that is to say, round a piece
of soft iron surrounded with a wire. The communication was thus established
between the two poles; the current, starting from the positive pole,
traversed the wire, passed through the magnet which was temporarily
magnetized, and returned through the earth to the negative pole. If the
current was interrupted, the magnet immediately became unmagnetized. It was
sufficient to place a plate of soft iron before the magnet, which,
attracted during the passage of the current, would fall back when the
current was interrupted. This movement of the plate thus obtained, Harding
could easily fasten to it a needle arranged on a dial, bearing the letters
of the alphabet, and in this way communicate from one station to the other.

All was completely arranged by the 12th of February. On this day,
Harding, having sent the current through the wire, asked if all was going
on well at the corral, and received in a few moments a satisfactory reply
from Ayrton. Pencroft was wild with joy, and every morning and evening he
sent a telegram to the corral, which always received an answer.

This mode of communication presented two very real advantages: firstly,
because it enabled them to ascertain that Ayrton was at the corral; and
secondly, that he was thus not left completely isolated. Besides, Cyrus
Harding never allowed a week to pass without going to see him, and Ayrton
came from time to time to Granite House, where he always found a cordial
welcome.

The fine season passed away in the midst of the usual work. The resources
of the colony, particularly in vegetables and corn, increased from day to
day, and the plants brought from Tabor Island had succeeded perfectly.

The plateau of Prospect Heights presented an encouraging aspect. The
fourth harvest had been admirable and it may be supposed that no one
thought of counting whether the four hundred thousand millions of grains
duly appeared in the crop. However, Pencroft had thought of doing so, but
Cyrus Harding having told him that even if he managed to count three
hundred grains a minute, or nine thousand an hour, it would take him nearly
five thousand five-hundred years to finish his task, the honest sailor
considered it best to give up the idea.

The weather was splendid, the temperature very warm in the day time, but
in the evening the sea-breezes tempered the heat of the atmosphere and
procured cool nights for the inhabitants of Granite House. There were,
however, a few storms, which, although they were not of long duration,
swept over Lincoln Island with extraordinary fury. The lightning blazed and
the thunder continued to roll for some hours.

At this period the little colony was extremely prosperous.

The tenants of the poultry-yard swarmed, and they lived on the surplus,
but it became necessary to reduce the population to a more moderate number.
The pigs had already produced young, and it may be understood that their
care for these animals absorbed a great part of Neb and Pencroft's time.
The onagers, who had two pretty colts, were most often mounted by Gideon
Spilett and Herbert, who had become an excellent rider under the reporter's
instruction, and they also harnessed them to the cart either for carrying
wood and coal to Granite House, or different mineral productions required
by the engineer.

Several expeditions were made about this time into the depths of the Far
West Forests. The explorers could venture there without having anything to
fear from the heat, for the sun's rays scarcely penetrated through the
thick foliage spreading above their heads. They thus visited all the left
bank of the Mercy, along which ran the road from the corral to the mouth of
Falls River.

But in these excursions the settlers took care to be well armed, for they
met with savage wild boars, with which they often had a tussle. They also,
during this season, made fierce war against the jaguars. Gideon Spilett had
vowed a special hatred against them, and his pupil Herbert seconded him
well. Armed as they were, they no longer feared to meet one of those
beasts. Herbert's courage was superb, and the reporter's sang-froid
astonishing. Already twenty magnificent skins ornamented the dining-room of
Granite House, and if this continued, the jaguar race would soon be extinct
in the island, the object aimed at by the hunters.

The engineer sometimes took part in the expeditions made to the unknown
parts of the island, which he surveyed with great attention. It was for
other traces than those of animals that he searched the thickets of the
vast forest, but nothing suspicious ever appeared. Neither Top nor Jup, who
accompanied him, ever betrayed by their behavior that there was anything
strange there, and yet more than once again the dog barked at the mouth of
the well, which the engineer had before explored without result.

At this time Gideon Spilett, aided by Herbert, took several views of the
most picturesque parts of the island, by means of the photographic
apparatus found in the cases, and of which they had not as yet made any
use.

This apparatus, provided with a powerful object-glass, was very complete.
Substances necessary for the photographic reproduction, collodion for
preparing the glass plate, nitrate of silver to render it sensitive,
hyposulfate of soda to fix the prints obtained, chloride of ammonium in
which to soak the paper destined to give the positive proof, acetate of
soda and chloride of gold in which to immerse the paper, nothing was
wanting. Even the papers were there, all prepared, and before laying in the
printing-frame upon the negatives, it was sufficient to soak them for a few
minutes in the solution of nitrate of silver.

The reporter and his assistant became in a short time very skilful
operators, and they obtained fine views of the country, such as the island,
taken from Prospect Heights with Mount Franklin in the distance, the mouth
of the Mercy, so picturesquely framed in high rocks, the glade and the
corral, with the spurs of the mountain in the background, the curious
development of Claw Cape, Flotsam Point, etc.

Nor did the photographers forget to take the portraits of all the
inhabitants of the island, leaving out no one.

"It multiplies us," said Pencroft.

And the sailor was enchanted to see his own countenance, faithfully
reproduced, ornamenting the walls of Granite House, and he stopped as
willingly before this exhibition as he would have done before the richest
shop-windows in Broadway.

But it must be acknowledged that the most successful portrait was
incontestably that of Master Jup. Master Jup had sat with a gravity not to
be described, and his portrait was lifelike!

"He looks as if he was just going to grin!" exclaimed Pencroft.

And if Master Jup had not been satisfied, he would have been very
difficult to please; but he was quite contented and contemplated his own
countenance with a sentimental air which expressed some small amount of
conceit.

The summer heat ended with the month of March. The weather was sometimes
rainy, but still warm. The month of March, which corresponds to the
September of northern latitudes, was not so fine as might have been hoped.
Perhaps it announced an early and rigorous winter.

It might have been supposed one morning--the 21 st--that the first snow
had already made its appearance. In fact Herbert looking early from one of
the windows of Granite House, exclaimed,--

"Hallo! the islet is covered with snow!"

"Snow at this time?" answered the reporter, joining the boy.

Their companions were soon beside them, but could only ascertain one
thing, that not only the islet but all the beach below Granite House was
covered with one uniform sheet of white.

"It must be snow!" said Pencroft.

"Or rather it's very like it!" replied Neb.

"But the thermometer marks fifty-eight degrees!" observed Gideon Spilett.

Cyrus Harding gazed at the sheet of white without saying anything, for he
really did not know how to explain this phenomenon, at this time of year
and in such a temperature.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Pencroft, "all our plants will be frozen!"

And the sailor was about to descend, when he was preceded by the nimble
Jup, who slid down to the sand.

But the orang had not touched the ground, when the snowy sheet arose and
dispersed in the air in such innumerable flakes that the light of the sun
was obscured for some minutes.

"Birds!" cried Herbert.

They were indeed swarms of sea-birds, with dazzling white plumage. They
had perched by thousands on the islet and on the shore, and they
disappeared in the distance, leaving the colonists amazed as if they had
been present at some transformation scene, in which summer succeeded winter
at the touch of a fairy's wand. Unfortunately the change had been so
sudden, that neither the reporter nor the lad had been able to bring down
one of these birds, of which they could not recognize the species.

A few days after came the 26th of March, the day on which, two years
before, the castaways from the air had been thrown upon Lincoln Island.



Chapter 19

Two years already! and for two years the colonists had had no communication
with their fellow-creatures! They were without news from the civilized
world, lost on this island, as completely as if they had been on the most
minute star of the celestial hemisphere!

What was now happening in their country? The picture of their native land
was always before their eyes, the land torn by civil war at the time they
left it, and which the Southern rebellion was perhaps still staining with
blood! It was a great sorrow to them, and they often talked together of
these things, without ever doubting however that the cause of the North
must triumph, for the honor of the American Confederation.

During these two years not a vessel had passed in sight of the island;
or, at least, not a sail had been seen. It was evident that Lincoln Island
was out of the usual track, and also that it was unknown,--as was besides
proved by the maps,--for though there was no port, vessels might have
visited it for the purpose of renewing their store of water. But the
surrounding ocean was deserted as far as the eye could reach, and the
colonists must rely on themselves for regaining their native land.

However, one chance of rescue existed, and this chance was discussed one
day on the first week of April, when the colonists were gathered together
in the dining-room of Granite House.

They had been talking of America, of their native country, which they had
so little hope of ever seeing again.

"Decidedly we have only one way,  said Spilett, "one single way for
leaving Lincoln Island, and that is, to build a vessel large enough to sail
several hundred miles. It appears to me, that when one has built a boat it
is just as easy to build a ship!"

"And in which we might go to the Pomoutous," added Herbert, "just as
easily as we went to Tabor Island."

"I do not say no," replied Pencroft, who had always the casting vote in
maritime questions; "I do not say no, although it is not exactly the same
thing to make a long as a short voyage! If our little craft had been caught
in any heavy gale of wind during the voyage to Tabor Island, we should have
known that land was at no great distance either way; but twelve hundred
miles is a pretty long way, and the nearest land is at least that
distance!"

"Would you not, in that case, Pencroft, attempt the adventure?" asked the
reporter.

"I will attempt anything that is desired, Mr. Spilett," answered the
sailor, "and you know well that I am not a man to flinch!"

"Remember, besides, that we number another sailor amongst us now,"
remarked Neb.

"Who is that?" asked Pencroft.

"Ayrton."

"If he will consent to come," said Pencroft.

"Nonsense!" returned the reporter; "do you think that if Lord Glenarvan's
yacht had appeared at Tabor Island, while he was still living there, Ayrton
would have refused to depart?"

"You forget, my friends," then said Cyrus Harding, "that Ayrton was not
in possession of his reason during the last years of his stay there. But
that is not the question. The point is to know if we may count among our
chances of being rescued, the return of the Scotch vessel. Now, Lord
Glenarvan promised Ayrton that he would return to take him off from Tabor
Island when he considered that his crimes were expiated, and I believe that
he will return."

"Yes," said the reporter, "and I will add that he will return soon, for
it is twelve years since Ayrton was abandoned."

"Well!" answered Pencroft, "I agree with you that the nobleman will
return, and soon too. But where will he touch? At Tabor Island, and not at
Lincoln Island."

"That is the more certain," replied Herbert, "as Lincoln Island is not
even marked on the map."

"Therefore, my friends," said the engineer, "we ought to take the
necessary precautions for making our presence and that of Ayrton on Lincoln
Island known at Tabor Island."

"Certainly," answered the reporter, "and nothing is easier than to place
in the hut, which was Captain Grant's and Ayrton's dwelling, a notice which
Lord Glenarvan and his crew cannot help finding, giving the position of our
island."

"It is a pity," remarked the sailor, "that we forgot to take that
precaution on our first visit to Tabor Island."

"And why should we have done it?" asked Herbert. "At that time we did not
know Ayrton's history; we did not know that any one was likely to come some
day to fetch him, and when we did know his history, the season was too
advanced to allow us to return then to Tabor Island."

"Yes," replied Harding, "it was too late, and we must put off the voyage
until next spring."

"But suppose the Scotch yacht comes before that," said Pencroft.

"That is not probable," replied the engineer, "for Lord Glenarvan would
not choose the winter season to venture into these seas. Either he has
already returned to Tabor Island, since Ayrton has been with us, that is to
say, during the last five months and has left again; or he will not come
till later, and it will be time enough in the first fine October days to go
to Tabor Island, and leave a notice there."

"We must allow," said Neb, "that it will be very unfortunate if the
'Duncan' has returned to these parts only a few months ago!"

"I hope that it is not so," replied Cyrus Harding, "and that Heaven has
not deprived us of the best chance which remains to us."

"I think," observed the reporter, "that at any rate we shall know what we
have to depend on when we have been to Tabor Island, for if the yacht has
returned there, they will necessarily have left some traces of their
visit."

"That is evident," answered the engineer. "So then, my friends, since we
have this chance of returning to our country, we must wait patiently, and
if it is taken from us we shall see what will be best to do."

"At any rate," remarked Pencroft, "it is well understood that if we do
leave Lincoln Island, it will not be because we were uncomfortable there!"

"No, Pencroft," replied the engineer, "it will be because we are far from
all that a man holds dearest in the world, his family, his friends, his
native land!"

Matters being thus decided, the building of a vessel large enough to sail
either to the Archipelagoes in the north, or to New Zealand in the west, was
no longer talked of, and they busied themselves in their accustomed
occupations, with a view to wintering a third time in Granite House.

However, it was agreed that before the stormy weather came on, their
little vessel should be employed in making a voyage round the island. A
complete survey of the coast had not yet been made, and the colonists had
but an imperfect idea of the shore to the west and north, from the mouth of
Falls River to the Mandible Capes, as well as of the narrow bay between
them, which opened like a shark's jaws.

The plan of this excursion was proposed by Pencroft, and Cyrus Harding
fully acquiesced in it, for he himself wished to see this part of his
domain.

The weather was variable, but the barometer did not fluctuate by sudden
movements, and they could therefore count on tolerable weather. However,
during the first week of April, after a sudden barometrical fall, a renewed
rise was marked by a heavy gale of wind, lasting five or six days; then the
needle of the instrument remained stationary at a height of twenty-nine
inches and nine-tenths, and the weather appeared propitious for an
excursion.

The departure was fixed for the 16th of April, and the "Bonadventure,"
anchored in Port Balloon, was provisioned for a voyage which might be of
some duration.

Cyrus Harding informed Ayrton of the projected expedition, and proposed
that he should take part in it, but Ayrton preferring to remain on shore,
it was decided that he should come to Granite House during the absence of
his companions. Master Jup was ordered to keep him company, and made no
remonstrance.

On the morning of the 16th of April all the colonists, including Top,
embarked. A fine breeze blew from the south-west, and the "Bonadventure"
tacked on leaving Port Balloon so as to reach Reptile End. Of the ninety
miles which the perimeter of the island measured, twenty included the south
coast between the port and the promontory. The wind being right ahead it
was necessary to hug the shore.

It took the whole day to reach the promontory, for the vessel on leaving
port had only two hours of ebb tide and had therefore to make way for six
hours against the flood. It was nightfall before the promontory was
doubled.

The sailor then proposed to the engineer that they should continue
sailing slowly with two reefs in the sail. But Harding preferred to anchor
a few cable-lengths from the shore, so as to survey that part of the coast
during the day. It was agreed also that as they were anxious for a minute
exploration of the coast they should not sail during the night, but would
always, when the weather permitted it, be at anchor near the shore.

The night was passed under the promontory, and the wind having fallen,
nothing disturbed the silence. The passengers, with the exception of the
sailor, scarcely slept as well on board the "Bonadventure" as they would
have done in their rooms at Granite House, but they did sleep however.
Pencroft set sail at break of day, and by going on the larboard tack they
could keep close to the shore.

The colonists knew this beautiful wooded coast, since they had already
explored it on foot, and yet it again excited their admiration. They
coasted along as close in as possible, so as to notice everything, avoiding
always the trunks of trees which floated here and there. Several times also
they anchored, and Gideon Spilett took photographs of the superb scenery.

About noon the "Bonadventure" arrived at the mouth of Falls River.
Beyond, on the left bank, a few scattered trees appeared, and three miles
further even these dwindled into solitary groups among the western spurs of
the mountain, whose arid ridge sloped down to the shore.

What a contrast between the northern and southern part of the coast! In
proportion as one was woody and fertile so was the other rugged and barren!
It might have been designated as one of those iron coasts, as they are
called in some countries, and its wild confusion appeared to indicate that
a sudden crystallization had been produced in the yet liquid basalt of some
distant geological sea. These stupendous masses would have terrified the
settlers if they had been cast at first on this part of the island! They
had not been able to perceive the sinister aspect of this shore from the
summit of Mount Franklin, for they overlooked it from too great a height,
but viewed from the sea it presented a wild appearance which could not
perhaps be equaled in any corner of the globe.

The "Bonadventure" sailed along this coast for the distance of half a
mile. It was easy to see that it was composed of blocks of all sizes, from
twenty to three hundred feet in height, and of all shapes, round like
towers, prismatic like steeples, pyramidal like obelisks, conical like
factory chimneys. An iceberg of the Polar seas could not have been more
capricious in its terrible sublimity! Here, bridges were thrown from one
rock to another; there, arches like those of a wave, into the depths of
which the eye could not penetrate; in one place, large vaulted excavations
presented a monumental aspect; in another, a crowd of columns, spires, and
arches, such as no Gothic cathedral ever possessed. Every caprice of
nature, still more varied than those of the imagination, appeared on this
grand coast, which extended over a length of eight or nine miles.

Cyrus Harding and his companions gazed, with a feeling of surprise
bordering on stupefaction. But, although they remained silent, Top, not
being troubled with feelings of this sort, uttered barks which were
repeated by the thousand echoes of the basaltic cliff. The engineer even
observed that these barks had something strange in them, like those which
the dog had uttered at the mouth of the well in Granite House.

"Let us go close in," said he.

And the "Bonadventure" sailed as near as possible to the rocky shore.
Perhaps some cave, which it would be advisable to explore, existed there?
But Harding saw nothing, not a cavern, not a cleft which could serve as a
retreat to any being whatever, for the foot of the cliff was washed by the
surf. Soon Top's barks ceased, and the vessel continued her course at a few
cables-length from the coast.

In the northwest part of the island the shore became again flat and
sandy. A few trees here and there rose above a low, marshy ground, which
the colonists had already surveyed, and in violent contrast to the other
desert shore, life was again manifested by the presence of myriads of
water-fowl. That evening the "Bonadventure" anchored in a small bay to the
north of the island, near the land, such was the depth of water there. The
night passed quietly, for the breeze died away with the last light of day,
and only rose again with the first streaks of dawn.

As it was easy to land, the usual hunters of the colony, that is to say,
Herbert and Gideon Spilett, went for a ramble of two hours or so, and
returned with several strings of wild duck and snipe. Top had done wonders,
and not a bird had been lost, thanks to his zeal and cleverness.

At eight o'clock in the morning the "Bonadventure" set sail, and ran
rapidly towards North Mandible Cape, for the wind was right astern and
freshening rapidly.

"However," observed Pencroft, "I should not be surprised if a gale came
up from the west. Yesterday the sun set in a very red-looking horizon, and
now, this morning, those mares-tails don't forbode anything good."

These mares-tails are cirrus clouds, scattered in the zenith, their
height from the sea being less than five thousand feet. They look like
light pieces of cotton wool, and their presence usually announces some
sudden change in the weather.

"Well," said Harding, "let us carry as much sail as possible, and run for
shelter into Shark Gulf. I think that the 'Bonadventure' will be safe
there."

"Perfectly," replied Pencroft, "and besides, the north coast is merely
sand, very uninteresting to look at."

"I shall not be sorry," resumed the engineer, "to pass not only to-night
but to-morrow in that bay, which is worth being carefully explored."

"I think that we shall be obliged to do so, whether we like it or not,"
answered Pencroft, "for the sky looks very threatening towards the west.
Dirty weather is coming on!"

"At any rate we have a favorable wind for reaching Cape Mandible,"
observed the reporter.

"A very fine wind," replied the sailor; "but we must tack to enter the
gulf, and I should like to see my way clear in these unknown quarters."

"Quarters which appear to be filled with rocks," added Herbert, "if we
judge by what we saw on the south coast of Shark Gulf."

"Pencroft," said Cyrus Harding, "do as you think best, we will leave it
to you."

"Don't make your mind uneasy, captain," replied the sailor, "I shall not
expose myself needlessly! I would rather a knife were run into my ribs than
a sharp rock into those of my 'Bonadventure!'"

That which Pencroft called ribs was the pan of his vessel under water,
and he valued it more than his own skin.

"What o'clock is it?" asked Pencroft.

"Ten o'clock," replied Gideon Spilett.

"And what distance is it to the Cape, captain?"

"About fifteen miles," replied the engineer.

"That's a matter of two hours and a half," said the sailor, "and we shall
be off the Cape between twelve and one o'clock. Unluckily, the tide will be
turning at that moment, and will be ebbing out of the gulf. I am afraid
that it will be very difficult to get in, having both wind and tide against
us."

"And the more so that it is a full moon to-day," remarked Herbert, "and
these April tides are very strong."

"Well, Pencroft," asked Harding, "can you not anchor off the Cape?"

"Anchor near land, with bad weather coming on!" exclaimed the sailor.
"What are you thinking of, captain? We should run aground, of a certainty!"

"What will you do then?"

"I shall try to keep in the offing until the flood, that is to say, till
about seven in the evening, and if there is still light enough I will try
to enter the gulf; if not, we must stand off and on during the night, and
we will enter to-morrow at sunrise."

"As I told you, Pencroft, we will leave it to you," answered Harding.

"Ah!" said Pencroft, "if there was only a lighthouse on the coast, it
would be much more convenient for sailors."

"Yes," replied Herbert, "and this time we shall have no obliging engineer
to light a fire to guide us into port!"

"Why, indeed, my dear Cyrus," said Spilett, "we have never thanked you;
but frankly, without that fire we should never have been able--"

"A fire?" asked Harding, much astonished at the reporter's words.

"We mean, captain," answered Pencroft, "that on board the 'Bonadventure'
we were very anxious during the few hours before our return, and we should
have passed to windward of the island, if it had not been for the
precaution you took of lighting a fire the night of the 19th of October, on
Prospect Heights."

"Yes, yes! That was a lucky idea of mine!" replied the engineer.

"And this time," continued the sailor. "unless the idea occurs to Ayrton,
there will be no one to do us that little service!"

"No! No one!" answered Cyrus Harding.

A few minutes after, finding himself alone in the bows of the vessel,
with the reporter, the engineer bent down and whispered,--

"If there is one thing certain in this world, Spilett, it is that I never
lighted any fire during the night of the 19th of October, neither on
Prospect Heights nor on any other part of the island!"



Chapter 20

Things happened as Pencroft had predicted, he being seldom mistaken in his
prognostications. The wind rose, and from a fresh breeze it soon increased
to a regular gale; that is to say, it acquired a speed of from forty to
forty-five miles an hour, before which a ship in the open sea would have
run under close-reefed topsails. Now, as it was nearly six o'clock when the
"Bonadventure" reached the gulf, and as at that moment the tide turned, it
was impossible to enter. They were therefore compelled to stand off, for
even if he had wished to do so, Pencroft could not have gained the mouth of
the Mercy. Hoisting the jib to the mainmast by way of a storm-sail, he hove
to, putting the head of the vessel towards the land.

Fortunately, although the wind was strong the sea, being sheltered by the
land, did not run very high. They had then little to fear from the waves,
which always endanger small craft. The "Bonadventure" would doubtlessly not
have capsized, for she was well ballasted, but enormous masses of water
falling on the deck might injure her if her timbers could not sustain them.
Pencroft, as a good sailor, was prepared for anything. Certainly, he had
great confidence in his vessel, but nevertheless he awaited the return of
day with some anxiety.

During the night, Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett had no opportunity for
talking together, and yet the words pronounced in the reporter's ear by the
engineer were well worth being discussed, together with the mysterious
influence which appeared to reign over Lincoln Island. Gideon Spilett did
not cease from pondering over this new and inexplicable incident, the
appearance of a fire on the coast of the island. The fire had actually been
seen! His companions, Herbert and Pencroft, had seen it with him! The fire
had served to signalize the position of the island during that dark night,
and they had not doubted that it was lighted by the engineer's hand; and
here was Cyrus Harding expressly declaring that he had never done anything
of the sort! Spilett resolved to recur to this incident as soon as the
"Bonadventure" returned, and to urge Cyrus Harding to acquaint their
companions with these strange facts. Perhaps it would be decided to make in
common a complete investigation of every part of Lincoln Island.

However that might be, on this evening no fire was lighted on these yet
unknown shores, which formed the entrance to the gulf, and the little
vessel stood off during the night.

When the first streaks of dawn appeared in the western horizon, the wind,
which had slightly fallen, shifted two points, and enabled Pencroft to
enter the narrow gulf with greater ease. Towards seven o'clock in the
morning, the "Bonadventure," weathering the North Mandible Cape, entered
the strait and glided on to the waters, so strangely enclosed in the frame
of lava.

"Well," said Pencroft, "this bay would make admirable roads, in which a
whole fleet could lie at their ease!"

"What is especially curious," observed Harding, "is that the gulf has
been formed by two rivers of lava, thrown out by the volcano, and
accumulated by successive eruptions. The result is that the gulf is
completely sheltered on all sides, and I believe that even in the stormiest
weather, the sea here must be as calm as a lake."

"No doubt," returned the sailor, "since the wind has only that narrow
entrance between the two capes to get in by, and, besides, the north cape
protects that of the south in a way which would make the entrance of gusts
very difficult. I declare our 'Bonadventure' could stay here from one end
of the year to the other, without even dragging at her anchor!"

"It is rather large for her!" observed the reporter.

"Well! Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "I agree that it is too large
for the 'Bonadventure,' but if the fleets of the Union were in want of a
harbor in the Pacific, I don't think they would ever find a better place
than this!"

"We are in the shark's mouth," remarked Nab, alluding to the form of the
gulf.

"Right into its mouth, my honest Nab!" replied Herbert, "but you are not
afraid that it will shut upon us, are you?"

"No, Mr. Herbert," answered Neb, "and yet this gulf here doesn't please
me much! It has a wicked look!"

"Hallo!" cried Pencroft, "here is Neb turning up his nose at my gulf,
just as I was thinking of presenting it to America!"

"But, at any rate, is the water deep enough?" asked the engineer, "for a
depth sufficient for the keel of the 'Bonadventure' would not be enough for
those of our iron-clads."

"That is easily found out," replied Pencroft.

And the sailor sounded with a long cord, which served him as a lead-line,
and to which was fastened a lump of iron. This cord measured nearly fifty
fathoms, and its entire length was unrolled without finding any bottom.

"There," exclaimed Pencroft, "our iron-clads can come here after all! They
would not run aground!"

"Indeed," said Gideon Spilett, "this gulf is a regular abyss, but, taking
into consideration the volcanic origin of the island, it is not astonishing
that the sea should offer similar depressions."

"One would say too," observed Herbert, "that these cliffs were perfectly
perpendicular; and I believe that at their foot, even with a line five or
six times longer, Pencroft would not find bottom."

"That is all very well," then said the reporter, "but I must point out to
Pencroft that his harbor is wanting in one very important respect!"

"And what is that, Mr. Spilett?"

"An opening, a cutting of some sort, to give access to the interior of
the island. I do not see a spot on which we could land." And, in fact, the
steep lava cliffs did not afford a single place suitable for landing. They
formed an insuperable barrier, recalling, but with more wildness, the
fiords of Norway. The "Bonadventure," coasting as close as possible along
the cliffs, did not discover even a projection which would allow the
passengers to leave the deck.

Pencroft consoled himself by saying that with the help of a mine they
could soon open out the cliff when that was necessary, and then, as there
was evidently nothing to be done in the gulf, he steered his vessel towards
the strait and passed out at about two o'clock in the afternoon.

"Ah!" said Nab, uttering a sigh of satisfaction.

One might really say that the honest Negro did not feel at his ease in
those enormous jaws.

The distance from Mandible Cape to the mouth of the Mercy was not more
than eight miles. The head of the "Bonadventure" was put towards Granite
House, and a fair wind filling her sails, she ran rapidly along the coast.

To the enormous lava rocks succeeded soon those capricious sand dunes,
among which the engineer had been so singularly recovered, and which
seabirds frequented in thousands.

About four o'clock, Pencroft leaving the point of the islet on his left,
entered the channel which separated it from the coast, and at five o'clock
the anchor of the "Bonadventure" was buried in the sand at the mouth of
the Mercy.

The colonists had been absent three days from their dwelling. Ayrton was
waiting for them on the beach, and Jup came joyously to meet them, giving
vent to deep grunts of satisfaction.

A complete exploration of the coast of the island had now been made, and
no suspicious appearances had been observed. If any mysterious being
resided on it, it could only be under cover of the impenetrable forest of
the Serpentine Peninsula, to which the colonists had not yet directed their
investigations.

Gideon Spilett discussed these things with the engineer, and it was
agreed that they should direct the attention of their companions to the
strange character of certain incidents which had occurred on the island,
and of which the last was the most unaccountable.

However, Harding, returning to the fact of a fire having been kindled on
the shore by an unknown hand, could not refrain from repeating for the
twentieth time to the reporter,--

"But are you quite sure of having seen it? Was it not a partial eruption
of the volcano, or perhaps some meteor?"

"No, Cyrus," answered the reporter, "it was certainly a fire lighted by
the hand of man. Besides; question Pencroft and Herbert. They saw it as I
saw it myself, and they will confirm my words."

In consequence, therefore, a few days after, on the 25th of April, in the
evening, when the settlers were all collected on Prospect Heights, Cyrus
Harding began by saying,--

"My friends, I think it my duty to call your attention to certain
incidents which have occurred in the island, on the subject of which I
shall be happy to have your advice. These incidents are, so to speak,
supernatural--"

"Supernatural!" exclaimed the sailor, emitting a volume of smoke from his
mouth. "Can it be possible that our island is supernatural?"

"No, Pencroft, but mysterious, most certainly," replied the engineer;
"unless you can explain that which Spilett and I have until now failed to
understand."

"Speak away, captain," answered the sailor.

"Well, have you understood," then said the engineer, "how was it that
after falling into the sea, I was found a quarter of a mile into the
interior of the island, and that, without my having any consciousness of my
removal there?"

"Unless, being unconscious--" said Pencroft.

"That is not admissible," replied the engineer. "But to continue. Have
you understood how Top was able to discover your retreat five miles from
the cave in which I was lying?"

"The dog's instinct--" observed Herbert.

"Singular instinct!" returned the reporter, "since notwithstanding the
storm of rain and wind which was raging during that night, Top arrived at
the Chimneys, dry and without a speck of mud!"

"Let us continue," resumed the engineer. "Have you understood how our dog
was so strangely thrown up out of the water of the lake, after his struggle
with the dugong?"

"No! I confess, not at all," replied Pencroft, "and the wound which the
dugong had in its side, a wound which seemed to have been made with a sharp
instrument; that can't be understood, either."

"Let us continue again," said Harding. "Have you understood, my friends,
how that bullet got into the body of the young peccary; how that case
happened to be so fortunately stranded, without there being any trace of a
wreck; how that bottle containing the document presented itself so
opportunely, during our first sea-excursion; how our canoe, having broken
its moorings, floated down the current of the Mercy and rejoined us at the
very moment we needed it; how after the ape invasion the ladder was so
obligingly thrown down from Granite House; and lastly, how the document,
which Ayrton asserts was never written by him, fell into our hands?"

As Cyrus Harding thus enumerated, without forgetting one, the singular
incidents which had occurred in the island, Herbert, Neb, and Pencroft
stared at each other, not knowing what to reply, for this succession of
incidents, grouped thus for the first time, could not but excite their
surprise to the highest degree.

"'Pon my word," said Pencroft at last, "you are right, captain, and it is
difficult to explain all these things!"

"Well, my friends," resumed the engineer, "a last fact has just been
added to these, and it is no less incomprehensible than the others!"

"What is it, captain?" asked Herbert quickly.

"When you were returning from Tabor Island, Pencroft," continued the
engineer, "you said that a fire appeared on Lincoln Island?"

"Certainly," answered the sailor.

"And you are quite certain of having seen this fire?"

"As sure as I see you now."

"You also, Herbert?"

"Why, captain," cried Herbert, "that fire was blazing like a star of the
first magnitude!"

"But was it not a star?" urged the engineer.

"No," replied Pencroft, "for the sky was covered with thick clouds, and
at any rate a star would not have been so low on the horizon. But Mr.
Spilett saw it as well as we, and he will confirm our words."

"I will add," said the reporter, "that the fire was very bright, and that
it shot up like a sheet of lightning."

"Yes, yes! exactly," added Herbert, "and it was certainly placed on the
heights of Granite House."

"Well, my friends," replied Cyrus Harding, "during the night of the 19th
of October, neither Neb nor I lighted any fire on the coast."

"You did not!" exclaimed Pencroft, in the height of his astonishment, not
being able to finish his sentence.

"We did not leave Granite House," answered Cyrus Harding, "and if a fire
appeared on the coast, it was lighted by another hand than ours!"

Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb were stupefied. No illusion could be possible,
and a fire had actually met their eyes during the night of the 19th of
October. Yes! they had to acknowledge it, a mystery existed! An
inexplicable influence, evidently favorable to the colonists, but very
irritating to their curiosity, was executed always in the nick of time on
Lincoln Island. Could there be some being hidden in its profoundest
recesses? It was necessary at any cost to ascertain this.

Harding also reminded his companions of the singular behavior of Top and
Jup when they prowled round the mouth of the well, which placed Granite
House in communication with the sea, and he told them that he had explored
the well, without discovering anything suspicious. The final resolve taken,
in consequence of this conversation, by all the members of the colony, was
that as soon as the fine season returned they would thoroughly search the
whole of the island.

But from that day Pencroft appeared to be anxious. He felt as if the
island which he had made his own personal property belonged to him entirely
no longer, and that he shared it with another master, to whom, willing or
not, he felt subject. Neb and he often talked of those unaccountable
things, and both, their natures inclining them to the marvelous, were not
far from believing that Lincoln Island was under the dominion of some
supernatural power.

In the meanwhile, the bad weather came with the month of May, the
November of the northern zones. It appeared that the winter would be severe
and forward. The preparations for the winter season were therefore
commenced without delay.

Nevertheless, the colonists were well prepared to meet the winter,
however hard it might be. They had plenty of felt clothing, and the
musmons, very numerous by this time, had furnished an abundance of wool
necessary for the manufacture of this warm material.

It is unnecessary to say that Ayrton had been provided with this
comfortable clothing. Cyrus Harding proposed that he should come to spend
the bad season with them in Granite House, where he would be better lodged
than at the corral, and Ayrton promised to do so, as soon as the last work
at the corral was finished. He did this towards the middle of April. From
that time Ayrton shared the common life, and made himself useful on all
occasions; but still humble and sad, he never took part in the pleasures of
his companions.

For the greater part of this, the third winter which the settlers passed
in Lincoln Island, they were confined to Granite House. There were many
violent storms and frightful tempests, which appeared to shake the rocks to
their very foundations. Immense waves threatened to overwhelm the island,
and certainly any vessel anchored near the shore would have been dashed to
pieces. Twice, during one of these hurricanes, the Mercy swelled to such a
degree as to give reason to fear that the bridges would be swept away, and
it was necessary to strengthen those on the shore, which disappeared under
the foaming waters, when the sea beat against the beach.

It may well be supposed that such storms, comparable to water-spouts in
which were mingled rain and snow, would cause great havoc on the plateau of
Prospect Heights. The mill and the poultry-yard particularly suffered. The
colonists were often obliged to make immediate repairs, without which the
safety of the birds would have been seriously threatened.

During the worst weather, several jaguars and troops of quadrumana
ventured to the edge of the plateau, and it was always to be feared that
the most active and audacious would, urged by hunger, manage to cross the
stream, which besides, when frozen, offered them an easy passage.
Plantations and domestic animals would then have been infallibly destroyed,
without a constant watch, and it was often necessary to make use of the
guns to keep those dangerous visitors at a respectful distance. Occupation
was not wanting to the colonists, for without reckoning their out-door
cares, they had always a thousand plans for the fitting up of Granite
House.

They had also some fine sporting excursions, which were made during the
frost in the vast Tadorn Marsh. Gideon Spilett and Herbert, aided by Jup
and Top, did not miss a shot in the midst of myriads of wild-duck, snipe,
teal, and others. The access to these hunting-grounds was easy; besides,
whether they reached them by the road to Port Balloon, after having passed
the Mercy Bridge, or by turning the rocks from Flotsam Point, the hunters
were never distant from Granite House more than two or three miles.

Thus passed the four winter months, which were really rigorous, that is
to say, June, July, August, and September. But, in short, Granite House did
not suffer much from the inclemency of the weather, and it was the same
with the corral, which, less exposed than the plateau, and sheltered partly
by Mount Franklin, only received the remains of the hurricanes, already
broken by the forests and the high rocks of the shore. The damages there
were consequently of small importance, and the activity and skill of Ayrton
promptly repaired them, when some time in October he returned to pass a few
days in the corral.

During this winter, no fresh inexplicable incident occurred. Nothing
strange happened, although Pencroft and Neb were on the watch for the most
insignificant facts to which they attached any mysterious cause. Top and
Jup themselves no longer growled round the well or gave any signs of
uneasiness. It appeared, therefore, as if the series of supernatural
incidents was interrupted, although they often talked of them during the
evenings in Granite House, and they remained thoroughly resolved that the
island should be searched, even in those parts the most difficult to
explore. But an event of the highest importance, and of which the
consequences might be terrible, momentarily diverted from their projects
Cyrus Harding and his companions.

It was the month of October. The fine season was swiftly returning.
Nature was reviving; and among the evergreen foliage of the coniferae which
formed the border of the wood, already appeared the young leaves of the
banksias, deodars, and other trees.

It may be remembered that Gideon Spilett and Herbert had, at different
times, taken photographic views of Lincoln Island.

Now, on the 17th of this month of October, towards three o'clock in the
afternoon, Herbert, enticed by the charms of the sky, thought of
reproducing Union Bay, which was opposite to Prospect Heights, from Cape
Mandible to Claw Cape.

The horizon was beautifully clear, and the sea, undulating under a soft
breeze, was as calm as the waters of a lake, sparkling here and there under
the sun's rays.

The apparatus had been placed at one of the windows of the dining-room at
Granite House, and consequently overlooked the shore and the bay. Herbert
proceeded as he was accustomed to do, and the negative obtained, he went
away to fix it by means of the chemicals deposited in a dark nook of
Granite House.

Returning to the bright light, and examining it well, Herbert perceived
on his negative an almost imperceptible little spot on the sea horizon. He
endeavored to make it disappear by reiterated washing, but could not
accomplish it.

"It is a flaw in the glass," he thought.

And then he had the curiosity to examine this flaw with a strong
magnifier which he unscrewed from one of the telescopes.

But he had scarcely looked at it, when he uttered a cry, and the glass
almost fell from his hands.

Immediately running to the room in which Cyrus Harding then was, he
extended the negative and magnifier towards the engineer, pointing out the
little spot.

Harding examined it; then seizing his telescope he rushed to the window.

The telescope, after having slowly swept the horizon, at last stopped on
the looked-for spot, and Cyrus Harding, lowering it, pronounced one word
only,--

"A vessel!"

And in fact a vessel was in sight, off Lincoln Island!





PART 3

THE SECRET OF THE ISLAND



Chapter 1

It was now two years and a half since the castaways from the balloon had
been thrown on Lincoln Island, and during that period there had been no
communication between them and their fellow-creatures. Once the reporter
had attempted to communicate with the inhabited world by confiding to a
bird a letter which contained the secret of their situation, but that was a
chance on which it was impossible to reckon seriously. Ayrton, alone, under
the circumstances which have been related, had come to join the little
colony. Now, suddenly, on this day, the 17th of October, other men had
unexpectedly appeared in sight of the island, on that deserted sea!

There could be no doubt about it! A vessel was there! But would she pass
on, or would she put into port? In a few hours the colonists would
definitely know what to expect.

Cyrus Harding and Herbert having immediately called Gideon Spilett,
Pencroft, and Neb into the dining-room of Granite House, told them what had
happened. Pencroft, seizing the telescope, rapidly swept the horizon, and
stopping on the indicated point, that is to say, on that which had made the
almost imperceptible spot on the photographic negative,--

"I'm blessed but it is really a vessel!" he exclaimed, in a voice which
did not express any great amount of satisfaction.

"Is she coming here?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"Impossible to say anything yet," answered Pencroft, "for her rigging
alone is above the horizon, and not a bit of her hull can be seen."

"What is to be done?" asked the lad.

"Wait," replied Harding.

And for a considerable time the settlers remained silent, given up to all
the thoughts, and the emotions, all the fears, all the hopes, which were
aroused by this incident--the most important which had occurred since their
arrival in Lincoln Island. Certainly, the colonists were not in the
situation of castaways abandoned on a sterile islet, constantly contending
against a cruel nature for their miserable existence, and incessantly
tormented by the longing to return to inhabited countries. Pencroft and
Neb, especially, who felt themselves at once so happy and so rich, would
not have left their island without regret. They were accustomed, besides,
to this new life in the midst of the domain which their intelligence had as
it were civilized. But at any rate this ship brought news from the world,
perhaps even from their native land. It was bringing fellow-creatures to
them, and it may be conceived how deeply their hearts were moved at the
sight!

From time to time Pencroft took the glass and rested himself at the
window. From thence he very attentively examined the vessel, which was at a
distance of twenty miles to the east. The colonists had as yet, therefore,
no means of signalizing their presence. A flag would not have been
perceived; a gun would not have been heard; a fire would not have been
visible. However, it was certain that the island, overtopped by Mount
Franklin, could not escape the notice of the vessel's lookout. But why was
the ship coming there? Was it simple chance which brought it to that part
of the Pacific, where the maps mentioned no land except Tabor Island, which
itself was out of the route usually followed by vessels from the Polynesian
Archipelagoes, from New Zealand, and from the American coast? To this
question, which each one asked himself, a reply was suddenly made by
Herbert.

"Can it be the 'Duncan'?" he cried.

The "Duncan," as has been said, was Lord Glenarvan's yacht, which had
left Ayrton on the islet, and which was to return there someday to fetch
him. Now, the islet was not so far distant from Lincoln Island, but that a
vessel, standing for the one, could pass in sight of the other. A hundred
and fifty miles only separated them in longitude, and seventy in latitude.

"We must tell Ayrton," said Gideon Spilett, "and send for him
immediately. He alone can say if it is the 'Duncan.'"

This was the opinion of all, and the reporter, going to the telegraphic
apparatus which placed the corral in communication with Granite House,
sent this telegram:--"Come with all possible speed."

In a few minutes the bell sounded.

"I am coming," replied Ayrton.

Then the settlers continued to watch the vessel.

"If it is the 'Duncan,'" said Herbert, "Ayrton will recognize her
without difficulty, since he sailed on board her for some time."

"And if he recognizes her," added Pencroft, "it will agitate him
exceedingly!"

"Yes," answered Cyrus Harding; "but now Ayrton is worthy to return on
board the 'Duncan,' and pray Heaven that it is indeed Lord Glenarvan's
yacht, for I should be suspicious of any other vessel. These are ill-famed
seas, and I have always feared a visit from Malay pirates to our island."

"We could defend it,', cried Herbert.

"No doubt, my boy," answered the engineer smiling, "but it would be
better not to have to defend it."

"A useless observation," said Spilett. "Lincoln Island is unknown to
navigators, since it is not marked even on the most recent maps. Do you
think, Cyrus, that that is a sufficient motive for a ship, finding herself
unexpectedly in sight of new land, to try and visit rather than avoid it?"

"Certainly," replied Pencroft.

"I think so too," added the engineer. "It may even be said that it is the
duty of a captain to come and survey any land or island not yet known, and
Lincoln Island is in this position."

"Well," said Pencroft, "suppose this vessel comes and anchors there a few
cables-lengths from our island, what shall we do?"

This sudden question remained at first without any reply. But Cyrus
Harding, after some moments' thought, replied in the calm tone which was
usual to him,--

"What we shall do, my friends? What we ought to do is this:--we will
communicate with the ship, we will take our passage on board her, and we
will leave our island, after having taken possession of it in the name of
the United States. Then we will return with any who may wish to follow us
to colonize it definitely, and endow the American Republic with a useful
station in this part of the Pacific Ocean!"

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Pencroft, "and that will be no small present which we
shall make to our country! The colonization is already almost finished;
names are given to every part of the island; there is a natural port, fresh
water, roads, a telegraph, a dockyard, and manufactories; and there will be
nothing to be done but to inscribe Lincoln Island on the maps!"

"But if anyone seizes it in our absence?" observed Gideon Spilett.

"Hang it!" cried the sailor. "I would rather remain all alone to guard
it: and trust to Pencroft, they shouldn't steal it from him, like a watch
from the pocket of a swell!"

For an hour it was impossible to say with any certainty whether the
vessel was or was not standing towards Lincoln Island. She was nearer, but
in what direction was she sailing? This Pencroft could not determine.
However, as the wind was blowing from the northeast, in all probability the
vessel was sailing on the starboard tack. Besides, the wind was favorable
for bringing her towards the island, and, the sea being calm, she would not
be afraid to approach although the shallows were not marked on the chart.

Towards four o'clock--an hour after he had been sent for--Ayrton arrived at
Granite House. He entered the dining-room saying,--

"At your service, gentlemen."

Cyrus Harding gave him his hand, as was his custom to do, and, leading
him to the window,--

"Ayrton," said he, "we have begged you to come here for an important
reason. A ship is in sight of the island."

Ayrton at first paled slightly, and for a moment his eyes became dim;
then, leaning out the window, he surveyed the horizon, but could see
nothing.

"Take this telescope," said Spilett, "and look carefully, Ayrton, for it
is possible that this ship may be the 'Duncan' come to these seas for the
purpose of taking you home again."

"The 'Duncan!'" murmured Ayrton. "Already?" This last word escaped
Ayrton's lips as if involuntarily, and his head drooped upon his hands.

Did not twelve years' solitude on a desert island appear to him a
sufficient expiation? Did not the penitent yet feel himself pardoned,
either in his own eyes or in the eyes of others?

"No," said he, "no! it cannot be the 'Duncan'!"

"Look, Ayrton," then said the engineer, "for it is necessary that we
should know beforehand what to expect."

Ayrton took the glass and pointed it in the direction indicated. During
some minutes he examined the horizon without moving, without uttering a
word. Then,--

"It is indeed a vessel," said he, "but I do not think she is the
'Duncan.'"

"Why do you not think so?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"Because the 'Duncan' is a steam-yacht, and I cannot perceive any trace
of smoke either above or near that vessel."

"Perhaps she is simply sailing," observed Pencroft. "The wind is
favorable for the direction which she appears to be taking, and she may be
anxious to economize her coal, being so far from land."

"It is possible that you may be right, Mr. Pencroft," answered Ayrton,
"and that the vessel has extinguished her fires. We must wait until she is
nearer, and then we shall soon know what to expect."

So saying, Ayrton sat down in a corner of the room and remained silent.
The colonists again discussed the strange ship, but Ayrton took no part in
the conversation. All were in such a mood that they found it impossible to
continue their work. Gideon Spilett and Pencroft were particularly nervous,
going, coming, not able to remain still in one place. Herbert felt more
curiosity. Neb alone maintained his usual calm manner. Was not his country
that where his master was? As to the engineer, he remained plunged in deep
thought, and in his heart feared rather than desired the arrival of the
ship. In the meanwhile, the vessel was a little nearer the island. With the
aid of the glass, it was ascertained that she was a brig, and not one of
those Malay proas, which are generally used by the pirates of the Pacific.
It was, therefore, reasonable to believe that the engineer's apprehensions
would not be justified, and that the presence of this vessel in the
vicinity of the island was fraught with no danger.

Pencroft, after a minute examination, was able positively to affirm that
the vessel was rigged as a brig, and that she was standing obliquely
towards the coast, on the starboard tack, under her topsails and top-
gallant-sails. This was confirmed by Ayrton. But by continuing in this
direction she must soon disappear behind Claw Cape, as the wind was from
the southwest, and to watch her it would be then necessary to ascend the
height of Washington Bay, near Port Balloon--a provoking circumstance, for
it was already five o'clock in the evening, and the twilight would soon
make any observation extremely difficult.

"What shall we do when night comes on?" asked Gideon Spilett. "Shall we
light a fire, so as to signal our presence on the coast?"

This was a serious question, and yet, although the engineer still
retained some of his presentiments, it was answered in the affirmative.
During the night the ship might disappear and leave for ever, and, this
ship gone, would another ever return to the waters of Lincoln Island? Who
could foresee what the future would then have in store for the colonists?

"Yes," said the reporter, "we ought to make known to that vessel, whoever
she may be, that the island is inhabited. To neglect the opportunity which
is offered to us might be to create everlasting regrets."

It was therefore decided that Neb and Pencroft should go to Port Balloon,
and that there, at nightfall, they should light an immense fire, the blaze
of which would necessarily attract the attention of the brig.

But at the moment when Neb and the sailor were preparing to leave Granite
House, the vessel suddenly altered her course, and stood directly for Union
Bay. The brig was a good sailer, for she approached rapidly. Neb and
Pencroft put off their departure, therefore, and the glass was put into
Ayrton's hands, that he might ascertain for certain whether the ship was or
was not the "Duncan." The Scotch yacht was also rigged as a brig. The
question was, whether a chimney could be discerned between the two masts of
the vessel, which was now at a distance of only five miles.

The horizon was still very clear. The examination was easy, and Ayrton
soon let the glass fall again, saying--

"It is not the 'Duncan'! It could not be!"

Pencroft again brought the brig within the range of the telescope, and
could see that she was of between three and four hundred tons burden,
wonderfully narrow, well-masted, admirably built, and must be a very rapid
sailer. But to what nation did she belong? That was difficult to say.

"And yet," added the sailor, "a flag is floating from her peak, but I
cannot distinguish the colors of it."

"In half an hour we shall be certain about that," answered the reporter.
"Besides, it is very evident that the intention of the captain of this ship
is to land, and, consequently, if not today, to-morrow at the latest, we
shall make his acquaintance."

"Never mind!" said Pencroft. "It is best to know whom we have to deal
with, and I shall not be sorry to recognize that fellow's colors!"

And, while thus speaking, the sailor never left the glass. The day began
to fade, and with the day the breeze fell also. The brig's ensign hung in
folds, and it became more and more difficult to observe it.

"It is not the American flag," said Pencroft from time to time, "nor the
English, the red of which could be easily seen, nor the French or German
colors, nor the white flag of Russia, nor the yellow of Spain. One would
say it was all one color. Let's see: in these seas, what do we generally
meet with? The Chilean flag?--but that is tri-color. Brazilian?--it is
green. Japanese?--it is yellow and black, while this--"

At that moment the breeze blew out the unknown flag. Ayrton seizing the
telescope which the sailor had put down, put it to his eye, and in a hoarse
voice,--

"The black flag!" he exclaimed.

And indeed the somber bunting was floating from the mast of the brig, and
they had now good reason for considering her to be a suspicious vessel!

Had the engineer, then, been right in his presentiments? Was this a
pirate vessel? Did she scour the Pacific, competing with the Malay proas
which still infest it? For what had she come to look at the shores of
Lincoln Island? Was it to them an unknown island, ready to become a
magazine for stolen cargoes? Had she come to find on the coast a sheltered
port for the winter months? Was the settlers' honest domain destined to be
transformed into an infamous refuge--the headquarters of the piracy of the
Pacific?

All these ideas instinctively presented themselves to the colonists'
imaginations. There was no doubt, besides, of the signification which must
be attached to the color of the hoisted flag. It was that of pirates! It
was that which the "Duncan" would have carried, had the convicts succeeded
in their criminal design! No time was lost before discussing it.

"My friends," said Cyrus Harding, "perhaps this vessel only wishes to
survey the coast of the island. Perhaps her crew will not land. There is a
chance of it. However that may be, we ought to do everything we can to hide
our presence here. The windmill on Prospect Heights is too easily seen. Let
Ayrton and Neb go and take down the sails. We must also conceal the windows
of Granite House with thick branches. All the fires must be extinguished,
so that nothing may betray the presence of men on the island."

"And our vessel?" said Herbert.

"Oh," answered Pencroft, "she is sheltered in Port Balloon, and I defy
any of those rascals there to find her!"

The engineer's orders were immediately executed. Neb and Ayrton ascended
the plateau, and took the necessary precautions to conceal any indication
of a settlement. While they were thus occupied, their companions went to
the border of Jacamar Wood, and brought back a large quantity of branches
and creepers, which would at some distance appear as natural foliage, and
thus disguise the windows in the granite cliff. At the same time, the
ammunition and guns were placed ready so as to be at hand in case of an
unexpected attack.

When all these precautions had been taken,--

"My friends," said Harding, and his voice betrayed some emotion, "if the
wretches endeavor to seize Lincoln Island, we shall defend it--shall we
not?"

"Yes, Cyrus," replied the reporter, "and if necessary we will die to
defend it!"

The engineer extended his hand to his companions, who pressed it warmly.
Ayrton remained in his corner, not joining the colonists. Perhaps he, the
former convict, still felt himself unworthy to do so!

Cyrus Harding understood what was passing in Ayrton's mind, and going to
him--

"And you, Ayrton," he asked, "what will you do?"

"My duty," answered Ayrton.

He then took up his station near the window and gazed through the
foliage.

It was now half-past seven. The sun had disappeared twenty minutes ago
behind Granite House. Consequently the Eastern horizon was becoming
obscured. In the meanwhile the brig continued to advance towards Union Bay.
She was now not more than two miles off, and exactly opposite the plateau
of Prospect Heights, for after having tacked off Claw Cape, she had drifted
towards the north in the current of the rising tide. One might have said
that at this distance she had already entered the vast bay, for a straight
line drawn from Claw Cape to Cape Mandible would have rested on her
starboard quarter.

Was the brig about to penetrate far into the bay? That was the first
question. When once in the bay, would she anchor there? That was the
second. Would she not content herself with only surveying the coast, and
stand out to sea again without landing her crew? They would know this in an
hour. The colonists could do nothing but wait.

Cyrus Harding had not seen the suspected vessel hoist the black flag
without deep anxiety. Was it not a direct menace against the work which he
and his companions had till now conducted so successfully? Had these
pirates--for the sailors of the brig could be nothing else--already visited
the island, since on approaching it they had hoisted their colors. Had they
formerly invaded it, so that certain unaccountable peculiarities might be
explained in this way? Did there exist in the as yet unexplored parts some
accomplice ready to enter into communication with them?

To all these questions which he mentally asked himself, Harding knew not
what to reply; but he felt that the safety of the colony could not but be
seriously threatened by the arrival of the brig.

However, he and his companions were determined to fight to the last gasp.
It would have been very important to know if the pirates were numerous and
better armed than the colonists. But how was this information to he
obtained?

Night fell. The new moon had disappeared. Profound darkness enveloped the
island and the sea. No light could pierce through the heavy piles of clouds
on the horizon. The wind had died away completely with the twilight. Not a
leaf rustled on the trees, not a ripple murmured on the shore. Nothing
could be seen of the ship, all her lights being extinguished, and if she
was still in sight of the island, her whereabouts could not be discovered.

"Well! who knows?" said Pencroft. "Perhaps that cursed craft will stand
off during the night, and we shall see nothing of her at daybreak."

As if in reply to the sailor's observation, a bright light flashed in the
darkness, and a cannon-shot was heard.

The vessel was still there and had guns on board.

Six seconds elapsed between the flash and the report.

Therefore the brig was about a mile and a quarter from the coast.

At the same time, the chains were heard rattling through the hawse-holes.

The vessel had just anchored in sight of Granite House!



Chapter 2

There was no longer any doubt as to the pirates' intentions. They had
dropped anchor at a short distance from the island, and it was evident that
the next day by means of their boats they purposed to land on the beach!

Cyrus Harding and his companions were ready to act, but, determined
though they were, they must not forget to be prudent. Perhaps their
presence might still be concealed in the event of the pirates contenting
themselves with landing on the shore without examining the interior of the
island. It might be, indeed, that their only intention was to obtain fresh
water from the Mercy, and it was not impossible that the bridge, thrown
across a mile and a half from the mouth, and the manufactory at the
Chimneys might escape their notice.

But why was that flag hoisted at the brig's peak? What was that shot
fired for? Pure bravado doubtless, unless it was a sign of the act of
taking possession. Harding knew now that the vessel was well armed. And
what had the colonists of Lincoln Island to reply to the pirates' guns? A
few muskets only.

"However," observed Cyrus Harding, "here we are in an impregnable
position. The enemy cannot discover the mouth of the outlet, now that it is
hidden under reeds and grass, and consequently it would be impossible for
them to penetrate into Granite House."

"But our plantations, our poultry-yard, our corral, all, everything!"
exclaimed Pencroft, stamping his foot. "They may spoil everything, destroy
everything in a few hours!"

"Everything, Pencroft," answered Harding, "and we have no means of
preventing them."

"Are they numerous? that is the question," said the reporter. "If they
are not more than a dozen, we shall be able to stop them, but forty, fifty,
more perhaps!"

"Captain Harding," then said Ayrton, advancing towards the engineer,
"will you give me leave?"

"For what, my friend?"

"To go to that vessel to find out the strength of her crew."

"But Ayrton--" answered the engineer, hesitating, "you will risk your
life--"

"Why not, sir?"

"That is more than your duty."

"I have more than my duty to do," replied Ayrton.

"Will you go to the ship in the boat?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"No, sir, but I will swim. A boat would be seen where a man may glide
between wind and water."

"Do you know that the brig is a mile and a quarter from the shore?" said
Herbert.

"I am a good swimmer, Mr. Herbert."

"I tell you it is risking your life," said the engineer.

"That is no matter," answered Ayrton. "Captain Harding, I ask this as a
favor. Perhaps it will be a means of raising me in my own eyes!"

"Go, Ayrton," replied the engineer, who felt sure that a refusal would
have deeply wounded the former convict, now become an honest man.

"I will accompany you," said Pencroft.

"You mistrust me!" said Ayrton quickly.

Then more humbly,--

"Alas!"

"No! no!" exclaimed Harding with animation, "no, Ayrton, Pencroft does
not mistrust you. You interpret his words wrongly."

"Indeed," returned the sailor, "I only propose to accompany Ayrton as far
as the islet. It may be, although it is scarcely possible, that one of
these villains has landed, and in that case two men will not be too many to
hinder him from giving the alarm. I will wait for Ayrton on the islet, and
he shall go alone to the vessel, since he has proposed to do so." These
things agreed to, Ayrton made preparations for his departure. His plan was
bold, but it might succeed, thanks to the darkness of the night. Once
arrived at the vessel's side, Ayrton, holding on to the main chains, might
reconnoiter the number and perhaps overhear the intentions of the pirates.

Ayrton and Pencroft, followed by their companions, descended to the
beach. Ayrton undressed and rubbed himself with grease, so as to suffer
less from the temperature of the water, which was still cold. He might,
indeed, be obliged to remain in it for several hours.

Pencroft and Neb, during this time, had gone to fetch the boat, moored a
few hundred feet higher up, on the bank of the Mercy, and by the time they
returned, Ayrton was ready to start. A coat was thrown over his shoulders,
and the settlers all came round him to press his hand.

Ayrton then shoved off with Pencroft in the boat.

It was half-past ten in the evening when the two adventurers disappeared
in the darkness. Their companions returned to wait at the Chimneys.

The channel was easily traversed, and the boat touched the opposite shore
of the islet. This was not done without precaution, for fear lest the
pirates might be roaming about there. But after a careful survey, it was
evident that the islet was deserted. Ayrton then, followed by Pencroft,
crossed it with a rapid step, scaring the birds nestled in the holes of the
rocks; then, without hesitating, he plunged into the sea, and swam
noiselessly in the direction of the ship, in which a few lights had
recently appeared, showing her exact situation. As to Pencroft, he crouched
down in a cleft of the rock, and awaited the return of his companion.

In the meanwhile, Ayrton, swimming with a vigorous stroke, glided through
the sheet of water without producing the slightest ripple. His head just
emerged above it and his eyes were fixed on the dark hull of the brig, from
which the lights were reflected in the water. He thought only of the duty
which he had promised to accomplish, and nothing of the danger which he
ran, not only on board the ship, but in the sea, often frequented by
sharks. The current bore him along and he rapidly receded from the shore.

Half an hour afterwards, Ayrton, without having been either seen or
heard, arrived at the ship and caught hold of the main-chains. He took
breath, then, hoisting himself up, he managed to reach the extremity of the
cutwater. There were drying several pairs of sailors' trousers. He put on a
pair. Then settling himself firmly, he listened. They were not sleeping on
board the brig. On the contrary, they were talking, singing, laughing. And
these were the sentences, accompanied with oaths, which principally struck
Ayrton:--

"Our brig is a famous acquisition."

"She sails well, and merits her name of the 'Speedy.'"

"She would show all the navy of Norfolk a clean pair of heels."

"Hurrah for her captain!"

"Hurrah for Bob Harvey!"

What Ayrton felt when he overheard this fragment of conversation may be
understood when it is known that in this Bob Harvey he recognized one of
his old Australian companions, a daring sailor, who had continued his
criminal career. Bob Harvey had seized, on the shores of Norfolk Island
this brig, which was loaded with arms, ammunition, utensils, and tools of
all sorts, destined for one of the Sandwich Islands. All his gang had gone
on board, and pirates after having been convicts, these wretches, more
ferocious than the Malays themselves, scoured the Pacific, destroying
vessels, and massacring their crews.

The convicts spoke loudly, they recounted their deeds, drinking deeply at
the same time, and this is what Ayrton gathered. The actual crew of the
"Speedy" was composed solely of English prisoners, escaped from Norfolk
Island.

Here it may be well to explain what this island was. In 29deg 2' south
latitude, and 165deg 42' east longitude, to the east of Australia, is found
a little island, six miles in circumference, overlooked by Mount Pitt, which
rises to a height of 1,100 feet above the level of the sea. This is Norfolk
Island, once the seat of an establishment in which were lodged the most
intractable convicts from the English penitentiaries. They numbered 500,
under an iron discipline, threatened with terrible punishments, and were
guarded by 150 soldiers, and 150 employed under the orders of the governor.
It would be difficult to imagine a collection of greater ruffians.
Sometimes,--although very rarely,--notwithstanding the extreme surveillance
of which they were the object, many managed to escape, and seizing vessels
which they surprised, they infested the Polynesian Archipelagoes.

Thus had Bob Harvey and his companions done. Thus had Ayrton formerly
wished to do. Bob Harvey had seized the brig "Speedy," anchored in sight of
Norfolk Island; the crew had been massacred; and for a year this ship had
scoured the Pacific, under the command of Harvey, now a pirate, and well
known to Ayrton!

The convicts were, for the most part, assembled under the poop; but a
few, stretched on the deck, were talking loudly.

The conversation still continued amid shouts and libations. Ayrton
learned that chance alone had brought the "Speedy" in sight of Lincoln
Island; Bob Harvey had never yet set foot on it; but, as Cyrus Harding had
conjectured, finding this unknown land in his course, its position being
marked on no chart, he had formed the project of visiting it, and, if he
found it suitable, of making it the brig's headquarters.

As to the black flag hoisted at the "Speedy's" peak, and the gun which
had been fired, in imitation of men-of-war when they lower their colors, it
was pure piratical bravado. It was in no way a signal, and no communication
yet existed between the convicts and Lincoln Island.

The settlers' domain was now menaced with terrible danger. Evidently the
island, with its water, its harbor, its resources of all kinds so increased
in value by the colonists, and the concealment afforded by Granite House,
could not but be convenient for the convicts; in their hands it would
become an excellent place of refuge, and, being unknown, it would assure
them, for a long time perhaps, impunity and security. Evidently, also, the
lives of the settlers would not be respected, and Bob Harvey and his
accomplices' first care would be to massacre them without mercy. Harding
and his companions had, therefore, not even the choice of flying and hiding
themselves in the island, since the convicts intended to reside there, and
since, in the event of the "Speedy" departing on an expedition, it was
probable that some of the crew would remain on shore, so as to settle
themselves there. Therefore, it would be necessary to fight, to destroy
every one of these scoundrels, unworthy of pity, and against whom any means
would be right. So thought Ayrton, and he well knew that Cyrus Harding
would be of his way of thinking.

But was resistance and, in the last place, victory possible? That would
depend on the equipment of the brig, and the number of men which she
carried.

This Ayrton resolved to learn at any cost, and as an hour after his
arrival the vociferations had begun to die away, and as a large number of
the convicts were already buried in a drunken sleep, Ayrton did not
hesitate to venture onto the "Speedy's" deck, which the extinguished
lanterns now left in total darkness. He hoisted himself onto the cutwater,
and by the bowsprit arrived at the forecastle. Then, gliding among the
convicts stretched here and there, he made the round of the ship, and found
that the "Speedy" carried four guns, which would throw shot of from eight
to ten pounds in weight. He found also, on touching them that these guns
were breech-loaders. They were therefore, of modern make, easily used, and
of terrible effect.

As to the men lying on the deck, they were about ten in number, but it
was to be supposed that more were sleeping down below. Besides, by
listening to them, Ayrton had understood that there were fifty on board.
That was a large number for the six settlers of Lincoln Island to contend
with! But now, thanks to Ayrton's devotion, Cyrus Harding would not be
surprised, he would know the strength of his adversaries, and would make
his arrangements accordingly.

There was nothing more for Ayrton to do but to return, and render to his
companions an account of the mission with which he had charged himself, and
he prepared to regain the bows of the brig, so that he might let himself
down into the water. But to this man, whose wish was, as he had said, to do
more than his duty, there came an heroic thought. This was to sacrifice his
own life, but save the island and the colonists. Cyrus Harding evidently
could not resist fifty ruffians, all well armed, who, either by penetrating
by main force into Granite House, or by starving out the besieged, could
obtain from them what they wanted. And then he thought of his
preservers--those who had made him again a man, and an honest mm, those to
whom he owed all--murdered without pity, their works destroyed, their island
turned into a pirates' den! He said to himself that he, Ayrton, was the
principal cause of so many disasters, since his old companion, Bob Harvey,
had but realized his own plans, and a feeling of horror took possession of
him. Then he was seized with an irresistible desire to blow up the brig and
with her, all whom she had on board. He would perish in the explosion, but
he would have done his duty.

Ayrton did not hesitate. To reach the powder-room, which is always
situated in the after-part of a vessel, was easy. There would be no want of
powder in a vessel which followed such a trade, and a spark would be enough
to destroy it in an instant.

Ayrton stole carefully along the between-decks, strewn with numerous
sleepers, overcome more by drunkenness than sleep. A lantern was lighted
at the foot of the mainmast, round which was hung a gun-rack, furnished
with weapons of all sorts.

Ayrton took a revolver from the rack, and assured himself that it was
loaded and primed. Nothing more was needed to accomplish the work of
destruction. He then glided towards the stern, so as to arrive under the
brig's poop at the powder-magazine.

It was difficult to proceed along the dimly lighted deck without
stumbling over some half-sleeping convict, who retorted by oaths and kicks.
Ayrton was, therefore, more than once obliged to halt. But at last he
arrived at the partition dividing the aftercabin, and found the door
opening into the magazine itself.

Ayrton, compelled to force it open, set to work. It was a difficult
operation to perform without noise, for he had to break a padlock. But
under his vigorous hand, the padlock broke, and the door was open.

At that moment a hand was laid on Ayrton's shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" asked a tail man, in a harsh voice, who,
standing in the shadow, quickly threw the light of a lantern in Ayrton's
face.

Ayrton drew beck. In the rapid flash of the lantern, he had recognized
his former accomplice, Bob Harvey, who could not have known him, as he must
have thought Ayrton long since dead.

"What are you doing here?" again said Bob Harvey, seizing Ayrton by the
waistband.

But Ayrton, without replying, wrenched himself from his grasp and
attempted to rush into the magazine. A shot fired into the midst of the
powder-casks, and all would be over!

"Help, lads!" shouted Bob Harvey.

At his shout two or three pirates awoke, jumped up, and, rushing on
Ayrton, endeavored to throw him down. He soon extricated himself from their
grasp. He fired his revolver, and two of the convicts fell, but a blow from
a knife which he could not ward off made a gash in his shoulder.

Ayrton perceived that he could no longer hope to carry out his project.
Bob Harvey had reclosed the door of the powder-magazine, and a movement on
the deck indicated a general awakening of the pirates. Ayrton must reserve
himself to fight at the side of Cyrus Harding. There was nothing for him
but flight!

But was flight still possible? It was doubtful, yet Ayrton resolved to
dare everything in order to rejoin his companions.

Four barrels of the revolver were still undischarged. Two were fired--
one, aimed at Bob Harvey, did not wound him, or at any rate only slightly,
and Ayrton, profiting by the momentary retreat of his adversaries, rushed
towards the companion-ladder to gain the deck. Passing before the lantern,
he smashed it with a blow from the butt of his revolver. A profound
darkness ensued, which favored his flight. Two or three pirates, awakened
by the noise, were descending the ladder at the same moment.

A fifth shot from Ayrton laid one low, and the others drew back, not
understanding what was going on. Ayrton was on deck in two bounds, and
three seconds later, having discharged his last barrel in the face of a
pirate who was about to seize him by the throat, he leaped over the
bulwarks into the sea.

Ayrton had not made six strokes before shots were splashing around him
like hail.

What were Pencroft's feelings, sheltered under a rock on the islet! What
were those of Harding, the reporter, Herbert, and Neb, crouched in the
Chimneys, when they heard the reports on board the brig! They rushed out on
to the beach, and, their guns shouldered, they stood ready to repel any
attack.

They had no doubt about it themselves! Ayrton, surprised by the pirates,
had been murdered, and, perhaps, the wretches would profit by the night to
make a descent on the island!

Half an hour was passed in terrible anxiety. The firing had ceased, and
yet neither Ayrton nor Pencroft had reappeared. Was the islet invaded?
Ought they not to fly to the help of Ayrton and Pencroft? But how? The tide
being high at that time, rendered the channel impassable. The boat was not
there! We may imagine the horrible anxiety which took possession of Harding
and his companions!

At last, towards half-past twelve, a boat, carrying two men, touched the
beach. It was Ayrton, slightly wounded in the shoulder, and Pencroft, safe
and sound, whom their friends received with open arms.

All immediately took refuge in the Chimneys. There Ayrton recounted all
that had passed, even to his plan for blowing up the brig, which he had
attempted to put into execution.

All hands were extended to Ayrton, who did not conceal from them that
their situation was serious. The pirates had been alarmed. They knew that
Lincoln Island was inhabited. They would land upon it in numbers and well
armed. They would respect nothing. Should the settlers fall into their
hands, they must expect no mercy!

"Well, we shall know how to die!" said the reporter.

"Let us go in and watch," answered the engineer.

"Have we any chance of escape, captain?" asked the sailor.

"Yes, Pencroft."

"Hum! six against fifty!"

"Yes! six! without counting--"

"Who?" asked Pencroft.

Cyrus did not reply, but pointed upwards.



Chapter 3

The night passed without incident. The colonists were on the qui vive, and
did not leave their post at the Chimneys. The pirates, on their side, did
not appear to have made any attempt to land. Since the last shots fired at
Ayrton not a report, not even a sound, had betrayed the presence of the
brig in the neighborhood of the island. It might have been fancied that she
had weighed anchor, thinking that she had to deal with her match, and had
left the coast.

But it was no such thing, and when day began to dawn the settlers could
see a confused mass through the morning mist. It was the "Speedy."

"These, my friends," said the engineer, "are the arrangements which
appear to me best to make before the fog completely clears away. It hides
us from the eyes of the pirates, and we can act without attracting their
attention. The most important thing is, that the convicts should believe
that the inhabitants of the island are numerous, and consequently capable
of resisting them. I therefore propose that we divide into three parties.
The first of which shall be posted at the Chimneys, the second at the mouth
of the Mercy. As to the third, I think it would be best to place it on the
islet, so as to prevent, or at all events delay, any attempt at landing. We
have the use of two rifles and four muskets. Each of us will be armed, and,
as we are amply provided with powder and shot, we need not spare our fire.
We have nothing to fear from the muskets nor even from the guns of the
brig. What can they do against these rocks? And, as we shall not fire from
the windows of Granite House, the pirates will not think of causing
irreparable damage by throwing shell against it. What is to be feared is,
the necessity of meeting hand-to-hand, since the convicts have numbers on
their side. We must therefore try to prevent them from landing, but without
discovering ourselves. Therefore, do not economize the ammunition. Fire
often, but with a sure aim. We have each eight or ten enemies to kill, and
they must be killed!"

Cyrus Harding had clearly represented their situation, although he spoke
in the calmest voice, as if it was a question of directing a piece of work
and not ordering a battle. His companions approved these arrangements
without even uttering a word. There was nothing more to be done but for
each to take his place before the fog should be completely dissipated. Neb
and Pencroft immediately ascended to Granite House and brought back a
sufficient quantity of ammunition. Gideon Spilett and Ayrton, both very
good marksmen, were armed with the two rifles, which carried nearly a mile.
The four other muskets were divided among Harding, Neb, Pencroft, and
Herbert.

The posts were arranged in the following manner:--

Cyrus Harding and Herbert remained in ambush at the Chimneys, thus
commanding the shore to the foot of Granite House.

Gideon Spilett and Neb crouched among the rocks at the mouth of the
Mercy, from which the drawbridges had been raised, so as to prevent any one
from crossing in a boat or landing on the opposite shore.

As to Ayrton and Pencroft, they shoved off in the boat, and prepared to
cross the channel and to take up two separate stations on the islet. In
this way, shots being fired from four different points at once, the
convicts would be led to believe that the island was both largely peopled
and strongly defended.

In the event of a landing being effected without their having been able
to prevent it, and also if they saw that they were on the point of being
cut off by the brig's boat, Ayrton and Pencroft were to return in their
boat to the shore and proceed towards the threatened spot.

Before starting to occupy their posts, the colonists for the last time
wrung each other's hands.

Pencroft succeeded in controlling himself sufficiently to suppress his
emotion when he embraced Herbert, his boy! and then they separated.

In a few moments Harding and Herbert on one side, the reporter and Neb on
the other, had disappeared behind the rocks, and five minutes later Ayrton
and Pencroft, having without difficulty crossed the channel, disembarked on
the islet and concealed themselves in the clefts of its eastern shore.

None of them could have been seen, for they themselves could scarcely
distinguish the brig in the fog.

It was half-past six in the morning.

Soon the fog began to clear away, and the topmasts of the brig issued
from the vapor. For some minutes great masses rolled over the surface of
the sea, then a breeze sprang up, which rapidly dispelled the mist.

The "Speedy" now appeared in full view, with a spring on her cable, her
head to the north, presenting her larboard side to the island. Just as
Harding had calculated, she was not more than a mile and a quarter from the
coast.

The sinister black flag floated from the peak.

The engineer, with his telescope, could see that the four guns on board
were pointed at the island. They were evidently ready to fire at a moment's
notice.

In the meanwhile the "Speedy" remained silent. About thirty pirates could
be seen moving on the deck. A few more on the poop; two others posted in
the shrouds, and armed with spyglasses, were attentively surveying the
island.

Certainly, Bob Harvey and his crew would not be able easily to give an
account of what had happened during the night on board the brig. Had this
half-naked man, who had forced the door of the powder-magazine, and with
whom they had struggled, who had six times discharged his revolver at them,
who had killed one and wounded two others, escaped their shot? Had he been
able to swim to shore? Whence did he come? What had been his object? Had
his design really been to blow up the brig, as Bob Harvey had thought? All
this must be confused enough to the convicts' minds. But what they could no
longer doubt was that the unknown island before which the "Speedy" had cast
anchor was inhabited, and that there was, perhaps, a numerous colony ready
to defend it. And yet no one was to be seen, neither on the shore, nor on
the heights. The beach appeared to be absolutely deserted. At any rate,
there was no trace of dwellings. Had the inhabitants fled into the
interior? Thus probably the pirate captain reasoned, and doubtless, like a
prudent man, he wished to reconnoiter the locality before he allowed his
men to venture there.

During an hour and a half, no indication of attack or landing could be
observed on board the brig. Evidently Bob Harvey was hesitating. Even with
his strongest telescopes he could not have perceived one of the settlers
crouched among the rocks. It was not even probable that his attention had
been awakened by the screen of green branches and creepers hiding the
windows of Granite House, and showing rather conspicuously on the bare
rock. Indeed, how could he imagine that a dwelling was hollowed out, at
that height, in the solid granite? From Claw Cape to the Mandible Capes, in
all the extent of Union Bay, there was nothing to lead him to suppose that
the island was or could be inhabited.

At eight o'clock, however, the colonists observed a movement on board the
"Speedy." A boat was lowered, and seven men jumped into her. They were
armed with muskets; one took the yoke-lines, four others the oars, and the
two others, kneeling in the bows, ready to fire, reconnoitered the island.
Their object was no doubt to make an examination but not to land, for in
the latter case they would have come in larger numbers. The pirates from
their look-out could have seen that the coast was sheltered by an islet,
separated from it by a channel half a mile in width. However, it was soon
evident to Cyrus Harding, on observing the direction followed by the boat,
that they would not attempt to penetrate into the channel, but would land
on the islet.

Pencroft and Ayrton, each hidden in a narrow cleft of the rock, saw them
coming directly towards them, and waited till they were within range.

The boat advanced with extreme caution. The oars only dipped into the
water at long intervals. It could now be seen that one of the convicts held
a lead-line in his hand, and that he wished to fathom the depth of the
channel hollowed out by the current of the Mercy. This showed that it was
Bob Harvey's intention to bring his brig as near as possible to the coast.
About thirty pirates, scattered in the rigging, followed every movement of
the boat, and took the bearings of certain landmarks which would allow them
to approach without danger. The boat was not more than two cables-lengths
off the islet when she stopped. The man at the tiller stood up and looked
for the best place at which to land.

At that moment two shots were heard. Smoke curled up from among the rocks
of the islet. The man at the helm and the man with the lead-line fell
backwards into the boat. Ayrton's and Pencroft's balls had struck them both
at the same moment.

Almost immediately a louder report was heard, a cloud of smoke issued
from the brig's side, and a ball, striking the summit of the rock which
sheltered Ayrton and Pencroft, made it fly in splinters, but the two
marksmen remained unhurt.

Horrible imprecations burst from the boat, which immediately continued
its way. The man who had been at the tiller was replaced by one of his
comrades, and the oars were rapidly plunged into the water. However,
instead of returning on board as might have been expected, the boat coasted
along the islet, so as to round its southern point. The pirates pulled
vigorously at their oars that they might get out of range of the bullets.

They advanced to within five cables-lengths of that part of the shore
terminated by Flotsam Point, and after having rounded it in a semicircular
line, still protected by the brig's guns, they proceeded towards the mouth
of the Mercy.

Their evident intention was to penetrate into the channel, and cut off
the colonists posted on the islet, in such a way, that whatever their
number might be, being placed between the fire from the boat and the fire
from the brig, they would find themselves in a very disadvantageous
position.

A quarter of an hour passed while the boat advanced in this direction.
Absolute silence, perfect calm reigned in the air and on the water.

Pencroft and Ayrton, although they knew they ran the risk of being cut
off, had not left their post, both that they did not wish to show
themselves as yet to their assailants, and expose themselves to the
"Speedy's" guns, and that they relied on Neb and Gideon Spilett, watching
at the mouth of the river, and on Cyrus Harding and Herbert, in ambush
among the rocks at the Chimneys.

Twenty minutes after the first shots were fired, the boat was less than
two cables-lengths off the Mercy. As the tide was beginning to rise with
its accustomed violence, caused by the narrowness of the straits, the
pirates were drawn towards the river, and it was only by dint of hard
rowing that they were able to keep in the middle of the channel. But, as
they were passing within good range of the mouth of the Mercy, two balls
saluted them, and two more of their number were laid in the bottom of the
boat. Neb and Spilett had not missed their aim.

The brig immediately sent a second ball on the post betrayed by the
smoke, but without any other result than that of splintering the rock.

The boat now contained only three able men. Carried on by the current, it
shot through the channel with the rapidity of an arrow, passed before
Harding and Herbert, who, not thinking it within range, withheld their
fire, then, rounding the northern point of the islet with the two remaining
oars, they pulled towards the brig.

Hitherto the settlers had nothing to complain of. Their adversaries had
certainly had the worst of it. The latter already counted four men
seriously wounded if not dead; they, on the contrary, unwounded, had not
missed a shot. If the pirates continued to attack them in this way, if they
renewed their attempt to land by means of a boat, they could be destroyed
one by one.

It was now seen how advantageous the engineer's arrangements had been.
The pirates would think that they had to deal with numerous and well-armed
adversaries, whom they could not easily get the better of.

Half an hour passed before the boat, having to pull against the current,
could get alongside the "Speedy." Frightful cries were heard when they
returned on board with the wounded, and two or three guns were fired with
no results.

But now about a dozen other convicts, maddened with rage, and possibly by
the effect of the evening's potations, threw themselves into the boat. A
second boat was also lowered, in which eight men took their places, and
while the first pulled straight for the islet, to dislodge the colonists
from thence the second maneuvered so as to force the entrance of the Mercy.

The situation was evidently becoming very dangerous for Pencroft and
Ayrton, and they saw that they must regain the mainland.

However, they waited till the first boat was within range, when two well-
directed balls threw its crew into disorder. Then, Pencroft and Ayrton,
abandoning their posts, under fire from the dozen muskets, ran across the
islet at full speed, jumped into their boat, crossed the channel at the
moment the second boat reached the southern end, and ran to hide themselves
in the Chimneys.

They had scarcely rejoined Cyrus Harding and Herbert, before the islet
was overrun with pirates in every direction. Almost at the same moment,
fresh reports resounded from the Mercy station, to which the second boat
was rapidly approaching. Two, out of the eight men who manned her, were
mortally wounded by Gideon Spilett and Neb, and the boat herself, carried
irresistibly onto the reefs, was stove in at the mouth of the Mercy. But
the six survivors, holding their muskets above their heads to preserve them
from contact with the water, managed to land on the right bank of the
river. Then, finding they were exposed to the fire of the ambush there,
they fled in the direction of Flotsam Point, out of range of the balls.

The actual situation was this: on the islet were a dozen convicts, of
whom some were no doubt wounded, but who had still a boat at their
disposal; on the island were six, but who could not by any possibility
reach Granite House, as they could not cross the river, all the bridges
being raised.

"Hallo," exclaimed Pencroft as he rushed into the Chimneys, "hallo,
captain! What do you think of it, now?"

"I think," answered the engineer, "that the combat will now take a new
form, for it cannot be supposed that the convicts will be so foolish as to
remain in a position so unfavorable for them!"

"They won't cross the channel," said the sailor. "Ayrton and Mr.
Spilett's rifles are there to prevent them. You know that they carry more
than a mile!"

"No doubt," replied Herbert; "but what can two rifles do against the
brig's guns?"

"Well, the brig isn't in the channel yet, I fancy!" said Pencroft.

"But suppose she does come there?" said Harding.

"That's impossible, for she would risk running aground and being lost!"

"It is possible," said Ayrton. "The convicts might profit by the high
tide to enter the channel, with the risk of grounding at low tide, it is
true; but then, under the fire from her guns, our posts would be no longer
tenable."

"Confound them!" exclaimed Pencroft, "it really seems as if the
blackguards were preparing to weigh anchor."

"Perhaps we shall be obliged to take refuge in Granite House!" observed
Herbert.

"We must wait!" answered Cyrus Harding.

"But Mr. Spilett and Neb?" said Pencroft.

"They will know when it is best to rejoin us. Be ready, Ayrton. It is
yours and Spilett's rifles which must speak now."

It was only too true. The "Speedy" was beginning to weigh her anchor, and
her intention was evidently to approach the islet. The tide would be rising
for an hour and a half, and the ebb current being already weakened, it
would be easy for the brig to advance. But as to entering the channel,
Pencroft, contrary to Ayrton's opinion, could not believe that she would
dare to attempt it.

In the meanwhile, the pirates who occupied the islet had gradually
advanced to the opposite shore, and were now only separated from the
mainland by the channel.

Being armed with muskets alone, they could do no harm to the settlers, in
ambush at the Chimneys and the mouth of the Mercy; but, not knowing the
latter to be supplied with long-range rifles, they on their side did not
believe themselves to be exposed. Quite uncovered, therefore, they surveyed
the islet, and examined the shore.

Their illusion was of short duration. Ayrton's and Gideon Spilett's
rifles then spoke, and no doubt imparted some very disagreeable
intelligence to two of the convicts, for they fell backwards.

Then there was a general helter-skelter. The ten others, not even
stopping to pick up their dead or wounded companions, fled to the other
side of the islet, tumbled into the boat which had brought them, and pulled
away with all their strength.

"Eight less!" exclaimed Pencroft. "Really, one would have thought that
Mr. Spilett and Ayrton had given the word to fire together!"

"Gentlemen," said Ayrton, as he reloaded his gun, "this is becoming more
serious. The brig is making sail!"

"The anchor is weighed!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"Yes, and she is already moving."

In fact, they could distinctly hear the creaking of the windlass. The
"Speedy" was at first held by her anchor; then, when that had been raised,
she began to drift towards the shore. The wind was blowing from the sea;
the jib and the foretopsail were hoisted, and the vessel gradually
approached the island.

From the two posts of the Mercy and the Chimneys they watched her without
giving a sign of life, but not without some emotion. What could be more
terrible for the colonists than to be exposed, at a short distance, to the
brig's guns, without being able to reply with any effect? How could they
then prevent the pirates from landing?

Cyrus Harding felt this strongly, and he asked himself what it would be
possible to do. Before long, he would be called upon for his determination.
But what was it to be? To shut themselves up in Granite House, to be
besieged there, to remain there for weeks, for months even, since they had
an abundance of provisions? So far good! But after that? The pirates would
not the less be masters of the island, which they would ravage at their
pleasure, and in time, they would end by having their revenge on the
prisoners in Granite House.

However, one chance yet remained; it was that Bob Harvey, after all,
would not venture his ship into the channel, and that he would keep outside
the islet. He would be still separated from the coast by half a mile, and
at that distance his shot could not be very destructive.

"Never!" repeated Pencroft, "Bob Harvey will never, if he is a good
seaman, enter that channel! He knows well that it would risk the brig, if
the sea got up ever so little! And what would become of him without his
vessel?"

In the meanwhile the brig approached the islet, and it could be seen that
she was endeavoring to make the lower end. The breeze was light, and as the
current had then lost much of its force, Bob Harvey had absolute command
over his vessel.

The route previously followed by the boats had allowed her to reconnoiter
the channel, and she boldly entered it.

The pirate's design was now only too evident; he wished to bring her
broadside to bear on the Chimneys and from there to reply with shell and
ball to the shot which had till then decimated her crew.

Soon the "Speedy" reached the point of the islet; she rounded it with
ease; the mainsail was braced up, and the brig hugging the wind, stood
across the mouth of the Mercy.

"The scoundrels! they are coming!" said Pencroft.

At that moment, Cyrus Harding, Ayrton, the sailor, and Herbert, were
rejoined by Neb and Gideon Spilett.

The reporter and his companion had judged it best to abandon the post at
the Mercy, from which they could do nothing against the ship, and they had
acted wisely. It was better that the colonists should be together at the
moment when they were about to engage in a decisive action. Gideon Spilett
and Neb had arrived by dodging behind the rocks, though not without
attracting a shower of bullets, which had not, however, reached them.

"Spilett! Neb!" cried the engineer. "You are not wounded?"

"No," answered the reporter, "a few bruises only from the ricochet! But
that cursed brig has entered the channel!"

"Yes," replied Pencroft, "and in ten minutes she will have anchored
before Granite House!"

"Have you formed any plan, Cyrus?" asked the reporter.

"We must take refuge in Granite House while there is still time, and the
convicts cannot see us."

"That is, my opinion, too," replied Gideon Spilett, "but once shut up--"

"We must be guided by circumstances," said the engineer.

"Let us be off, then, and make haste!" said the reporter.

"Would you not wish, captain, that Ayrton and I should remain here?"
asked the sailor.

"What would be the use of that, Pencroft?" replied Harding. "No. We will
not separate!"

There was not a moment to be lost. The colonists left the Chimneys. A
bend of the cliff prevented them from being seen by those in the brig, but
two or three reports, and the crash of bullets on the rock, told them that
the "Speedy" was at no great distance.

To spring into the lift, hoist themselves up to the door of Granite
House, where Top and Jup had been shut up since the evening before, to rush
into the large room, was the work of a minute only.

It was quite time, for the settlers, through the branches, could see the
"Speedy," surrounded with smoke, gliding up the channel. The firing was
incessant, and shot from the four guns struck blindly, both on the Mercy
post, although it was not occupied, and on the Chimneys. The rocks were
splintered, and cheers accompanied each discharge. However, they were
hoping that Granite House would be spared, thanks to Harding's precaution
of concealing the windows when a shot, piercing the door, penetrated into
the passage.

"We are discovered!" exclaimed Pencroft.

The colonists had not, perhaps, been seen, but it was certain that Bob
Harvey had thought proper to send a ball through the suspected foliage
which concealed that part of the cliff. Soon he redoubled his attack, when
another ball having torn away the leafy screen, disclosed a gaping aperture
in the granite.

The colonists' situation was desperate. Their retreat was discovered.
They could not oppose any obstacle to these missiles, nor protect the
stone, which flew in splinters around them. There was nothing to be done
but to take refuge in the upper passage of Granite House, and leave their
dwelling to be devastated, when a deep roar was heard, followed by
frightful cries!

Cyrus Harding and his companions rushed to one of the windows--

The brig, irresistibly raised on a sort of water-spout, had just split in
two, and in less than ten seconds she was swallowed up with all her
criminal crew!



Chapter 4

"She has blown up!" cried Herbert.

"Yes! blown up, just as if Ayrton had set fire to the powder!" returned
Pencroft, throwing himself into the lift together with Neb and the lad.

"But what has happened?" asked Gideon Spilett, quite stunned by this
unexpected catastrophe.

"Oh! this time, we shall know--" answered the engineer quickly.

"What shall we know?--"

"Later! later! Come, Spilett. The main point is that these pirates have
been exterminated!"

And Cyrus Harding, hurrying away the reporter and Ayrton, joined
Pencroft, Neb, and Herbert on the beach.

Nothing could be seen of the brig, not even her masts. After having been
raised by the water-spout, she had fallen on her side, and had sunk in that
position, doubtless in consequence of some enormous leak. But as in that
place the channel was not more than twenty feet in depth, it was certain
that the sides of the submerged brig would reappear at low water.

A few things from the wreck floated on the surface of the water, a raft
could be seen consisting of spare spars, coops of poultry with their
occupants still living, boxes and barrels, which gradually came to the
surface, after having escaped through the hatchways, but no pieces of the
wreck appeared, neither planks from the deck, nor timber from the hull,--
which rendered the sudden disappearance of the "Speedy" perfectly
inexplicable.

However, the two masts, which had been broken and escaped from the
shrouds and stays came up, and with their sails, some furled and the others
spread. But it was not necessary to wait for the tide to bring up these
riches, and Ayrton and Pencroft jumped into the boat with the intention of
towing the pieces of wreck either to the beach or to the islet. But just as
they were shoving off, an observation from Gideon Spilett arrested them.

"What about those six convicts who disembarked on the right bank of the
Mercy?" said he.

In fact, it would not do to forget that the six men whose boat had gone
to pieces on the rocks had landed at Flotsam Point.

They looked in that direction. None of the fugitives were visible. It was
probable that, having seen their vessel engulfed in the channel, they had
fled into the interior of the island.

"We will deal with them later," said Harding. "As they are armed, they
will still be dangerous; but as it is six against six, the chances are
equal. To the most pressing business first."

Ayrton and Pencroft pulled vigorously towards the wreck.

The sea was calm and the tide very high, as there had been a new moon but
two days before. A whole hour at least would elapse before the hull of the
brig could emerge from the water of the channel.

Ayrton and Pencroft were able to fasten the masts and spars by means of
ropes, the ends of which were carried to the beach. There, by the united
efforts of the settlers the pieces of wreck were hauled up. Then the boat
picked up all that was floating, coops, barrels, and boxes, which were
immediately carried to the Chimneys.

Several bodies floated also. Among them, Ayrton recognized that of Bob
Harvey, which he pointed out to his companion, saying with some emotion,--

"That is what I have been, Pencroft."

"But what you are no longer, brave Ayrton!" returned the sailor warmly.

It was singular enough that so few bodies floated. Only five or six were
counted, which were already being carried by the current towards the open
sea. Very probably the convicts had not had time to escape, and the ship
lying over on her side, the greater number of them had remained below. Now
the current, by carrying the bodies of these miserable men out to sea,
would spare the colonists the sad task of burying them in some corner of
their island.

For two hours, Cyrus Harding and his companions were solely occupied in
hauling up the spars on to the sand, and then in spreading the sails which
were perfectly uninjured, to dry. They spoke little, for they were absorbed
in their work, but what thoughts occupied their minds!

The possession of this brig, or rather all that she contained, was a
perfect mine of wealth. In fact, a ship is like a little world in
miniature, and the stores of the colony would be increased by a large
number of useful articles. It would be, on a large scale, equivalent to the
chest found at Flotsam Point.

"And besides," thought Pencroft, "why should it be impossible to refloat
the brig? If she has only a leak, that may be stopped up; a vessel from
three to four hundred tons, why she is a regular ship compared to our
'Bonadventure'! And we could go a long distance in her! We could go
anywhere we liked! Captain Harding, Ayrton and I must examine her! She
would be well worth the trouble!"

In fact, if the brig was still fit to navigate, the colonists' chances of
returning to their native land were singularly increased. But, to decide
this important question, it was necessary to wait until the tide was quite
low, so that every part of the brig's hull might be examined.

When their treasures had been safely conveyed on shore, Harding and his
companions agreed to devote some minutes to breakfast. They were almost
famished; fortunately, the larder was not far off, and Neb was noted for
being an expeditious cook. They breakfasted, therefore, near the Chimneys,
and during their repast, as may be supposed, nothing was talked of but the
event which had so miraculously saved the colony.

"Miraculous is the word," repeated Pencroft, "for it must be acknowledged
that those rascals blew up just at the right moment! Granite House was
beginning to be uncomfortable as a habitation!"

"And can you guess, Pencroft," asked the reporter, "how it happened, or
what can have occasioned the explosion?"

"Oh! Mr. Spilett, nothing is more simple," answered Pencroft. "A convict
vessel is not disciplined like a man-of-war! Convicts are not sailors. Of
course the powder-magazine was open, and as they were firing incessantly,
some careless or clumsy fellow just blew up the vessel!"

"Captain Harding," said Herbert, "what astonishes me is that the
explosion has not produced more effect. The report was not loud, and
besides there are so few planks and timbers torn out. It seems as if the
ship had rather foundered than blown up."

"Does that astonish you, my boy?" asked the engineer.

"Yes, captain."

"And it astonishes me also, Herbert," replied he, "but when we visit the
hull of the brig, we shall no doubt find the explanation of the matter."

"Why, captain," said Pencroft, "you don't suppose that the 'Speedy'
simply foundered like a ship which has struck on a rock?"

"Why not," observed Neb, "if there are rocks in the channel?"

"Nonsense, Neb," answered Pencroft, "you did not look at the right
moment. An instant before she sank, the brig, as I saw perfectly well, rose
on an enormous wave, and fell back on her larboard side. Now, if she had
only struck, she would have sunk quietly and gone to the bottom like an
honest vessel."

"It was just because she was not an honest vessel!" returned Neb.

"Well, we shall soon see, Pencroft," said the engineer.

"We shall soon see," rejoined the sailor, "but I would wager my head
there are no rocks in the channel. Look here, captain, to speak candidly,
do you mean to say that there is anything marvelous in the occurrence?"

Cyrus Harding did not answer.

"At any rate," said Gideon Spilett, "whether rock or explosion, you will
agree, Pencroft, that it occurred just in the nick of time!"

"Yes! yes!" replied the sailor, "but that is not the question. I ask
Captain Harding if he sees anything supernatural in all this."

"I cannot say, Pencroft," said the engineer. "That is all the answer I
can make."

A reply which did not satisfy Pencroft at all. He stuck to "an
explosion," and did not wish to give it up. He would never consent to admit
that in that channel, with its fine sandy bed, just like the beach, which
he had often crossed at low water, there could be an unknown rock.

And besides, at the time the brig foundered, it was high water, that is
to say, there was enough water to carry the vessel clear over any rocks
which would not be uncovered at low tide. Therefore, there could not have
been a collision. Therefore, the vessel had not struck. So she had blown
up.

And it must be confessed that the sailor's arguments were reasonable.

Towards half-past one, the colonists embarked in the boat to visit the
wreck. It was to be regretted that the brig's two boats had not been saved;
but one, as has been said, had gone to pieces at the mouth of the Mercy,
and was absolutely useless; the other had disappeared when the brig went
down, and had not again been seen, having doubtless been crushed.

The hull of the "Speedy" was just beginning to issue from the water. The
brig was lying right over on her side, for her masts being broken, pressed
down by the weight of the ballast displaced by the shock, the keel was
visible along her whole length. She had been regularly turned over by the
inexplicable but frightful submarine action, which had been at the same
time manifested by an enormous water-spout.

The settlers rowed round the hull, and in proportion as the tide went
down, they could ascertain, if not the cause which had occasioned the
catastrophe, at least the effect produced.

Towards the bows, on both sides of the keel, seven or eight feet from the
beginning of the stem, the sides of the brig were frightfully torn. Over a
length of at least twenty feet there opened two large leaks, which would be
impossible to stop up. Not only had the copper sheathing and the planks
disappeared, reduced, no doubt, to powder, but also the ribs, the iron
bolts, and treenalls which united them. From the entire length of the hull
to the stern the false keel had been separated with an unaccountable
violence, and the keel itself, torn from the carline in several places, was
split in all its length.

"I've a notion!" exclaimed Pencroft, "that this vessel will be difficult
to get afloat again."

"It will be impossible," said Ayrton.

"At any rate," observed Gideon Spilett to the sailor, "the explosion, if
there has been one, has produced singular effects! It has split the lower
part of the hull, instead of blowing up the deck and topsides! These great
rents appear rather to have been made by a rock than by the explosion of a
powder-magazine."

"There is not a rock in the channel!" answered the sailor. "I will admit
anything you like, except the rock."

"Let us try to penetrate into the interior of the brig," said the
engineer; "perhaps we shall then know what to think of the cause of her
destruction."

This was the best thing to be done, and it was agreed, besides, to take
an inventory of all the treasures on board, and to arrange their
preservation.

Access to the interior of the brig was now easy. The tide was still going
down and the deck was practicable. The ballast, composed of heavy masses of
iron, had broken through in several places. The noise of the sea could be
heard as it rushed out at the holes in the hull.

Cyrus Harding and his companions, hatchets in hand, advanced along the
shattered deck. Cases of all sorts encumbered it, and, as they had been but
a very short time in the water, their contents were perhaps uninjured.

They then busied themselves in placing all this cargo in safety. The
water would not return for several hours, and these hours must be employed
in the most profitable way. Ayrton and Pencroft had, at the entrance made
in the hull, discovered tackle, which would serve to hoist up the barrels
and chests. The boat received them and transported them to the shore. They
took the articles as they came, intending to sort them afterwards.

At any rate, the settlers saw at once, with extreme satisfaction, that
the brig possessed a very varied cargo--an assortment of all sorts of
articles, utensils, manufactured goods, and tools--such as the ships which
make the great coasting-trade of Polynesia are usually laden with. It was
probable that they would find a little of everything, and they agreed that
it was exactly what was necessary for the colony of Lincoln Island.

However--and Cyrus Harding observed it in silent astonishment--not only, as
has been said, had the hull of the brig enormously suffered from the shock,
whatever it was, that had occasioned the catastrophe, but the interior
arrangements had been destroyed, especially towards the bows. Partitions
and stanchions were smashed, as if some tremendous shell had burst in the
interior of the brig. The colonists could easily go fore and aft, after
having removed the cases as they were extricated. They were not heavy
bales, which would have been difficult to remove, but simple packages, of
which the stowage, besides, was no longer recognizable.

The colonists then reached the stern of the brig--the part formerly
surmounted by the poop. It was there that, following Ayrton's directions,
they must look for the powder-magazine. Cyrus Harding thought that it had
not exploded; that it was possible some barrels might be saved, and that
the powder, which is usually enclosed in metal coverings might not have
suffered from contact with the water.

This, in fact, was just what had happened. They extricated from among a
large number of shot twenty barrels, the insides of which were lined with
copper. Pencroft was convinced by the evidence of his own eyes that the
destruction of the "Speedy" could not be attributed to an explosion. That
part of the hull in which the magazine was situated was, moreover, that
which had suffered least.

"It may be so," said the obstinate sailor; "but as to a rock, there is
not one in the channel!"

"Then, how did it happen?" asked Herbert.

"I don't know," answered Pencroft, "Captain Harding doesn't know, and
nobody knows or ever will know!"

Several hours had passed during these researches, and the tide began to
flow. Work must be suspended for the present. There was no fear of the brig
being carried away by the sea, for she was already fixed as firmly as if
moored by her anchors.

They could, therefore, without inconvenience, wait until the next day to
resume operations; but, as to the vessel itself, she was doomed, and it
would be best to hasten to save the remains of her hull, as she would not
be long in disappearing in the quicksands of the channel.

It was now five o'clock in the evening. It had been a hard day's work for
the men. They ate with good appetite, and notwithstanding their fatigue,
they could not resist, after dinner, their desire of inspecting the cases
which composed the cargo of the "Speedy."

Most of them contained clothes, which, as may be believed, was well
received. There were enough to clothe a whole colony--linen for every one's
use, shoes for every one's feet.

"We are too rich!" exclaimed Pencroft, "But what are we going to do with
all this?"

And every moment burst forth the hurrahs of the delighted sailor when he
caught sight of the barrels of gunpowder, firearms and sidearms, balls of
cotton, implements of husbandry, carpenter's, joiner's, and blacksmith's
tools, and boxes of all kinds of seeds, not in the least injured by their
short sojourn in the water. Ah, two years before, how these things would
have been prized! And now, even though the industrious colonists had
provided themselves with tools, these treasures would find their use.

There was no want of space in the store-rooms of Granite House, but that
daytime would not allow them to stow away the whole. It would not do also
to forget that the six survivors of the "Speedy's" crew had landed on the
island, for they were in all probability scoundrels of the deepest dye, and
it was necessary that the colonists should be on their guard against them.
Although the bridges over the Mercy were raised, the convicts would not be
stopped by a river or a stream and, rendered desperate, these wretches
would be capable of anything.

They would see later what plan it would be best to follow; but in the
meantime it was necessary to mount guard over cases and packages heaped up
near the Chimneys, and thus the settlers employed themselves in turn during
the night.

The morning came, however, without the convicts having attempted any
attack. Master Jup and Top, on guard at the foot of Granite House, would
have quickly given the alarm. The three following day--the 19th, 20th, and
21st of October--were employed in saving everything of value, or of any use
whatever, either from the cargo or rigging of the brig. At low tide they
overhauled the hold--at high tide they stowed away the rescued articles. A
great part of the copper sheathing had been torn from the hull, which every
day sank lower. But before the sand had swallowed the heavy things which
had fallen through the bottom, Ayrton and Pencroft, diving to the bed of
the channel, recovered the chains and anchors of the brig, the iron of her
ballast, and even four guns, which, floated by means of empty casks, were
brought to shore.

It may be seen that the arsenal of the colony had gained by the wreck, as
well as the storerooms of Granite House. Pencroft, always enthusiastic in
his projects, already spoke of constructing a battery to command the
channel and the mouth of the river. With four guns, he engaged to prevent
any fleet, "however powerful it might be," from venturing into the waters
of Lincoln Island!

In the meantime, when nothing remained of the brig but a useless hulk,
bad weather came on, which soon finished her. Cyrus Harding had intended to
blow her up, so as to collect the remains on the shore, but a strong gale
from the northeast and a heavy sea compelled him to economize his powder.

In fact, on the night of the 23rd, the hull entirely broke up, and some
of the wreck was cast up on the beach.

As to the papers on board, it is useless to say that, although he
carefully searched the lockers of the poop, Harding did not discover any
trace of them. The pirates had evidently destroyed everything that
concerned either the captain or the owners of the "Speedy," and, as the
name of her port was not painted on her counter, there was nothing which
would tell them her nationality. However, by the shape of her boats Ayrton
and Pencroft believed that the brig was of English build.

A week after the castrophe--or, rather, after the fortunate, though
inexplicable, event to which the colony owed its preservation--nothing more
could be seen of the vessel, even at low tide. The wreck had disappeared,
and Granite House was enriched by nearly all it had contained.

However, the mystery which enveloped its strange destruction would
doubtless never have been cleared away if, on the 30th of November, Neb,
strolling on the beach, had not found a piece of a thick iron cylinder,
bearing traces of explosion. The edges of this cylinder were twisted and
broken, as if they had been subjected to the action of some explosive
substance.

Neb brought this piece of metal to his master, who was then occupied with
his companions in the workshop of the Chimneys.

Cyrus Harding examined the cylinder attentively, then, turning to
Pencroft,--

"You persist, my friend," said he, "in maintaining that the 'Speedy' was
not lost in consequence of a collision?"

"Yes, captain," answered the sailor. "You know as well as I do that there
are no rocks in the channel."

"But suppose she had run against this piece of iron?" said the engineer,
showing the broken cylinder.

"What, that bit of pipe!" exclaimed Pencroft in a tone of perfect
incredulity.

"My friends," resumed Harding, "you remember that before she foundered
the brig rose on the summit of a regular waterspout?"

"Yes, captain," replied Herbert.

"Well, would you like to know what occasioned that waterspout? It was
this," said the engineer, holding up the broken tube.

"That?" returned Pencroft.

"Yes! This cylinder is all that remains of a torpedo!"

"A torpedo!" exclaimed the engineer's companions.

"And who put the torpedo there?" demanded Pencroft, who did not like to
yield.

"All that I can tell you is, that it was not I," answered Cyrus Harding;
"but it was there, and you have been able to judge of its incomparable
power!"



Chapter 5

So, then, all was explained by the submarine explosion of this torpedo.
Cyrus Harding could not be mistaken, as, during the war of the Union, he
had had occasion to try these terrible engines of destruction. It was under
the action of this cylinder, charged with some explosive substance, nitro-
glycerine, picrate, or some other material of the same nature, that the
water of the channel had been raised like a dome, the bottom of the brig
crushed in, and she had sunk instantly, the damage done to her hull being so
considerable that it was impossible to refloat her. The "Speedy" had not
been able to withstand a torpedo that would have destroyed an ironclad as
easily as a fishing-boat!

Yes! all was explained, everything--except the presence of the torpedo in
the waters of the channel!

"My friends, then," said Cyrus Harding, "we can no longer be in doubt as
to the presence of a mysterious being, a castaway like us, perhaps,
abandoned on our island, and I say this in order that Ayrton may be
acquainted with all the strange events which have occurred during these two
years. Who this beneficent stranger is, whose intervention has, so
fortunately for us, been manifested on many occasions, I cannot imagine.
What his object can be in acting thus, in concealing himself after
rendering us so many services, I cannot understand: But his services are
not the less real, and are of such a nature that only a man possessed of
prodigious power, could render them. Ayrton is indebted to him as much as
we are, for, if it was the stranger who saved me from the waves after the
fall from the balloon, evidently it was he who wrote the document, who
placed the bottle in the channel, and who has made known to us the
situation of our companion. I will add that it was he who guided that
chest, provided with everything we wanted, and stranded it on Flotsam
Point; that it was he who lighted that fire on the heights of the island,
which permitted you to land; that it was he who fired that bullet found in
the body of the peccary; that it was he who plunged that torpedo into the
channel, which destroyed the brig; in a word, that all those inexplicable
events, for which we could not assign a reason, are due to this mysterious
being. Therefore, whoever he may be, whether shipwrecked, or exiled on our
island, we shall be ungrateful, if we think ourselves freed from gratitude
towards him. We have contracted a debt, and I hope that we shall one day
pay it."

"You are right in speaking thus, my dear Cyrus," replied Gideon Spilett.
"Yes, there is an almost all-powerful being, hidden in some part of the
island, and whose influence has been singularly useful to our colony. I
will add that the unknown appears to possess means of action which border
on the supernatural, if in the events of practical life the supernatural
were recognizable. Is it he who is in secret communication with us by the
well in Granite House, and has he thus a knowledge of all our plans? Was it
he who threw us that bottle, when the vessel made her first cruise? Was it
he who threw Top out of the lake, and killed the dugong? Was it he, who as
everything leads us to believe, saved you from the waves, and that under
circumstances in which any one else would not have been able to act? If it
was he, he possesses a power which renders him master of the elements."

The reporter's reasoning was just, and every one felt it to be so.

"Yes," rejoined Cyrus Harding, "if the intervention of a human being is
not more questionable for us, I agree that he has at his disposal means of
action beyond those possessed by humanity. There is a mystery still, but if
we discover the man, the mystery will be discovered also. The question,
then, is, ought we to respect the incognito of this generous being, or
ought we to do everything to find him out? What is your opinion on the
matter?"

"My opinion," said Pencroft, "is that, whoever he may be, he is a brave
man, and he has my esteem!"

"Be it so," answered Harding, "but that is not an answer, Pencroft."

"Master," then said Neb, "my idea is, that we may search as long as we
like for this gentleman whom you are talking about, but that we shall not
discover him till he pleases."

"That's not bad, what you say, Neb," observed Pencroft.

"I am of Neb's opinion," said Gideon Spilett, "but that is no reason for
not attempting the adventure. Whether we find this mysterious being or not,
we shall at least have fulfilled our duty towards him."

"And you, my boy, give us your opinion," said the engineer, turning to
Herbert.

"Oh," cried Herbert, his countenance full of animation, "how I should
like to thank him, he who saved you first, and who has now saved us!"

"Of course, my boy," replied Pencroft, "so would I and all of us. I am
not inquisitive, but I would give one of my eyes to see this individual
face to face! It seems to me that he must be handsome, tall, strong, with a
splendid beard, radiant hair, and that he must be seated on clouds, a great
ball in his hands!"

"But, Pencroft," answered Spilett, "you are describing a picture of the
Creator."

"Possibly, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "but that is how I imagine
him!"

"And you, Ayrton?" asked the engineer.

"Captain Harding," replied Ayrton, "I can give you no better advice in
this matter. Whatever you do will be best; when you wish me to join you in
your researches, I am ready to follow you.

"I thank you, Ayrton," answered Cyrus Harding, "but I should like a more
direct answer to the question I put to you. You are our companion; you have
already endangered your life several times for us, and you, as well as the
rest, ought to be consulted in the matter of any important decision. Speak,
therefore."

"Captain Harding," replied Ayrton, "I think that we ought to do
everything to discover this unknown benefactor. Perhaps he is alone.
Perhaps he is suffering. Perhaps he has a life to be renewed. I, too, as
you said, have a debt of gratitude to pay him. It was he, it could be only
he who must have come to Tabor Island, who found there the wretch you knew,
and who made known to you that there was an unfortunate man there to be
saved. Therefore it is, thanks to him, that I have become a man again. No,
I will never forget him!"

"That is settled, then," said Cyrus Harding. "We will begin our
researches as soon as possible. We will not leave a corner of the island
unexplored. We will search into its most secret recesses, and will hope
that our unknown friend will pardon us in consideration of our intentions!"

For several days the colonists were actively employed in haymaking and
the harvest. Before putting their project of exploring the yet unknown
parts of the island into execution, they wished to get all possible work
finished. It was also the time for collecting the various vegetables from
the Tabor Island plants. All was stowed away, and happily there was no want
of room in Granite House, in which they might have housed all the treasures
of the island. The products of the colony were there, methodically
arranged, and in a safe place, as may be believed, sheltered as much from
animals as from man.

There was no fear of damp in the middle of that thick mass of granite.
Many natural excavations situated in the upper passage were enlarged either
by pick-axe or mine, and Granite House thus became a general warehouse,
containing all the provisions, arms, tools, and spare utensils--in a word,
all the stores of the colony.

As to the guns obtained from the brig, they were pretty pieces of
ordnance, which, at Pencroft's entreaty, were hoisted by means of tackle
and pulleys, right up into Granite House; embrasures were made between the
windows, and the shining muzzles of the guns could soon be seen through the
granite cliff. From this height they commanded all Union Bay. It was like a
little Gibraltar, and any vessel anchored off the islet would inevitably be
exposed to the fire of this aerial battery.

"Captain," said Pencroft one day, it was the 8th of November, "now that
our fortifications are finished, it would be a good thing if we tried the
range of our guns."

"Do you think that is useful?" asked the engineer.

"It is more than useful, it is necessary! Without that how are we to know
to what distance we can send one of those pretty shot with which we are
provided?"

"Try them, Pencroft," replied the engineer. "However, I think that in
making the experiment, we ought to employ, not the ordinary powder, the
supply of which, I think, should remain untouched, but the pyroxyle which
will never fail us."

"Can the cannon support the shock of the pyroxyle?" asked the reporter,
who was not less anxious than Pencroft to try the artillery of Granite
House.

"I believe so. However," added the engineer, "we will be prudent."
The engineer was right in thinking that the guns were of excellent make.
Made of forged steel, and breech-loaders, they ought consequently to be
able to bear a considerable charge, and also have an enormous range. In
fact, as regards practical effect, the transit described by the ball ought
to be as extended as possible, and this tension could only be obtained
under the condition that the projectile should be impelled with a very
great initial velocity.

"Now," said Harding to his companions, "the initial velocity is in
proportion to the quantity of powder used. In the fabrication of these
pieces, everything depends on employing a metal with the highest possible
power of resistance, and steel is incontestably that metal of all others
which resists the best. I have, therefore, reason to believe that our guns
will bear without risk the expansion of the pyroxyle gas, and will give
excellent results."

"We shall be a great deal more certain of that when we have tried them!"
answered Pencroft.

It is unnecessary to say that the four cannons were in perfect order.
Since they had been taken from the water, the sailor had bestowed great
care upon them. How many hours he had spent, in rubbing, greasing, and
polishing them, and in cleaning the mechanism! And now the pieces were as
brilliant as if they had been on board a frigate of the United States Navy.

On this day, therefore, in presence of all the members of the colony,
including Master Jup and Top, the four cannon were successively tried. They
were charged with pyroxyle, taking into consideration its explosive power,
which, as has been said, is four times that of ordinary powder: the
projectile to be fired was cylindroconic.

Pencroft, holding the end of the quick-match, stood ready to fire.

At Harding's signal, he fired. The shot, passing over the islet, fell
into the sea at a distance which could not be calculated with exactitude.

The second gun was pointed at the rocks at the end of Flotsam Point, and
the shot striking a sharp rock nearly three miles from Granite House, made
it fly into splinters. It was Herbert who had pointed this gun and fired
it, and very proud he was of his first shot. Pencroft only was prouder than
he! Such a shot, the honor of which belonged to his dear boy.

The third shot, aimed this time at the downs forming the upper side of
Union Bay, struck the sand at a distance of four miles, then having
ricocheted: was lost in the sea in a cloud of spray.

For the fourth piece Cyrus Harding slightly increased the charge, so as
to try its extreme range. Then, all standing aside for fear of its
bursting, the match was lighted by means of a long cord.

A tremendous report was heard, but the piece had held good, and the
colonists rushing to the windows, saw the shot graze the rocks of Mandible
Cape, nearly five miles from Granite House, and disappear in Shark Gulf.

"Well, captain," exclaimed Pencroft, whose cheers might have rivaled the
reports themselves, "what do you say of our battery? All the pirates in the
Pacific have only to present themselves before Granite House! Not one can
land there now without our permission!"

"Believe me, Pencroft," replied the engineer, "it would be better not to
have to make the experiment."

"Well," said the sailor, "what ought to be done with regard to those six
villains who are roaming about the island? Are we to leave them to overrun
our forests, our fields, our plantations? These pirates are regular
jaguars, and it seems to me we ought not to hesitate to treat them as such!
What do you think, Ayrton?" added Pencroft, turning to his companion.

Ayrton hesitated at first to reply, and Cyrus Harding regretted that
Pencroft had so thoughtlessly put this question. And he was much moved when
Ayrton replied in a humble tone,--

"I have been one of those jaguars, Mr. Pencroft. I have no right to
speak."

And with a slow step he walked away.

Pencroft understood.

"What a brute I am!" he exclaimed. "Poor Ayrton! He has as much right to
speak here as any one!"

"Yes," said Gideon Spilett, "but his reserve does him honor, and it is
right to respect the feeling which he has about his sad past."

"Certainly, Mr. Spilett," answered the sailor, "and there is no fear of
my doing so again. I would rather bite my tongue off than cause Ayrton any
pain! But to return to the question. It seems to me that these ruffians
have no right to any pity, and that we ought to rid the island of them as
soon as possible."

"Is that your opinion, Pencroft?" asked the engineer.

"Quite my opinion."

"And before hunting them mercilessly, you would not wait until they had
committed some fresh act of hostility against us?"

"Isn't what they have done already enough?" asked Pencroft, who did not
understand these scruples.

"They may adopt other sentiments!" said Harding, "and perhaps repent."

"They repent!" exclaimed the sailor, shrugging his shoulders.

"Pencroft, think of Ayrton!" said Herbert, taking the sailor's hand. "He
became an honest man again!"

Pencroft looked at his companions one after the other. He had never
thought of his proposal being met with any objection. His rough nature
could not allow that they ought to come to terms with the rascals who had
landed on the island with Bob Harvey's accomplices, the murderers of the
crew of the "Speedy," and he looked upon them as wild beasts which ought to
be destroyed without delay and without remorse.

"Come!" said be. "Everybody is against me! You wish to be generous to
those villains! Very well; I hope we mayn't repent it!"

"What danger shall we run," said Herbert, "if we take care to be always
on our guard?"

"Hum!" observed the reporter, who had not given any decided opinion.
"They are six and well armed. If they each lay hid in a corner, and each
fired at one of us, they would soon be masters of the colony!"

"Why have they not done so?" said Herbert. "No doubt because it was not
their interest to do it. Besides, we are six also."

"Well, well!" replied Pencroft, whom no reasoning could have convinced.
"Let us leave these good people to do what they like, and don't think
anything more about them!"

"Come, Pencroft," said Neb, "don't make yourself out so bad as all that!
Suppose one of these unfortunate men were here before you, within good
range of your guns, you would not fire."

"I would fire on him as I would on a mad dog, Neb," replied Pencroft
coldly.

"Pencroft," said the engineer, "you have always shown much deference to
my advice; will you, in this matter, yield to me?"

"I will do as you please, Captain Harding," answered the sailor, who was
not at all convinced.

"Very well, wait, and we will not attack them unless we are attacked
first."

Thus their behavior towards the pirates was agreed upon, although
Pencroft augured nothing good from it. They were not to attack them, but
were to be on their guard. After all, the island was large and fertile. If
any sentiment of honesty yet remained in the bottom of their hearts, these
wretches might perhaps be reclaimed. Was it not their interest in the
situation in which they found themselves to begin a new life? At any rate,
for humanity's sake alone, it would be right to wait. The colonists would
no longer as before, be able to go and come without fear. Hitherto they had
only wild beasts to guard against, and now six convicts of the worst
description, perhaps, were roaming over their island. It was serious,
certainly, and to less brave men, it would have been security lost! No
matter! At present, the colonists had reason on their side against
Pencroft. Would they be right in the future? That remained to be seen.



Chapter 6

However, the chief business of the colonists was to make that complete
exploration of the island which had been decided upon, and which would have
two objects: to discover the mysterious being whose existence was now
indisputable, and at the same time to find out what had become of the
pirates, what retreat they had chosen, what sort of life they were leading,
and what was to be feared from them. Cyrus Harding wished to set out
without delay; but as the expedition would be of some days duration, it
appeared best to load the cart with different materials and tools in order
to facilitate the organization of the encampments. One of the onagers,
however, having hurt its leg, could not be harnessed at present, and a few
days' rest was necessary. The departure was, therefore, put off for a week,
until the 20th of November. The month of November in this latitude
corresponds to the month of May in the northern zones. It was, therefore,
the fine season. The sun was entering the tropic of Capricorn, and gave the
longest days in the year. The time was, therefore, very favorable for the
projected expedition, which, if it did not accomplish its principal object,
would at any rate be fruitful in discoveries, especially of natural
productions, since Harding proposed to explore those dense forests of the
Far West, which stretched to the extremity of the Serpentine Peninsula.

During the nine days which preceded their departure, it was agreed that
the work on Prospect Heights should be finished off.

Moreover, it was necessary for Ayrton to return to the corral, where the
domesticated animals required his care. It was decided that he should spend
two days there, and return to Granite House after having liberally supplied
the stables.

As he was about to start, Harding asked him if he would not like one of
them to accompany him, observing that the island was less safe than
formerly. Ayrton replied that this was unnecessary, as he was enough for
the work, and that besides he apprehended no danger. If anything occurred
at the corral, or in the neighborhood, he could instantly warn the
colonists by sending a telegram to Granite House.

Ayrton departed at dawn on the 9th, taking the cart drawn by one onager,
and two hours after, the electric wire announced that he had found all in
order at the corral.

During these two days Harding busied himself in executing a project which
would completely guard Granite House against any surprise. It was necessary
to completely conceal the opening of the old outlet, which was already
walled up and partly hidden under grass and plants, at the southern angle
of Lake Grant. Nothing was easier, since if the level of the lake was
raised two or three feet, the opening would be quite beneath it. Now, to
raise this level they had only to establish a dam at the two openings made
by the lake, and by which were fed Creek Glycerine and Falls River.

The colonists worked with a will, and the two dams which besides did not
exceed eight feet in width by three in height, were rapidly erected by
means of well-cemented blocks of stone.

This work finished, it would have been impossible to guess
that at that part of the lake, there existed a subterranean passage
through which the overflow of the lake formerly escaped.

Of course the little stream which fed the reservoir of Granite House and
worked the lift, had been carefully preserved, and the water could not
fail. The lift once raised, this sure and comfortable retreat would be safe
from any surprise.

This work had been so quickly done, that Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and
Herbert found time to make an expedition to Port Balloon, The sailor was
very anxious to know if the little creek in which the "Bonadventure" was
moored, had been visited by the convicts.

"These gentlemen," he observed, "landed on the south coast, and if they
followed the shore, it is to be feared that they may have discovered the
little harbor, and in that case, I wouldn't give half-a-dollar for our
'Bonadventure.'"

Pencroft's apprehensions were not without foundation, and a visit to Port
Balloon appeared to be very desirable. The sailor and his companions set
off on the 10th of November, after dinner, well armed. Pencroft,
ostentatiously slipping two bullets into each barrel of his rifle, shook
his head in a way which betokened nothing good to any one who approached
too near him, whether "man or beast," as he said. Gideon Spilett and
Herbert also took their guns, and about three o'clock all three left
Granite House.

Neb accompanied them to the turn of the Mercy, and after they had
crossed, he raised the bridge. It was agreed that a gunshot should announce
the colonists' return, and that at the signal Neb should return and
reestablish the communication between the two banks of the river.

The little band advanced directly along the road which led to the
southern coast of the island. This was only a distance of three miles and a
half, but Gideon Spilett and his companions took two hours to traverse it.
They examined all the border of the road, the thick forest, as well as
Tabor Marsh. They found no trace of the fugitives who, no doubt, not having
yet discovered the number of the colonists, or the means of defense which
they had at their disposal, had gained the less accessible parts of the
island.

Arrived at Port Balloon, Pencroft saw with extreme satisfaction that the
"Bonadventure" was tranquilly floating in the narrow creek. However, Port
Balloon was so well hidden among high rocks, that it could scarcely be
discovered either from the land or the sea.

"Come," said Pencroft, "the blackguards have not been there yet. Long
grass suits reptiles best, and evidently we shall find them in the Far
West."

"And it's very lucky, for if they had found the 'Bonadventure'," added
Herbert, "they would have gone off in her, and we should have been
prevented from returning to Tabor Island."

"Indeed," remarked the reporter, "it will be important to take a document
there which will make known the situation of Lincoln Island, and Ayrton's
new residence, in case the Scotch yacht returns to fetch him."

"Well, the 'Bonadventure' is always there, Mr. Spilett," answered the
sailor. "She and her crew are ready to start at a moment's notice!"

"I think, Pencroft, that that is a thing to be done after our exploration
of the island is finished. It is possible after all that the stranger, if
we manage to find him, may know as much about Tabor Island as about Lincoln
Island. Do not forget that he is certainly the author of the document, and
he may, perhaps, know how far we may count on the return of the yacht!"

"But!" exclaimed Pencroft, "who in the world can he be? The fellow knows
us and we know nothing about him! If he is a simple castaway, why should he
conceal himself! We are honest men, I suppose, and the society of honest
men isn't unpleasant to any one. Did he come here voluntarily? Can he leave
the island if he likes? Is he here still? Will he remain any longer?"

Chatting thus, Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert got on board and
looked about the deck of the "Bonadventure." All at once, the sailor having
examined the bitts to which the cable of the anchor was secured,--

"Hallo," he cried, "this is queer!"

"What is the matter, Pencroft?" asked the reporter.

"The matter is, that it was not I who made this knot!"

And Pencroft showed a rope which fastened the cable to the bitt itself.

"What, it was not you?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"No! I can swear to it. This is a reef knot, and I always make a running
bowline."

"You must be mistaken, Pencroft."

"I am not mistaken!" declared the sailor. "My hand does it so naturally,
and one's hand is never mistaken!"

"Then can the convicts have been on board?" asked Herbert.

"I know nothing about that," answered Pencroft, "but what is certain, is
that some one has weighed the 'Bonadventure's' anchor and dropped it again!
And look here, here is another proof! The cable of the anchor has been run
out, and its service is no longer at the hawse-hole. I repeat that some one
has been using our vessel!"

"But if the convicts had used her, they would have pillaged her, or
rather gone off with her."

"Gone off! where to--to Tabor Island?" replied Pencroft. "Do you think,
they would risk themselves in a boat of such small tonnage?"

"We must, besides, be sure that they know of the islet," rejoined the
reporter.

"However that may be," said the sailor, "as sure as my name is
Bonadventure Pencroft, of the Vineyard, our 'Bonadventure' has sailed
without us!"

The sailor was positive that neither Gideon Spilett nor Herbert could
dispute his statement. It was evident that the vessel had been moved, more
or less, since Pencroft had brought her to Port Balloon. As to the sailor,
he had not the slightest doubt that the anchor had been raised and then
dropped again. Now, what was the use of these two maneuvers, unless the
vessel had been employed in some expedition?

"But how was it we did not see the 'Bonadventure' pass in the sight of
the island?" observed the reporter, who was anxious to bring forward every
possible objection.

"Why, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "they would only have to start in
the night with a good breeze, and they would be out of sight of the island
in two hours."

"Well," resumed Gideon Spilett, "I ask again, what object could the
convicts have had in using the 'Bonadventure,' and why, after they had made
use of her, should they have brought her back to port?"

"Why, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "we must put that among the
unaccountable things, and not think anything more about it. The chief thing
is that the 'Bonadventure' was there, and she is there now. Only,
unfortunately, if the convicts take her a second time, we shall very likely
not find her again in her place!"

"Then, Pencroft," said Herbert, "would it not be wisest to bring the
'Bonadventure' off to Granite House?"

"Yes and no," answered Pencroft, "or rather no. The mouth of the Mercy is
a bad place for a vessel, and the sea is heavy there."

"But by hauling her up on the sand, to the foot of the Chimneys?"

"Perhaps yes," replied Pencroft. "At any rate, since we must leave
Granite House for a long expedition, I think the 'Bonadventure' will be
safer here during our absence, and we shall do best to leave her here until
the island is rid of these blackguards."

"That is exactly my opinion," said the reporter. "At any rate in the
event of bad weather, she will not be exposed here as she would be at the
mouth of the Mercy."

"But suppose the convicts pay her another visit," said Herbert.

"Well, my boy," replied Pencroft, "not finding her here, they would not
be long in finding her on the sands of Granite House, and, during our
absence, nothing could hinder them from seizing her! I agree, therefore,
with Mr. Spilett, that she must be left in Port Balloon. But, if on our
return we have not rid the island of those rascals, it will be prudent to
bring our boat to Granite House, until the time when we need not fear any
unpleasant visits."

"That's settled. Let us be off," said the reporter.

Pencroft, Herbert, and Gideon Spilett, on their return to Granite House,
told the engineer all that had passed, and the latter approved of their
arrangements both for the present and the future. He also promised the
sailor that he would study that part of the channel situated between the
islet and the coast, so as to ascertain if it would not be possible to make
an artificial harbor there by means of dams. In this way, the
"Bonadventure" would be always within reach, under the eyes of the
colonists, and if necessary, under lock and key.

That evening a telegram was sent to Ayrton, requesting him to bring from
the corral a couple of goats, which Neb wished to acclimatize to the
plateau. Singularly enough, Ayrton did not acknowledge the receipt of the
despatch, as he was accustomed to do. This could not but astonish the
engineer. But it might be that Ayrton was not at that moment in the corral,
or even that he was on his way back to Granite House. In fact, two days had
already passed since his departure, and it had been decided that on the
evening of the 10th or at the latest the morning of the 11th, he should
return. The colonists waited, therefore, for Ayrton to appear on Prospect
Heights. Neb and Herbert even watched at the bridge so as to be ready to
lower it the moment their companion presented himself.

But up to ten in the evening, there were no signs of Ayrton. It was,
therefore, judged best to send a fresh despatch, requiring an immediate
reply.

The bell of the telegraph at Granite House remained mute.

The colonists' uneasiness was great. What had happened? Was Ayrton no
longer at the corral, or if he was still there, had he no longer control
over his movements? Could they go to the corral in this dark night?

They consulted. Some wished to go, the others to remain.

"But," said Herbert, "perhaps some accident has happened to the
telegraphic apparatus, so that it works no longer?"

"That may be," said the reporter.

"Wait till to-morrow," replied Cyrus Harding. "It is possible, indeed,
that Ayrton has not received our despatch, or even that we have not
received his."

They waited, of course not without some anxiety.

At dawn of day, the 11th of November, Harding again sent the electric
current along the wire and received no reply.

He tried again: the same result.

"Off to the corral," said he.

"And well armed!" added Pencroft.

It was immediately decided that Granite House should not be left alone
and that Neb should remain there. After having accompanied his friends to
Creek Glycerine, he raised the bridge; and waiting behind a tree he watched
for the return of either his companions or Ayrton.

In the event of the pirates presenting themselves and attempting to force
the passage, he was to endeavor to stop them by firing on them, and as a
last resource he was to take refuge in Granite House, where, the lift once
raised, he would be in safety.

Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft were to repair to the
corral, and if they did not find Ayrton, search the neighboring woods.

At six o'clock in the morning, the engineer and his three companions had
passed Creek Glycerine, and Neb posted himself behind a small mound crowned
by several dragon trees, on the left bank of the stream.

The colonists, after leaving the plateau of Prospect Heights, immediately
took the road to the corral. They shouldered their guns, ready to fire on
the slightest hostile demonstration. The two rifles and the two guns had
been loaded with ball.

The wood was thick on each side of the road and might easily have
concealed the convicts, who owing to their weapons would have been really
formidable.

The colonists walked rapidly and in silence. Top preceded them, sometimes
running on the road, sometimes taking a ramble into the wood, but always
quiet and not appearing to fear anything unusual. And they could be sure
that the faithful dog would not allow them to be surprised, but would bark
at the least appearance of danger.

Cyrus Harding and his companions followed beside the road the wire which
connected the corral with Granite House. After walking for nearly two
miles, they had not as yet discovered any explanation of the difficulty.
The posts were in good order, the wire regularly extended. However, at that
moment the engineer observed that the wire appeared to be slack, and on
arriving at post No. 74, Herbert, who was in advance stopped, exclaiming,--

"The wire is broken!"

His companions hurried forward and arrived at the spot where the lad was
standing. The post was rooted up and lying across the path. The unexpected
explanation of the difficulty was here, and it was evident that the
despatches from Granite House had not been received at the corral, nor
those from the corral at Granite House.

"It wasn't the wind that blew down this post," observed Pencroft.

"No," replied Gideon Spilett. "The earth has been dug up round its foot,
and it has been torn up by the hand of man."

"Besides, the wire is broken," added Herbert, showing that the wire had
been snapped.

"Is the fracture recent?" asked Harding.

"Yes," answered Herbert, "it has certainly been done quite lately."

"To the corral! to the corral!" exclaimed the sailor.

The colonists were now half way between Granite House and the corral,
having still two miles and a half to go. They pressed forward with
redoubled speed.

Indeed, it was to be feared that some serious accident had occurred in
the corral. No doubt, Ayrton might have sent a telegram which had not
arrived, but this was not the reason why his companions were so uneasy,
for, a more unaccountable circumstance, Ayrton, who had promised to return
the evening before, had not reappeared. In short, it was not without a
motive that all communication had been stopped between the corral and
Granite House, and who but the convicts could have any interest in
interrupting this communication?

The settlers hastened on, their hearts oppressed with anxiety. They were
sincerely attached to their new companion. Were they to find him struck
down by the hands of those of whom he was formerly the leader?

Soon they arrived at the place where the road led along the side of the
little stream which flowed from the Red Creek and watered the meadows of
the corral. They then moderated their pace so that they should not be out
of breath at the moment when a struggle might be necessary. Their guns were
in their hands ready cocked. The forest was watched on every side. Top
uttered sullen groans which were rather ominous.

At last the palisade appeared through the trees. No trace of any damage
could be seen. The gate was shut as usual. Deep silence reigned in the
corral. Neither the accustomed bleating of the sheep nor Ayrton's voice
could be heard.

"Let us enter," said Cyrus Harding.

And the engineer advanced, while his companions, keeping watch about
twenty paces behind him, were ready to fire at a moment's notice.

Harding raised the inner latch of the gate and was about to push it back,
when Top barked loudly. A report sounded and was responded to by a cry of
pain.

Herbert, struck by a bullet, lay stretched on the ground.



Chapter 7

At Herbert's cry, Pencroft, letting his gun fall, rushed towards him.

"They have killed him!" he cried. "My boy! They have killed him!"

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett ran to Herbert.

The reporter listened to ascertain if the poor lad's heart was still
beating.

"He lives," said he, "but he must be carried--"

"To Granite House? that is impossible!" replied the engineer.

"Into the corral, then!" said Pencroft.

"In a moment," said Harding.

And he ran round the left corner of the palisade. There he found a
convict, who aiming at him, sent a ball through his hat. In a few seconds,
before he had even time to fire his second barrel, he fell, struck to the
heart by Harding's dagger, more sure even than his gun.

During this time, Gideon Spilett and the sailor hoisted themselves over
the palisade, leaped into the enclosure, threw down the props which
supported the inner door, ran into the empty house, and soon, poor Herbert
was lying on Ayrton's bed. In a few moments, Harding was by his side.

On seeing Herbert senseless, the sailor's grief was terrible.

He sobbed, he cried, he tried to beat his head against the wall.

Neither the engineer nor the reporter could calm him. They themselves
were choked with emotion. They could not speak.

However, they knew that it depended on them to rescue from death the poor
boy who was suffering beneath their eyes. Gideon Spilett had not passed
through the many incidents by which his life had been checkered without
acquiring some slight knowledge of medicine. He knew a little of
everything, and several times he had been obliged to attend to wounds
produced either by a sword-bayonet or shot. Assisted by Cyrus Harding, he
proceeded to render the aid Herbert required.

The reporter was immediately struck by the complete stupor in which
Herbert lay, a stupor owing either to the hemorrhage, or to the shock, the
ball having struck a bone with sufficient force to produce a violent
concussion.

Herbert was deadly pale, and his pulse so feeble that Spilett only felt it
beat at long intervals, as if it was on the point of stopping.

These symptoms were very serious.

Herbert's chest was laid bare, and the blood having been stanched with
handkerchiefs, it was bathed with cold water.

The contusion, or rather the contused wound appeared,--an oval below the
chest between the third and fourth ribs. It was there that Herbert had been
hit by the bullet.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett then turned the poor boy over; as they
did so, he uttered a moan so feeble that they almost thought it was his
last sigh.

Herberts back was covered with blood from another contused wound, by
which the ball had immediately escaped.

"God be praised!" said the reporter, "the ball is not in the body, and we
shall not have to extract it."

"But the heart?" asked Harding.

"The heart has not been touched; if it had been, Herbert would be dead!"

"Dead!" exclaimed Pencroft, with a groan.

The sailor had only heard the last words uttered by the reporter.

"No, Pencroft," replied Cyrus Harding, "no! He is not dead. His pulse
still beats. He has even uttered a moan. But for your boy's sake, calm
yourself. We have need of all our self-possession."

"Do not make us lose it, my friend."

Pencroft was silent, but a reaction set in, and great tears rolled down
his cheeks.

In the meanwhile, Gideon Spilett endeavored to collect his ideas, and
proceed methodically. After his examination he had no doubt that the ball,
entering in front, between the seventh and eighth ribs, had issued behind
between the third and fourth. But what mischief had the ball committed in
its passage? What important organs had been reached? A professional surgeon
would have had difficulty in determining this at once, and still more so
the reporter.

However, he knew one thing, this was that he would have to prevent the
inflammatory strangulation of the injured parts, then to contend with the
local inflammation and fever which would result from the wound, perhaps
mortal! Now, what styptics, what antiphiogistics ought to be employed? By
what means could inflammation be prevented?

At any rate, the most important thing was that the two wounds should be
dressed without delay. It did not appear necessary to Gideon Spilett that a
fresh flow of blood should be caused by bathing them in tepid water, and
compressing their lips. The hemorrhage had been very abundant, and Herbert
was already too much enfeebled by the loss of blood.

The reporter, therefore, thought it best to simply bathe the two wounds
with cold water.

Herbert was placed on his left side, and was maintained in that position.

"He must not be moved." said Gideon Spilett. "He is in the most favorable
position for the wounds in his back and chest to suppurate easily, and
absolute rest is necessary."

"What! can't we carry him to Granite House?" asked Pencroft.

"No, Pencroft," replied the reporter.

"I'll pay the villains off!" cried the sailor, shaking his fist in a
menacing manner.

"Pencroft!" said Cyrus Harding.

Gideon Spilett had resumed his examination of the wounded boy. Herbert
was still so frightfully pale, that the reporter felt anxious.

"Cyrus," said he, "I am not a surgeon. I am in terrible perplexity. You
must aid me with your advice, your experience!"

"Take courage, my friend," answered the engineer, pressing the reporter's
hand. "Judge coolly. Think only of this: Herbert must be saved!"

These words restored to Gideon Spilett that self-possession which he had
lost in a moment of discouragement on feeling his great responsibility. He
seated himself close to the bed. Cyrus Harding stood near. Pencroft had
torn up his shirt, and was mechanically making lint.

Spilett then explained to Cyrus Harding that he thought he ought first of
all to stop the hemorrhage, but not close the two wounds, or cause their
immediate cicatrization, for there had been internal perforation, and the
suppuration must not be allowed to accumulate in the chest.

Harding approved entirely, and it was decided that the two wounds should
be dressed without attempting to close them by immediate coaptation.

And now did the colonists possess an efficacious agent to act against the
inflammation which might occur?

Yes. They had one, for nature had generously lavished it. They had cold
water, that is to say, the most powerful sedative that can be employed
against inflammation of wounds, the most efficacious therapeutic agent in
grave cases, and the one which is now adopted by all physicians. Cold water
has, moreover, the advantage of leaving the wound in absolute rest, and
preserving it from all premature dressing, a considerable advantage, since
it has been found by experience that contact with the air is dangerous
during the first days.

Gideon Spilett and Cyrus Harding reasoned thus with their simple good
sense, and they acted as the best surgeon would have done. Compresses of
linen were applied to poor Herbert's two wounds, and were kept constantly
wet with cold water.

The sailor had at first lighted a fire in the hut, which was not wanting
in things necessary for life. Maple sugar, medicinal plants, the same which
the lad had gathered on the banks of Lake Grant, enabled them to make some
refreshing drinks, which they gave him without his taking any notice of it.
His fever was extremely high, and all that day and night passed without his
becoming conscious.

Herbert's life hung on a thread, and this thread might break at any
moment. The next day, the 12th of November, the hopes of Harding and his
companions slightly revived. Herbert had come out of his long stupor. He
opened his eyes, he recognized Cyrus Harding, the reporter, and Pencroft.
He uttered two or three words. He did not know what had happened. They told
him, and Spilett begged him to remain perfectly still, telling him that his
life was not in danger, and that his wounds would heal in a few days.
However, Herbert scarcely suffered at all, and the cold water with which
they were constantly bathed, prevented any inflammation of the wounds. The
suppuration was established in a regular way, the fever did not increase,
and it might now be hoped that this terrible wound would not involve any
catastrophe. Pencroft felt the swelling of his heart gradually subside. He
was like a sister of mercy. like a mother by the bed of her child.

Herbert dozed again, but his sleep appeared more natural.

"Tell me again that you hope, Mr. Spilett," said Pencroft. "Tell me again
that you will save Herbert!"

"Yes, we will save him!" replied the reporter. "The wound is serious,
and, perhaps, even the ball has traversed the lungs, but the perforation of
this organ is not fatal."

"God bless you!" answered Pencroft.

As may be believed, during the four-and-twenty hours they had been in the
corral, the colonists had no other thought than that of nursing Herbert.
They did not think either of the danger which threatened them should the
convicts return, or of the precautions to be taken for the future.

But on this day, while Pencroft watched by the sick-bed, Cyrus Harding
and the reporter consulted as to what it would be best to do.

First of all they examined the corral. There was not a trace of Ayrton.
Had the unhappy man been dragged away by his former accomplices? Had he
resisted, and been overcome in the struggle? This last supposition was only
too probable. Gideon Spilett, at the moment he scaled the palisade, had
clearly seen some one of the convicts running along the southern spur of
Mount Franklin, towards whom Top had sprung. It was one of those whose
object had been so completely defeated by the rocks at the mouth of the
Mercy. Besides, the one killed by Harding, and whose body was found outside
the enclosure, of course belonged to Bob Harvey's crew.

As to the corral, it had not suffered any damage. The gates were closed,
and the animals had not been able to disperse in the forest. Nor could they
see traces of any struggle, any devastation, either in the hut, or in the
palisade. The ammunition only, with which Ayrton had been supplied, had
disappeared with him.

"The unhappy man has been surprised," said Harding, "and as he was a man
to defend himself, he must have been overpowered."

"Yes, that is to be feared!" said the reporter. "Then, doubtless, the
convicts installed themselves in the corral where they found plenty of
everything, and only fled when they saw us coming. It is very evident, too,
that at this moment Ayrton, whether living or dead, is not here!"

"We shall have to beat the forest," said the engineer, "and rid the
island of these wretches. Pencroft's presentiments were not mistaken, when
he wished to hunt them as wild beasts. That would have spared us all these
misfortunes!"

"Yes," answered the reporter, "but now we have the right to be
merciless!"

"At any rate," said the engineer, "we are obliged to wait some time, and
to remain at the corral until we can carry Herbert without danger to
Granite House."

"But Neb?" asked the reporter.

"Neb is in safety."

"But if, uneasy at our absence, he would venture to come?"

"He must not come!" returned Cyrus Harding quickly. "He would be murdered
on the road!"

"It is very probable, however, that he will attempt to rejoin us!"

"Ah, if the telegraph still acted, he might be warned! But that is
impossible now! As to leaving Pencroft and Herbert here alone, we could not
do it! Well, I will go alone to Granite House."

"No, no! Cyrus," answered the reporter, "you must not expose yourself!
Your courage would be of no avail. The villains are evidently watching the
corral, they are hidden in the thick woods which surround it, and if you go
we shall soon have to regret two misfortunes instead of one!"

"But Neb?" repeated the engineer. "It is now four-and-twenty hours since
he has had any news of us! He will be sure to come!"

"And as he will be less on his guard than we should be ourselves," added
Spilett, "he will be killed!"

"Is there really no way of warning him?"

While the engineer thought, his eyes fell on Top, who, going backwards
and forwards seemed to say,--

"Am not I here?"

"Top!" exclaimed Cyrus Harding.

The animal sprang at his master's call.

"Yes, Top will go," said the reporter, who had understood the engineer.

"Top can go where we cannot! He will carry to Granite House the news of
the corral, and he will bring back to us that from Granite House!"

"Quick!" said Harding. "Quick!"

Spilett rapidly tore a leaf from his note-book, and wrote these words:--

"Herbert wounded. We are at the corral. Be on your guard. Do not leave
Granite House. Have the convicts appeared in the neighborhood? Reply by
Top."

This laconic note contained all that Neb ought to know, and at the same
time asked all that the colonists wished to know. It was folded and
fastened to Top's collar in a conspicuous position.

"Top, my dog," said the engineer, caressing the animal, "Neb, Top! Neb!
Go, go!"

Top bounded at these words. He understood, he knew what was expected of
him. The road to the corral was familiar to him. In less than an hour he
could clear it, and it might be hoped that where neither Cyrus Harding nor
the reporter could have ventured without danger, Top, running among the
grass or in the wood, would pass unperceived.

The engineer went to the gate of the corral and opened it.

"Neb, Top! Neb!" repeated the engineer, again pointing in the direction
of Granite House.

Top sprang forwards, then almost immediately disappeared.

"He will get there!" said the reporter.

"Yes, and he will come back, the faithful animal!"

"What o'clock is it?" asked Gideon Spilett.

"Ten."

"In an hour he may be here. We will watch for his return."

The gate of the corral was closed. The engineer and the reporter
re-entered the house. Herbert was still in a sleep. Pencroft kept the
compresser always wet. Spilett, seeing there was nothing he could do at
that moment, busied himself in preparing some nourishment, while
attentively watching that part of the enclosure against the hill, at which
an attack might be expected.

The settlers awaited Top's return with much anxiety. A little before
eleven o'clock, Cyrus Harding and the reporter, rifle in hand, were behind
the gate, ready to open it at the first bark of their dog.

They did not doubt that if Top had arrived safely at Granite House, Neb
would have sent him back immediately.

They had both been there for about ten minutes, when a report was heard,
followed by repeated barks.

The engineer opened the gate, and seeing smoke a hundred feet off in the
wood, he fired in that direction.

Almost immediately Top bounded into the corral, and the gate was quickly
shut.

"Top, Top!" exclaimed the engineer, taking the dog's great honest head
between his hands.

A note was fastened to his neck, and Cyrus Harding read these words,
traced in Neb's large writing:--"No pirates in the neighborhood of Granite
House. I will not stir. Poor Mr. Herbert!"



Chapter 8

So the convicts were still there, watching the corral, and determined to
kill the settlers one after the other. There was nothing to be done but to
treat them as wild beasts. But great precautions must be taken, for just
now the wretches had the advantage on their side, seeing, and not being
seen, being able to surprise by the suddenness of their attack, yet not to
be surprised themselves. Harding made arrangements, therefore, for living
in the corral, of which the provisions would last for a tolerable length of
time. Ayrton's house had been provided with all that was necessary for
existence, and the convicts, scared by the arrival of the settlers, had not
had time to pillage it. It was probable, as Gideon Spilett observed, that
things had occurred as follows:

The six convicts, disembarking on the island, had followed the southern
shore, and after having traversed the double shore of the Serpentine
Peninsula, not being inclined to venture into the Far West woods, they had
reached the mouth of Falls River. From this point, by following the right
bank of the watercourse, they would arrive at the spurs of Mount Franklin,
among which they would naturally seek a retreat, and they could not have
been long in discovering the corral, then uninhabited. There they had
regularly installed themselves, awaiting the moment to put their abominable
schemes into execution. Ayrton's arrival had surprised them, but they had
managed to overpower the unfortunate man, and--the rest may be easily
imagined!

Now, the convicts,--reduced to five, it is true, but well armed,--were
roaming the woods, and to venture there was to expose themselves to their
attacks, which could be neither guarded against nor prevented.

"Wait! There is nothing else to be done!" repeated Cyrus Harding. "When
Herbert is cured, we can organize a general battle of the island, and have
satisfaction of these convicts. That will be the object of our grand
expedition at the same time--"

"As the search for our mysterious protector," added Gideon Spilett,
finishing the engineer's sentence. "An, it must be acknowledged, my dear
Cyrus, that this time his protection was wanting at the very moment when it
was most necessary to us!"

"Who knows?" replied the engineer.

"What do you mean?" asked the reporter.

"That we are not at the end of our trouble yet, my dear Spilett, and that
his powerful intervention may have another opportunity of exercising
itself. But that is not the question now. Herbert's life before
everything."

This was the colonists' saddest thought. Several days passed, and the
poor boy's state was happily no worse. Cold water, always kept at a
suitable temperature, had completely prevented the inflammation of the
wounds. It even seemed to the reporter that this water, being slightly
sulphurous,--which was explained by the neighborhood of the volcano, had a
more direct action on the healing. The suppuration was much less abundant,
and thanks to the incessant care by which he was surrounded!--Herbert
returned to life, and his fever abated. He was besides subjected to a
severe diet, and consequently his weakness was and would be extreme; but
there was no want of refreshing drinks, and absolute rest was of the
greatest benefit to him. Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, and Pencroft had
become very skilful in dressing the lad's wounds. All the linen in the
house had been sacrificed. Herbert's wounds, covered with compresses and
lint, were pressed neither too much nor too little, so as to cause their
cicatrization without effecting any inflammatory reaction. The reporter
used extreme care in the dressing, knowing well the importance of it, and
repeating to his companions that which most surgeons willingly admit, that
it is perhaps rarer to see a dressing well done than an operation well
performed.

In ten days, on the 22nd of November, Herbert was considerably better. He
had begun to take some nourishment.

The color was returning to his cheeks, and his bright eyes smiled at his
nurses. He talked a little, notwithstanding Pencroft's efforts, who talked
incessantly to prevent him from beginning to speak, and told him the most
improbable stories. Herbert had questioned him on the subject of Ayrton,
whom he was astonished not to see near him, thinking that he was at the
corral. But the sailor, not wishing to distress Herbert, contented himself
by replying that Ayrton had rejoined Neb, so as to defend Granite House.

"Humph!" said Pencroft, "these pirates! they are gentlemen who have no
right to any consideration! And the captain wanted to win them by kindness!
I'll send them some kindness, but in the shape of a good bullet!"

"And have they not been seen again?" asked Herbert.

"No, my boy," answered the sailor, "but we shall find them, and when you
are cured we shall see if the cowards who strike us from behind will dare
to meet us face to face!"

"I am still very weak, my poor Pencroft!"

"Well! your strength will return gradually! What's a ball through the
chest? Nothing but a joke! I've seen many, and I don't think much of them!"

At last things appeared to be going on well, and if no complication
occurred, Herbert's recovery might be regarded as certain. But what would
have been the condition of the colonists if his state had been aggravated,
--if, for example, the ball had remained in his body, if his arm or his leg
had had to be amputated?

"No," said Spilett more than once, "I have never thought of such a
contingency without shuddering!"

"And yet, if it had been necessary to operate," said Harding one day to
him, "you would not have hesitated?"

"No, Cyrus!" said Gideon Spilett, "but thank God that we have been spared
this complication!"

As in so many other conjectures, the colonists had appealed to the logic
of that simple good sense of which they had made use so often, and once
more, thanks to their general knowledge, it had succeeded! But might not a
time come when all their science would be at fault? They were alone on the
island. Now, men in all states of society are necessary to each other.
Cyrus Harding knew this well, and sometimes he asked if some circumstance
might not occur which they would be powerless to surmount. It appeared to
him besides, that he and his companions, till then so fortunate, had
entered into an unlucky period. During the two years and a half which had
elapsed since their escape from Richmond, it might be said that they had
had everything their own way. The island had abundantly supplied them with
minerals, vegetables, animals, and as Nature had constantly loaded them,
their science had known how to take advantage of what she offered them.

The wellbeing of the colony was therefore complete. Moreover, in certain
occurrences an inexplicable influence had come to their aid!... But all
that could only be for a time.

In short, Cyrus Harding believed that fortune had turned against them.

In fact, the convicts' ship had appeared in the waters of the island, and
if the pirates had been, so to speak, miraculously destroyed, six of them,
at least, had escaped the catastrophe. They had disembarked on the island,
and it was almost impossible to get at the five who survived. Ayrton had no
doubt been murdered by these wretches, who possessed firearms, and at the
first use that they had made of them, Herbert had fallen, wounded almost
mortally. Were these the first blows aimed by adverse fortune at the
colonists? This was often asked by Harding. This was often repeated by the
reporter; and it appeared to him also that the intervention, so strange,
yet so efficacious, which till then had served them so well, had now failed
them. Had this mysterious being, whatever he was, whose existence could not
be denied, abandoned the island? Had he in his turn succumbed?

No reply was possible to these questions. But it must not be imagined
that because Harding and his companions spoke of these things, they were
men to despair. Far from that. They looked their situation in the face,
they analyzed the chances, they prepared themselves for any event, they
stood firm and straight before the future, and if adversity was at last to
strike them, it would find in them men prepared to struggle against it.



Chapter 9

The convalescence of the young invalid was regularly progressing. One thing
only was now to be desired, that his state would allow him to be brought to
Granite House. However well built and supplied the corral house was, it
could not be so comfortable as the healthy granite dwelling. Besides, it
did not offer the same security, and its tenants, notwithstanding their
watchfulness, were here always in fear of some shot from the convicts.
There, on the contrary, in the middle of that impregnable and inaccessible
cliff, they would have nothing to fear, and any attack on their persons
would certainly fail. They therefore waited impatiently for the moment when
Herbert might be moved without danger from his wound, and they were
determined to make this move, although the communication through Jacamar
Wood was very difficult.

They had no news from Neb, but were not uneasy on that account. The
courageous Negro, well entrenched in the depths of Granite House, would not
allow himself to be surprised. Top had not been sent again to him, as it
appeared useless to expose the faithful dog to some shot which might
deprive the settlers of their most useful auxiliary.

They waited, therefore, although they were anxious to be reunited at
Granite House. It pained the engineer to see his forces divided, for it
gave great advantage to the pirates. Since Ayrton's disappearance they were
only four against five, for Herbert could not yet be counted, and this was
not the least care of the brave boy, who well understood the trouble of
which he was the cause.

The question of knowing how, in their condition, they were to act against
the pirates, was thoroughly discussed on the 29th of November by Cyrus
Harding, Gideon Spilett, and Pencroft, at a moment when Herbert was asleep
and could not hear them.

"My friends," said the reporter, after they had talked of Neb and of the
impossibility of communicating with him, "I think,--like you, that to
venture on the road to the corral would be to risk receiving a gunshot
without being able to return it. But do you not think that the best thing
to be done now is to openly give chase to these wretches?"

"That is just what I was thinking," answered Pencroft. "I believe we're
not fellows to be afraid of a bullet, and as for me, if Captain Harding
approves, I'm ready to dash into the forest! Why, hang it, one man is equal
to another!"

"But is he equal to five?" asked the engineer.

"I will join Pencroft," said the reporter, "and both of us, well-armed
and accompanied by Top--"

"My dear Spilett, and you, Pencroft," answered Harding, "let us reason
coolly. If the convicts were hid in one spot of the island, if we knew that
spot, and had only to dislodge them, I would undertake a direct attack; but
is there not occasion to fear, on the contrary, that they are sure to fire
the first shot?"

"Well, captain," cried Pencroft, "a bullet does not always reach its
mark."

"That which struck Herbert did not miss, Pencroft," replied the engineer.
"Besides, observe that if both of you left the corral I should remain here
alone to defend it. Do you imagine that the convicts will not see you leave
it, that they will not allow you to enter the forest, and that they will
not attack it during your absence, knowing that there is no one here but a
wounded boy and a man?"

"You are right, captain," replied Pencroft, his chest swelling with
sullen anger. "You are right; they will do all they can to retake the
corral, which they know to be well stored; and alone you could not hold it
against them."

"Oh, if we were only at Granite House!"

"If we were at Granite House," answered the engineer, "the case would be
very different. There I should not be afraid to leave Herbert with one,
while the other three went to search the forests of the island. But we are
at the corral, and it is best to stay here until we can leave it together."

Cyrus Harding's reasoning was unanswerable, and his companions understood
it well.

"If only Ayrton was still one of us!" said Gideon Spilett. "Poor fellow!
his return to social life will have been but of short duration."

"If he is dead," added Pencroft, in a peculiar tone.

"Do you hope, then, Pencroft, that the villains have spared him?" asked
Gideon Spilett.

"Yes, if they had any interest in doing so."

 "What! you suppose that Ayrton finding his old companions, forgetting
all that he owes us--"

"Who knows?" answered the sailor, who did not hazard this shameful
supposition without hesitating.

"Pencroft," said Harding, taking the sailor's arm, "that is a wicked idea
of yours, and you will distress me much if you persist in speaking thus. I
will answer for Ayrton's fidelity."

"And I also," added the reporter quickly.

"Yes, yes, captain, I was wrong," replied Pencroft; "it was a wicked idea
indeed that I had, and nothing justifies it. But what can I do? I'm not in
my senses. This imprisonment in the corral wearies me horribly, and I have
never felt so excited as I do now.

"Be patient, Pencroft," replied the engineer. "How long will it be, my
dear Spilett, before you think Herbert may be carried to Granite House?"

"That is difficult to say, Cyrus," answered the reporter, "for any
imprudence might involve terrible consequences. But his convalescence is
progressing, and if he continues to gain strength, in eight days from now--
well, we shall see."

Eight days! That would put off the return to Granite House until the
first days of December. At this time two months of spring had already
passed. The weather was fine, and the heat began to be great. The forests
of the island were in full leaf, and the time was approaching when the
usual crops ought to be gathered. The return to the plateau of Prospect
Heights would, therefore, be followed by extensive agricultural labors,
interrupted only by the projected expedition through the island.

It can, therefore, be well understood how injurious this seclusion in the
corral must have been to the colonists.

But if they were compelled to bow before necessity, they did not do so
without impatience.

Once or twice the reporter ventured out into the road and made the tour
of the palisade. Top accompanied him, and Gideon Spilett, his gun cocked,
was ready for any emergency.

He met with no misadventure and found no suspicious traces. His dog would
have warned him of any danger, and, as Top did not bark, it might be
concluded that there was nothing to fear at the moment at least, and that
the convicts were occupied in another part of the island.

However, on his second sortie, on the 27th of November, Gideon Spilett,
who had ventured a quarter of a mile into the woods, towards the south of
the mountain, remarked that Top scented something. The dog had no longer
his unconcerned manner; he went backwards and forwards, ferreting among
the grass and bushes as if his smell had revealed some suspicious object to
him.

Gideon Spilett followed Top, encouraged him, excited him by his voice,
while keeping a sharp look-out, his gun ready to fire, and sheltering
himself behind the trees. It was not probable that Top scented the presence
of man, for in that case, he would have announced it by half-uttered,
sullen, angry barks. Now, as he did not growl, it was because danger was
neither near nor approaching.

Nearly five minutes passed thus, Top rummaging, the reporter following
him prudently when, all at once, the dog rushed towards a thick bush, and
drew out a rag.

It was a piece of cloth, stained and torn, which Spilett immediately
brought back to the corral. There it was examined by the colonists, who
found that it was a fragment of Ayrton's waistcoat, a piece of that felt,
manufactured solely by the Granite House factory.

"You see, Pencroft," observed Harding, "there has been resistance on the
part of the unfortunate Ayrton. The convicts have dragged him away in spite
of himself! Do you still doubt his honesty?"

"No, captain," answered the sailor, "and I repented of my suspicion a
long time ago! But it seems to me that something may be learned from the
incident."

"What is that?" asked the reporter.

"It is that Ayrton was not killed at the corral! That they dragged him
away living, since he has resisted. Therefore, perhaps, he is still
living!"

"Perhaps, indeed," replied the engineer, who remained thoughtful.

This was a hope, to which Ayrton's companions could still hold. Indeed,
they had before believed that, surprised in the corral, Ayrton had fallen
by a bullet, as Herbert had fallen. But if the convicts had not killed him
at first, if they had brought him living to another part of the island,
might it not be admitted that he was still their prisoner? Perhaps, even,
one of them had found in Ayrton his old Australian companion Ben Joyce, the
chief of the escaped convicts. And who knows but that they had conceived
the impossible hope of bringing back Ayrton to themselves? He would have
been very useful to them, if they had been able to make him turn traitor!

This incident was, therefore, favorably interpreted at the corral, and it
no longer appeared impossible that they should find Ayrton again. On his
side, if he was only a prisoner, Ayrton would no doubt do all he could to
escape from the hands of the villains, and this would be a powerful aid to
the settlers!

"At any rate," observed Gideon Spilett, "if happily Ayrton did manage to
escape, he would go directly to Granite House, for he could not know of the
attempted assassination of which Herbert has been a victim, and
consequently would never think of our being imprisoned in the corral."

"Oh! I wish that he was there, at Granite House!" cried Pencroft, "and
that we were there, too! For, although the rascals can do nothing to our
house, they may plunder the plateau, our plantations, our poultry-yard!"

Pencroft had become a thorough farmer, heartily attached to his crops.
But it must be said that Herbert was more anxious than any to return to
Granite House, for he knew how much the presence of the settlers was needed
there. And it was he who was keeping them at the corral! Therefore, one
idea occupied his mind--to leave the corral, and when! He believed he could
bear removal to Granite House. He was sure his strength would return more
quickly in his room, with the air and sight of the sea!

Several times he pressed Gideon Spilett, but the latter, fearing, with
good reason, that Herbert's wounds, half healed, might reopen on the way,
did not give the order to start.

However, something occurred which compelled Cyrus Harding and his two
friends to yield to the lad's wish, and God alone knew that this
determination might cause them grief and remorse.

It was the 29th of November, seven o'clock in the evening. The three
settlers were talking in Herbert's room, when they heard Top utter quick
barks.

Harding, Pencroft, and Spilett seized their guns and ran out of the
house. Top, at the foot of the palisade, was jumping, barking, but it was
with pleasure, not anger.

"Some one is coming."

"Yes."

"It is not an enemy!"

"Neb, perhaps?"

"Or Ayrton?"

These words had hardly been exchanged between the engineer and his two
companions when a body leaped over the palisade and fell on the ground
inside the corral.

It was Jup, Master Jup in person, to whom Top immediately gave a most
cordial reception.

"Jup!" exclaimed Pencroft.


"Neb has sent him to us," said the reporter.

"Then," replied the engineer, "he must have some note on him."

Pencroft rushed up to the orang. Certainly if Neb had any important
matter to communicate to his master he could not employ a more sure or more
rapid messenger, who could pass where neither the colonists could, nor even
Top himself.

Cyrus Harding was not mistaken. At Jup's neck hung a small bag, and in
this bag was found a little note traced by Neb's hand.

The despair of Harding and his companions may be imagined when they read
these words:--


"Friday, six o'clock in the morning.

"Plateau invaded by convicts.

                             "Neb."


They gazed at each other without uttering a word, then they re-entered
the house. what were they to do? The convicts on Prospect Heights! that was
disaster, devastation, ruin.

Herbert, on seeing the engineer, the reporter, and Pencroft re-enter,
guessed that their situation was aggravated, and when he saw Jup, he no
longer doubted that some misfortune menaced Granite House.

"Captain Harding," said he, "I must go; I can bear the journey. I must
go."

Gideon Spilett approached Herbert; then, having looked at him,--

"Let us go, then!" said he.

The question was quickly decided whether Herbert should be carried on a
litter or in the cart which had brought Ayrton to the corral. The motion of
the litter would have been more easy for the wounded lad, but it would have
necessitated two bearers, that is to say, there would have been two guns
less for defense if an attack was made on the road. Would they not, on the
contrary, by employing the cart leave every arm free? Was it impossible to
place the mattress on which Herbert was lying in it, and to advance with so
much care that any jolt should be avoided? It could be done.

The cart was brought. Pencroft harnessed the onager. Cyrus Harding and
the reporter raised Herbert's mattress and placed it on the bottom of the
cart. The weather was fine. The sun's bright rays glanced through the
trees.

"Are the guns ready?" asked Cyrus Harding.

They were. The engineer and Pencroft, each armed with a double-barreled
gun, and Gideon Spilett carrying his rifle, had nothing to do but start.

"Are you comfortable, Herbert?" asked the engineer.

"Ah, captain," replied the lad, "don't be uneasy, I shall not die on the
road!"

While speaking thus, it could be seen that the poor boy had called up all
his energy, and by the energy of a powerful will had collected his failing
strength.

The engineer felt his heart sink painfully. He still hesitated to
give the signal for departure; but that would have driven Herbert
to despair--killed him perhaps.

"Forward!" said Harding.

The gate of the corral was opened. Jup and Top, who knew when to be
silent, ran in advance. The cart came out, the gate was reclosed, and the
onager, led by Pencroft, advanced at a slow pace.

Certainly, it would have been safer to have taken a different road than
that which led straight from the corral to Granite House, but the cart
would have met with great difficulties in moving under the trees. It was
necessary, therefore, to follow this way, although it was well known to the
convicts.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett walked one on each side of the cart,
ready to answer to any attack. However, it was not probable that the
convicts would have yet left the plateau of Prospect Heights.

Neb's note had evidently been written and sent as soon as the convicts
had shown themselves there. Now, this note was dated six o'clock in the
morning, and the active orang, accustomed to come frequently to the corral,
had taken scarcely three quarters of an hour to cross the five miles which
separated it from Granite House. They would, therefore, be safe at that
time, and if there was any occasion for firing, it would probably not be
until they were in the neighborhood of Granite House. However, the
colonists kept a strict watch. Top and Jup, the latter armed with his club,
sometimes in front, sometimes beating the wood at the sides of the road,
signalized no danger.

The cart advanced slowly under Pencroft's guidance. It had left the
corral at half-past seven. An hour after, four out of the five miles had
been cleared, without any incident having occurred. The road was as
deserted as all that part of the Jacamar Wood which lay between the Mercy
and the lake. There was no occasion for any warning. The wood appeared as
deserted as on the day when the colonists first landed on the island.

They approached the plateau. Another mile and they would see the bridge
over Creek Glycerine. Cyrus Harding expected to find it in its place;
supposing that the convicts would have crossed it, and that, after having
passed one of the streams which enclosed the plateau, they would have taken
the precaution to lower it again, so as to keep open a retreat.

At length an opening in the trees allowed the sea-horizon to be seen. But
the cart continued its progress, for not one of its defenders thought of
abandoning it.

At that moment Pencroft stopped the onager, and in a hoarse voice,--

"Oh! the villains!" he exclaimed.

And he pointed to a thick smoke rising from the mill, the sheds, and the
buildings at the poultry-yard.

A man was moving about in the midst of the smoke. It was Neb.

His companions uttered a shout. He heard, and ran to meet them.

The convicts had left the plateau nearly half-an-hour before, having
devastated it!

"And Mr. Herbert?" asked Neb.

Gideon Spilett returned to the cart.

Herbert had lost consciousness!



Chapter 10

Of the convicts, the dangers which menaced Granite House, the ruins with
which the plateau was covered, the colonists thought no longer. Herbert's
critical state outweighed all other considerations. Would the removal prove
fatal to him by causing some internal injury? The reporter could not affirm
it, but he and his companions almost despaired of the result. The cart was
brought to the bend of the river. There some branches, disposed as a liner,
received the mattress on which lay the unconscious Herbert. Ten minutes
after, Cyrus Harding, Spilett, and Pencroft were at the foot of the cliff,
leaving Neb to take the cart on to the plateau of Prospect Heights. The
lift was put in motion, and Herbert was soon stretched on his bed in
Granite House.

What cares were lavished on him to bring him back to life! He smiled for
a moment on finding himself in his room, but could scarcely even murmur a
few words, so great was his weakness. Gideon Spilett examined his wounds. He
feared to find them reopened, having been imperfectly healed. There was
nothing of the sort. From whence, then, came this prostration? why was
Herbert so much worse? The lad then fell into a kind of feverish sleep, and
the reporter and Pencroft remained near the bed. During this time, Harding
told Neb all that had happened at the corral, and Neb recounted to his
master the events of which the plateau had just been the theater.

It was only during the preceding night that the convicts had appeared on
the edge of the forest, at the approaches to Creek Glycerine. Neb, who was
watching near the poultry-yard, had not hesitated to fire at one of the
pirates, who was about to cross the stream; but in the darkness he could
not tell whether the man had been hit or not. At any rate, it was not
enough to frighten away the band, and Neb had only just time to get up to
Granite House, where at least he was in safety.

But what was he to do there? How prevent the devastations with which the
convicts threatened the plateau? Had Neb any means by which to warn his
master? And, besides, in what situation were the inhabitants of the corral
themselves? Cyrus Harding and his companions had left on the 11th of
November, and it was now the 29th. It was, therefore, nineteen days since
Neb had had other news than that brought by Top--disastrous news: Ayrton
disappeared, Herbert severely wounded, the engineer, reporter, and sailor,
as it were, imprisoned in the corral!

What was he to do? asked poor Neb. Personally he had nothing to fear, for
the convicts could not reach him in Granite House. But the buildings, the
plantations, all their arrangements at the mercy of the pirates! Would it
not be best to let Cyrus Harding judge of what he ought to do, and to warn
him, at least, of the danger which threatened him?

Neb then thought of employing Jup, and confiding a note to him. He knew
the orang's great intelligence, which had been often put to the proof. Jup
understood the word corral, which had been frequently pronounced before
him, and it may be remembered, too, that he had often driven the cart
thither in company with Pencroft. Day had not yet dawned. The active orang
would know how to pass unperceived through the woods, of which the
convicts, besides, would think he was a native.

Neb did not hesitate. He wrote the note, he tied it to Jup's neck, he
brought the ape to the door of Granite House, from which he let down a long
cord to the ground; then, several times he repeated these words,--

"Jup Jup! corral, corral!"

The creature understood, seized the cord, glided rapidly down the beach,
and disappeared in the darkness without the convicts' attention having been
in the least excited.

"You did well, Neb," said Harding, "but perhaps in not warning us you
would have done still better!"

And, in speaking thus, Cyrus Harding thought of Herbert, whose recovery
the removal had so seriously checked.

Neb ended his account. The convicts had not appeared at all on the beach.
Not knowing the number of the island's inhabitants, they might suppose that
Granite House was defended by a large party. They must have remembered that
during the attack by the brig numerous shot had been fired both from the
lower and upper rocks, and no doubt they did not wish to expose themselves.
But the plateau of Prospect Heights was open to them, and not covered by
the fire of Granite House. They gave themselves up, therefore, to their
instinct of destruction,--plundering, burning, devastating everything,--and
only retiring half an hour before the arrival of the colonists, whom they
believed still confined in the corral.

On their retreat, Neb hurried out. He climbed the plateau at the risk of
being perceived and fired at, tried to extinguish the fire which was
consuming the buildings of the poultry-yard, and had struggled, though in
vain, against it until the cart appeared at the edge of the wood.

Such had been these serious events. The presence of the convicts
constituted a permanent source of danger to the settlers in Lincoln Island,
until then so happy, and who might now expect still greater misfortunes.

Spilett remained in Granite House with Herbert and Pencroft, while Cyrus
Harding, accompanied by Neb, proceeded to judge for himself of the extent
of the disaster.

It was fortunate that the convicts had not advanced to the foot of
Granite House. The workshop at the Chimneys would in that case not have
escaped destruction. But after all, this evil would have been more easily
reparable than the ruins accumulated on the plateau of Prospect Heights.
Harding and Neb proceeded towards the Mercy, and ascended its left bank
without meeting with any trace of the convicts; nor on the other side of
the river, in the depths of the wood, could they perceive any suspicious
indications.

Besides, it might be supposed that in all probability either the convicts
knew of the return of the settlers to Granite House, by having seen them
pass on the road from the corral, or, after the devastation of the plateau,
they had penetrated into Jacamar Wood, following the course of the Mercy,
and were thus ignorant of their return.

In the former case, they must have returned towards the corral, now
without defenders, and which contained valuable stores.

In the latter, they must have regained their encampment, and would wait
on opportunity to recommence the attack.

It was, therefore, possible to prevent them, but any enterprise to clear
the island was now rendered difficult by reason of Herbert's condition.
Indeed, their whole force would have been barely sufficient to cope with
the convicts, and just now no one could leave Granite House.

The engineer and Neb arrived on the plateau. Desolation reigned
everywhere. The fields had been trampled over; the ears of wheat, which
were nearly full-grown, lay on the ground. The other plantations had not
suffered less.

The kitchen-garden was destroyed. Happily, Granite House possessed a
store of seed which would enable them to repair these misfortunes.

As to the wall and buildings of the poultry-yard and the onagers stable,
the fire had destroyed all. A few terrified creatures roamed over the
plateau. The birds, which during the fire had taken refuge on the waters of
the lake, had already returned to their accustomed spot, and were dabbling
on the banks. Everything would have to be reconstructed.

Cyrus Harding's face, which was paler than usual, expressed an internal
anger which he commanded with difficulty, but he did not utter a word. Once
more he looked at his devastated fields, and at the smoke which still rose
from the ruins, then he returned to Granite House.

The following days were the saddest of any that the colonists had passed
on the island! Herbert's weakness visibly increased. It appeared that a
more serious malady, the consequence of the profound physiological
disturbance he had gone through, threatened to declare itself, and Gideon
Spilett feared such an aggravation of his condition that he would be
powerless to fight against it!

In fact, Herbert remained in an almost continuous state of drowsiness,
and symptoms of delirium began to manifest themselves. Refreshing drinks
were the only remedies at the colonists' disposal. The fever was not as yet
very high, but it soon appeared that it would probably recur at regular
intervals. Gideon Spilett first recognized this on the 6th of December.

The poor boy, whose fingers, nose, and ears had become extremely pale,
was at first seized with slight shiverings, horripilations, and tremblings.
His pulse was weak and irregular, his skin dry, his thirst intense. To this
soon succeeded a hot fit; his face became flushed; his skin reddened; his
pulse quick; then a profuse perspiration broke out after which the fever
seemed to diminish. The attack had lasted nearly five hours.

Gideon Spilett had not left Herbert, who, it was only too certain, was now
seized by an intermittent fever, and this fever must be cured at any cost
before it should assume a more serious aspect.

"And in order to cure it," said Spilett to Cyrus Harding, "we need a
febrifuge."

"A febrifuge--" answered the engineer. "We have neither Peruvian bark,
nor sulphate of quinine."

"No," said Gideon Spilett, "but there are willows on the border of the
lake, and the bark of the willow might, perhaps, prove to be a substitute
for quinine."

"Let us try it without losing a moment," replied Cyrus Harding.

The bark of the willow has, indeed, been justly considered as a
succedaneum for Peruvian bark, as has also that of the horse-chestnut tree,
the leaf of the holly, the snake-root, etc. It was evidently necessary to
make trial of this substance, although not so valuable as Peruvian bark,
and to employ it in its natural state, since they had no means for
extracting its essence.

Cyrus Harding went himself to cut from the trunk of a species of black
willow, a few pieces of bark; he brought them back to Granite House, and
reduced them to a powder, which was administered that same evening to
Herbert.

The night passed without any important change. Herbert was somewhat
delirious, but the fever did not reappear in the night, and did not return
either during the following day.

Pencroft again began to hope. Gideon Spilett said nothing. It might be
that the fever was not quotidian, but tertian, and that it would return
next day. Therefore, he awaited the next day with the greatest anxiety.

It might have been remarked besides that during this period Herbert
remained utterly prostrate, his head weak and giddy. Another symptom
alarmed the reporter to the highest degree. Herbert's liver became
congested, and soon a more intense delirium showed that his brain was also
affected.

Gideon Spilett was overwhelmed by this new complication. He took the
engineer aside.

"It is a malignant fever," said he.

"A malignant fever!" cried Harding. "You are mistaken, Spilett. A
malignant fever does not declare itself spontaneously; its germ must
previously have existed."

"I am not mistaken," replied the reporter. "Herbert no doubt contracted
the germ of this fever in the marshes of the island. He has already had one
attack; should a second come on and should we not be able to prevent a
third, he is lost."

"But the willow bark?"

"That is insufficient," answered the reporter, "and the third attack of a
malignant fever, which is not arrested by means of quinine, is always
fatal."

Fortunately, Pencroft heard nothing of this conversation or he would have
gone mad.

It may be imagined what anxiety the engineer and the reporter suffered
during the day of the 7th of December and the following night.

Towards the middle of the day the second attack came on. The crisis was
terrible. Herbert felt himself sinking. He stretched his arms towards Cyrus
Harding, towards Spilett, towards Pencroft. He was so young to die! The
scene was heart-rending. They were obliged to send Pencroft away.

The fit lasted five hours. It was evident that Herbert could not survive
a third.

The night was frightful. In his delirium Herbert uttered words which went
to the hearts of his companions. He struggled with the convicts, he called
to Ayrton, he poured forth entreaties to that mysterious being,--that
powerful unknown protector,--whose image was stamped upon his mind; then he
again fell into a deep exhaustion which completely prostrated him. Several
times Gideon Spilett thought that the poor boy was dead.

The next day, the 8th of December, was but a succession of the fainting
fits. Herbert's thin hands clutched the sheets. They had administered
further doses of pounded bark, but the reporter expected no result from it.

"If before tomorrow morning we have not given him a more energetic
febrifuge," said the reporter, "Herbert will be dead."

Night arrived--the last night, it was too much to be feared, of the good,
brave, intelligent boy, so far in advance of his years, and who was loved
by all as their own child. The only remedy which existed against this
terrible malignant fever, the only specific which could overcome it, was
not to be found in Lincoln Island.

During the night of the 8th of December, Herbert was seized by a more
violent delirium. His liver was fearfully congested, his brain affected,
and already it was impossible for him to recognize any one.

Would he live until the next day, until that third attack which must
infallibly carry him off? It was not probable. His strength was exhausted,
and in the intervals of fever he lay as one dead.

Towards three o'clock in the morning Herbert uttered a piercing cry. He
seemed to be torn by a supreme convulsion. Neb, who was near him,
terrified, ran into the next room where his companions were watching.

Top, at that moment, barked in a strange manner.

All rushed in immediately and managed to restrain the dying boy, who was
endeavoring to throw himself out of his bed, while Spilett, taking his arm,
felt his pulse gradually quicken.

It was five in the morning. The rays of the rising sun began to shine in
at the windows of Granite House. It promised to be a fine day, and this day
was to be poor Herbert's last!

A ray glanced on the table placed near the bed.

Suddenly Pencroft, uttering a cry, pointed to the table.

On it lay a little oblong box, of which the cover bore these words:--
"SULPHATE OF QUININE."



Chapter 11

Gideon Spilett took the box and opened it. It contained nearly two hundred
grains of a white powder, a few particles of which he carried to his lips.
The extreme bitterness of the substance precluded all doubt; it was
certainly the precious extract of quinine, that pre-eminent antifebrile.

This powder must be administered to Herbert without delay. How it came
there might be discussed later.

"Some coffee!" said Spilett.

In a few moments Neb brought a cup of the warm infusion. Gideon Spilett
threw into it about eighteen grains of quinine, and they succeeded in
making Herbert drink the mixture.

There was still time, for the third attack of the malignant fever had not
yet shown itself. How they longed to be able to add that it would not
return!

Besides, it must be remarked, the hopes of all had now revived. The
mysterious influence had been again exerted, and in a critical moment, when
they had despaired of it.

In a few hours Herbert was much calmer. The colonists could now discuss
this incident. The intervention of the stranger was more evident than ever.
But how had he been able to penetrate during the night into Granite House?
It was inexplicable, and, in truth, the proceedings of the genius of the
island were not less mysterious than was that genius himself. During this
day the sulphate of quinine was administered to Herbert every three hours.

The next day some improvement in Herbert's condition was apparent.
Certainly, he was not out of danger, intermittent fevers being subject to
frequent and dangerous relapses, but the most assiduous care was bestowed
on him. And besides, the specific was at hand; nor, doubtless, was he who
had brought it far distant! And the hearts of all were animated by
returning hope.

This hope was not disappointed. Ten days after, on the 20th of December,
Herbert's convalescence commenced.

He was still weak, and strict diet had been imposed upon him, but no
access of fever supervened. And then, the poor boy submitted with such
docility to all the prescriptions ordered him! He longed so to get well!

Pencroft was as a man who has been drawn up from the bottom of an abyss.
Fits of joy approaching delirium seized him. When the time for the third
attack had passed by, he nearly suffocated the reporter in his embrace.
Since then, he always called him Dr. Spilett.

The real doctor, however, remained undiscovered.

"We will find him!" repeated the sailor.

Certainly, this man, whoever he was, might expect a somewhat too
energetic embrace from the worthy Pencroft!

The month of December ended, and with it the year 1867, during which the
colonists of Lincoln Island had of late been so severely tried. They
commenced the year 1868 with magnificent weather, great heat, and a
tropical temperature, delightfully cooled by the sea-breeze. Herbert's
recovery progressed, and from his bed, placed near one of the windows of
Granite House, he could inhale the fresh air, charged with ozone, which
could not fail to restore his health. His appetite returned, and what
numberless delicate, savory little dishes Neb prepared for him!

"It is enough to make one wish to have a fever oneself!" said Pencroft.

During all this time, the convicts did not once appear in the vicinity of
Granite House. There was no news of Ayrton, and though the engineer and
Herbert still had some hopes of finding him again, their companions did not
doubt but that the unfortunate man had perished. However, this uncertainty
could not last, and when once the lad should have recovered, the
expedition, the result of which must be so important, would be undertaken.
But they would have to wait a month, perhaps, for all the strength of the
colony must be put into requisition to obtain satisfaction from the
convicts.

However, Herbert's convalescence progressed rapidly. The congestion of
the liver had disappeared, and his wounds might be considered completely
healed.

During the month of January, important work was done on the plateau of
Prospect Heights; but it consisted solely in saving as much as was possible
from the devastated crops, either of corn or vegetables. The grain and the
plants were gathered, so as to provide a new harvest for the approaching
half-season. With regard to rebuilding the poultry-yard, wall, or stables,
Cyrus Harding preferred to wait. While he and his companions were in
pursuit of the convicts, the latter might very probably pay another visit
to the plateau, and it would be useless to give them an opportunity of
recommencing their work of destruction. when the island should be cleared
of these miscreants, they would set about rebuilding. The young
convalescent began to get up in the second week of January, at first for
one hour a day, then two, then three. His strength visibly returned, so
vigorous was his constitution. He was now eighteen years of age. He was
tall, and promised to become a man of noble and commanding presence. From
this time his recovery, while still requiring care,--and Dr. Spilett was
very strict,--made rapid progress. Towards the end of the month, Herbert
was already walking about on Prospect Heights, and the beach.

He derived, from several sea-baths, which he took in company with
Pencroft and Neb, the greatest possible benefit. Cyrus Harding thought he
might now settle the day for their departure, for which the 15th of
February was fixed. The nights, very clear at this time of year, would be
favorable to the researches they intended to make all over the island.

The necessary preparations for this exploration were now commenced, and
were important, for the colonists had sworn not to return to Granite House
until their twofold object had been achieved; on the one hand, to
exterminate the convicts, and rescue Ayrton, if he was still living; on the
other, to discover who it was that presided so effectually over the
fortunes of the colony.

Of Lincoln Island, the settlers knew thoroughly all the eastern coast
from Claw Cape to the Mandible Capes, the extensive Tadorn Marsh, the
neighborhood of Lake Grant, Jacamar Wood, between the road to the corral
and the Mercy, the courses of the Mercy and Red Creek, and lastly, the
spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the corral had been established.

They had explored, though only in an imperfect manner, the vast shore of
Washington Bay from Claw Cape to Reptile End, the woody and marshy border
of the west coast, and the interminable downs, ending at the open mouth of
Shark Gulf. But they had in no way surveyed the woods which covered the
Serpentine Peninsula, all to the right of the Mercy, the left bank of Falls
River, and the wilderness of spurs and valleys which supported three
quarters of the base of Mount Franklin, to the east, the north, and the
west, and where doubtless many secret retreats existed. Consequently, many
millions of acres of the island had still escaped their investigations.

It was, therefore, decided that the expedition should be carried through
the Far West, so as to include all that region situated on the right of the
Mercy.

It might, perhaps, be better worth while to go direct to the corral,
where it might be supposed that the convicts had again taken refuge, either
to pillage or to establish themselves there. But either the devastation of
the corral would have been an accomplished fact by this time, and it would
be too late to prevent it, or it had been the convicts' interest to
entrench themselves there, and there would be still time to go and turn
them out on their return.

Therefore, after some discussion, the first plan was adhered to, and the
settlers resolved to proceed through the wood to Reptile End. They would
make their way with their hatchets, and thus lay the first draft of a road
which would place Granite House in communication with the end of the
peninsula for a length of from sixteen to seventeen miles.

The cart was in good condition. The onagers, well rested, could go a long
journey. Provisions, camp effects, a portable stove, and various utensils
were packed in the cart, as also weapons and ammunition, carefully chosen
from the now complete arsenal of Granite House. But it was necessary to
remember that the convicts were, perhaps, roaming about the woods, and that
in the midst of these thick forests a shot might quickly be fired and
received. It was therefore resolved that the little band of settlers should
remain together and not separate under any pretext whatever.

It was also decided that no one should remain at Granite House. Top and
Jup themselves were to accompany the expedition; the inaccessible dwelling
needed no guard. The 14th of February, eve of the departure, was
consecrated entirely to repose, and--thanksgiving addressed by the colonists
to the Creator. A place in the cart was reserved for Herbert, who, though
thoroughly convalescent, was still a little weak. The next morning, at
daybreak, Cyrus Harding took the necessary measures to protect Granite
House from any invasion. The ladders, which were formerly used for the
ascent, were brought to the Chimneys and buried deep in the sand, so that
they might be available on the return of the colonists, for the machinery
of the lift had been taken to pieces, and nothing of the apparatus
remained. Pencroft stayed the last in Granite House in order to finish this
work, and he then lowered himself down by means of a double rope held
below, and which, when once hauled down, left no communication between the
upper landing and the beach.

The weather was magnificent.

"We shall have a warm day of it," said the reporter, laughing.

"Pooh! Dr. Spilett," answered Pencroft, "we shall walk under the shade of
the trees and shan't even see the sun!"

"Forward!" said the engineer.

The cart was waiting on the beach before the Chimneys. The reporter made
Herbert take his place in it during the first hours at least of the
journey, and the lad was obliged to submit to his doctor's orders.

Neb placed himself at the onagers' heads. Cyrus Harding, the reporter,
and the sailor, walked in front. Top bounded joyfully along. Herbert
offered a seat in his vehicle to Jup, who accepted it without ceremony. The
moment for departure had arrived, and the little band set out.

The cart first turned the angle of the mouth of the Mercy, then, having
ascended the left bank for a mile, crossed the bridge, at the other side of
which commenced the road to Port Balloon, and there the explorers, leaving
this road on their left, entered the cover of the immense woods which
formed the region of the Far West.

For the first two miles the widely scattered trees allowed the cart to
pass with ease; from time to time it became necessary to cut away a few
creepers and bushes, but no serious obstacle impeded the progress of the
colonists.

The thick foliage of the trees threw a grateful shade on the ground.
Deodars, Douglas firs, casuarinas, banksias, gum-trees, dragon-trees, and
other well-known species, succeeded each other far as the eye could reach.
The feathered tribes of the island were all represented--grouse, jacamars,
pheasants, lories, as well as the chattering cockatoos, parrots, and
paroquets. Agouties, kangaroos, and capybaras fled swiftly at their
approach; and all this reminded the settlers of the first excursions they
had made on their arrival at the island.

"Nevertheless," observed Cyrus Harding, "I notice that these creatures,
both birds and quadrupeds, are more timid than formerly. These woods have,
therefore, been recently traversed by the convicts, and we shall certainly
find some traces of them."

And, in fact, in several places they could distinguish traces, more or
less recent, of the passage of a band of men--here branches broken off the
trees, perhaps to mark out the way; there the ashes of a fire, and
footprints in clayey spots; but nothing which appeared to belong to a
settled encampment.

The engineer had recommended his companions to refrain from hunting. The
reports of the firearms might give the alarm to the convicts, who were,
perhaps, roaming through the forest. Moreover, the hunters would
necessarily ramble some distance from the cart, which it was dangerous to
leave unguarded.

In the afterpart of the day, when about six miles from Granite House,
their progress became much more difficult. In order to make their way
through some thickets, they were obliged to cut down trees. Before entering
such places Harding was careful to send in Top and Jup, who faithfully
accomplished their commission, and when the dog and orang returned without
giving any warning, there was evidently nothing to fear, either from
convicts or wild beasts, two varieties of the animal kingdom, whose
ferocious instincts placed them on the same level. On the evening of the
first day the colonists encamped about nine miles from Granite House, on
the border of a little stream falling into the Mercy, and of the existence
of which they had till then been ignorant; it evidently, however, belonged
to the hydiographical system to which the soil owed its astonishing
fertility. The settlers made a hearty meal, for their appetites were
sharpened, and measures were then taken that the night might be passed in
safety. If the engineer had had only to deal with wild beasts, jaguars or
others, he would have simply lighted fires all around his camp, which would
have sufficed for its defense; but the convicts would be rather attracted
than terrified by the flames, and it was, therefore, better to be
surrounded by the profound darkness of night.

The watch was, however, carefully organized. Two of the settlers were to
watch together, and every two hours it was agreed that they should be
relieved by their comrades. And so, notwithstanding his wish to the
contrary, Herbert was exempted from guard. Pencroft and Gideon Spilett in
one party, the engineer and Neb in another, mounted guard in turns over
the camp.

The night, however, was but of few hours. The darkness was due rather to
the thickness of the foliage than to the disappearance of the sun. The
silence was scarcely disturbed by the howling of jaguars and the chattering
of the monkeys, the latter appearing to particularly irritate Master Jup.
The night passed without incident, and on the next day, the 15th of
February, the journey through the forest, tedious rather than difficult,
was continued. This day they could not accomplish more than six miles, for
every moment they were obliged to cut a road with their hatchets.

Like true settlers, the colonists spared the largest and most beautiful
trees, which would besides have cost immense labor to fell, and the small
ones only were sacrificed, but the result was that the road took a very
winding direction, and lengthened itself by numerous detours.

During the day Herbert discovered several new specimens not before met
with in the island, such as the tree-fern, with its leaves spread out like
the waters of a fountain, locust-trees, on the long pods of which the
onagers browsed greedily, and which supplied a sweet pulp of excellent
flavor. There, too, the colonists again found groups of magnificent
kauries, their cylindrical trunks, crowded with a cone of verdure, rising
to a height of two hundred feet. These were the tree-kings of New Zealand,
as celebrated as the cedars of Lebanon.

As to the fauna, there was no addition to those species already known to
the hunters. Nevertheless, they saw, though unable to get near them, a
couple of those large birds peculiar to Australia, a sort of cassowary,
called emu, five feet in height, and with brown plumage, which belong to
the tribe of waders. Top darted after them as fast as his four legs could
carry him, but the emus distanced him with ease, so prodigious was their
speed.

As to the traces left by the convicts, a few more were discovered. Some
footprints found near an apparently recently extinguished fire were
attentively examined by the settlers. By measuring them one after the
other, according to their length and breadth, the marks of five men's feet
were easily distinguished. The five convicts had evidently camped on this
spot; but,--and this was the object of so minute an examination,--a sixth
footprint could not be discovered, which in that case would have been that
of Ayrton.

"Ayrton was not with them!" said Herbert.

"No," answered Pencroft, "and if he was not with them, it was because the
wretches had already murdered him! but then these rascals have not a den to
which they may be tracked like tigers!"

"No," replied the reporter, "it is more probable that they wander at
random, and it is their interest to rove about until the time when they
will be masters of the island!"

"The masters of the island!" exclaimed the sailor; "the masters of the
island!..." he repeated, and his voice was choked, as if his throat was
seized in an iron grasp. Then in a calmer tone, "Do you know, Captain
Harding," said he, "what the ball is which I have rammed into my gun?"

"No, Pencroft!"

"It is the ball that went through Herbert's chest, and I promise you it
won't miss its mark!"

But this just retaliation would not bring Ayrton back to life, and from
the examination of the footprints left in the ground, they must, alas!
conclude that all hopes of ever seeing him again must be abandoned.

That evening they encamped fourteen miles from Granite House, and Cyrus
Harding calculated that they could not be more than five miles from Reptile
Point.

And indeed, the next day the extremity of the peninsula was reached, and
the whole length of the forest had been traversed; but there was nothing to
indicate the retreat in which the convicts had taken refuge, nor that, no
less secret, which sheltered the mysterious unknown.



Chapter 12

The next day, the 18th of February, was devoted to the exploration of all
that wooded region forming the shore from Reptile End to Falls River. The
colonists were able to search this forest thoroughly, for, as it was
comprised between the two shores of the Serpentine Peninsula, it was only
from three to four miles in breadth. The trees, both by their height and
their thick foliage, bore witness to the vegetative power of the soil, more
astonishing here than in any other part of the island. One might have said
that a corner from the virgin forests of America or Africa had been
transported into this temperate zone. This led them to conclude that the
superb vegetation found a heat in this soil, damp in its upper layer, but
warmed in the interior by volcanic fires, which could not belong to a
temperate climate. The most frequently occurring trees were knaries and
eucalypti of gigantic dimensions.

But the colonists' object was not simply to admire the magnificent
vegetation. They knew already that in this respect Lincoln Island would
have been worthy to take the first rank in the Canary group, to which the
first name given was that of the Happy Isles. Now, alas! their island no
longer belonged to them entirely; others had taken possession of it,
miscreants polluted its shores, and they must be destroyed to the last man.

No traces were found on the western coast, although they were carefully
sought for. No more footprints, no more broken branches, no more deserted
camps.

"This does not surprise me," said Cyrus Harding to his companions. "The
convicts first landed on the island in the neighborhood of Flotsam Point,
and they immediately plunged into the Far West forests, after crossing
Tadorn Marsh. They then followed almost the same route that we took on
leaving Granite House. This explains the traces we found in the wood. But,
arriving on the shore, the convicts saw at once that they would discover no
suitable retreat there, and it was then that, going northwards again, they
came upon the corral."

"Where they have perhaps returned," said Pencroft.

"I do not think so," answered the engineer, "for they would naturally
suppose that our researches would be in that direction. The corral is only
a storehouse to them, and not a definitive encampment."

"I am of Cyrus' opinion," said the reporter, "and I think that it is
among the spurs of Mount Franklin that the convicts will have made their
lair."

"Then, captain, straight to the corral!" cried Pencroft. "We must finish
them off, and till now we have only lost time!"

"No, my friend," replied the engineer; "you forget that we have a reason
for wishing to know if the forests of the Far West do not contain some
habitation. Our exploration has a double object, Pencroft. If, on the one
hand, we have to chastise crime, we have, on the other, an act of gratitude
to perform."

"That was well said, captain," replied the sailor, "but, all the same, it
is my opinion that we shall not find the gentleman until he pleases."

And truly Pencroft only expressed the opinion of all. It was probable
that the stranger's retreat was not less mysterious than was he himself.

That evening the cart halted at the mouth of Falls River. The camp was
organized as usual, and the customary precautions were taken for the night.
Herbert, become again the healthy and vigorous lad he was before his
illness, derived great benefit from this life in the open air, between the
sea breezes and the vivifying air from the forests. His place was no longer
in the cart, but at the head of the troop.

The next day, the 19th of February, the colonists, leaving the shore,
where, beyond the mouth, basalts of every shape were so picturesquely piled
up, ascended the river by its left bank. The road had been already partly
cleared in their former excursions made from the corral to the west coast.
The settlers were now about six miles from Mount Franklin.

The engineer's plan was this:--To minutely survey the valley forming the
bed of the river, and to cautiously approach the neighborhood of the
corral; if the corral was occupied, to seize it by force; if it was not, to
entrench themselves there and make it the center of the operations which
had for their object the exploration of Mount Franklin.

This plan was unanimously approved by the colonists, for they were
impatient to regain entire possession of their island.

They made their way then along the narrow valley separating two of the
largest spurs of Mount Franklin. The trees, crowded on the river's bank,
became rare on the upper slopes of the mountain. The ground was hilly and
rough, very suitable for ambushes, and over which they did not venture
without extreme precaution. Top and Jup skirmished on the flanks, springing
right and left through the thick brushwood, and emulating each other in
intelligence and activity. But nothing showed that the banks of the stream
had been recently frequented--nothing announced either the presence or the
proximity of the convicts. Towards five in the evening the cart stopped
nearly 600 feet from the palisade. A semicircular screen of trees still hid
it.

It was necessary to reconnoiter the corral, in order to ascertain if it
was occupied. To go there openly, in broad daylight, when the convicts were
probably in ambush, would be to expose themselves, as poor Herbert had
done, to the firearms of the ruffians. It was better, then, to wait until
night came on.

However, Gideon Spilett wished without further delay to reconnoiter the
approaches to the corral, and Pencroft, who was quite out of patience,
volunteered to accompany him.

"No, my friends," said the engineer, "wait till night. I will not allow
one of you to expose himself in open day."

"But, captain--" answered the sailor, little disposed to obey.

"I beg of you, Pencroft," said the engineer.

"Very well!" replied the sailor, who vented his anger in another way, by
bestowing on the convicts the worst names in his maritime vocabulary.

The colonists remained, therefore, near the cart, and carefully watched
the neighboring parts of the forest.

Three hours passed thus. The wind had fallen, and absolute silence
reigned under the great trees. The snapping of the smallest twig, a
footstep on the dry leaves, the gliding of a body among the grass, would
have been heard without difficulty. All was quiet. Besides, Top, lying on
the grass, his head stretched out on his paws, gave no sign of uneasiness.
At eight o'clock the day appeared far enough advanced for the
reconnaissance to be made under favorable conditions. Gideon Spilett
declared himself ready to set out accompanied by Pencroft. Cyrus Harding
consented. Top and Jup were to remain with the engineer, Herbert, and Neb,
for a bark or a cry at a wrong moment would give the alarm.

"Do not be imprudent," said Harding to the reporter and Pencroft, "you
have not to gain possession of the corral, but only to find out whether it
is occupied or not."

"All right," answered Pencroft.

And the two departed.

Under the trees, thanks to the thickness of their foliage, the obscurity
rendered any object invisible beyond a radius of from thirty to forty feet.
The reporter and Pencroft, halting at any suspicious sound, advanced with
great caution.

They walked a little distance apart from each other so as to offer a less
mark for a shot. And, to tell the truth, they expected every moment to hear
a report. Five minutes after leaving the cart, Gideon Spilett and Pencroft
arrived at the edge of the wood before the clearing beyond which rose the
palisade.

They stopped. A few straggling beams still fell on the field clear of
trees. Thirty feet distant was the gate of the corral, which appeared to be
closed. This thirty feet, which it was necessary to cross from the wood to
the palisade, constituted the dangerous zone, to borrow a ballistic term:
in fact, one or more bullets fired from behind the palisade might knock
over any one who ventured on to this zone. Gideon Spilett and the sailor
were not men to draw back, but they knew that any imprudence on their part,
of which they would be the first victims, would fall afterwards on their
companions. If they themselves were killed, what would become of Harding,
Neb, and Herbert?

But Pencroft, excited at feeling himself so near the corral where he
supposed the convicts had taken refuge, was about to press forward, when
the reporter held him back with a grasp of iron.

"In a few minutes it will be quite dark," whispered Spilett in the
sailor's ear, "then will be the time to act."

Pencroft, convulsively clasping the butt-end of his gun, restrained his
energies, and waited, swearing to himself.

Soon the last of the twilight faded away. Darkness, which seemed as if it
issued from the dense forest, covered the clearing. Mount Franklin rose
like an enormous screen before the western horizon, and night spread
rapidly over all, as it does in regions of low latitudes. Now was the time.

The reporter and Pencroft, since posting themselves on the edge of the
wood, had not once lost sight of the palisade. The corral appeared to be
absolutely deserted. The top of the palisade formed a line, a little darker
than the surrounding shadow, and nothing disturbed its distinctness.
Nevertheless, if the convicts were there, they must have posted one of
their number to guard against any surprise.

Spilett grasped his companion's hand, and both crept towards the corral,
their guns ready to fire.

They reached the gate without the darkness being illuminated by a single
ray of light.

Pencroft tried to push open the gate, which, as the reporter and he had
supposed, was closed. However, the sailor was able to ascertain that the
outer bars had not been put up. It might, then, be concluded that the
convicts were there in the corral, and that very probably they had fastened
the gate in such a way that it could not be forced open.

Gideon Spilett and Pencroft listened.

Not a sound could be heard inside the palisade. The musmons and the
goats, sleeping no doubt in their huts, in no way disturbed the calm of
night.

The reporter and the sailor hearing nothing, asked themselves whether
they had not better scale the palisades and penetrate into the corral. This
would have been contrary to Cyrus Harding's instructions.

It is true that the enterprise might succeed, but it might also fail.
Now, if the convicts were suspecting nothing, if they knew nothing of the
expedition against them, if, lastly, there now existed a chance of
surprising them, ought this chance to be lost by inconsiderately attempting
to cross the palisades?

This was not the reporter's opinion. He thought it better to wait until
all the settlers were collected together before attempting to penetrate into
the corral. One thing was certain, that it was possible to reach the
palisade without being seen, and also that it did not appear to be guarded.
This point settled, there was nothing to be done but to return to the cart,
where they would consult.

Pencroft probably agreed with this decision, for he followed the reporter
without making any objection when the latter turned back to the wood.

In a few minutes the engineer was made acquainted with the state of
affairs.

"Well," said he, after a little thought, "I now have reason to believe
that the convicts are not in the corral."

"We shall soon know," said Pencroft, "when we have scaled the palisade."

"To the corral, my friends!" said Cyrus Harding.

"Shall we leave the cart in the wood?" asked Neb.

"No," replied the engineer, "it is our wagon of ammunition and
provisions, and, if necessary, it would serve as an entrenchment."

"Forward, then!" said Gideon Spilett.

The cart emerged from the wood and began to roll noiselessly towards the
palisade. The darkness was now profound, the silence as complete as when
Pencroft and the reporter crept over the ground. The thick grass completely
muffled their footsteps. The colonists held themselves ready to fire. Jup,
at Pencroft's orders, kept behind. Neb led Top in a leash, to prevent him
from bounding forward.

The clearing soon came in sight. It was deserted. Without hesitating, the
little band moved towards the palisade. In a short space of time the
dangerous zone was passed. Neb remained at the onagers' heads to hold them.
The engineer, the reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft, proceeded to the door,
in order to ascertain if it was barricaded inside. It was open!

"What do you say now?" asked the engineer, turning to the sailor and
Spilett.

Both were stupefied.

"I can swear," said Pencroft, "that this gate was shut just now!"

The colonists now hesitated. Were the convicts in the corral when
Pencroft and the reporter made their reconnaissance? It could not be
doubted, as the gate then closed could only have been opened by them. Were
they still there, or had one of their number just gone out?

All these questions presented themselves simultaneously to the minds of
the colonists, but how could they be answered?

At that moment, Herbert, who had advanced a few steps into the enclosure,
drew back hurriedly, and seized Harding's hand.

"What's the matter?" asked the engineer.

"A light!"

"In the house?"

"Yes!"

All five advanced and indeed, through the window fronting them, they saw
glimmering a feeble light. Cyrus Harding made up his mind rapidly. "It is
our only chance," said he to his companions, "of finding the convicts
collected in this house, suspecting nothing! They are in our power!
Forward!" The colonists crossed through the enclosure, holding their guns
ready in their hands. The cart had been left outside under the charge of
Jup and Top, who had been prudently tied to it.

Cyrus Harding, Pencroft, and Gideon Spilett on one side, Herbert and Neb
on the other, going along by the palisade, surveyed the absolutely dark and
deserted corral.

In a few moments they were near the closed door of the house.

Harding signed to his companions not to stir, and approached the window,
then feebly lighted by the inner light.

He gazed into the apartment.

On the table burned a lantern. Near the table was the bed formerly used
by Ayrton.

On the bed lay the body of a man.

Suddenly Cyrus Harding drew back, and in a hoarse voice,--"Ayrton!" he
exclaimed.

Immediately the door was forced rather than opened, and the colonists
rushed into the room.

Ayrton appeared to be asleep. His countenance showed that he had long and
cruelly suffered. On his wrists and ankles could be seen great bruises.

Harding bent over him.

"Ayrton!" cried the engineer, seizing the arm of the man whom he had just
found again under such unexpected circumstances.

At this exclamation Ayrton opened his eyes, and, gazing at Harding, then
at the others,--

"You!" he cried, "you?"

"Ayrton! Ayrton!" repeated Harding.

"Where am I?"

"In the house in the corral!"

"Alone?"

"Yes!"

"But they will come back!" cried Ayrton. "Defend yourselves! defend
yourselves!"

And he fell back exhausted.

"Spilett," exclaimed the engineer, "we may be attacked at any moment.
Bring the cart into the corral. Then, barricade the door, and all come back
here."

Pencroft, Neb, and the reporter hastened to execute the engineer's
orders. There was not a moment to be lost. Perhaps even now the cart was in
the hands of the convicts!

In a moment the reporter and his two companions had crossed the corral
and reached the gate of the palisade behind which Top was heard growling
sullenly.

The engineer, leaving Ayrton for an instant, came out ready to fire.
Herbert was at his side. Both surveyed the crest of the spur overlooking
the corral. If the convicts were lying in ambush there, they might knock
the settlers over one after the other.

At that moment the moon appeared in the east, above the black curtain of
the forest, and a white sheet of light spread over the interior of the
enclosure. The corral, with its clumps of trees, the little stream which
watered it, its wide carpet of grass, was suddenly illuminated. From the
side of the mountain, the house and a part of the palisade stood out white
in the moonlight. On the opposite side towards the door, the enclosure
remained dark. A black mass soon appeared. This was the cart entering the
circle of light, and Cyrus Harding could hear the noise made by the door,
as his companions shut it and fastened the interior bars.

But, at that moment, Top, breaking loose, began to bark furiously and
rush to the back of the corral, to the right of the house.

"Be ready to fire, my friends!" cried Harding.

The colonists raised their pieces and waited the moment to fire.

Top still barked, and Jup, running towards the dog, uttered shrill cries.

The colonists followed him, and reached the borders of the little stream,
shaded by large trees. And there, in the bright moonlight, what did they
see? Five corpses, stretched on the bank!

They were those of the convicts who, four months previously, had landed
on Lincoln Island!



Chapter 13

How had it happened? who had killed the convicts? Was it Ayrton? No, for a
moment before he was dreading their return.

But Ayrton was now in a profound stupor, from which it was no longer
possible to rouse him. After uttering those few words he had again become
unconscious, and had fallen back motionless on the bed.

The colonists, a prey to a thousand confused thoughts, under the
influence of violent excitement, waited all night, without leaving Ayrton's
house, or returning to the spot where lay the bodies of the convicts. It
was very probable that Ayrton would not be able to throw any light on the
circumstances under which the bodies had been found, since he himself was
not aware that he was in the corral. But at any rate he would be in a
position to give an account of what had taken place before this terrible
execution. The next day Ayrton awoke from his torpor, and his companions
cordially manifested all the joy they felt, on seeing him again, almost
safe and sound, after a hundred and four days separation.

Ayrton then in a few words recounted what had happened, or, at least, as
much as he knew.

The day after his arrival at the corral, on the 10th of last November, at
nightfall, he was surprised by the convicts, who had scaled the palisade.
They bound and gagged him; then he was led to a dark cavern, at the foot of
Mount Franklin, where the convicts had taken refuge.

His death had been decided upon, and the next day the convicts were about
to kill him, when one of them recognized him and called him by the name
which he bore in Australia. The wretches had no scruples as to murdering
Ayrton! They spared Ben Joyce!

But from that moment Ayrton was exposed to the importunities of his
former accomplices. They wished him to join them again, and relied upon his
aid to enable them to gain possession of Granite House, to penetrate into
that hitherto inaccessible dwelling, and to become masters of the island,
after murdering the colonists!

Ayrton remained firm. The once convict, now repentant and pardoned, would
rather die than betray his companions. Ayrton--bound, gagged, and closely
watched--lived in this cave for four months.

Nevertheless the convicts had discovered the corral a short time after
their arrival in the island, and since then they had subsisted on Ayrton's
stores, but did not live at the corral.

On the 11th of November, two of the villains, surprised by the colonists'
arrival, fired at Herbert, and one of them returned, boasting of having
killed one of the inhabitants of the island; but he returned alone. His
companion, as is known, fell by Cyrus Harding's dagger.

Ayrton's anxiety and despair may be imagined when he learned the news of
Herbert's death. The settlers were now only four, and, as it seemed, at the
mercy of the convicts. After this event, and during all the time that the
colonists, detained by Herbert's illness, remained in the corral, the
pirates did not leave their cavern, and even after they had pillaged the
plateau of Prospect Heights, they did not think it prudent to abandon it.

The ill-treatment inflicted on Ayrton was now redoubled. His hands and
feet still bore the bloody marks of the cords which bound him day and
night. Every moment he expected to be put to death, nor did it appear
possible that he could escape.

Matters remained thus until the third week of February. The convicts,
still watching for a favorable opportunity, rarely quitted their retreat,
and only made a few hunting excursions, either to the interior of the
island, or the south coast.

Ayrton had no further news of his friends, and relinquished all hope of
ever seeing them again. At last, the unfortunate man, weakened by ill-
treatment, fell into a prostration so profound that sight and hearing
failed him. From that moment, that is to say, since the last two days, he
could give no information whatever of what had occurred.

"But, Captain Harding," he added, "since I was imprisoned in that cavern,
how is it that I find myself in the corral?"

"How is it that the convicts are lying yonder dead, in the middle of the
enclosure?" answered the engineer.

"Dead!" cried Ayrton, half rising from his bed, notwithstanding his
weakness.

His companions supported him. He wished to get up, and with their
assistance he did so. They then proceeded together towards the little
stream.

It was now broad daylight.

There, on the bank, in the position in which they had been stricken by
death in its most instantaneous form, lay the corpses of the five convicts!

Ayrton was astounded. Harding and his companions looked at him without
uttering a word. On a sign from the engineer, Neb and Pencroft examined the
bodies, already stiffened by the cold.

They bore no apparent trace of any wound.

Only, after carefully examining them, Pencroft found on the forehead of
one, on the chest of another, on the back of this one, on the shoulder of
that, a little red spot, a sort of scarcely visible bruise, the cause of
which it was impossible to conjecture.

"It is there that they have been struck!" said Cyrus Harding.

"But with what weapon?" cried the reporter.

"A weapon, lightning-like in its effects, and of which we have not the
secret!"

"And who has struck the blow?" asked Pencroft.

"The avenging power of the island," replied Harding, "he who brought you
here, Ayrton, whose influence has once more manifested itself, who does for
us all that which we cannot do for ourselves, and who, his will
accomplished, conceals himself from us."

"Let us make search for him, then!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"Yes, we will search for him," answered Harding, "but we shall not
discover this powerful being who performs such wonders, until he pleases to
call us to him!"

This invisible protection, which rendered their own action unavailing,
both irritated and piqued the engineer. The relative inferiority which it
proved was of a nature to wound a haughty spirit. A generosity evinced in
such a manner as to elude all tokens of gratitude, implied a sort of
disdain for those on whom the obligation was conferred, which in Cyrus
Harding's eyes marred, in some degree, the worth of the benefit.

"Let us search," he resumed, "and God grant that we may some day be
permitted to prove to this haughty protector that he has not to deal with
ungrateful people! What would I not give could we repay him, by rendering
him in our turn, although at the price of our lives, some signal service!"

From this day, the thoughts of the inhabitants of Lincoln Island were
solely occupied with the intended search. Everything incited them to
discover the answer to this enigma, an answer which would only be the name
of a man endowed with a truly inexplicable, and in some degree superhuman
power.

In a few minutes, the settlers re-entered the house, where their
influence soon restored to Ayrton his moral and physical energy. Neb and
Pencroft carried the corpses of the convicts into the forest, some distance
from the corral, and buried them deep in the ground.

Ayrton was then made acquainted with the facts which had occurred during
his seclusion. He learned Herbert's adventures, and through what various
trials the colonists had passed. As to the settlers, they had despaired of
ever seeing Ayrton again, and had been convinced that the convicts had
ruthlessly murdered him.

"And now," said Cyrus Harding, as he ended his recital, "a duty remains
for us to perform. Half of our task is accomplished, but although the
convicts are no longer to be feared, it is not owing to ourselves that we
are once more masters of the island."

"Well!" answered Gideon Spilett, "let us search all this labyrinth of the
spurs of Mount Franklin. We will not leave a hollow, not a hole unexplored!
Ah! if ever a reporter found himself face to face with a mystery, it is I
who now speak to you, my friends!"

"And we will not return to Granite House until we have found our
benefactor," said Herbert.

"Yes," said the engineer, "we will do all that it is humanly possible to
do, but I repeat we shall not find him until he himself permits us."

"Shall we stay at the corral?" asked Pencroft.

"We shall stay here," answered Harding. "Provisions are abundant, and we
are here in the very center of the circle we have to explore. Besides, if
necessary, the cart will take us rapidly to Granite House."

"Good!" answered the sailor. "Only I have a remark to make."

"What is it?"

"Here is the fine season getting on, and we must not forget that we have
a voyage to make."

"A voyage?" said Gideon Spilett.

"Yes, to Tabor Island," answered Pencroft. "It is necessary to carry a
notice there to point out the position of our island and say that Ayrton is
here in case the Scotch yacht should come to take him off. Who knows if it
is not already too late?"

"But, Pencroft," asked Ayrton, "how do you intend to make this voyage?"

"In the 'Bonadventure.'"

"The 'Bonadventure!'" exclaimed Ayrton. "She no longer exists."

"My 'Bonadventure' exists no longer!" shouted Pencroft, bounding from his
seat.

"No," answered Ayrton. "The convicts discovered her in her little harbor
only eight days ago, they put to sea in her--"

"And?" said Pencroft, his heart beating.

"And not having Bob Harvey to steer her, they ran on the rocks, and the
vessel went to pieces."

"Oh, the villains, the cutthroats, the infamous scoundrels!" exclaimed
Pencroft.

"Pencroft," said Herbert, taking the sailor's hand, "we will build
another 'Bonadventure'--a larger one. We have all the ironwork--all the
rigging of the brig at our disposal."

"But do you know," returned Pencroft, "that it will take at least five or
six months to build a vessel of from thirty to forty tons?"

"We can take our time," said the reporter, "and we must give up the
voyage to Tabor Island for this year."

"Oh, my 'Bonadventure!' my poor 'Bonadventure!'" cried Pencroft, almost
broken-hearted at the destruction of the vessel of which he was so proud.

The loss of the "Bonadventure" was certainly a thing to be lamented by
the colonists, and it was agreed that this loss should be repaired as soon
as possible. This settled, they now occupied themselves with bringing their
researches to bear on the most secret parts of the island.

The exploration was commenced at daybreak on the 19th of February, and
lasted an entire week. The base of the mountain, with its spurs and their
numberless ramifications, formed a labyrinth of valleys and elevations. It
was evident that there, in the depths of these narrow gorges, perhaps even
in the interior of Mount Franklin itself, was the proper place to pursue
their researches. No part of the island could have been more suitable to
conceal a dwelling whose occupant wished to remain unknown. But so
irregular was the formation of the valleys that Cyrus Harding was obliged
to conduct the exploration in a strictly methodical manner.

The colonists first visited the valley opening to the south of the
volcano, and which first received the waters of Falls River. There Ayrton
showed them the cavern where the convicts had taken refuge, and in which he
had been imprisoned until his removal to the corral. This cavern was just
as Ayrton had left it. They found there a considerable quantity of
ammunition and provisions, conveyed thither by the convicts in order to
form a reserve.

The whole of the valley bordering on the cave, shaded by fir and other
trees, was thoroughly explored, and on turning the point of the
southwestern spur, the colonists entered a narrower gorge similar to the
picturesque columns of basalt on the coast. Here the trees were fewer.
Stones took the place of grass. Goats and musmons gambolled among the
rocks. Here began the barren part of the island. It could already be seen
that, of the numerous valleys branching off at the base of Mount Franklin,
three only were wooded and rich in pasturage like that of the corral, which
bordered on the west on the Falls River valley, and on the east on the Red
Creek valley. These two streams, which lower down became rivers by the
absorption of several tributaries, were formed by all the springs of the
mountain and thus caused the fertility of its southern part. As to the
Mercy, it was more directly fed from ample springs concealed under the
cover of Jacamar Wood, and it was by springs of this nature, spreading in a
thousand streamlets, that the soil of the Serpentine Peninsula was watered.

Now, of these three well-watered valleys, either might have served as a
retreat to some solitary who would have found there everything necessary
for life. But the settlers had already explored them, and in no part had
they discovered the presence of man.

Was it then in the depths of those barren gorges, in the midst of the
piles of rock, in the rugged northern ravines, among the streams of lava,
that this dwelling and its occupant would be found?

The northern part of Mount Franklin was at its base composed solely of
two valleys, wide, not very deep, without any appearance of vegetation,
strewn with masses of rock, paved with lava, and varied with great blocks
of mineral. This region required a long and careful exploration. It
contained a thousand cavities, comfortless no doubt, but perfectly
concealed and difficult of access.

The colonists even visited dark tunnels, dating from the volcanic period,
still black from the passage of the fire, and penetrated into the depths of
the mountain. They traversed these somber galleries, waving lighted
torches; they examined the smallest excavations; they sounded the
shallowest depths, but all was dark and silent. It did not appear that the
foot of man had ever before trodden these ancient passages, or that his arm
had ever displaced one of these blocks, which remained as the volcano had
cast them up above the waters, at the time of the submersion of the island.

However, although these passages appeared to be absolutely deserted, and
the obscurity was complete, Cyrus Harding was obliged to confess that
absolute silence did not reign there.

On arriving at the end of one of these gloomy caverns, extending several
hundred feet into the interior of the mountain, he was surprised to hear a
deep rumbling noise, increased in intensity by the sonorousness of the
rocks.

Gideon Spilett, who accompanied him, also heard these distant mutterings,
which indicated a revivification of the subterranean fires. Several times
both listened, and they agreed that some chemical process was taking place
in the bowels of the earth.

"Then the volcano is not totally extinct?" said the reporter.

"It is possible that since our exploration of the crater," replied Cyrus
Harding, "some change has occurred. Any volcano, although considered
extinct, may evidently again burst forth."

"But if an eruption of Mount Franklin occurred," asked Spilett, "would
there not be some danger to Lincoln Island?"

"I do not think so," answered the reporter. "The crater, that is to say,
the safety-valve, exists, and the overflow of smoke and lava, would escape,
as it did formerly, by this customary outlet."

"Unless the lava opened a new way for itself towards the fertile parts of
the island!"

"And why, my dear Spilett," answered Cyrus Harding, "should it not follow
the road naturally traced out for it?"

"Well, volcanoes are capricious," returned the reporter.

"Notice," answered the engineer, "that the inclination of Mount Franklin
favors the flow of water towards the valleys which we are exploring just
now. To turn aside this flow, an earthquake would be necessary to change
the mountain's center of gravity."

"But an earthquake is always to be feared at these times," observed
Gideon Spilett.

"Always," replied the engineer, "especially when the subterranean forces
begin to awake, as they risk meeting with some obstruction, after a long
rest. Thus, my dear Spilett, an eruption would be a serious thing for us,
and it would be better that the volcano should not have the slightest
desire to wake up. But we could not prevent it, could we? At any rate, even
if it should occur, I do not think Prospect Heights would he seriously
threatened. Between them and the mountain, the ground is considerably
depressed, and if the lava should ever take a course towards the lake, it
would be cast on the downs and the neighboring parts of Shark Gulf."

"We have not yet seen any smoke at the top of the mountain, to indicate
an approaching eruption," said Gideon Spilett.

"No," answered Harding, "not a vapor escapes from the crater, for it was
only yesterday that I attentively surveyed the summit. But it is probable
that at the lower part of the chimney, time may have accumulated rocks,
cinders, hardened lava, and that this valve of which I spoke, may at any
time become overcharged. But at the first serious effort, every obstacle
will disappear, and you may be certain, my dear Spilett, that neither the
island, which is the boiler, nor the volcano, which is the chimney, will
burst under the pressure of gas. Nevertheless, I repeat, it would be better
that there should not be an eruption."

"And yet we are not mistaken," remarked the reporter. "Mutterings can be
distinctly heard in the very bowels of the volcano!"

"You are right," said the engineer, again listening attentively. "There
can be no doubt of it. A commotion is going on there, of which we can
neither estimate the importance nor the ultimate result."

Cyrus Harding and Spilett, on coming out, rejoined their companions, to
whom they made known the state of affairs.

"Very well!" cried Pencroft, "The volcano wants to play his pranks! Let
him try, if he likes! He will find his master!"

"Who?" asked Neb.

"Our good genius, Neb, our good genius, who will shut his mouth for him,
if he so much as pretends to open it!"

As may be seen, the sailor's confidence in the tutelary deity of his
island was absolute, and, certainly, the occult power, manifested until now
in so many inexplicable ways, appeared to be unlimited; but also it knew
how to escape the colonists' most minute researches, for, in spite of all
their efforts, in spite of the more than zeal,--the obstinacy,--with which
they carried on their exploration, the retreat of the mysterious being
could not be discovered.

From the 19th to the 20th of February the circle of investigation was
extended to all the northern region of Lincoln Island, whose most secret
nooks were explored. The colonists even went the length of tapping every
rock. The search was extended to the extreme verge of the mountain. It was
explored thus to the very summit of the truncated cone terminating the
first row of rocks, then to the upper ridge of the enormous hat, at the
bottom of which opened the crater.

They did more; they visited the gulf, now extinct, but in whose depths
the rumbling could be distinctly heard. However, no sign of smoke or vapor,
no heating of the rock, indicated an approaching eruption. But neither
there, nor in any other part of Mount Franklin, did the colonists find any
traces of him of whom they were in search.

Their investigations were then directed to the downs. They carefully
examined the high lava-cliffs of Shark Gulf from the base to the crest,
although it was extremely difficult to reach even the level of the gulf. No
one!--nothing!

Indeed, in these three words was summed up so much fatigue uselessly
expended, so much energy producing no results, that somewhat of anger
mingled with the discomfiture of Cyrus Harding and his companions.

It was now time to think of returning, for these researches could not be
prolonged indefinitely. The colonists were certainly right in believing
that the mysterious being did not reside on the surface of the island, and
the wildest fancies haunted their excited imaginations. Pencroft and Neb,
particularly, were not contented with the mystery, but allowed their
imaginations to wander into the domain of the supernatural.

On the 25th of February the colonists re-entered Granite House, and by
means of the double cord, carried by an arrow to the threshold of the door,
they re-established communication between their habitation and the ground.

A month later they commemorated, on the 25th of March, the third
anniversary of their arrival on Lincoln Island.



Chapter 14

Three years had passed away since the escape of the prisoners from
Richmond, and how often during those three years had they spoken of their
country, always present in their thoughts!

They had no doubt that the civil war was at an end, and to them it
appeared impossible that the just cause of the North had not triumphed. But
what had been the incidents of this terrible war? How much blood had it not
cost? How many of their friends must have fallen in the struggle? They
often spoke of these things, without as yet being able to foresee the day
when they would be permitted once more to see their country. To return
thither, were it but for a few days, to renew the social link with the
inhabited world, to establish a communication between their native land and
their island, then to pass the longest, perhaps the best, portion of their
existence in this colony, founded by them, and which would then be
dependent on their country, was this a dream impossible to realize?

There were only two ways of accomplishing it--either a ship must appear
off Lincoln Island, or the colonists must themselves build a vessel strong
enough to sail to the nearest land.

"Unless," said Pencroft, "our good genius, himself provides us with the
means of returning to our country."

And, really, had any one told Pencroft and Neb that a ship of 300 tons
was waiting for them in Shark Gulf or at Port Balloon, they would not even
have made a gesture of surprise. In their state of mind nothing appeared
improbable.

But Cyrus Harding, less confident, advised them to confine themselves to
fact, and more especially so with regard to the building of a vessel--a
really urgent work, since it was for the purpose of depositing, as soon as
possible, at Tabor Island a document indicating Ayrton's new residence.

As the "Bonadventure" no longer existed, six months at least would be
required for the construction of a new vessel. Now winter was approaching,
and the voyage would not be made before the following spring.

"We have time to get everything ready for the fine season," remarked the
engineer, who was consulting with Pencroft about these matters. "I think,
therefore, my friend, that since we have to rebuild our vessel it will be
best to give her larger dimensions. The arrival of the Scotch yacht at
Tabor Island is very uncertain. It may even be that, having arrived several
months ago, she has again sailed after having vainly searched for some
trace of Ayrton. Will it not then he best to build a ship which, if
necessary, could take us either to the Polynesian Archipelago or to New
Zealand? What do you think?"

"I think, captain," answered the sailor; "I think that you are as capable
of building a large vessel as a small one. Neither the wood nor the tools
are wanting. It is only a question of time."

"And how many months would be required to build a vessel of from 250 to
300 tons?" asked Harding.

"Seven or eight months at least," replied Pencroft. "But it must not be
forgotten that winter is drawing near, and that in severe frost wood is
difficult to work. We must calculate on several weeks delay, and if our
vessel is ready by next November we may think ourselves very lucky."

"Well," replied Cyrus Harding, "that will be exactly the most favorable
time for undertaking a voyage of any importance, either to Tabor Island or
to a more distant land."

"So it will, captain," answered the sailor. "Make out your plans then;
the workmen are ready, and I imagine that Ayrton can lend us a good
helping hand."

The colonists, having been consulted, approved the engineer's plan, and
it was, indeed, the best thing to be done. It is true that the construction
of a ship of from two to three hundred tons would be great labor, but the
colonists had confidence in themselves, justified by their previous
success.

Cyrus Harding then busied himself in drawing the plan of the vessel and
making the model. During this time his companions employed themselves in
felling and carting trees to furnish the ribs, timbers, and planks. The
forest of the Far West supplied the best oaks and elms. They took advantage
of the opening already made on their last excursion to form a practicable
road, which they named the Far West Road, and the trees were carried to the
Chimneys, where the dockyard was established. As to the road in question,
the choice of trees had rendered its direction somewhat capricious, but at
the same time it facilitated the access to a large part of the Serpentine
Peninsula.

It was important that the trees should be quickly felled and cut up, for
they could not be used while yet green, and some time was necessary to
allow them to get seasoned. The carpenters, therefore, worked vigorously
during the month of April, which was troubled only by a few equinoctial
gales of some violence. Master Jup aided them dexterously, either by
climbing to the top of a tree to fasten the ropes or by lending his stout
shoulders to carry the lopped trunks.

All this timber was piled up under a large shed, built near the
Chimneys, and there awaited the time for use.

The month of April was tolerably fine, as October often is in the
northern zone. At the same time other work was actively continued, and soon
all trace of devastation disappeared from the plateau of Prospect Heights.
The mill was rebuilt, and new buildings rose in the poultry-yard. It had
appeared necessary to enlarge their dimensions, for the feathered
population had increased considerably. The stable now contained five
onagers, four of which were well broken, and allowed themselves to be
either driven or ridden, and a little colt. The colony now possessed a
plow, to which the onagers were yoked like regular Yorkshire or Kentucky
oxen. The colonists divided their work, and their arms never tired. Then
who could have enjoyed better health than these workers, and what good
humor enlivened the evenings in Granite House as they formed a thousand
plans for the future!

As a matter of course Ayrton shared the common lot in every respect, and
there was no longer any talk of his going to live at the corral.
Nevertheless he was still sad and reserved, and joined more in the work
than in the pleasures of his companions. But he was a valuable workman at
need--strong, skilful, ingenious, intelligent. He was esteemed and loved by
all, and he could not be ignorant of it.

In the meanwhile the corral was not abandoned. Every other day one of the
settlers, driving the cart or mounted on an onager, went to look after the
flock of musmons and goats and bring back the supply of milk required by
Neb. These excursions at the same time afforded opportunities for hunting.
Therefore Herbert and Gideon Spilett, with Top in front, traversed more

often than their companions the road to the corral, and with the capital
guns which they carried, capybaras, agouties, kangaroos, and wild pigs for
large game, ducks, grouse, jacamars, and snipe for small game, were never
wanting in the house. The produce of the warren, of the oyster-bed, several
turtles which were taken, excellent salmon which came up the Mercy,
vegetables from the plateau, wild fruit from the forest, were riches upon
riches, and Neb, the head cook, could scarcely by himself store them away.

The telegraphic wire between the corral and Granite House had of course
been repaired, and it was worked whenever one or other of the settlers was
at the corral and found it necessary to spend the night there. Besides, the
island was safe now and no attacks were to be feared, at any rate from men.

However, that which had happened might happen again. A descent of
pirates, or even of escaped convicts, was always to be feared. It was
possible that companions or accomplices of Bob Harvey had been in the
secret of his plans, and might be tempted to imitate him. The colonists,
therefore, were careful to observe the sea around the island, and every day
their telescope covered the horizon enclosed by Union and Washington Bays.
when they went to the corral they examined the sea to the west with no less
attention, and by climbing the spur their gaze extended over a large
section of the western horizon.

Nothing suspicious was discerned, but still it was necessary for them to
be on their guard.

The engineer one evening imparted to his friends a plan which he had
conceived for fortifying the corral. It appeared prudent to him to heighten
the palisade and to flank it with a sort of blockhouse, which, if
necessary, the settlers could hold against the enemy. Granite House might,
by its very position, be considered impregnable; therefore the corral with
its buildings, its stores, and the animals it contained, would always be
the object of pirates, whoever they were, who might land on the island, and
should the colonists be obliged to shut themselves up there they ought also
to be able to defend themselves without any disadvantage. This was a
project which might be left for consideration, and they were, besides,
obliged to put off its execution until the next spring.

About the 15th of May the keel of the new vessel lay along the dockyard,
and soon the stem and stern-post, mortised at each of its extremities, rose
almost perpendicularly. The keel, of good oak, measured 110 feet in length,
this allowing a width of five-and-twenty feet to the midship beam. But this
was all the carpenters could do before the arrival of the frosts and bad
weather. During the following week they fixed the first of the stern
timbers, but were then obliged to suspend work.

During the last days of the month the weather was extremely bad. The wind
blew from the east, sometimes with the violence of a tempest. The engineer
was somewhat uneasy on account of the dockyard shed--which besides, he
could not have established in any other place near to Granite House--for
the islet only imperfectly sheltered the shore from the fury of the open
sea, and in great storms the waves beat against the very foot of the
granite cliff.

But, very fortunately, these fears were not realized. The wind shifted to
the southeast, and there the beach of Granite House was completely covered
by Flotsam Point.

Pencroft and Ayrton, the most zealous workmen at the new vessel, pursued
their labor as long as they could. They were not men to mind the wind
tearing at their hair, nor the rain wetting them to the skin, and a blow
from a hammer is worth just as much in bad as in fine weather. But when a
severe frost succeeded this wet period, the wood, its fibers acquiring the
hardness of iron, became extremely difficult to work, and about the 10th of
June shipbuilding was obliged to be entirely discontinued.

Cyrus Harding and his companions had not omitted to observe how severe
was the temperature during the winters of Lincoln Island. The cold was
comparable to that experienced in the States of New England, situated at
almost the same distance from the equator. In the northern hemisphere, or
at any rate in the part occupied by British America and the north of the
United States, this phenomenon is explained by the flat conformation of the
territories bordering on the pole, and on which there is no intumescence of
the soil to oppose any obstacle to the north winds; here, in Lincoln
Island, this explanation would not suffice.

"It has even been observed," remarked Harding one day to his companions,
"that in equal latitudes the islands and coast regions are less tried by
the cold than inland countries. I have often heard it asserted that the
winters of Lombardy, for example, are not less rigorous than those of
Scotland, which results from the sea restoring during the winter the heat
which it received during the summer. Islands are, therefore, in a better
situation for benefiting by this restitution."

"But then, Captain Harding," asked Herbert, "why does Lincoln Island
appear to escape the common law?"

"That is difficult to explain," answered the engineer. "However, I should
be disposed to conjecture that this peculiarity results from the situation
of the island in the Southern Hemisphere, which, as you know, my boy, is
colder than the Northern Hemisphere."

"Yes," said Herbert, "and icebergs are met with in lower latitudes in the
south than in the north of the Pacific."

"That is true," remarked Pencroft, "and when I have been serving on board
whalers I have seen icebergs off Cape Horn."

"The severe cold experienced in Lincoln Island," said Gideon Spilett,
"may then perhaps be explained by the presence of floes or icebergs
comparatively near to Lincoln Island."

"Your opinion is very admissible indeed, my dear Spilett," answered Cyrus
Harding, "and it is evidently to the proximity of icebergs that we owe our
rigorous winters. I would draw your attention also to an entirely physical
cause, which renders the Southern colder than the Northern Hemisphere. In
fact, since the sun is nearer to this hemisphere during the summer, it is
necessarily more distant during the winter. This explains then the excess
of temperature in the two seasons, for, if we find the winters very cold in
Lincoln Island, we must not forget that the summers here, on the contrary,
are very hot."

"But why, if you please, captain," asked Pencroft, knitting his brows,
"why should our hemisphere, as you say, be so badly divided? It isn't just,
that!"

"Friend Pencroft," answered the engineer, laughing, "whether just or not,
we must submit to it, and here lies the reason for this peculiarity. The
earth does not describe a circle around the sun, but an ellipse, as it must
by the laws of rational mechanics. Now, the earth occupies one of the foci
of the ellipse, and so at one point in its course is at its apogee, that
is, at its farthest from the sun, and at another point it is at its
perigee, or nearest to the sun. Now it happens that it is during the winter
of the southern countries that it is at its most distant point from the
sun, and consequently, in a situation for those regions to feel the
greatest cold. Nothing can be done to prevent that, and men, Pencroft,
however learned they may be, can never change anything of the
cosmographical order established by God Himself."

"And yet," added Pencroft, "the world is very learned. what a big book,
captain, might be made with all that is known!"

"And what a much bigger book still with all that is not known!" answered
Harding.

At last, for one reason or another, the month of June brought the cold
with its accustomed intensity, and the settlers were often confined to
Granite House. Ah! how wearisome this imprisonment was to them, and more
particularly to Gideon Spilett.

"Look here," said he to Neb one day, "I would give you by notarial deed
all the estates which will come to me some day, if you were a good enough
fellow to go, no matter where, and subscribe to some newspaper for me!
Decidedly the thing that is most essential to my happiness is the knowing
every morning what has happened the day before in other places than this!"

Neb began to laugh.

"'Pon my word," he replied, "the only thing I think about is my daily
work!"

The truth was that indoors as well as out there was no want of work.

The colony of Lincoln Island was now at its highest point of prosperity,
achieved by three years of continued hard work. The destruction of the brig
had been a new source of riches. Without speaking of the complete rig which
would serve for the vessel now on the stocks, utensils and tools of all
sorts, weapons and ammunition, clothes and instruments, were now piled in
the storerooms of Granite House. It had not even been necessary to resort
again to the manufacture of the coarse felt materials. Though the colonists
had suffered from cold during their first winter, the bad season might now
come without their having any reason to dread its severity. Linen was
plentiful also, and besides, they kept it with extreme care. From chloride
of sodium, which is nothing else than sea salt, Cyrus Harding easily
extracted the soda and chlorine. The soda, which it was easy to change into
carbonate of soda, and the chlorine, of which he made chloride of lime,
were employed for various domestic purposes, and especially in bleaching
linen. Besides, they did not wash more than four times a year, as was done
by families in the olden times, and it may be added, that Pencroft and
Gideon Spilett, while waiting for the postman to bring him his newspaper,
distinguished themselves as washermen.

So passed the winter months, June, July, and August. They were severe,
and the average observations of the thermometer did not give more than
eight degrees of Fahrenheit. It was therefore lower in temperature than the
preceding winter. But then, what splendid fires blazed continually on the
hearths of Granite House, the smoke marking the granite wall with long,
zebra-like streaks! Fuel was not spared, as it grew naturally a few steps
from them. Besides, the chips of the wood destined for the construction of
the ship enabled them to economize the coal, which required more trouble to
transport.

Men and animals were all well. Master Jup was a little chilly, it must be
confessed. This was perhaps his only weakness, and it was necessary to make
him a well-padded dressing-gown. But what a servant he was, clever,
zealous, indefatigable, not indiscreet, not talkative, and he might have
been with reason proposed as a model for all his biped brothers in the Old
and New Worlds!

"As for that," said Pencroft, "when one has four hands at one's service,
of course one's work ought to be done so much the better!"

And indeed the intelligent creature did it well.

During the seven months which had passed since the last researches made
round the mountain, and during the month of September, which brought back
fine weather, nothing was heard of the genius of the island. His power was
not manifested in any way. It is true that it would have been superfluous,
for no incident occurred to put the colonists to any painful trial.

Cyrus Harding even observed that if by chance the communication between
the unknown and the tenants of Granite House had ever been established
through the granite, and if Top's instinct had as it were felt it, there
was no further sign of it during this period. The dog's growling had
entirely ceased, as well as the uneasiness of the orang. The two friends--
for they were such--no longer prowled round the opening of the inner well,
nor did they bark or whine in that singular way which from the first the
engineer had noticed. But could he be sure that this was all that was to be
said about this enigma, and that he should never arrive at a solution?
Could he be certain that some conjuncture would not occur which would bring
the mysterious personage on the scene? who could tell what the future might
have in reserve?

At last the winter was ended, but an event, the consequences of which
might be serious occurred in the first days of the returning spring.

On the 7th of September, Cyrus Harding, having observed the crater, saw
smoke curling round the summit of the mountain, its first vapors rising in
the air.



Chapter 15

The colonists, warned by the engineer, left their work and gazed in silence
at the summit of Mount Franklin.

The volcano had awoke, and the vapor had penetrated the mineral layer
heaped at the bottom of the crater. But would the subterranean fires
provoke any violent eruption? This was an event which could not be
foreseen. However, even while admitting the possibility of an eruption, it
was not probable that the whole of Lincoln Island would suffer from it. The
flow of volcanic matter is not always disastrous, and the island had
already undergone this trial, as was shown by the streams of lava hardened
on the northern slopes of the mountain. Besides, from the shape of the
crater--the opening broken in the upper edge--the matter would be thrown to
the side opposite the fertile regions of the island.

However, the past did not necessarily answer for the future. Often, at
the summit of volcanoes, the old craters close and new ones open. This had
occurred in the two hemispheres--at Etna, Popocatepetl, at Orizabaand on
the eve of an eruption there is everything to be feared. In fact, an
earthquake--a phenomenon which often accompanies volcanic eruption--is
enough to change the interior arrangement of a mountain, and to open new
outlets for the burning lava.

Cyrus Harding explained these things to his companions, and, without
exaggerating the state of things, he told them all the pros and cons. After
all, they could not prevent it. It did not appear likely that Granite House
would be threatened unless the ground was shaken by an earthquake. But the
corral would be in great danger should a new crater open in the southern
side of Mount Franklin.

From that day the smoke never disappeared from the top of the mountain,
and it could even be perceived that it increased in height and thickness,
without any flame mingling in its heavy volumes. The phenomenon was still
concentrated in the lower part of the central crater.

However, with the fine days work had been continued. The building of the
vessel was hastened as much as possible, and, by means of the waterfall on
the shore, Cyrus Harding managed to establish an hydraulic sawmill, which
rapidly cut up the trunks of trees into planks and joists. The mechanism of
this apparatus was as simple as those used in the rustic sawmills of
Norway. A first horizontal movement to move the piece of wood, a second
vertical movement to move the saw--this was all that was wanted; and the
engineer succeeded by means of a wheel, two cylinders, and pulleys properly
arranged. Towards the end of the month of September the skeleton of the
vessel, which was to be rigged as a schooner, lay in the dockyard. The ribs
were almost entirely completed, and, all the timbers having been sustained
by a provisional band, the shape of the vessel could already be seen. The
schooner, sharp in the bows, very slender in the after-part, would
evidently be suitable for a long voyage, if wanted; but laying the planking
would still take a considerable time. Very fortunately, the iron work of
the pirate brig had been saved after the explosion. From the planks and
injured ribs Pencroft and Ayrton had extracted the bolts and a large
quantity of copper nails. It was so much work saved for the smiths, but the
carpenters had much to do.

Shipbuilding was interrupted for a week for the harvest, the haymaking,
and the gathering in of the different crops on the plateau. This work
finished, every moment was devoted to finishing the schooner. When night
came the workmen were really quite exhausted. So as not to lose any time
they had changed the hours for their meals; they dined at twelve o'clock,
and only had their supper when daylight failed them. They then ascended to
Granite House, when they were always ready to go to bed.

Sometimes, however, when the conversation bore on some interesting
subject the hour for sleep was delayed for a time. The colonists then spoke
of the future, and talked willingly of the changes which a voyage in the
schooner to inhabited lands would make in their situation. But always, in
the midst of these plans, prevailed the thought of a subsequent return to
Lincoln Island. Never would they abandon this colony, founded with so much
labor and with such success, and to which a communication with America

would afford a fresh impetus. Pencroft and Neb especially hoped to end
their days there.

"Herbert," said the sailor, "you will never abandon Lincoln Island?"

"Never, Pencroft, and especially if you make up your mind to stay there."

"That was made up long ago, my boy," answered Pencroft. "I shall expect
you. You will bring me your wife and children, and I shall make jolly chaps
of your youngsters!"

"That's agreed," replied Herbert, laughing and blushing at the same time.

"And you, Captain Harding," resumed Pencroft enthusiastically, "you will
be still the governor of the island! Ah, how many inhabitants could it
support? Ten thousand at least!"

They talked in this way, allowing Pencroft to run on, and at last the
reporter actually started a newspaper--the New Lincoln Herald!

So is man's heart. The desire to perform a work which will endure, which
will survive him, is the origin of his superiority over all other living
creatures here below. It is this which has established his dominion, and
this it is which justifies it, over all the world.

After that, who knows if Jup and Top had not themselves their little
dream of the future.

Ayrton silently said to himself that he would like to see Lord Glenarvan
again and show himself to all restored.

One evening, on the 15th of October, the conversation was prolonged later
than usual. It was nine o'clock. Already, long badly concealed yawns gave
warning of the hour of rest, and Pencroft was proceeding towards his bed,
when the electric bell, placed in the dining-room, suddenly rang.

All were there, Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Ayrton, Pencroft,
Neb. Therefore none of the colonists were at the corral.

Cyrus Harding rose. His companions stared at each other, scarcely
believing their ears.

"What does that mean?" cried Neb. "Was it the devil who rang it?"

No one answered.

"The weather is stormy," observed Herbert. "Might not its influence of
electricity--"

Herbert did not finish his phrase. The engineer, towards whom all eyes
were turned, shook his head negatively.

"We must wait," said Gideon Spilett. "If it is a signal, whoever it may be
who has made it, he will renew it."

"But who do you think it is?" cried Neb.

"Who?" answered Pencroft, "but he--"

The sailor's sentence was cut short by a new tinkle of the bell.

Harding went to the apparatus, and sent this question to the corral:--

"What do you want?"

A few moments later the needle, moving on the alphabetic dial, gave this
reply to the tenants of Granite House:--

"Come to the corral immediately."

"At last!" exclaimed Harding.

Yes! At last! The mystery was about to be unveiled. The colonists'
fatigue had disappeared before the tremendous interest which was about to
urge them to the corral, and all wish for rest had ceased. Without having
uttered a word, in a few moments they had left Granite House, and were
standing on the beach. Jup and Top alone were left behind. They could do
without them.

The night was black. The new moon had disappeared at the same time as the
sun. As Herbert had observed, great stormy clouds formed a lowering and
heavy vault, preventing any star rays. A few lightning flashes, reflections
from a distant storm, illuminated the horizon.

It was possible that a few hours later the thunder would roll over the
island itself. The night was very threatening.

But however deep the darkness was, it would not prevent them from finding
the familiar road to the corral.

They ascended the left bank of the Mercy, reached the plateau, passed the
bridge over Creek Glycerine, and advanced through the forest.

They walked at a good pace, a prey to the liveliest emotions. There was
no doubt but that they were now going to learn the long-searched-for answer
to the enigma, the name of that mysterious being, so deeply concerned in
their life, so generous in his influence, so powerful in his action! Must
not this stranger have indeed mingled with their existence, have known the
smallest details, have heard all that was said in Granite House, to have
been able always to act in the very nick of time?

Every one, wrapped up in his own reflections, pressed forward. Under the
arch of trees the darkness was such that even the edge of the road could
not be seen. Not a sound in the forest. Both animals and birds, influenced
by the heaviness of the atmosphere, remained motionless and silent. Not a
breath disturbed the leaves. The footsteps of the colonists alone resounded
on the hardened ground.

During the first quarter of an hour the silence was only interrupted by
this remark from Pencroft:--

"We ought to have brought a torch."

And by this reply from the engineer:--

"We shall find one at the corral."

Harding and his companions had left Granite House at twelve minutes past
nine. At forty-seven minutes past nine they had traversed three out of the
five miles which separated the mouth of the Mercy from the corral.

At that moment sheets of lightning spread over the island and illumined
the dark trees. The flashes dazzled and almost blinded them. Evidently the
storm would not be long in bursting forth.

The flashes gradually became brighter and more rapid. Distant thunder
growled in the sky. The atmosphere was stifling.

The colonists proceeded as if they were urged onwards by some
irresistible force.

At ten o'clock a vivid flash showed them the palisade, and as they
reached the gate the storm burst forth with tremendous fury.

In a minute the corral was crossed, and Harding stood before the hut.

Probably the house was occupied by the stranger, since it was from thence
that the telegram had been sent. However, no light shone through the
window.

The engineer knocked at the door.

No answer.

Cyrus Harding opened the door, and the settlers entered the room, which
was perfectly dark. A light was struck by Neb, and in a few moments the
lantern was lighted and the light thrown into every corner of the room.

There was no one there. Everything was in the state in which it had been
left.

"Have we been deceived by an illusion?" murmured Cyrus Harding.

No! that was not possible! The telegram had clearly said,--

"Come to the corral immediately."

They approached the table specially devoted to the use of the wire.
Everything was in order--the pile on the box containing it, as well as all
the apparatus.

"Who came here the last time?" asked the engineer.

"I did, captain," answered Ayrton.

"And that was--"

"Four days ago."

"Ah! a note!" cried Herbert, pointing to a paper lying on the table.

On this paper were written these words in English:--

"Follow the new wire."

"Forward!" cried Harding, who understood that the despatch had not been
sent from the corral, but from the mysterious retreat, communicating
directly with Granite House by means of a supplementary wire joined to the
old one.

Neb took the lighted lantern, and all left the corral. The storm then
burst forth with tremendous violence. The interval between each lightning-
flash and each thunder-clap diminished rapidly. The summit of the volcano,
with its plume of vapor, could be seen by occasional flashes.

There was no telegraphic communication in any part of the corral between
the house and the palisade; but the engineer, running straight to the first
post, saw by the light of a flash a new wire hanging from the isolator to
the ground.

"There it is!" said he.

This wire lay along the ground, and was surrounded with an isolating
substance like a submarine cable, so as to assure the free transmission of
the current. It appeared to pass through the wood and the southern spurs of
the mountain, and consequently it ran towards the west.

"Follow it!" said Cyrus Harding.

And the settlers immediately pressed forward, guided by the wire.

The thunder continued to roar with such violence that not a word could be
heard. However, there was no occasion for speaking, but to get forward as
fast as possible.

Cyrus Harding and his companions then climbed the spur rising between
the corral valley and that of Falls River, which they crossed at its
narrowest part. The wire, sometimes stretched over the lower branches of
the trees, sometimes lying on the ground, guided them surely. The engineer
had supposed that the wire would perhaps stop at the bottom of the valley,
and that the stranger's retreat would be there.

Nothing of the sort. They were obliged to ascend the south-western spur,
and re-descend on that arid plateau terminated by the strangely-wild basalt
cliff. From time to time one of the colonists stooped down and felt for the
wire with his hands; but there was now no doubt that the wire was running
directly towards the sea. There, to a certainty, in the depths of those
rocks, was the dwelling so long sought for in vain.

The sky was literally on fire. Flash succeeded flash. Several struck the
summit of the volcano in the midst of the thick smoke. It appeared there as
if the mountain was vomiting flame. At a few minutes to eleven the
colonists arrived on the high cliff overlooking the ocean to the west. The
wind had risen. The surf roared 500 feet below.

Harding calculated that they had gone a mile and a half from the corral.

At this point the wire entered among the rocks, following the steep side
of a narrow ravine. The settlers followed it at the risk of occasioning a
fall of the slightly-balanced rocks, and being dashed into the sea. The
descent was extremely perilous, but they did not think of the danger; they
were no longer masters of themselves, and an irresistible attraction drew
them towards this mysterious place as the magnet draws iron.

Thus they almost unconsciously descended this ravine, which even in broad
daylight would have been considered impracticable.

The stones rolled and sparkled like fiery balls when they crossed through
the gleams of light. Harding was first--Ayrton last. On they went, step by
step. Now they slid over the slippery rock; then they struggled to their
feet and scrambled on.

At last the wire touched the rocks on the beach. The colonists had
reached the bottom of the basalt cliff.

There appeared a narrow ridge, running horizontally and parallel with the
sea. The settlers followed the wire along it. They had not gone a hundred
paces when the ridge by a moderate incline sloped down to the level of the
sea.

The engineer seized the wire and found that it disappeared beneath the
waves.

His companions were stupefied.

A cry of disappointment, almost a cry of despair, escaped them! Must they
then plunge beneath the water and seek there for some submarine cavern? In
their excited state they would not have hesitated to do it.

The engineer stopped them.

He led his companions to a hollow in the rocks, and there--

"We must wait," said he. "The tide is high. At low water the way will be
open."

"But what can make you think-" asked Pencroft.

"He would not have called us if the means had been wanting to enable us
to reach him!"

Cyrus Harding spoke in a tone of such thorough conviction that no
objection was raised. His remark, besides, was logical. It was quite
possible that an opening, practicable at low water, though hidden now by
the high tide, opened at the foot of the cliff.

There was some time to wait. The colonists remained silently crouching in
a deep hollow. Rain now began to fall in torrents. The thunder was re-
echoed among the rocks with a grand sonorousness.

The colonists' emotion was great. A thousand strange and extraordinary
ideas crossed their brains, and they expected some grand and superhuman
apparition, which alone could come up to the notion they had formed of the
mysterious genius of the island.

At midnight, Harding carrying the lantern, descended to the beach to
reconnoiter.

The engineer was not mistaken. The beginning of an immense excavation
could be seen under the water. There the wire, bending at a right angle,
entered the yawning gulf.

Cyrus Harding returned to his companions, and said simply,--

"In an hour the opening will be practicable."

"It is there, then?" said Pencroft.

"Did you doubt it?" returned Harding.

"But this cavern must be filled with water to a certain height," observed
Herbert.

"Either the cavern will be completely dry," replied Harding, "and in that
case we can traverse it on foot, or it will not be dry, and some means of
transport will be put at our disposal."

An hour passed. All climbed down through the rain to the level of the
sea. There was now eight feet of the opening above the water. It was like
the arch of a bridge, under which rushed the foaming water.

Leaning forward, the engineer saw a black object floating on the water.
He drew it towards him. It was a boat, moored to some interior projection
of the cave. This boat was iron-plated. Two oars lay at the bottom.

"Jump in!" said Harding.

In a moment the settlers were in the boat. Neb and Ayrton took the oars,
Pencroft the rudder. Cyrus Harding in the bows, with the lantern, lighted
the way.

The elliptical roof, under which the boat at first passed, suddenly rose;
but the darkness was too deep, and the light of the lantern too slight, for
either the extent, length, height, or depth of the cave to be ascertained.
Solemn silence reigned in this basaltic cavern. Not a sound could penetrate
into it, even the thunder peals could not pierce its thick sides.

Such immense caves exist in various parts of the world, natural crypts
dating from the geological epoch of the globe. Some are filled by the sea;
others contain entire lakes in their sides. Such is Fingal's Cave, in the
island of Staffa, one of the Hebrides; such are the caves of Morgat, in the
bay of Douarnenez, in Brittany, the caves of Bonifacio, in Corsica, those
of Lyse-Fjord, in Norway; such are the immense Mammoth caverns in Kentucky,
500 feet in height, and more than twenty miles in length! In many parts of
the globe, nature has excavated these caverns, and preserved them for the
admiration of man.

Did the cavern which the settlers were now exploring extend to the center
of the island? For a quarter of an hour the boat had been advancing, making
detours, indicated to Pencroft by the engineer in short sentences, when all
at once,--

"More to the right!" he commanded.

The boat, altering its course, came up alongside the right wall. The
engineer wished to see if the wire still ran along the side.

The wire was there fastened to the rock.

"Forward!" said Harding.

And the two oars, plunging into the dark waters, urged the boat onwards.

On they went for another quarter of an hour, and a distance of half-a-
mile must have been cleared from the mouth of the cave, when Harding's
voice was again heard.

"Stop!" said he.

The boat stopped, and the colonists perceived a bright light illuminating
the vast cavern, so deeply excavated in the bowels of the island, of which
nothing had ever led them to suspect the existence.

At a height of a hundred feet rose the vaulted roof, supported on basalt
shafts. Irregular arches, strange moldings, appeared on the columns erected
by nature in thousands from the first epochs of the formation of the globe.
The basalt pillars, fitted one into the other, measured from forty to fifty
feet in height, and the water, calm in spite of the tumult outside, washed
their base. The brilliant focus of light, pointed out by the engineer,
touched every point of rocks, and flooded the walls with light.

By reflection the water reproduced the brilliant sparkles, so that the
boat appeared to be floating between two glittering zones. They could not
be mistaken in the nature of the irradiation thrown from the glowing
nucleus, whose clear rays were shattered by all the angles, all the
projections of the cavern. This light proceeded from an electric source,
and its white color betrayed its origin. It was the sun of this cave, and
it filled it entirely.

At a sign from Cyrus Harding the oars again plunged into the water,
causing a regular shower of gems, and the boat was urged forward towards
the light, which was now not more than half a cable's length distant.

At this place the breadth of the sheet of water measured nearly 350 feet,
and beyond the dazzling center could be seen an enormous basaltic wall,
blocking up any issue on that side. The cavern widened here considerably,
the sea forming a little lake. But the roof, the side walls, the end cliff,
all the prisms, all the peaks, were flooded with the electric fluid, so
that the brilliancy belonged to them, and as if the light issued from them.

In the center of the lake a long cigar-shaped object floated on the
surface of the water, silent, motionless. The brilliancy which issued from
it escaped from its sides as from two kilns heated to a white heat. This
apparatus, similar in shape to an enormous whale, was about 250 feet long,
and rose about ten or twelve above the water.

The boat slowly approached it, Cyrus Harding stood up in the bows. He
gazed, a prey to violent excitement. Then, all at once, seizing the
reporter's arm,--

"It is he! It can only be he!" he cried, "he!--"

Then, falling back on the seat, he murmured a name which Gideon Spilett
alone could hear.

The reporter evidently knew this name, for it had a wonderful
effect upon him, and he answered in a hoarse voice,--

"He! an outlawed man!"

"He!" said Harding.

At the engineer's command the boat approached this singular floating
apparatus. The boat touched the left side, from which escaped a ray of
light through a thick glass.

Harding and his companions mounted on the platform. An open hatchway was
there. All darted down the opening.

At the bottom of the ladder was a deck, lighted by electricity. At the
end of this deck was a door, which Harding opened.

A richly-ornamented room, quickly traversed by the colonists, was joined
to a library, over which a luminous ceiling shed a flood of light.

At the end of the library a large door, also shut, was opened by the
engineer.

An immense saloon--a sort of museum, in which were heaped up, with all
the treasures of the mineral world, works of art, marvels of industry--
appeared before the eyes of the colonists, who almost thought themselves
suddenly transported into a land of enchantment.

Stretched on a rich sofa they saw a man, who did not appear to notice
their presence.

Then Harding raised his voice, and to the extreme surprise of his
companions, he uttered these words,--

"Captain Nemo, you asked for us! We are here.--"



Chapter 16

At these words the reclining figure rose, and the electric light fell upon
his countenance; a magnificent head, the forehead high, the glance
commanding, beard white, hair abundant and falling over the shoulders.

His hand rested upon the cushion of the divan from which he had just
risen. He appeared perfectly calm. It was evident that his strength had
been gradually undermined by illness, but his voice seemed yet powerful, as
he said in English, and in a tone which evinced extreme surprise,--

"Sir, I have no name."

"Nevertheless, I know you!" replied Cyrus Harding.

Captain Nemo fixed his penetrating gaze upon the engineer, as though he
were about to annihilate him.

Then, falling back amid the pillows of the divan,--

"After all, what matters now?" he murmured; "I am dying!"

Cyrus Harding drew near the captain, and Gideon Spilett took his hand--it
was of a feverish heat. Ayrton, Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb stood
respectfully apart in an angle of the magnificent saloon, whose atmosphere
was saturated with the electric fluid.

Meanwhile Captain Nemo withdrew his hand, and motioned the engineer and
the reporter to be seated.

All regarded him with profound emotion. Before them they beheld that
being whom they had styled the "genius of the island," the powerful
protector whose intervention, in so many circumstances, had been so
efficacious, the benefactor to whom they owed such a debt of gratitude!
Their eyes beheld a man only, and a man at the point of death, where
Pencroft and Neb had expected to find an almost supernatural being!

But how happened it that Cyrus Harding had recognized Captain Nemo? why
had the latter so suddenly risen on hearing this name uttered, a name which
he had believed known to none?--

The captain had resumed his position on the divan, and leaning on his
arm, he regarded the engineer, seated near him.

"You know the name I formerly bore, sir?" he asked.

"I do," answered Cyrus Harding, "and also that of this wonderful
submarine vessel--"

"The 'Nautilus'?" said the captain, with a faint smile.

"The 'Nautilus.'"

"But do you--do you know who I am?"

"I do."

"It is nevertheless many years since I have held any communication with
the inhabited world; three long years have I passed in the depth of the
sea, the only place where I have found liberty! Who then can have betrayed
my secret?"

"A man who was bound to you by no tie, Captain Nemo, and who,
consequently, cannot be accused of treachery."

"The Frenchman who was cast on board my vessel by chance sixteen years
since?"

"The same."

"He and his two companions did not then perish in the maelstrom, in the
midst of which the 'Nautilus' was struggling?"

"They escaped, and a book has appeared under the title of 'Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,' which contains your history."

"The history of a few months only of my life!" interrupted the captain
impetuously.

"It is true," answered Cyrus Harding, "but a few months of that strange
life have sufficed to make you known."

"As a great criminal, doubtless!" said Captain Nemo, a haughty smile
curling his lips. "Yes, a rebel, perhaps an outlaw against humanity!"

The engineer was silent.

"Well, sir?"

"It is not for me to judge you, Captain Nemo," answered Cyrus Harding,
"at any rate as regards your past life. I am, with the rest of the world,
ignorant of the motives which induced you to adopt this strange mode of
existence, and I cannot judge of effects without knowing their causes; but
what I do know is, that a beneficent hand has constantly protected us since
our arrival on Lincoln Island, that we all owe our lives to a good,
generous, and powerful being, and that this being so powerful, good and
generous, Captain Nemo, is yourself!"

"It is I," answered the captain simply.

The engineer and the reporter rose. Their companions had drawn near, and
the gratitude with which their hearts were charged was about to express
itself in their gestures and words.

Captain Nemo stopped them by a sign, and in a voice which betrayed more
emotion than he doubtless intended to show.

"Wait till you have heard all," he said.

And the captain, in a few concise sentences, ran over the events of his
life.

His narrative was short, yet he was obliged to summon up his whole
remaining energy to arrive at the end. He was evidently contending against
extreme weakness. Several times Cyrus Harding entreated him to repose for a
while, but he shook his head as a man to whom the morrow may never come,
and when the reporter offered his assistance,--

"It is useless," he said; "my hours are numbered."

Captain Nemo was an Indian, the Prince Dakkar, son of a rajah of the then
independent territory of Bundelkund. His father sent him, when ten years of
age, to Europe, in order that he might receive an education in all respects
complete, and in the hopes that by his talents and knowledge he might one
day take a leading part in raising his long degraded and heathen country to
a level with the nations of Europe.

From the age of ten years to that of thirty Prince Dakkar, endowed by
Nature with her richest gifts of intellect, accumulated knowledge of every
kind, and in science, literature, and art his researches were extensive and
profound.

He traveled over the whole of Europe. His rank and fortune caused him to
be everywhere sought after; but the pleasures of the world had for him no
attractions. Though young and possessed of every personal advantage, he was
ever grave--somber even--devoured by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge,
and cherishing in the recesses of his heart the hope that he might become a
great and powerful ruler of a free and enlightened people.

Still, for long the love of science triumphed over all other feelings. He
became an artist deeply impressed by the marvels of art, a philosopher to
whom no one of the higher sciences was unknown, a statesman versed in the
policy of European courts. To the eyes of those who observed him
superficially he might have passed for one of those cosmopolitans, curious
of knowledge, but disdaining action; one of those opulent travelers,
haughty and cynical, who move incessantly from place to place, and are of
no country.

The history of Captain Nemo has, in fact, been published under the title
of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Here, therefore, will apply the
observation already made as to the adventures of Ayrton with regard to the
discrepancy of dates. Readers should therefore refer to the note already
published on this point.

This artist, this philosopher, this man was, however, still cherishing
the hope instilled into him from his earliest days.

Prince Dakkar returned to Bundelkund in the year 1849. He married a noble
Indian lady, who was imbued with an ambition not less ardent than that by
which he was inspired. Two children were born to them, whom they tenderly
loved. But domestic happiness did not prevent him from seeking to carry out
the object at which he aimed. He waited an opportunity. At length, as he
vainly fancied, it presented itself.

Instigated by princes equally ambitious and less sagacious and more
unscrupulous than he was, the people of India were persuaded that they
might successfully rise against their English rulers, who had brought them
out of a state of anarchy and constant warfare and misery, and had
established peace and prosperity in their country. Their ignorance and
gross superstition made them the facile tools of their designing chiefs.

In 1857 the great sepoy revolt broke out. Prince Dakkar, under the belief
that he should thereby have the opportunity of attaining the object of his
long-cherished ambition, was easily drawn into it. He forthwith devoted his
talents and wealth to the service of this cause. He aided it in person; he
fought in the front ranks; he risked his life equally with the humblest of
the wretched and misguided fanatics; he was ten times wounded in twenty
engagements, seeking death but finding it not, but at length the sanguinary
rebels were utterly defeated, and the atrocious mutiny was brought to an
end.

Never before had the British power in India been exposed to such danger,
and if, as they had hoped, the sepoys had received assistance from without,
the influence and supremacy in Asia of the United Kingdom would have been a
thing of the past.

The name of Prince Dakkar was at that time well known. He had fought
openly and without concealment. A price was set upon his head, but he
managed to escape from his pursuers.

Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.
The sepoys were vanquished, and the land of the rajahs of old fell again
under the rule of England.

Prince Dakkar, unable to find that death he courted, returned to the
mountain fastnesses of Bundelkund. There, alone in the world, overcome by
disappointment at the destruction of all his vain hopes, a prey to profound
disgust for all human beings, filled with hatred of the civilized world, he
realized the wreck of his fortune, assembled some score of his most
faithful companions, and one day disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

Where, then, did he seek that liberty denied him upon the inhabited
earth? Under the waves, in the depths of the ocean, where none could
follow.

The warrior became the man of science. Upon a deserted island of the
Pacific he established his dockyard, and there a submarine vessel was
constructed from his designs. By methods which will at some future day be
revealed he had rendered subservient the illimitable forces of electricity,
which, extracted from inexhaustible sources, was employed for all the
requirements of his floating equipage, as a moving, lighting, and heating
agent. The sea, with its countless treasures, its myriads of fish, its
numberless wrecks, its enormous mammalia, and not only all that nature
supplied, but also all that man had lost in its depths, sufficed for every
want of the prince and his crew--and thus was his most ardent desire
accomplished, never again to hold communication with the earth. He named
his submarine vessel the "Nautilus," called himself simply Captain Nemo,
and disappeared beneath the seas.

During many years this strange being visited every ocean, from pole to
pole. Outcast of the inhabited earth in these unknown worlds he gathered
incalculable treasures. The millions lost in the Bay of Vigo, in 1702, by
the galleons of Spain, furnished him with a mine of inexhaustible riches
which he devoted always, anonymously, in favor of those nations who fought
for the independence of their country.

(This refers to the resurrection of the Candiotes, who were, in

 fact, largely assisted by Captain Nemo.)

For long, however, he had held no communication with his fellow-
creatures, when, during the night of the 6th of November, 1866, three men
were cast on board his vessel. They were a French professor, his servant,
and a Canadian fisherman. These three men had been hurled overboard by a
collision which had taken place between the "Nautilus" and the United
States frigate "Abraham Lincoln," which had chased her.

Captain Nemo learned from this professor that the "Nautilus," taken now
for a gigantic mammal of the whale species, now for a submarine vessel
carrying a crew of pirates, was sought for in every sea.

He might have returned these three men to the ocean, from whence chance
had brought them in contact with his mysterious existence. Instead of doing
this he kept them prisoners, and during seven months they were enabled to
behold all the wonders of a voyage of twenty thousand leagues under the
sea.

One day, the 22nd of June, 1867, these three men, who knew nothing of the
past history of Captain Nemo, succeeded in escaping in one of the
"Nautilus's" boats. But as at this time the "Nautilus" was drawn into the
vortex of the maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, the captain naturally
believed that the fugitives, engulfed in that frightful whirlpool, found
their death at the bottom of the abyss. He was unaware that the Frenchman
and his two companions had been miraculously cast on shore, that the
fishermen of the Lofoten Islands had rendered them assistance, and that the
professor, on his return to France, had published that work in which seven
months of the strange and eventful navigation of the "Nautilus" were
narrated and exposed to the curiosity of the public.

For a long time alter this, Captain Nemo continued to live thus,
traversing every sea. But one by one his companions died, and found their
last resting-place in their cemetery of coral, in the bed of the Pacific.
At last Captain Nemo remained the solitary survivor of all those who had
taken refuge with him in the depths of the ocean.

He was now sixty years of age. Although alone, he succeeded in navigating
the "Nautilus" towards one of those submarine caverns which had sometimes
served him as a harbor.

One of these ports was hollowed beneath Lincoln Island, and at this
moment furnished an asylum to the "Nautilus."

The captain had now remained there six years, navigating the ocean no
longer, but awaiting death, and that moment when he should rejoin his
former companions, when by chance he observed the descent of the balloon
which carried the prisoners of the Confederates. Clad in his diving dress
he was walking beneath the water at a few cables' length from the shore of
the island, when the engineer had been thrown into the sea. Moved by a
feeling of compassion the captain saved Cyrus Harding.

His first impulse was to fly from the vicinity of the five castaways; but
his harbor refuge was closed, for in consequence of an elevation of the
basalt, produced by the influence of volcanic action, he could no longer
pass through the entrance of the vault. Though there was sufficient depth
of water to allow a light craft to pass the bar, there was not enough for
the "Nautilus," whose draught of water was considerable.

Captain Nemo was compelled, therefore, to remain. He observed these men
thrown without resources upon a desert island, but had no wish to be
himself discovered by them. By degrees he became interested in their
efforts when he saw them honest, energetic, and bound to each other by the
ties of friendship. As if despite his wishes, he penetrated all the secrets
of their existence. By means of the diving dress he could easily reach the
well in the interior of Granite House, and climbing by the projections of
rock to its upper orifice he heard the colonists as they recounted the
past, and studied the present and future. He learned from them the
tremendous conflict of America with America itself, for the abolition of
slavery. Yes, these men were worthy to reconcile Captain Nemo with that
humanity which they represented so nobly in the island.

Captain Nemo had saved Cyrus Harding. It was he also who had brought back
the dog to the Chimneys, who rescued Top from the waters of the lake, who
caused to fall at Flotsam Point the case containing so many things useful
to the colonists, who conveyed the canoe back into the stream of the Mercy,
who cast the cord from the top of Granite House at the time of the attack
by the baboons, who made known the presence of Ayrton upon Tabor Island, by
means of the document enclosed in the bottle, who caused the explosion of
the brig by the shock of a torpedo placed at the bottom of the canal, who
saved Herbert from certain death by bringing the sulphate of quinine; and
finally, it was he who had killed the convicts with the electric balls, of
which he possessed the secret, and which he employed in the chase of
submarine creatures. Thus were explained so many apparently supernatural
occurrences, and which all proved the generosity and power of the captain.

Nevertheless, this noble misanthrope longed to benefit his proteges still
further. There yet remained much useful advice to give them, and, his heart
being softened by the approach of death, he invited, as we are aware, the
colonists of Granite House to visit the "Nautilus," by means of a wire
which connected it with the corral. Possibly he would not have done this
had he been aware that Cyrus Harding was sufficiently acquainted with his
history to address him by the name of Nemo.

The captain concluded the narrative of his life. Cyrus Harding then
spoke; he recalled all the incidents which had exercised so beneficent an
influence upon the colony, and in the names of his companions and himself
thanked the generous being to whom they owed so much.

But Captain Nemo paid little attention; his mind appeared to be absorbed
by one idea, and without taking the proffered hand of the engineer,--

"Now, sir," said he, "now that you know my history, your judgment!"

In saying this, the captain evidently alluded to an important incident
witnessed by the three strangers thrown on board his vessel, and which the
French professor had related in his work, causing a profound and terrible
sensation. Some days previous to the flight of the professor and his two
companions, the "Nautilus," being chased by a frigate in the north of the
Atlantic had hurled herself as a ram upon this frigate, and sunk her
without mercy.

Cyrus Harding understood the captain's allusion, and was silent.

"It was an enemy's frigate," exclaimed Captain Nemo, transformed for an
instant into the Prince Dakkar, "an enemy's frigate! It was she who
attacked me--I was in a narrow and shallow bay--the frigate barred my way--
and I sank her!"

A few moments of silence ensued; then the captain demanded,--

"What think you of my life, gentlemen?"

Cyrus Harding extended his hand to the ci-devant prince and replied
gravely, "Sir, your error was in supposing that the past can be
resuscitated, and in contending against inevitable progress. It is one of
those errors which some admire, others blame; which God alone can judge. He
who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be
an enemy, but retains our esteem. Your error is one that we may admire, and
your name has nothing to fear from the judgment of history, which does not
condemn heroic folly, but its results."

The old man's breast swelled with emotion, and raising his hand to
heaven,--

"Was I wrong, or in the right?" he murmured.

Cyrus Harding replied, "All great actions return to God, from whom they
are derived. Captain Nemo, we, whom you have succored, shall ever mourn
your loss."

Herbert, who had drawn near the captain, fell on his knees and kissed his
hand.

A tear glistened in the eyes of the dying man. "My child," he said, "may
God bless you!"



Chapter 17

Day had returned. No ray of light penetrated into the profundity of the
cavern. It being high-water, the entrance was closed by the sea. But the
artificial light, which escaped in long streams from the skylights of the
"Nautilus" was as vivid as before, and the sheet of water shone around the
floating vessel.

An extreme exhaustion now overcame Captain Nemo, who had fallen back upon
the divan. It was useless to contemplate removing him to Granite House, for
he had expressed his wish to remain in the midst of those marvels of the
"Nautilus" which millions could not have purchased, and to wait there for
that death which was swiftly approaching.

During a long interval of prostration, which rendered him almost
unconscious, Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett attentively observed the
condition of the dying man. It was apparent that his strength was gradually
diminishing. That frame, once so robust, was now but the fragile tenement
of a departing soul. All of life was concentrated in the heart and head.

The engineer and reporter consulted in whispers. Was it possible to
render any aid to the dying man? Might his life, if not saved, be prolonged
for some days? He himself had said that no remedy could avail, and he
awaited with tranquillity that death which had for him no terrors.

"We can do nothing," said Gideon Spilett.

"But of what is he dying?" asked Pencroft.

"Life is simply fading out," replied the reporter.

"Nevertheless," said the sailor, "if we move him into the open air, and
the light of the sun, he might perhaps recover."

"No, Pencroft," answered the engineer, "it is useless to attempt it.
Besides, Captain Nemo would never consent to leave his vessel. He has lived
for a dozen years on board the 'Nautilus,' and on board the 'Nautilus' he
desires to die."

Without doubt Captain Nemo heard Cyrus Harding's reply, for he raised
himself slightly, and in a voice more feeble, but always intelligible,--

"You are right, sir," he said. "I shall die here--it is my wish; and
therefore I have a request to make of you."

Cyrus Harding and his companions had drawn near the divan, and now
arranged the cushions in such a manner as to better support the dying man.

They saw his eyes wander over all the marvels of this saloon, lighted by
the electric rays which fell from the arabesques of the luminous ceiling.
He surveyed, one after the other, the pictures hanging from the splendid
tapestries of the partitions, the chef-d'oeuvres of the Italian, Flemish,
French, and Spanish masters; the statues of marble and bronze on their
pedestals; the magnificent organ, leaning against the after-partition; the
aquarium, in which bloomed the most wonderful productions of the sea--
marine plants, zoophytes, chaplets of pearls of inestimable value; and,
finally, his eyes rested on this device, inscribed over the pediment of the
museum--the motto of the "Nautilus"--


"Mobilis in mobile."


His glance seemed to rest fondly for the last time on these masterpieces
of art and of nature, to which he had limited his horizon during a sojourn
of so many years in the abysses of the seas.

Cyrus Harding respected the captain's silence, and waited till he should
speak.

After some minutes, during which, doubtless, he passed in review his
whole life, Captain Nemo turned to the colonists and said,

"You consider yourselves, gentlemen, under some obligations to me?"

"Captain, believe us that we would give our lives to prolong yours."

"Promise, then," continued Captain Nemo, "to carry out my last wishes,
and I shall be repaid for all I have done for you."

"We promise," said Cyrus Harding.

And by this promise he bound both himself and his companions.

"Gentlemen," resumed the captain, "to-morrow I shall be dead."

Herbert was about to utter an exclamation, but a sign from the captain
arrested him.

"To-morrow I shall die, and I desire no other tomb than the 'Nautilus.'
It is my grave! All my friends repose in the depths of the ocean; their
resting-place shall be mine."

These words were received with profound silence.

"Pay attention to my wishes," he continued. "The 'Nautilus' is imprisoned
in this grotto, the entrance of which is blocked up; but, although egress
is impossible, the vessel may at least sink in the abyss, and there bury my
remains."

The colonists listened reverently to the words of the dying man.

"To-morrow, after my death, Mr. Harding," continued the captain,
"yourself and companions will leave the 'Nautilus,' for all the treasures
it contains must perish with me. One token alone will remain with you of
Prince Dakkar, with whose history you are now acquainted. That coffer
yonder contains diamonds of the value of many millions, most of them
mementoes of the time when, husband and father, I thought happiness
possible for me, and a collection of pearls gathered by my friends and
myself in the depths of the ocean. Of this treasure at a future day, you
may make good use. In the hands of such men as yourself and your comrades,
Captain Harding, money will never be a source of danger. From on high I
shall still participate in your enterprises, and I fear not but that they
will prosper."

After a few moments' repose, necessitated by his extreme weakness,
Captain Nemo continued,--

"To-morrow you will take the coffer, you will leave the saloon, of which
you will close the door; then you will ascend on to the deck of the
'Nautilus,' and you will lower the mainhatch so as entirely to close the
vessel."

"It shall be done, captain," answered Cyrus Harding.

"Good. You will then embark in the canoe which brought you hither; but,
before leaving the 'Nautilus,' go to the stern and there open two large
stop-cocks which you will find upon the water-line. The water will penetrate
into the reservoirs, and the 'Nautilus' will gradually sink beneath the
water to repose at the bottom of the abyss."

And comprehending a gesture of Cyrus Harding, the captain added,--

"Fear nothing! You will but bury a corpse!"

Neither Cyrus Harding nor his companions ventured to offer any
observation to Captain Nemo. He had expressed his last wishes, and they had
nothing to do but to conform to them.

"I have your promise, gentlemen?" added Captain Nemo.

"You have, captain," replied the engineer.

The captain thanked the colonists by a sign, and requested them to leave
him for some hours. Gideon Spilett wished to remain near him, in the event
of a crisis coming on, but the dying man refused, saying, "I shall live
until to-morrow, sir."

All left the saloon, passed through the library and the dining-room, and
arrived forward, in the machine-room where the electrical apparatus was
established, which supplied not only heat and light, but the mechanical
power of the "Nautilus."

The "Nautilus" was a masterpiece containing masterpieces with itself, and
the engineer was struck with astonishment.

The colonists mounted the platform, which rose seven or eight feet above
the water. There they beheld a thick glass lenticular covering, which
protected a kind of large eye, from which flashed forth light. Behind this
eye was apparently a cabin containing the wheels of the rudder, and in
which was stationed the helmsman, when he navigated the "Nautilus" over the
bed of the ocean, which the electric rays would evidently light up to a
considerable distance.

Cyrus Harding and his companions remained for a time silent, for they
were vividly impressed by what they had just seen and heard, and their
hearts were deeply touched by the thought that he whose arm had so often
aided them, the protector whom they had known but a few hours, was at the
point of death.

Whatever might be the judgment pronounced by posterity upon the events of
this, so to speak, extra-human existence, the character of Prince Dakkar
would ever remain as one of those whose memory time can never efface.

"What a man!" said Pencroft. "Is it possible that he can have lived at
the bottom of the sea? And it seems to me that perhaps he has not found
peace there any more than elsewhere!"

"The 'Nautilus,'" observed Ayrton, "might have enabled us to leave
Lincoln Island and reach some inhabited country."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Pencroft, "I for one would never risk myself in
such a craft. To sail on the seas, good, but under the seas, never!"

"I believe, Pencroft," answered the reporter, "that the navigation of a
submarine vessel such as the 'Nautilus' ought to be very easy, and that we
should soon become accustomed to it. There would be no storms, no lee-shore
to fear. At some feet beneath the surface the waters of the ocean are as
calm as those of a lake."

"That may be," replied the sailor, "but I prefer a gale of wind on board
a well-found craft. A vessel is built to sail on the sea, and not beneath
it."

"My friends," said the engineer, "it is useless, at any rate as regards
the 'Nautilus,' to discuss the question of submarine vessels. The
'Nautilus' is not ours, and we have not the right to dispose of it.
Moreover, we could in no case avail ourselves of it. Independently of the
fact that it would be impossible to get it out of this cavern, whose
entrance is now closed by the uprising of the basaltic rocks, Captain
Nemo's wish is that it shall be buried with him. His wish is our law, and
we will fulfil it."

After a somewhat prolonged conversation, Cyrus Harding and his companions
again descended to the interior of the "Nautilus." There they took some
refreshment and returned to the saloon.

Captain Nemo had somewhat rallied from the prostration which had overcome
him, and his eyes shone with their wonted fire. A faint smile even curled
his lips.

The colonists drew around him.

"Gentlemen," said the captain, "you are brave and honest men. You have
devoted yourselves to the common weal. Often have I observed your conduct.
I have esteemed you--I esteem you still! Your hand, Mr. Harding."

Cyrus Harding gave his hand to the captain, who clasped it
affectionately.

"It is well!" he murmured.

He resumed,--

"But enough of myself. I have to speak concerning yourselves, and this
Lincoln Island, upon which you have taken refuge. You now desire to leave
it?"

"To return, captain!" answered Pencroft quickly.

"To return, Pencroft?" said the captain, with a smile. "I know, it is
true, your love for this island. You have helped to make it what it now is,
and it seems to you a paradise!"

"Our project, captain," interposed Cyrus Harding, "is to annex it to the
United States, and to establish for our shipping a port so fortunately
situated in this part of the Pacific."

"Your thoughts are with your country, gentlemen," continued the captain;
"your toils are for her prosperity and glory. You are right. One's native
land!--there should one live! there die! And I die far from all I loved!"

"You have some last wish to transmit," said the engineer with emotion,
"some souvenir to send to those friends you have left in the mountains of
India?"

"No, Captain Harding; no friends remain to me! I am the last of my race,
and to all whom I have known I have long been as are the dead.--But to
return to yourselves. Solitude, isolation, are painful things, and beyond
human endurance. I die of having thought it possible to live alone! You
should, therefore, dare all in the attempt to leave Lincoln Island, and see
once more the land of your birth. I am aware that those wretches have
destroyed the vessel you have built."

"We propose to construct a vessel," said Gideon Spilett, "sufficiently
large to convey us to the nearest land; but if we should succeed, sooner or
later we shall return to Lincoln Island. We are attached to it by too many
recollections ever to forget it."

"It is here that we have known Captain Nemo," said Cyrus Harding.

"It is here only that we can make our home!" added Herbert.

"And here shall I sleep the sleep of eternity, if--" replied the captain.

He paused for a moment, and, instead of completing the sentence, said
simply,--

"Mr. Harding, I wish to speak with you--alone!"

The engineer's companions, respecting the wish, retired.

Cyrus Harding remained but a few minutes alone with Captain Nemo, and
soon recalled his companions; but he said nothing to them of the private
matters which the dying man had confided to him.

Gideon Spilett now watched the captain with extreme care. It was evident
that he was no longer sustained by his moral energy, which had lost the
power of reaction against his physical weakness.

The day closed without change. The colonists did not quit the "Nautilus"
for a moment. Night arrived, although it was impossible to distinguish it
from day in the cavern.

Captain Nemo suffered no pain, but he was visibly sinking. His noble
features, paled by the approach of death, were perfectly calm. Inaudible
words escaped at intervals from his lips, bearing upon various incidents of
his checkered career. Life was evidently ebbing slowly and his extremities
were already cold.

Once or twice more he spoke to the colonists who stood around him, and
smiled on them with that last smile which continues after death.

At length, shortly after midnight, Captain Nemo by a supreme effort
succeeded in folding his arms across his breast, as if wishing in that
attitude to compose himself for death.

By one o'clock his glance alone showed signs of life. A dying light
gleamed in those eyes once so brilliant. Then, murmuring the words, "God
and my country!" he quietly expired.

Cyrus Harding, bending low closed the eyes of him who had once been the
Prince Dakkar, and was now not even Captain Nemo.

Herbert and Pencroft sobbed aloud. Tears fell from Ayrton's eyes. Neb was
on his knees by the reporter's side, motionless as a statue.

Then Cyrus Harding, extending his hand over the forehead of the dead,
said solemnly, "May his soul be with God!" Turning to his friends, he
added, "Let us pray for him whom we have lost!"


Some hours later the colonists fulfilled the promise made to the captain
by carrying out his dying wishes.

Cyrus Harding and his companions quitted the "Nautilus," taking with them
the only memento left them by their benefactor, the coffer which contained
wealth amounting to millions.

The marvelous saloon, still flooded with light, had been carefully
closed. The iron door leading on deck was then securely fastened in such a
manner as to prevent even a drop of water from penetrating to the interior
of the "Nautilus."

The colonists then descended into the canoe, which was moored to the side
of the submarine vessel.

The canoe was now brought around to the stern. There, at the water-line,
were two large stop-cocks communicating with the reservoirs employed in the
submersion of the vessel.

The stop-cocks were opened, the reservoirs filled, and the "Nautilus,"
slowly sinking, disappeared beneath the surface of the lake.

But the colonists were yet able to follow its descent through the waves.
The powerful light it gave forth lighted up the translucent water, while
the cavern became gradually obscure. At length this vast effusion of
electric light faded away, and soon after the "Nautilus," now the tomb of
Captain Nemo, reposed in its ocean bed.



Chapter 18


At break of day the colonists regained in silence the entrance of the
cavern, to which they gave the name of "Dakkar Grotto," in memory of
Captain Nemo. It was now low-water, and they passed without difficulty
under the arcade, washed on the right by the sea.

The canoe was left here, carefully protected from the waves. As
additional precaution, Pencroft, Neb, and Ayrton drew it up on a little
beach which bordered one of the sides of the grotto, in a spot where it
could run no risk of harm.

The storm had ceased during the night. The last low mutterings of the
thunder died away in the west. Rain fell no longer, but the sky was yet
obscured by clouds. On the whole, this month of October, the first of the
southern spring, was not ushered in by satisfactory tokens, and the wind
had a tendency to shift from one point of the compass to another, which
rendered it impossible to count upon settled weather.

Cyrus Harding and his companions, on leaving Dakkar Grotto, had taken the
road to the corral. On their way Neb and Herbert were careful to preserve
the wire which had been laid down by the captain between the corral and the
grotto, and which might at a future time be of service.

The colonists spoke but little on the road. The various incidents of the
night of October 15th had left a profound impression on their minds. The
unknown being whose influence had so effectually protected them, the man
whom their imagination had endowed with supernatural powers, Captain Nemo,
was no more. His "Nautilus" and he were buried in the depths of the abyss.
To each one of them their existence seemed even more isolated than before.
They had been accustomed to count upon the intervention of that power which
existed no longer, and Gideon Spilett, and even Cyrus Harding, could not
escape this impression. Thus they maintained a profound silence during
their journey to the corral.

Towards nine in the morning the colonists arrived at Granite House.

It had been agreed that the construction of the vessel should be actively
pushed forward, and Cyrus Harding more than ever devoted his time and labor
to this object. It was impossible to divine what future lay before them.
Evidently the advantage to the colonists would be great of having at their
disposal a substantial vessel, capable of keeping the sea even in heavy
weather, and large enough to attempt, in case of need, a voyage of some
duration. Even if, when their vessel should be completed, the colonists
should not resolve to leave Lincoln Island as yet, in order to gain either
one of the Polynesian Archipelagoes of the Pacific or the shores of New
Zealand, they might at least, sooner or later, proceed to Tabor Island, to
leave there the notice relating to Ayrton. This was a precaution rendered
indispensable by the possibility of the Scotch yacht reappearing in those
seas, and it was of the highest importance that nothing should be neglected
on this point.

The works were then resumed. Cyrus Harding, Pencroft, and Ayrton,
assisted by Neb, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert, except when unavoidably
called off by other necessary occupations, worked without cessation. It was
important that the new vessel should be ready in five months--that is to
say, by the beginning of March--if they wished to visit Tabor Island before
the equinoctial gales rendered the voyage impracticable. Therefore the
carpenters lost not a moment. Moreover, it was unnecessary to manufacture
rigging, that of the "Speedy" having been saved entire, so that the hull
only of the vessel needed to be constructed.

The end of the year 1868 found them occupied by these important labors,
to the exclusion of almost all others. At the expiration of two months and
a half the ribs had been set up and the first planks adjusted. It was
already evident that the plans made by Cyrus Harding were admirable, and
that the vessel would behave well at sea.

Pencroft brought to the task a devouring energy, and would even grumble
when one or the other abandoned the carpenter's axe for the gun of the
hunter. It was nevertheless necessary to keep up the stores of Granite
House, in view of the approaching winter. But this did not satisfy
Pencroft. The brave, honest sailor was not content when the workmen were
not at the dockyard. when this happened he grumbled vigorously, and, by way
of venting his feelings, did the work of six men.

The weather was very unfavorable during the whole of the summer season.
For some days the heat was overpowering, and the atmosphere, saturated with
electricity, was only cleared by violent storms. It was rarely that the
distant growling of the thunder could not be heard, like a low but
incessant murmur, such as is produced in the equatorial regions of the
globe.

The 1st of January, 1869, was signalized by a storm of extreme violence,
and the thunder burst several times over the island. Large trees were
struck by the electric fluid and shattered, and among others one of those
gigantic nettle-trees which had shaded the poultry-yard at the southern
extremity of the lake. Had this meteor any relation to the phenomena going
on in the bowels of the earth? Was there any connection between the
commotion of the atmosphere and that of the interior of the earth? Cyrus
Harding was inclined to think that such was the case, for the development
of these storms was attended by the renewal of volcanic symptoms.

It was on the 3rd of January that Herbert, having ascended at daybreak to
the plateau of Prospect Heights to harness one of the onagers, perceived an
enormous hat-shaped cloud rolling from the summit of the volcano.

Herbert immediately apprised the colonists, who at once joined him in
watching the summit of Mount Franklin.

"Ah!" exclaimed Pencroft, "those are not vapors this time! It seems to me
that the giant is not content with breathing; he must smoke!"

This figure of speech employed by the sailor exactly expressed the
changes going on at the mouth of the volcano. Already for three months had
the crater emitted vapors more or less dense, but which were as yet
produced only by an internal ebullition of mineral substances. But now the
vapors were replaced by a thick smoke, rising in the form of a grayish
column, more than three hundred feet in width at its base, and which spread
like an immense mushroom to a height of from seven to eight hundred feet
above the summit of the mountain.

"The fire is in the chimney," observed Gideon Spilett.

"And we can't put it out!" replied Herbert.

"The volcano ought to be swept," observed Neb, who spoke as if perfectly
serious.

"Well said, Neb!" cried Pencroft, with a shout of laughter; "and you'll
undertake the job, no doubt?"

Cyrus Harding attentively observed the dense smoke emitted by Mount
Franklin, and even listened, as if expecting to hear some distant
muttering. Then, turning towards his companions, from whom he had gone
somewhat apart, he said,--

"The truth is, my friends, we must not conceal from ourselves that an
important change is going forward. The volcanic substances are no longer in
a state of ebullition, they have caught fire, and we are undoubtedly
menaced by an approaching eruption."

"Well, captain," said Pencroft, "we shall witness the eruption; and if it
is a good one, we'll applaud it. I don't see that we need concern ourselves
further about the matter."

"It may be so," replied Cyrus Harding, "for the ancient track of the lava
is still open; and thanks to this, the crater has hitherto overflowed
towards the north. And yet--"

"And yet, as we can derive no advantage from an eruption, it might be
better it should not take place," said the reporter.

"Who knows?" answered the sailor. "Perhaps there may be some valuable
substance in this volcano, which it will spout forth, and which we may turn
to good account!"

Cyrus Harding shook his head with the air of a man who augured no good
from the phenomenon whose development had been so sudden. He did not regard
so lightly as Pencroft the results of an eruption. If the lava, in
consequence of the position of the crater, did not directly menace the
wooded and cultivated parts of the island, other complications might
present themselves. In fact, eruptions are not unfrequently accompanied by
earthquakes; and an island of the nature of Lincoln Island, formed of
substances so varied, basalt on one side, granite on the other, lava on the
north, rich soil on the south, substances which consequently could not be
firmly attached to each other, would be exposed to the risk of
disintegration. Although, therefore, the spreading of the volcanic matter
might not constitute a serious danger, any movement of the terrestrial
structure which should shake the island might entail the gravest
consequences.

"It seems to me," said Ayrton, who had reclined so as to place his ear to
the ground, "it seems to me that I can hear a dull, rumbling sound, like
that of a wagon loaded with bars of iron."

The colonists listened with the greatest attention, and were convinced
that Ayrton was not mistaken. The rumbling was mingled with a subterranean
roar, which formed a sort of rinforzando, and died slowly away, as if some
violent storm had passed through the profundities of the globe. But no
explosion properly so termed, could be heard. It might therefore be
concluded that the vapors and smoke found a free passage through the
central shaft; and that the safety-valve being sufficiently large, no
convulsion would be produced, no explosion was to be apprehended.

"Well, then!" said Pencroft, "are we not going back to work? Let Mount
Franklin smoke, groan, bellow, or spout forth fire and flame as much as it
pleases, that is no reason why we should be idle! Come, Ayrton, Neb,
Herbert, Captain Harding, Mr. Spilett, every one of us must turn to at our
work to-day! We are going to place the keelson, and a dozen pair of hands
would not be too many. Before two months I want our new 'Bonadventure'--
for we shall keep the old name, shall we not?--to float on the waters of
Port Balloon! Therefore there is not an hour to lose!"

All the colonists, their services thus requisitioned by Pencroft,
descended to the dockyard, and proceeded to place the keelson, a thick mass
of wood which forms the lower portion of a ship and unites firmly the
timbers of the hull. It was an arduous undertaking, in which all took part.

They continued their labors during the whole of this day, the 3rd of
January, without thinking further of the volcano, which could not, besides,
be seen from the shore of Granite House. But once or twice, large shadows,
veiling the sun, which described its diurnal arc through an extremely clear
sky, indicated that a thick cloud of smoke passed between its disc and the
island. The wind, blowing on the shore, carried all these vapors to the
westward. Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett remarked these somber
appearances, and from time to time discussed the evident progress of the
volcanic phenomena, but their work went on without interruption. It was,
besides, of the first importance from every point of view, that the vessel
should be finished with the least possible delay. In presence of the
eventualities which might arise, the safety of the colonists would be to a
great extent secured by their ship. Who could tell that it might not prove
some day their only refuge?

In the evening, after supper, Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert
again ascended the plateau of Prospect Heights. It was already dark, and
the obscurity would permit them to ascertain if flames or incandescent
matter thrown up by the volcano were mingled with the vapor and smoke
accumulated at the mouth of the crater.

"The crater is on fire!" said Herbert, who, more active than his
companion, first reached the plateau.

Mount Franklin, distant about six miles, now appeared like a gigantic
torch, around the summit of which turned fuliginous flames. So much smoke,
and possibly scoriae and cinders were mingled with them, that their light
gleamed but faintly amid the gloom of the night. But a kind of lurid
brilliancy spread over the island, against which stood out confusedly the
wooded masses of the heights. Immense whirlwinds of vapor obscured the sky,
through which glimmered a few stars.

"The change is rapid!" said the engineer.

"That is not surprising," answered the reporter. "The reawakening of the
volcano already dates back some time. You may remember, Cyrus, that the
first vapors appeared about the time we searched the sides of the mountain
to discover Captain Nemo's retreat. It was, if I mistake not, about the
15th of October."

"Yes," replied Herbert, "two months and a half ago!"

"The subterranean fires have therefore been smoldering for ten weeks,"
resumed Gideon Spilett, "and it is not to be wondered at that they now
break out with such violence!"

"Do not you feel a certain vibration of the soil?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"Yes," replied Gideon Spilett, "but there is a great difference between
that and an earthquake."

"I do not affirm that we are menaced with an earthquake," answered Cyrus
Harding, "may God preserve us from that! No; these vibrations are due to
the effervescence of the central fire. The crust of the earth is simply the
shell of a boiler, and you know that such a shell, under the pressure of
steam, vibrates like a sonorous plate. it is this effect which is being
produced at this moment."

"What magnificent flames!" exclaimed Herbert.

At this instant a kind of bouquet of flames shot forth from the crater,
the brilliancy of which was visible even through the vapors. Thousands of
luminous sheets and barbed tongues of fire were cast in various directions.
Some, extending beyond the dome of smoke, dissipated it, leaving behind an
incandescent powder. This was accompanied by successive explosions,
resembling the discharge of a battery of machine-guns.

Cyrus Harding, the reporter, and Herbert, after spending an hour on the
plateau of Prospect Heights, again descended to the beach, and returned to
Granite House. The engineer was thoughtful and preoccupied, so much so,
indeed, that Gideon Spilett inquired if he apprehended any immediate
danger, of which the eruption might directly or indirectly be the cause.

"Yes, and no," answered Cyrus Harding.

"Nevertheless," continued the reporter, "would not the greatest
misfortune which could happen to us be an earthquake which would overturn
the island? Now, I do not suppose that this is to be feared, since the
vapors and lava have found a free outlet."

"True," replied Cyrus Harding, "and I do not fear an earthquake in the
sense in which the term is commonly applied to convulsions of the soil
provoked by the expansion of subterranean gases. But other causes may
produce great disasters."

"How so, my dear Cyrus?'

"I am not certain. I must consider. I must visit the mountain. In a few
days I shall learn more on this point."

Gideon Spilett said no more, and soon, in spite of the explosions of the
volcano, whose intensity increased, and which were repeated by the echoes
of the island, the inhabitants of Granite House were sleeping soundly.

Three days passed by--the 4th, 5th, and 6th of January. The construction
of the vessel was diligently continued, and without offering further
explanations the engineer pushed forward the work with all his energy.
Mount Franklin was now hooded by a somber cloud of sinister aspect, and,
amid the flames, vomiting forth incandescent rocks, some of which fell back
into the crater itself. This caused Pencroft, who would only look at the
matter in the light of a joke, to exclaim,--

"Ah! the giant is playing at cup and ball; he is a conjurer."

In fact, the substances thrown up fell back again in to the abyss, and it
did not seem that the lava, though swollen by the internal pressure, had
yet risen to the orifice of the crater. At any rate, the opening on the
northeast, which was partly visible, poured out no torrent upon the
northern slope of the mountain.

Nevertheless, however pressing was the construction of the vessel, other
duties demanded the presence of the colonists on various portions of the
island. Before everything it was necessary to go to the corral, where the
flocks of musmons and goats were enclosed, and replenish the provision of
forage for those animals. It was accordingly arranged that Ayrton should
proceed thither the next day, the 7th of January; and as he was sufficient
for the task, to which he was accustomed, Pencroft and the rest were
somewhat surprised on hearing the engineer say to Ayrton--

"As you are going to-morrow to the corral I will accompany you."

"But, Captain Harding," exclaimed the sailor, "our working days will not
be many, and if you go also we shall be two pair of hands short!"

"We shall return to-morrow," replied Cyrus Harding, "but it is necessary
that I should go to the corral. I must learn how the eruption is
progressing."

"The eruption! always the eruption!" answered Pencroft, with an air of
discontent. "An important thing, truly, this eruption! I trouble myself
very little about it."

Whatever might be the sailor's opinion, the expedition projected by the
engineer was settled for the next day. Herbert wished to accompany Cyrus
Harding, but he would not vex Pencroft by his absence.

The next day, at dawn, Cyrus Harding and Ayrton, mounting the cart drawn
by two onagers, took the road to the corral and set off at a round trot.

Above the forest were passing large clouds, to which the crater of Mount
Franklin incessantly added fuliginous matter. These clouds, which rolled
heavily in the air, were evidently composed of heterogeneous substances. It
was not alone from the volcano that they derived their strange opacity and
weight. Scoriae, in a state of dust, like powdered pumice-stone, and
grayish ashes as small as the finest feculae, were held in suspension in
the midst of their thick folds. These ashes are so fine that they have been
observed in the air for whole months. After the eruption of 1783 in Iceland
for upwards of a year the atmosphere was thus charged with volcanic dust
through which the rays of the sun were only with difficulty discernible.

But more often this pulverized matter falls, and this happened on the
present occasion. Cyrus Harding and Ayrton had scarcely reached the corral
when a sort of black snow like fine gunpowder fell, and instantly changed
the appearance of the soil. Trees, meadows, all disappeared beneath a
covering several inches in depth. But, very fortunately, the wind blew from
the northeast, and the greater part of the cloud dissolved itself over the
sea.

"This is very singular, Captain Harding," said Ayrton.

"It is very serious," replied the engineer. "This powdered pumice-stone,
all this mineral dust, proves how grave is the convulsion going forward in
the lower depths of the volcano."

"But can nothing be done?"

"Nothing, except to note the progress of the phenomenon. Do you,
therefore, Ayrton, occupy yourself with the necessary work at the corral.
In the meantime I will ascend just beyond the source of Red Creek and
examine the condition of the mountain upon its northern aspect. Then--"

"Well, Captain Harding?"

"Then we will pay a visit to Dakkar Grotto. I wish to inspect it. At any
rate I will come back for you in two hours."

Ayrton then proceeded to enter the corral, and, while awaiting the
engineer's return, busied himself with the musmons and goats which seemed
to feel a certain uneasiness in presence of these first signs of an
eruption.

Meanwhile Cyrus Harding ascended the crest of the eastern spur, passed
Red Creek, and arrived at the spot where he and his companions had
discovered a sulphurous spring at the time of their first exploration.

How changed was everything! Instead of a single column of smoke he
counted thirteen, forced through the soil as if violently propelled by some
piston. It was evident that the crust of the earth was subjected in this
part of the globe to a frightful pressure. The atmosphere was saturated
with gases and carbonic acid, mingled with aqueous vapors. Cyrus Harding
felt the volcanic tufa with which the plain was strewn, and which was but
pulverized cinders hardened into solid blocks by time, tremble beneath him,
but he could discover no traces of fresh lava.

The engineer became more assured of this when he observed all the
northern part of Mount Franklin. Pillars of smoke and flame escaped from
the crater; a hail of scoriae fell on the ground; but no current of lava
burst from the mouth of the volcano, which proved that the volcanic matter
had not yet attained the level of the superior orifice of the central
shaft.

"But I would prefer that it were so," said Cyrus Harding to himself. "At
any rate, I should then know that the lava had followed its accustomed
track. who can say that it may not take a new course? But the danger does
not consist in that! Captain Nemo foresaw it clearly! No, the danger does
not lie there!"

Cyrus Harding advanced towards the enormous causeway whose prolongation
enclosed the narrow Shark Gulf. He could now sufficiently examine on this
side the ancient channels of the lava. There was no doubt in his mind that
the most recent eruption had occurred at a far-distant epoch.

He then returned by the same way, listening attentively to the
subterranean mutterings which rolled like long-continued thunder,
interrupted by deafening explosions. At nine in the morning he reached the
corral.

Ayrton awaited him.

"The animals are cared for, Captain Harding," said Ayrton.

"Good, Ayrton."

"They seem uneasy, Captain Harding."

"Yes, instinct speaks through them, and instinct is never deceived."

"Are you ready?"

"Take a lamp, Ayrton," answered the engineer; "we will start at once."

Ayrton did as desired. The onagers, unharnessed, roamed in the corral.
The gate was secured on the outside, and Cyrus Harding, preceding Ayrton,
took the narrow path which led westward to the shore.

The soil they walked upon was choked with the pulverized matter fallen
from the cloud. No quadruped appeared in the woods. Even the birds had
fled. Sometimes a passing breeze raised the covering of ashes, and the two
colonists, enveloped in a whirlwind of dust, lost sight of each other. They
were then careful to cover their eyes and mouths with handkerchiefs, for
they ran the risk of being blinded and suffocated.

It was impossible for Cyrus Harding and Ayrton, with these impediments,
to make rapid progress. Moreover, the atmosphere was close, as if the
oxygen had been partly burned up, and had become unfit for respiration. At
every hundred paces they were obliged to stop to take breath. It was
therefore past ten o'clock when the engineer and his companion reached the
crest of the enormous mass of rocks of basalt and porphyry which composed
the northwest coast of the island.

Ayrton and Cyrus Harding commenced the descent of this abrupt declivity,
following almost step for step the difficult path which, during that stormy
night, had led them to Dakkar Grotto. In open day the descent was less
perilous, and, besides, the bed of ashes which covered the polished surface
of the rock enabled them to make their footing more secure.

The ridge at the end of the shore, about forty feet in height, was soon
reached. Cyrus Harding recollected that this elevation gradually sloped
towards the level of the sea. Although the tide was at present low, no
beach could he seen, and the waves, thickened by the volcanic dust, beat
upon the basaltic rocks.

Cyrus Harding and Ayrton found without difficulty the entrance to Dakkar
Grotto, and paused for a moment at the last rock before it.

"The iron boat should be there," said the engineer.

"It is here, Captain Harding," replied Ayrton, drawing towards him the
fragile craft, which was protected by the arch of the vault.

"On board, Ayrton!"

The two colonists stepped into the boat. A slight undulation of the waves
carried it farther under the low arch of the crypt, and there Ayrton, with
the aid of flint and steel, lighted the lamp. He then took the oars, and
the lamp having been placed in the bow of the boat, so that its rays fell
before them, Cyrus Harding took the helm and steered through the shades of
the grotto.

The "Nautilus" was there no longer to illuminate the cavern with its
electric light. Possibly it might not yet be extinguished, but no ray
escaped from the depths of the abyss in which reposed all that was mortal
of Captain Nemo.

The light afforded by the lamp, although feeble, nevertheless enabled the
engineer to advance slowly, following the wall of the cavern. A deathlike
silence reigned under the vaulted roof, or at least in the anterior
portion, for soon Cyrus Harding distinctly heard the rumbling which
proceeded from the bowels of the mountain.

"That comes from the volcano," he said.

Besides these sounds, the presence of chemical combinations was soon
betrayed by their powerful odor, and the engineer and his companion were
almost suffocated by sulphurous vapors.

"This is what Captain Nemo feared," murmured Cyrus Harding, changing
countenance. "We must go to the end, notwithstanding."

"Forward!" replied Ayrton, bending to his oars and directing the boat
towards the head of the cavern.

Twenty-five minutes after entering the mouth of the grotto the boat
reached the extreme end.

Cyrus Harding then, standing up, cast the light of the lamp upon the
walls of the cavern which separated it from the central shaft of the
volcano. What was the thickness of this wall? It might be ten feet or a
hundred feet--it was impossible to say. But the subterranean sounds were too
perceptible to allow of the supposition that it was of any great thickness.

The engineer, after having explored the wall at a certain height
horizontally, fastened the lamp to the end of an oar, and again surveyed
the basaltic wall at a greater elevation.

There, through scarcely visible clefts and joinings, escaped a pungent
vapor, which infected the atmosphere of the cavern. The wall was broken by
large cracks, some of which extended to within two or three feet of the
water's edge.

Cyrus Harding thought for a brief space. Then he said in a low voice,--

"Yes! the captain was right! The danger lies there, and a terrible
danger!"

Ayrton said not a word, but, upon a sign from Cyrus Harding, resumed the
oars, and half an hour later the engineer and he reached the entrance of
Dakkar Grotto.



Chapter 19

The next day, the 8th day of January, after a day and night passed at the
corral, where they left all in order, Cyrus Harding and Ayrton arrived at
Granite House.

The engineer immediately called his companions together, and informed
them of the imminent danger which threatened Lincoln Island, and from which
no human power could deliver them.

"My friends," he said, and his voice betrayed the depth of his emotion,
"our island is not among those which will endure while this earth endures.
It is doomed to more or less speedy destruction, the cause of which it
bears within itself, and from which nothing can save it."

The colonists looked at each other, then at the engineer. They did not
clearly comprehend him.

"Explain yourself, Cyrus!" said Gideon Spilett.

"I will do so," replied Cyrus Harding, "or rather I will simply afford
you the explanation which, during our few minutes of private conversation,
was given me by Captain Nemo."

"Captain Nemo!" exclaimed the colonists.

"Yes, and it was the last service he desired to render us before his
death!"

"The last service!" exclaimed Pencroft, "the last service! You will see
that though he is dead he will render us others yet!"

"But what did the captain say?" inquired the reporter.

"I will tell you, my friends," said the engineer. "Lincoln Island does
not resemble the other islands of the Pacific, and a fact of which Captain
Nemo has made me cognizant must sooner or later bring about the subversion
of its foundation."

"Nonsense! Lincoln Island, it can't be!" cried Pencroft, who, in spite of
the respect he felt for Cyrus Harding, could not prevent a gesture of
incredulity.

"Listen, Pencroft," resumed the engineer, "I will tell you what Captain
Nemo communicated to me, and which I myself confirmed yesterday, during the
exploration of Dakkar Grotto.

"This cavern stretches under the island as far as the volcano, and is only
separated from its central shaft by the wall which terminates it. Now, this
wall is seamed with fissures and clefts which already allow the
sulphurous gases generated in the interior of the volcano to escape."

"Well?" said Pencroft, his brow suddenly contracting.

"Well, then, I saw that these fissures widen under the internal pressure
from within, that the wall of basalt is gradually giving way and that after
a longer or shorter period it will afford a passage to the waters of the
lake which fill the cavern."

"Good!" replied Pencroft, with an attempt at pleasantry. "The sea will
extinguish the volcano, and there will be an end of the matter!"

"Not so!" said Cyrus Harding, "should a day arrive when the sea, rushing
through the wall of the cavern, penetrates by the central shaft into the
interior of the island to the boiling lava, Lincoln Island will that day be
blown into the air--just as would happen to the island of Sicily were the
Mediterranean to precipitate itself into Mount Etna."

The colonists made no answer to these significant words of the engineer.
They now understood the danger by which they were menaced.

It may be added that Cyrus Harding had in no way exaggerated the danger
to be apprehended. Many persons have formed an idea that it would be
possible to extinguish volcanoes, which are almost always situated on the
shores of a sea or lake, by opening a passage for the admission of the
water. But they are not aware that this would be to incur the risk of
blowing up a portion of the globe, like a boiler whose steam is suddenly
expanded by intense heat. The water, rushing into a cavity whose
temperature might be estimated at thousands of degrees, would be converted
into steam with a sudden energy which no enclosure could resist.

It was not therefore doubtful that the island, menaced by a frightful and
approaching convulsion, would endure only so long as the wall of Dakkar
Grotto itself should endure. It was not even a question of months, nor of
weeks, but of days; it might be of hours.

The first sentiment which the colonists felt was that of profound sorrow.
They thought not so much of the peril which menaced themselves personally,
but of the destruction of the island which had sheltered them, which they
had cultivated, which they loved so well, and had hoped to render so
flourishing. So much effort ineffectually expended, so much labor lost.

Pencroft could not prevent a large tear from rolling down his cheek, nor
did he attempt to conceal it.

Some further conversation now took place. The chances yet in favor of the
colonists were discussed; but finally it was agreed that there was not an
hour to be lost, that the building and fitting of the vessel should be
pushed forward with their utmost energy, and that this was the sole chance
of safety for the inhabitants of Lincoln Island.

All hands, therefore, set to work on the vessel. What could it avail to
sow, to reap, to hunt, to increase the stores of Granite House? The
contents of the storehouse and outbuildings contained more than sufficient
to provide the ship for a voyage, however long might be its duration. But
it was imperative that the ship should be ready to receive them before the
inevitable catastrophe should arrive.

Their labors were now carried on with feverish ardor. By the 23rd of
January the vessel was half-decked over. Up to this time no change had
taken place on the summit of the volcano. Vapor and smoke mingled with
flames and incandescent stones were thrown up from the crater. But during
the night of the 23rd, in consequence of the lava attaining the level of
the first stratum of the volcano, the hat-shaped cone which formed over the
latter disappeared. A frightful sound was heard. The colonists at first
thought the island was rent asunder, and rushed out of Granite House.

This occurred about two o'clock in the morning.

The sky appeared on fire. The superior cone, a mass of rock a thousand
feet in height, and weighing thousands of millions of pounds, had been
thrown down upon the island, making it tremble to its foundation.
Fortunately, this cone inclined to the north, and had fallen upon the plain
of sand and tufa stretching between the volcano and the sea. The aperture
of the crater being thus enlarged projected towards the sky a glare so
intense that by the simple effect of reflection the atmosphere appeared
red-hot. At the same time a torrent of lava, bursting from the new summit,
poured out in long cascades, like water escaping from a vase too full, and
a thousand tongues of fire crept over the sides of the volcano.

"The corral! the corral!" exclaimed Ayrton.

It was, in fact, towards the corral that the lava was rushing as the new
crater faced the east, and consequently the fertile portions of the island,
the springs of Red Creek and Jacamar Wood, were menaced with instant
destruction.

At Ayrton's cry the colonists rushed to the onagers' stables. The cart
was at once harnessed. All were possessed by the same thought--to hasten to
the corral and set at liberty the animals it enclosed.

Before three in the morning they arrived at the corral. The cries of the
terrified musmons and goats indicated the alarm which possessed them.
Already a torrent of burning matter and liquefied minerals fell from the
side of the mountain upon the meadows as far as the side of the palisade.
The gate was burst open by Ayrton, and the animals, bewildered with terror,
fled in all directions.

An hour afterwards the boiling lava filled the corral, converting into
vapor the water of the little rivulet which ran through it, burning up the
house like dry grass, and leaving not even a post of the palisade to mark
the spot where the corral once stood.

To contend against this disaster would have been folly--nay, madness. In
presence of Nature's grand convulsions man is powerless.

It was now daylight--the 24th of January. Cyrus Harding and his
companions, before returning to Granite House, desired to ascertain the
probable direction this inundation of lava was about to take. The soil
sloped gradually from Mount Franklin to the east coast, and it was to be
feared that, in spite of the thick Jacamar Wood, the torrent would reach
the plateau of Prospect Heights.

"The lake will cover us," said Gideon Spilett.

"I hope so!" was Cyrus Harding's only reply.

The colonists were desirous of reaching the plain upon which the superior
cone of Mount Franklin had fallen, but the lava arrested their progress. It
had followed, on one side, the valley of Red Creek, and on the other that
of Falls River, evaporating those watercourses in its passage. There was no
possibility of crossing the torrent of lava; on the contrary, the colonists
were obliged to retreat before it. The volcano, without its crown, was no
longer recognizable, terminated as it was by a sort of flat table which
replaced the ancient crater. From two openings in its southern and eastern
sides an unceasing flow of lava poured forth, thus forming two distinct
streams. Above the new crater a cloud of smoke and ashes, mingled with
those of the atmosphere, massed over the island. Loud peals of thunder
broke, and could scarcely be distinguished from the rumblings of the
mountain, whose mouth vomited forth ignited rocks, which, hurled to more
than a thousand feet, burst in the air like shells. Flashes of lightning
rivaled in intensity the volcano's eruption.

Towards seven in the morning the position was no longer tenable by the
colonists, who accordingly took shelter in the borders of Jacamar Wood. Not
only did the projectiles begin to rain around them, but the lava,
overflowing the bed of Red Creek, threatened to cut off the road to the
corral. The nearest rows of trees caught fire, and their sap, suddenly
transformed into vapor, caused them to explode with loud reports, while
others, less moist, remained unhurt in the midst of the inundation.

The colonists had again taken the road to the corral. They proceeded but
slowly, frequently looking back; but, in consequence of the inclination of
the soil, the lava gained rapidly in the east, and as its lower waves
became solidified others, at boiling heat, covered them immediately.

Meanwhile, the principal stream of Red Creek Valley became more and more
menacing. All this portion of the forest was on fare, and enormous wreaths
of smoke rolled over the trees, whore trunks were already consumed by the
lava.

The colonists halted near the lake, about half a mile from the mouth of
Red Creek. A question of life or death was now to be decided.

Cyrus Harding, accustomed to the consideration of important crises, and
aware that he was addressing men capable of hearing the truth, whatever it
might be, then said,--

"Either the lake will arrest the progress of the lava, and a part of the
island will be preserved from utter destruction, or the stream will overrun
the forests of the Far West, and not a tree or plant will remain on the
surface of the soil. We shall have no prospect but that of starvation upon
these barren rocks--a death which will probably be anticipated by the
explosion of the island."

"In that case," replied Pencroft, folding his arms and stamping his foot,
"what's the use of working any longer on the vessel?"

"Pencroft," answered Cyrus Harding, "we must do our duty to the last!"

At this instant the river of lava, after having broken a passage through
the noble trees it devoured in its course, reached the borders of the lake.
At this point there was an elevation of the soil which, had it been
greater, might have sufficed to arrest the torrent.

"To work!" cried Cyrus Harding.

The engineer's thought was at once understood. it might be possible to
dam, as it were, the torrent, and thus compel it to pour itself into the
lake.

The colonists hastened to the dockyard. They returned with shovels,
picks, axes, and by means of banking the earth with the aid of fallen trees
they succeeded in a few hours in raising an embankment three feet high and
some hundreds of paces in length. It seemed to them, when they had
finished, as if they had scarcely been working more than a few minutes.

It was not a moment too soon. The liquefied substances soon after reached
the bottom of the barrier. The stream of lava swelled like a river about to
overflow its banks, and threatened to demolish the sole obstacle which
could prevent it from overrunning the whole Far West. But the dam held
firm, and after a moment of terrible suspense the torrent precipitated
itself into Grant Lake from a height of twenty feet.

The colonists, without moving or uttering a word, breathlessly regarded
this strife of the two elements.

What a spectacle was this conflict between water and fire! What pen could
describe the marvelous horror of this scene--what pencil could depict it?
The water hissed as it evaporated by contact with the boiling lava. The
vapor whirled in the air to an immeasurable height, as if the valves of an
immense boiler had been suddenly opened. But, however considerable might be
the volume of water contained in the lake, it must eventually be absorbed,
because it was not replenished, while the stream of lava, fed from an
inexhaustible source, rolled on without ceasing new waves of incandescent
matter.

The first waves of lava which fell in the lake immediately solidified and
accumulated so as speedily to emerge from it. Upon their surface fell other
waves, which in their turn became stone, but a step nearer the center of
the lake. In this manner was formed a pier which threatened to gradually
fill up the lake, which could not overflow, the water displaced by the lava
being evaporated. The hissing of the water rent the air with a deafening
sound, and the vapor, blown by the wind, fell in rain upon the sea. The
pier became longer and longer, and the blocks of lava piled themselves one
on another. Where formerly stretched the calm waters of the lake now
appeared an enormous mass of smoking rocks, as if an upheaving of the soil
had formed immense shoals. Imagine the waters of the lake aroused by a
hurricane, then suddenly solidified by an intense frost, and some
conception may be formed of the aspect of the lake three hours alter the
eruption of this irresistible torrent of lava.

This time water would be vanquished by fire.

Nevertheless it was a fortunate circumstance for the colonists that the
effusion of lava should have been in the direction of Lake Grant. They had
before them some days' respite. The plateau of Prospect Heights, Granite
House, and the dockyard were for the moment preserved. And these few days
it was necessary to employ in planking and carefully calking the vessel,
and launching her. The colonists would then take refuge on board the
vessel, content to rig her after she should be afloat on the waters. With
the danger of an explosion which threatened to destroy the island there
could be no security on shore. The walls of Granite House, once so sure a
retreat, might at any moment fall in upon them.

During the six following days, from the 25th to the 30th of January, the
colonists accomplished as much of the construction of their vessel as
twenty men could have done. They hardly allowed themselves a moment's
repose, and the glare of the flames which shot from the crater enabled them
to work night and day. The flow of lava continued, but perhaps less
abundantly. This was fortunate, for Lake Grant was almost entirely choked
up, and if more lava should accumulate it would inevitably spread over the
plateau of Prospect Heights, and thence upon the beach.

But if the island was thus partially protected on this side, it was not
so with the western part.

In fact, the second stream of lava, which had followed the valley of
Falls River, a valley of great extent, the land on both sides of the creek
being flat, met with no obstacle. The burning liquid had then spread
through the forest of the Far West. At this period of the year, when the
trees were dried up by a tropical heat, the forest caught fire
instantaneously, in such a manner that the conflagration extended itself
both by the trunks of the trees and by their higher branches, whose
interlacement favored its progress. It even appeared that the current of
flame spread more rapidly among the summits of the trees than the current
of lava at their bases.

Thus it happened that the wild animals, jaguars, wild boars, capybaras,
koalas, and game of every kind, mad with terror, had fled to the banks of
the Mercy and to the Tadorn Marsh, beyond the road to Port Balloon. But the
colonists were too much occupied with their task to pay any attention to
even the most formidable of these animals. They had abandoned Granite
House, and would not even take shelter at the Chimneys, but encamped under
a tent, near the mouth of the Mercy.

Each day Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett ascended the plateau of
Prospect Heights. Sometimes Herbert accompanied them, but never Pencroft,
who could not bear to look upon the prospect of the island now so utterly
devastated.

It was, in truth, a heart-rending spectacle. All the wooded part of the
island was now completely bare. One single clump of green trees raised
their heads at the extremity of Serpentine Peninsula. Here and there were a
few grotesque blackened and branchless stumps. The side of the devastated
forest was even more barren than Tadorn Marsh. The eruption of lava had
been complete. Where formerly sprang up that charming verdure, the soil was
now nothing but a savage mass of volcanic tufa. In the valleys of the Falls
and Mercy rivers no drop of water now flowed towards the sea, and should
Lake Grant be entirely dried up, the colonists would have no means of
quenching their thirst. But, fortunately the lava had spared the southern
corner of the lake, containing all that remained of the drinking water of
the island. Towards the northwest stood out the rugged and well-defined
outlines of the sides of the volcano, like a gigantic claw hovering over
the island. What a sad and fearful sight, and how painful to the colonists,
who, from a fertile domain covered with forests, irrigated by watercourses,
and enriched by the produce of their toils, found themselves, as it were,
transported to a desolate rock, upon which, but for their reserves of
provisions, they could not even gather the means of subsistence!

"It is enough to break one's heart!" said Gideon Spilett, one day.

"Yes, Spilett," answered the engineer. "May God grant us the time to
complete this vessel, now our sole refuge!"

"Do not you think, Cyrus, that the violence of the eruption has somewhat
lessened? The volcano still vomits forth lava, but somewhat less
abundantly, if I mistake not."

"It matters little," answered Cyrus Harding. "The fire is still burning
in the interior of the mountain, and the sea may break in at any moment. We
are in the condition of passengers whose ship is devoured by a
conflagration which they cannot extinguish, and who know that sooner or
later the flames must reach the powder-magazine. To work, Spilett, to work,
and let us not lose an hour!"

During eight days more, that is to say until the 7th of February, the
lava continued to flow, but the eruption was confined within the previous
limits. Cyrus Harding feared above all lest the liquefied matter should
overflow the shore, for in that event the dockyard could not escape.
Moreover, about this time the colonists felt in the frame of the island
vibrations which alarmed them to the highest degree.

It was the 20th of February. Yet another month must elapse before the
vessel would be ready for sea. Would the island hold together till then?
The intention of Pencroft and Cyrus Harding was to launch the vessel as
soon as the hull should be complete. The deck, the upperworks, the interior
woodwork and the rigging might be finished afterwards, but the essential
point was that the colonists should have an assured refuge away from the
island. Perhaps it might be even better to conduct the vessel to Port
Balloon, that is to say, as far as possible from the center of eruption,
for at the mouth of the Mercy, between the islet and the wall of granite,
it would run the risk of being crushed in the event of any convulsion. All
the exertions of the voyagers were therefore concentrated upon the
completion of the hull.

Thus the 3rd of March arrived, and they might calculate upon launching
the vessel in ten days.

Hope revived in the hearts of the colonists, who had, in this fourth year
of their sojourn on Lincoln island, suffered so many trials. Even Pencroft
lost in some measure the somber taciturnity occasioned by the devastation
and ruin of his domain. His hopes, it is true, were concentrated upon his
vessel.

"We shall finish it," he said to the engineer, "we shall finish it,
captain, and it is time, for the season is advancing and the equinox will
soon be here. Well, if necessary, we must put in to Tabor island to spend
the winter. But think of Tabor island after Lincoln Island. Ah, how
unfortunate! Who could have believed it possible?"

"Let us get on," was the engineer's invariable reply.

And they worked away without losing a moment.

"Master," asked Neb, a few days later, "do you think all this could have
happened if Captain Nemo had been still alive?"

"Certainly, Neb," answered Cyrus Harding.

"I, for one, don't believe it!" whispered Pencroft to Neb.

"Nor I!" answered Neb seriously.

During the first week of March appearances again became menacing.
Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain upon
the island. The crater was again boiling with lava which overflowed the
back of the volcano. The torrent flowed along the surface of the hardened
tufa, and destroyed the few meager skeletons of trees which had withstood
the first eruption. The stream, flowing this time towards the southwest
shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek Glycerine, and invaded the
plateau of Prospect Heights. This last blow to the work of the colonists
was terrible. The mill, the buildings of the inner court, the stables, were
all destroyed. The affrighted poultry fled in all directions. Top and Jup
showed signs of the greatest alarm, as if their instinct warned them of an
impending catastrophe. A large number of the animals of the island had
perished in the first eruption. Those which survived found no refuge but
Tadorn Marsh, save a few to which the plateau of Prospect Heights afforded
asylum. But even this last retreat was now closed to them, and the lava-
torrent, flowing over the edge of the granite wall, began to pour down upon
the beach its cataracts of fire. The sublime horror of this spectacle
passed all description. During the night it could only be compared to a
Niagara of molten fluid, with its incandescent vapors above and its boiling
masses below.

The colonists were driven to their last entrenchment, and although the
upper seams of the vessel were not yet calked, they decided to launch her
at once.

Pencroft and Ayrton therefore set about the necessary preparations for
the launching, which was to take place the morning of the next day, the 9th
of March.

But during the night of the 8th an enormous column of vapor escaping from
the crater rose with frightful explosions to a height of more than three
thousand feet. The wall of Dakkar Grotto had evidently given way under the
pressure of gases, and the sea, rushing through the central shalt into the
igneous gulf, was at once converted into vapor. But the crater could not
afford a sufficient outlet for this vapor. An explosion, which might have
been heard at a distance of a hundred miles, shook the air. Fragments of
mountains fell into the Pacific, and, in a few minutes, the ocean rolled
over the spot where Lincoln island once stood.



Chapter 20

An isolated rock, thirty feet in length, twenty in breadth, scarcely ten
from the water's edge, such was the only solid point which the waves of the
Pacific had not engulfed.

It was all that remained of the structure of Granite House! The wall had
fallen headlong and been then shattered to fragments, and a few of the
rocks of the large room were piled one above another to form this point.
All around had disappeared in the abyss; the inferior cone of Mount
Franklin, rent asunder by the explosion; the lava jaws of Shark Gulf, the
plateau of Prospect Heights, Safety Islet, the granite rocks of Port
Balloon, the basalts of Dakkar Grotto, the long Serpentine Peninsula, so
distant nevertheless from the center of the eruption. All that could now be
seen of Lincoln Island was the narrow rock which now served as a refuge to
the six colonists and their dog Top.

The animals had also perished in the catastrophe; the birds, as well as
those representing the fauna of the island--all either crushed or drowned,
and the unfortunate Jup himself had, alas! found his death in some crevice
of the soil.

If Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft, Neb, and Ayrton had
survived, it was because, assembled under their tent, they had been hurled
into the sea at the instant when the fragments of the island rained down on
every side.

When they reached the surface they could only perceive, at half a cable's
length, this mass of rocks, towards which they swam and on which they found
footing.

On this barren rock they had now existed for nine days. A few provisions
taken from the magazine of Granite House before the catastrophe, a little
fresh water from the rain which had fallen in a hollow of the rock, was all
that the unfortunate colonists possessed. Their last hope, the vessel, had
been shattered to pieces. They had no means of quitting the reef; no fire,
nor any means of obtaining it. It seemed that they must inevitably perish.

This day, the 18th of March, there remained only provisions for two days,
although they limited their consumption to the bare necessaries of life.
All their science and intelligence could avail them nothing in their
present position. They were in the hand of God.

Cyrus Harding was calm, Gideon Spilett more nervous, and Pencroft, a prey
to sullen anger, walked to and fro on the rock. Herbert did not for a
moment quit the engineer's side, as if demanding from him that assistance
he had no power to give. Neb and Ayrton were resigned to their fate.

"Ah, what a misfortune! what a misfortune!" often repeated Pencroft. "If
we had but a walnut-shell to take us to Tabor Island! But we have nothing,
nothing!"

"Captain Nemo did right to die," said Neb.

During the five ensuing days Cyrus Harding and his unfortunate companions
husbanded their provisions with the most extreme care, eating only what
would prevent them from dying of starvation. Their weakness was extreme.
Herbert and Neb began to show symptoms of delirium.

Under these circumstances was it possible for them to retain even the
shadow of a hope? No! What was their sole remaining chance? That a vessel
should appear in sight of the rock? But they knew only too well from
experience that no ships ever visited this part of the Pacific. Could they
calculate that, by a truly providential coincidence, the Scotch yacht would
arrive precisely at this time in search of Ayrton at Tabor Island? It was
scarcely probable; and, besides, supposing she should come there, as the
colonists had not been able to deposit a notice pointing out Ayrton's
change of abode, the commander of the yacht, after having explored Tabor
Island without results, would again set sail and return to lower latitudes.

No! no hope of being saved could be retained, and a horrible death, death
from hunger and thirst, awaited them upon this rock.

Already they were stretched on the rock, inanimate, and no longer
conscious of what passed around them. Ayrton alone, by a supreme effort,
from time to time raised his head, and cast a despairing glance over the
desert ocean.

But on the morning of the 24th of March Ayrton's arms were extended
toward a point in the horizon; he raised himself, at first on his knees,
then upright, and his hand seemed to make a signal.

A sail was in sight off the rock. She was evidently not without an
object. The reef was the mark for which she was making in a direct line,
under all steam, and the unfortunate colonists might have made her out some
hours before if they had had the strength to watch the horizon.

"The 'Duncan'!" murmured Ayrton--and fell back without sign of life.

When Cyrus Harding and his companions recovered consciousness, thanks to
the attention lavished upon them, they found themselves in the cabin of a
steamer, without being able to comprehend how they had escaped death.

A word from Ayrton explained everything.

"The 'Duncan'!" he murmured.

"The 'Duncan'!" exclaimed Cyrus Harding. And raising his hand to Heaven,
he said, "Oh! Almighty God! mercifully hast Thou preserved us!"

It was, in fact, the "Duncan," Lord Glenarvan's yacht, now commanded by
Robert, son of Captain Grant, who had been despatched to Tabor Island to
find Ayrton, and bring him back to his native land alter twelve years of
expiation.

The colonists were not only saved, but already on the way to their native
country.

"Captain Grant," asked Cyrus Harding, "who can have suggested to you the
idea, after having left Tabor Island, where you did not find Ayrton, of
coming a hundred miles farther northeast?"

"Captain Harding," replied Robert Grant, "it was in order to find, not
only Ayrton, but yourself and your companions."

"My companions and myself?"

"Doubtless, at Lincoln Island."

"At Lincoln Island!" exclaimed in a breath Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Neb,
and Pencroft, in the highest degree astonished.

"How could you be aware of the existence of Lincoln Island?" inquired
Cyrus Harding, "it is not even named in the charts."

"I knew of it from a document left by you on Tabor Island," answered
Robert Grant.

"A document!" cried Gideon Spilett.

"Without doubt, and here it is," answered Robert Grant, producing a paper
which indicated the longitude and latitude of Lincoln Island, "the present
residence of Ayrton and five American colonists."

"It is Captain Nemo!" cried Cyrus Harding, after having read the notice,
and recognized that the handwriting was similar to that of the paper found
at the corral.

"Ah!" said Pencroft, "it was then he who took our 'Bonadventure' and
hazarded himself alone to go to Tabor Island!"

"In order to leave this notice," added Herbert.

"I was then right in saying," exclaimed the sailor, "that even after his
death the captain would render us a last service."

"My friends," said Cyrus Harding, in a voice of the profoundest emotion,
"may the God of mercy have had pity on the soul of Captain Nemo, our
benefactor."

The colonists uncovered themselves at these last words of Cyrus Harding,
and murmured the name of Captain Nemo.

Then Ayrton, approaching the engineer, said simply, "Where should this
coffer be deposited?"

It was the coffer which Ayrton had saved at the risk of his life, at the
very instant that the island had been engulfed, and which he now faithfully
handed to the engineer.

"Ayrton! Ayrton!" said Cyrus Harding, deeply touched. Then, addressing
Robert Grant, "Sir," he added, "you left behind you a criminal; you find in
his place a man who has become honest by penitence, and whose hand I am
proud to clasp in mine."

Robert Grant was now made acquainted with the strange history of Captain
Nemo and the colonists of Lincoln Island. Then, observation being taken of
what remained of this shoal, which must henceforward figure on the charts
of the Pacific, the order was given to make all sail.

A few weeks afterwards the colonists landed in America, and found their
country once more at peace alter the terrible conflict in which right and
justice had triumphed.

Of the treasures contained in the coffer left by Captain Nemo to the
colonists of Lincoln Island, the larger portion was employed in the
purchase of a vast territory in the State of Iowa. One pearl alone, the
finest, was reserved from the treasure and sent to Lady Glenarvan in the
name of the castaways restored to their country by the "Duncan."

There, upon this domain, the colonists invited to labor, that is to say,
to wealth and happiness, all those to whom they had hoped to offer the
hospitality of Lincoln Island. There was founded a vast colony to which
they gave the name of that island sunk beneath the waters of the Pacific. A
river there was called the Mercy, a mountain took the name of Mount
Franklin, a small lake was named Lake Grant, and the forests became the
forests of the Far West. It might have been an island on terra firma.

There, under the intelligent hands of the engineer and his companions,
everything prospered. Not one of the former colonists of Lincoln Island was
absent, for they had sworn to live always together. Neb was with his
master; Ayrton was there ready to sacrifice himself for all; Pencroft was
more a farmer than he had ever been a sailor; Herbert, who completed his
studies under the superintendence of Cyrus Harding, and Gideon Spilett, who
founded the New Lincoln Herald, the best-informed journal in the world.

There Cyrus Harding and his companions received at intervals visits from
Lord and Lady Glenarvan, Captain John Mangles and his wife, the sister of
Robert Grant, Robert Grant himself, Major McNab, and all those who had
taken part in the history both of Captain Grant and Captain Nemo.

There, to conclude, all were happy, united in the present as they had
been in the past; but never could they forget that island upon which they
had arrived poor and friendless, that island which, during four years had
supplied all their wants, and of which there remained but a fragment of
granite washed by the waves of the Pacific, the tomb of him who had borne
the name of Captain Nemo.


__________________________________________________________________________


As the Martians invade, we suffer THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

as told by H. G. WELLS


     But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be
     inhabited? .  .  .  Are we or they Lords of the
     World? .  .  .  And how are all things made for man?--
          KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)



BOOK ONE

THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS



CHAPTER ONE

THE EVE OF THE WAR


No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth
century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by
intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as
men busied themselves about their various concerns they were
scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a
microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and
multiply in a drop of water.  With infinite complacency men went to
and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their
assurance of their empire over matter.  It is possible that the
infusoria under the microscope do the same.  No one gave a thought to
the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of
them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or
improbable.  It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of
those departed days.  At most terrestrial men fancied there might be
other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to
welcome a missionary enterprise.  Yet across the gulf of space, minds
that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish,
intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with
envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.  And
early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the
sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it
receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world.
It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our
world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its
surface must have begun its course.  The fact that it is scarcely one
seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling
to the temperature at which life could begin.  It has air and water
and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer,
up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that
intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all,
beyond its earthly level.  Nor was it generally understood that since
Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the
superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that
it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end.

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has
already gone far indeed with our neighbour.  Its physical condition is
still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial
region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest
winter.  Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have
shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow
seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and
periodically inundate its temperate zones.  That last stage of
exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a
present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars.  The immediate
pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their
powers, and hardened their hearts.  And looking across space with
instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of,
they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of
them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with
vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of
fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad
stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them
at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us.  The
intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant
struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief
of the minds upon Mars.  Their world is far gone in its cooling and
this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they
regard as inferior animals.  To carry warfare sunward is, indeed,
their only escape from the destruction that, generation after
generation, creeps upon them.

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what
ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only
upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its
inferior races.  The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness,
were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged
by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years.  Are we such
apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same
spirit?

The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing
subtlety--their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of
ours--and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh
perfect unanimity.  Had our instruments permitted it, we might have
seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century.  Men
like Schiaparelli watched the red planet--it is odd, by-the-bye, that
for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war--but failed to
interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so
well.  All that time the Martians must have been getting ready.

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the
illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by
Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers.  English readers heard
of it first in the issue of _Nature_ dated August 2.  I am inclined to
think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in
the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired
at us.  Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site
of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

The storm burst upon us six years ago now.  As Mars approached
opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange
palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of
incandescent gas upon the planet.  It had occurred towards midnight of
the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted,
indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an
enormous velocity towards this earth.  This jet of fire had become
invisible about a quarter past twelve.  He compared it to a colossal
puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, "as
flaming gases rushed out of a gun."

A singularly appropriate phrase it proved.  Yet the next day there
was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the _Daily
Telegraph_, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest
dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of
the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer,
at Ottershaw.  He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess
of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a
scrutiny of the red planet.

In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that
vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed
lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the
steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in
the roof--an oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it.
Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible.  Looking through the
telescope, one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet
swimming in the field.  It seemed such a little thing, so bright and
small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly
flattened from the perfect round.  But so little it was, so silvery
warm--a pin's-head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this
was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that
kept the planet in view.

As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to
advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired.  Forty
millions of miles it was from us--more than forty millions of miles of
void.  Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust
of the material universe swims.

Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light,
three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the
unfathomable darkness of empty space.  You know how that blackness
looks on a frosty starlight night.  In a telescope it seems far
profounder.  And invisible to me because it was so remote and small,
flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible
distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles,
came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so
much struggle and calamity and death to the earth.  I never dreamed of
it then as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring
missile.

That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the
distant planet.  I saw it.  A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest
projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and
at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place.  The night was warm and I
was thirsty, and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way
in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while
Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us.

That night another invisible missile started on its way to the
earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the
first one.  I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness,
with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes.  I wished I
had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute
gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me.  Ogilvy
watched till one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and
walked over to his house.  Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw
and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.

He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars,
and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were
signalling us.  His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a
heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in
progress.  He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic
evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.

"The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to
one," he said.

Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after
about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a
flame each night.  Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on
earth has attempted to explain.  It may be the gases of the firing
caused the Martians inconvenience.  Dense clouds of smoke or dust,
visible through a powerful telescope on earth as little grey,
fluctuating patches, spread through the clearness of the planet's
atmosphere and obscured its more familiar features.

Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and
popular notes appeared here, there, and everywhere concerning the
volcanoes upon Mars.  The seriocomic periodical _Punch_, I remember,
made a happy use of it in the political cartoon.  And, all
unsuspected, those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew
earthward, rushing now at a pace of many miles a second through the
empty gulf of space, hour by hour and day by day, nearer and nearer.
It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift
fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they
did.  I remember how jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph
of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days.
People in these latter times scarcely realise the abundance and
enterprise of our nineteenth-century papers.  For my own part, I was
much occupied in learning to ride the bicycle, and busy upon a series
of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as
civilisation progressed.

One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been
10,000,000 miles away) I went for a walk with my wife.  It was
starlight and I explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed
out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so
many telescopes were pointed.  It was a warm night.  Coming home, a
party of excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing
and playing music.  There were lights in the upper windows of the
houses as the people went to bed.  From the railway station in the
distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling,
softened almost into melody by the distance.  My wife pointed out to
me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging
in a framework against the sky.  It seemed so safe and tranquil.



CHAPTER TWO

THE FALLING STAR


Then came the night of the first falling star.  It was seen early
in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high
in the atmosphere.  Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an
ordinary falling star.  Albin described it as leaving a greenish
streak behind it that glowed for some seconds.  Denning, our greatest
authority on meteorites, stated that the height of its first
appearance was about ninety or one hundred miles.  It seemed to him
that it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him.

I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my
French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I
loved in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it.
Yet this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer
space must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I
only looked up as it passed.  Some of those who saw its flight say it
travelled with a hissing sound.  I myself heard nothing of that.  Many
people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of
it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended.
No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night.

But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the
shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on
the common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the
idea of finding it.  Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from
the sand pits.  An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the
projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every
direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half
away.  The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose
against the dawn.

The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the
scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its
descent.  The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder,
caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured
incrustation.  It had a diameter of about thirty yards.  He approached
the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most
meteorites are rounded more or less completely.  It was, however,
still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near
approach.  A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the
unequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred
to him that it might be hollow.

He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made
for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at
its unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some
evidence of design in its arrival.  The early morning was wonderfully
still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge,
was already warm.  He did not remember hearing any birds that morning,
there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the
faint movements from within the cindery cylinder.  He was all alone on
the common.

Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey
clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling
off the circular edge of the end.  It was dropping off in flakes and
raining down upon the sand.  A large piece suddenly came off and fell
with a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth.

For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, although
the heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to the
bulk to see the Thing more clearly.  He fancied even then that the
cooling of the body might account for this, but what disturbed that
idea was the fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the
cylinder.

And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the
cylinder was rotating on its body.  It was such a gradual movement
that he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had
been near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the
circumference.  Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated,
until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk
forward an inch or so.  Then the thing came upon him in a flash.  The
cylinder was artificial--hollow--with an end that screwed out!
Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top!

"Good heavens!" said Ogilvy.  "There's a man in it--men in it! Half
roasted to death!  Trying to escape!"

At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with the
flash upon Mars.

The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he
forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn.  But
luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands
on the still-glowing metal.  At that he stood irresolute for a moment,
then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into
Woking.  The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock.
He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he
told and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the
pit--that the man simply drove on.  He was equally unsuccessful with the
potman who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by Horsell
Bridge.  The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an
unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom.  That sobered him a
little; and when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in his
garden, he called over the palings and made himself understood.

"Henderson," he called, "you saw that shooting star last night?"

"Well?" said Henderson.

"It's out on Horsell Common now."

"Good Lord!" said Henderson.  "Fallen meteorite!  That's good."

"But it's something more than a meteorite.  It's a cylinder--an
artificial cylinder, man!  And there's something inside."

Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand.

"What's that?" he said.  He was deaf in one ear.

Ogilvy told him all that he had seen.  Henderson was a minute or so
taking it in.  Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and
came out into the road.  The two men hurried back at once to the
common, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position.  But
now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal
showed between the top and the body of the cylinder.  Air was either
entering or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound.

They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and,
meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside
must be insensible or dead.

Of course the two were quite unable to do anything.  They shouted
consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get
help.  One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and
disordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just
as the shop folks were taking down their shutters and people were
opening their bedroom windows.  Henderson went into the railway
station at once, in order to telegraph the news to London.  The
newspaper articles had prepared men's minds for the reception of the
idea.

By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already
started for the common to see the "dead men from Mars."  That was the
form the story took.  I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about
a quarter to nine when I went out to get my _Daily Chronicle_.  I was
naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the
Ottershaw bridge to the sand pits.



CHAPTER THREE

ON HORSELL COMMON


I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the
huge hole in which the cylinder lay.  I have already described the
appearance of that colossal bulk, embedded in the ground.  The turf
and gravel about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion.  No
doubt its impact had caused a flash of fire.  Henderson and Ogilvy
were not there.  I think they perceived that nothing was to be done
for the present, and had gone away to breakfast at Henderson's house.

There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the Pit, with
their feet dangling, and amusing themselves--until I stopped them--by
throwing stones at the giant mass.  After I had spoken to them about
it, they began playing at "touch" in and out of the group of
bystanders.

Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I
employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his
little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were
accustomed to hang about the railway station.  There was very little
talking.  Few of the common people in England had anything but the
vaguest astronomical ideas in those days.  Most of them were staring
quietly at the big table like end of the cylinder, which was still as
Ogilvy and Henderson had left it.  I fancy the popular expectation of
a heap of charred corpses was disappointed at this inanimate bulk.
Some went away while I was there, and other people came.  I clambered
into the pit and fancied I heard a faint movement under my feet.  The
top had certainly ceased to rotate.

It was only when I got thus close to it that the strangeness of
this object was at all evident to me.  At the first glance it was
really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown
across the road.  Not so much so, indeed.  It looked like a rusty gas
float.  It required a certain amount of scientific education to
perceive that the grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that
the yellowish-white metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid
and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue.  "Extra-terrestrial" had no
meaning for most of the onlookers.

At that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the Thing had
come from the planet Mars, but I judged it improbable that it
contained any living creature.  I thought the unscrewing might be
automatic.  In spite of Ogilvy, I still believed that there were men
in Mars.  My mind ran fancifully on the possibilities of its
containing manuscript, on the difficulties in translation that might
arise, whether we should find coins and models in it, and so forth.
Yet it was a little too large for assurance on this idea.  I felt an
impatience to see it opened.  About eleven, as nothing seemed
happening, I walked back, full of such thought, to my home in Maybury.
But I found it difficult to get to work upon my abstract
investigations.

In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very
much.  The early editions of the evening papers had startled London
with enormous headlines:

  "A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS."

  "REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING,"

and so forth.  In addition, Ogilvy's wire to the Astronomical Exchange
had roused every observatory in the three kingdoms.

There were half a dozen flies or more from the Woking station
standing in the road by the sand pits, a basket-chaise from Chobham,
and a rather lordly carriage.  Besides that, there was quite a heap of
bicycles.  In addition, a large number of people must have walked, in
spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there
was altogether quite a considerable crowd--one or two gaily dressed
ladies among the others.

It was glaringly hot, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind,
and the only shadow was that of the few scattered pine trees.  The
burning heather had been extinguished, but the level ground towards
Ottershaw was blackened as far as one could see, and still giving off
vertical streamers of smoke.  An enterprising sweet-stuff dealer in
the Chobham Road had sent up his son with a barrow-load of green
apples and ginger beer.

Going to the edge of the pit, I found it occupied by a group of
about half a dozen men--Henderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fair-haired man
that I afterwards learned was Stent, the Astronomer Royal, with
several workmen wielding spades and pickaxes.  Stent was giving
directions in a clear, high-pitched voice.  He was standing on the
cylinder, which was now evidently much cooler; his face was crimson
and streaming with perspiration, and something seemed to have
irritated him.

A large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered, though its
lower end was still embedded.  As soon as Ogilvy saw me among the
staring crowd on the edge of the pit he called to me to come down, and
asked me if I would mind going over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of
the manor.

The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to
their excavations, especially the boys.  They wanted a light railing
put up, and help to keep the people back.  He told me that a faint
stirring was occasionally still audible within the case, but that the
workmen had failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no grip to them.
The case appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the
faint sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior.

I was very glad to do as he asked, and so become one of the
privileged spectators within the contemplated enclosure.  I failed to
find Lord Hilton at his house, but I was told he was expected from
London by the six o'clock train from Waterloo; and as it was then
about a quarter past five, I went home, had some tea, and walked up to
the station to waylay him.



CHAPTER FOUR

THE CYLINDER OPENS


When I returned to the common the sun was setting.  Scattered groups
were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons
were returning.  The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out
black against the lemon yellow of the sky--a couple of hundred people,
perhaps.  There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared
to be going on about the pit.  Strange imaginings passed through my
mind.  As I drew nearer I heard Stent's voice:

"Keep back!  Keep back!"

A boy came running towards me.

"It's a-movin'," he said to me as he passed; "a-screwin' and
a-screwin' out.  I don't like it.  I'm a-goin' 'ome, I am."

I went on to the crowd.  There were really, I should think, two or
three hundred people elbowing and jostling one another, the one or two
ladies there being by no means the least active.

"He's fallen in the pit!" cried some one.

"Keep back!" said several.

The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through.  Every one
seemed greatly excited.  I heard a peculiar humming sound from the
pit.

"I say!" said Ogilvy; "help keep these idiots back.  We don't know
what's in the confounded thing, you know!"

I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was,
standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again.
The crowd had pushed him in.

The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within.  Nearly
two feet of shining screw projected.  Somebody blundered against me,
and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw.  I
turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of
the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion.  I stuck
my elbow into the person behind me, and turned my head towards the
Thing again.  For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black.
I had the sunset in my eyes.

I think everyone expected to see a man emerge--possibly something a
little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man.  I know
I did.  But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the
shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two
luminous disks--like eyes.  Then something resembling a little grey
snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the
writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me--and then another.

A sudden chill came over me.  There was a loud shriek from a woman
behind.  I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still,
from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my
way back from the edge of the pit.  I saw astonishment giving place to
horror on the faces of the people about me.  I heard inarticulate
exclamations on all sides.  There was a general movement backwards.
I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit.  I found
myself alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running
off, Stent among them.  I looked again at the cylinder, and
ungovernable terror gripped me.  I stood petrified and staring.

A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was
rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder.  As it bulged up and
caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.

Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly.  The
mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had,
one might say, a face.  There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless
brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva.  The whole
creature heaved and pulsated convulsively.  A lank tentacular
appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air.

Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the
strange horror of its appearance.  The peculiar V-shaped mouth with
its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a
chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this
mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the
lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness
of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above
all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at
once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous.  There was
something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy
deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty.  Even at this
first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and
dread.

Suddenly the monster vanished.  It had toppled over the brim of the
cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great
mass of leather.  I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith
another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the
aperture.

I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees,
perhaps a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for
I could not avert my face from these things.

There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped,
panting, and waited further developments.  The common round the sand
pits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a half-fascinated
terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the heaped gravel at
the edge of the pit in which they lay.  And then, with a renewed
horror, I saw a round, black object bobbing up and down on the edge of
the pit.  It was the head of the shopman who had fallen in, but
showing as a little black object against the hot western sun.  Now he
got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until
only his head was visible.  Suddenly he vanished, and I could have
fancied a faint shriek had reached me.  I had a momentary impulse to
go back and help him that my fears overruled.

Everything was then quite invisible, hidden by the deep pit and the
heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made.  Anyone coming
along the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed at the
sight--a dwindling multitude of perhaps a hundred people or more
standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches, behind bushes,
behind gates and hedges, saying little to one another and that in
short, excited shouts, and staring, staring hard at a few heaps of
sand.  The barrow of ginger beer stood, a queer derelict, black
against the burning sky, and in the sand pits was a row of deserted
vehicles with their horses feeding out of nosebags or pawing the
ground.



CHAPTER FIVE

THE HEAT-RAY


After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the
cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind
of fascination paralysed my actions.  I remained standing knee-deep in
the heather, staring at the mound that hid them.  I was a battleground
of fear and curiosity.

I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate
longing to peer into it.  I began walking, therefore, in a big curve,
seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sand
heaps that hid these new-comers to our earth.  Once a leash of thin
black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset
and was immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up,
joint by joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a
wobbling motion.  What could be going on there?

Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups--one a
little crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the
direction of Chobham.  Evidently they shared my mental conflict.
There were few near me.  One man I approached--he was, I perceived,
a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name--and accosted.
But it was scarcely a time for articulate conversation.

"What ugly _brutes_!" he said.  "Good God!  What ugly brutes!"  He
repeated this over and over again.

"Did you see a man in the pit?" I said; but he made no answer to
that.  We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side,
deriving, I fancy, a certain comfort in one another's company.  Then I
shifted my position to a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a
yard or more of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was
walking towards Woking.

The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened.  The
crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and I
heard now a faint murmur from it.  The little knot of people towards
Chobham dispersed.  There was scarcely an intimation of movement from
the pit.

It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I
suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore
confidence.  At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent
movement upon the sand pits began, a movement that seemed to gather
force as the stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained
unbroken.  Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance,
stop, watch, and advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin
irregular crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated
horns.  I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.

Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand
pits, and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels.  I saw a
lad trundling off the barrow of apples.  And then, within thirty yards
of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little
black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag.

This was the Deputation.  There had been a hasty consultation, and
since the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms,
intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by
approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent.

Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the
left.  It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards
I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this
attempt at communication.  This little group had in its advance
dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost
complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed
it at discreet distances.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous
greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which
drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air.

This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was
so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of
brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to
darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after
their dispersal.  At the same time a faint hissing sound became
audible.

Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag
at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small
vertical black shapes upon the black ground.  As the green smoke arose,
their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished.
Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud,
droning noise.  Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the
ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.

Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one
to another, sprang from the scattered group of men.  It was as if some
invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame.  It was
as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.

Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering
and falling, and their supporters turning to run.

I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping
from man to man in that little distant crowd.  All I felt was that it
was something very strange.  An almost noiseless and blinding flash of
light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft
of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry
furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames.  And far away
towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden
buildings suddenly set alight.

It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death,
this invisible, inevitable sword of heat.  I perceived it coming
towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded
and stupefied to stir.  I heard the crackle of fire in the sand pits
and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled.  Then
it was as if an invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn
through the heather between me and the Martians, and all along a
curving line beyond the sand pits the dark ground smoked and crackled.
Something fell with a crash far away to the left where the road from
Woking station opens out on the common.  Forth-with the hissing and
humming ceased, and the black, dome-like object sank slowly out of
sight into the pit.

All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood
motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light.  Had that
death swept through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in
my surprise.  But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me
suddenly dark and unfamiliar.

The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except
where its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the
early night.  It was dark, and suddenly void of men.  Overhead the
stars were mustering, and in the west the sky was still a pale,
bright, almost greenish blue.  The tops of the pine trees and the
roofs of Horsell came out sharp and black against the western
afterglow.  The Martians and their appliances were altogether
invisible, save for that thin mast upon which their restless mirror
wobbled.  Patches of bush and isolated trees here and there smoked and
glowed still, and the houses towards Woking station were sending up
spires of flame into the stillness of the evening air.

Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment.  The
little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out
of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me,
had scarcely been broken.

It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless,
unprotected, and alone.  Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from
without, came--fear.

With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the
heather.

The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only
of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me.  Such an
extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping
silently as a child might do.  Once I had turned, I did not dare to
look back.

I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being
played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety,
this mysterious death--as swift as the passage of light--would leap
after me from the pit about the cylinder and strike me down.



CHAPTER SIX

THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD


It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay
men so swiftly and so silently.  Many think that in some way they are
able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute
non-conductivity.  This intense heat they project in a parallel beam
against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic
mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a
lighthouse projects a beam of light.  But no one has absolutely proved
these details.  However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat
is the essence of the matter.  Heat, and invisible, instead of
visible, light.  Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its
touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass,
and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.

That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the
pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the
common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze.

The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and
Ottershaw about the same time.  In Woking the shops had closed when
the tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so
forth, attracted by the stories they had heard, were walking over the
Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at
last upon the common.  You may imagine the young people brushed up
after the labours of the day, and making this novelty, as they would
make any novelty, the excuse for walking together and enjoying a
trivial flirtation.  You may figure to yourself the hum of voices
along the road in the gloaming. . . .

As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder
had opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to
the post office with a special wire to an evening paper.

As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they
found little knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the
spinning mirror over the sand pits, and the newcomers were, no doubt,
soon infected by the excitement of the occasion.

By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may
have been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place,
besides those who had left the road to approach the Martians nearer.
There were three policemen too, one of whom was mounted, doing their
best, under instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter
them from approaching the cylinder.  There was some booing from those
more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an
occasion for noise and horse-play.

Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision,
had telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians
emerged, for the help of a company of soldiers to protect these
strange creatures from violence.  After that they returned to lead that
ill-fated advance.  The description of their death, as it was seen by
the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions: the three
puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame.

But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine.  Only
the fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of
the Heat-Ray saved them.  Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror
been a few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale.  They
saw the flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were,
lit the bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight.  Then,
with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam
swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees
that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows,
firing the window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a
portion of the gable of the house nearest the corner.

In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the
panic-stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some
moments.  Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and
single leaves like puffs of flame.  Hats and dresses caught fire.  Then
came a crying from the common.  There were shrieks and shouts, and
suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with
his hands clasped over his head, screaming.

"They're coming!" a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was
turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to
Woking again.  They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep.
Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks the crowd
jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred.  All that crowd did not
escape; three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were
crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the
darkness.



CHAPTER SEVEN

HOW I REACHED HOME


For my own part, I remember nothing of my flight except the stress
of blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather.  All
about me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians; that pitiless
sword of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead before
it descended and smote me out of life.  I came into the road between
the crossroads and Horsell, and ran along this to the crossroads.

At last I could go no further; I was exhausted with the violence of
my emotion and of my flight, and I staggered and fell by the wayside.
That was near the bridge that crosses the canal by the gasworks.  I
fell and lay still.

I must have remained there some time.

I sat up, strangely perplexed.  For a moment, perhaps, I could not
clearly understand how I came there.  My terror had fallen from me
like a garment.  My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from
its fastener.  A few minutes before, there had only been three real
things before me--the immensity of the night and space and nature, my
own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death.  Now it
was as if something turned over, and the point of view altered
abruptly.  There was no sensible transition from one state of mind to
the other.  I was immediately the self of every day again--a decent,
ordinary citizen.  The silent common, the impulse of my flight, the
starting flames, were as if they had been in a dream.  I asked myself
had these latter things indeed happened?  I could not credit it.

I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge.  My
mind was blank wonder.  My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their
strength.  I dare say I staggered drunkenly.  A head rose over the
arch, and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared.  Beside
him ran a little boy.  He passed me, wishing me good night.  I was
minded to speak to him, but did not.  I answered his greeting with a
meaningless mumble and went on over the bridge.

Over the Maybury arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit
smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying
south--clatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone.  A dim group of
people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little
row of gables that was called Oriental Terrace.  It was all so real
and so familiar.  And that behind me!  It was frantic, fantastic!
Such things, I told myself, could not be.

Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods.  I do not know how far my
experience is common.  At times I suffer from the strangest sense of
detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all
from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time,
out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.  This feeling
was very strong upon me that night.  Here was another side to my
dream.

But the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity and the
swift death flying yonder, not two miles away.  There was a noise of
business from the gasworks, and the electric lamps were all alight.  I
stopped at the group of people.

"What news from the common?" said I.

There were two men and a woman at the gate.

"Eh?" said one of the men, turning.

"What news from the common?" I said.

"'Ain't yer just _been_ there?" asked the men.

"People seem fair silly about the common," said the woman over the
gate.  "What's it all abart?"

"Haven't you heard of the men from Mars?" said I; "the creatures
from Mars?"

"Quite enough," said the woman over the gate.  "Thenks"; and all
three of them laughed.

I felt foolish and angry.  I tried and found I could not tell them
what I had seen.  They laughed again at my broken sentences.

"You'll hear more yet," I said, and went on to my home.

I startled my wife at the doorway, so haggard was I.  I went into
the dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so soon as I could
collect myself sufficiently I told her the things I had seen.  The
dinner, which was a cold one, had already been served, and remained
neglected on the table while I told my story.

"There is one thing," I said, to allay the fears I had aroused;
"they are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl.  They may keep
the pit and kill people who come near them, but they cannot get out
of it. . . .  But the horror of them!"

"Don't, dear!" said my wife, knitting her brows and putting her
hand on mine.

"Poor Ogilvy!" I said.  "To think he may be lying dead there!"

My wife at least did not find my experience incredible.  When I saw
how deadly white her face was, I ceased abruptly.

"They may come here," she said again and again.

I pressed her to take wine, and tried to reassure her.

"They can scarcely move," I said.

I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had
told me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves
on the earth.  In particular I laid stress on the gravitational
difficulty.  On the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three
times what it is on the surface of Mars.  A Martian, therefore, would
weigh three times more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength
would be the same.  His own body would be a cope of lead to him.  That,
indeed, was the general opinion.  Both _The Times_ and the _Daily
Telegraph_, for instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both
overlooked, just as I did, two obvious modifying influences.

The atmosphere of the earth, we now know, contains far more oxygen
or far less argon (whichever way one likes to put it) than does Mars.
The invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians
indisputably did much to counterbalance the increased weight of their
bodies.  And, in the second place, we all overlooked the fact that
such mechanical intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able
to dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch.

But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my
reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders.  With wine and
food, the confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring
my wife, I grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure.

"They have done a foolish thing," said I, fingering my wineglass.
"They are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror.
Perhaps they expected to find no living things--certainly no
intelligent living things."

"A shell in the pit" said I, "if the worst comes to the worst will
kill them all."

The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my
perceptive powers in a state of erethism.  I remember that dinner
table with extraordinary vividness even now.  My dear wife's sweet
anxious face peering at me from under the pink lamp shade, the white
cloth with its silver and glass table furniture--for in those days
even philosophical writers had many little luxuries--the crimson-purple
wine in my glass, are photographically distinct.  At the end of
it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's
rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the Martians.

So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in
his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless
sailors in want of animal food.  "We will peck them to death tomorrow,
my dear."

I did not know it, but that was the last civilised dinner I was to
eat for very many strange and terrible days.



CHAPTER EIGHT

FRIDAY NIGHT


The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and
wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing
of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first
beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social
order headlong.  If on Friday night you had taken a pair of compasses
and drawn a circle with a radius of five miles round the Woking sand
pits, I doubt if you would have had one human being outside it, unless
it were some relation of Stent or of the three or four cyclists or
London people lying dead on the common, whose emotions or habits were
at all affected by the new-comers.  Many people had heard of the
cylinder, of course, and talked about it in their leisure, but it
certainly did not make the sensation that an ultimatum to Germany
would have done.

In London that night poor Henderson's telegram describing the
gradual unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a canard, and his
evening paper, after wiring for authentication from him and receiving
no reply--the man was killed--decided not to print a special edition.

Even within the five-mile circle the great majority of people were
inert.  I have already described the behaviour of the men and women to
whom I spoke.  All over the district people were dining and supping;
working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children
were being put to bed, young people were wandering through the lanes
love-making, students sat over their books.

Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, a novel and
dominant topic in the public-houses, and here and there a messenger,
or even an eye-witness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of
excitement, a shouting, and a running to and fro; but for the most
part the daily routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on
as it had done for countless years--as though no planet Mars existed
in the sky.  Even at Woking station and Horsell and Chobham that was
the case.

In Woking junction, until a late hour, trains were stopping and
going on, others were shunting on the sidings, passengers were
alighting and waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most
ordinary way.  A boy from the town, trenching on Smith's monopoly, was
selling papers with the afternoon's news.  The ringing impact of
trucks, the sharp whistle of the engines from the junction, mingled
with their shouts of "Men from Mars!"  Excited men came into the
station about nine o'clock with incredible tidings, and caused no more
disturbance than drunkards might have done.  People rattling
Londonwards peered into the darkness outside the carriage windows, and
saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark dance up from the
direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of smoke driving
across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious than a heath
fire was happening.  It was only round the edge of the common that any
disturbance was perceptible.  There were half a dozen villas burning
on the Woking border.  There were lights in all the houses on the
common side of the three villages, and the people there kept awake
till dawn.

A curious crowd lingered restlessly, people coming and going but
the crowd remaining, both on the Chobham and Horsell bridges.  One or
two adventurous souls, it was afterwards found, went into the darkness
and crawled quite near the Martians; but they never returned, for now
and again a light-ray, like the beam of a warship's searchlight swept
the common, and the Heat-Ray was ready to follow.  Save for such, that
big area of common was silent and desolate, and the charred bodies lay
about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day.  A noise
of hammering from the pit was heard by many people.

So you have the state of things on Friday night.  In the centre,
sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart,
was this cylinder.  But the poison was scarcely working yet.  Around
it was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few
dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there.
Here and there was a burning bush or tree.  Beyond was a fringe of
excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not
crept as yet.  In the rest of the world the stream of life still
flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years.  The fever of war that
would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain,
had still to develop.

All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless,
indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and
ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the
starlit sky.

About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and
deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon.  Later a
second company marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of
the common.  Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on
the common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be
missing.  The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and
was busy questioning the crowd at midnight.  The military authorities
were certainly alive to the seriousness of the business.  About
eleven, the next morning's papers were able to say, a squadron of
hussars, two Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan
regiment started from Aldershot.

A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road,
Woking, saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the
northwest.  It had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness
like summer lightning.  This was the second cylinder.



CHAPTER NINE

THE FIGHTING BEGINS


Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense.  It was a day of
lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating
barometer.  I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in
sleeping, and I rose early.  I went into my garden before breakfast
and stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring
but a lark.

The milkman came as usual.  I heard the rattle of his chariot and I
went round to the side gate to ask the latest news.  He told me that
during the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that
guns were expected.  Then--a familiar, reassuring note--I heard a train
running towards Woking.

"They aren't to be killed," said the milkman, "if that can possibly
be avoided."

I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then
strolled in to breakfast.  It was a most unexceptional morning.  My
neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or
to destroy the Martians during the day.

"It's a pity they make themselves so unapproachable," he said.  "It
would be curious to know how they live on another planet; we might
learn a thing or two."

He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, for
his gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic.  At the same
time he told me of the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet
Golf Links.

"They say," said he, "that there's another of those blessed things
fallen there--number two.  But one's enough, surely.  This lot'll cost
the insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled."  He
laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this.  The
woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to
me.  "They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick
soil of pine needles and turf," he said, and then grew serious over
"poor Ogilvy."

After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to walk down
towards the common.  Under the railway bridge I found a group of
soldiers--sappers, I think, men in small round caps, dirty red jackets
unbuttoned, and showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots
coming to the calf.  They told me no one was allowed over the canal,
and, looking along the road towards the bridge, I saw one of the
Cardigan men standing sentinel there.  I talked with these soldiers
for a time; I told them of my sight of the Martians on the previous
evening.  None of them had seen the Martians, and they had but the
vaguest ideas of them, so that they plied me with questions.  They
said that they did not know who had authorised the movements of the
troops; their idea was that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards.
The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated than the common
soldier, and they discussed the peculiar conditions of the possible
fight with some acuteness.  I described the Heat-Ray to them, and they
began to argue among themselves.

"Crawl up under cover and rush 'em, say I," said one.

"Get aht!" said another.  "What's cover against this 'ere 'eat?
Sticks to cook yer!  What we got to do is to go as near as the
ground'll let us, and then drive a trench."

"Blow yer trenches!  You always want trenches; you ought to ha'
been born a rabbit Snippy."

"Ain't they got any necks, then?" said a third, abruptly--a little,
contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe.

I repeated my description.

"Octopuses," said he, "that's what I calls 'em.  Talk about fishers
of men--fighters of fish it is this time!"

"It ain't no murder killing beasts like that," said the first
speaker.

"Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish 'em?" said
the little dark man.  "You carn tell what they might do."

"Where's your shells?" said the first speaker.  "There ain't no
time.  Do it in a rush, that's my tip, and do it at once."

So they discussed it.  After a while I left them, and went on to
the railway station to get as many morning papers as I could.

But I will not weary the reader with a description of that long
morning and of the longer afternoon.  I did not succeed in getting a
glimpse of the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were
in the hands of the military authorities.  The soldiers I addressed
didn't know anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy.  I
found people in the town quite secure again in the presence of the
military, and I heard for the first time from Marshall, the
tobacconist, that his son was among the dead on the common.  The
soldiers had made the people on the outskirts of Horsell lock up and
leave their houses.

I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the
day was extremely hot and dull; and in order to refresh myself I took
a cold bath in the afternoon.  About half past four I went up to the
railway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers had
contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent,
Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others.  But there was little I didn't
know.  The Martians did not show an inch of themselves.  They seemed
busy in their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost
continuous streamer of smoke.  Apparently they were busy getting ready
for a struggle.  "Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without
success," was the stereotyped formula of the papers.  A sapper told me
it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole.  The
Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the
lowing of a cow.

I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this
preparation, greatly excited me.  My imagination became belligerent,
and defeated the invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of my
schoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back.  It hardly seemed a
fair fight to me at that time.  They seemed very helpless in that pit
of theirs.

About three o'clock there began the thud of a gun at measured
intervals from Chertsey or Addlestone.  I learned that the smouldering
pine wood into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled,
in the hope of destroying that object before it opened.  It was only
about five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against
the first body of Martians.

About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the
summerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering upon
us, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediately
after a gust of firing.  Close on the heels of that came a violent
rattling crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground; and,
starting out upon the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about the
Oriental College burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of the
little church beside it slide down into ruin.  The pinnacle of the
mosque had vanished, and the roof line of the college itself looked as
if a hundred-ton gun had been at work upon it.  One of our chimneys
cracked as if a shot had hit it, flew, and a piece of it came
clattering down the tiles and made a heap of broken red fragments upon
the flower bed by my study window.

I and my wife stood amazed.  Then I realised that the crest of
Maybury Hill must be within range of the Martians' Heat-Ray now that
the college was cleared out of the way.

At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her out
into the road.  Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go
upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for.

"We can't possibly stay here," I said; and as I spoke the firing
reopened for a moment upon the common.

"But where are we to go?" said my wife in terror.

I thought perplexed.  Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.

"Leatherhead!" I shouted above the sudden noise.

She looked away from me downhill.  The people were coming out of
their houses, astonished.

"How are we to get to Leatherhead?" she said.

Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway
bridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College;
two others dismounted, and began running from house to house.  The
sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the
trees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon
everything.

"Stop here," said I; "you are safe here"; and I started off at once
for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart.
I ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the
hill would be moving.  I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what
was going on behind his house.  A man stood with his back to me,
talking to him.

"I must have a pound," said the landlord, "and I've no one to drive
it."

"I'll give you two," said I, over the stranger's shoulder.

"What for?"

"And I'll bring it back by midnight," I said.

"Lord!" said the landlord; "what's the hurry?  I'm selling my bit
of a pig.  Two pounds, and you bring it back?  What's going on now?"

I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the
dog cart.  At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the
landlord should leave his.  I took care to have the cart there and
then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife
and servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such
plate as we had, and so forth.  The beech trees below the house were
burning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red.
While I was occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came
running up.  He was going from house to house, warning people to
leave.  He was going on as I came out of my front door, lugging my
treasures, done up in a tablecloth.  I shouted after him:

"What news?"

He turned, stared, bawled something about "crawling out in a thing
like a dish cover," and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest.
A sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a
moment.  I ran to my neighbour's door and rapped to satisfy myself of
what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had
locked up their house.  I went in again, according to my promise, to
get my servant's box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail
of the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the
driver's seat beside my wife.  In another moment we were clear of the
smoke and noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill
towards Old Woking.

In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either
side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign.  I saw
the doctor's cart ahead of me.  At the bottom of the hill I turned my
head to look at the hillside I was leaving.  Thick streamers of black
smoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still
air, and throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward.  The
smoke already extended far away to the east and west--to the Byfleet
pine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west.  The road was dotted
with people running towards us.  And very faint now, but very distinct
through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun that
was presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles.
Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range
of their Heat-Ray.

I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my
attention to the horse.  When I looked back again the second hill had
hidden the black smoke.  I slashed the horse with the whip, and gave
him a loose rein until Woking and Send lay between us and that
quivering tumult.  I overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and
Send.



CHAPTER TEN

IN THE STORM


Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill.  The scent of
hay was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyrford, and the
hedges on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog-roses.
The heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down
Maybury Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very
peaceful and still.  We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about
nine o'clock, and the horse had an hour's rest while I took supper
with my cousins and commended my wife to their care.

My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed
oppressed with forebodings of evil.  I talked to her reassuringly,
pointing out that the Martians were tied to the Pit by sheer
heaviness, and at the utmost could but crawl a little out of it; but
she answered only in monosyllables.  Had it not been for my promise to
the innkeeper, she would, I think, have urged me to stay in
Leatherhead that night.  Would that I had!  Her face, I remember, was
very white as we parted.

For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day.  Something
very like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised
community had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very
sorry that I had to return to Maybury that night.  I was even afraid
that that last fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of
our invaders from Mars.  I can best express my state of mind by saying
that I wanted to be in at the death.

It was nearly eleven when I started to return.  The night was
unexpectedly dark; to me, walking out of the lighted passage of my
cousins' house, it seemed indeed black, and it was as hot and close as
the day.  Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath
stirred the shrubs about us.  My cousins' man lit both lamps.  Happily,
I knew the road intimately.  My wife stood in the light of the
doorway, and watched me until I jumped up into the dog cart.  Then
abruptly she turned and went in, leaving my cousins side by side
wishing me good hap.

I was a little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife's
fears, but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians.  At that
time I was absolutely in the dark as to the course of the evening's
fighting.  I did not know even the circumstances that had precipitated
the conflict.  As I came through Ockham (for that was the way I
returned, and not through Send and Old Woking) I saw along the western
horizon a blood-red glow, which as I drew nearer, crept slowly up the
sky.  The driving clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there
with masses of black and red smoke.

Ripley Street was deserted, and except for a lighted window or so
the village showed not a sign of life; but I narrowly escaped an
accident at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people
stood with their backs to me.  They said nothing to me as I passed.  I
do not know what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill,
nor do I know if the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping
securely, or deserted and empty, or harassed and watching against the
terror of the night.

From Ripley until I came through Pyrford I was in the valley of the
Wey, and the red glare was hidden from me.  As I ascended the little
hill beyond Pyrford Church the glare came into view again, and the
trees about me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that
was upon me.  Then I heard midnight pealing out from Pyrford Church
behind me, and then came the silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its
tree-tops and roofs black and sharp against the red.

Even as I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and
showed the distant woods towards Addlestone.  I felt a tug at the
reins.  I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were by a
thread of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and falling
into the field to my left.  It was the third falling star!

Close on its apparition, and blindingly violet by contrast, danced
out the first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst
like a rocket overhead.  The horse took the bit between his teeth and
bolted.

A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill, and down
this we clattered.  Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as
rapid a succession of flashes as I have ever seen.  The thunderclaps,
treading one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling
accompaniment, sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric
machine than the usual detonating reverberations.  The flickering
light was blinding and confusing, and a thin hail smote gustily at my
face as I drove down the slope.

At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then
abruptly my attention was arrested by something that was moving
rapidly down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill.  At first I took it
for the wet roof of a house, but one flash following another showed it
to be in swift rolling movement.  It was an elusive vision--a moment
of bewildering darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red
masses of the Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of
the pine trees, and this problematical object came out clear and sharp
and bright.

And this Thing I saw!  How can I describe it?  A monstrous tripod,
higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and
smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering
metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel
dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling
with the riot of the thunder.  A flash, and it came out vividly,
heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear
almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards
nearer.  Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently
along the ground?  That was the impression those instant flashes gave.
But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on
a tripod stand.

Then suddenly the trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted,
as brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were
snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared,
rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me.  And I was galloping hard
to meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went
altogether.  Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse's head
hard round to the right and in another moment the dog cart had heeled
over upon the horse; the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung
sideways and fell heavily into a shallow pool of water.

I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in
the water, under a clump of furze.  The horse lay motionless (his neck
was broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black
bulk of the overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still
spinning slowly.  In another moment the colossal mechanism went
striding by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford.

Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere
insensate machine driving on its way.  Machine it was, with a ringing
metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which
gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange
body.  It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen
hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable
suggestion of a head looking about.  Behind the main body was a huge
mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of
green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster
swept by me.  And in an instant it was gone.

So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the
lightning, in blinding highlights and dense black shadows.

As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the
thunder--"Aloo!  Aloo!"--and in another minute it was with its
companion, half a mile away, stooping over something in the field.  I
have no doubt this Thing in the field was the third of the ten
cylinders they had fired at us from Mars.

For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness watching, by
the intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moving about
in the distance over the hedge tops.  A thin hail was now beginning,
and as it came and went their figures grew misty and then flashed into
clearness again.  Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the
night swallowed them up.

I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below.  It was some
time before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to
a drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril.

Not far from me was a little one-roomed squatter's hut of wood,
surrounded by a patch of potato garden.  I struggled to my feet at
last, and, crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a
run for this.  I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people
hear (if there were any people inside), and after a time I desisted,
and, availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way,
succeeded in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into
the pine woods towards Maybury.

Under cover of this I pushed on, wet and shivering now, towards my
own house.  I walked among the trees trying to find the footpath.  It
was very dark indeed in the wood, for the lightning was now becoming
infrequent, and the hail, which was pouring down in a torrent, fell in
columns through the gaps in the heavy foliage.

If I had fully realised the meaning of all the things I had seen I
should have immediately worked my way round through Byfleet to Street
Cobham, and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead.  But that
night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical
wretchedness, prevented me, for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin,
deafened and blinded by the storm.

I had a vague idea of going on to my own house, and that was as
much motive as I had.  I staggered through the trees, fell into a
ditch and bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed out
into the lane that ran down from the College Arms.  I say splashed,
for the storm water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy
torrent.  There in the darkness a man blundered into me and sent me
reeling back.

He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed on before I
could gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him.  So heavy was the
stress of the storm just at this place that I had the hardest task to
win my way up the hill.  I went close up to the fence on the left and
worked my way along its palings.

Near the top I stumbled upon something soft, and, by a flash of
lightning, saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair
of boots.  Before I could distinguish clearly how the man lay, the
flicker of light had passed.  I stood over him waiting for the next
flash.  When it came, I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not
shabbily dressed; his head was bent under his body, and he lay
crumpled up close to the fence, as though he had been flung violently
against it.

Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before
touched a dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his
heart.  He was quite dead.  Apparently his neck had been broken.  The
lightning flashed for a third time, and his face leaped upon me.  I
sprang to my feet.  It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose
conveyance I had taken.

I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill.  I made my
way by the police station and the College Arms towards my own house.
Nothing was burning on the hillside, though from the common there
still came a red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up
against the drenching hail.  So far as I could see by the flashes, the
houses about me were mostly uninjured.  By the College Arms a dark
heap lay in the road.

Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the
sound of feet, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them.  I
let myself in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door,
staggered to the foot of the staircase, and sat down.  My imagination
was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body
smashed against the fence.

I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall,
shivering violently.



CHAPTER ELEVEN

AT THE WINDOW


I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of
exhausting themselves.  After a time I discovered that I was cold and
wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet.  I
got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some
whiskey, and then I was moved to change my clothes.

After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so
I do not know.  The window of my study looks over the trees and the
railway towards Horsell Common.  In the hurry of our departure this
window had been left open.  The passage was dark, and, by contrast with
the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed
impenetrably dark.  I stopped short in the doorway.

The thunderstorm had passed.  The towers of the Oriental College
and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a
vivid red glare, the common about the sand pits was visible.  Across
the light huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to
and fro.

It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on
fire--a broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and
writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red
reflection upon the cloud-scud above.  Every now and then a haze of
smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid
the Martian shapes.  I could not see what they were doing, nor the
clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied
upon.  Neither could I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of
it danced on the wall and ceiling of the study.  A sharp, resinous
tang of burning was in the air.

I closed the door noiselessly and crept towards the window.  As I
did so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the
houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and
blackened pine woods of Byfleet.  There was a light down below the
hill, on the railway, near the arch, and several of the houses along
the Maybury road and the streets near the station were glowing ruins.
The light upon the railway puzzled me at first; there were a black
heap and a vivid glare, and to the right of that a row of yellow
oblongs.  Then I perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part
smashed and on fire, the hinder carriages still upon the rails.

Between these three main centres of light--the houses, the train,
and the burning county towards Chobham--stretched irregular patches of
dark country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and
smoking ground.  It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set
with fire.  It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries
at night.  At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I
peered intently for them.  Later I saw against the light of Woking
station a number of black figures hurrying one after the other across
the line.

And this was the little world in which I had been living securely
for years, this fiery chaos!  What had happened in the last seven
hours I still did not know; nor did I know, though I was beginning to
guess, the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish
lumps I had seen disgorged from the cylinder.  With a queer feeling of
impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down,
and stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three
gigantic black things that were going to and fro in the glare about
the sand pits.

They seemed amazingly busy.  I began to ask myself what they could
be.  Were they intelligent mechanisms?  Such a thing I felt was
impossible.  Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing,
using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body?  I began to
compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time
in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an
intelligent lower animal.

The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning
land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west,
when a soldier came into my garden.  I heard a slight scraping at the
fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I
looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings.  At the
sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the
window eagerly.

"Hist!" said I, in a whisper.

He stopped astride of the fence in doubt.  Then he came over and
across the lawn to the corner of the house.  He bent down and stepped
softly.

"Who's there?" he said, also whispering, standing under the window
and peering up.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"God knows."

"Are you trying to hide?"

"That's it."

"Come into the house," I said.

I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the
door again.  I could not see his face.  He was hatless, and his coat
was unbuttoned.

"My God!" he said, as I drew him in.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"What hasn't?"  In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of
despair.  "They wiped us out--simply wiped us out," he repeated again
and again.

He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room.

"Take some whiskey," I said, pouring out a stiff dose.

He drank it.  Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his
head on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a
perfect passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of
my own recent despair, stood beside him, wondering.

It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my
questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly.  He was a
driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven.  At
that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the
first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second
cylinder under cover of a metal shield.

Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first
of the fighting-machines I had seen.  The gun he drove had been
unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its
arrival it was that had precipitated the action.  As the limber
gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came
down, throwing him into a depression of the ground.  At the same
moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was
fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of charred
dead men and dead horses.

"I lay still," he said, "scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter
of a horse atop of me.  We'd been wiped out.  And the smell--good
God!  Like burnt meat!  I was hurt across the back by the fall of
the horse, and there I had to lie until I felt better.  Just like
parade it had been a minute before--then stumble, bang, swish!"

"Wiped out!" he said.

He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out
furtively across the common.  The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in
skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence.
Then the monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely
to and fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its
headlike hood turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human
being.  A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which
green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked
the Heat-Ray.

In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a
living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it
that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning.  The hussars
had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw
nothing of them.  He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then
become still.  The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses
until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and
the town became a heap of fiery ruins.  Then the Thing shut off the
Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle
away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second
cylinder.  As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out
of the pit.

The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman
began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards
Horsell.  He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the
road, and so escaped to Woking.  There his story became ejaculatory.
The place was impassable.  It seems there were a few people alive
there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded.  He was
turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of
broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned.  He saw this one
pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock
his head against the trunk of a pine tree.  At last, after nightfall,
the artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway
embankment.

Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope
of getting out of danger Londonward.  People were hiding in trenches
and cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking
village and Send.  He had been consumed with thirst until he found one
of the water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water
bubbling out like a spring upon the road.

That was the story I got from him, bit by bit.  He grew calmer
telling me and trying to make me see the things he had seen.  He had
eaten no food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I
found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the
room.  We lit no lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever
and again our hands would touch upon bread or meat.  As he talked,
things about us came darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled
bushes and broken rose trees outside the window grew distinct.  It
would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn.
I began to see his face, blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was
also.

When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study,
and I looked again out of the open window.  In one night the valley
had become a valley of ashes.  The fires had dwindled now.  Where
flames had been there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless
ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees
that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the
pitiless light of dawn.  Yet here and there some object had had the
luck to escape--a white railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse
there, white and fresh amid the wreckage.  Never before in the history
of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal.
And shining with the growing light of the east, three of the metallic
giants stood about the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were
surveying the desolation they had made.

It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again
puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the
brightening dawn--streamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished.

Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham.  They became pillars
of bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day.



CHAPTER TWELVE

WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON


As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we
had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.

The artilleryman agreed with me that the house was no place to stay
in.  He proposed, he said, to make his way Londonward, and thence
rejoin his battery--No. 12, of the Horse Artillery.  My plan was to
return at once to Leatherhead; and so greatly had the strength of the
Martians impressed me that I had determined to take my wife to
Newhaven, and go with her out of the country forthwith.  For I already
perceived clearly that the country about London must inevitably be the
scene of a disastrous struggle before such creatures as these could be
destroyed.

Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with
its guarding giants.  Had I been alone, I think I should have taken my
chance and struck across country.  But the artilleryman dissuaded me:
"It's no kindness to the right sort of wife," he said, "to make her a
widow"; and in the end I agreed to go with him, under cover of the
woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him.
Thence I would make a big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead.

I should have started at once, but my companion had been in active
service and he knew better than that.  He made me ransack the house
for a flask, which he filled with whiskey; and we lined every
available pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat.  Then
we crept out of the house, and ran as quickly as we could down the
ill-made road by which I had come overnight.  The houses seemed
deserted. In the road lay a group of three charred bodies close
together, struck dead by the Heat-Ray; and here and there were things
that people had dropped--a clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and the
like poor valuables.  At the corner turning up towards the post
office a little cart, filled with boxes and furniture, and horseless,
heeled over on a broken wheel.  A cash box had been hastily smashed
open and thrown under the debris.

Except the lodge at the Orphanage, which was still on fire, none of
the houses had suffered very greatly here.  The Heat-Ray had shaved
the chimney tops and passed.  Yet, save ourselves, there did not seem
to be a living soul on Maybury Hill.  The majority of the inhabitants
had escaped, I suppose, by way of the Old Woking road--the road I had
taken when I drove to Leatherhead--or they had hidden.

We went down the lane, by the body of the man in black, sodden now
from the overnight hail, and broke into the woods at the foot of the
hill.  We pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a
soul.  The woods across the line were but the scarred and blackened
ruins of woods; for the most part the trees had fallen, but a certain
proportion still stood, dismal grey stems, with dark brown foliage
instead of green.

On our side the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees;
it had failed to secure its footing.  In one place the woodmen had
been at work on Saturday; trees, felled and freshly trimmed, lay in a
clearing, with heaps of sawdust by the sawing-machine and its engine.
Hard by was a temporary hut, deserted.  There was not a breath of wind
this morning, and everything was strangely still.  Even the birds were
hushed, and as we hurried along I and the artilleryman talked in
whispers and looked now and again over our shoulders.  Once or twice
we stopped to listen.

After a time we drew near the road, and as we did so we heard the
clatter of hoofs and saw through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers
riding slowly towards Woking.  We hailed them, and they halted while
we hurried towards them.  It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates
of the 8th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the
artilleryman told me was a heliograph.

"You are the first men I've seen coming this way this morning,"
said the lieutenant.  "What's brewing?"

His voice and face were eager.  The men behind him stared
curiously.  The artilleryman jumped down the bank into the road and
saluted.

"Gun destroyed last night, sir.  Have been hiding.  Trying to
rejoin battery, sir.  You'll come in sight of the Martians, I expect,
about half a mile along this road."

"What the dickens are they like?" asked the lieutenant.

"Giants in armour, sir.  Hundred feet high.  Three legs and a body
like 'luminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir."

"Get out!" said the lieutenant.  "What confounded nonsense!"

"You'll see, sir.  They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire
and strikes you dead."

"What d'ye mean--a gun?"

"No, sir," and the artilleryman began a vivid account of the Heat-Ray.
Halfway through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at
me.  I was still standing on the bank by the side of the road.

"It's perfectly true," I said.

"Well," said the lieutenant, "I suppose it's my business to see it
too.  Look here"--to the artilleryman--"we're detailed here clearing
people out of their houses.  You'd better go along and report yourself
to Brigadier-General Marvin, and tell him all you know.  He's at
Weybridge.  Know the way?"

"I do," I said; and he turned his horse southward again.

"Half a mile, you say?" said he.

"At most," I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward.  He
thanked me and rode on, and we saw them no more.

Farther along we came upon a group of three women and two children
in the road, busy clearing out a labourer's cottage.  They had
got hold of a little hand truck, and were piling it up with
unclean-looking bundles and shabby furniture.  They were all too
assiduously engaged to talk to us as we passed.

By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the
country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight.  We were far
beyond the range of the Heat-Ray there, and had it not been for the
silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring movement of
packing in others, and the knot of soldiers standing on the bridge
over the railway and staring down the line towards Woking, the day
would have seemed very like any other Sunday.

Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily along the road
to Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across
a stretch of flat meadow, six twelve-pounders standing neatly at equal
distances pointing towards Woking.  The gunners stood by the guns
waiting, and the ammunition waggons were at a business-like distance.
The men stood almost as if under inspection.

"That's good!" said I.  "They will get one fair shot, at any rate."

The artilleryman hesitated at the gate.

"I shall go on," he said.

Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were a
number of men in white fatigue jackets throwing up a long rampart, and
more guns behind.

"It's bows and arrows against the lightning, anyhow," said the
artilleryman.  "They 'aven't seen that fire-beam yet."

The officers who were not actively engaged stood and stared over
the treetops southwestward, and the men digging would stop every now
and again to stare in the same direction.

Byfleet was in a tumult; people packing, and a score of hussars,
some of them dismounted, some on horseback, were hunting them about.
Three or four black government waggons, with crosses in white circles,
and an old omnibus, among other vehicles, were being loaded in the
village street.  There were scores of people, most of them
sufficiently sabbatical to have assumed their best clothes.  The
soldiers were having the greatest difficulty in making them realise
the gravity of their position.  We saw one shrivelled old fellow with
a huge box and a score or more of flower pots containing orchids,
angrily expostulating with the corporal who would leave them behind.
I stopped and gripped his arm.

"Do you know what's over there?" I said, pointing at the pine tops
that hid the Martians.

"Eh?" said he, turning.  "I was explainin' these is vallyble."

"Death!" I shouted.  "Death is coming!  Death!" and leaving him to
digest that if he could, I hurried on after the artillery-man.  At the
corner I looked back.  The soldier had left him, and he was still
standing by his box, with the pots of orchids on the lid of it, and
staring vaguely over the trees.

No one in Weybridge could tell us where the headquarters were
established; the whole place was in such confusion as I had never seen
in any town before.  Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing
miscellany of conveyances and horseflesh.  The respectable inhabitants
of the place, men in golf and boating costumes, wives prettily
dressed, were packing, river-side loafers energetically helping,
children excited, and, for the most part, highly delighted at this
astonishing variation of their Sunday experiences.  In the midst of it
all the worthy vicar was very pluckily holding an early celebration,
and his bell was jangling out above the excitement.

I and the artilleryman, seated on the step of the drinking
fountain, made a very passable meal upon what we had brought with
us. Patrols of soldiers--here no longer hussars, but grenadiers in
white--were warning people to move now or to take refuge in their
cellars as soon as the firing began.  We saw as we crossed the
railway bridge that a growing crowd of people had assembled in and
about the railway station, and the swarming platform was piled with
boxes and packages. The ordinary traffic had been stopped, I believe,
in order to allow of the passage of troops and guns to Chertsey, and
I have heard since that a savage struggle occurred for places in the
special trains that were put on at a later hour.

We remained at Weybridge until midday, and at that hour we found
ourselves at the place near Shepperton Lock where the Wey and Thames
join.  Part of the time we spent helping two old women to pack a
little cart.  The Wey has a treble mouth, and at this point boats are
to be hired, and there was a ferry across the river.  On the
Shepperton side was an inn with a lawn, and beyond that the tower of
Shepperton Church--it has been replaced by a spire--rose above the
trees.

Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives.  As yet the
flight had not grown to a panic, but there were already far more
people than all the boats going to and fro could enable to cross.
People came panting along under heavy burdens; one husband and wife
were even carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of
their household goods piled thereon.  One man told us he meant to try
to get away from Shepperton station.

There was a lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting.  The idea
people seemed to have here was that the Martians were simply
formidable human beings, who might attack and sack the town, to be
certainly destroyed in the end.  Every now and then people would
glance nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but
everything over there was still.

Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything
was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side.  The people who
landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane.  The big
ferryboat had just made a journey.  Three or four soldiers stood on
the lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without
offering to help.  The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited
hours.

"What's that?" cried a boatman, and "Shut up, you fool!" said a man
near me to a yelping dog.  Then the sound came again, this time from
the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud--the sound of a gun.

The fighting was beginning.  Almost immediately unseen batteries
across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up
the chorus, firing heavily one after the other.  A woman screamed.
Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet
invisible to us.  Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows
feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows
motionless in the warm sunlight.

"The sojers'll stop 'em," said a woman beside me, doubtfully.  A
haziness rose over the treetops.

Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river, a puff
of smoke that jerked up into the air and hung; and forthwith the
ground heaved under foot and a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing
two or three windows in the houses near, and leaving us astonished.

"Here they are!" shouted a man in a blue jersey.  "Yonder! D'yer
see them?  Yonder!"

Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured
Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the flat
meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly
towards the river.  Little cowled figures they seemed at first, going
with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds.

Then, advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth.  Their armoured
bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward upon the
guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer.  One on the extreme
left, the remotest that is, flourished a huge case high in the air,
and the ghostly, terrible Heat-Ray I had already seen on Friday night
smote towards Chertsey, and struck the town.

At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures the crowd
near the water's edge seemed to me to be for a moment horror-struck.
There was no screaming or shouting, but a silence.  Then a hoarse
murmur and a movement of feet--a splashing from the water.  A man, too
frightened to drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung
round and sent me staggering with a blow from the corner of his
burden.  A woman thrust at me with her hand and rushed past me.  I
turned with the rush of the people, but I was not too terrified for
thought.  The terrible Heat-Ray was in my mind.  To get under water!
That was it!

"Get under water!" I shouted, unheeded.

I faced about again, and rushed towards the approaching Martian,
rushed right down the gravelly beach and headlong into the water.
Others did the same.  A boatload of people putting back came leaping
out as I rushed past.  The stones under my feet were muddy and
slippery, and the river was so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet
scarcely waist-deep.  Then, as the Martian towered overhead scarcely
a couple of hundred yards away, I flung myself forward under the
surface.  The splashes of the people in the boats leaping into the
river sounded like thunderclaps in my ears.  People were landing
hastily on both sides of the river.  But the Martian machine took no
more notice for the moment of the people running this way and that
than a man would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his
foot has kicked.  When, half suffocated, I raised my head above water,
the Martian's hood pointed at the batteries that were still firing
across the river, and as it advanced it swung loose what must have
been the generator of the Heat-Ray.

In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wading
halfway across.  The knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther
bank, and in another moment it had raised itself to its full height
again, close to the village of Shepperton.  Forthwith the six guns
which, unknown to anyone on the right bank, had been hidden behind the
outskirts of that village, fired simultaneously.  The sudden near
concussion, the last close upon the first, made my heart jump.  The
monster was already raising the case generating the Heat-Ray as the
first shell burst six yards above the hood.

I gave a cry of astonishment.  I saw and thought nothing of the
other four Martian monsters; my attention was riveted upon the nearer
incident.  Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the
body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to
dodge, the fourth shell.

The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing.  The hood bulged,
flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh
and glittering metal.

"Hit!" shouted I, with something between a scream and a cheer.

I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me.  I
could have leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation.

The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant; but it did
not fall over.  It recovered its balance by a miracle, and, no longer
heeding its steps and with the camera that fired the Heat-Ray now
rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shepperton.  The living
intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain and splashed to
the four winds of heaven, and the Thing was now but a mere intricate
device of metal whirling to destruction.  It drove along in a straight
line, incapable of guidance.  It struck the tower of Shepperton
Church, smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have
done, swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tremendous force
into the river out of my sight.

A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam,
mud, and shattered metal shot far up into the sky.  As the camera of
the Heat-Ray hit the water, the latter had immediately flashed into
steam.  In another moment a huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore but
almost scaldingly hot, came sweeping round the bend upstream.  I saw
people struggling shorewards, and heard their screaming and shouting
faintly above the seething and roar of the Martian's collapse.

For a moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent need
of self-preservation.  I splashed through the tumultuous water,
pushing aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the
bend.  Half a dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the
confusion of the waves.  The fallen Martian came into sight
downstream, lying across the river, and for the most part submerged.

Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through
the tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and
vaguely, the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash
and spray of mud and froth into the air.  The tentacles swayed and
struck like living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of
these movements, it was as if some wounded thing were struggling for
its life amid the waves.  Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid
were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine.

My attention was diverted from this death flurry by a furious
yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing
towns.  A man, knee-deep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me
and pointed.  Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with
gigantic strides down the riverbank from the direction of Chertsey.
The Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly.

At that I ducked at once under water, and, holding my breath until
movement was an agony, blundered painfully ahead under the surface as
long as I could.  The water was in a tumult about me, and rapidly
growing hotter.

When for a moment I raised my head to take breath and throw the
hair and water from my eyes, the steam was rising in a whirling white
fog that at first hid the Martians altogether.  The noise was
deafening.  Then I saw them dimly, colossal figures of grey, magnified
by the mist.  They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the
frothing, tumultuous ruins of their comrade.

The third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one perhaps two
hundred yards from me, the other towards Laleham.  The generators of
the Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way
and that.

The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of
noises--the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling
houses, the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the
crackling and roaring of fire.  Dense black smoke was leaping up to
mingle with the steam from the river, and as the Heat-Ray went to and
fro over Weybridge its impact was marked by flashes of incandescent
white, that gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames.  The
nearer houses still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy, faint
and pallid in the steam, with the fire behind them going to and fro.

For a moment perhaps I stood there, breast-high in the almost
boiling water, dumbfounded at my position, hopeless of escape.  Through
the reek I could see the people who had been with me in the river
scrambling out of the water through the reeds, like little frogs
hurrying through grass from the advance of a man, or running to and
fro in utter dismay on the towing path.

Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping
towards me.  The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and
darted out flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar.  The Ray
flickered up and down the towing path, licking off the people who ran
this way and that, and came down to the water's edge not fifty yards
from where I stood.  It swept across the river to Shepperton, and the
water in its track rose in a boiling weal crested with steam.  I
turned shoreward.

In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling-point had
rushed upon me.  I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded,
agonised, I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the
shore.  Had my foot stumbled, it would have been the end.  I fell
helplessly, in full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare
gravelly spit that runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames.
I expected nothing but death.

I have a dim memory of the foot of a Martian coming down within a
score of yards of my head, driving straight into the loose gravel,
whirling it this way and that and lifting again; of a long suspense,
and then of the four carrying the debris of their comrade between
them, now clear and then presently faint through a veil of smoke,
receding interminably, as it seemed to me, across a vast space of
river and meadow.  And then, very slowly, I realised that by a miracle
I had escaped.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE


After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial
weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon
Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of
their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray
and negligible victim as myself.  Had they left their comrade and
pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and
London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly
have reached the capital in advance of the tidings of their approach;
as sudden, dreadful, and destructive their advent would have been as
the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon a century ago.

But they were in no hurry.  Cylinder followed cylinder on its
interplanetary flight; every twenty-four hours brought them
reinforcement.  And meanwhile the military and naval authorities, now
fully alive to the tremendous power of their antagonists, worked with
furious energy.  Every minute a fresh gun came into position until,
before twilight, every copse, every row of suburban villas on the
hilly slopes about Kingston and Richmond, masked an expectant black
muzzle.  And through the charred and desolated area--perhaps twenty
square miles altogether--that encircled the Martian encampment on
Horsell Common, through charred and ruined villages among the green
trees, through the blackened and smoking arcades that had been but a
day ago pine spinneys, crawled the devoted scouts with the heliographs
that were presently to warn the gunners of the Martian approach.  But
the Martians now understood our command of artillery and the danger of
human proximity, and not a man ventured within a mile of either
cylinder, save at the price of his life.

It would seem that these giants spent the earlier part of the
afternoon in going to and fro, transferring everything from the second
and third cylinders--the second in Addlestone Golf Links and the third
at Pyrford--to their original pit on Horsell Common.  Over that, above
the blackened heather and ruined buildings that stretched far and
wide, stood one as sentinel, while the rest abandoned their vast
fighting-machines and descended into the pit.  They were hard at work
there far into the night, and the towering pillar of dense green smoke
that rose therefrom could be seen from the hills about Merrow, and
even, it is said, from Banstead and Epsom Downs.

And while the Martians behind me were thus preparing for their next
sally, and in front of me Humanity gathered for the battle, I made my
way with infinite pains and labour from the fire and smoke of burning
Weybridge towards London.

I saw an abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting down-stream;
and throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it,
gained it, and so escaped out of that destruction.  There were no
oars in the boat, but I contrived to paddle, as well as my parboiled
hands would allow, down the river towards Halliford and Walton, going
very tediously and continually looking behind me, as you may well
understand.  I followed the river, because I considered that the water
gave me my best chance of escape should these giants return.

The hot water from the Martian's overthrow drifted downstream with
me, so that for the best part of a mile I could see little of either
bank.  Once, however, I made out a string of black figures hurrying
across the meadows from the direction of Weybridge.  Halliford, it
seemed, was deserted, and several of the houses facing the river were
on fire.  It was strange to see the place quite tranquil, quite
desolate under the hot blue sky, with the smoke and little threads of
flame going straight up into the heat of the afternoon.  Never before
had I seen houses burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive
crowd.  A little farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and
glowing, and a line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late
field of hay.

For a long time I drifted, so painful and weary was I after the
violence I had been through, and so intense the heat upon the water.
Then my fears got the better of me again, and I resumed my paddling.
The sun scorched my bare back.  At last, as the bridge at Walton was
coming into sight round the bend, my fever and faintness overcame my
fears, and I landed on the Middlesex bank and lay down, deadly sick,
amid the long grass.  I suppose the time was then about four or five
o'clock.  I got up presently, walked perhaps half a mile without
meeting a soul, and then lay down again in the shadow of a hedge.  I
seem to remember talking, wanderingly, to myself during that last
spurt.  I was also very thirsty, and bitterly regretful I had drunk no
more water.  It is a curious thing that I felt angry with my wife; I
cannot account for it, but my impotent desire to reach Leatherhead
worried me excessively.

I do not clearly remember the arrival of the curate, so that probably
I dozed.  I became aware of him as a seated figure in soot-smudged
shirt sleeves, and with his upturned, clean-shaven face staring at
a faint flickering that danced over the sky.  The sky was what is
called a mackerel sky--rows and rows of faint down-plumes of
cloud, just tinted with the midsummer sunset.

I sat up, and at the rustle of my motion he looked at me quickly.

"Have you any water?" I asked abruptly.

He shook his head.

"You have been asking for water for the last hour," he said.

For a moment we were silent, taking stock of each other.  I
dare say he found me a strange enough figure, naked, save for my
water-soaked trousers and socks, scalded, and my face and shoulders
blackened by the smoke.  His face was a fair weakness, his chin
retreated, and his hair lay in crisp, almost flaxen curls on his low
forehead; his eyes were rather large, pale blue, and blankly staring.
He spoke abruptly, looking vacantly away from me.

"What does it mean?" he said.  "What do these things mean?"

I stared at him and made no answer.

He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining
tone.

"Why are these things permitted?  What sins have we done?  The
morning service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my
brain for the afternoon, and then--fire, earthquake, death!  As if it
were Sodom and Gomorrah!  All our work undone, all the work---- What
are these Martians?"

"What are we?" I answered, clearing my throat.

He gripped his knees and turned to look at me again.  For half a
minute, perhaps, he stared silently.

"I was walking through the roads to clear my brain," he said.  "And
suddenly--fire, earthquake, death!"

He relapsed into silence, with his chin now sunken almost to his
knees.

Presently he began waving his hand.

"All the work--all the Sunday schools--What have we done--what has
Weybridge done?  Everything gone--everything destroyed.  The church!
We rebuilt it only three years ago.  Gone!  Swept out of existence!
Why?"

Another pause, and he broke out again like one demented.

"The smoke of her burning goeth up for ever and ever!" he shouted.

His eyes flamed, and he pointed a lean finger in the direction of
Weybridge.

By this time I was beginning to take his measure.  The tremendous
tragedy in which he had been involved--it was evident he was a
fugitive from Weybridge--had driven him to the very verge of his
reason.

"Are we far from Sunbury?" I said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"What are we to do?" he asked.  "Are these creatures everywhere?
Has the earth been given over to them?"

"Are we far from Sunbury?"

"Only this morning I officiated at early celebration----"

"Things have changed," I said, quietly.  "You must keep your head.
There is still hope."

"Hope!"

"Yes.  Plentiful hope--for all this destruction!"

I began to explain my view of our position.  He listened at first,
but as I went on the interest dawning in his eyes gave place to their
former stare, and his regard wandered from me.

"This must be the beginning of the end," he said, interrupting me.
"The end!  The great and terrible day of the Lord!  When men shall
call upon the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and hide
them--hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne!"

I began to understand the position.  I ceased my laboured
reasoning, struggled to my feet, and, standing over him, laid my hand
on his shoulder.

"Be a man!" said I.  "You are scared out of your wits!  What good
is religion if it collapses under calamity?  Think of what earthquakes
and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men!  Did you
think God had exempted Weybridge?  He is not an insurance agent."

For a time he sat in blank silence.

"But how can we escape?" he asked, suddenly.  "They are
invulnerable, they are pitiless."

"Neither the one nor, perhaps, the other," I answered. "And the
mightier they are the more sane and wary should we be.  One of them
was killed yonder not three hours ago."

"Killed!" he said, staring about him.  "How can God's ministers be
killed?"

"I saw it happen." I proceeded to tell him.  "We have chanced to
come in for the thick of it," said I, "and that is all."

"What is that flicker in the sky?" he asked abruptly.

I told him it was the heliograph signalling--that it was the sign
of human help and effort in the sky.

"We are in the midst of it," I said, "quiet as it is.  That flicker
in the sky tells of the gathering storm.  Yonder, I take it are the
Martians, and Londonward, where those hills rise about Richmond and
Kingston and the trees give cover, earthworks are being thrown up and
guns are being placed.  Presently the Martians will be coming this way
again."

And even as I spoke he sprang to his feet and stopped me by a
gesture.

"Listen!" he said.

From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull resonance
of distant guns and a remote weird crying.  Then everything was still.
A cockchafer came droning over the hedge and past us.  High in the
west the crescent moon hung faint and pale above the smoke of
Weybridge and Shepperton and the hot, still splendour of the sunset.

"We had better follow this path," I said, "northward."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IN LONDON


My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking.
He was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he
heard nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning.  The morning
papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles
on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and
vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity.

The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a
number of people with a quick-firing gun, so the story ran.  The
telegram concluded with the words: "Formidable as they seem to be, the
Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and,
indeed, seem incapable of doing so.  Probably this is due to the
relative strength of the earth's gravitational energy."  On that last
text their leader-writer expanded very comfortingly.

Of course all the students in the crammer's biology class, to which
my brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no
signs of any unusual excitement in the streets.  The afternoon papers
puffed scraps of news under big headlines.  They had nothing to tell
beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of
the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight.  Then the
_St. James's Gazette_, in an extra-special edition, announced the bare
fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication.  This was
thought to be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the
line.  Nothing more of the fighting was known that night, the night of
my drive to Leatherhead and back.

My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the
description in the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from
my house.  He made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order,
as he says, to see the Things before they were killed.  He dispatched
a telegram, which never reached me, about four o'clock, and spent the
evening at a music hall.

In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my
brother reached Waterloo in a cab.  On the platform from which the
midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an
accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night.  The nature
of the accident he could not ascertain; indeed, the railway
authorities did not clearly know at that time.  There was very little
excitement in the station, as the officials, failing to realise that
anything further than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction
had occurred, were running the theatre trains which usually passed
through Woking round by Virginia Water or Guildford.  They were busy
making the necessary arrangements to alter the route of the
Southampton and Portsmouth Sunday League excursions.  A nocturnal
newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother for the traffic manager, to
whom he bears a slight resemblance, waylaid and tried to interview
him.  Few people, excepting the railway officials, connected the
breakdown with the Martians.

I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday
morning "all London was electrified by the news from Woking."  As a
matter of fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant
phrase.  Plenty of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the
panic of Monday morning.  Those who did took some time to realise all
that the hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed.  The
majority of people in London do not read Sunday papers.

The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the
Londoner's mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course
in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors:
"About seven o'clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder,
and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely
wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an
entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment.  No details are known.
Maxims have been absolutely useless against their armour; the field
guns have been disabled by them.  Flying hussars have been galloping
into Chertsey.  The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards
Chertsey or Windsor.  Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and
earthworks are being thrown up to check the advance Londonward."  That
was how the Sunday _Sun_ put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt
"handbook" article in the _Referee_ compared the affair to a menagerie
suddenly let loose in a village.

No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured
Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be
sluggish: "crawling," "creeping painfully"--such expressions occurred
in almost all the earlier reports.  None of the telegrams could have
been written by an eyewitness of their advance.  The Sunday papers
printed separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in
default of it.  But there was practically nothing more to tell people
until late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press
agencies the news in their possession.  It was stated that the people
of Walton and Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the
roads Londonward, and that was all.

My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning,
still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night.  There
he heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for
peace.  Coming out, he bought a _Referee_.  He became alarmed at the
news in this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if
communication were restored.  The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and
innumerable people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely
affected by the strange intelligence that the news venders were
disseminating.  People were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only
on account of the local residents.  At the station he heard for the
first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted.
The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been
received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that
these had abruptly ceased.  My brother could get very little precise
detail out of them.

"There's fighting going on about Weybridge" was the extent of their
information.

The train service was now very much disorganised.  Quite a number
of people who had been expecting friends from places on the
South-Western network were standing about the station.  One
grey-headed old gentleman came and abused the South-Western Company
bitterly to my brother.  "It wants showing up," he said.

One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston,
containing people who had gone out for a day's boating and found the
locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air.  A man in a blue and
white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings.

"There's hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts
and things, with boxes of valuables and all that," he said.  "They
come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there's been
guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have
told them to get off at once because the Martians are coming.  We
heard guns firing at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was
thunder.  What the dickens does it all mean?  The Martians can't get
out of their pit, can they?"

My brother could not tell him.

Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to
the clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday
excursionists began to return from all over the South-Western
"lung"--Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth--at
unnaturally early hours; but not a soul had anything more than vague
hearsay to tell of.  Everyone connected with the terminus seemed
ill-tempered.

About five o'clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely
excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost
invariably closed, between the South-Eastern and the South-Western
stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and
carriages crammed with soldiers.  These were the guns that were
brought up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston.  There was
an exchange of pleasantries: "You'll get eaten!"  "We're the
beast-tamers!" and so forth.  A little while after that a squad of
police came into the station and began to clear the public off the
platforms, and my brother went out into the street again.

The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of
Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road.  On the bridge
a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came
drifting down the stream in patches.  The sun was just setting, and the
Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most
peaceful skies it is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with
long transverse stripes of reddish-purple cloud.  There was talk of a
floating body.  One of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told
my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering in the west.

In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who
had just been rushed out of Fleet Street with still-wet newspapers and
staring placards.  "Dreadful catastrophe!" they bawled one to the
other down Wellington Street.  "Fighting at Weybridge!  Full
description!  Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!"  He had to
give threepence for a copy of that paper.

Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full
power and terror of these monsters.  He learned that they were not
merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds
swaying vast mechanical bodies; and that they could move swiftly and
smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand
against them.

They were described as "vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred
feet high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot
out a beam of intense heat."  Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns,
had been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially
between the Woking district and London.  Five of the machines had been
seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been
destroyed.  In the other cases the shells had missed, and the
batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays.  Heavy
losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was
optimistic.

The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable.  They
had retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle
about Woking.  Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon
them from all sides.  Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor,
Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwich--even from the north; among others,
long wire-guns of ninety-five tons from Woolwich.  Altogether one
hundred and sixteen were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly
covering London.  Never before in England had there been such a vast
or rapid concentration of military material.

Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed
at once by high explosives, which were being rapidly manufactured and
distributed.  No doubt, ran the report, the situation was of the
strangest and gravest description, but the public was exhorted to
avoid and discourage panic.  No doubt the Martians were strange and
terrible in the extreme, but at the outside there could not be more
than twenty of them against our millions.

The authorities had reason to suppose, from the size of the
cylinders, that at the outside there could not be more than five in
each cylinder--fifteen altogether.  And one at least was disposed
of--perhaps more.  The public would be fairly warned of the approach
of danger, and elaborate measures were being taken for the protection
of the people in the threatened southwestern suburbs.  And so, with
reiterated assurances of the safety of London and the ability of the
authorities to cope with the difficulty, this quasi-proclamation
closed.

This was printed in enormous type on paper so fresh that it was
still wet, and there had been no time to add a word of comment.  It
was curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the usual contents
of the paper had been hacked and taken out to give this place.

All down Wellington Street people could be seen fluttering out the
pink sheets and reading, and the Strand was suddenly noisy with the
voices of an army of hawkers following these pioneers.  Men came
scrambling off buses to secure copies.  Certainly this news excited
people intensely, whatever their previous apathy.  The shutters of a
map shop in the Strand were being taken down, my brother said, and a
man in his Sunday raiment, lemon-yellow gloves even, was visible
inside the window hastily fastening maps of Surrey to the glass.

Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his
hand, my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey.  There
was a man with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in
a cart such as greengrocers use.  He was driving from the direction of
Westminster Bridge; and close behind him came a hay waggon with five
or six respectable-looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles.
The faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance
contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbath-best appearance of the
people on the omnibuses.  People in fashionable clothing peeped at
them out of cabs.  They stopped at the Square as if undecided which
way to take, and finally turned eastward along the Strand.  Some way
behind these came a man in workday clothes, riding one of those
old-fashioned tricycles with a small front wheel.  He was dirty and
white in the face.

My brother turned down towards Victoria, and met a number of such
people.  He had a vague idea that he might see something of me.  He
noticed an unusual number of police regulating the traffic.  Some of
the refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses.
One was professing to have seen the Martians.  "Boilers on stilts, I
tell you, striding along like men."  Most of them were excited and
animated by their strange experience.

Beyond Victoria the public-houses were doing a lively trade with
these arrivals.  At all the street corners groups of people were
reading papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday
visitors.  They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the
roads, my brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day.  My
brother addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory
answers from most.

None of them could tell him any news of Woking except one man, who
assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on the previous
night.

"I come from Byfleet," he said; "man on a bicycle came through the
place in the early morning, and ran from door to door warning us to
come away.  Then came soldiers.  We went out to look, and there were
clouds of smoke to the south--nothing but smoke, and not a soul coming
that way.  Then we heard the guns at Chertsey, and folks coming from
Weybridge.  So I've locked up my house and come on."

At the time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the
authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the
invaders without all this inconvenience.

About eight o'clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible
all over the south of London.  My brother could not hear it for the
traffic in the main thoroughfares, but by striking through the quiet
back streets to the river he was able to distinguish it quite plainly.

He walked from Westminster to his apartments near Regent's Park,
about two.  He was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at
the evident magnitude of the trouble.  His mind was inclined to run,
even as mine had run on Saturday, on military details.  He thought of
all those silent, expectant guns, of the suddenly nomadic countryside;
he tried to imagine "boilers on stilts" a hundred feet high.

There were one or two cartloads of refugees passing along Oxford
Street, and several in the Marylebone Road, but so slowly was the news
spreading that Regent Street and Portland Place were full of their
usual Sunday-night promenaders, albeit they talked in groups, and
along the edge of Regent's Park there were as many silent couples
"walking out" together under the scattered gas lamps as ever there had
been.  The night was warm and still, and a little oppressive; the
sound of guns continued intermittently, and after midnight there
seemed to be sheet lightning in the south.

He read and re-read the paper, fearing the worst had happened to me.
He was restless, and after supper prowled out again aimlessly.  He
returned and tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination
notes.  He went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from
lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door
knockers, feet running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour
of bells.  Red reflections danced on the ceiling.  For a moment he lay
astonished, wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad.
Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

His room was an attic and as he thrust his head out, up and down
the street there were a dozen echoes to the noise of his window sash,
and heads in every kind of night disarray appeared.  Enquiries were
being shouted.  "They are coming!" bawled a policeman, hammering at
the door; "the Martians are coming!" and hurried to the next door.

The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from the Albany Street
Barracks, and every church within earshot was hard at work killing
sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin.  There was a noise of doors
opening, and window after window in the houses opposite flashed from
darkness into yellow illumination.

Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting abruptly
into noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax under the
window, and dying away slowly in the distance.  Close on the rear of
this came a couple of cabs, the forerunners of a long procession of
flying vehicles, going for the most part to Chalk Farm station, where
the North-Western special trains were loading up, instead of coming
down the gradient into Euston.

For a long time my brother stared out of the window in blank
astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at door after door, and
delivering their incomprehensible message.  Then the door behind him
opened, and the man who lodged across the landing came in, dressed
only in shirt, trousers, and slippers, his braces loose about his
waist, his hair disordered from his pillow.

"What the devil is it?" he asked.  "A fire?  What a devil of a
row!"

They both craned their heads out of the window, straining to hear
what the policemen were shouting.  People were coming out of the side
streets, and standing in groups at the corners talking.

"What the devil is it all about?" said my brother's fellow lodger.

My brother answered him vaguely and began to dress, running with
each garment to the window in order to miss nothing of the growing
excitement.  And presently men selling unnaturally early newspapers
came bawling into the street:

"London in danger of suffocation!  The Kingston and Richmond
defences forced!  Fearful massacres in the Thames Valley!"

And all about him--in the rooms below, in the houses on each side
and across the road, and behind in the Park Terraces and in the
hundred other streets of that part of Marylebone, and the Westbourne
Park district and St. Pancras, and westward and northward in Kilburn
and St. John's Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and
Highbury and Haggerston and Hoxton, and, indeed, through all the
vastness of London from Ealing to East Ham--people were rubbing their
eyes, and opening windows to stare out and ask aimless questions,
dressing hastily as the first breath of the coming storm of Fear blew
through the streets.  It was the dawn of the great panic.  London,
which had gone to bed on Sunday night oblivious and inert, was
awakened, in the small hours of Monday morning, to a vivid sense of
danger.

Unable from his window to learn what was happening, my brother went
down and out into the street, just as the sky between the parapets of
the houses grew pink with the early dawn.  The flying people on foot
and in vehicles grew more numerous every moment.  "Black Smoke!" he
heard people crying, and again "Black Smoke!"  The contagion of such
a unanimous fear was inevitable.  As my brother hesitated on the
door-step, he saw another news vender approaching, and got a paper
forthwith.  The man was running away with the rest, and selling his
papers for a shilling each as he ran--a grotesque mingling of profit
and panic.

And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch of
the Commander-in-Chief:

"The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and
poisonous vapour by means of rockets.  They have smothered our
batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are
advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way.  It
is impossible to stop them.  There is no safety from the Black Smoke
but in instant flight."

That was all, but it was enough.  The whole population of the great
six-million city was stirring, slipping, running; presently it would
be pouring _en masse_ northward.

"Black Smoke!" the voices cried.  "Fire!"

The bells of the neighbouring church made a jangling tumult, a cart
carelessly driven smashed, amid shrieks and curses, against the water
trough up the street.  Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the
houses, and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps.
And overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm.

He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down
stairs behind him.  His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in
dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating.

As my brother began to realise the import of all these things, he
turned hastily to his own room, put all his available money--some ten
pounds altogether--into his pockets, and went out again into the
streets.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY


It was while the curate had sat and talked so wildly to me under
the hedge in the flat meadows near Halliford, and while my brother was
watching the fugitives stream over Westminster Bridge, that the
Martians had resumed the offensive.  So far as one can ascertain from
the conflicting accounts that have been put forth, the majority of
them remained busied with preparations in the Horsell pit until nine
that night, hurrying on some operation that disengaged huge volumes of
green smoke.

But three certainly came out about eight o'clock and, advancing
slowly and cautiously, made their way through Byfleet and Pyrford
towards Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of the expectant
batteries against the setting sun.  These Martians did not advance in
a body, but in a line, each perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest
fellow.  They communicated with one another by means of sirenlike
howls, running up and down the scale from one note to another.

It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St.
George's Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford.  The Ripley
gunners, unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been
placed in such a position, fired one wild, premature, ineffectual
volley, and bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village,
while the Martian, without using his Heat-Ray, walked serenely over
their guns, stepped gingerly among them, passed in front of them, and
so came unexpectedly upon the guns in Painshill Park, which he
destroyed.

The St. George's Hill men, however, were better led or of a better
mettle.  Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been
quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest to them.  They laid their
guns as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about
a thousand yards' range.

The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few
paces, stagger, and go down.  Everybody yelled together, and the guns
were reloaded in frantic haste.  The overthrown Martian set up a
prolonged ululation, and immediately a second glittering giant,
answering him, appeared over the trees to the south.  It would seem
that a leg of the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells.  The
whole of the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground,
and, simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to
bear on the battery.  The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about
the guns flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were
already running over the crest of the hill escaped.

After this it would seem that the three took counsel together and
halted, and the scouts who were watching them report that they
remained absolutely stationary for the next half hour.  The Martian
who had been overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small
brown figure, oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of
blight, and apparently engaged in the repair of his support.  About
nine he had finished, for his cowl was then seen above the trees
again.

It was a few minutes past nine that night when these three
sentinels were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick
black tube.  A similar tube was handed to each of the three, and the
seven proceeded to distribute themselves at equal distances along a
curved line between St. George's Hill, Weybridge, and the village of
Send, southwest of Ripley.

A dozen rockets sprang out of the hills before them so soon as they
began to move, and warned the waiting batteries about Ditton and
Esher.  At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly
armed with tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against
the western sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we
hurried wearily and painfully along the road that runs northward out
of Halliford.  They moved, as it seemed to us, upon a cloud, for a
milky mist covered the fields and rose to a third of their height.

At this sight the curate cried faintly in his throat, and began
running; but I knew it was no good running from a Martian, and I
turned aside and crawled through dewy nettles and brambles into the
broad ditch by the side of the road.  He looked back, saw what I was
doing, and turned to join me.

The two halted, the nearer to us standing and facing Sunbury, the
remoter being a grey indistinctness towards the evening star, away
towards Staines.

The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased; they took up
their positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute
silence.  It was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns.  Never
since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so
still.  To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had
precisely the same effect--the Martians seemed in solitary possession
of the darkling night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the
stars, the afterglow of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St.
George's Hill and the woods of Painshill.

But facing that crescent everywhere--at Staines, Hounslow, Ditton,
Esher, Ockham, behind hills and woods south of the river, and across
the flat grass meadows to the north of it, wherever a cluster of trees
or village houses gave sufficient cover--the guns were waiting.  The
signal rockets burst and rained their sparks through the night and
vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a
tense expectation.  The Martians had but to advance into the line of
fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns
glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into a
thunderous fury of battle.

No doubt the thought that was uppermost in a thousand of those
vigilant minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was the riddle--how
much they understood of us.  Did they grasp that we in our millions
were organized, disciplined, working together?  Or did they interpret
our spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady
investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of
onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees?  Did they dream they might
exterminate us?  (At that time no one knew what food they needed.)  A
hundred such questions struggled together in my mind as I watched that
vast sentinel shape.  And in the back of my mind was the sense of all
the huge unknown and hidden forces Londonward.  Had they prepared
pitfalls? Were the powder mills at Hounslow ready as a snare?  Would
the Londoners have the heart and courage to make a greater Moscow of
their mighty province of houses?

Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us, crouching and
peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of
a gun.  Another nearer, and then another.  And then the Martian beside
us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy
report that made the ground heave.  The one towards Staines answered
him.  There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation.

I was so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another
that I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to
clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury.  As I did so a
second report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards
Hounslow.  I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such
evidence of its work.  But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with
one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and low beneath.
And there had been no crash, no answering explosion.  The silence was
restored; the minute lengthened to three.

"What has happened?" said the curate, standing up beside me.

"Heaven knows!" said I.

A bat flickered by and vanished.  A distant tumult of shouting
began and ceased.  I looked again at the Martian, and saw he was now
moving eastward along the riverbank, with a swift, rolling motion.

Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery to spring
upon him; but the evening calm was unbroken.  The figure of the Martian
grew smaller as he receded, and presently the mist and the gathering
night had swallowed him up.  By a common impulse we clambered higher.
Towards Sunbury was a dark appearance, as though a conical hill had
suddenly come into being there, hiding our view of the farther
country; and then, remoter across the river, over Walton, we saw
another such summit.  These hill-like forms grew lower and broader
even as we stared.

Moved by a sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I
perceived a third of these cloudy black kopjes had risen.

Everything had suddenly become very still.  Far away to the
southeast, marking the quiet, we heard the Martians hooting to one
another, and then the air quivered again with the distant thud of
their guns.  But the earthly artillery made no reply.

Now at the time we could not understand these things, but later I
was to learn the meaning of these ominous kopjes that gathered in the
twilight.  Each of the Martians, standing in the great crescent I have
described, had discharged, by means of the gunlike tube he carried, a
huge canister over whatever hill, copse, cluster of houses, or other
possible cover for guns, chanced to be in front of him.  Some fired
only one of these, some two--as in the case of the one we had seen;
the one at Ripley is said to have discharged no fewer than five at
that time.  These canisters smashed on striking the ground--they did
not explode--and incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy,
inky vapour, coiling and pouring upward in a huge and ebony cumulus
cloud, a gaseous hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the
surrounding country.  And the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of
its pungent wisps, was death to all that breathes.

It was heavy, this vapour, heavier than the densest smoke, so that,
after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank
down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather
liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills, and streaming into the
valleys and ditches and watercourses even as I have heard the
carbonic-acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do.  And
where it came upon water some chemical action occurred, and the
surface would be instantly covered with a powdery scum that sank
slowly and made way for more.  The scum was absolutely insoluble, and
it is a strange thing, seeing the instant effect of the gas, that one
could drink without hurt the water from which it had been strained.
The vapour did not diffuse as a true gas would do.  It hung together
in banks, flowing sluggishly down the slope of the land and driving
reluctantly before the wind, and very slowly it combined with the mist
and moisture of the air, and sank to the earth in the form of dust.
Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue
of the spectrum is concerned, we are still entirely ignorant of the
nature of this substance.

Once the tumultuous upheaval of its dispersion was over, the black
smoke clung so closely to the ground, even before its precipitation,
that fifty feet up in the air, on the roofs and upper stories of high
houses and on great trees, there was a chance of escaping its poison
altogether, as was proved even that night at Street Cobham and Ditton.

The man who escaped at the former place tells a wonderful story of
the strangeness of its coiling flow, and how he looked down from the
church spire and saw the houses of the village rising like ghosts out
of its inky nothingness.  For a day and a half he remained there,
weary, starving and sun-scorched, the earth under the blue sky and
against the prospect of the distant hills a velvet-black expanse, with
red roofs, green trees, and, later, black-veiled shrubs and gates,
barns, outhouses, and walls, rising here and there into the sunlight.

But that was at Street Cobham, where the black vapour was allowed
to remain until it sank of its own accord into the ground.  As a rule
the Martians, when it had served its purpose, cleared the air of it
again by wading into it and directing a jet of steam upon it.

This they did with the vapour banks near us, as we saw in the
starlight from the window of a deserted house at Upper Halliford,
whither we had returned.  From there we could see the searchlights on
Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill going to and fro, and about eleven the
windows rattled, and we heard the sound of the huge siege guns that
had been put in position there.  These continued intermittently for
the space of a quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at the
invisible Martians at Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of
the electric light vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow.

Then the fourth cylinder fell--a brilliant green meteor--as I
learned afterwards, in Bushey Park.  Before the guns on the Richmond
and Kingston line of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade far
away in the southwest, due, I believe, to guns being fired haphazard
before the black vapour could overwhelm the gunners.

So, setting about it as methodically as men might smoke out a
wasps' nest, the Martians spread this strange stifling vapour over the
Londonward country.  The horns of the crescent slowly moved apart,
until at last they formed a line from Hanwell to Coombe and Malden.
All night through their destructive tubes advanced.  Never once, after
the Martian at St. George's Hill was brought down, did they give the
artillery the ghost of a chance against them.  Wherever there was a
possibility of guns being laid for them unseen, a fresh canister of
the black vapour was discharged, and where the guns were openly
displayed the Heat-Ray was brought to bear.

By midnight the blazing trees along the slopes of Richmond Park and
the glare of Kingston Hill threw their light upon a network of black
smoke, blotting out the whole valley of the Thames and extending as
far as the eye could reach.  And through this two Martians slowly
waded, and turned their hissing steam jets this way and that.

They were sparing of the Heat-Ray that night, either because they
had but a limited supply of material for its production or because
they did not wish to destroy the country but only to crush and overawe
the opposition they had aroused.  In the latter aim they certainly
succeeded.  Sunday night was the end of the organised opposition to
their movements.  After that no body of men would stand against them,
so hopeless was the enterprise.  Even the crews of the torpedo-boats
and destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the Thames
refused to stop, mutinied, and went down again.  The only offensive
operation men ventured upon after that night was the preparation of
mines and pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and
spasmodic.

One has to imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries
towards Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight.  Survivors there
were none.  One may picture the orderly expectation, the officers
alert and watchful, the gunners ready, the ammunition piled to hand,
the limber gunners with their horses and waggons, the groups of
civilian spectators standing as near as they were permitted, the
evening stillness, the ambulances and hospital tents with the burned
and wounded from Weybridge; then the dull resonance of the shots the
Martians fired, and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and
houses and smashing amid the neighbouring fields.

One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the
swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing
headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable
darkness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon
its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking,
falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men
choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening-out of
the opaque cone of smoke.  And then night and extinction--nothing but
a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead.

Before dawn the black vapour was pouring through the streets of
Richmond, and the disintegrating organism of government was, with a
last expiring effort, rousing the population of London to the
necessity of flight.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE EXODUS FROM LONDON


So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the
greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning--the stream of
flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round
the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the
shipping in the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel
northward and eastward.  By ten o'clock the police organisation, and
by midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency,
losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in
that swift liquefaction of the social body.

All the railway lines north of the Thames and the South-Eastern
people at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on Sunday, and
trains were being filled.  People were fighting savagely for
standing-room in the carriages even at two o'clock.  By three, people
were being trampled and crushed even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple
of hundred yards or more from Liverpool Street station; revolvers were
fired, people stabbed, and the policemen who had been sent to direct
the traffic, exhausted and infuriated, were breaking the heads of the
people they were called out to protect.

And as the day advanced and the engine drivers and stokers refused
to return to London, the pressure of the flight drove the people in an
ever-thickening multitude away from the stations and along the
northward-running roads.  By midday a Martian had been seen at Barnes,
and a cloud of slowly sinking black vapour drove along the Thames and
across the flats of Lambeth, cutting off all escape over the bridges
in its sluggish advance.  Another bank drove over Ealing, and
surrounded a little island of survivors on Castle Hill, alive, but
unable to escape.

After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at
Chalk Farm--the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods
yard there _ploughed_ through shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men
fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his
furnace--my brother emerged upon the Chalk Farm road, dodged across
through a hurrying swarm of vehicles, and had the luck to be foremost
in the sack of a cycle shop.  The front tire of the machine he got was
punctured in dragging it through the window, but he got up and off,
notwithstanding, with no further injury than a cut wrist.  The steep
foot of Haverstock Hill was impassable owing to several overturned
horses, and my brother struck into Belsize Road.

So he got out of the fury of the panic, and, skirting the Edgware
Road, reached Edgware about seven, fasting and wearied, but well ahead
of the crowd.  Along the road people were standing in the roadway,
curious, wondering.  He was passed by a number of cyclists, some
horsemen, and two motor cars.  A mile from Edgware the rim of the
wheel broke, and the machine became unridable.  He left it by the
roadside and trudged through the village.  There were shops half
opened in the main street of the place, and people crowded on the
pavement and in the doorways and windows, staring astonished at this
extraordinary procession of fugitives that was beginning.  He
succeeded in getting some food at an inn.

For a time he remained in Edgware not knowing what next to do.  The
flying people increased in number.  Many of them, like my brother,
seemed inclined to loiter in the place.  There was no fresh news of
the invaders from Mars.

At that time the road was crowded, but as yet far from congested.
Most of the fugitives at that hour were mounted on cycles, but there
were soon motor cars, hansom cabs, and carriages hurrying along, and
the dust hung in heavy clouds along the road to St. Albans.

It was perhaps a vague idea of making his way to Chelmsford, where
some friends of his lived, that at last induced my brother to strike
into a quiet lane running eastward.  Presently he came upon a stile,
and, crossing it, followed a footpath northeastward.  He passed near
several farmhouses and some little places whose names he did not
learn.  He saw few fugitives until, in a grass lane towards High
Barnet, he happened upon two ladies who became his fellow travellers.
He came upon them just in time to save them.

He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner, saw a
couple of men struggling to drag them out of the little pony-chaise in
which they had been driving, while a third with difficulty held the
frightened pony's head.  One of the ladies, a short woman dressed in
white, was simply screaming; the other, a dark, slender figure,
slashed at the man who gripped her arm with a whip she held in her
disengaged hand.

My brother immediately grasped the situation, shouted, and hurried
towards the struggle.  One of the men desisted and turned towards him,
and my brother, realising from his antagonist's face that a fight was
unavoidable, and being an expert boxer, went into him forthwith and
sent him down against the wheel of the chaise.

It was no time for pugilistic chivalry and my brother laid him
quiet with a kick, and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the
slender lady's arm.  He heard the clatter of hoofs, the whip stung
across his face, a third antagonist struck him between the eyes, and
the man he held wrenched himself free and made off down the lane in
the direction from which he had come.

Partly stunned, he found himself facing the man who had held the
horse's head, and became aware of the chaise receding from him down
the lane, swaying from side to side, and with the women in it looking
back.  The man before him, a burly rough, tried to close, and he
stopped him with a blow in the face.  Then, realising that he was
deserted, he dodged round and made off down the lane after the chaise,
with the sturdy man close behind him, and the fugitive, who had turned
now, following remotely.

Suddenly he stumbled and fell; his immediate pursuer went headlong,
and he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of antagonists
again.  He would have had little chance against them had not the
slender lady very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help.  It
seems she had had a revolver all this time, but it had been under the
seat when she and her companion were attacked.  She fired at six
yards' distance, narrowly missing my brother.  The less courageous of
the robbers made off, and his companion followed him, cursing his
cowardice.  They both stopped in sight down the lane, where the third
man lay insensible.

"Take this!" said the slender lady, and she gave my brother her
revolver.

"Go back to the chaise," said my brother, wiping the blood from his
split lip.

She turned without a word--they were both panting--and they went
back to where the lady in white struggled to hold back the frightened
pony.

The robbers had evidently had enough of it.  When my brother looked
again they were retreating.

"I'll sit here," said my brother, "if I may"; and he got upon the
empty front seat.  The lady looked over her shoulder.

"Give me the reins," she said, and laid the whip along the pony's
side.  In another moment a bend in the road hid the three men from my
brother's eyes.

So, quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting, with a
cut mouth, a bruised jaw, and bloodstained knuckles, driving along an
unknown lane with these two women.

He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon
living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous
case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the
Martian advance.  He had hurried home, roused the women--their servant
had left them two days before--packed some provisions, put his
revolver under the seat--luckily for my brother--and told them to
drive on to Edgware, with the idea of getting a train there.  He
stopped behind to tell the neighbours.  He would overtake them, he
said, at about half past four in the morning, and now it was nearly
nine and they had seen nothing of him.  They could not stop in Edgware
because of the growing traffic through the place, and so they had come
into this side lane.

That was the story they told my brother in fragments when presently
they stopped again, nearer to New Barnet.  He promised to stay with
them, at least until they could determine what to do, or until the
missing man arrived, and professed to be an expert shot with the
revolver--a weapon strange to him--in order to give them confidence.

They made a sort of encampment by the wayside, and the pony became
happy in the hedge.  He told them of his own escape out of London, and
all that he knew of these Martians and their ways.  The sun crept
higher in the sky, and after a time their talk died out and gave place
to an uneasy state of anticipation.  Several wayfarers came along the
lane, and of these my brother gathered such news as he could.  Every

broken answer he had deepened his impression of the great disaster
that had come on humanity, deepened his persuasion of the immediate
necessity for prosecuting this flight.  He urged the matter upon them.

"We have money," said the slender woman, and hesitated.

Her eyes met my brother's, and her hesitation ended.

"So have I," said my brother.

She explained that they had as much as thirty pounds in gold,
besides a five-pound note, and suggested that with that they might get
upon a train at St. Albans or New Barnet.  My brother thought that was
hopeless, seeing the fury of the Londoners to crowd upon the trains,
and broached his own idea of striking across Essex towards Harwich and
thence escaping from the country altogether.

Mrs. Elphinstone--that was the name of the woman in white--would
listen to no reasoning, and kept calling upon "George"; but her
sister-in-law was astonishingly quiet and deliberate, and at last
agreed to my brother's suggestion.  So, designing to cross the Great
North Road, they went on towards Barnet, my brother leading the pony
to save it as much as possible.  As the sun crept up the sky the day
became excessively hot, and under foot a thick, whitish sand grew
burning and blinding, so that they travelled only very slowly.  The
hedges were grey with dust.  And as they advanced towards Barnet a
tumultuous murmuring grew stronger.

They began to meet more people.  For the most part these were
staring before them, murmuring indistinct questions, jaded, haggard,
unclean.  One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on
the ground.  They heard his voice, and, looking back at him, saw one
hand clutched in his hair and the other beating invisible things.  His
paroxysm of rage over, he went on his way without once looking back.

As my brother's party went on towards the crossroads to the south
of Barnet they saw a woman approaching the road across some fields on
their left, carrying a child and with two other children; and then
passed a man in dirty black, with a thick stick in one hand and a
small portmanteau in the other.  Then round the corner of the lane,
from between the villas that guarded it at its confluence with the
high road, came a little cart drawn by a sweating black pony and
driven by a sallow youth in a bowler hat, grey with dust.  There were
three girls, East End factory girls, and a couple of little children
crowded in the cart.

"This'll tike us rahnd Edgware?" asked the driver, wild-eyed,
white-faced; and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the
left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks.

My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the
houses in front of them, and veiling the white facade of a terrace
beyond the road that appeared between the backs of the villas.  Mrs.
Elphinstone suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red
flame leaping up above the houses in front of them against the hot,
blue sky.  The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the
disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the
creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs.  The lane came round
sharply not fifty yards from the crossroads.

"Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Elphinstone.  "What is this you are
driving us into?"

My brother stopped.

For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of
human beings rushing northward, one pressing on another.  A great bank
of dust, white and luminous in the blaze of the sun, made everything
within twenty feet of the ground grey and indistinct and was
perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense crowd of horses
and of men and women on foot, and by the wheels of vehicles of every
description.

"Way!" my brother heard voices crying.  "Make way!"

It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting
point of the lane and road; the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust
was hot and pungent.  And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa
was burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road
to add to the confusion.

Two men came past them.  Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy
bundle and weeping.  A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue,
circled dubiously round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my
brother's threat.

So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses
to the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent
in between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded
forms, grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner,
hurried past, and merged their individuality again in a receding
multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust.

"Go on!  Go on!" cried the voices.  "Way!  Way!"

One man's hands pressed on the back of another.  My brother stood
at the pony's head.  Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace
by pace, down the lane.

Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a riotous tumult,
but this was a whole population in movement.  It is hard to imagine
that host.  It had no character of its own.  The figures poured out
past the corner, and receded with their backs to the group in the
lane.  Along the margin came those who were on foot threatened by the
wheels, stumbling in the ditches, blundering into one another.

The carts and carriages crowded close upon one another, making
little way for those swifter and more impatient vehicles that darted
forward every now and then when an opportunity showed itself of doing
so, sending the people scattering against the fences and gates of the
villas.

"Push on!" was the cry.  "Push on!  They are coming!"

In one cart stood a blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army,
gesticulating with his crooked fingers and bawling, "Eternity!
Eternity!"  His voice was hoarse and very loud so that my brother
could hear him long after he was lost to sight in the dust.  Some of
the people who crowded in the carts whipped stupidly at their horses
and quarrelled with other drivers; some sat motionless, staring at
nothing with miserable eyes; some gnawed their hands with thirst, or
lay prostrate in the bottoms of their conveyances.  The horses' bits
were covered with foam, their eyes bloodshot.

There were cabs, carriages, shop cars, waggons, beyond counting; a
mail cart, a road-cleaner's cart marked "Vestry of St. Pancras," a
huge timber waggon crowded with roughs.  A brewer's dray rumbled by
with its two near wheels splashed with fresh blood.

"Clear the way!" cried the voices.  "Clear the way!"

"Eter-nity!  Eter-nity!" came echoing down the road.

There were sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed, with
children that cried and stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in
dust, their weary faces smeared with tears.  With many of these came
men, sometimes helpful, sometimes lowering and savage.  Fighting side
by side with them pushed some weary street outcast in faded black
rags, wide-eyed, loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed.  There were sturdy
workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like
clerks or shopmen, struggling spasmodically; a wounded soldier my
brother noticed, men dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one
wretched creature in a nightshirt with a coat thrown over it.

But varied as its composition was, certain things all that host had
in common.  There were fear and pain on their faces, and fear behind
them.  A tumult up the road, a quarrel for a place in a waggon, sent
the whole host of them quickening their pace; even a man so scared and
broken that his knees bent under him was galvanised for a moment into
renewed activity.  The heat and dust had already been at work upon
this multitude.  Their skins were dry, their lips black and cracked.
They were all thirsty, weary, and footsore.  And amid the various
cries one heard disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue;
the voices of most of them were hoarse and weak.  Through it all ran a
refrain:

"Way!  Way!  The Martians are coming!"

Few stopped and came aside from that flood.  The lane opened
slantingly into the main road with a narrow opening, and had a
delusive appearance of coming from the direction of London.  Yet a
kind of eddy of people drove into its mouth; weaklings elbowed out of
the stream, who for the most part rested but a moment before plunging
into it again.  A little way down the lane, with two friends bending
over him, lay a man with a bare leg, wrapped about with bloody rags.
He was a lucky man to have friends.

A little old man, with a grey military moustache and a filthy black
frock coat, limped out and sat down beside the trap, removed his
boot--his sock was blood-stained--shook out a pebble, and hobbled on
again; and then a little girl of eight or nine, all alone, threw
herself under the hedge close by my brother, weeping.

"I can't go on!  I can't go on!"

My brother woke from his torpor of astonishment and lifted her up,
speaking gently to her, and carried her to Miss Elphinstone.  So soon
as my brother touched her she became quite still, as if frightened.

"Ellen!" shrieked a woman in the crowd, with tears in her
voice--"Ellen!"  And the child suddenly darted away from my brother,
crying "Mother!"

"They are coming," said a man on horseback, riding past along the
lane.

"Out of the way, there!" bawled a coachman, towering high; and my
brother saw a closed carriage turning into the lane.

The people crushed back on one another to avoid the horse.  My
brother pushed the pony and chaise back into the hedge, and the man
drove by and stopped at the turn of the way.  It was a carriage, with
a pole for a pair of horses, but only one was in the traces.  My
brother saw dimly through the dust that two men lifted out something
on a white stretcher and put it gently on the grass beneath the privet
hedge.

One of the men came running to my brother.

"Where is there any water?" he said.  "He is dying fast, and very
thirsty.  It is Lord Garrick."

"Lord Garrick!" said my brother; "the Chief Justice?"

"The water?" he said.

"There may be a tap," said my brother, "in some of the houses.  We
have no water.  I dare not leave my people."

The man pushed against the crowd towards the gate of the corner
house.

"Go on!" said the people, thrusting at him.  "They are coming!  Go
on!"

Then my brother's attention was distracted by a bearded, eagle-faced
man lugging a small handbag, which split even as my brother's
eyes rested on it and disgorged a mass of sovereigns that seemed to
break up into separate coins as it struck the ground.  They rolled
hither and thither among the struggling feet of men and horses.  The
man stopped and looked stupidly at the heap, and the shaft of a cab
struck his shoulder and sent him reeling.  He gave a shriek and dodged
back, and a cartwheel shaved him narrowly.

"Way!" cried the men all about him.  "Make way!"

So soon as the cab had passed, he flung himself, with both hands
open, upon the heap of coins, and began thrusting handfuls in his
pocket.  A horse rose close upon him, and in another moment, half
rising, he had been borne down under the horse's hoofs.

"Stop!" screamed my brother, and pushing a woman out of his way,
tried to clutch the bit of the horse.

Before he could get to it, he heard a scream under the wheels, and
saw through the dust the rim passing over the poor wretch's back.  The
driver of the cart slashed his whip at my brother, who ran round
behind the cart.  The multitudinous shouting confused his ears.  The
man was writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to
rise, for the wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay limp
and dead.  My brother stood up and yelled at the next driver, and a
man on a black horse came to his assistance.

"Get him out of the road," said he; and, clutching the man's collar
with his free hand, my brother lugged him sideways.  But he still
clutched after his money, and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering
at his arm with a handful of gold.  "Go on!  Go on!" shouted angry
voices behind.

"Way!  Way!"

There was a smash as the pole of a carriage crashed into the cart
that the man on horseback stopped.  My brother looked up, and the man
with the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist that held his
collar.  There was a concussion, and the black horse came staggering
sideways, and the carthorse pushed beside it.  A hoof missed my
brother's foot by a hair's breadth.  He released his grip on the
fallen man and jumped back.  He saw anger change to terror on the face
of the poor wretch on the ground, and in a moment he was hidden and my
brother was borne backward and carried past the entrance of the lane,
and had to fight hard in the torrent to recover it.

He saw Miss Elphinstone covering her eyes, and a little child, with
all a child's want of sympathetic imagination, staring with dilated
eyes at a dusty something that lay black and still, ground and crushed
under the rolling wheels.  "Let us go back!" he shouted, and began
turning the pony round. "We cannot cross this--hell," he said and they
went back a hundred yards the way they had come, until the fighting
crowd was hidden.  As they passed the bend in the lane my brother saw
the face of the dying man in the ditch under the privet, deadly white
and drawn, and shining with perspiration.  The two women sat silent,
crouching in their seat and shivering.

Then beyond the bend my brother stopped again.  Miss Elphinstone
was white and pale, and her sister-in-law sat weeping, too wretched
even to call upon "George."  My brother was horrified and perplexed.
So soon as they had retreated he realised how urgent and unavoidable
it was to attempt this crossing.  He turned to Miss Elphinstone,
suddenly resolute.

"We must go that way," he said, and led the pony round again.

For the second time that day this girl proved her quality.  To force
their way into the torrent of people, my brother plunged into the
traffic and held back a cab horse, while she drove the pony across its
head.  A waggon locked wheels for a moment and ripped a long splinter
from the chaise.  In another moment they were caught and swept forward
by the stream.  My brother, with the cabman's whip marks red across
his face and hands, scrambled into the chaise and took the reins from
her.

"Point the revolver at the man behind," he said, giving it to her,
"if he presses us too hard.  No!--point it at his horse."

Then he began to look out for a chance of edging to the right
across the road.  But once in the stream he seemed to lose volition,
to become a part of that dusty rout.  They swept through Chipping
Barnet with the torrent; they were nearly a mile beyond the centre of
the town before they had fought across to the opposite side of the
way.  It was din and confusion indescribable; but in and beyond the
town the road forks repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the
stress.

They struck eastward through Hadley, and there on either side of
the road, and at another place farther on they came upon a great
multitude of people drinking at the stream, some fighting to come at
the water.  And farther on, from a lull near East Barnet, they saw
two trains running slowly one after the other without signal or
order--trains swarming with people, with men even among the coals
behind the engines--going northward along the Great Northern Railway.
My brother supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that
time the furious terror of the people had rendered the central
termini impossible.

Near this place they halted for the rest of the afternoon, for the
violence of the day had already utterly exhausted all three of them.
They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger; the night was cold, and
none of them dared to sleep.  And in the evening many people came
hurrying along the road nearby their stopping place, fleeing from
unknown dangers before them, and going in the direction from which my
brother had come.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE "THUNDER CHILD"


Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday
have annihilated the entire population of London, as it spread itself
slowly through the home counties.  Not only along the road through
Barnet, but also through Edgware and Waltham Abbey, and along the
roads eastward to Southend and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames
to Deal and Broadstairs, poured the same frantic rout.  If one could
have hung that June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue above
London every northward and eastward road running out of the tangled
maze of streets would have seemed stippled black with the streaming
fugitives, each dot a human agony of terror and physical distress.  I
have set forth at length in the last chapter my brother's account of
the road through Chipping Barnet, in order that my readers may realise
how that swarming of black dots appeared to one of those concerned.
Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human
beings moved and suffered together.  The legendary hosts of Goths and
Huns, the hugest armies Asia has ever seen, would have been but a drop
in that current.  And this was no disciplined march; it was a
stampede--a stampede gigantic and terrible--without order and without
a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving
headlong.  It was the beginning of the rout of civilisation, of the
massacre of mankind.

Directly below him the balloonist would have seen the network of
streets far and wide, houses, churches, squares, crescents,
gardens--already derelict--spread out like a huge map, and in the
southward _blotted_.  Over Ealing, Richmond, Wimbledon, it would
have seemed as if some monstrous pen had flung ink upon the chart.
Steadily, incessantly, each black splash grew and spread, shooting out
ramifications this way and that, now banking itself against rising
ground, now pouring swiftly over a crest into a new-found valley,
exactly as a gout of ink would spread itself upon blotting paper.

And beyond, over the blue hills that rise southward of the river,
the glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and methodically
spreading their poison cloud over this patch of country and then over
that, laying it again with their steam jets when it had served its
purpose, and taking possession of the conquered country.  They do not
seem to have aimed at extermination so much as at complete
demoralisation and the destruction of any opposition.  They exploded
any stores of powder they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked
the railways here and there.  They were hamstringing mankind.  They
seemed in no hurry to extend the field of their operations, and did
not come beyond the central part of London all that day.  It is
possible that a very considerable number of people in London stuck to
their houses through Monday morning.  Certain it is that many died at
home suffocated by the Black Smoke.

Until about midday the Pool of London was an astonishing scene.
Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the
enormous sums of money offered by fugitives, and it is said that many
who swam out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and
drowned.  About one o'clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a
cloud of the black vapour appeared between the arches of Blackfriars
Bridge.  At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting,
and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges
jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and
lightermen had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon
them from the riverfront.  People were actually clambering down the
piers of the bridge from above.

When, an hour later, a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and
waded down the river, nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse.

Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell.  The
sixth star fell at Wimbledon.  My brother, keeping watch beside the
women in the chaise in a meadow, saw the green flash of it far beyond
the hills.  On Tuesday the little party, still set upon getting across
the sea, made its way through the swarming country towards Colchester.
The news that the Martians were now in possession of the whole of
London was confirmed.  They had been seen at Highgate, and even, it
was said, at Neasden.  But they did not come into my brother's view
until the morrow.

That day the scattered multitudes began to realise the urgent need
of provisions.  As they grew hungry the rights of property ceased to
be regarded.  Farmers were out to defend their cattle-sheds,
granaries, and ripening root crops with arms in their hands.  A number
of people now, like my brother, had their faces eastward, and there
were some desperate souls even going back towards London to get food.
These were chiefly people from the northern suburbs, whose knowledge
of the Black Smoke came by hearsay.  He heard that about half the
members of the government had gathered at Birmingham, and that
enormous quantities of high explosives were being prepared to be used
in automatic mines across the Midland counties.

He was also told that the Midland Railway Company had replaced the
desertions of the first day's panic, had resumed traffic, and was
running northward trains from St. Albans to relieve the congestion of
the home counties.  There was also a placard in Chipping Ongar
announcing that large stores of flour were available in the northern
towns and that within twenty-four hours bread would be distributed
among the starving people in the neighbourhood.  But this intelligence
did not deter him from the plan of escape he had formed, and the three
pressed eastward all day, and heard no more of the bread distribution
than this promise.  Nor, as a matter of fact, did anyone else hear
more of it.  That night fell the seventh star, falling upon Primrose
Hill.  It fell while Miss Elphinstone was watching, for she took that
duty alternately with my brother.  She saw it.

On Wednesday the three fugitives--they had passed the night in a
field of unripe wheat--reached Chelmsford, and there a body of the
inhabitants, calling itself the Committee of Public Supply, seized the
pony as provisions, and would give nothing in exchange for it but the
promise of a share in it the next day.  Here there were rumours of
Martians at Epping, and news of the destruction of Waltham Abbey
Powder Mills in a vain attempt to blow up one of the invaders.

People were watching for Martians here from the church towers.  My
brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at
once to the coast rather than wait for food, although all three of
them were very hungry.  By midday they passed through Tillingham,
which, strangely enough, seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save
for a few furtive plunderers hunting for food.  Near Tillingham they
suddenly came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of
shipping of all sorts that it is possible to imagine.

For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came
on to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and
afterwards to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people.  They
lay in a huge sickle-shaped curve that vanished into mist at last
towards the Naze.  Close inshore was a multitude of fishing
smacks--English, Scotch, French, Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches
from the Thames, yachts, electric boats; and beyond were ships of large
burden, a multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships,
passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white transport
even, neat white and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg; and
along the blue coast across the Blackwater my brother could make out
dimly a dense swarm of boats chaffering with the people on the beach,
a swarm which also extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon.

About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water,
almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship.  This
was the ram _Thunder Child_.  It was the only warship in sight, but far
away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea--for that day
there was a dead calm--lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next
ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line,
steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the
course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent
it.

At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the
assurances of her sister-in-law, gave way to panic.  She had never
been out of England before, she would rather die than trust herself
friendless in a foreign country, and so forth.  She seemed, poor woman,
to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar.
She had been growing increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed
during the two days' journeyings.  Her great idea was to return to
Stanmore.  Things had been always well and safe at Stanmore.  They
would find George at Stanmore.

It was with the greatest difficulty they could get her down to the
beach, where presently my brother succeeded in attracting the
attention of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames.  They sent
a boat and drove a bargain for thirty-six pounds for the three.  The
steamer was going, these men said, to Ostend.

It was about two o'clock when my brother, having paid their fares
at the gangway, found himself safely aboard the steamboat with his
charges.  There was food aboard, albeit at exorbitant prices, and the
three of them contrived to eat a meal on one of the seats forward.

There were already a couple of score of passengers aboard, some of
whom had expended their last money in securing a passage, but the
captain lay off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, picking up
passengers until the seated decks were even dangerously crowded.  He
would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of
guns that began about that hour in the south.  As if in answer, the
ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of flags.  A
jet of smoke sprang out of her funnels.

Some of the passengers were of opinion that this firing came from
Shoeburyness, until it was noticed that it was growing louder.  At the
same time, far away in the southeast the masts and upperworks of three
ironclads rose one after the other out of the sea, beneath clouds of
black smoke.  But my brother's attention speedily reverted to the
distant firing in the south.  He fancied he saw a column of smoke
rising out of the distant grey haze.

The little steamer was already flapping her way eastward of the big
crescent of shipping, and the low Essex coast was growing blue and
hazy, when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the remote distance,
advancing along the muddy coast from the direction of Foulness.  At
that the captain on the bridge swore at the top of his voice with fear
and anger at his own delay, and the paddles seemed infected with his
terror.  Every soul aboard stood at the bulwarks or on the seats of
the steamer and stared at that distant shape, higher than the trees or
church towers inland, and advancing with a leisurely parody of a human
stride.

It was the first Martian my brother had seen, and he stood, more
amazed than terrified, watching this Titan advancing deliberately
towards the shipping, wading farther and farther into the water as the
coast fell away.  Then, far away beyond the Crouch, came another,
striding over some stunted trees, and then yet another, still farther
off, wading deeply through a shiny mudflat that seemed to hang halfway
up between sea and sky.  They were all stalking seaward, as if to
intercept the escape of the multitudinous vessels that were crowded
between Foulness and the Naze.  In spite of the throbbing exertions of
the engines of the little paddle-boat, and the pouring foam that her
wheels flung behind her, she receded with terrifying slowness from
this ominous advance.

Glancing northwestward, my brother saw the large crescent of
shipping already writhing with the approaching terror; one ship
passing behind another, another coming round from broadside to end on,
steamships whistling and giving off volumes of steam, sails being let
out, launches rushing hither and thither.  He was so fascinated by
this and by the creeping danger away to the left that he had no eyes
for anything seaward.  And then a swift movement of the steamboat (she
had suddenly come round to avoid being run down) flung him headlong
from the seat upon which he was standing.  There was a shouting all
about him, a trampling of feet, and a cheer that seemed to be answered
faintly.  The steamboat lurched and rolled him over upon his hands.

He sprang to his feet and saw to starboard, and not a hundred yards
from their heeling, pitching boat, a vast iron bulk like the blade of
a plough tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge
waves of foam that leaped towards the steamer, flinging her paddles
helplessly in the air, and then sucking her deck down almost to the
waterline.

A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment.  When his eyes
were clear again he saw the monster had passed and was rushing
landward.  Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure,
and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot
with fire.  It was the torpedo ram, _Thunder Child_, steaming headlong,
coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks,
my brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again,
and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far
out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged.
Thus sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less
formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was
pitching so helplessly.  It would seem they were regarding this new
antagonist with astonishment.  To their intelligence, it may be, the
giant was even such another as themselves.  The _Thunder Child_ fired no
gun, but simply drove full speed towards them.  It was probably her
not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did.  They
did not know what to make of her.  One shell, and they would have sent
her to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray.

She was steaming at such a pace that in a minute she seemed halfway
between the steamboat and the Martians--a diminishing black bulk
against the receding horizontal expanse of the Essex coast.

Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a
canister of the black gas at the ironclad.  It hit her larboard side
and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an
unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear.
To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in
their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians.

They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water
as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like
generator of the Heat-Ray.  He held it pointing obliquely downward,
and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch.  It must have
driven through the iron of the ship's side like a white-hot iron rod
through paper.

A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the
Martian reeled and staggered.  In another moment he was cut down, and
a great body of water and steam shot high in the air.  The guns of the
_Thunder Child_ sounded through the reek, going off one after the other,
and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer, ricocheted
towards the other flying ships to the north, and smashed a smack to
matchwood.

But no one heeded that very much.  At the sight of the Martian's
collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the
crowding passengers on the steamer's stern shouted together.  And then
they yelled again.  For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove
something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts,
its ventilators and funnels spouting fire.

She was alive still; the steering gear, it seems, was intact and
her engines working.  She headed straight for a second Martian, and
was within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear.  Then
with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped
upward.  The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and
in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the
impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing
of cardboard.  My brother shouted involuntarily.  A boiling tumult of
steam hid everything again.

"Two!" yelled the captain.

Everyone was shouting.  The whole steamer from end to end rang with
frantic cheering that was taken up first by one and then by all in the
crowding multitude of ships and boats that was driving out to sea.

The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third
Martian and the coast altogether.  And all this time the boat was
paddling steadily out to sea and away from the fight; and when at last
the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened,
and nothing of the _Thunder Child_ could be made out, nor could the
third Martian be seen.  But the ironclads to seaward were now quite
close and standing in towards shore past the steamboat.

The little vessel continued to beat its way seaward, and the
ironclads receded slowly towards the coast, which was hidden still by
a marbled bank of vapour, part steam, part black gas, eddying and
combining in the strangest way.  The fleet of refugees was scattering
to the northeast; several smacks were sailing between the ironclads
and the steamboat.  After a time, and before they reached the sinking
cloud bank, the warships turned northward, and then abruptly went
about and passed into the thickening haze of evening southward.  The
coast grew faint, and at last indistinguishable amid the low banks of
clouds that were gathering about the sinking sun.

Then suddenly out of the golden haze of the sunset came the
vibration of guns, and a form of black shadows moving.  Everyone
struggled to the rail of the steamer and peered into the blinding
furnace of the west, but nothing was to be distinguished clearly.  A
mass of smoke rose slanting and barred the face of the sun.  The
steamboat throbbed on its way through an interminable suspense.

The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the
evening star trembled into sight.  It was deep twilight when the
captain cried out and pointed.  My brother strained his eyes.
Something rushed up into the sky out of the greyness--rushed
slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above
the clouds in the western sky; something flat and broad, and very
large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly,
and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night.  And as it flew
it rained down darkness upon the land.



BOOK TWO

THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS



CHAPTER ONE

UNDER FOOT


In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to
tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two
chapters I and the curate have been lurking in the empty house at
Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke.  There I will
resume.  We stopped there all Sunday night and all the next day--the
day of the panic--in a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black
Smoke from the rest of the world.  We could do nothing but wait in
aching inactivity during those two weary days.

My mind was occupied by anxiety for my wife.  I figured her at
Leatherhead, terrified, in danger, mourning me already as a dead man.
I paced the rooms and cried aloud when I thought of how I was cut off
from her, of all that might happen to her in my absence.  My cousin I
knew was brave enough for any emergency, but he was not the sort of
man to realise danger quickly, to rise promptly.  What was needed now
was not bravery, but circumspection.  My only consolation was to
believe that the Martians were moving London-ward and away from her.
Such vague anxieties keep the mind sensitive and painful.  I grew very
weary and irritable with the curate's perpetual ejaculations; I tired
of the sight of his selfish despair.  After some ineffectual
remonstrance I kept away from him, staying in a room--evidently a
children's schoolroom--containing globes, forms, and copybooks.  When
he followed me thither, I went to a box room at the top of the house
and, in order to be alone with my aching miseries, locked myself in.

We were hopelessly hemmed in by the Black Smoke all that day and
the morning of the next.  There were signs of people in the next house
on Sunday evening--a face at a window and moving lights, and later the
slamming of a door.  But I do not know who these people were, nor what
became of them.  We saw nothing of them next day.  The Black Smoke
drifted slowly riverward all through Monday morning, creeping nearer
and nearer to us, driving at last along the roadway outside the house
that hid us.

A Martian came across the fields about midday, laying the stuff
with a jet of superheated steam that hissed against the walls, smashed
all the windows it touched, and scalded the curate's hand as he fled
out of the front room.  When at last we crept across the sodden rooms
and looked out again, the country northward was as though a black
snowstorm had passed over it.  Looking towards the river, we were
astonished to see an unaccountable redness mingling with the black of
the scorched meadows.

For a time we did not see how this change affected our position,
save that we were relieved of our fear of the Black Smoke.  But later
I perceived that we were no longer hemmed in, that now we might get
away.  So soon as I realised that the way of escape was open, my dream
of action returned.  But the curate was lethargic, unreasonable.

"We are safe here," he repeated; "safe here."

I resolved to leave him--would that I had!  Wiser now for the
artilleryman's teaching, I sought out food and drink.  I had found oil
and rags for my burns, and I also took a hat and a flannel shirt that
I found in one of the bedrooms.  When it was clear to him that I meant
to go alone--had reconciled myself to going alone--he suddenly roused
himself to come.  And all being quiet throughout the afternoon, we
started about five o'clock, as I should judge, along the blackened
road to Sunbury.

In Sunbury, and at intervals along the road, were dead bodies lying
in contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and
luggage, all covered thickly with black dust.  That pall of cindery
powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii.
We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of
strange and unfamiliar appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were
relieved to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating
drift.  We went through Bushey Park, with its deer going to and fro
under the chestnuts, and some men and women hurrying in the distance
towards Hampton, and so we came to Twickenham.  These were the first
people we saw.

Away across the road the woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still
afire.  Twickenham was uninjured by either Heat-Ray or Black Smoke,
and there were more people about here, though none could give us news.
For the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull
to shift their quarters.  I have an impression that many of the houses
here were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even
for flight.  Here too the evidence of a hasty rout was abundant along
the road.  I remember most vividly three smashed bicycles in a heap,
pounded into the road by the wheels of subsequent carts.  We crossed
Richmond Bridge about half past eight.  We hurried across the exposed
bridge, of course, but I noticed floating down the stream a number
of red masses, some many feet across.  I did not know what these
were--there was no time for scrutiny--and I put a more horrible
interpretation on them than they deserved.  Here again on the Surrey
side were black dust that had once been smoke, and dead bodies--a heap
near the approach to the station; but we had no glimpse of the
Martians until we were some way towards Barnes.

We saw in the blackened distance a group of three people running
down a side street towards the river, but otherwise it seemed
deserted.  Up the hill Richmond town was burning briskly; outside the
town of Richmond there was no trace of the Black Smoke.

Then suddenly, as we approached Kew, came a number of people
running, and the upperworks of a Martian fighting-machine loomed in
sight over the housetops, not a hundred yards away from us.  We stood
aghast at our danger, and had the Martian looked down we must
immediately have perished.  We were so terrified that we dared not go
on, but turned aside and hid in a shed in a garden.  There the curate
crouched, weeping silently, and refusing to stir again.

But my fixed idea of reaching Leatherhead would not let me rest,
and in the twilight I ventured out again.  I went through a shrubbery,
and along a passage beside a big house standing in its own grounds,
and so emerged upon the road towards Kew.  The curate I left in the
shed, but he came hurrying after me.

That second start was the most foolhardy thing I ever did.  For it
was manifest the Martians were about us.  No sooner had the curate
overtaken me than we saw either the fighting-machine we had seen
before or another, far away across the meadows in the direction of Kew
Lodge.  Four or five little black figures hurried before it across the
green-grey of the field, and in a moment it was evident this Martian
pursued them.  In three strides he was among them, and they ran
radiating from his feet in all directions.  He used no Heat-Ray to
destroy them, but picked them up one by one.  Apparently he tossed
them into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much
as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder.

It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any
other purpose than destruction with defeated humanity.  We stood for a
moment petrified, then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a
walled garden, fell into, rather than found, a fortunate ditch, and
lay there, scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were
out.

I suppose it was nearly eleven o'clock before we gathered courage
to start again, no longer venturing into the road, but sneaking along
hedgerows and through plantations, and watching keenly through the
darkness, he on the right and I on the left, for the Martians, who
seemed to be all about us.  In one place we blundered upon a scorched
and blackened area, now cooling and ashen, and a number of scattered
dead bodies of men, burned horribly about the heads and trunks but
with their legs and boots mostly intact; and of dead horses, fifty
feet, perhaps, behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun
carriages.

Sheen, it seemed, had escaped destruction, but the place was silent
and deserted.  Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too
dark for us to see into the side roads of the place.  In Sheen my
companion suddenly complained of faintness and thirst, and we decided
to try one of the houses.

The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with the
window, was a small semi-detached villa, and I found nothing eatable
left in the place but some mouldy cheese.  There was, however, water
to drink; and I took a hatchet, which promised to be useful in our
next house-breaking.

We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake.
Here there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the
pantry of this domicile we found a store of food--two loaves of bread
in a pan, an uncooked steak, and the half of a ham.  I give this
catalogue so precisely because, as it happened, we were destined to
subsist upon this store for the next fortnight.  Bottled beer stood
under a shelf, and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp
lettuces.  This pantry opened into a kind of wash-up kitchen, and in
this was firewood; there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly
a dozen of burgundy, tinned soups and salmon, and two tins of
biscuits.

We sat in the adjacent kitchen in the dark--for we dared not strike
a light--and ate bread and ham, and drank beer out of the same bottle.
The curate, who was still timorous and restless, was now, oddly
enough, for pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength
by eating when the thing happened that was to imprison us.

"It can't be midnight yet," I said, and then came a blinding glare
of vivid green light.  Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly
visible in green and black, and vanished again.  And then followed such
a concussion as I have never heard before or since.  So close on the
heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash
of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the
plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of
fragments upon our heads.  I was knocked headlong across the floor
against the oven handle and stunned.  I was insensible for a long
time, the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness
again, and he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from
a cut forehead, was dabbing water over me.

For some time I could not recollect what had happened.  Then things
came to me slowly.  A bruise on my temple asserted itself.

"Are you better?" asked the curate in a whisper.

At last I answered him.  I sat up.

"Don't move," he said.  "The floor is covered with smashed crockery
from the dresser.  You can't possibly move without making a noise, and
I fancy _they_ are outside."

We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other
breathing.  Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near
us, some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling sound.
Outside and very near was an intermittent, metallic rattle.

"That!" said the curate, when presently it happened again.

"Yes," I said.  "But what is it?"

"A Martian!" said the curate.

I listened again.

"It was not like the Heat-Ray," I said, and for a time I was
inclined to think one of the great fighting-machines had stumbled
against the house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of
Shepperton Church.

Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or
four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved.  And then the light
filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through
a triangular aperture between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in
the wall behind us.  The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for
the first time.

The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which
flowed over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our
feet.  Outside, the soil was banked high against the house.  At the
top of the window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe.  The floor
was littered with smashed hardware; the end of the kitchen towards the
house was broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was
evident the greater part of the house had collapsed.  Contrasting
vividly with this ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion,
pale green, and with a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the
wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured
supplements fluttering from the walls above the kitchen range.

As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the
body of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still
glowing cylinder.  At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly as
possible out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the
scullery.

Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind.

"The fifth cylinder," I whispered, "the fifth shot from Mars, has
struck this house and buried us under the ruins!"

For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered:

"God have mercy upon us!"

I heard him presently whimpering to himself.

Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery; I for my
part scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint
light of the kitchen door.  I could just see the curate's face, a dim,
oval shape, and his collar and cuffs.  Outside there began a metallic
hammering, then a violent hooting, and then again, after a quiet
interval, a hissing like the hissing of an engine.  These noises, for
the most part problematical, continued intermittently, and seemed if
anything to increase in number as time wore on.  Presently a measured
thudding and a vibration that made everything about us quiver and the
vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued.  Once the
light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely
dark.  For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and
shivering, until our tired attention failed. . . .

At last I found myself awake and very hungry.  I am inclined to
believe we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that
awakening.  My hunger was at a stride so insistent that it moved me to
action.  I told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way
towards the pantry.  He made me no answer, but so soon as I began
eating the faint noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling
after me.



CHAPTER TWO

WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE


After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have
dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone.  The
thudding vibration continued with wearisome persistence.  I whispered
for the curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of
the kitchen.  It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the
room, lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the
Martians.  His shoulders were hunched, so that his head was hidden
from me.

I could hear a number of noises almost like those in an engine
shed; and the place rocked with that beating thud.  Through the
aperture in the wall I could see the top of a tree touched with gold
and the warm blue of a tranquil evening sky.  For a minute or so I
remained watching the curate, and then I advanced, crouching and
stepping with extreme care amid the broken crockery that littered the
floor.

I touched the curate's leg, and he started so violently that a mass
of plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact.  I
gripped his arm, fearing he might cry out, and for a long time we
crouched motionless.  Then I turned to see how much of our rampart
remained.  The detachment of the plaster had left a vertical slit open
in the debris, and by raising myself cautiously across a beam I was
able to see out of this gap into what had been overnight a quiet
suburban roadway.  Vast, indeed, was the change that we beheld.

The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the
house we had first visited.  The building had vanished, completely
smashed, pulverised, and dispersed by the blow.  The cylinder lay now
far beneath the original foundations--deep in a hole, already vastly
larger than the pit I had looked into at Woking.  The earth all round
it had splashed under that tremendous impact--"splashed" is the only
word--and lay in heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent
houses.  It had behaved exactly like mud under the violent blow of a
hammer.  Our house had collapsed backward; the front portion, even on
the ground floor, had been destroyed completely; by a chance the
kitchen and scullery had escaped, and stood buried now under soil and
ruins, closed in by tons of earth on every side save towards the
cylinder.  Over that aspect we hung now on the very edge of the great
circular pit the Martians were engaged in making.  The heavy beating
sound was evidently just behind us, and ever and again a bright green
vapour drove up like a veil across our peephole.

The cylinder was already opened in the centre of the pit, and on
the farther edge of the pit, amid the smashed and gravel-heaped
shrubbery, one of the great fighting-machines, deserted by its
occupant, stood stiff and tall against the evening sky.  At first I
scarcely noticed the pit and the cylinder, although it has been
convenient to describe them first, on account of the extraordinary
glittering mechanism I saw busy in the excavation, and on account of
the strange creatures that were crawling slowly and painfully across
the heaped mould near it.

The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first.  It
was one of those complicated fabrics that have since been called
handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an
enormous impetus to terrestrial invention.  As it dawned upon me
first, it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed,
agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars,
and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body.  Most of its
arms were retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing
out a number of rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and
apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder.  These, as it
extracted them, were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface
of earth behind it.

Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did
not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter.  The
fighting-machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary
pitch, but nothing to compare with this.  People who have never seen
these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or
the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon,
scarcely realise that living quality.

I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first
pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war.  The artist had
evidently made a hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and
there his knowledge ended.  He presented them as tilted, stiff
tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an
altogether misleading monotony of effect.  The pamphlet containing
these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here
simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have
created.  They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a
Dutch doll is like a human being.  To my mind, the pamphlet would have
been much better without them.

At first, I say, the handling-machine did not impress me as a
machine, but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the
controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements
seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab's cerebral portion.
But then I perceived the resemblance of its grey-brown, shiny,
leathery integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and
the true nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me.  With that
realisation my interest shifted to those other creatures, the real
Martians.  Already I had had a transient impression of these, and the
first nausea no longer obscured my observation.  Moreover, I was
concealed and motionless, and under no urgency of action.

They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible
to conceive.  They were huge round bodies--or, rather, heads--about
four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face.  This
face had no nostrils--indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any
sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes,
and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak.  In the back of this head
or body--I scarcely know how to speak of it--was the single tight
tympanic surface, since known to be anatomically an ear, though it
must have been almost useless in our dense air.  In a group round the
mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two
bunches of eight each.  These bunches have since been named rather
aptly, by that distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the _hands_.
Even as I saw these Martians for the first time they seemed to be
endeavouring to raise themselves on these hands, but of course, with
the increased weight of terrestrial conditions, this was impossible.
There is reason to suppose that on Mars they may have progressed upon
them with some facility.

The internal anatomy, I may remark here, as dissection has since
shown, was almost equally simple.  The greater part of the structure
was the brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile
tentacles.  Besides this were the bulky lungs, into which the mouth
opened, and the heart and its vessels.  The pulmonary distress caused
by the denser atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only
too evident in the convulsive movements of the outer skin.

And this was the sum of the Martian organs.  Strange as it may seem
to a human being, all the complex apparatus of digestion, which makes
up the bulk of our bodies, did not exist in the Martians.  They were
heads--merely heads.  Entrails they had none.  They did not eat, much
less digest.  Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other
creatures, and _injected_ it into their own veins.  I have myself seen
this being done, as I shall mention in its place.  But, squeamish as I
may seem, I cannot bring myself to describe what I could not endure
even to continue watching.  Let it suffice to say, blood obtained from
a still living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run
directly by means of a little pipette into the recipient canal. . . .

The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at
the same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our
carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit.

The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are
undeniable, if one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and
energy occasioned by eating and the digestive process.  Our bodies are
half made up of glands and tubes and organs, occupied in turning
heterogeneous food into blood.  The digestive processes and their
reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our
minds.  Men go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy
livers, or sound gastric glands.  But the Martians were lifted above
all these organic fluctuations of mood and emotion.

Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment
is partly explained by the nature of the remains of the victims they
had brought with them as provisions from Mars.  These creatures, to
judge from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands,
were bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the
silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet
high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets.
Two or three of these seem to have been brought in each cylinder, and
all were killed before earth was reached.  It was just as well for
them, for the mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have
broken every bone in their bodies.

And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in this place
certain further details which, although they were not all evident to
us at the time, will enable the reader who is unacquainted with them
to form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures.

In three other points their physiology differed strangely from
ours.  Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man
sleeps.  Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate,
that periodical extinction was unknown to them.  They had little or
no sense of fatigue, it would seem.  On earth they could never have
moved without effort, yet even to the last they kept in action.  In
twenty-four hours they did twenty-four hours of work, as even on earth
is perhaps the case with the ants.

In the next place, wonderful as it seems in a sexual world, the
Martians were absolutely without sex, and therefore without any of the
tumultuous emotions that arise from that difference among men.  A
young Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon earth
during the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially
_budded_ off, just as young lilybulbs bud off, or like the young animals
in the fresh-water polyp.

In man, in all the higher terrestrial animals, such a method of
increase has disappeared; but even on this earth it was certainly the
primitive method.  Among the lower animals, up even to those first
cousins of the vertebrated animals, the Tunicates, the two processes
occur side by side, but finally the sexual method superseded its
competitor altogether.  On Mars, however, just the reverse has
apparently been the case.

It is worthy of remark that a certain speculative writer of
quasi-scientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion, did
forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian
condition.  His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or
December, 1893, in a long-defunct publication, the _Pall Mall Budget_,
and I recall a caricature of it in a pre-Martian periodical called
_Punch_.  He pointed out--writing in a foolish, facetious tone--that the
perfection of mechanical appliances must ultimately supersede limbs;
the perfection of chemical devices, digestion; that such organs as
hair, external nose, teeth, ears, and chin were no longer essential
parts of the human being, and that the tendency of natural selection
would lie in the direction of their steady diminution through the
coming ages.  The brain alone remained a cardinal necessity.  Only one
other part of the body had a strong case for survival, and that was
the hand, "teacher and agent of the brain."  While the rest of the
body dwindled, the hands would grow larger.

There is many a true word written in jest, and here in the Martians
we have beyond dispute the actual accomplishment of such a suppression
of the animal side of the organism by the intelligence.  To me it is
quite credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not
unlike ourselves, by a gradual development of brain and hands (the
latter giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles at last)
at the expense of the rest of the body.  Without the body the brain
would, of course, become a mere selfish intelligence, without any of
the emotional substratum of the human being.

The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures
differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial
particular.  Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on
earth, have either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary
science eliminated them ages ago.  A hundred diseases, all the fevers
and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such
morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life.  And speaking of
the differences between the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may
allude here to the curious suggestions of the red weed.

Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green
for a dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint.  At any rate, the
seeds which the Martians (intentionally or accidentally) brought with
them gave rise in all cases to red-coloured growths.  Only that known
popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in competition
with terrestrial forms.  The red creeper was quite a transitory
growth, and few people have seen it growing.  For a time, however, the
red weed grew with astonishing vigour and luxuriance.  It spread up
the sides of the pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment,
and its cactus-like branches formed a carmine fringe to the edges of
our triangular window.  And afterwards I found it broadcast throughout
the country, and especially wherever there was a stream of water.

The Martians had what appears to have been an auditory organ, a
single round drum at the back of the head-body, and eyes with a visual
range not very different from ours except that, according to Philips,
blue and violet were as black to them.  It is commonly supposed that
they communicated by sounds and tentacular gesticulations; this is
asserted, for instance, in the able but hastily compiled pamphlet
(written evidently by someone not an eye-witness of Martian actions)
to which I have already alluded, and which, so far, has been the chief
source of information concerning them.  Now no surviving human being
saw so much of the Martians in action as I did.  I take no credit to
myself for an accident, but the fact is so.  And I assert that I
watched them closely time after time, and that I have seen four, five,
and (once) six of them sluggishly performing the most elaborately
complicated operations together without either sound or gesture.  Their
peculiar hooting invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation,
and was, I believe, in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of
air preparatory to the suctional operation.  I have a certain claim to
at least an elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter I
am convinced--as firmly as I am convinced of anything--that the
Martians interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation.
And I have been convinced of this in spite of strong preconceptions.
Before the Martian invasion, as an occasional reader here or there may
remember, I had written with some little vehemence against the
telepathic theory.

The Martians wore no clothing.  Their conceptions of ornament and
decorum were necessarily different from ours; and not only were they
evidently much less sensible of changes of temperature than we are,
but changes of pressure do not seem to have affected their health at
all seriously.  Yet though they wore no clothing, it was in the other
artificial additions to their bodily resources that their great
superiority over man lay.  We men, with our bicycles and road-skates,
our Lilienthal soaring-machines, our guns and sticks and so forth, are
just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked
out.  They have become practically mere brains, wearing different
bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and
take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet.  And of their
appliances, perhaps nothing is more wonderful to a man than the
curious fact that what is the dominant feature of almost all human
devices in mechanism is absent--the _wheel_ is absent; among all the
things they brought to earth there is no trace or suggestion of their
use of wheels.  One would have at least expected it in locomotion.  And
in this connection it is curious to remark that even on this earth
Nature has never hit upon the wheel, or has preferred other expedients
to its development.  And not only did the Martians either not know of
(which is incredible), or abstain from, the wheel, but in their
apparatus singularly little use is made of the fixed pivot or
relatively fixed pivot, with circular motions thereabout confined
to one plane.  Almost all the joints of the machinery present a
complicated system of sliding parts moving over small but beautifully
curved friction bearings.  And while upon this matter of detail, it is
remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases
actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic
sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully
together when traversed by a current of electricity.  In this way the
curious parallelism to animal motions, which was so striking and
disturbing to the human beholder, was attained.  Such quasi-muscles
abounded in the crablike handling-machine which, on my first peeping
out of the slit, I watched unpacking the cylinder.  It seemed
infinitely more alive than the actual Martians lying beyond it in the
sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual tentacles, and moving
feebly after their vast journey across space.

While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the sunlight,
and noting each strange detail of their form, the curate reminded me
of his presence by pulling violently at my arm.  I turned to a
scowling face, and silent, eloquent lips.  He wanted the slit, which
permitted only one of us to peep through; and so I had to forego
watching them for a time while he enjoyed that privilege.

When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put
together several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the
cylinder into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and
down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view,
emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit,
excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner.
This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the
rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering.  It piped
and whistled as it worked.  So far as I could see, the thing was
without a directing Martian at all.



CHAPTER THREE

THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT


The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole
into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian
might see down upon us behind our barrier.  At a later date we began
to feel less in danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the dazzle of
the sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank blackness, but at
first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery
in heart-throbbing retreat.  Yet terrible as was the danger we
incurred, the attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible.
And I recall now with a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite
danger in which we were between starvation and a still more terrible
death, we could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of
sight.  We would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way between
eagerness and the dread of making a noise, and strike each other, and
thrust and kick, within a few inches of exposure.

The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and
habits of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only
accentuated the incompatibility.  At Halliford I had already come to
hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity
of mind.  His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made
to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and
intensified, almost to the verge of craziness.  He was as lacking in
restraint as a silly woman.  He would weep for hours together, and I
verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought
his weak tears in some way efficacious.  And I would sit in the
darkness unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his
importunities.  He ate more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed
out that our only chance of life was to stop in the house until the
Martians had done with their pit, that in that long patience a time
might presently come when we should need food.  He ate and drank
impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals.  He slept little.

As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so
intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed
doing it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows.  That brought him
to reason for a time.  But he was one of those weak creatures, void of
pride, timorous, anaemic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who
face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves.

It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I
set them down that my story may lack nothing.  Those who have escaped
the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash
of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what
is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men.  But
those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to
elemental things, will have a wider charity.

And while within we fought out our dark, dim contest of whispers,
snatched food and drink, and gripping hands and blows, without, in the
pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the
unfamiliar routine of the Martians in the pit.  Let me return to those
first new experiences of mine.  After a long time I ventured back to
the peephole, to find that the new-comers had been reinforced by the
occupants of no fewer than three of the fighting-machines.  These last
had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an
orderly manner about the cylinder.  The second handling-machine was now
completed, and was busied in serving one of the novel contrivances the
big machine had brought.  This was a body resembling a milk can in its
general form, above which oscillated a pear-shaped receptacle, and
from which a stream of white powder flowed into a circular basin
below.

The oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of the
handling-machine.  With two spatulate hands the handling-machine was
digging out and flinging masses of clay into the pear-shaped
receptacle above, while with another arm it periodically opened a door
and removed rusty and blackened clinkers from the middle part of the
machine.  Another steely tentacle directed the powder from the basin
along a ribbed channel towards some receiver that was hidden from me
by the mound of bluish dust.  From this unseen receiver a little
thread of green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air.  As I looked,
the handling-machine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended,
telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment before a mere
blunt projection, until its end was hidden behind the mound of clay.
In another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight,
untarnished as yet, and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a
growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit.  Between
sunset and starlight this dexterous machine must have made more than a
hundred such bars out of the crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust
rose steadily until it topped the side of the pit.

The contrast between the swift and complex movements of these
contrivances and the inert panting clumsiness of their masters was
acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter
were indeed the living of the two things.

The curate had possession of the slit when the first men were
brought to the pit.  I was sitting below, huddled up, listening with
all my ears.  He made a sudden movement backward, and I, fearful that
we were observed, crouched in a spasm of terror.  He came sliding down
the rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate,
gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic.  His gesture
suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my
curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him, and
clambered up to it.  At first I could see no reason for his frantic
behaviour.  The twilight had now come, the stars were little and
faint, but the pit was illuminated by the flickering green fire that
came from the aluminium-making.  The whole picture was a flickering
scheme of green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows, strangely
trying to the eyes.  Over and through it all went the bats, heeding it
not at all.  The sprawling Martians were no longer to be seen, the
mound of blue-green powder had risen to cover them from sight, and a
fighting-machine, with its legs contracted, crumpled, and abbreviated,
stood across the corner of the pit.  And then, amid the clangour of
the machinery, came a drifting suspicion of human voices, that I
entertained at first only to dismiss.

I crouched, watching this fighting-machine closely, satisfying
myself now for the first time that the hood did indeed contain a
Martian.  As the green flames lifted I could see the oily gleam of
his integument and the brightness of his eyes.  And suddenly I heard
a yell, and saw a long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the
machine to the little cage that hunched upon its back.  Then
something--something struggling violently--was lifted high against the
sky, a black, vague enigma against the starlight; and as this black
object came down again, I saw by the green brightness that it was a
man.  For an instant he was clearly visible.  He was a stout, ruddy,
middle-aged man, well dressed; three days before, he must have been
walking the world, a man of considerable consequence.  I could see his
staring eyes and gleams of light on his studs and watch chain.  He
vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence.  And
then began a shrieking and a sustained and cheerful hooting from the
Martians.

I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, clapped my hands
over my ears, and bolted into the scullery.  The curate, who had been
crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up as I passed,
cried out quite loudly at my desertion of him, and came running after
me.

That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our
horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt
an urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of
escape; but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider
our position with great clearness.  The curate, I found, was quite
incapable of discussion; this new and culminating atrocity had robbed
him of all vestiges of reason or forethought.  Practically he had
already sunk to the level of an animal.  But as the saying goes, I
gripped myself with both hands.  It grew upon my mind, once I could
face the facts, that terrible as our position was, there was as yet
no justification for absolute despair.  Our chief chance lay in the
possibility of the Martians making the pit nothing more than a
temporary encampment.  Or even if they kept it permanently, they might
not consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of escape might be
afforded us.  I also weighed very carefully the possibility of our
digging a way out in a direction away from the pit, but the chances of
our emerging within sight of some sentinel fighting-machine seemed at
first too great.  And I should have had to do all the digging myself.
The curate would certainly have failed me.

It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw
the lad killed.  It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the
Martians feed.  After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall
for the better part of a day.  I went into the scullery, removed the
door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as
possible; but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the
loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue.  I lost
heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no
spirit even to move.  And after that I abandoned altogether the idea
of escaping by excavation.

It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that
at first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought
about by their overthrow through any human effort.  But on the fourth
or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns.

It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly.
The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a
fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a
handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the
pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them.
Except for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and
patches of white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for
the clinking of the handling-machine, quite still.  That night was a
beautiful serenity; save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the
sky to herself.  I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was
that made me listen.  Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly
like the sound of great guns.  Six distinct reports I counted, and
after a long interval six again.  And that was all.



CHAPTER FOUR

THE DEATH OF THE CURATE


It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the
last time, and presently found myself alone.  Instead of keeping close
to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back
into the scullery.  I was struck by a sudden thought.  I went back
quickly and quietly into the scullery.  In the darkness I heard the
curate drinking.  I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a
bottle of burgundy.

For a few minutes there was a tussle.  The bottle struck the floor
and broke, and I desisted and rose.  We stood panting and threatening
each other.  In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and
told him of my determination to begin a discipline.  I divided the
food in the pantry, into rations to last us ten days.  I would not let
him eat any more that day.  In the afternoon he made a feeble effort
to get at the food.  I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake.
All day and all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and
he weeping and complaining of his immediate hunger.  It was, I know, a
night and a day, but to me it seemed--it seems now--an interminable
length of time.

And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict.
For two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests.
There were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I
cajoled and persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last
bottle of burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could
get water.  But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed
beyond reason.  He would neither desist from his attacks on the food
nor from his noisy babbling to himself.  The rudimentary precautions
to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe.  Slowly I
began to realise the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to
perceive that my sole companion in this close and sickly darkness was
a man insane.

From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind
wandered at times.  I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept.
It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness
and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane
man.

On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and
nothing I could do would moderate his speech.

"It is just, O God!" he would say, over and over again. "It is
just.  On me and mine be the punishment laid.  We have sinned, we have
fallen short.  There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in
the dust, and I held my peace.  I preached acceptable folly--my God,
what folly!--when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and
called upon them to repent-repent! . . .  Oppressors of the poor and
needy . . . !  The wine press of God!"

Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld
from him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening.  He began to
raise his voice--I prayed him not to.  He perceived a hold on me--he
threatened he would shout and bring the Martians upon us.  For a time
that scared me; but any concession would have shortened our chance of
escape beyond estimating.  I defied him, although I felt no assurance
that he might not do this thing.  But that day, at any rate, he did
not.  He talked with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part
of the eighth and ninth days--threats, entreaties, mingled with a
torrent of half-sane and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham
of God's service, such as made me pity him.  Then he slept awhile, and
began again with renewed strength, so loudly that I must needs make
him desist.

"Be still!" I implored.

He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near
the copper.

"I have been still too long," he said, in a tone that must have
reached the pit, "and now I must bear my witness.  Woe unto this
unfaithful city!  Woe!  Woe!  Woe!  Woe!  Woe! To the inhabitants of
the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet----"

"Shut up!" I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the
Martians should hear us.  "For God's sake----"

"Nay," shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing
likewise and extending his arms.  "Speak!  The word of the Lord is
upon me!"

In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen.

"I must bear my witness!  I go!  It has already been too long
delayed."

I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall.
In a flash I was after him.  I was fierce with fear.  Before he was
halfway across the kitchen I had overtaken him.  With one last touch
of humanity I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt.  He
went headlong forward and lay stretched on the ground.  I stumbled
over him and stood panting.  He lay still.

Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping
plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened.  I
looked up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming
slowly across the hole.  One of its gripping limbs curled amid the
debris; another limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams.
I stood petrified, staring.  Then I saw through a sort of glass plate
near the edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large
dark eyes of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of
tentacle came feeling slowly through the hole.

I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the
scullery door.  The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in
the room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this
way and that.  For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful
advance.  Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the
scullery.  I trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright.  I
opened the door of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness
staring at the faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening.
Had the Martian seen me?  What was it doing now?

Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and
then it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a
faint metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a split-ring.
Then a heavy body--I knew too well what--was dragged across the floor
of the kitchen towards the opening.  Irresistibly attracted, I crept
to the door and peeped into the kitchen.  In the triangle of bright
outer sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handling-machine,
scrutinizing the curate's head.  I thought at once that it would infer
my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him.

I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover
myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the
darkness, among the firewood and coal therein.  Every now and then I
paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through
the opening again.

Then the faint metallic jingle returned.  I traced it slowly
feeling over the kitchen.  Presently I heard it nearer--in the
scullery, as I judged.  I thought that its length might be
insufficient to reach me.  I prayed copiously.  It passed, scraping
faintly across the cellar door.  An age of almost intolerable suspense
intervened; then I heard it fumbling at the latch! It had found the
door!  The Martians understood doors!

It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door
opened.

In the darkness I could just see the thing--like an elephant's
trunk more than anything else--waving towards me and touching and
examining the wall, coals, wood and ceiling.  It was like a black worm
swaying its blind head to and fro.

Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot.  I was on the verge of
screaming; I bit my hand.  For a time the tentacle was silent.  I
could have fancied it had been withdrawn.  Presently, with an abrupt
click, it gripped something--I thought it had me!--and seemed to go
out of the cellar again.  For a minute I was not sure.  Apparently it
had taken a lump of coal to examine.

I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which
had become cramped, and then listened.  I whispered passionate prayers
for safety.

Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again.
Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping
the furniture.

While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar
door and closed it.  I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuit-tins
rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against
the cellar door.  Then silence that passed into an infinity of
suspense.

Had it gone?

At last I decided that it had.

It came into the scullery no more; but I lay all the tenth day in
the close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even
to crawl out for the drink for which I craved.  It was the eleventh day
before I ventured so far from my security.



CHAPTER FIVE

THE STILLNESS


My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door
between the kitchen and the scullery.  But the pantry was empty; every
scrap of food had gone.  Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on
the previous day.  At that discovery I despaired for the first time.  I
took no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day.

At first my mouth and throat were parched, and my strength ebbed
sensibly.  I sat about in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of
despondent wretchedness.  My mind ran on eating.  I thought I had
become deaf, for the noises of movement I had been accustomed to hear
from the pit had ceased absolutely.  I did not feel strong enough to
crawl noiselessly to the peephole, or I would have gone there.

On the twelfth day my throat was so painful that, taking the chance
of alarming the Martians, I attacked the creaking rain-water pump that
stood by the sink, and got a couple of glassfuls of blackened and
tainted rain water.  I was greatly refreshed by this, and emboldened
by the fact that no enquiring tentacle followed the noise of my
pumping.

During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much
of the curate and of the manner of his death.

On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and
thought disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of
escape.  Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death
of the curate, or of sumptuous dinners; but, asleep or awake, I felt a
keen pain that urged me to drink again and again.  The light that came
into the scullery was no longer grey, but red.  To my disordered
imagination it seemed the colour of blood.

On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised
to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across
the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a
crimson-coloured obscurity.

It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious, familiar
sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as
the snuffing and scratching of a dog.  Going into the kitchen, I saw a
dog's nose peering in through a break among the ruddy fronds.  This
greatly surprised me.  At the scent of me he barked shortly.

I thought if I could induce him to come into the place quietly I
should be able, perhaps, to kill and eat him; and in any case, it
would be advisable to kill him, lest his actions attracted the
attention of the Martians.

I crept forward, saying "Good dog!" very softly; but he suddenly
withdrew his head and disappeared.

I listened--I was not deaf--but certainly the pit was still.  I
heard a sound like the flutter of a bird's wings, and a hoarse
croaking, but that was all.

For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but not daring to
move aside the red plants that obscured it.  Once or twice I heard a
faint pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going hither and thither
on the sand far below me, and there were more birdlike sounds, but
that was all.  At length, encouraged by the silence, I looked out.

Except in the corner, where a multitude of crows hopped and fought
over the skeletons of the dead the Martians had consumed, there was
not a living thing in the pit.

I stared about me, scarcely believing my eyes.  All the machinery
had gone.  Save for the big mound of greyish-blue powder in one
corner, certain bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the
skeletons of the killed, the place was merely an empty circular pit in
the sand.

Slowly I thrust myself out through the red weed, and stood upon the
mound of rubble.  I could see in any direction save behind me, to the
north, and neither Martians nor sign of Martians were to be seen.  The
pit dropped sheerly from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish
afforded a practicable slope to the summit of the ruins.  My chance of
escape had come.  I began to tremble.

I hesitated for some time, and then, in a gust of desperate
resolution, and with a heart that throbbed violently, I scrambled to
the top of the mound in which I had been buried so long.

I looked about again.  To the northward, too, no Martian was
visible.

When I had last seen this part of Sheen in the daylight it had been
a straggling street of comfortable white and red houses, interspersed
with abundant shady trees.  Now I stood on a mound of smashed
brickwork, clay, and gravel, over which spread a multitude of red
cactus-shaped plants, knee-high, without a solitary terrestrial growth
to dispute their footing.  The trees near me were dead and brown, but
further a network of red thread scaled the still living stems.

The neighbouring houses had all been wrecked, but none had been
burned; their walls stood, sometimes to the second story, with smashed
windows and shattered doors.  The red weed grew tumultuously in their
roofless rooms.  Below me was the great pit, with the crows struggling
for its refuse.  A number of other birds hopped about among the ruins.
Far away I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces
of men there were none.

The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly
bright, the sky a glowing blue.  A gentle breeze kept the red weed
that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying.  And oh!
the sweetness of the air!



CHAPTER SIX

THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS


For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my
safety.  Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had
thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security.  I had
not realised what had been happening to the world, had not anticipated
this startling vision of unfamiliar things.  I had expected to see
Sheen in ruins--I found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of
another planet.

For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of
men, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well.  I
felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly
confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations
of a house.  I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew
quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of
dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an
animal among the animals, under the Martian heel.  With us it would be
as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire
of man had passed away.

But so soon as this strangeness had been realised it passed, and my
dominant motive became the hunger of my long and dismal fast.  In the
direction away from the pit I saw, beyond a red-covered wall, a patch
of garden ground unburied.  This gave me a hint, and I went knee-deep,
and sometimes neck-deep, in the red weed.  The density of the
weed gave me a reassuring sense of hiding.  The wall was some six feet
high, and when I attempted to clamber it I found I could not lift my
feet to the crest.  So I went along by the side of it, and came to a
corner and a rockwork that enabled me to get to the top, and tumble
into the garden I coveted.  Here I found some young onions, a couple
of gladiolus bulbs, and a quantity of immature carrots, all of which I
secured, and, scrambling over a ruined wall, went on my way through
scarlet and crimson trees towards Kew--it was like walking through an
avenue of gigantic blood drops--possessed with two ideas: to get more
food, and to limp, as soon and as far as my strength permitted, out of
this accursed unearthly region of the pit.

Some way farther, in a grassy place, was a group of mushrooms which
also I devoured, and then I came upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow
water, where meadows used to be.  These fragments of nourishment served
only to whet my hunger.  At first I was surprised at this flood in a
hot, dry summer, but afterwards I discovered that it was caused by the
tropical exuberance of the red weed.  Directly this extraordinary
growth encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of
unparalleled fecundity.  Its seeds were simply poured down into the
water of the Wey and Thames, and its swiftly growing and Titanic water
fronds speedily choked both those rivers.

At Putney, as I afterwards saw, the bridge was almost lost in a
tangle of this weed, and at Richmond, too, the Thames water poured in
a broad and shallow stream across the meadows of Hampton and
Twickenham.  As the water spread the weed followed them, until the
ruined villas of the Thames valley were for a time lost in this red
swamp, whose margin I explored, and much of the desolation the
Martians had caused was concealed.

In the end the red weed succumbed almost as quickly as it had
spread.  A cankering disease, due, it is believed, to the action of
certain bacteria, presently seized upon it.  Now by the action of
natural selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting
power against bacterial diseases--they never succumb without a severe
struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead.  The
fronds became bleached, and then shrivelled and brittle.  They broke
off at the least touch, and the waters that had stimulated their early
growth carried their last vestiges out to sea.

My first act on coming to this water was, of course, to slake my
thirst.  I drank a great deal of it and, moved by an impulse, gnawed
some fronds of red weed; but they were watery, and had a sickly,
metallic taste.  I found the water was sufficiently shallow for me to
wade securely, although the red weed impeded my feet a little; but the
flood evidently got deeper towards the river, and I turned back to
Mortlake.  I managed to make out the road by means of occasional ruins
of its villas and fences and lamps, and so presently I got out of this
spate and made my way to the hill going up towards Roehampton and came
out on Putney Common.

Here the scenery changed from the strange and unfamiliar to the
wreckage of the familiar: patches of ground exhibited the devastation
of a cyclone, and in a few score yards I would come upon perfectly
undisturbed spaces, houses with their blinds trimly drawn and doors
closed, as if they had been left for a day by the owners, or as if
their inhabitants slept within.  The red weed was less abundant; the
tall trees along the lane were free from the red creeper.  I hunted
for food among the trees, finding nothing, and I also raided a couple
of silent houses, but they had already been broken into and ransacked.
I rested for the remainder of the daylight in a shrubbery, being, in
my enfeebled condition, too fatigued to push on.

All this time I saw no human beings, and no signs of the Martians.
I encountered a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but both hurried
circuitously away from the advances I made them.  Near Roehampton I
had seen two human skeletons--not bodies, but skeletons, picked
clean--and in the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones
of several cats and rabbits and the skull of a sheep.  But though I
gnawed parts of these in my mouth, there was nothing to be got from
them.

After sunset I struggled on along the road towards Putney, where I
think the Heat-Ray must have been used for some reason.  And in the
garden beyond Roehampton I got a quantity of immature potatoes,
sufficient to stay my hunger.  From this garden one looked down upon
Putney and the river.  The aspect of the place in the dusk was
singularly desolate: blackened trees, blackened, desolate ruins, and
down the hill the sheets of the flooded river, red-tinged with the
weed.  And over all--silence.  It filled me with indescribable terror
to think how swiftly that desolating change had come.

For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence,
and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive.  Hard by the
top of Putney Hill I came upon another skeleton, with the arms
dislocated and removed several yards from the rest of the body.  As I
proceeded I became more and more convinced that the extermination of
mankind was, save for such stragglers as myself, already accomplished
in this part of the world.  The Martians, I thought, had gone on and
left the country desolated, seeking food elsewhere.  Perhaps even now
they were destroying Berlin or Paris, or it might be they had gone
northward.



CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL


I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney
Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to
Leatherhead.  I will not tell the needless trouble I had breaking into
that house--afterwards I found the front door was on the latch--nor
how I ransacked every room for food, until just on the verge of
despair, in what seemed to me to be a servant's bedroom, I found a
rat-gnawed crust and two tins of pineapple.  The place had been
already searched and emptied.  In the bar I afterwards found some
biscuits and sandwiches that had been overlooked.  The latter I could
not eat, they were too rotten, but the former not only stayed my
hunger, but filled my pockets.  I lit no lamps, fearing some Martian
might come beating that part of London for food in the night.  Before
I went to bed I had an interval of restlessness, and prowled from
window to window, peering out for some sign of these monsters.  I
slept little.  As I lay in bed I found myself thinking consecutively--a
thing I do not remember to have done since my last argument with the
curate.  During all the intervening time my mental condition had been
a hurrying succession of vague emotional states or a sort of stupid
receptivity.  But in the night my brain, reinforced, I suppose, by the
food I had eaten, grew clear again, and I thought.

Three things struggled for possession of my mind: the killing of
the curate, the whereabouts of the Martians, and the possible fate of
my wife.  The former gave me no sensation of horror or remorse to
recall; I saw it simply as a thing done, a memory infinitely
disagreeable but quite without the quality of remorse.  I saw myself
then as I see myself now, driven step by step towards that hasty blow,
the creature of a sequence of accidents leading inevitably to that.  I
felt no condemnation; yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted
me.  In the silence of the night, with that sense of the nearness of
God that sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood
my trial, my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear.  I
retraced every step of our conversation from the moment when I had
found him crouching beside me, heedless of my thirst, and pointing to
the fire and smoke that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge.  We
had been incapable of co-operation--grim chance had taken no heed of
that.  Had I foreseen, I should have left him at Halliford.  But I did
not foresee; and crime is to foresee and do.  And I set this down as I
have set all this story down, as it was.  There were no witnesses--all
these things I might have concealed.  But I set it down, and the
reader must form his judgment as he will.

And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate
body, I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife.  For
the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so,
unhappily, I could for the latter.  And suddenly that night became
terrible.  I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark.  I
found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and
painlessly struck her out of being.  Since the night of my return from
Leatherhead I had not prayed.  I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers,
had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now
I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with
the darkness of God.  Strange night!  Strangest in this, that so soon
as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house
like a rat leaving its hiding place--a creature scarcely larger, an
inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters
might be hunted and killed.  Perhaps they also prayed confidently to
God.  Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us
pity--pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion.

The morning was bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink,
and was fretted with little golden clouds.  In the road that runs from
the top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of
the panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night
after the fighting began.  There was a little two-wheeled cart
inscribed with the name of Thomas Lobb, Greengrocer, New Malden, with
a smashed wheel and an abandoned tin trunk; there was a straw hat
trampled into the now hardened mud, and at the top of West Hill a lot
of blood-stained glass about the overturned water trough.  My
movements were languid, my plans of the vaguest.  I had an idea of
going to Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the poorest
chance of finding my wife.  Certainly, unless death had overtaken them
suddenly, my cousins and she would have fled thence; but it seemed to
me I might find or learn there whither the Surrey people had fled.  I
knew I wanted to find my wife, that my heart ached for her and the
world of men, but I had no clear idea how the finding might be done.  I
was also sharply aware now of my intense loneliness.  From the corner
I went, under cover of a thicket of trees and bushes, to the edge of
Wimbledon Common, stretching wide and far.

That dark expanse was lit in patches by yellow gorse and broom;
there was no red weed to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating, on the
verge of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all with light and
vitality.  I came upon a busy swarm of little frogs in a swampy place
among the trees.  I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from
their stout resolve to live.  And presently, turning suddenly, with an
odd feeling of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a
clump of bushes.  I stood regarding this.  I made a step towards it,
and it rose up and became a man armed with a cutlass.  I approached
him slowly.  He stood silent and motionless, regarding me.

As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and
filthy as my own; he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged
through a culvert.  Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches
mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches.  His
black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and
sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him.  There was a red cut
across the lower part of his face.

"Stop!" he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I
stopped.  His voice was hoarse.  "Where do you come from?" he said.

I thought, surveying him.

"I come from Mortlake," I said.  "I was buried near the pit the
Martians made about their cylinder.  I have worked my way out and
escaped."

"There is no food about here," he said.  "This is my country.  All
this hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge
of the common.  There is only food for one.  Which way are you going?"

I answered slowly.

"I don't know," I said.  "I have been buried in the ruins of a
house thirteen or fourteen days.  I don't know what has happened."

He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed
expression.

"I've no wish to stop about here," said I.  "I think I shall go to
Leatherhead, for my wife was there."

He shot out a pointing finger.

"It is you," said he; "the man from Woking.  And you weren't killed
at Weybridge?"

I recognised him at the same moment.

"You are the artilleryman who came into my garden."

"Good luck!" he said.  "We are lucky ones!  Fancy _you_!"  He put out
a hand, and I took it.  "I crawled up a drain," he said. "But they
didn't kill everyone.  And after they went away I got off towards
Walton across the fields.  But---- It's not sixteen days altogether--and
your hair is grey."  He looked over his shoulder suddenly.  "Only
a rook," he said.  "One gets to know that birds have shadows these
days.  This is a bit open.  Let us crawl under those bushes and talk."

"Have you seen any Martians?" I said.  "Since I crawled out----"

"They've gone away across London," he said.  "I guess they've got a
bigger camp there.  Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky
is alive with their lights.  It's like a great city, and in the glare
you can just see them moving.  By daylight you can't.  But nearer--I
haven't seen them--" (he counted on his fingers) "five days.  Then I
saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big.  And the
night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it was just a
matter of lights, but it was something up in the air.  I believe
they've built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly."

I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes.

"Fly!"

"Yes," he said, "fly."

I went on into a little bower, and sat down.

"It is all over with humanity," I said.  "If they can do that they
will simply go round the world."

He nodded.

"They will.  But---- It will relieve things over here a bit.  And
besides----"  He looked at me.  "Aren't you satisfied it _is_ up with
humanity?  I am.  We're down; we're beat."

I stared.  Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact--a
fact perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke.  I had still held a
vague hope; rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind.  He repeated
his words, "We're beat."  They carried absolute conviction.

"It's all over," he said.  "They've lost _one_--just _one_.  And they've
made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world.
They've walked over us.  The death of that one at Weybridge was an
accident.  And these are only pioneers.  They kept on coming.  These
green stars--I've seen none these five or six days, but I've no doubt
they're falling somewhere every night.  Nothing's to be done.  We're
under! We're beat!"

I made him no answer.  I sat staring before me, trying in vain to
devise some countervailing thought.

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman.  "It never was a war,
any more than there's war between man and ants."

Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory.

"After the tenth shot they fired no more--at least, until the first
cylinder came."

"How do you know?" said the artilleryman.  I explained.  He thought.
"Something wrong with the gun," he said.  "But what if there is?
They'll get it right again.  And even if there's a delay, how can it
alter the end?  It's just men and ants.  There's the ants builds their
cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want
them out of the way, and then they go out of the way.  That's what we
are now--just ants.  Only----"

"Yes," I said.

"We're eatable ants."

We sat looking at each other.

"And what will they do with us?" I said.

"That's what I've been thinking," he said; "that's what I've been
thinking.  After Weybridge I went south--thinking.  I saw what was up.
Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves.
But I'm not so fond of squealing.  I've been in sight of death once or
twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst,
death--it's just death.  And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes
through.  I saw everyone tracking away south.  Says I, 'Food won't
last this way,' and I turned right back.  I went for the Martians like
a sparrow goes for man.  All round"--he waved a hand to the
horizon--"they're starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other.
. . ."

He saw my face, and halted awkwardly.

"No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France," he said.  He
seemed to hesitate whether to apologise, met my eyes, and went on:
"There's food all about here.  Canned things in shops; wines, spirits,
mineral waters; and the water mains and drains are empty.  Well, I was
telling you what I was thinking.  'Here's intelligent things,' I said,
'and it seems they want us for food.  First, they'll smash us up--ships,
machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation.  All
that will go.  If we were the size of ants we might pull through.  But
we're not.  It's all too bulky to stop.  That's the first certainty.'
Eh?"

I assented.

"It is; I've thought it out.  Very well, then--next; at present
we're caught as we're wanted.  A Martian has only to go a few miles to
get a crowd on the run.  And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth,
picking houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage.  But they
won't keep on doing that.  So soon as they've settled all our guns and
ships, and smashed our railways, and done all the things they are
doing over there, they will begin catching us systematic, picking the
best and storing us in cages and things.  That's what they will start
doing in a bit.  Lord!  They haven't begun on us yet.  Don't you see
that?"

"Not begun!" I exclaimed.

"Not begun.  All that's happened so far is through our not having
the sense to keep quiet--worrying them with guns and such foolery.  And
losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn't any
more safety than where we were.  They don't want to bother us yet.
They're making their things--making all the things they couldn't bring
with them, getting things ready for the rest of their people.  Very
likely that's why the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of
hitting those who are here.  And instead of our rushing about blind,
on the howl, or getting dynamite on the chance of busting them up,
we've got to fix ourselves up according to the new state of affairs.
That's how I figure it out.  It isn't quite according to what a man
wants for his species, but it's about what the facts point to.  And
that's the principle I acted upon.  Cities, nations, civilisation,
progress--it's all over.  That game's up.  We're beat."

"But if that is so, what is there to live for?"

The artilleryman looked at me for a moment.

"There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or
so; there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds
at restaurants.  If it's amusement you're after, I reckon the game is
up.  If you've got any drawing-room manners or a dislike to eating
peas with a knife or dropping aitches, you'd better chuck 'em away.
They ain't no further use."

"You mean----"

"I mean that men like me are going on living--for the sake of the
breed.  I tell you, I'm grim set on living.  And if I'm not mistaken,
you'll show what insides _you've_ got, too, before long.  We aren't
going to be exterminated.  And I don't mean to be caught either, and
tamed and fattened and bred like a thundering ox.  Ugh! Fancy those
brown creepers!"

"You don't mean to say----"

"I do.  I'm going on, under their feet.  I've got it planned; I've
thought it out.  We men are beat.  We don't know enough.  We've got to
learn before we've got a chance.  And we've got to live and keep
independent while we learn.  See! That's what has to be done."

I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man's
resolution.

"Great God!" cried I.  "But you are a man indeed!"  And suddenly I
gripped his hand.

"Eh!" he said, with his eyes shining.  "I've thought it out, eh?"

"Go on," I said.

"Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready.  I'm
getting ready.  Mind you, it isn't all of us that are made for wild
beasts; and that's what it's got to be.  That's why I watched you.  I
had my doubts.  You're slender.  I didn't know that it was you, you
see, or just how you'd been buried.  All these--the sort of people
that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used
to live down that way--they'd be no good.  They haven't any spirit in
them--no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn't one or
the other--Lord!  What is he but funk and precautions?  They just used
to skedaddle off to work--I've seen hundreds of 'em, bit of breakfast
in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little season-ticket
train, for fear they'd get dismissed if they didn't; working at
businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand;
skedaddling back for fear they wouldn't be in time for dinner; keeping
indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with
the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they
had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little
miserable skedaddle through the world.  Lives insured and a bit
invested for fear of accidents.  And on Sundays--fear of the
hereafter.  As if hell was built for rabbits!  Well, the Martians will
just be a godsend to these.  Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful
breeding, no worry.  After a week or so chasing about the fields and
lands on empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful.  They'll
be quite glad after a bit.  They'll wonder what people did before
there were Martians to take care of them.  And the bar loafers, and
mashers, and singers--I can imagine them.  I can imagine them," he
said, with a sort of sombre gratification.  "There'll be any amount of
sentiment and religion loose among them.  There's hundreds of things I
saw with my eyes that I've only begun to see clearly these last few
days.  There's lots will take things as they are--fat and stupid; and
lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it's all wrong, and
that they ought to be doing something.  Now whenever things are so
that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak,
and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make
for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and
submit to persecution and the will of the Lord.  Very likely you've
seen the same thing.  It's energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean
inside out.  These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety.
And those of a less simple sort will work in a bit of--what is
it?--eroticism."

He paused.

"Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train
them to do tricks--who knows?--get sentimental over the pet boy who
grew up and had to be killed.  And some, maybe, they will train to
hunt us."

"No," I cried, "that's impossible!  No human being----"

"What's the good of going on with such lies?" said the
artilleryman.  "There's men who'd do it cheerful.  What nonsense to
pretend there isn't!"

And I succumbed to his conviction.

"If they come after me," he said; "Lord, if they come after me!"
and subsided into a grim meditation.

I sat contemplating these things.  I could find nothing to bring
against this man's reasoning.  In the days before the invasion no one
would have questioned my intellectual superiority to his--I, a
professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a
common soldier; and yet he had already formulated a situation that I
had scarcely realised.

"What are you doing?" I said presently.  "What plans have you
made?"

He hesitated.

"Well, it's like this," he said.  "What have we to do?  We have to
invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be
sufficiently secure to bring the children up.  Yes--wait a bit, and
I'll make it clearer what I think ought to be done.  The tame ones
will go like all tame beasts; in a few generations they'll be big,
beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid--rubbish! The risk is that we who keep
wild will go savage--degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . .
You see, how I mean to live is underground.  I've been thinking about
the drains.  Of course those who don't know drains think horrible
things; but under this London are miles and miles--hundreds of
miles--and a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and
clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone.
Then there's cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may
be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways.  Eh?  You
begin to see?  And we form a band--able-bodied, clean-minded men.
We're not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in.  Weaklings
go out again."

"As you meant me to go?"

"Well--I parleyed, didn't I?"

"We won't quarrel about that.  Go on."

"Those who stop obey orders.  Able-bodied, clean-minded women we
want also--mothers and teachers.  No lackadaisical ladies--no blasted
rolling eyes.  We can't have any weak or silly.  Life is real again,
and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die.  They
ought to die.  They ought to be willing to die.  It's a sort of
disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race.  And they can't be
happy.  Moreover, dying's none so dreadful; it's the funking makes it
bad.  And in all those places we shall gather.  Our district will be
London.  And we may even be able to keep a watch, and run about in the
open when the Martians keep away.  Play cricket, perhaps.  That's how
we shall save the race.  Eh?  It's a possible thing?  But saving the
race is nothing in itself.  As I say, that's only being rats.  It's
saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing.  There men like
you come in.  There's books, there's models.  We must make great safe
places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry
swipes, but ideas, science books.  That's where men like you come in.
We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through.
Especially we must keep up our science--learn more.  We must watch
these Martians.  Some of us must go as spies.  When it's all working,
perhaps I will.  Get caught, I mean.  And the great thing is, we must
leave the Martians alone.  We mustn't even steal.  If we get in their
way, we clear out.  We must show them we mean no harm.  Yes, I know.
But they're intelligent things, and they won't hunt us down if they
have all they want, and think we're just harmless vermin."

The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm.

"After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn before--Just
imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly
starting off--Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in 'em.  Not
a Martian in 'em, but men--men who have learned the way how.  It may
be in my time, even--those men.  Fancy having one of them lovely
things, with its Heat-Ray wide and free!  Fancy having it in control!
What would it matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the
run, after a bust like that?  I reckon the Martians'll open their
beautiful eyes!  Can't you see them, man?  Can't you see them
hurrying, hurrying--puffing and blowing and hooting to their other
mechanical affairs?  Something out of gear in every case.  And swish,
bang, rattle, swish!  Just as they are fumbling over it, _swish_ comes
the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has come back to his own."

For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the
tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my
mind.  I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny
and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader
who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position,
reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine,
crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by
apprehension.  We talked in this manner through the early morning
time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky
for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where
he had made his lair.  It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I
saw the work he had spent a week upon--it was a burrow scarcely ten
yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney
Hill--I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his
powers.  Such a hole I could have dug in a day.  But I believed in him
sufficiently to work with him all that morning until past midday at
his digging.  We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed
against the kitchen range.  We refreshed ourselves with a tin of
mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry.  I found a
curious relief from the aching strangeness of the world in this steady
labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in my mind, and
presently objections and doubts began to arise; but I worked there all
the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a purpose again.  After
working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go
before the cloaca was reached, the chances we had of missing it
altogether.  My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long
tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at once down one of
the manholes, and work back to the house.  It seemed to me, too, that
the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a needless length of
tunnel.  And just as I was beginning to face these things, the
artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me.

"We're working well," he said.  He put down his spade. "Let us
knock off a bit" he said.  "I think it's time we reconnoitred from the
roof of the house."

I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his
spade; and then suddenly I was struck by a thought.  I stopped, and so
did he at once.

"Why were you walking about the common," I said, "instead of being
here?"

"Taking the air," he said.  "I was coming back.  It's safer by
night."

"But the work?"

"Oh, one can't always work," he said, and in a flash I saw the man
plain.  He hesitated, holding his spade.  "We ought to reconnoitre
now," he said, "because if any come near they may hear the spades and
drop upon us unawares."

I was no longer disposed to object.  We went together to the roof
and stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door.  No Martians were
to be seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under
shelter of the parapet.

From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney,
but we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the
low parts of Lambeth flooded and red.  The red creeper swarmed up the
trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and
dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters.  It was
strange how entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing
water for their propagation.  About us neither had gained a footing;
laburnums, pink mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of
laurels and hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight.  Beyond
Kensington dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the
northward hills.

The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still
remained in London.

"One night last week," he said, "some fools got the electric light
in order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze,
crowded with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and
shouting till dawn.  A man who was there told me.  And as the day came
they became aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham
and looking down at them.  Heaven knows how long he had been there.
It must have given some of them a nasty turn.  He came down the road
towards them, and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened
to run away."

Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe!

From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his
grandiose plans again.  He grew enthusiastic.  He talked so eloquently
of the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than
half believed in him again.  But now that I was beginning to
understand something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid
on doing nothing precipitately.  And I noted that now there was no
question that he personally was to capture and fight the great
machine.

After a time we went down to the cellar.  Neither of us seemed
disposed to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was
nothing loath.  He became suddenly very generous, and when we had
eaten he went away and returned with some excellent cigars.  We lit
these, and his optimism glowed.  He was inclined to regard my coming
as a great occasion.

"There's some champagne in the cellar," he said.

"We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy," said I.

"No," said he; "I am host today.  Champagne!  Great God! We've a
heavy enough task before us!  Let us take a rest and gather strength
while we may.  Look at these blistered hands!"

And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing
cards after we had eaten.  He taught me euchre, and after dividing
London between us, I taking the northern side and he the southern, we
played for parish points.  Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to
the sober reader, it is absolutely true, and what is more remarkable,
I found the card game and several others we played extremely
interesting.

Strange mind of man! that, with our species upon the edge of
extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before
us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the
chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the "joker" with vivid
delight.  Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough
chess games.  When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit a
lamp.

After an interminable string of games, we supped, and the
artilleryman finished the champagne.  We went on smoking the cigars.
He was no longer the energetic regenerator of his species I had
encountered in the morning.  He was still optimistic, but it was a
less kinetic, a more thoughtful optimism.  I remember he wound up with
my health, proposed in a speech of small variety and considerable
intermittence.  I took a cigar, and went upstairs to look at the
lights of which he had spoken that blazed so greenly along the
Highgate hills.

At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley.  The
northern hills were shrouded in darkness; the fires near Kensington
glowed redly, and now and then an orange-red tongue of flame flashed
up and vanished in the deep blue night.  All the rest of London
was black.  Then, nearer, I perceived a strange light, a pale,
violet-purple fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze.  For
a space I could not understand it, and then I knew that it must be
the red weed from which this faint irradiation proceeded.  With that
realisation my dormant sense of wonder, my sense of the proportion of
things, awoke again.  I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear,
glowing high in the west, and then gazed long and earnestly at the
darkness of Hampstead and Highgate.

I remained a very long time upon the roof, wondering at the
grotesque changes of the day.  I recalled my mental states from the
midnight prayer to the foolish card-playing.  I had a violent
revulsion of feeling.  I remember I flung away the cigar with a
certain wasteful symbolism.  My folly came to me with glaring
exaggeration.  I seemed a traitor to my wife and to my kind; I was
filled with remorse.  I resolved to leave this strange undisciplined
dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony, and to go on into
London.  There, it seemed to me, I had the best chance of learning
what the Martians and my fellowmen were doing.  I was still upon the
roof when the late moon rose.



CHAPTER EIGHT

DEAD LONDON


After I had parted from the artilleryman, I went down the hill, and
by the High Street across the bridge to Fulham.  The red weed was
tumultuous at that time, and nearly choked the bridge roadway; but its
fronds were already whitened in patches by the spreading disease that
presently removed it so swiftly.

At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge station I
found a man lying.  He was as black as a sweep with the black dust,
alive, but helplessly and speechlessly drunk.  I could get nothing
from him but curses and furious lunges at my head.  I think I should
have stayed by him but for the brutal expression of his face.

There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards, and
it grew thicker in Fulham.  The streets were horribly quiet.  I got
food--sour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatable--in a baker's shop
here.  Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of
powder, and I passed a white terrace of houses on fire; the noise of
the burning was an absolute relief.  Going on towards Brompton, the
streets were quiet again.

Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon
dead bodies.  I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the
Fulham Road.  They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly
past them.  The black powder covered them over, and softened their
outlines.  One or two had been disturbed by dogs.

Where there was no black powder, it was curiously like a Sunday in
the City, with the closed shops, the houses locked up and the blinds
drawn, the desertion, and the stillness.  In some places plunderers
had been at work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine
shops.  A jeweller's window had been broken open in one place, but
apparently the thief had been disturbed, and a number of gold chains
and a watch lay scattered on the pavement.  I did not trouble to touch
them.  Farther on was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep; the
hand that hung over her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown
dress, and a smashed magnum of champagne formed a pool across the
pavement.  She seemed asleep, but she was dead.

The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew the
stillness.  But it was not so much the stillness of death--it was the
stillness of suspense, of expectation.  At any time the destruction
that had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis,
and had annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these
houses and leave them smoking ruins.  It was a city condemned and
derelict. . . .

In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of black
powder.  It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling.
It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses.  It was a sobbing
alternation of two notes, "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," keeping on
perpetually.  When I passed streets that ran northward it grew in
volume, and houses and buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off
again.  It came in a full tide down Exhibition Road.  I stopped,
staring towards Kensington Gardens, wondering at this strange, remote
wailing.  It was as if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice
for its fear and solitude.

"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," wailed that superhuman note--great waves
of sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit roadway, between the tall
buildings on each side.  I turned northwards, marvelling, towards the
iron gates of Hyde Park.  I had half a mind to break into the Natural
History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in
order to see across the park.  But I decided to keep to the ground,
where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition
Road.  All the large mansions on each side of the road were empty and
still, and my footsteps echoed against the sides of the houses.  At
the top, near the park gate, I came upon a strange sight--a bus
overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean.  I puzzled over
this for a time, and then went on to the bridge over the Serpentine.
The voice grew stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above
the housetops on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke to
the northwest.

"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," cried the voice, coming, as it seemed to
me, from the district about Regent's Park.  The desolating cry worked
upon my mind.  The mood that had sustained me passed.  The wailing
took possession of me.  I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and
now again hungry and thirsty.

It was already past noon.  Why was I wandering alone in this city
of the dead?  Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and
in its black shroud?  I felt intolerably lonely.  My mind ran on old
friends that I had forgotten for years.  I thought of the poisons in
the chemists' shops, of the liquors the wine merchants stored; I
recalled the two sodden creatures of despair, who so far as I knew,
shared the city with myself. . . .

I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here again were
black powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the
gratings of the cellars of some of the houses.  I grew very thirsty
after the heat of my long walk.  With infinite trouble I managed to
break into a public-house and get food and drink.  I was weary after
eating, and went into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black
horsehair sofa I found there.

I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears, "Ulla, ulla,
ulla, ulla."  It was now dusk, and after I had routed out some
biscuits and a cheese in the bar--there was a meat safe, but it
contained nothing but maggots--I wandered on through the silent
residential squares to Baker Street--Portman Square is the only one I
can name--and so came out at last upon Regent's Park.  And as I
emerged from the top of Baker Street, I saw far away over the trees in
the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which
this howling proceeded.  I was not terrified.  I came upon him as if
it were a matter of course.  I watched him for some time, but he did
not move.  He appeared to be standing and yelling, for no reason that
I could discover.

I tried to formulate a plan of action.  That perpetual sound of
"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," confused my mind.  Perhaps I was too tired
to be very fearful.  Certainly I was more curious to know the reason
of this monotonous crying than afraid.  I turned back away from the
park and struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went
along under the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this
stationary, howling Martian from the direction of St. John's Wood.  A
couple of hundred yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus,
and saw, first a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws
coming headlong towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in
pursuit of him.  He made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared
I might prove a fresh competitor.  As the yelping died away down the
silent road, the wailing sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," reasserted
itself.

I came upon the wrecked handling-machine halfway to St. John's Wood
station.  At first I thought a house had fallen across the road.  It
was only as I clambered among the ruins that I saw, with a start, this
mechanical Samson lying, with its tentacles bent and smashed and
twisted, among the ruins it had made.  The forepart was shattered.  It
seemed as if it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been
overwhelmed in its overthrow.  It seemed to me then that this might
have happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its
Martian.  I could not clamber among the ruins to see it, and the
twilight was now so far advanced that the blood with which its seat
was smeared, and the gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had
left, were invisible to me.

Wondering still more at all that I had seen, I pushed on towards
Primrose Hill.  Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second
Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the
Zoological Gardens, and silent.  A little beyond the ruins about the
smashed handling-machine I came upon the red weed again, and found the
Regent's Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation.

As I crossed the bridge, the sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,"
ceased.  It was, as it were, cut off.  The silence came like a
thunderclap.

The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim; the trees
towards the park were growing black.  All about me the red weed
clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness.
Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me.  But while
that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable;
by virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life
about me had upheld me.  Then suddenly a change, the passing of
something--I knew not what--and then a stillness that could be felt.
Nothing but this gaunt quiet.

London about me gazed at me spectrally.  The windows in the white
houses were like the eye sockets of skulls.  About me my imagination
found a thousand noiseless enemies moving.  Terror seized me, a horror
of my temerity.  In front of me the road became pitchy black as though
it was tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway.  I
could not bring myself to go on.  I turned down St. John's Wood Road,
and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn.  I
hid from the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a
cabmen's shelter in Harrow Road.  But before the dawn my courage
returned, and while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more
towards Regent's Park.  I missed my way among the streets, and
presently saw down a long avenue, in the half-light of the early dawn,
the curve of Primrose Hill.  On the summit, towering up to the fading
stars, was a third Martian, erect and motionless like the others.

An insane resolve possessed me.  I would die and end it.  And I
would save myself even the trouble of killing myself.  I marched on
recklessly towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the
light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and
clustering about the hood.  At that my heart gave a bound, and I began
running along the road.

I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund's Terrace (I
waded breast-high across a torrent of water that was rushing down from
the waterworks towards the Albert Road), and emerged upon the grass
before the rising of the sun.  Great mounds had been heaped about the
crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it--it was the final and
largest place the Martians had made--and from behind these heaps there
rose a thin smoke against the sky.  Against the sky line an eager dog
ran and disappeared.  The thought that had flashed into my mind grew
real, grew credible.  I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling
exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster.  Out
of the hood hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds
pecked and tore.

In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood
upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me.  A
mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it,
huge mounds of material and strange shelter places.  And scattered
about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid
handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a
row, were the Martians--_dead_!--slain by the putrefactive and disease
bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red
weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by
the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have
foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds.  These
germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of
things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here.
But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed
resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to
many--those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance--our
living frames are altogether immune.  But there are no bacteria in
Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and
fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow.  Already
when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting
even as they went to and fro.  It was inevitable.  By the toll of a
billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is
his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten
times as mighty as they are.  For neither do men live nor die in vain.

Here and there they were scattered, nearly fifty altogether, in
that great gulf they had made, overtaken by a death that must have
seemed to them as incomprehensible as any death could be.  To me also
at that time this death was incomprehensible.  All I knew was that
these things that had been alive and so terrible to men were dead.
For a moment I believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been
repeated, that God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain
them in the night.

I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously,
even as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his
rays.  The pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and
wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their
tortuous forms, rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows
towards the light.  A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the
bodies that lay darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me.  Across
the pit on its farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great
flying-machine with which they had been experimenting upon our denser
atmosphere when decay and death arrested them.  Death had come not a
day too soon.  At the sound of a cawing overhead I looked up at the
huge fighting-machine that would fight no more for ever, at the
tattered red shreds of flesh that dripped down upon the overturned
seats on the summit of Primrose Hill.

I turned and looked down the slope of the hill to where, enhaloed
now in birds, stood those other two Martians that I had seen
overnight, just as death had overtaken them.  The one had died, even
as it had been crying to its companions; perhaps it was the last to
die, and its voice had gone on perpetually until the force of its
machinery was exhausted.  They glittered now, harmless tripod towers
of shining metal, in the brightness of the rising sun.

All about the pit, and saved as by a miracle from everlasting
destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities.  Those who have only
seen London veiled in her sombre robes of smoke can scarcely imagine
the naked clearness and beauty of the silent wilderness of houses.

Eastward, over the blackened ruins of the Albert Terrace and the
splintered spire of the church, the sun blazed dazzling in a clear
sky, and here and there some facet in the great wilderness of roofs
caught the light and glared with a white intensity.

Northward were Kilburn and Hampsted, blue and crowded with houses;
westward the great city was dimmed; and southward, beyond the
Martians, the green waves of Regent's Park, the Langham Hotel, the
dome of the Albert Hall, the Imperial Institute, and the giant
mansions of the Brompton Road came out clear and little in the
sunrise, the jagged ruins of Westminster rising hazily beyond.  Far
away and blue were the Surrey hills, and the towers of the Crystal
Palace glittered like two silver rods.  The dome of St. Paul's was
dark against the sunrise, and injured, I saw for the first time, by a
huge gaping cavity on its western side.

And as I looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and
churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of the multitudinous
hopes and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to
build this human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that
had hung over it all; when I realised that the shadow had been rolled
back, and that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast
dead city of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of
emotion that was near akin to tears.

The torment was over.  Even that day the healing would begin.  The
survivors of the people scattered over the country--leaderless,
lawless, foodless, like sheep without a shepherd--the thousands who
had fled by sea, would begin to return; the pulse of life, growing
stronger and stronger, would beat again in the empty streets and pour
across the vacant squares.  Whatever destruction was done, the hand of
the destroyer was stayed.  All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened
skeletons of houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the
hill, would presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and
ringing with the tapping of their trowels.  At the thought I extended
my hands towards the sky and began thanking God.  In a year, thought
I--in a year. . .

With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and
the old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased for ever.



CHAPTER NINE

WRECKAGE


And now comes the strangest thing in my story.  Yet, perhaps, it is
not altogether strange.  I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly,
all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and
praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill.  And then I forget.

Of the next three days I know nothing.  I have learned since that,
so far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow,
several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the
previous night.  One man--the first--had gone to St. Martin's-le-Grand,
and, while I sheltered in the cabmen's hut, had contrived to
telegraph to Paris.  Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the
world; a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly
flashed into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin,
Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the
verge of the pit.  Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard,
shouting and staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making
up trains, even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London.  The church
bells that had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news,
until all England was bell-ringing.  Men on cycles, lean-faced,
unkempt, scorched along every country lane shouting of unhoped
deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair.  And for
the food!  Across the Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the
Atlantic, corn, bread, and meat were tearing to our relief.  All the
shipping in the world seemed going Londonward in those days.  But of
all this I have no memory.  I drifted--a demented man.  I found myself
in a house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day
wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St. John's Wood.
They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about
"The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah!  The Last Man Left Alive!"  Troubled
as they were with their own affairs, these people, whose name, much as
I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not even give
here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me, and
protected me from myself.  Apparently they had learned something of my
story from me during the days of my lapse.

Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me
what they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead.  Two days after I
was imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a
Martian.  He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any
provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness
of power.

I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me.  I was a lonely
man and a sad one, and they bore with me.  I remained with them four
days after my recovery.  All that time I felt a vague, a growing
craving to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that
seemed so happy and bright in my past.  It was a mere hopeless desire
to feast upon my misery.  They dissuaded me.  They did all they could
to divert me from this morbidity.  But at last I could resist the
impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to return to them, and
parting, as I will confess, from these four-day friends with tears, I
went out again into the streets that had lately been so dark and
strange and empty.

Already they were busy with returning people; in places even there
were shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water.

I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed as I went back on my
melancholy pilgrimage to the little house at Woking, how busy the
streets and vivid the moving life about me.  So many people were
abroad everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed
incredible that any great proportion of the population could have been
slain.  But then I noticed how yellow were the skins of the people I
met, how shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes,
and that every other man still wore his dirty rags.  Their faces
seemed all with one of two expressions--a leaping exultation and
energy or a grim resolution.  Save for the expression of the faces,
London seemed a city of tramps.  The vestries were indiscriminately
distributing bread sent us by the French government.  The ribs of the
few horses showed dismally.  Haggard special constables with white
badges stood at the corners of every street.  I saw little of the
mischief wrought by the Martians until I reached Wellington Street,
and there I saw the red weed clambering over the buttresses of
Waterloo Bridge.

At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts
of that grotesque time--a sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket
of the red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place.  It was
the placard of the first newspaper to resume publication--the _Daily
Mail_.  I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket.
Most of it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing
had amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement
stereo on the back page.  The matter he printed was emotional; the
news organisation had not as yet found its way back.  I learned
nothing fresh except that already in one week the examination of the
Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results.  Among other
things, the article assured me what I did not believe at the time,
that the "Secret of Flying," was discovered.  At Waterloo I found the
free trains that were taking people to their homes.  The first rush
was already over.  There were few people in the train, and I was in no
mood for casual conversation.  I got a compartment to myself, and sat
with folded arms, looking greyly at the sunlit devastation that flowed
past the windows.  And just outside the terminus the train jolted over
temporary rails, and on either side of the railway the houses were
blackened ruins.  To Clapham Junction the face of London was grimy
with powder of the Black Smoke, in spite of two days of thunderstorms
and rain, and at Clapham Junction the line had been wrecked again;
there were hundreds of out-of-work clerks and shopmen working side by
side with the customary navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty
relaying.

All down the line from there the aspect of the country was gaunt
and unfamiliar; Wimbledon particularly had suffered.  Walton, by virtue
of its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along
the line.  The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped
mass of red weed, in appearance between butcher's meat and pickled
cabbage.  The Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons
of the red climber.  Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in
certain nursery grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the
sixth cylinder.  A number of people were standing about it, and some
sappers were busy in the midst of it.  Over it flaunted a Union Jack,
flapping cheerfully in the morning breeze.  The nursery grounds were
everywhere crimson with the weed, a wide expanse of livid colour cut
with purple shadows, and very painful to the eye.  One's gaze went
with infinite relief from the scorched greys and sullen reds of the
foreground to the blue-green softness of the eastward hills.

The line on the London side of Woking station was still undergoing
repair, so I descended at Byfleet station and took the road to
Maybury, past the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to the
hussars, and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in
the thunderstorm.  Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find,
among a tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with the
whitened bones of the horse scattered and gnawed.  For a time I stood
regarding these vestiges. . . .

Then I returned through the pine wood, neck-high with red weed here
and there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found
burial, and so came home past the College Arms.  A man standing at an
open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed.

I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded
immediately.  The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening
slowly as I approached.

It slammed again.  The curtains of my study fluttered out of the
open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn.  No
one had closed it since.  The smashed bushes were just as I had left
them nearly four weeks ago.  I stumbled into the hall, and the house
felt empty.  The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had
crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the
catastrophe.  Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs.

I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writing-table
still, with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had
left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder.  For a space I
stood reading over my abandoned arguments.  It was a paper on the
probable development of Moral Ideas with the development of the
civilising process; and the last sentence was the opening of a
prophecy: "In about two hundred years," I had written, "we may
expect----"  The sentence ended abruptly.  I remembered my inability
to fix my mind that morning, scarcely a month gone by, and how I had
broken off to get my _Daily Chronicle_ from the newsboy.  I remembered
how I went down to the garden gate as he came along, and how I had
listened to his odd story of "Men from Mars."

I came down and went into the dining room.  There were the mutton
and the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle
overturned, just as I and the artilleryman had left them.  My home was
desolate.  I perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so
long.  And then a strange thing occurred.  "It is no use," said a
voice.  "The house is deserted.  No one has been here these ten days.
Do not stay here to torment yourself.  No one escaped but you."

I was startled.  Had I spoken my thought aloud?  I turned, and the
French window was open behind me.  I made a step to it, and stood
looking out.

And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid,
were my cousin and my wife--my wife white and tearless.  She gave a
faint cry.

"I came," she said.  "I knew--knew----"

She put her hand to her throat--swayed.  I made a step forward, and
caught her in my arms.



CHAPTER TEN

THE EPILOGUE


I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little
I am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable
questions which are still unsettled.  In one respect I shall certainly
provoke criticism.  My particular province is speculative philosophy.
My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two,
but it seems to me that Carver's suggestions as to the reason of the
rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as
a proven conclusion.  I have assumed that in the body of my narrative.

At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined
after the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial
species were found.  That they did not bury any of their dead, and the
reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance
of the putrefactive process.  But probable as this seems, it is by no
means a proven conclusion.

Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the
Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the
Heat-Rays remains a puzzle.  The terrible disasters at the Ealing
and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further
investigations upon the latter.  Spectrum analysis of the black powder
points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a
brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that
it combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with
deadly effect upon some constituent in the blood.  But such unproven
speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader, to
whom this story is addressed.  None of the brown scum that drifted
down the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at
the time, and now none is forthcoming.

The results of an anatomical examination of the Martians, so far
as the prowling dogs had left such an examination possible, I have
already given.  But everyone is familiar with the magnificent and
almost complete specimen in spirits at the Natural History Museum, and
the countless drawings that have been made from it; and beyond that
the interest of their physiology and structure is purely scientific.

A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of
another attack from the Martians.  I do not think that nearly enough
attention is being given to this aspect of the matter.  At present the
planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I,
for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure.  In any case, we
should be prepared.  It seems to me that it should be possible to
define the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to
keep a sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate
the arrival of the next attack.

In that case the cylinder might be destroyed with dynamite or
artillery before it was sufficiently cool for the Martians to emerge,
or they might be butchered by means of guns so soon as the screw
opened.  It seems to me that they have lost a vast advantage in the
failure of their first surprise.  Possibly they see it in the same
light.

Lessing has advanced excellent reasons for supposing that the
Martians have actually succeeded in effecting a landing on the planet
Venus.  Seven months ago now, Venus and Mars were in alignment with
the sun; that is to say, Mars was in opposition from the point of view
of an observer on Venus.  Subsequently a peculiar luminous and sinuous
marking appeared on the unillumined half of the inner planet, and
almost simultaneously a faint dark mark of a similar sinuous character
was detected upon a photograph of the Martian disk.  One needs to see
the drawings of these appearances in order to appreciate fully their
remarkable resemblance in character.

At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views
of the human future must be greatly modified by these events.  We have
learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a
secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good
or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space.  It may be that
in the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not
without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene
confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of
decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and
it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of
mankind.  It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians
have watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs and learned their
lesson, and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer
settlement.  Be that as it may, for many years yet there will
certainly be no relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk,
and those fiery darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with
them as they fall an unavoidable apprehension to all the sons of men.

The broadening of men's views that has resulted can scarcely be
exaggerated.  Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion
that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty
surface of our minute sphere.  Now we see further.  If the Martians
can reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is
impossible for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this
earth uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread
of life that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our
sister planet within its toils.

Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of
life spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system
throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space.  But that is a
remote dream.  It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of
the Martians is only a reprieve.  To them, and not to us, perhaps, is
the future ordained.

I must confess the stress and danger of the time have left an
abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind.  I sit in my study
writing by lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley
below set with writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me
empty and desolate.  I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass
me, a butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a
bicycle, children going to school, and suddenly they become vague and
unreal, and I hurry again with the artilleryman through the hot,
brooding silence.  Of a night I see the black powder darkening the
silent streets, and the contorted bodies shrouded in that layer; they
rise upon me tattered and dog-bitten.  They gibber and grow fiercer,
paler, uglier, mad distortions of humanity at last, and I wake, cold
and wretched, in the darkness of the night.

I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the
Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of
the past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched,
going to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a
galvanised body.  And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill,
as I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great
province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and
mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people
walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the
sight-seers about the Martian machine that stands there still, to hear
the tumult of playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it
all bright and clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last
great day. . . .

And strangest of all is it to hold my wife's hand again, and to think
that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.




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The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

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This etext was prepared by David Brannan of Woodbridge, Virginia.





Mycroft Holmes is again assisted by his younger brother Sherlock
during THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS

as told by ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE



In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow
fog settled down upon London.  From the Monday to the Thursday I
doubt whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker
Street to see the loom of the opposite houses.  The first day
Holmes had spent in cross-indexing his huge book of references.
The second and third had been patiently occupied upon a subject
which he hand recently made his hobby--the music of the Middle
Ages.  But when, for the fourth time, after pushing back our
chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy, heavy brown swirl still
drifting past us and condensing in oily drops upon the window-
panes, my comrade's impatient and active nature could endure this
drab existence no longer.  He paced restlessly about our sitting-
room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping
the furniture, and chafing against inaction.

"Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?" he said.

In was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything
of criminal interest.  There was the news of a revolution, of a
possible war, and of an impending change of government; but these
did not come within the horizon of my companion.  I could see
nothing recorded in the shape of crime which was not commonplace
and futile.  Holmes groaned and resumed hs restless meanderings.

"The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow," said he in the
querulous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him.
"Look out this window, Watson.  See how the figures loom up, are
dimly seen, and then blend once more into the cloud-bank.  The
thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day as the
tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident
only to his victim."

"There have," said I, "been numerous petty thefts."

Holmes snorted his contempt.

"This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy
than that," said he.  "It is fortunate for this community that I
am not a criminal."

"It is, indeed!" said I heartily.

"Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, or any of the fifty men
who have good reason for taking my life, how long could I survive
against my own pursuit?  A summons, a bogus appointment, and all
would be over.  It is well they don't have days of fog in the
Latin countries--the countries of assassination.  By Jove! here
comes something at last to break our dead monotony."

It was the maid with a telegram.  Holmes tore it open and burst
out laughing.

"Well, well!  What next?" said he.  "Brother Mycroft is coming
round."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Why not?  It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country
lane.  Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them.  His Pall Mall
lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall--that is his cycle.  Once,
and only once, he has been here.  What upheaval can possibly have
derailed him?"

"Does he not explain?"

Holmes handed me his brother's telegram.

Must see you over Cadogen West.  Coming at once.

Mycroft.

"Cadogen West?  I have heard the name."

"It recalls nothing to my mind.  But that Mycroft should break
out in this erratic fashion!  A planet might as well leave its
orbit.  By the way, do you know what Mycroft is?"

I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of
the Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.

"You told me that he had some small office under the British
government."

Holmes chuckled.

"I did not know you quite so well in those days.  One has to be
discreet when one talks of high matters of state.  You are right
in thinking that he under the British government.  You would also
be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he IS the
British government."

"My dear Holmes!"

"I thought I might surprise you.  Mycroft draws four hundred and
fifty pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of
any kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the
most indispensable man in the country."

"But how?"

"Well, his position is unique.  He has made it for himself.
There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again.
He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest
capacity for storing facts, of any man living.  The same great
powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used
for this particular business.  The conclusions of every
department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the
clearinghouse, which makes out the balance.  All other men are
specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.  We will suppose
that a minister needs information as to a point which involves
the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get
his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only
Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would
affect the other.  They began by using him as a short-cut, a
convenience; now he has made himself an essential.  In that great
brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in
an instant.  Again and again his word has decided the national
policy.  He lives in it.  He thinks of nothing else save when, as
an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask
him to advise me on one of my little problems.  But Jupiter is
descending to-day.  What on earth can it mean?  Who is Cadogan
West, and what is he to Mycroft?"

"I have it," I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon
the sofa.  "Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough!  Cadogen West was
the young man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday
morning."

Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.

"This must be serious, Watson.  A death which has caused my
brother to alter his habits can be no ordinary one.  What in the
world can he have to do with it?  The case was featureless as I
remember it.  The young man had apparently fallen out of the
train and killed himself.  He had not been robbed, and there was
no particular reason to suspect violence.  Is that not so?"

"There has been an inquest," said I, "and a good many fresh facts
have come out.  Looked at more closely, I should certainly say
that it was a curious case."

"Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be
a most extraordinary one."  He snuggled down in his armchair.
"Now, Watson, let us have the facts."

"The man's name was Arthur Cadogan West.  He was twenty-seven
years of age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal."

"Government employ.  Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!"

"He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night.  Was last seen by his
fiancee, Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog
about 7:30 that evening.  There was no quarrel between them and
she can give no motive for his action.  The next thing heard of
him was when his dead body was discovered by a plate-layer named
Mason, just outside Aldgate Station on the Underground system in
London."

"When?"

"The body was found at six on Tuesday morning.  It was lying wide
of the metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes
eastward, at a point close to the station, where the line emerges
from the tunnel in which it runs.  The head was badly crushed--an
injury which might well have been caused by a fall from the
train.  The body could only have come on the line in that way.
Had it been carried down from any neighbouring street, it must
have passed the station barriers, where a collector is always
standing.  This point seems absolutely certain."

"Very good.  The case is definite enough.  The man, dead or
alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train.  So much is
clear to me.  Continue."

"The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the
body was found are those which run from west to east, some being
purely Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying
junctions.  It can be stated for certain that this young man,
when he met his death, was travelling in this direction at some
late hour of the night, but at what point he entered the train it
is impossible to state."

"His ticket, of course, would show that."

"There was no ticket in his pockets."

"No ticket!  Dear me, Watson, this is really very singular.
According to my experience it is not possible to reach the
platform of a Metropolitan train without exhibiting one's ticket.
Presumably, then, the young man had one.  Was it taken from him
in order to conceal the station from which he came?  It is
possible.  Or did he drop it in the carriage?  That is also
possible.  But the point is of curious interest.  I understand
that there was no sign of robbery?"

"Apparently not.  There is a list here of his possessions.  His
purse contained two pounds fifteen.  He had also a check-book on
the Woolwich branch of the Capital and Counties Bank.  Through
this his identity was established.  There were also two dress-
circle tickets for the Woolwich Theatre, dated for that very
evening.  Also a small packet of technical papers."

Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

"There we have it at last, Watson!  British government--Woolwich.
Arsenal--technical papers--Brother Mycroft, the chain is
complete.  But here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to speak for
himself."

A moment later the tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was
ushered into the room.  Heavily built and massive, there was a
suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above
this unwieldy frame there was perched a head so masterful in its
brow, so alert in its steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its
lips, and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the
first glance one forgot the gross body and remembered only the
dominant mind.

At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard--thin
and austere.  The gravity of both their faces foretold some
weighty quest.  The detective shook hands without a word.
Mycroft Holmes struggled out of his overcoat and subsided into an
armchair.

"A most annoying business, Sherlock," said he.  "I extremely
dislike altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no
denial.  In the present state of Siam it is most awkward that I
should be away from the office.  But it is a real crisis.  I have
never seen the Prime Minister so upset.  As to the Admiralty--it
is buzzing like an overturned bee-hive.  Have you read up the
case?"

"We have just done so.  What were the technical papers?"

"Ah, there's the point!  Fortunately, it has not come out.  The
press would be furious if it did.  The papers which this wretched
youth had in his pocket were the plans of the Bruce-Partington
submarine."

Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of
the importance of the subject.  His brother and I sat expectant.

"Surely you have heard of it?  I thought everyone had heard of
it."

"Only as a name."

"Its importance can hardly be exaggerated.  It has been the most
jealously guarded of all government secrets.  You may take it
from me that naval warfare becomes impossible withing the radius
of a Bruce-Partington's operation.  Two years ago a very large
sum was smuggled through the Estimates and was expended in
acquiring a monopoly of the invention.  Every effort has been
made to keep the secret.  The plans, which are exceedingly
intricate, comprising some thirty separate patents, each
essential to the working of the whole, are kept in an elaborate
safe in a confidential office adjoining the arsenal, with
burglar-proof doors and windows.  Under no conceivable
circumstances were the plans to be taken from the office.  If the
chief constructor of the Navy desired to consult them, even he
was forced to go to the Woolwich office for the purpose.  And yet
here we find them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the
heart of London.  From an official point of view it's simply
awful."

"But you have recovered them?"

"No, Sherlock, no!  That's the pinch.  We have not.  Ten papers
were taken from Woolwich.  There were seven in the pocket of
Cadogan West.  The three most essential are gone--stolen,
vanished.  You must drop everything, Sherlock.  Never mind your
usual petty puzzles of the police-court.  It's a vital
international problem that you have to solve.  Why did Cadogan
West take the papers, where are the missing ones, how did he die,
how came his body where it was found, how can the evil be set
right?  Find an answer to all these questions, and you will have
done good service for your country."

"Why do you not solve it yourself, Mycroft?  You can see as far
as I."

"Possibly, Sherlock.  But it is a question of getting details.
Give me your details, and from an armchair I will return you an
excellent expert opinion.  But to run here and run there, to
cross-question railway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to
my eye--it is not my metier.  No, you are the one man who can
clear the matter up.  If you have a fancy to see your name in the
next honours list--"

My friend smiled and shook his head.

"I play the game for the game's own sake," said he.  "But the
problem certainly presents some points of interest, and I shall
be very pleased to look into it.  Some more facts, please."

"I have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of
paper, together with a few addresses which you will find of
service.  The actual official guardian of the papers is the
famous government expert, Sir James Walter, whose decorations and
sub-titles fill two lines of a book of reference.  He has grown
gray in the service, is a gentleman, a favoured guest in the most
exalted houses, and, above all, a man whose patriotism is beyond
suspicion.  He is one of two who have a key of the safe.  I may
add that the papers were undoubtedly in the office during working
hours on Monday, and that Sir James left for London about three
o'clock taking his key with him.  He was at the house of Admiral
Sinclair at Barclay Square during the whole of the evening when
this incident occurred."

"Has the fact been verified?"

"Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, has testified to his
departure from Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in
London; so Sir James is no longer a direct factor in the
problem."

"Who was the other man with a key?"

"The senior clerk and draughtsman, Mr. Sidney Johnson.  He is a
man of forty, married, with five children.  He is a silent,
morose man, but he has, on the whole, an excellent record in the
public service.  He is unpopular with his colleagues, but a hard
worker.  According to his own account, corroborated only by the
word of his wife, he was at home the whole of Monday evening
after office hours, and his key has never left the watch-chain
upon which it hangs."

"Tell us about Cadogan West."

"He has been ten years in the service and has done good work.  He
has the reputation of being hot-headed and imperious, but a
straight, honest man.  We have nothing against him.  He was next
Sidney Johnson in the office.  His duties brought him into daily,
personal contact with the plans.  No one else had the handling of
them."

"Who locked up the plans that night?"

"Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk."

"Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away.  They are
actually found upon the person of this junior clerk, Cadogan
West.  That seems final, does it not?"

"It does, Sherlock, and yet it leaves so much unexplained.  In
the first place, why did he take them?"

"I presume they were of value?"

"He could have got several thousands for them very easily."

"Can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to
London except to sell them?"

"No, I cannot."

"Then we must take that as our working hypothesis.  Young West
took the papers.  Now this could only be done by having a false
key--"

"Several false keys.  He had to open the building and the room."

"He had, then, several false keys.  He took the papers to London
to sell the secret, intending, no doubt, to have the plans
themselves back in the safe next morning before they were missed.
While in London on this treasonable mission he met his end."

"How?"

"We will suppose that he was travelling back to Woolwich when he
was killed and thrown out of the compartment."

"Aldgate, where the body was found, is considerably past the
station London Bridge, which would be his route to Woolwich."

"Many circumstances could be imagined under which he would pass
London Bridge.  There was someone in the carriage, for example,
with whom he was having an absorbing interview.  This interview
led to a violent scene in which he lost his life.  Possibly he
tried to leave the carriage, fell out on the line, and so met his
end.  The other closed the door.  There was a thick fog, and
nothing could be seen."

"No better explanation can be given with our present knowledge;
and yet consider, Sherlock, how much you leave untouched.  We
will suppose, for argument's sake, that young Cadogan West HAD
determined to convey these papers to London.  He would naturally
have made an appointment with the foreign agent and kept his
evening clear.  Instead of that he took two tickets for the
theatre, escorted his fiancee halfway there, and then suddenly
disappeared."

"A blind," said Lestrade, who had sat listening with some
impatience to the conversation.

"A very singular one.  That is objection No. 1.  Objection No. 2:
We will suppose that he reaches London and sees the foreign
agent.  He must bring back the papers before morning or the loss
will be discovered.  He took away ten.  Only seven were in his
pocket.  What had become of the other three?  He certainly would
not leave them of his own free will.  Then, again, where is the
price of his treason?  Once would have expected to find a large
sum of money in his pocket."

"It seems to me perfectly clear," said Lestrade.  "I have no
doubt at all as to what occurred.  He took the papers to sell
them.  He saw the agent. They could not agree as to price.  He
started home again, but the agent went with him.  In the train
the agent murdered him, took the more essential papers, and threw
his body from the carriage.  That would account for everything,
would it not?"

"Why had he no ticket?"

"The ticket would have shown which station was nearest the
agent's house.  Therefore he took it from the murdered man's
pocket."

"Good, Lestrade, very good," said Holmes.  "Your theory holds
together.  But if this is true, then the case is at an end.  On
the one hand, the traitor is dead.  On the other, the plans of
the Bruce-Partington submarine are presumably already on the
Continent.  What is there for us to do?"

"To act, Sherlock--to act!" cried Mycroft, springing to his feet.
"All my instincts are against this explanation.  Use your powers!
Go to the scene of the crime!  See the people concerned!  Leave
no stone unturned!  In all your career you have never had so
great a chance of serving your country."

"Well, well!" said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders.  "Come,
Watson!  And you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company
for an hour or two?  We will begin our investigation by a visit
to Aldgate Station.  Good-bye, Mycroft.  I shall let you have a
report before evening, but I warn you in advance that you have
little to expect."

An hour later Holmes, Lestrade and I stood upon the Underground
railroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel
immediately before Aldgate Station.  A courteous red-faced old
gentleman represented the railway company.

"This is where the young man's body lay," said he, indicating a
spot about three feet from the metals.  "It could not have fallen
from above, for these, as you see, are all blank walls.
Therefore, it could only have come from a train, and that train,
so far as we can trace it, must have passed about midnight on
Monday."

"Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?"

"There are no such signs, and no ticket has been found."

"No record of a door being found open?"

"None."

"We have had some fresh evidence this morning," said Lestrade.
"A passenger who passed Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train
about 11:40 on Monday night declares that he heard a heavy thud,
as of a body striking the line, just before the train reached the
station.  There was dense fog, however, and nothing could be
seen.  He made no report of it at the time.  Why, whatever is the
matter with Mr. Holmes?"

My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity
upon his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved
out of the tunnel.  Aldgate is a junction, and there was a
network of points.  On these his eager, questioning eyes were
fixed, and I saw on his keen, alert face that tightening of the
lips, that quiver of the nostrils, and concentration of the
heavy, tufted brows which I knew so well.

"Points," he muttered; "the points."

"What of it?  What do you mean?"

"I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such
as this?"

"No; they are very few."

"And a curve, too.  Points, and a curve.  By Jove! if it were
only so."

"What is it, Mr. Holmes?  Have you a clue?"

"An idea--an indication, no more.  But the case certainly grows
in interest.  Unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not?  I do
not see any indications of bleeding on the line."

"There were hardly any."

"But I understand that there was a considerable wound."

"The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury."

"And yet one would have expected some bleeding.  Would it be
possible for me to inspect the train which contained the
passenger who heard the thud of a fall in the fog?"

"I fear not, Mr. Holmes.  The train has been broken up before
now, and the carriages redistributed."

"I can assure you, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, "that every
carriage has been carefully examined.  I saw to it myself."

It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was
impatient with less alert intelligences than his own.

"Very likely," said he, turning away.  "As it happens, it was not
the carriages which I desired to examine.  Watson, we have done
all we can here.  We need not trouble you any further, Mr.
Lestrade.  I think our investigations must now carry us to
Woolwich."

At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which
he handed to me before dispatching it.  It ran thus:

See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flicker out.
Meanwhile, please send by messenger, to await return at Baker
Street, a complete list of all foreign spies or international
agents known to be in England, with full address.

Sherlock.

"That should be helpful, Watson," he remarked as we took our
seats in the Woolwich train.  "We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a
debt for having introduced us to what promises to be a really
very remarkable case."

His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-
strung energy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive
circumstance had opened up a stimulating line of thought.  See
the foxhound with hanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls
about the kennels, and compare it with the same hound as, with
gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high
scent--such was the change in Holmes since the morning.  He was a
different man from the limp and lounging figure in the mouse-
coloured dressing-gown who had prowled so restlessly only a few
hours before round the fog-girt room.

"There is material here.  There is scope," said he.  "I am dull
indeed not to have understood its possibilities."

"Even now they are dark to me."

"The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which
may lead us far.  The man met his death elsewhere, and his body
was on the ROOF of a carriage."

"On the roof!"

"Remarkable, is it not?  But consider the facts.  Is it a
coincidence that it is found at the very point where the train
pitches and sways as it comes round on the points?  Is not that
the place where an object upon the roof might be expected to fall
off?  The points would affect no object inside the train.  Either
the body fell from the roof, or a very curious coincidence has
occurred.  But now consider the question of the blood.  Of
course, there was no bleeding on the line if the body had bled
elsewhere.  Each fact is suggestive in itself.  Together they
have a cumulative force."

"And the ticket, too!" I cried.

"Exactly.  We could not explain the absence of a ticket.  This
would explain it.  Everything fits together."

"But suppose it were so, we are still as far as ever from
unravelling the mystery of his death.  Indeed, it becomes not
simpler but stranger."

"Perhaps," said Holmes, thoughtfully, "perhaps."  He relapsed
into a silent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up
at last in Woolwich Station.  There he called a cab and drew
Mycroft's paper from his pocket.

"We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make," said
he.  "I think that Sir James Walter claims our first attention."

The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green
lawns stretching down to the Thames.  As we reached it the fog
was lifting, and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through.  A
butler answered our ring.

"Sir James, sir!" said he with solemn face.  "Sir James died this
morning."

"Good heavens!" cried Holmes in amazement.  "How did he die?"

"Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother,
Colonel Valentine?"

"Yes, we had best do so."

We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant
later we were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-beared man
of fifty, the younger brother of the dead scientist.  His wild
eyes, stained cheeks, and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden
blow which had fallen upon the household.  He was hardly
articulate as he spoke of it.

"It was this horrible scandal," said he.  "My brother, Sir James,
was a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such
an affair.  It broke his heart.  He was always so proud of the
efficiency of his department, and this was a crushing blow."

"We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which
would have helped us to clear the matter up."

"I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you
and to all of us.  He had already put all his knowledge at the
disposal of the police.  Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan
West was guilty.  But all the rest was inconceivable."

"You cannot throw any new light upon the affair?"

"I know nothing myself save what I have read or heard.  I have no
desire to be discourteous, but you can understand, Mr. Holmes,
that we are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to
hasten this interview to an end."

"This is indeed an unexpected development," said my friend when
we had regained the cab.  "I wonder if the death was natural, or
whether the poor old fellow killed himself!  If the latter, may
it be taken as some sign of self-reproach for duty neglected?  We
must leave that question to the future.  Now we shall turn to the
Cadogan Wests."

A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town
sheltered the bereaved mother.  The old lady was too dazed with
grief to be of any use to us, but at her side was a white-faced
young lady, who introduced herself as Miss Violet Westbury, the
fiancee of the dead man, and the last to see him upon that fatal
night.

"I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes," she said.  "I have not shut an
eye since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and
day, what the true meaning of it can be.  Arthur was the most
single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth.  He would
have cut his right hand off before he would sell a State secret
confided to his keeping.  It is absurd, impossible, preposterous
to anyone who knew him."

"But the facts, Miss Westbury?"

"Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them."

"Was he in any want of money?"

"No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample.  He had
saved a few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year."

"No signs of any mental excitement?  Come, Miss Westbury, be
absolutely frank with us."

The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her
manner.  She coloured and hesitated.

"Yes," she said at last, "I had a feeling that there was
something on his mind."

"For long?"


"Only for the last week or so.  He was thoughtful and worried.
Once I pressed him about it.  He admitted that there was
something, and that it was concerned with his official life.  'It
is too serious for me to speak about, even to you,' said he.  I
could get nothing more."

Holmes looked grave.

"Go on, Miss Westbury.  Even if it seems to tell against him, go
on.  We cannot say what it may lead to."

"Indeed, I have nothing more to tell.  Once or twice it seemed to
me that he was on the point of telling me something.  He spoke
one evening of the importance of the secret, and I have some
recollection that he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a
great deal to have it."

My friend's face grew graver still.

"Anything else?"

"He said that we were slack about such matters--that it would be
easy for a traitor to get the plans."

"Was it only recently that he made such remarks?"

"Yes, quite recently."

"Now tell us of that last evening."

"We were to go to the theatre.  The fog was so thick that a cab
was useless.  We walked, and our way took us close to the office.
Suddenly he darted away into the fog."

"Without a word?"

"He gave an exclamation; that was all.  I waited but he never
returned.  Then I walked home.  Next morning, after the office
opened, they came to inquire.  About twelve o'clock we heard the
terrible news.  Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could only, only save his
honour!  It was so much to him."

Holmes shook his head sadly.

"Come, Watson," said he, "our ways lie elsewhere.  Our next
station must be the office from which the papers were taken.

"It was black enough before against this young man, but our
inquiries make it blacker," he remarked as the cab lumbered off.
"His coming marriage gives a motive for the crime.  He naturally
wanted money.  The idea was in his head, since he spoke about it.
He nearly made the girl an accomplice in the treason by telling
her his plans.  It is all very bad."

"But surely, Holmes, character goes for something?  Then, again,
why should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to
commit a felony?"

"Exactly!  There are certainly objections.  But it is a
formidable case which they have to meet."

Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office and
received us with that respect which my companion's card always
commanded.  He was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle age,
his cheeks haggard, and his hands twitching from the nervous
strain to which he had been subjected.

"It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad!  Have you heard of the death of
the chief?"

"We have just come from his house."

"The place is disorganized.  The chief dead, Cadogan West dead,
our papers stolen.  And yet, when we closed our door on Monday
evening, we were as efficient an office as any in the government
service.  Good God, it's dreadful to think of!  That West, of all
men, should have done such a thing!"

"You are sure of his guilt, then?"

"I can see no other way out of it.  And yet I would have trusted
him as I trust myself."

"At what hour was the office closed on Monday?"

"At five."

"Did you close it?"

"I am always the last man out."

"Where were the plans?"

"In that safe.  I put them there myself."

"Is there no watchman to the building?"

"There is, but he has other departments to look after as well.
He is an old soldier and a most trustworthy man.  He saw nothing
that evening.  Of course the fog was very thick."

"Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make his way into the
building after hours; he would need three keys, would he not,
before the could reach the papers?"

"Yes, he would.  The key of the outer door, the key of the
office, and the key of the safe."

"Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys?"

"I had no keys of the doors--only of the safe."

"Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?"

"Yes, I think he was.  I know that so far as those three keys are
concerned he kept them on the same ring.  I have often seen them
there."

"And that ring went with him to London?"

"He said so."

"And your key never left your possession?"

"Never."

"Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate.  And
yet none was found upon his body.  One other point:  if a clerk
in this office desired to sell the plans, would it not be simply
to copy the plans for himself than to take the originals, as was
actually done?"

"It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans
in an effective way."

"But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West has that
technical knowledge?"

"No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try to drag me into the
matter, Mr. Holmes.  What is the use of our speculating in this
way when the original plans were actually found on West?"

"Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of
taking originals if he could safely have taken copies, which
would have equally served his turn."

"Singular, no doubt--and yet he did so."

"Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable.  Now
there are three papers still missing.  They are, as I understand,
the vital ones."

"Yes, that is so."

"Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and
without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington
submarine?"

"I reported to that effect to the Admiralty.  But to-day I have
been over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it.  The
double valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn
in one of the papers which have been returned.  Until the
foreigners had invented that for themselves they could not make
the boat.  Of course they might soon get over the difficulty."

"But the three missing drawings are the most important?"

"Undoubtedly."

"I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round
the premises.  I do not recall any other question which I desired
to ask."

He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and
finally the iron shutters of the window.  It was only when we
were on the lawn outside that his interest was strongly excited.
There was a laurel bush outside the window, and several of the
branches bore signs of having been twisted or snapped.  He
examined them carefully with his lens, and then some dim and
vague marks upon the earth beneath.  Finally he asked the chief
clerk to close the iron shutters, and he pointed out to me that
they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be possible for
anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.

"The indications are ruined by three days' delay.  They may mean
something or nothing.  Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich
can help us further.  It is a small crop which we have gathered.
Let us see if we can do better in London."

Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left
Woolwich Station.  The clerk in the ticket office was able to say
with confidence that he saw Cadogan West--whom he knew well by
sight--upon the Monday night, and that he went to London by the
8:15 to London Bridge.  He was alone and took a single third-
class ticket.  The clerk was struck at the time by his excited
and nervous manner.  So shaky was he that he could hardly pick up
his change, and the clerk had helped him with it.  A reference to
the timetable showed that the 8:15 was the first train which it
was possible for West to take after he had left the lady about
7:30.

"Let us reconstruct, Watson," said Holmes after half an hour of
silence.  "I am not aware that in all our joint researches we
have ever had a case which was more difficult to get at.  Every
fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond.
And yet we have surely made some appreciable progress.

"The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been
against young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window
would lend themselves to a more favourable hypothesis.  Let us
suppose, for example, that he had been approached by some foreign
agent.  It might have been done under such pledges as would have
prevented him from speaking of it, and yet would have affected
his thoughts in the direction indicated by his remarks to his
fiancee.  Very good.  We will now suppose that as he went to the
theatre with the young lady he suddenly, in the fog, caught a
glimpse of this same agent going in the direction of the office.
He was an impetuous man, quick in his decisions.  Everything gave
way to his duty.  He followed the man, reached the window, saw
the abstraction of the documents, and pursued the thief.  In this
way we get over the objection that no one would take originals
when he could make copies.  This outsider had to take originals.
So far it holds together."

"What is the next step?"

"Then we come into difficulties.  One would imagine that under
such circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be
to seize the villain and raise the alarm.  Why did he not do so?
Could it have been an official superior who took the papers?
That would explain West's conduct.  Or could the chief have given
West the slip in the fog, and West started at once to London to
head him off from his own rooms, presuming that he knew where the
rooms were?  The call must have been very pressing, since he left
his girl standing in the fog and made no effort to communicate
with her.  Our scent runs cold here, and there is a vast gap
between either hypothesis and the laying of West's body, with
seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a Metropolitan train.
My instinct now is to work form the other end.  If Mycroft has
given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our man and
follow two tracks instead of one."

Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street.  A government
messenger had brought it post-haste.  Holmes glanced at it and
threw it over to me.

There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an
affair.  The only men worth considering are Adolph Mayer, of 13
Great George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothiere, of Campden
Mansions, Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens,
Kensington.  The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is
now reported as having left.  Glad to hear you have seen some
light.  The Cabinet awaits your final report with the utmost
anxiety.  Urgent representations have arrived from the very
highest quarter.  The whole force of the State is at your back if
you should need it.

Mycroft.

"I'm afraid," said Holmes, smiling, "that all the queen's horses
and all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter."  He had
spread out his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it.
"Well, well," said he presently with an exclamation of
satisfaction, "things are turning a little in our direction at
last.  Why, Watson, I do honestly believe that we are going to
pull it off, after all."  He slapped me on the shoulder with a
sudden burst of hilarity.  "I am going out now.  It is only a
reconnaissance.  I will do nothing serious without my trusted
comrade and biographer at my elbow.  Do you stay here, and the
odds are that you will see me again in an hour or two.  If time
hangs heavy get foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of
how we saved the State."

I felt some reflection of his elation in my own mind, for I knew
well that he would not depart so far from his usual austerity of
demeanour unless there was good cause for exultation.  All the
long November evening I waited, filled with impatience for his
return.  At last, shortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a
messenger with a note:

Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington.
Please come at once and join me there.  Bring with you a jemmy, a
dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver.

S.H.

It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry
through the dim, fog-draped streets.  I stowed them all
discreetly away in my overcoat and drove straight to the address
given.  There sat my friend at a little round table near the door
of the garish Italian restaurant.

"Have you had something to eat?  Then join me in a coffee and
curacao.  Try one of the proprietor's cigars.  They are less
poisonous than one would expect.  Have you the tools?"

"They are here, in my overcoat."

"Excellent.  Let me give you a short sketch of what I have done,
with some indication of what we are about to do.  Now it must be
evident to you, Watson, that this young man's body was PLACED on
the roof of the train.  That was clear from the instant that I
determined the fact that it was from the roof, and not from a
carriage, that he had fallen."

"Could it not have been dropped from a bridge?"

"I should say it was impossible.  If you examine the roofs you
will find that they are slightly rounded, and there is no railing
round them.  Therefore, we can say for certain that young Cadogan
West was placed on it."

"How could he be placed there?"

"That was the question which we had to answer.  There is only one
possible way.  You are aware that the Underground runs clear of
tunnels at some points in the West End.  I had a vague memory
that as I have travelled by it I have occasionally seen windows
just above my head.  Now, suppose that a train halted under such
a window, would there be any difficulty in laying a body upon the
roof?"

"It seems most improbable."

"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other
contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the truth.  Here all other contingencies HAVE failed.  When I
found that the leading international agent, who had just left
London, lived in a row of houses which abutted upon the
Underground, I was so pleased that you were a little astonished
at my sudden frivolity."

"Oh, that was it, was it?"

"Yes, that was it.  Mr. Hugo Oberstein, of 13 Caulfield Gardens,
had become my objective.  I began my operations at Gloucester
Road Station, where a very helpful official walked with me along
the track and allowed me to satisfy myself not only that the
back-stair windows of Caulfield Gardens open on the line but the
even more essential fact that, owing to the intersection of one
of the larger railways, the Underground trains are frequently
held motionless for some minutes at that very spot."

"Splendid, Holmes!  You have got it!"

"So far--so far, Watson.  We advance, but the goal is afar.
Well, having seen the back of Caulfield Gardens, I visited the
front and satisfied myself that the bird was indeed flown.  It is
a considerable house, unfurnished, so far as I could judge, in
the upper rooms.  Oberstein lived there with a single valet, who
was probably a confederate entirely in his confidence.  We must
bear in mind that Oberstein has gone to the Continent to dispose
of his booty, but not with any idea of flight; for he had no
reason to fear a warrant, and the idea of an amateur domiciliary
visit would certainly never occur to him.  Yet that is precisely
what we are about to make."

"Could we not get a warrant and legalize it?"

"Hardly on the evidence."

"What can we hope to do?"

"We cannot tell what correspondence may be there."

"I don't like it, Holmes."

"My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street.  I'll do the
criminal part.  It's not a time to stick at trifles.  Think of
Mycroft's note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person
who waits for news.  We are bound to go."

My answer was to rise from the table.

"You are right, Holmes.  We are bound to go."

He sprang up and shook me by the hand.

"I knew you would not shrink at the last," said he, and for a
moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness
than I had ever seen.  The next instant he was his masterful,
practical self once more.

"It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry.  Let us walk,"
said he.  "Don't drop the instruments, I beg.  Your arrest as a
suspicious character would be a most unfortunate complication."

Caulfield Gardens was one of those lines of flat-faced pillared,
and porticoed houses which are so prominent a product of the
middle Victorian epoch in the West End of London.  Next door
there appeared to be a children's party, for the merry buzz of
young voices and the clatter of a piano resounded through the
night.  The fog still hung about and screened us with its
friendly shade.  Holmes had lit his lantern and flashed it upon
the massive door.

"This is a serious proposition," said he.  "It is certainly
bolted as well as locked.  We would do better in the area.  There
is an excellent archway down yonder in case a too zealous
policeman should intrude.  Give me a hand, Watson, and I'll do
the same for you."

A minute later we were both in the area.  Hardly had we reached
the dark shadows before the step of the policeman was heard in
the fog above.  As its soft rhythm died away, Holmes set to work
upon the lower door.  I saw him stoop and strain until with a
sharp crash it flew open.  We sprang through into the dark
passage, closing the area door behind us.  Holmes let the way up
the curving, uncarpeted stair.  His little fan of yellow light
shone upon a low window.

"Here we are, Watson--this must be the one."  He threw it open,
and as he did so there was a low, harsh murmur, growing steadily
into a loud roar as a train dashed past us in the darkness.
Holmes swept his light along the window-sill.  It was thickly
coated with soot from the passing engines, but the black surface
was blurred and rubbed in places.

"You can see where they rested the body.  Halloa, Watson! what is
this?  There can be no doubt that it is a blood mark."  He was
pointing to faint discolourations along the woodwork of the
window.  "Here it is on the stone of the stair also.  The
demonstration is complete.  Let us stay here until a train
stops."

We had not long to wait.  The very next train roared from the
tunnel as before, but slowed in the open, and then, with a
creaking of brakes, pulled up immediately beneath us.  It was not
four feet from the window-ledge to the roof of the carriages.
Holmes softly closed the window.

"So far we are justified," said he.  "What do you think of it,
Watson?"

"A masterpiece.  You have never risen to a greater height."

"I cannot agree with you there.  From the moment that I conceived
the idea of the body being upon the roof, which surely was not a
very abstruse one, all the rest was inevitable.  If it were not
for the grave interests involved the affair up to this point
would be insignificant.  Our difficulties are still before us.
But perhaps we may find something here which may help us."

We had ascended the kitchen stair and entered the suite of rooms
upon the first floor.  One was a dining-room, severely furnished
and containing nothing of interest.  A second was a bedroom,
which also drew blank.  The remaining room appeared more
promising, and my companion settled down to a systematic
examination.  It was littered with books and papers, and was
evidently used as a study.  Swiftly and methodically Holmes
turned over the contents of drawer after drawer and cupboard
after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten his
austere face.  At the end of an hour he was no further than when
he started.

"The cunning dog has covered his tracks," said he.  "He has left
nothing to incriminate him.  His dangerous correspondence has
been destroyed or removed.  This is our last chance."

It was a small tin cash-box which stood upon the writing-desk.
Holmes pried it open with his chisel.  Several rolls of paper
were within, covered with figures and calculations, without any
note to show to what they referred.  The recurring words, "water
pressure" and "pressure to the square inch" suggested some
possible relation to a submarine.  Holmes tossed them all
impatiently aside.  There only remained an envelope with some
small newspaper slips inside it.  He shook them out on the table,
and at once I saw by his eager face that his hopes had been
raised.

"What's this, Watson?  Eh?  What's this?  Record of a series of
messages in the advertisements of a paper.  Daily Telegraph agony
column by the print and paper.  Right-hand top corner of a page.
No dates--but messages arrange themselves.  This must be the
first:

"Hoped to hear sooner.  Terms agreed to.  Write fully to address
given on card.

"Pierrot.

"Next comes:

"Too complex for description.  Must have full report, Stuff
awaits you when goods delivered.

"Pierrot.

"Then comes:

"Matter presses.  Must withdraw offer unless contract completed.
Make appointment by letter. Will confirm by advertisement.

"Pierrot.

"Finally:

"Monday night after nine.  Two taps.  Only ourselves.  Do not be
so suspicious.  Payment in hard cash when goods delivered.

"Pierrot.

"A fairly complete record, Watson!  If we could only get at the
man at the other end!"  He sat lost in thought, tapping his
fingers on the table.  Finally he sprang to his feet.

"Well, perhaps it won't be so difficult, after all.  There is
nothing more to be done here, Watson.  I think we might drive
round to the offices of the Daily Telegraph, and so bring a good
day's work to a conclusion."


Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after
breakfast next day and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our
proceedings of the day before.  The professional shook his head
over our confessed burglary.

"We can't do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes," said he.
"No wonder you get results that are beyond us.  But some of these
days you'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and your friend
in trouble."

"For England, home and beauty--eh, Watson?  Martyrs on the altar
of our country.  But what do you think of it, Mycroft?"

"Excellent, Sherlock!  Admirable!  But what use will you make of
it?"

Holmes picked up the Daily Telegraph which lay upon the table.

"Have you seen Pierrot's advertisement to-day?"

"What?  Another one?"

"Yes, here it is:

"To-night.  Same hour.  Same place.  Two taps.  Most vitally
important.  Your own safety at stake.

"Pierrot.

"By George!" cried Lestrade.  "If he answers that we've got him!"

"That was my idea when I put it in.  I think if you could both
make it convenient to come with us about eight o'clock to
Caulfield Gardens we might possibly get a little nearer to a
solution."

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was
his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all
his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced
himself that he could no longer work to advantage.  I remember
that during the whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a
monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of
Lassus.  For my own part I had none of this power of detachment,
and the day, in consequence, appeared to be interminable.  The
great national importance of the issue, the suspense in high
quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we were
trying--all combined to work upon my nerve.  It was a relief to
me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our
expedition.  Lestrade and Mycroft met us by appointment at the
outside of Gloucester Road Station.  The area door of Oberstein's
house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary
for me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to
climb the railings, to pass in and open the hall door.  By nine
o'clock we were all seated in the study, waiting patently for our
man.

An hour passed and yet another.  When eleven struck, the measured
beat of the great church clock seemed to sound the dirge of our
hopes.  Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their seats and
looking twice a minute at their watches.  Holmes sat silent and
composed, his eyelids half shut, but every sense on the alert.
He raised his head with a sudden jerk.

"He is coming," said he.

There had been a furtive step past the door.  Now it returned.
We heard a shuffling sound outside, and then two sharp taps with
the knocker. Holmes rose, motioning us to remain seated.  The gas
in the hall was a mere point of light.  He opened the outer door,
and then as a dark figure slipped past him he closed and fastened
it.  "This way!" we heard him say, and a moment later our man
stood before us.  Holmes had followed him closely, and as the man
turned with a cry of surprise and alarm he caught him by the
collar and threw him back into the room.  Before our prisoner had
recovered his balance the door was shut and Holmes standing with
his back against it.  The man glared round him, staggered, and
fell senseless upon the floor.  With the shock, his broad-brimmed
hat flew from his head, his cravat slipped sown from his lips,
and there were the long light beard and the soft, handsome
delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter.

Holmes gave a whistle of surprise.

"You can write me down an ass this time, Watson," said he.  "This
was not the bird that I was looking for."

"Who is he?" asked Mycroft eagerly.

"The younger brother of the late Sir James Walter, the head of
the Submarine Department.  Yes, yes; I see the fall of the cards.
He is coming to.  I think that you had best leave his examination
to me."

We had carried the prostrate body to the sofa.  Now our prisoner
sat up, looked round him with a horror-stricken face, and passed
his hand over his forehead, like one who cannot believe his own
senses.

"What is this?" he asked.  "I came here to visit Mr. Oberstein."

"Everything is known, Colonel Walter," said Holmes.  "How an
English gentleman could behave in such a manner is beyond my
comprehension.  But your whole correspondence and relations with
Oberstein are within our knowledge.  So also are the
circumstances connected with the death of young Cadogan West.
Let me advise you to gain at least the small credit for
repentance and confession, since there are still some details
which we can only learn from your lips."

The man groaned and sank his face in his hands.  We waited, but
he was silent.

"I can assure you," said Holmes, "that every essential is already
known.  We know that you were pressed for money; that you took an
impress of the keys which your brother held; and that you entered
into a correspondence with Oberstein, who answered your letters
through the advertisement columns of the Daily Telegraph.  We are
aware that you went down to the office in the fog on Monday
night, but that you were seen and followed by young Cadogan West,
who had probably some previous reason to suspect you.  He saw
your theft, but could not give the alarm, as it was just possible
that you were taking the papers to your brother in London.
Leaving all his private concerns, like the good citizen that he
was, he followed you closely in the fog and kept at your heels
until you reached this very house.  There he intervened, and then
it was, Colonel Walter, that to treason you added the more
terrible crime of murder."

"I did not!  I did not!  Before God I swear that I did not!"
cried our wretched prisoner.

"Tell us, then, how Cadogan West met his end before you laid him
upon the roof of a railway carriage."

"I will.  I swear to you that I will.  I did the rest.  I confess
it.  It was just as you say.  A Stock Exchange debt had to be
paid.  I needed the money badly.  Oberstein offered me five
thousand.  It was to save myself from ruin.  But as to murder, I
am as innocent as you."

"What happened, then?"

"He had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you
describe.  I never knew it until I was at the very door.  It was
thick fog, and one could not see three yards.  I had given two
taps and Oberstein had come to the door.  The young man rushed up
and demanded to know what we were about to do with the papers.
Oberstein had a short life-preserver.  He always carried it with
him.  As West forced his way after us into the house Oberstein
struck him on the head.  The blow was a fatal one.  He was dead
within five minutes.  There he lay in the hall, and we were at
our wit's end what to do.  Then Oberstein had this idea about the
trains which halted under his back window.  But first he examined
the papers which I had brought.  He said that three of them were
essential, and that he must keep them.  'You cannot keep them,'
said I.  'There will be a dreadful row at Woolwich if they are
not returned.'  'I must keep them,' said he, 'for they are so
technical that it is impossible in the time to make copies.'
'Then they must all go back together to-night,' said I.  He
thought for a little, and then he cried out that he had it.
'Three I will keep,' said he.  'The others we will stuff into the
pocket of this young man.  When he is found the whole business
will assuredly be put to his account.'  I could see no other way
out of it, so we did as he suggested.  We waited half an hour at
the window before a train stopped.  It was so thick that nothing
could be seen, and we had no difficulty in lowering West's body
on to the train.  That was the end of the matter so far as I was
concerned."

"And your brother?"

"He said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and I
think that he suspected.  I read in his eyes that he suspected.
As you know, he never held up his head again."

There was silence in the room.  It was broken by Mycroft Holmes.

"Can you not make reparation?  It would ease your conscience, and
possibly your punishment."

"What reparation can I make?"

"Where is Oberstein with the papers?"

"I do not know."

"Did he give you no address?"

"He said that letters to the Hotel du Louvre, Paris, would
eventually reach him."

"Then reparation is still within your power," said Sherlock
Holmes.

"I will do anything I can.  I owe this fellow no particular good-
will.  He has been my ruin and my downfall."

"Here are paper and pen.  Sit at this desk and write to my
dictation.  Direct the envelope to the address given.  That is
right.  Now the letter:

"Dear Sir:

"With regard to our transaction, you will no doubt have observed
by now that one essential detail is missing.  I have a tracing
which will make it complete.  This has involved me in extra
trouble, however, and I must ask you for a further advance of
five hundred pounds.  I will not trust it to the post, nor will I
take anything but gold or notes.  I would come to you abroad, but
it would excite remark if I left the country at present.
Therefore I shall expect to meet you in the smoking-room of the
Charing Cross Hotel at noon on Saturday.  Remember that only
English notes, or gold, will be taken.

"That will do very well.  I shall be very much surprised if it
does not fetch our man."

And it did!  It is a matter of history--that secret history of a
nation which is often so much more intimate and interesting than
its public chronicles--that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup
of his lifetime, came to the lure and was safely engulfed for
fifteen years in a British prison.  In his trunk were found the
invaluable Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for
auction in all the naval centres of Europe.

Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end of the second year
of his sentence.  As to Holmes, he returned refreshed to his
monograph upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since
been printed for private circulation, and is said by experts to
be the last word upon the subject.  Some weeks afterwards I
learned incidentally that my friend spent a day at Windsor,
whence be returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie-pin.  When
I asked him if he had bought it, he answered that it was a
present from a certain gracious lady in whose interests he had
once been fortunate enough to carry out a small commission.  He
said no more; but I fancy that I could guess at that lady's
august name, and I have little doubt that the emerald pin will
forever recall to my friend's memory the adventure of the Bruce-
Partington plans.




_________________________________________________________________



Alphonse Moreau now works for Britain in a more pastoral setting than
THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU

as told by H. G. Wells 





Contents

       INTRODUCTION
    I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE "LADY VAIN"
   II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE
  III. THE STRANGE FACE
   IV. AT THE SCHOONER'S RAIL
    V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO
   VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN
  VII. THE LOCKED DOOR
 VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA
   IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST
    X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN
   XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN
  XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW
 XIII. THE PARLEY
  XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS
   XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK
  XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD
 XVII. A CATASTROPHE
XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU
  XIX. MONTGOMERY'S BANK HOLIDAY
   XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK
  XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK
 XXII. THE MAN ALONE




INTRODUCTION.

ON February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision
with a derelict when about the latitude 1 degree S. and longitude
107 degrees W.

On January the Fifth, 1888--that is eleven months and four days after--my
uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went
aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned,
was picked up in latitude 5 degrees 3' S. and longitude 101 degrees W.
in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is
supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha.
He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented.
Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment
of his escape from the Lady Vain.  His case was discussed among
psychologists at the time as a curious instance of the lapse
of memory consequent upon physical and mental stress.
The following narrative was found among his papers by the undersigned,
his nephew and heir, but unaccompanied by any definite request
for publication.

The only island known to exist in the region in which my uncle was
picked up is Noble's Isle, a small volcanic islet and uninhabited.
It was visited in 1891 by H. M. S. Scorpion.  A party of sailors
then landed, but found nothing living thereon except certain curious
white moths, some hogs and rabbits, and some rather peculiar rats.
So that this narrative is without confirmation in its most
essential particular.  With that understood, there seems no harm
in putting this strange story before the public in accordance,
as I believe, with my uncle's intentions.  There is at least this
much in its behalf:  my uncle passed out of human knowledge about
latitude 5 degrees S. and longitude 105 degrees E., and reappeared
in the same part of the ocean after a space of eleven months.
In some way he must have lived during the interval.  And it seems that
a schooner called the Ipecacuanha with a drunken captain, John Davies,
did start from Africa with a puma and certain other animals aboard
in January, 1887, that the vessel was well known at several ports
in the South Pacific, and that it finally disappeared from those seas
(with a considerable amount of copra aboard), sailing to its unknown
fate from Bayna in December, 1887, a date that tallies entirely with my
uncle's story.

CHARLES EDWARD PRENDICK.

(The Story written by Edward Prendick.)




I.  IN THE DINGEY OF THE "LADY VAIN."


I DO not propose to add anything to what has already been written
concerning the loss of the "Lady Vain."  As everyone knows,
she collided with a derelict when ten days out from Callao.
The longboat, with seven of the crew, was picked up eighteen days after
by H. M. gunboat "Myrtle," and the story of their terrible privations
has become quite as well known as the far more horrible "Medusa" case.
But I have to add to the published story of the "Lady Vain"
another, possibly as horrible and far stranger.  It has hitherto
been supposed that the four men who were in the dingey perished,
but this is incorrect.  I have the best of evidence for this assertion:
I was one of the four men.

But in the first place I must state that there never were four men
in the dingey,--the number was three.  Constans, who was "seen
by the captain to jump into the gig,"{1} luckily for us and unluckily
for himself did not reach us.  He came down out of the tangle
of ropes under the stays of the smashed bowsprit, some small rope
caught his heel as he let go, and he hung for a moment head downward,
and then fell and struck a block or spar floating in the water.
We pulled towards him, but he never came up.

{1} Daily News, March 17, 1887.

I say lucky for us he did not reach us, and I might almost
say luckily for himself; for we had only a small breaker
of water and some soddened ship's biscuits with us, so sudden
had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any disaster.
We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned
(though it seems they were not), and we tried to hail them.  They could
not have heard us, and the next morning when the drizzle cleared,--which
was not until past midday,--we could see nothing of them.  We could
not stand up to look about us, because of the pitching of the boat.
The two other men who had escaped so far with me were a man named Helmar,
a passenger like myself, and a seaman whose name I don't know,--a short
sturdy man, with a stammer.

We drifted famishing, and, after our water had come to an end,
tormented by an intolerable thirst, for eight days altogether.
After the second day the sea subsided slowly to a glassy calm.  It is
quite impossible for the ordinary reader to imagine those eight days.
He has not, luckily for himself, anything in his memory to imagine with.
After the first day we said little to one another, and lay
in our places in the boat and stared at the horizon, or watched,
with eyes that grew larger and more haggard every day, the misery
and weakness gaining upon our companions.  The sun became pitiless.
The water ended on the fourth day, and we were already thinking
strange things and saying them with our eyes; but it was, I think,
the sixth before Helmar gave voice to the thing we had all been thinking.
I remember our voices were dry and thin, so that we bent towards
one another and spared our words.  I stood out against it with all
my might, was rather for scuttling the boat and perishing together
among the sharks that followed us; but when Helmar said that if his
proposal was accepted we should have drink, the sailor came round
to him.

I would not draw lots however, and in the night the sailor whispered
to Helmar again and again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife
in my hand, though I doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight;
and in the morning I agreed to Helmar's proposal, and we handed
halfpence to find the odd man.  The lot fell upon the sailor;
but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, and attacked
Helmar with his hands.  They grappled together and almost stood up.
I crawled along the boat to them, intending to help Helmar by grasping
the sailor's leg; but the sailor stumbled with the swaying of the boat,
and the two fell upon the gunwale and rolled overboard together.
They sank like stones.  I remember laughing at that, and wondering
why I laughed.  The laugh caught me suddenly like a thing
from without.

I lay across one of the thwarts for I know not how long,
thinking that if I had the strength I would drink sea-water
and madden myself to die quickly.  And even as I lay there I saw,
with no more interest than if it had been a picture, a sail come
up towards me over the sky-line. My mind must have been wandering,
and yet I remember all that happened, quite distinctly.
I remember how my head swayed with the seas, and the horizon
with the sail above it danced up and down; but I also remember
as distinctly that I had a persuasion that I was dead, and that I
thought what a jest it was that they should come too late by such
a little to catch me in my body.

For an endless period, as it seemed to me, I lay with my head
on the thwart watching the schooner (she was a little ship,
schooner-rigged fore and aft) come up out of the sea.
She kept tacking to and fro in a widening compass, for she was
sailing dead into the wind.  It never entered my head to attempt
to attract attention, and I do not remember anything distinctly after
the sight of her side until I found myself in a little cabin aft.
There's a dim half-memory of being lifted up to the gangway, and of
a big round countenance covered with freckles and surrounded with red
hair staring at me over the bulwarks.  I also had a disconnected
impression of a dark face, with extraordinary eyes, close to mine;
but that I thought was a nightmare, until I met it again.
I fancy I recollect some stuff being poured in between my teeth;
and that is all.




II.  THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE.


THE cabin in which I found myself was small and rather untidy.
A youngish man with flaxen hair, a bristly straw-coloured moustache,
and a dropping nether lip, was sitting and holding my wrist.
For a minute we stared at each other without speaking.
He had watery grey eyes, oddly void of expression.
Then just overhead came a sound like an iron bedstead being
knocked about, and the low angry growling of some large animal.
At the same time the man spoke.  He repeated his question,--"How do you
feel now?"

I think I said I felt all right.  I could not recollect how I
had got there.  He must have seen the question in my face,
for my voice was inaccessible to me.

"You were picked up in a boat, starving.  The name on the boat
was the 'Lady Vain,' and there were spots of blood on the gunwale."

At the same time my eye caught my hand, so thin that it looked
like a dirty skin-purse full of loose bones, and all the business
of the boat came back to me.

"Have some of this," said he, and gave me a dose of some
scarlet stuff, iced.

It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger.

"You were in luck," said he, "to get picked up by a ship with a
medical man aboard."  He spoke with a slobbering articulation,
with the ghost of a lisp.

"What ship is this?"  I said slowly, hoarse from my long silence.

"It's a little trader from Arica and Callao.  I never asked
where she came from in the beginning,--out of the land
of born fools, I guess.  I'm a passenger myself, from Arica.
The silly ass who owns her,--he's captain too, named Davies,--he's
lost his certificate, or something.  You know the kind of man,--calls
the thing the 'Ipecacuanha,' of all silly, infernal names;
though when there's much of a sea without any wind, she certainly
acts according."

(Then the noise overhead began again, a snarling growl
and the voice of a human being together.  Then another voice,
telling some "Heaven-forsaken idiot" to desist.)

"You were nearly dead," said my interlocutor.  "It was a very
near thing, indeed.  But I've put some stuff into you now.
Notice your arm's sore?  Injections.  You've been insensible for nearly
thirty hours."

I thought slowly.  (I was distracted now by the yelping of a number
of dogs.) "Am I eligible for solid food?" I asked.

"Thanks to me," he said.  "Even now the mutton is boiling."

"Yes," I said with assurance; "I could eat some mutton."

"But," said he with a momentary hesitation, "you know I'm dying to hear
of how you came to be alone in that boat.  Damn that howling!"
I thought I detected a certain suspicion in his eyes.

He suddenly left the cabin, and I heard him in violent controversy
with some one, who seemed to me to talk gibberish in response to him.
The matter sounded as though it ended in blows, but in that I thought
my ears were mistaken.  Then he shouted at the dogs, and returned to
the cabin.

"Well?" said he in the doorway.  "You were just beginning to tell me."

I told him my name, Edward Prendick, and how I had taken to Natural
History as a relief from the dulness of my comfortable independence.

He seemed interested in this.  "I've done some science myself.  I did
my Biology at University College,--getting out the ovary of the earthworm
and the radula of the snail, and all that.  Lord!  It's ten years ago.
But go on! go on! tell me about the boat."

He was evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story,
which I told in concise sentences enough, for I felt horribly weak;
and when it was finished he reverted at once to the topic
of Natural History and his own biological studies.  He began to
question me closely about Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street.
"Is Caplatzi still flourishing?  What a shop that was!"
He had evidently been a very ordinary medical student, and drifted
incontinently to the topic of the music halls.  He told me
some anecdotes.

"Left it all," he said, "ten years ago.  How jolly it all used to be!
But I made a young ass of myself,--played myself out before I was
twenty-one. I daresay it's all different now.  But I must look up
that ass of a cook, and see what he's done to your mutton."

The growling overhead was renewed, so suddenly and with so much savage
anger that it startled me.  "What's that?"  I called after him,
but the door had closed.  He came back again with the boiled mutton,
and I was so excited by the appetising smell of it that I forgot
the noise of the beast that had troubled me.

After a day of alternate sleep and feeding I was so far recovered
as to be able to get from my bunk to the scuttle, and see the green
seas trying to keep pace with us.  I judged the schooner was running
before the wind.  Montgomery--that was the name of the flaxen-haired
man--came in again as I stood there, and I asked him for some clothes.
He lent me some duck things of his own, for those I had worn in the boat
had been thrown overboard.  They were rather loose for me, for he was
large and long in his limbs.  He told me casually that the captain
was three-parts drunk in his own cabin.  As I assumed the clothes,
I began asking him some questions about the destination of the ship.
He said the ship was bound to Hawaii, but that it had to land
him first.

"Where?" said I.

"It's an island, where I live.  So far as I know, it hasn't got
a name."

He stared at me with his nether lip dropping, and looked so wilfully
stupid of a sudden that it came into my head that he desired
to avoid my questions.  I had the discretion to ask no more.




III.  THE STRANGE FACE.


WE left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing
our way.  He was standing on the ladder with his back to us,
peering over the combing of the hatchway.  He was, I could see,
a misshapen man, short, broad, and clumsy, with a crooked back,
a hairy neck, and a head sunk between his shoulders.  He was dressed
in dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair.
I heard the unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he ducked
back,--coming into contact with the hand I put out to fend him off
from myself.  He turned with animal swiftness.

In some indefinable way the black face thus flashed upon me
shocked me profoundly.  It was a singularly deformed one.
The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestive
of a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth
as I had ever seen in a human mouth.  His eyes were blood-shot
at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils.
There was a curious glow of excitement in his face.

"Confound you!" said Montgomery.  "Why the devil don't you get
out of the way?"

The black-faced man started aside without a word.
I went on up the companion, staring at him instinctively
as I did so.  Montgomery stayed at the foot for a moment.
"You have no business here, you know," he said in a deliberate tone.
"Your place is forward."

The black-faced man cowered.  "They--won't have me forward."
He spoke slowly, with a queer, hoarse quality in his voice.

"Won't have you forward!" said Montgomery, in a menacing voice.
"But I tell you to go!"  He was on the brink of saying something further,
then looked up at me suddenly and followed me up the ladder.

I had paused half way through the hatchway, looking back, still astonished
beyond measure at the grotesque ugliness of this black-faced creature.
I had never beheld such a repulsive and extraordinary face before,
and yet--if the contradiction is credible--I experienced at
the same time an odd feeling that in some way I _had_ already
encountered exactly the features and gestures that now amazed me.
Afterwards it occurred to me that probably I had seen him as I
was lifted aboard; and yet that scarcely satisfied my suspicion
of a previous acquaintance.  Yet how one could have set eyes on
so singular a face and yet have forgotten the precise occasion,
passed my imagination.

Montgomery's movement to follow me released my attention, and I
turned and looked about me at the flush deck of the little schooner.
I was already half prepared by the sounds I had heard for what I saw.
Certainly I never beheld a deck so dirty.  It was littered with
scraps of carrot, shreds of green stuff, and indescribable filth.
Fastened by chains to the mainmast were a number of grisly staghounds,
who now began leaping and barking at me, and by the mizzen a huge puma was
cramped in a little iron cage far too small even to give it turning room.
Farther under the starboard bulwark were some big hutches containing
a number of rabbits, and a solitary llama was squeezed in a mere
box of a cage forward.  The dogs were muzzled by leather straps.
The only human being on deck was a gaunt and silent sailor at
the wheel.

The patched and dirty spankers were tense before the wind,
and up aloft the little ship seemed carrying every sail she had.
The sky was clear, the sun midway down the western sky;
long waves, capped by the breeze with froth, were running with us.
We went past the steersman to the taffrail, and saw the water come
foaming under the stern and the bubbles go dancing and vanishing
in her wake.  I turned and surveyed the unsavoury length of
the ship.

"Is this an ocean menagerie?" said I.

"Looks like it," said Montgomery.

"What are these beasts for?  Merchandise, curios?  Does the captain
think he is going to sell them somewhere in the South Seas?"

"It looks like it, doesn't it?" said Montgomery, and turned towards
the wake again.

Suddenly we heard a yelp and a volley of furious blasphemy
from the companion hatchway, and the deformed man with the black
face came up hurriedly.  He was immediately followed by a heavy
red-haired man in a white cap.  At the sight of the former
the staghounds, who had all tired of barking at me by this time,
became furiously excited, howling and leaping against their chains.
The black hesitated before them, and this gave the red-haired man
time to come up with him and deliver a tremendous blow between
the shoulder-blades. The poor devil went down like a felled ox,
and rolled in the dirt among the furiously excited dogs.
It was lucky for him that they were muzzled.  The red-haired man gave
a yawp of exultation and stood staggering, and as it seemed to me
in serious danger of either going backwards down the companion hatchway
or forwards upon his victim.

So soon as the second man had appeared, Montgomery had started forward.
"Steady on there!" he cried, in a tone of remonstrance.
A couple of sailors appeared on the forecastle.  The black-faced man,
howling in a singular voice rolled about under the feet of the dogs.
No one attempted to help him.  The brutes did their best to worry him,
butting their muzzles at him.  There was a quick dance of their
lithe grey-figured bodies over the clumsy, prostrate figure.
The sailors forward shouted, as though it was admirable sport.
Montgomery gave an angry exclamation, and went striding down
the deck, and I followed him.  The black-faced man scrambled
up and staggered forward, going and leaning over the bulwark
by the main shrouds, where he remained, panting and glaring
over his shoulder at the dogs.  The red-haired man laughed a
satisfied laugh.

"Look here, Captain," said Montgomery, with his lisp a little accentuated,
gripping the elbows of the red-haired man, "this won't do!"

I stood behind Montgomery.  The captain came half round,
and regarded him with the dull and solemn eyes of a drunken man.
"Wha' won't do?" he said, and added, after looking sleepily into
Montgomery's face for a minute, "Blasted Sawbones!"

With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after two
ineffectual attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side pockets.

"That man's a passenger," said Montgomery.  "I'd advise you to keep
your hands off him."

"Go to hell!" said the captain, loudly.  He suddenly turned
and staggered towards the side.  "Do what I like on my own ship,"
he said.

I think Montgomery might have left him then, seeing the brute was drunk;
but he only turned a shade paler, and followed the captain
to the bulwarks.

"Look you here, Captain," he said; "that man of mine is not to be
ill-treated. He has been hazed ever since he came aboard."

For a minute, alcoholic fumes kept the captain speechless.
"Blasted Sawbones!" was all he considered necessary.

I could see that Montgomery had one of those slow, pertinacious tempers
that will warm day after day to a white heat, and never again
cool to forgiveness; and I saw too that this quarrel had been
some time growing.  "The man's drunk," said I, perhaps officiously;
"you'll do no good."

Montgomery gave an ugly twist to his dropping lip.  "He's always drunk.
Do you think that excuses his assaulting his passengers?"

"My ship," began the captain, waving his hand unsteadily
towards the cages, "was a clean ship.  Look at it now!"
It was certainly anything but clean.  "Crew," continued the captain,
"clean, respectable crew."

"You agreed to take the beasts."

"I wish I'd never set eyes on your infernal island.  What the
devil--want beasts for on an island like that?  Then, that man of
yours--understood he was a man.  He's a lunatic; and he hadn't no
business aft.  Do you think the whole damned ship belongs to you?"

"Your sailors began to haze the poor devil as soon as he came aboard."

"That's just what he is--he's a devil! an ugly devil!  My men
can't stand him.  _I_ can't stand him.  None of us can't stand him.
Nor _you_ either!"

Montgomery turned away.  "_You_ leave that man alone, anyhow," he said,
nodding his head as he spoke.

But the captain meant to quarrel now.  He raised his voice.  "If he comes
this end of the ship again I'll cut his insides out, I tell you.
Cut out his blasted insides!  Who are you, to tell me what I'm to do?
I tell you I'm captain of this ship,--captain and owner.
I'm the law here, I tell you,--the law and the prophets.
I bargained to take a man and his attendant to and from Arica,
and bring back some animals.  I never bargained to carry a mad devil
and a silly Sawbones, a--"

Well, never mind what he called Montgomery.  I saw the latter take
a step forward, and interposed.  "He's drunk," said I. The captain
began some abuse even fouler than the last.  "Shut up!" I said,
turning on him sharply, for I had seen danger in Montgomery's white face.
With that I brought the downpour on myself.

However, I was glad to avert what was uncommonly near a scuffle,
even at the price of the captain's drunken ill-will. I do not think
I have ever heard quite so much vile language come in a continuous
stream from any man's lips before, though I have frequented eccentric
company enough.  I found some of it hard to endure, though I am
a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told the captain to
"shut up" I had forgotten that I was merely a bit of human flotsam,
cut off from my resources and with my fare unpaid; a mere casual
dependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the ship.
He reminded me of it with considerable vigour; but at any rate I prevented
a fight.




IV.  AT THE SCHOONER'S RAIL.


THAT night land was sighted after sundown, and the schooner
hove to.  Montgomery intimated that was his destination.
It was too far to see any details; it seemed to me then simply
a low-lying patch of dim blue in the uncertain blue-grey sea.
An almost vertical streak of smoke went up from it into the sky.
The captain was not on deck when it was sighted.  After he had vented
his wrath on me he had staggered below, and I understand he went to sleep
on the floor of his own cabin.  The mate practically assumed the command.
He was the gaunt, taciturn individual we had seen at the wheel.
Apparently he was in an evil temper with Montgomery.  He took
not the slightest notice of either of us.  We dined with him in a
sulky silence, after a few ineffectual efforts on my part to talk.
It struck me too that the men regarded my companion and his animals
in a singularly unfriendly manner.  I found Montgomery very reticent
about his purpose with these creatures, and about his destination;
and though I was sensible of a growing curiosity as to both, I did not
press him.

We remained talking on the quarter deck until the sky was thick
with stars.  Except for an occasional sound in the yellow-lit forecastle
and a movement of the animals now and then, the night was very still.
The puma lay crouched together, watching us with shining eyes, a black
heap in the corner of its cage.  Montgomery produced some cigars.
He talked to me of London in a tone of half-painful reminiscence,
asking all kinds of questions about changes that had taken place.
He spoke like a man who had loved his life there, and had been
suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it.  I gossiped as well as I
could of this and that.  All the time the strangeness of him was
shaping itself in my mind; and as I talked I peered at his odd,
pallid face in the dim light of the binnacle lantern behind me.  Then I
looked out at the darkling sea, where in the dimness his little island
was hidden.

This man, it seemed to me, had come out of Immensity merely to save
my life.  To-morrow he would drop over the side, and vanish again out
of my existence.  Even had it been under commonplace circumstances,
it would have made me a trifle thoughtful; but in the first place was
the singularity of an educated man living on this unknown little island,
and coupled with that the extraordinary nature of his luggage.
I found myself repeating the captain's question, What did he want
with the beasts?  Why, too, had he pretended they were not his when I
had remarked about them at first?  Then, again, in his personal attendant
there was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly.
These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the man.  They laid
hold of my imagination, and hampered my tongue.

Towards midnight our talk of London died away, and we stood
side by side leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily
over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts.
It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and I began upon my gratitude.

"If I may say it," said I, after a time, "you have saved my life."

"Chance," he answered.  "Just chance."

"I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent."

"Thank no one.  You had the need, and I had the knowledge;
and I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen.
I was bored and wanted something to do.  If I'd been jaded that day,
or hadn't liked your face, well--it's a curious question where you would
have been now!"

This damped my mood a little.  "At any rate," I began.

"It's a chance, I tell you," he interrupted, "as everything is in
a man's life.  Only the asses won't see it!  Why am I here now,
an outcast from civilisation, instead of being a happy man enjoying
all the pleasures of London?  Simply because eleven years ago--I
lost my head for ten minutes on a foggy night."

He stopped.  "Yes?" said I.

"That's all."

We relapsed into silence.  Presently he laughed.
"There's something in this starlight that loosens one's tongue.
I'm an ass, and yet somehow I would like to tell you."

"Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping to myself--if
that's it."

He was on the point of beginning, and then shook his head, doubtfully.

"Don't," said I.  "It is all the same to me.  After all, it is better
to keep your secret.  There's nothing gained but a little relief
if I respect your confidence.  If I don't--well?"

He grunted undecidedly.  I felt I had him at a disadvantage, had caught
him in the mood of indiscretion; and to tell the truth I was not curious
to learn what might have driven a young medical student out of London.
I have an imagination.  I shrugged my shoulders and turned away.
Over the taffrail leant a silent black figure, watching the stars.
It was Montgomery's strange attendant.  It looked over its shoulder
quickly with my movement, then looked away again.

It may seem a little thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden
blow to me.  The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel.
The creature's face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness
of the stern towards this illumination, and I saw that the eyes
that glanced at me shone with a pale-green light.  I did not know then
that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes.
The thing came to me as stark inhumanity.  That black figure with its
eyes of fire struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings,
and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind.
Then the effect passed as it had come.  An uncouth black figure
of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail
against the starlight, and I found Montgomery was speaking
to me.

"I'm thinking of turning in, then," said he, "if you've had enough
of this."

I answered him incongruously.  We went below, and he wished me
good-night at the door of my cabin.

That night I had some very unpleasant dreams.  The waning
moon rose late.  Its light struck a ghostly white beam across
my cabin, and made an ominous shape on the planking by my bunk.
Then the staghounds woke, and began howling and baying;
so that I dreamt fitfully, and scarcely slept until the approach
of dawn.




V.  THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO.


IN the early morning (it was the second morning after my recovery,
and I believe the fourth after I was picked up), I awoke through an avenue
of tumultuous dreams,--dreams of guns and howling mobs,--and became
sensible of a hoarse shouting above me.  I rubbed my eyes and lay
listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts.
Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects
being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains.
I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round,
and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round
window and left it streaming.  I jumped into my clothes and went
on deck.

As I came up the ladder I saw against the flushed sky--for the sun
was just rising--the broad back and red hair of the captain,
and over his shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on
to the mizzen spanker-boom.

The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom
of its little cage.

"Overboard with 'em!" bawled the captain.  "Overboard with 'em!
We'll have a clean ship soon of the whole bilin' of 'em."

He stood in my way, so that I had perforce to tap his shoulder
to come on deck.  He came round with a start, and staggered back
a few paces to stare at me.  It needed no expert eye to tell
that the man was still drunk.

"Hullo!" said he, stupidly; and then with a light coming into his eyes,
"Why, it's Mister--Mister?"

"Prendick," said I.

"Prendick be damned!" said he.  "Shut-up,--that's your name.
Mister Shut-up."

It was no good answering the brute; but I certainly did not expect
his next move.  He held out his hand to the gangway by which Montgomery
stood talking to a massive grey-haired man in dirty-blue flannels,
who had apparently just come aboard.

"That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!" roared the captain.

Montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke.

"What do you mean?"  I said.

"That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up,--that's what I mean!
Overboard, Mister Shut-up,--and sharp!  We're cleaning the ship
out,--cleaning the whole blessed ship out; and overboard you go!"

I stared at him dumfounded.  Then it occurred to me that it was
exactly the thing I wanted.  The lost prospect of a journey as sole
passenger with this quarrelsome sot was not one to mourn over.
I turned towards Montgomery.

"Can't have you," said Montgomery's companion, concisely.

"You can't have me!" said I, aghast.  He had the squarest and most
resolute face I ever set eyes upon.

"Look here," I began, turning to the captain.

"Overboard!" said the captain.  "This ship aint for beasts
and cannibals and worse than beasts, any more.  Overboard you go,
Mister Shut-up. If they can't have you, you goes overboard.
But, anyhow, you go--with your friends.  I've done with this blessed
island for evermore, amen!  I've had enough of it."

"But, Montgomery," I appealed.

He distorted his lower lip, and nodded his head hopelessly at
the grey-haired man beside him, to indicate his powerlessness to help me.

"I'll see to _you_, presently," said the captain.

Then began a curious three-cornered altercation.
Alternately I appealed to one and another of the three men,--first
to the grey-haired man to let me land, and then to the drunken
captain to keep me aboard.  I even bawled entreaties to the sailors.
Montgomery said never a word, only shook his head.
"You're going overboard, I tell you," was the captain's refrain.
"Law be damned!  I'm king here."  At last I must confess
my voice suddenly broke in the middle of a vigorous threat.
I felt a gust of hysterical petulance, and went aft and stared dismally
at nothing.

Meanwhile the sailors progressed rapidly with the task of
unshipping the packages and caged animals.  A large launch,
with two standing lugs, lay under the lea of the schooner;
and into this the strange assortment of goods were swung.
I did not then see the hands from the island that were receiving
the packages, for the hull of the launch was hidden from me
by the side of the schooner.  Neither Montgomery nor his companion
took the slightest notice of me, but busied themselves in assisting
and directing the four or five sailors who were unloading the goods.
The captain went forward interfering rather than assisting.
I was alternately despairful and desperate.  Once or twice
as I stood waiting there for things to accomplish themselves,
I could not resist an impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary.
I felt all the wretcheder for the lack of a breakfast.
Hunger and a lack of blood-corpuscles take all the manhood from a man.
I perceived pretty clearly that I had not the stamina
either to resist what the captain chose to do to expel me,
or to force myself upon Montgomery and his companion.
So I waited passively upon fate; and the work of transferring
Montgomery's possessions to the launch went on as if I did
not exist.

Presently that work was finished, and then came a struggle.
I was hauled, resisting weakly enough, to the gangway.
Even then I noticed the oddness of the brown faces of the men who were
with Montgomery in the launch; but the launch was now fully laden,
and was shoved off hastily.  A broadening gap of green water
appeared under me, and I pushed back with all my strength to avoid
falling headlong.  The hands in the launch shouted derisively,
and I heard Montgomery curse at them; and then the captain,
the mate, and one of the seamen helping him, ran me aft towards
the stern.

The dingey of the "Lady Vain" had been towing behind; it was
half full of water, had no oars, and was quite unvictualled.
I refused to go aboard her, and flung myself full length on the deck.
In the end, they swung me into her by a rope (for they had no
stern ladder), and then they cut me adrift.  I drifted slowly
from the schooner.  In a kind of stupor I watched all hands take
to the rigging, and slowly but surely she came round to the wind;
the sails fluttered, and then bellied out as the wind came into them.
I stared at her weather-beaten side heeling steeply towards me;
and then she passed out of my range of view.

I did not turn my head to follow her.  At first I could scarcely
believe what had happened.  I crouched in the bottom of the dingey,
stunned, and staring blankly at the vacant, oily sea.  Then I realised
that I was in that little hell of mine again, now half swamped;
and looking back over the gunwale, I saw the schooner standing away
from me, with the red-haired captain mocking at me over the taffrail,
and turning towards the island saw the launch growing smaller as she
approached the beach.

Abruptly the cruelty of this desertion became clear to me.
I had no means of reaching the land unless I should chance to drift there.
I was still weak, you must remember, from my exposure in the boat;
I was empty and very faint, or I should have had more heart.
But as it was I suddenly began to sob and weep, as I had never done
since I was a little child.  The tears ran down my face.  In a passion
of despair I struck with my fists at the water in the bottom of the boat,
and kicked savagely at the gunwale.  I prayed aloud for God to let
me die.




VI.  THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.


BUT the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me.
I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly;
and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and
return towards me.  She was heavily laden, and I could make out as she
drew nearer Montgomery's white-haired, broad-shouldered companion sitting
cramped up with the dogs and several packing-cases in the stern sheets.
This individual stared fixedly at me without moving or speaking.
The black-faced cripple was glaring at me as fixedly in the bows
near the puma.  There were three other men besides,--three strange
brutish-looking fellows, at whom the staghounds were snarling savagely.
Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat by me, and rising,
caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me, for there was no
room aboard.

I had recovered from my hysterical phase by this time
and answered his hail, as he approached, bravely enough.
I told him the dingey was nearly swamped, and he reached me a piggin.
I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats.
For some time I was busy baling.

It was not until I had got the water under (for the water
in the dingey had been shipped; the boat was perfectly sound)
that I had leisure to look at the people in the launch again.

The white-haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly,
but with an expression, as I now fancied, of some perplexity.
When my eyes met his, he looked down at the staghound that sat
between his knees.  He was a powerfully-built man, as I have said,
with a fine forehead and rather heavy features; but his eyes
had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which often
comes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouth
at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution.
He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear.

From him my eyes travelled to his three men; and a strange crew they were.
I saw only their faces, yet there was something in their
faces--I knew not what--that gave me a queer spasm of disgust.
I looked steadily at them, and the impression did not pass,
though I failed to see what had occasioned it.  They seemed
to me then to be brown men; but their limbs were oddly swathed
in some thin, dirty, white stuff down even to the fingers and feet:
I have never seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East.
They wore turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfin
faces at me,--faces with protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes.
They had lank black hair, almost like horsehair, and seemed
as they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen.
The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height,
sat a head below any one of the three.  I found afterwards that really
none were taller than myself; but their bodies were abnormally long,
and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted.
At any rate, they were an amazingly ugly gang, and over the heads
of them under the forward lug peered the black face of the man whose
eyes were luminous in the dark.  As I stared at them, they met my gaze;
and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stare,
and looked at me in an odd, furtive manner.  It occurred to me that I
was perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to the island
we were approaching.

It was low, and covered with thick vegetation,--chiefly a kind of palm,
that was new to me.  From one point a thin white thread of vapour rose
slantingly to an immense height, and then frayed out like a down feather.
We were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either
hand by a low promontory.  The beach was of dull-grey sand,
and sloped steeply up to a ridge, perhaps sixty or seventy feet above
the sea-level, and irregularly set with trees and undergrowth.
Half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish stone, which I found
subsequently was built partly of coral and partly of pumiceous lava.
Two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure.
A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge.  I fancied while we
were still far off that I saw some other and very grotesque-looking
creatures scuttle into the bushes upon the slope; but I saw nothing
of these as we drew nearer.  This man was of a moderate size,
and with a black negroid face.  He had a large, almost lipless,
mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet, and bow-legs,
and stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us.
He was dressed like Montgomery and his white-haired companion,
in jacket and trousers of blue serge.  As we came still nearer,
this individual began to run to and fro on the beach, making the most
grotesque movements.

At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the launch
sprang up, and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs.
Montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavated
in the beach.  Then the man on the beach hastened towards us.
This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch just long
enough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat.
I heard the bows ground in the sand, staved the dingey off the rudder
of the big boat with my piggin, and freeing the painter, landed.
The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements, scrambled out
upon the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo, assisted by
the man on the beach.  I was struck especially by the curious
movements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen,--not
stiff they were, but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they
were jointed in the wrong place.  The dogs were still snarling,
and strained at their chains after these men, as the white-haired
man landed with them.  The three big fellows spoke to one another
in odd guttural tones, and the man who had waited for us on
the beach began chattering to them excitedly--a foreign language,
as I fancied--as they laid hands on some bales piled near the stern.
Somewhere I had heard such a voice before, and I could not think where.
The white-haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six dogs, and bawling
orders over their din.  Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder,
landed likewise, and all set to work at unloading.  I was too faint,
what with my long fast and the sun beating down on my bare head, to offer
any assistance.

Presently the white-haired man seemed to recollect my presence,
and came up to me.

"You look," said he, "as though you had scarcely breakfasted."
His little eyes were a brilliant black under his heavy brows.
"I must apologise for that.  Now you are our guest, we must
make you comfortable,--though you are uninvited, you know."
He looked keenly into my face.  "Montgomery says you are an educated man,
Mr. Prendick; says you know something of science.  May I ask what
that signifies?"

I told him I had spent some years at the Royal College of Science,
and had done some researches in biology under Huxley.  He raised
his eyebrows slightly at that.

"That alters the case a little, Mr. Prendick," he said,
with a trifle more respect in his manner.  "As it happens,
we are biologists here.  This is a biological station--of a sort."
His eye rested on the men in white who were busily hauling the puma,
on rollers, towards the walled yard.  "I and Montgomery, at least,"
he added.  Then, "When you will be able to get away, I can't say.
We're off the track to anywhere.  We see a ship once in a twelve-month
or so."

He left me abruptly, and went up the beach past this group, and I
think entered the enclosure.  The other two men were with Montgomery,
erecting a pile of smaller packages on a low-wheeled truck.
The llama was still on the launch with the rabbit hutches;
the staghounds were still lashed to the thwarts.
The pile of things completed, all three men laid hold of the truck
and began shoving the ton-weight or so upon it after the puma.
Presently Montgomery left them, and coming back to me held out
his hand.

"I'm glad," said he, "for my own part.  That captain was a silly ass.
He'd have made things lively for you."

"It was you," said I, "that saved me again".

"That depends.  You'll find this island an infernally rum place,
I promise you.  I'd watch my goings carefully, if I were you.
_He_--" He hesitated, and seemed to alter his mind about what
was on his lips.  "I wish you'd help me with these rabbits,"
he said.

His procedure with the rabbits was singular.  I waded
in with him, and helped him lug one of the hutches ashore.
No sooner was that done than he opened the door of it, and tilting
the thing on one end turned its living contents out on the ground.
They fell in a struggling heap one on the top of the other.
He clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off with that hopping
run of theirs, fifteen or twenty of them I should think, up
the beach.

"Increase and multiply, my friends," said Montgomery.
"Replenish the island.  Hitherto we've had a certain lack of meat here."

As I watched them disappearing, the white-haired man returned with a
brandy-flask and some biscuits.  "Something to go on with, Prendick,"
said he, in a far more familiar tone than before.  I made no ado,
but set to work on the biscuits at once, while the white-haired man
helped Montgomery to release about a score more of the rabbits.
Three big hutches, however, went up to the house with the puma.
The brandy I did not touch, for I have been an abstainer from
my birth.




VII.  THE LOCKED DOOR.


THE reader will perhaps understand that at first everything was so strange
about me, and my position was the outcome of such unexpected adventures,
that I had no discernment of the relative strangeness of this
or that thing.  I followed the llama up the beach, and was overtaken
by Montgomery, who asked me not to enter the stone enclosure.
I noticed then that the puma in its cage and the pile of packages
had been placed outside the entrance to this quadrangle.

I turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded, run out again,
and was being beached, and the white-haired man was walking towards us.
He addressed Montgomery.

"And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest.  What are we
to do with him?"

"He knows something of science," said Montgomery.

"I'm itching to get to work again--with this new stuff,"
said the white-haired man, nodding towards the enclosure.
His eyes grew brighter.

"I daresay you are," said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial tone.

"We can't send him over there, and we can't spare the time to build
him a new shanty; and we certainly can't take him into our confidence
just yet."

"I'm in your hands," said I. I had no idea of what he meant
by "over there."

"I've been thinking of the same things," Montgomery answered.
"There's my room with the outer door--"

"That's it," said the elder man, promptly, looking at Montgomery;
and all three of us went towards the enclosure.  "I'm sorry to make
a mystery, Mr. Prendick; but you'll remember you're uninvited.
Our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kind
of Blue-Beard's chamber, in fact.  Nothing very dreadful, really, to a
sane man; but just now, as we don't know you--"

"Decidedly," said I, "I should be a fool to take offence at any want
of confidence."

He twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile--he was one of those
saturnine people who smile with the corners of the mouth down,--and
bowed his acknowledgment of my complaisance.  The main entrance
to the enclosure was passed; it was a heavy wooden gate, framed in iron
and locked, with the cargo of the launch piled outside it, and at
the corner we came to a small doorway I had not previously observed.
The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys from the pocket
of his greasy blue jacket, opened this door, and entered.
His keys, and the elaborate locking-up of the place even while it
was still under his eye, struck me as peculiar.  I followed him,
and found myself in a small apartment, plainly but not uncomfortably
furnished and with its inner door, which was slightly ajar, opening into
a paved courtyard.  This inner door Montgomery at once closed.
A hammock was slung across the darker corner of the room, and a
small unglazed window defended by an iron bar looked out towards
the sea.

This the white-haired man told me was to be my apartment;
and the inner door, which "for fear of accidents," he said,
he would lock on the other side, was my limit inward.
He called my attention to a convenient deck-chair before the window,
and to an array of old books, chiefly, I found, surgical works
and editions of the Latin and Greek classics (languages I
cannot read with any comfort), on a shelf near the hammock.
He left the room by the outer door, as if to avoid opening the inner
one again.

"We usually have our meals in here," said Montgomery, and then,
as if in doubt, went out after the other.  "Moreau!" I heard
him call, and for the moment I do not think I noticed.
Then as I handled the books on the shelf it came up in consciousness:
Where had I heard the name of Moreau before?  I sat down before
the window, took out the biscuits that still remained to me,
and ate them with an excellent appetite.  Moreau!

Through the window I saw one of those unaccountable men in white, lugging a
packing-case along the beach.  Presently the window-frame hid him.
Then I heard a key inserted and turned in the lock behind me.
After a little while I heard through the locked door the noise
of the staghounds, that had now been brought up from the beach.
They were not barking, but sniffing and growling in a curious fashion.
I could hear the rapid patter of their feet, and Montgomery's voice
soothing them.

I was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two men
regarding the contents of the place, and for some time I was thinking
of that and of the unaccountable familiarity of the name of Moreau;
but so odd is the human memory that I could not then recall that
well-known name in its proper connection.  From that my thoughts
went to the indefinable queerness of the deformed man on the beach.
I never saw such a gait, such odd motions as he pulled at the box.
I recalled that none of these men had spoken to me, though most
of them I had found looking at me at one time or another in a
peculiarly furtive manner, quite unlike the frank stare of your
unsophisticated savage.  Indeed, they had all seemed remarkably taciturn,
and when they did speak, endowed with very uncanny voices.
What was wrong with them?  Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery's
ungainly attendant.

Just as I was thinking of him he came in.  He was now dressed in white,
and carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon.
I could hardly repress a shuddering recoil as he came, bending amiably,
and placed the tray before me on the table.  Then astonishment
paralysed me.  Under his stringy black locks I saw his ear;
it jumped upon me suddenly close to my face.  The man had pointed ears,
covered with a fine brown fur!

"Your breakfast, sair," he said.

I stared at his face without attempting to answer him.  He turned
and went towards the door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder.
I followed him out with my eyes; and as I did so, by some odd trick
of unconscious cerebration, there came surging into my head the phrase,
"The Moreau Hollows"--was it?  "The Moreau--" Ah!  It sent my memory
back ten years.  "The Moreau Horrors!"  The phrase drifted loose
in my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a little
buff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made one shiver and creep.
Then I remembered distinctly all about it.  That long-forgotten
pamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind.
I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty,--a
prominent and masterful physiologist, well-known in scientific
circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directness
in discussion.

Was this the same Moreau?  He had published some very astonishing
facts in connection with the transfusion of blood, and in
addition was known to be doing valuable work on morbid growths.
Then suddenly his career was closed.  He had to leave England.
A journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacity
of laboratory-assistant, with the deliberate intention of making
sensational exposures; and by the help of a shocking accident
(if it was an accident), his gruesome pamphlet became notorious.
On the day of its publication a wretched dog, flayed and
otherwise mutilated, escaped from Moreau's house.  It was in
the silly season, and a prominent editor, a cousin of the temporary
laboratory-assistant, appealed to the conscience of the nation.
It was not the first time that conscience has turned against the methods
of research.  The doctor was simply howled out of the country.
It may be that he deserved to be; but I still think that the tepid
support of his fellow-investigators and his desertion by the great
body of scientific workers was a shameful thing.  Yet some of
his experiments, by the journalist's account, were wantonly cruel.
He might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoning
his investigations; but he apparently preferred the latter, as most men
would who have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research.
He was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interest
to consider.

I felt convinced that this must be the same man.  Everything pointed
to it.  It dawned upon me to what end the puma and the other
animals--which had now been brought with other luggage into the
enclosure behind the house--were destined; and a curious faint odour,
the halitus of something familiar, an odour that had been in
the background of my consciousness hitherto, suddenly came forward
into the forefront of my thoughts.  It was the antiseptic odour
of the dissecting-room. I heard the puma growling through the wall,
and one of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck.

Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was
nothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy;
and by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous
eyes of Montgomery's attendant came back again before me with
the sharpest definition.  I stared before me out at the green sea,
frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other strange
memories of the last few days chase one another through my mind.

What could it all mean?  A locked enclosure on a lonely island,
a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men?




VIII.  THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.


MONTGOMERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion
about one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him
with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables,
a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives.
I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching
me with his queer, restless eyes.  Montgomery said he would lunch
with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work
to come.

"Moreau!" said I.  "I know that name."

"The devil you do!" said he.  "What an ass I was to mention it to you!
I might have thought.  Anyhow, it will give you an inkling
of our--mysteries.  Whiskey?"

"No, thanks; I'm an abstainer."

"I wish I'd been.  But it's no use locking the door
after the steed is stolen.  It was that infernal
stuff which led to my coming here,--that, and a foggy night.
I thought myself in luck at the time, when Moreau offered to get me off.
It's queer--"

"Montgomery," said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, "why has
your man pointed ears?"

"Damn!" he said, over his first mouthful of food.  He stared at me
for a moment, and then repeated, "Pointed ears?"

"Little points to them," said I, as calmly as possible, with a catch
in my breath; "and a fine black fur at the edges?"

He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation.
"I was under the impression--that his hair covered his ears."

"I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to me
on the table.  And his eyes shine in the dark."

By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question.
"I always thought," he said deliberately, with a certain
accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, "that there _was_ something
the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them.
What were they like?"

I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence.
Still, I could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar.
"Pointed," I said; "rather small and furry,--distinctly furry.
But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever set
eyes on."

A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us.
Its depth and volume testified to the puma.  I saw Montgomery wince.

"Yes?" he said.

"Where did you pick up the creature?"

"San Francisco.  He's an ugly brute, I admit.  Half-witted, you know.
Can't remember where he came from.  But I'm used to him, you know.
We both are.  How does he strike you?"

"He's unnatural," I said.  "There's something about him--don't
think me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little sensation,
a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me.  It's a touch--of
the diabolical, in fact."

Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this.  "Rum!" he said.
"I can't see it."  He resumed his meal.  "I had no idea of it,"
he said, and masticated.  "The crew of the schooner must have
felt it the same.  Made a dead set at the poor devil.  You saw
the captain?"

Suddenly the puma howled again, this time more painfully.
Montgomery swore under his breath.  I had half a mind to attack him
about the men on the beach.  Then the poor brute within gave vent
to a series of short, sharp cries.

"Your men on the beach," said I; "what race are they?"

"Excellent fellows, aren't they?" said he, absentmindedly,
knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply.

I said no more.  There was another outcry worse than the former.
He looked at me with his dull grey eyes, and then took some
more whiskey.  He tried to draw me into a discussion about alcohol,
professing to have saved my life with it.  He seemed anxious
to lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him.  I answered
him distractedly.

Presently our meal came to an end; the misshapen monster with
the pointed ears cleared the remains away, and Montgomery left
me alone in the room again.  All the time he had been in a state
of ill-concealed irritation at the noise of the vivisected puma.
He had spoken of his odd want of nerve, and left me to the
obvious application.

I found myself that the cries were singularly irritating,
and they grew in depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on.
They were painful at first, but their constant resurgence at last
altogether upset my balance.  I flung aside a crib of Horace I
had been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my lips,
and to pace the room.  Presently I got to stopping my ears with
my fingers.

The emotional appeal of those yells grew upon me steadily,
grew at last to such an exquisite expression of suffering that I
could stand it in that confined room no longer.  I stepped
out of the door into the slumberous heat of the late afternoon,
and walking past the main entrance--locked again, I noticed--turned
the corner of the wall.

The crying sounded even louder out of doors.  It was as if all the pain
in the world had found a voice.  Yet had I known such pain was in
the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe--I have thought since--I
could have stood it well enough.  It is when suffering finds a voice
and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.
But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees
waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion,
blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot
of the house in the chequered wall.




IX.  THE THING IN THE FOREST.


I STRODE through the undergrowth that clothed the ridge behind the house,
scarcely heeding whither I went; passed on through the shadow of a thick
cluster of straight-stemmed trees beyond it, and so presently found
myself some way on the other side of the ridge, and descending towards
a streamlet that ran through a narrow valley.  I paused and listened.
The distance I had come, or the intervening masses of thicket,
deadened any sound that might be coming from the enclosure.
The air was still.  Then with a rustle a rabbit emerged, and went
scampering up the slope before me.  I hesitated, and sat down in the edge
of the shade.

The place was a pleasant one.  The rivulet was hidden
by the luxuriant vegetation of the banks save at one point,
where I caught a triangular patch of its glittering water.
On the farther side I saw through a bluish haze a tangle of trees
and creepers, and above these again the luminous blue of the sky.
Here and there a splash of white or crimson marked the blooming of some
trailing epiphyte.  I let my eyes wander over this scene for a while,
and then began to turn over in my mind again the strange peculiarities
of Montgomery's man.  But it was too hot to think elaborately,
and presently I fell into a tranquil state midway between dozing
and waking.

From this I was aroused, after I know not how long, by a
rustling amidst the greenery on the other side of the stream.
For a moment I could see nothing but the waving summits of
the ferns and reeds.  Then suddenly upon the bank of the stream
appeared Something--at first I could not distinguish what it was.
It bowed its round head to the water, and began to drink.
Then I saw it was a man, going on all-fours like a beast.  He was clothed
in bluish cloth, and was of a copper-coloured hue, with black hair.
It seemed that grotesque ugliness was an invariable character of
these islanders.  I could hear the suck of the water at his lips as
he drank.

I leant forward to see him better, and a piece of lava, detached by
my hand, went pattering down the slope.  He looked up guiltily,
and his eyes met mine.  Forthwith he scrambled to his feet,
and stood wiping his clumsy hand across his mouth and regarding me.
His legs were scarcely half the length of his body.
So, staring one another out of countenance, we remained for perhaps
the space of a minute.  Then, stopping to look back once or twice,
he slunk off among the bushes to the right of me, and I heard
the swish of the fronds grow faint in the distance and die away.
Long after he had disappeared, I remained sitting up staring
in the direction of his retreat.  My drowsy tranquillity
had gone.

I was startled by a noise behind me, and turning suddenly saw
the flapping white tail of a rabbit vanishing up the slope.
I jumped to my feet.  The apparition of this grotesque, half-bestial
creature had suddenly populated the stillness of the afternoon for me.
I looked around me rather nervously, and regretted that I was unarmed.
Then I thought that the man I had just seen had been clothed
in bluish cloth, had not been naked as a savage would have been;
and I tried to persuade myself from that fact that he was after all
probably a peaceful character, that the dull ferocity of his countenance
belied him.

Yet I was greatly disturbed at the apparition.  I walked
to the left along the slope, turning my head about and peering
this way and that among the straight stems of the trees.
Why should a man go on all-fours and drink with his lips?  Presently I
heard an animal wailing again, and taking it to be the puma, I turned
about and walked in a direction diametrically opposite to the sound.
This led me down to the stream, across which I stepped and pushed
my way up through the undergrowth beyond.

I was startled by a great patch of vivid scarlet on the ground,
and going up to it found it to be a peculiar fungus, branched and
corrugated like a foliaceous lichen, but deliquescing into slime
at the touch; and then in the shadow of some luxuriant ferns I
came upon an unpleasant thing,--the dead body of a rabbit covered
with shining flies, but still warm and with the head torn off.
I stopped aghast at the sight of the scattered blood.
Here at least was one visitor to the island disposed of!
There were no traces of other violence about it.  It looked as though it
had been suddenly snatched up and killed; and as I stared at the little
furry body came the difficulty of how the thing had been done.
The vague dread that had been in my mind since I had seen the inhuman
face of the man at the stream grew distincter as I stood there.
I began to realise the hardihood of my expedition among these
unknown people.  The thicket about me became altered to my imagination.
Every shadow became something more than a shadow,--became an ambush;
every rustle became a threat.  Invisible things seemed watching me.
I resolved to go back to the enclosure on the beach.  I suddenly
turned away and thrust myself violently, possibly even frantically,
through the bushes, anxious to get a clear space about me
again.

I stopped just in time to prevent myself emerging upon an open space.
It was a kind of glade in the forest, made by a fall; seedlings were
already starting up to struggle for the vacant space; and beyond,
the dense growth of stems and twining vines and splashes of fungus
and flowers closed in again.  Before me, squatting together upon
the fungoid ruins of a huge fallen tree and still unaware of my approach,
were three grotesque human figures.  One was evidently a female;
the other two were men.  They were naked, save for swathings
of scarlet cloth about the middle; and their skins were of a dull
pinkish-drab colour, such as I had seen in no savages before.
They had fat, heavy, chinless faces, retreating foreheads,
and a scant bristly hair upon their heads.  I never saw such
bestial-looking creatures.

They were talking, or at least one of the men was talking to the other two,
and all three had been too closely interested to heed the rustling of
my approach.  They swayed their heads and shoulders from side to side.
The speaker's words came thick and sloppy, and though I could
hear them distinctly I could not distinguish what he said.
He seemed to me to be reciting some complicated gibberish.
Presently his articulation became shriller, and spreading his hands
he rose to his feet.  At that the others began to gibber in unison,
also rising to their feet, spreading their hands and swaying their
bodies in rhythm with their chant.  I noticed then the abnormal
shortness of their legs, and their lank, clumsy feet.  All three began
slowly to circle round, raising and stamping their feet and waving
their arms; a kind of tune crept into their rhythmic recitation,
and a refrain,--"Aloola," or "Balloola," it sounded like.
Their eyes began to sparkle, and their ugly faces to brighten,
with an expression of strange pleasure.  Saliva dripped from their
lipless mouths.

Suddenly, as I watched their grotesque and unaccountable gestures,
I perceived clearly for the first time what it was that had offended me,
what had given me the two inconsistent and conflicting impressions
of utter strangeness and yet of the strangest familiarity.
The three creatures engaged in this mysterious rite were human in shape,
and yet human beings with the strangest air about them of some
familiar animal.  Each of these creatures, despite its human form,
its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form,
had woven into it--into its movements, into the expression of
its countenance, into its whole presence--some now irresistible
suggestion of a hog, a swinish taint, the unmistakable mark of
the beast.

I stood overcome by this amazing realisation and then the most horrible
questionings came rushing into my mind.  They began leaping in the air,
first one and then the other, whooping and grunting.  Then one slipped,
and for a moment was on all-fours,--to recover, indeed, forthwith.
But that transitory gleam of the true animalism of these monsters
was enough.

I turned as noiselessly as possible, and becoming every now
and then rigid with the fear of being discovered, as a branch
cracked or a leaf rustled, I pushed back into the bushes.
It was long before I grew bolder, and dared to move freely.
My only idea for the moment was to get away from these foul beings, and I
scarcely noticed that I had emerged upon a faint pathway amidst the trees.
Then suddenly traversing a little glade, I saw with an unpleasant start
two clumsy legs among the trees, walking with noiseless footsteps
parallel with my course, and perhaps thirty yards away from me.
The head and upper part of the body were hidden by a tangle of creeper.
I stopped abruptly, hoping the creature did not see me.
The feet stopped as I did.  So nervous was I that I controlled
an impulse to headlong flight with the utmost difficulty.
Then looking hard, I distinguished through the interlacing network
the head and body of the brute I had seen drinking.  He moved his head.
There was an emerald flash in his eyes as he glanced at me from
the shadow of the trees, a half-luminous colour that vanished as
he turned his head again.  He was motionless for a moment, and then
with a noiseless tread began running through the green confusion.
In another moment he had vanished behind some bushes.
I could not see him, but I felt that he had stopped and was watching me
again.

What on earth was he,--man or beast?  What did he want with me?
I had no weapon, not even a stick.  Flight would be madness.
At any rate the Thing, whatever it was, lacked the courage to attack me.
Setting my teeth hard, I walked straight towards him.
I was anxious not to show the fear that seemed chilling my backbone.
I pushed through a tangle of tall white-flowered bushes,
and saw him twenty paces beyond, looking over his shoulder at me
and hesitating.  I advanced a step or two, looking steadfastly into
his eyes.

"Who are you?" said I.

He tried to meet my gaze.  "No!" he said suddenly, and turning went
bounding away from me through the undergrowth.  Then he turned
and stared at me again.  His eyes shone brightly out of the dusk
under the trees.

My heart was in my mouth; but I felt my only chance was bluff,
and walked steadily towards him.  He turned again, and vanished
into the dusk.  Once more I thought I caught the glint of his eyes,
and that was all.

For the first time I realised how the lateness of the hour
might affect me.  The sun had set some minutes since, the swift
dusk of the tropics was already fading out of the eastern sky,
and a pioneer moth fluttered silently by my head.  Unless I would
spend the night among the unknown dangers of the mysterious forest,
I must hasten back to the enclosure.  The thought of a return
to that pain-haunted refuge was extremely disagreeable, but still
more so was the idea of being overtaken in the open by darkness
and all that darkness might conceal.  I gave one more look
into the blue shadows that had swallowed up this odd creature,
and then retraced my way down the slope towards the stream,
going as I judged in the direction from which I had come.

I walked eagerly, my mind confused with many things,
and presently found myself in a level place among scattered trees.
The colourless clearness that comes after the sunset flush
was darkling; the blue sky above grew momentarily deeper,
and the little stars one by one pierced the attenuated light;
the interspaces of the trees, the gaps in the further vegetation,
that had been hazy blue in the daylight, grew black and mysterious.
I pushed on.  The colour vanished from the world.
The tree-tops rose against the luminous blue sky in inky silhouette,
and all below that outline melted into one formless blackness.
Presently the trees grew thinner, and the shrubby undergrowth
more abundant.  Then there was a desolate space covered with
a white sand, and then another expanse of tangled bushes.
I did not remember crossing the sand-opening before.
I began to be tormented by a faint rustling upon my right hand.
I thought at first it was fancy, for whenever I stopped there
was silence, save for the evening breeze in the tree-tops.
Then when I turned to hurry on again there was an echo to
my footsteps.

I turned away from the thickets, keeping to the more open ground,
and endeavouring by sudden turns now and then to surprise something
in the act of creeping upon me.  I saw nothing, and nevertheless
my sense of another presence grew steadily.  I increased my pace,
and after some time came to a slight ridge, crossed it, and turned sharply,
regarding it steadfastly from the further side.  It came out black
and clear-cut against the darkling sky; and presently a shapeless
lump heaved up momentarily against the sky-line and vanished again.
I felt assured now that my tawny-faced antagonist was stalking me
once more; and coupled with that was another unpleasant realisation,
that I had lost my way.

For a time I hurried on hopelessly perplexed, and pursued by that
stealthy approach.  Whatever it was, the Thing either lacked the courage
to attack me, or it was waiting to take me at some disadvantage.
I kept studiously to the open.  At times I would turn and listen;
and presently I had half persuaded myself that my pursuer had abandoned
the chase, or was a mere creation of my disordered imagination.
Then I heard the sound of the sea.  I quickened my footsteps
almost into a run, and immediately there was a stumble in
my rear.

I turned suddenly, and stared at the uncertain trees behind me.
One black shadow seemed to leap into another.  I listened,
rigid, and heard nothing but the creep of the blood in my ears.
I thought that my nerves were unstrung, and that my imagination
was tricking me, and turned resolutely towards the sound of the
sea again.

In a minute or so the trees grew thinner, and I emerged upon
a bare, low headland running out into the sombre water.
The night was calm and clear, and the reflection of the growing
multitude of the stars shivered in the tranquil heaving of the sea.
Some way out, the wash upon an irregular band of reef shone
with a pallid light of its own.  Westward I saw the zodiacal
light mingling with the yellow brilliance of the evening star.
The coast fell away from me to the east, and westward it was hidden
by the shoulder of the cape.  Then I recalled the fact that Moreau's
beach lay to the west.

A twig snapped behind me, and there was a rustle.  I turned, and stood
facing the dark trees.  I could see nothing--or else I could see too much.
Every dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar
suggestion of alert watchfulness.  So I stood for perhaps a minute,
and then, with an eye to the trees still, turned westward to cross
the headland; and as I moved, one among the lurking shadows moved
to follow me.

My heart beat quickly.  Presently the broad sweep of a bay
to the westward became visible, and I halted again.
The noiseless shadow halted a dozen yards from me.
A little point of light shone on the further bend of the curve,
and the grey sweep of the sandy beach lay faint under the starlight.
Perhaps two miles away was that little point of light.
To get to the beach I should have to go through the trees where the
shadows lurked, and down a bushy slope.

I could see the Thing rather more distinctly now.  It was no animal,
for it stood erect.  At that I opened my mouth to speak, and found
a hoarse phlegm choked my voice.  I tried again, and shouted,
"Who is there?"  There was no answer.  I advanced a step.
The Thing did not move, only gathered itself together.  My foot
struck a stone.  That gave me an idea.  Without taking my eyes off
the black form before me, I stooped and picked up this lump of rock;
but at my motion the Thing turned abruptly as a dog might have done,
and slunk obliquely into the further darkness.  Then I recalled
a schoolboy expedient against big dogs, and twisted the rock into
my handkerchief, and gave this a turn round my wrist.  I heard a movement
further off among the shadows, as if the Thing was in retreat.
Then suddenly my tense excitement gave way; I broke into a profuse
perspiration and fell a-trembling, with my adversary routed and this
weapon in my hand.

It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through
the trees and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach.
At last I did it at a run; and as I emerged from the thicket
upon the sand, I heard some other body come crashing after me.
At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began running
along the sand.  Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft
feet in pursuit.  I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace.
Some dim, black things about three or four times the size of rabbits
went running or hopping up from the beach towards the bushes as
I passed.

So long as I live, I shall remember the terror of that chase.
I ran near the water's edge, and heard every now and then the splash
of the feet that gained upon me.  Far away, hopelessly far,
was the yellow light.  All the night about us was black and still.
Splash, splash, came the pursuing feet, nearer and nearer.
I felt my breath going, for I was quite out of training; it whooped
as I drew it, and I felt a pain like a knife at my side.  I perceived
the Thing would come up with me long before I reached the enclosure,
and, desperate and sobbing for my breath, I wheeled round upon it
and struck at it as it came up to me,--struck with all my strength.
The stone came out of the sling of the handkerchief as I did so.
As I turned, the Thing, which had been running on all-fours,
rose to its feet, and the missile fell fair on its left temple.
The skull rang loud, and the animal-man blundered into me,
thrust me back with its hands, and went staggering past me to fall
headlong upon the sand with its face in the water; and there it lay
still.

I could not bring myself to approach that black heap.  I left
it there, with the water rippling round it, under the still stars,
and giving it a wide berth pursued my way towards the yellow glow
of the house; and presently, with a positive effect of relief,
came the pitiful moaning of the puma, the sound that had
originally driven me out to explore this mysterious island.
At that, though I was faint and horribly fatigued, I gathered
together all my strength, and began running again towards the light.
I thought I heard a voice calling me.




X.  THE CRYING OF THE MAN.


AS I drew near the house I saw that the light shone from
the open door of my room; and then I heard coming from out
of the darkness at the side of that orange oblong of light,
the voice of Montgomery shouting, "Prendick!"  I continued running.
Presently I heard him again.  I replied by a feeble "Hullo!"
and in another moment had staggered up to him.

"Where have you been?" said he, holding me at arm's length,
so that the light from the door fell on my face.  "We have both
been so busy that we forgot you until about half an hour ago."
He led me into the room and sat me down in the deck chair.
For awhile I was blinded by the light.  "We did not think you would start
to explore this island of ours without telling us," he said; and then,
"I was afraid--But--what--Hullo!"

My last remaining strength slipped from me, and my head fell forward
on my chest.  I think he found a certain satisfaction in giving
me brandy.

"For God's sake," said I, "fasten that door."

"You've been meeting some of our curiosities, eh?" said he.

He locked the door and turned to me again.  He asked me no questions,
but gave me some more brandy and water and pressed me to eat.
I was in a state of collapse.  He said something vague about his
forgetting to warn me, and asked me briefly when I left the house
and what I had seen.

I answered him as briefly, in fragmentary sentences.  "Tell me
what it all means," said I, in a state bordering on hysterics.

"It's nothing so very dreadful," said he.  "But I think you
have had about enough for one day."  The puma suddenly gave
a sharp yell of pain.  At that he swore under his breath.
"I'm damned," said he, "if this place is not as bad as Gower Street,
with its cats."

"Montgomery," said I, "what was that thing that came after me?
Was it a beast or was it a man?"

"If you don't sleep to-night," he said, "you'll be off your
head to-morrow."

I stood up in front of him.  "What was that thing that came after me?"
I asked.

He looked me squarely in the eyes, and twisted his mouth askew.
His eyes, which had seemed animated a minute before, went dull.
"From your account," said he, "I'm thinking it was a bogle."

I felt a gust of intense irritation, which passed as quickly as it came.
I flung myself into the chair again, and pressed my hands on my forehead.
The puma began once more.

Montgomery came round behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Look here, Prendick," he said, "I had no business to let
you drift out into this silly island of ours.  But it's not
so bad as you feel, man.  Your nerves are worked to rags.
Let me give you something that will make you sleep.  _That_--will keep
on for hours yet.  You must simply get to sleep, or I won't answer
for it."

I did not reply.  I bowed forward, and covered my face with my hands.
Presently he returned with a small measure containing a dark liquid.
This he gave me.  I took it unresistingly, and he helped me into
the hammock.

When I awoke, it was broad day.  For a little while I lay flat,
staring at the roof above me.  The rafters, I observed, were made
out of the timbers of a ship.  Then I turned my head, and saw a meal
prepared for me on the table.  I perceived that I was hungry,
and prepared to clamber out of the hammock, which, very politely
anticipating my intention, twisted round and deposited me upon
all-fours on the floor.

I got up and sat down before the food.  I had a heavy feeling
in my head, and only the vaguest memory at first of the things
that had happened over night.  The morning breeze blew very
pleasantly through the unglazed window, and that and the food
contributed to the sense of animal comfort which I experienced.
Presently the door behind me--the door inward towards the yard
of the enclosure--opened.  I turned and saw Montgomery's face.

"All right," said he.  "I'm frightfully busy."  And he shut the door.

Afterwards I discovered that he forgot to re-lock it.
Then I recalled the expression of his face the previous night,
and with that the memory of all I had experienced reconstructed
itself before me.  Even as that fear came back to me came a cry
from within; but this time it was not the cry of a puma.
I put down the mouthful that hesitated upon my lips, and listened.
Silence, save for the whisper of the morning breeze.  I began to think my
ears had deceived me.

After a long pause I resumed my meal, but with my ears still vigilant.
Presently I heard something else, very faint and low.
I sat as if frozen in my attitude.  Though it was faint and low,
it moved me more profoundly than all that I had hitherto heard of
the abominations behind the wall.  There was no mistake this time in
the quality of the dim, broken sounds; no doubt at all of their source.
For it was groaning, broken by sobs and gasps of anguish.
It was no brute this time; it was a human being in torment!

As I realised this I rose, and in three steps had crossed the room,
seized the handle of the door into the yard, and flung it open
before me.

"Prendick, man!  Stop!" cried Montgomery, intervening.

A startled deerhound yelped and snarled.  There was blood, I saw,
in the sink,--brown, and some scarlet--and I smelt the peculiar
smell of carbolic acid.  Then through an open doorway beyond,
in the dim light of the shadow, I saw something bound painfully
upon a framework, scarred, red, and bandaged; and then blotting
this out appeared the face of old Moreau, white and terrible.
In a moment he had gripped me by the shoulder with a hand that was
smeared red, had twisted me off my feet, and flung me headlong back
into my own room.  He lifted me as though I was a little child.
I fell at full length upon the floor, and the door slammed
and shut out the passionate intensity of his face.
Then I heard the key turn in the lock, and Montgomery's voice
in expostulation.

"Ruin the work of a lifetime," I heard Moreau say.

"He does not understand," said Montgomery.  and other things
that were inaudible.

"I can't spare the time yet," said Moreau.

The rest I did not hear.  I picked myself up and stood trembling,
my mind a chaos of the most horrible misgivings.  Could it be possible,
I thought, that such a thing as the vivisection of men was carried
on here?  The question shot like lightning across a tumultuous sky;
and suddenly the clouded horror of my mind condensed into a vivid
realisation of my own danger.




XI.  THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.


IT came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that
the outer door of my room was still open to me.  I was convinced now,
absolutely assured, that Moreau had been vivisecting a human being.
All the time since I had heard his name, I had been trying to link
in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism of the islanders
with his abominations; and now I thought I saw it all.
The memory of his work on the transfusion of blood recurred to me.
These creatures I had seen were the victims of some hideous experiment.
These sickening scoundrels had merely intended to keep me back,
to fool me with their display of confidence, and presently to fall
upon me with a fate more horrible than death,--with torture;
and after torture the most hideous degradation it is possible
to conceive,--to send me off a lost soul, a beast, to the rest of their
Comus rout.

I looked round for some weapon.  Nothing.  Then with an inspiration I
turned over the deck chair, put my foot on the side of it, and tore
away the side rail.  It happened that a nail came away with the wood,
and projecting, gave a touch of danger to an otherwise petty weapon.
I heard a step outside, and incontinently flung open the door and found
Montgomery within a yard of it.  He meant to lock the outer door!
I raised this nailed stick of mine and cut at his face;
but he sprang back.  I hesitated a moment, then turned and fled,
round the corner of the house.  "Prendick, man!"  I heard his
astonished cry, "don't be a silly ass, man!"

Another minute, thought I, and he would have had me locked in,
and as ready as a hospital rabbit for my fate.  He emerged behind
the corner, for I heard him shout, "Prendick!"  Then he began to run
after me, shouting things as he ran.  This time running blindly,
I went northeastward in a direction at right angles to my
previous expedition.  Once, as I went running headlong up the beach,
I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him.
I ran furiously up the slope, over it, then turning eastward along
a rocky valley fringed on either side with jungle I ran for perhaps
a mile altogether, my chest straining, my heart beating in my ears;
and then hearing nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling
upon the verge of exhaustion, I doubled sharply back towards
the beach as I judged, and lay down in the shelter of a canebrake.
There I remained for a long time, too fearful to move, and indeed
too fearful even to plan a course of action.  The wild scene about me
lay sleeping silently under the sun, and the only sound near me was
the thin hum of some small gnats that had discovered me.  Presently I
became aware of a drowsy breathing sound, the soughing of the sea upon
the beach.

After about an hour I heard Montgomery shouting my name,
far away to the north.  That set me thinking of my plan of action.
As I interpreted it then, this island was inhabited only by these two
vivisectors and their animalised victims.  Some of these no doubt
they could press into their service against me if need arose.
I knew both Moreau and Montgomery carried revolvers; and, save for a feeble
bar of deal spiked with a small nail, the merest mockery of a mace,
I was unarmed.

So I lay still there, until I began to think of food and drink;
and at that thought the real hopelessness of my position came home to me.
I knew no way of getting anything to eat.  I was too ignorant of botany
to discover any resort of root or fruit that might lie about me;
I had no means of trapping the few rabbits upon the island.
It grew blanker the more I turned the prospect over.  At last in
the desperation of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I
had encountered.  I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them.
In turn I recalled each one I had seen, and tried to draw some augury
of assistance from my memory.

Then suddenly I heard a staghound bay, and at that realised a new danger.
I took little time to think, or they would have caught me then,
but snatching up my nailed stick, rushed headlong from my hiding-place
towards the sound of the sea.  I remember a growth of thorny plants,
with spines that stabbed like pen-knives. I emerged bleeding and
with torn clothes upon the lip of a long creek opening northward.
I went straight into the water without a minute's hesitation, wading up
the creek, and presently finding myself kneedeep in a little stream.
I scrambled out at last on the westward bank, and with my heart beating
loudly in my ears, crept into a tangle of ferns to await the issue.
I heard the dog (there was only one) draw nearer, and yelp when it came
to the thorns.  Then I heard no more, and presently began to think I
had escaped.

The minutes passed; the silence lengthened out, and at last
after an hour of security my courage began to return to me.
By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable.
I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror and despair.
I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion
made me capable of daring anything.  I had even a certain wish
to encounter Moreau face to face; and as I had waded into the water,
I remembered that if I were too hard pressed at least one path
of escape from torment still lay open to me,--they could not
very well prevent my drowning myself.  I had half a mind to drown
myself then; but an odd wish to see the whole adventure out,
a queer, impersonal, spectacular interest in myself, restrained me.
I stretched my limbs, sore and painful from the pricks of the spiny plants,
and stared around me at the trees; and, so suddenly that it seemed
to jump out of the green tracery about it, my eyes lit upon a black
face watching me.  I saw that it was the simian creature who had
met the launch upon the beach.  He was clinging to the oblique
stem of a palm-tree. I gripped my stick, and stood up facing him.
He began chattering.  "You, you, you," was all I could distinguish
at first.  Suddenly he dropped from the tree, and in another
moment was holding the fronds apart and staring curiously
at me.

I did not feel the same repugnance towards this creature which I
had experienced in my encounters with the other Beast Men.
"You," he said, "in the boat."  He was a man, then,--at least as much
of a man as Montgomery's attendant,--for he could talk.

"Yes," I said, "I came in the boat.  From the ship."

"Oh!" he said, and his bright, restless eyes travelled over me,
to my hands, to the stick I carried, to my feet, to the tattered places
in my coat, and the cuts and scratches I had received from the thorns.
He seemed puzzled at something.  His eyes came back to my hands.
He held his own hand out and counted his digits slowly, "One, two,
three, four, five--eigh?"

I did not grasp his meaning then; afterwards I was to find that
a great proportion of these Beast People had malformed hands,
lacking sometimes even three digits.  But guessing this was
in some way a greeting, I did the same thing by way of reply.
He grinned with immense satisfaction.  Then his swift roving
glance went round again; he made a swift movement--and vanished.
The fern fronds he had stood between came swishing together,

I pushed out of the brake after him, and was astonished to find
him swinging cheerfully by one lank arm from a rope of creepers
that looped down from the foliage overhead.  His back was to me.

"Hullo!" said I.

He came down with a twisting jump, and stood facing me.

"I say," said I, "where can I get something to eat?"

"Eat!" he said.  "Eat Man's food, now."  And his eye went back
to the swing of ropes.  "At the huts."

"But where are the huts?"

"Oh!"

"I'm new, you know."

At that he swung round, and set off at a quick walk.
All his motions were curiously rapid.  "Come along," said he.

I went with him to see the adventure out.  I guessed the huts were some
rough shelter where he and some more of these Beast People lived.
I might perhaps find them friendly, find some handle in their minds
to take hold of.  I did not know how far they had forgotten their
human heritage.

My ape-like companion trotted along by my side, with his hands
hanging down and his jaw thrust forward.  I wondered what memory
he might have in him.  "How long have you been on this island?"
said I.

"How long?" he asked; and after having the question repeated,
he held up three fingers.

The creature was little better than an idiot.  I tried
to make out what he meant by that, and it seems I bored him.
After another question or two he suddenly left my side and went
leaping at some fruit that hung from a tree.  He pulled down
a handful of prickly husks and went on eating the contents.
I noted this with satisfaction, for here at least was a hint for feeding.
I tried him with some other questions, but his chattering, prompt responses
were as often as not quite at cross purposes with my question.
Some few were appropriate, others quite parrot-like.

I was so intent upon these peculiarities that I scarcely noticed the path
we followed.  Presently we came to trees, all charred and brown,
and so to a bare place covered with a yellow-white incrustation,
across which a drifting smoke, pungent in whiffs to nose and eyes,
went drifting.  On our right, over a shoulder of bare rock, I saw
the level blue of the sea.  The path coiled down abruptly into a narrow
ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of blackish scoriae.
Into this we plunged.

It was extremely dark, this passage, after the blinding sunlight reflected
from the sulphurous ground.  Its walls grew steep, and approached
each other.  Blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes.
My conductor stopped suddenly.  "Home!" said he, and I stood
in a floor of a chasm that was at first absolutely dark to me.
I heard some strange noises, and thrust the knuckles of my left hand
into my eyes.  I became aware of a disagreeable odor, like that of
a monkey's cage ill-cleaned. Beyond, the rock opened again upon
a gradual slope of sunlit greenery, and on either hand the light
smote down through narrow ways into the central gloom.




XII.  THE SAYERS OF THE LAW.


THEN something cold touched my hand.  I started violently,
and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed
child than anything else in the world.  The creature had exactly
the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead
and slow gestures.

As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me
more distinctly.  The little sloth-like creature was standing and
staring at me.  My conductor had vanished.  The place was a narrow
passage between high walls of lava, a crack in the knotted rock,
and on either side interwoven heaps of sea-mat, palm-fans, and reeds
leaning against the rock formed rough and impenetrably dark dens.
The winding way up the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide,
and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit-pulp and other refuse,
which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place.

The little pink sloth-creature was still blinking at me when my
Ape-man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens,
and beckoned me in.  As he did so a slouching monster wriggled out
of one of the places, further up this strange street, and stood up in
featureless silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me.
I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I had come; and then,
determined to go through with the adventure, I gripped my nailed stick
about the middle and crawled into the little evil-smelling lean-to
after my conductor.

It was a semi-circular space, shaped like the half of a bee-hive;
and against the rocky wall that formed the inner side of it was a pile
of variegated fruits, cocoa-nuts among others.  Some rough vessels
of lava and wood stood about the floor, and one on a rough stool.
There was no fire.  In the darkest corner of the hut sat a shapeless
mass of darkness that grunted "Hey!" as I came in, and my Ape-man
stood in the dim light of the doorway and held out a split cocoa-nut
to me as I crawled into the other corner and squatted down.
I took it, and began gnawing it, as serenely as possible, in spite of a
certain trepidation and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den.
The little pink sloth-creature stood in the aperture of the hut,
and something else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring over
its shoulder.

"Hey!" came out of the lump of mystery opposite.  "It is a man."

"It is a man," gabbled my conductor, "a man, a man, a five-man,
like me."

"Shut up!" said the voice from the dark, and grunted.
I gnawed my cocoa-nut amid an impressive stillness.

I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing.

"It is a man," the voice repeated.  "He comes to live with us?"

It was a thick voice, with something in it--a kind of whistling
overtone--that struck me as peculiar; but the English accent was
strangely good.

The Ape-man looked at me as though he expected something.
I perceived the pause was interrogative.  "He comes to live with you,"
I said.

"It is a man.  He must learn the Law."

I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black,
a vague outline of a hunched-up figure.  Then I noticed
the opening of the place was darkened by two more black heads.
My hand tightened on my stick.

The thing in the dark repeated in a louder tone, "Say the words."
I had missed its last remark.  "Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law,"
it repeated in a kind of sing-song.

I was puzzled.

"Say the words," said the Ape-man, repeating, and the figures
in the doorway echoed this, with a threat in the tone of their voices.

I realised that I had to repeat this idiotic formula; and then
began the insanest ceremony.  The voice in the dark began intoning
a mad litany, line by line, and I and the rest to repeat it.
As they did so, they swayed from side to side in the oddest way,
and beat their hands upon their knees; and I followed their example.
I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world.
That dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here and
there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and
chanting,

     "Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?
     "Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?
     "Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?
     "Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?
     "Not to chase other Men; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?"

And so from the prohibition of these acts of folly,
on to the prohibition of what I thought then were the maddest,
most impossible, and most indecent things one could well imagine.
A kind of rhythmic fervour fell on all of us; we gabbled
and swayed faster and faster, repeating this amazing Law.
Superficially the contagion of these brutes was upon me, but deep
down within me the laughter and disgust struggled together.
We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the chant swung
round to a new formula.

     "_His_ is the House of Pain.
     "_His_ is the Hand that makes.
     "_His_ is the Hand that wounds.
     "_His_ is the Hand that heals."

And so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible
gibberish to me about _Him_, whoever he might be.  I could have fancied
it was a dream, but never before have I heard chanting in a dream.

"_His_ is the lightning flash," we sang.  "_His_ is the deep, salt sea."

A horrible fancy came into my head that Moreau, after animalising
these men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of
deification of himself.  However, I was too keenly aware of white
teeth and strong claws about me to stop my chanting on that account.

"_His_ are the stars in the sky."

At last that song ended.  I saw the Ape-man's face shining
with perspiration; and my eyes being now accustomed to the darkness,
I saw more distinctly the figure in the corner from which the voice came.
It was the size of a man, but it seemed covered with a dull grey
hair almost like a Skye-terrier. What was it?  What were they all?
Imagine yourself surrounded by all the most horrible cripples
and maniacs it is possible to conceive, and you may understand
a little of my feelings with these grotesque caricatures of humanity
about me.

"He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man--like me," said the Ape-man.

I held out my hands.  The grey creature in the corner leant forward.

"Not to run on all-fours; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?"
he said.

He put out a strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers.
The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws.
I could have yelled with surprise and pain.  His face came
forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of
the opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering disgust that it
was like the face of neither man nor beast, but a mere shock
of grey hair, with three shadowy over-archings to mark the eyes
and mouth.

"He has little nails," said this grisly creature in his hairy beard.
"It is well."

He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick.

"Eat roots and herbs; it is His will," said the Ape-man.

"I am the Sayer of the Law," said the grey figure.  "Here come
all that be new to learn the Law.  I sit in the darkness and say
the Law."

"It is even so," said one of the beasts in the doorway.

"Evil are the punishments of those who break the Law.
None escape."

"None escape," said the Beast Folk, glancing furtively at one another.

"None, none," said the Ape-man,--"none escape.  See!  I did a little thing,
a wrong thing, once.  I jabbered, jabbered, stopped talking.
None could understand.  I am burnt, branded in the hand.  He is great.
He is good!"

"None escape," said the grey creature in the corner.

"None escape," said the Beast People, looking askance at one another.

"For every one the want that is bad," said the grey Sayer of the Law.
"What you will want we do not know; we shall know.  Some want
to follow things that move, to watch and slink and wait and spring;
to kill and bite, bite deep and rich, sucking the blood.
It is bad.  'Not to chase other Men; that is the Law.
Are we not Men?  Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law.  Are we
not Men?'"

"None escape," said a dappled brute standing in the doorway.

"For every one the want is bad," said the grey Sayer of the Law.
"Some want to go tearing with teeth and hands into the roots of things,
snuffing into the earth.  It is bad."

"None escape," said the men in the door.

"Some go clawing trees; some go scratching at the graves of the dead;
some go fighting with foreheads or feet or claws; some bite suddenly,
none giving occasion; some love uncleanness."

"None escape," said the Ape-man, scratching his calf.

"None escape," said the little pink sloth-creature.

"Punishment is sharp and sure.  Therefore learn the Law.
Say the words."

And incontinently he began again the strange litany of the Law,
and again I and all these creatures began singing and swaying.
My head reeled with this jabbering and the close stench of the place;
but I kept on, trusting to find presently some chance of a
new development.

"Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?"

We were making such a noise that I noticed nothing of a tumult outside,
until some one, who I think was one of the two Swine Men I
had seen, thrust his head over the little pink sloth-creature
and shouted something excitedly, something that I did not catch.
Incontinently those at the opening of the hut vanished; my Ape-man
rushed out; the thing that had sat in the dark followed him
(I only observed that it was big and clumsy, and covered with silvery
hair), and I was left alone.  Then before I reached the aperture I heard
the yelp of a staghound.

In another moment I was standing outside the hovel, my chair-rail
in my hand, every muscle of me quivering.  Before me were the clumsy
backs of perhaps a score of these Beast People, their misshapen heads
half hidden by their shoulder-blades. They were gesticulating excitedly.
Other half-animal faces glared interrogation out of the hovels.
Looking in the direction in which they faced, I saw coming through
the haze under the trees beyond the end of the passage of dens the dark
figure and awful white face of Moreau.  He was holding the leaping
staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery revolver
in hand.

For a moment I stood horror-struck. I turned and saw the passage
behind me blocked by another heavy brute, with a huge grey
face and twinkling little eyes, advancing towards me.
I looked round and saw to the right of me and a half-dozen yards
in front of me a narrow gap in the wall of rock through which a ray
of light slanted into the shadows.

"Stop!" cried Moreau as I strode towards this, and then, "Hold him!"

At that, first one face turned towards me and then others.
Their bestial minds were happily slow.  I dashed my shoulder
into a clumsy monster who was turning to see what Moreau meant,
and flung him forward into another.  I felt his hands fly round,
clutching at me and missing me.  The little pink sloth-creature
dashed at me, and I gashed down its ugly face with the nail
in my stick and in another minute was scrambling up a steep
side pathway, a kind of sloping chimney, out of the ravine.
I heard a howl behind me, and cries of "Catch him!"  "Hold him!"
and the grey-faced creature appeared behind me and jammed
his huge bulk into the cleft.  "Go on! go on!" they howled.
I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out upon
the sulphur on the westward side of the village of the Beast Men.

That gap was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney,
slanting obliquely upward, must have impeded the nearer pursuers.
I ran over the white space and down a steep slope,
through a scattered growth of trees, and came to a low-lying
stretch of tall reeds, through which I pushed into a dark,
thick undergrowth that was black and succulent under foot.
As I plunged into the reeds, my foremost pursuers emerged from the gap.
I broke my way through this undergrowth for some minutes.
The air behind me and about me was soon full of threatening cries.
I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope, then the
crashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling crash
of a branch.  Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey.
The staghound yelped to the left.  I heard Moreau and Montgomery shouting
in the same direction.  I turned sharply to the right.  It seemed
to me even then that I heard Montgomery shouting for me to run for
my life.

Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet; but I was
desperate and went headlong into it, struggled through kneedeep,
and so came to a winding path among tall canes.  The noise of my
pursuers passed away to my left.  In one place three strange, pink,
hopping animals, about the size of cats, bolted before my footsteps.
This pathway ran up hill, across another open space covered
with white incrustation, and plunged into a canebrake again.
Then suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep-walled gap,
which came without warning, like the ha-ha of an English park,--turned
with an unexpected abruptness.  I was still running with all
my might, and I never saw this drop until I was flying headlong through
the air.

I fell on my forearms and head, among thorns, and rose with a torn
ear and bleeding face.  I had fallen into a precipitous ravine,
rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist which drifted about me in wisps,
and with a narrow streamlet from which this mist came meandering
down the centre.  I was astonished at this thin fog in the full
blaze of daylight; but I had no time to stand wondering then.
I turned to my right, down-stream, hoping to come to the sea
in that direction, and so have my way open to drown myself.
It was only later I found that I had dropped my nailed stick in
my fall.

Presently the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelessly
I stepped into the stream.  I jumped out again pretty quickly,
for the water was almost boiling.  I noticed too there was a thin
sulphurous scum drifting upon its coiling water.  Almost immediately
came a turn in the ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon.
The nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets.
I saw my death before me; but I was hot and panting, with the warm
blood oozing out on my face and running pleasantly through my veins.
I felt more than a touch of exultation too, at having distanced
my pursuers.  It was not in me then to go out and drown myself yet.
I stared back the way I had come.

I listened.  Save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small
insects that hopped among the thorns, the air was absolutely still.
Then came the yelp of a dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering,
the snap of a whip, and voices.  They grew louder, then fainter again.
The noise receded up the stream and faded away.  For a while the chase
was over; but I knew now how much hope of help for me lay in the
Beast People.




XIII.  A PARLEY.


I TURNED again and went on down towards the sea.  I found the hot stream
broadened out to a shallow, weedy sand, in which an abundance of crabs

and long-bodied, many-legged creatures started from my footfall.
I walked to the very edge of the salt water, and then I felt I was safe.
I turned and stared, arms akimbo, at the thick green behind me,
into which the steamy ravine cut like a smoking gash.
But, as I say, I was too full of excitement and (a true saying,
though those who have never known danger may doubt it) too desperate
to die.

Then it came into my head that there was one chance before me yet.
While Moreau and Montgomery and their bestial rabble chased me
through the island, might I not go round the beach until I came
to their enclosure,--make a flank march upon them, in fact,
and then with a rock lugged out of their loosely-built wall, perhaps,
smash in the lock of the smaller door and see what I could find
(knife, pistol, or what not) to fight them with when they returned?
It was at any rate something to try.

So I turned to the westward and walked along by the water's edge.
The setting sun flashed his blinding heat into my eyes.
The slight Pacific tide was running in with a gentle ripple.
Presently the shore fell away southward, and the sun came round
upon my right hand.  Then suddenly, far in front of me, I saw
first one and then several figures emerging from the bushes,--Moreau,
with his grey staghound, then Montgomery, and two others.
At that I stopped.

They saw me, and began gesticulating and advancing.  I stood watching
them approach.  The two Beast Men came running forward to cut me
off from the undergrowth, inland.  Montgomery came, running also,
but straight towards me.  Moreau followed slower with the dog.

At last I roused myself from my inaction, and turning seaward walked
straight into the water.  The water was very shallow at first.
I was thirty yards out before the waves reached to my waist.
Dimly I could see the intertidal creatures darting away from
my feet.

"What are you doing, man?" cried Montgomery.

I turned, standing waist deep, and stared at them.
Montgomery stood panting at the margin of the water.  His face
was bright-red with exertion, his long flaxen hair blown about
his head, and his dropping nether lip showed his irregular teeth.
Moreau was just coming up, his face pale and firm, and the dog at his
hand barked at me.  Both men had heavy whips.  Farther up the beach
stared the Beast Men.

"What am I doing?  I am going to drown myself," said I.

Montgomery and Moreau looked at each other.  "Why?" asked Moreau.

"Because that is better than being tortured by you."

"I told you so," said Montgomery, and Moreau said something
in a low tone.

"What makes you think I shall torture you?" asked Moreau.

"What I saw," I said.  "And those--yonder."

"Hush!" said Moreau, and held up his hand.

"I will not," said I. "They were men:  what are they now?
I at least will not be like them."

I looked past my interlocutors.  Up the beach were M'ling, Montgomery's
attendant, and one of the white-swathed brutes from the boat.
Farther up, in the shadow of the trees, I saw my little Ape-man,
and behind him some other dim figures.

"Who are these creatures?" said I, pointing to them and raising
my voice more and more that it might reach them.  "They were men,
men like yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial
taint,--men whom you have enslaved, and whom you still fear.

"You who listen," I cried, pointing now to Moreau and shouting past
him to the Beast Men,--"You who listen!  Do you not see these men
still fear you, go in dread of you?  Why, then, do you fear them?
You are many--"

"For God's sake," cried Montgomery, "stop that, Prendick!"

"Prendick!" cried Moreau.

They both shouted together, as if to drown my voice; and behind
them lowered the staring faces of the Beast Men, wondering,
their deformed hands hanging down, their shoulders hunched up.
They seemed, as I fancied, to be trying to understand me, to remember,
I thought, something of their human past.

I went on shouting, I scarcely remember what,--that Moreau
and Montgomery could be killed, that they were not to be feared:
that was the burden of what I put into the heads of the Beast People.
I saw the green-eyed man in the dark rags, who had met me on
the evening of my arrival, come out from among the trees, and others
followed him, to hear me better.  At last for want of breath
I paused.

"Listen to me for a moment," said the steady voice of Moreau;
"and then say what you will."

"Well?" said I.

He coughed, thought, then shouted:  "Latin, Prendick! bad Latin,
schoolboy Latin; but try and understand.  Hi non sunt homines;
sunt animalia qui nos habemus--vivisected.  A humanising process.
I will explain.  Come ashore."

I laughed.  "A pretty story," said I. "They talk, build houses.
They were men.  It's likely I'll come ashore."

"The water just beyond where you stand is deep--and full of sharks."

"That's my way," said I. "Short and sharp.  Presently."

"Wait a minute."  He took something out of his pocket that flashed back
the sun, and dropped the object at his feet.  "That's a loaded revolver,"
said he.  "Montgomery here will do the same.  Now we are going
up the beach until you are satisfied the distance is safe.
Then come and take the revolvers."

"Not I!  You have a third between you."

"I want you to think over things, Prendick.  In the first place,
I never asked you to come upon this island.  If we vivisected men,
we should import men, not beasts.  In the next, we had you
drugged last night, had we wanted to work you any mischief;
and in the next, now your first panic is over and you can think
a little, is Montgomery here quite up to the character you give him?
We have chased you for your good.  Because this island is full
of inimical phenomena.  Besides, why should we want to shoot you
when you have just offered to drown yourself?"

"Why did you set--your people onto me when I was in the hut?"

"We felt sure of catching you, and bringing you out of danger.
Afterwards we drew away from the scent, for your good."

I mused.  It seemed just possible.  Then I remembered something again.
"But I saw," said I, "in the enclosure--"

"That was the puma."

"Look here, Prendick," said Montgomery, "you're a silly ass!
Come out of the water and take these revolvers, and talk.
We can't do anything more than we could do now."

I will confess that then, and indeed always, I distrusted
and dreaded Moreau; but Montgomery was a man I felt I understood.

"Go up the beach," said I, after thinking, and added, "holding your
hands up."

"Can't do that," said Montgomery, with an explanatory nod over
his shoulder.  "Undignified."

"Go up to the trees, then," said I, "as you please."

"It's a damned silly ceremony," said Montgomery.

Both turned and faced the six or seven grotesque creatures,
who stood there in the sunlight, solid, casting shadows, moving,
and yet so incredibly unreal.  Montgomery cracked his whip at them,
and forthwith they all turned and fled helter-skelter into the trees;
and when Montgomery and Moreau were at a distance I judged sufficient,
I waded ashore, and picked up and examined the revolvers.
To satisfy myself against the subtlest trickery, I discharged one at
a round lump of lava, and had the satisfaction of seeing the stone
pulverised and the beach splashed with lead.  Still I hesitated for
a moment.

"I'll take the risk," said I, at last; and with a revolver in each
hand I walked up the beach towards them.

"That's better," said Moreau, without affectation.  "As it is, you have
wasted the best part of my day with your confounded imagination."
And with a touch of contempt which humiliated me, he and Montgomery
turned and went on in silence before me.

The knot of Beast Men, still wondering, stood back among the trees.
I passed them as serenely as possible.  One started to follow me,
but retreated again when Montgomery cracked his whip.  The rest
stood silent--watching.  They may once have been animals; but I never
before saw an animal trying to think.




XIV.  DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.


"AND now, Prendick, I will explain," said Doctor Moreau,
so soon as we had eaten and drunk.  "I must confess that
you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained.
I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you.
The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan't
do,--even at some personal inconvenience."

He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his white,
dexterous-looking fingers.  The light of the swinging lamp fell on his
white hair; he stared through the little window out at the starlight.
I sat as far away from him as possible, the table between us
and the revolvers to hand.  Montgomery was not present.
I did not care to be with the two of them in such a little room.

"You admit that the vivisected human being, as you called it, is,
after all, only the puma?" said Moreau.  He had made me visit
that horror in the inner room, to assure myself of its inhumanity.

"It is the puma," I said, "still alive, but so cut and mutilated
as I pray I may never see living flesh again.  Of all vile--"

"Never mind that," said Moreau; "at least, spare me those
youthful horrors.  Montgomery used to be just the same.
You admit that it is the puma.  Now be quiet, while I reel off
my physiological lecture to you."

And forthwith, beginning in the tone of a man supremely bored,
but presently warming a little, he explained his work to me.
He was very simple and convincing.  Now and then there was a touch
of sarcasm in his voice.  Presently I found myself hot with shame at our
mutual positions.

The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men.
They were animals, humanised animals,--triumphs of vivisection.

"You forget all that a skilled vivisector can do with living things,"
said Moreau.  "For my own part, I'm puzzled why the things
I have done here have not been done before.  Small efforts,
of course, have been made,--amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions.
Of course you know a squint may be induced or cured by surgery?
Then in the case of excisions you have all kinds of secondary changes,
pigmentary disturbances, modifications of the passions, alterations in
the secretion of fatty tissue.  I have no doubt you have heard of
these things?"

"Of course," said I. "But these foul creatures of yours--"

"All in good time," said he, waving his hand at me; "I am only beginning.
Those are trivial cases of alteration.  Surgery can do better things
than that.  There is building up as well as breaking down and changing.
You have heard, perhaps, of a common surgical operation resorted to in
cases where the nose has been destroyed:  a flap of skin is cut from
the forehead, turned down on the nose, and heals in the new position.
This is a kind of grafting in a new position of part of an animal
upon itself.  Grafting of freshly obtained material from another
animal is also possible,--the case of teeth, for example.
The grafting of skin and bone is done to facilitate healing:
the surgeon places in the middle of the wound pieces of skin snipped
from another animal, or fragments of bone from a victim freshly killed.
Hunter's cock-spur--possibly you have heard of that--flourished on
the bull's neck; and the rhinoceros rats of the Algerian zouaves are
also to be thought of,--monsters manufactured by transferring a slip
from the tail of an ordinary rat to its snout, and allowing it to heal in
that position."

"Monsters manufactured!" said I. "Then you mean to tell me--"

"Yes.  These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought
into new shapes.  To that, to the study of the plasticity of
living forms, my life has been devoted.  I have studied for years,
gaining in knowledge as I go.  I see you look horrified, and yet I
am telling you nothing new.  It all lay in the surface of practical
anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it.
It is not simply the outward form of an animal which I can change.
The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made
to undergo an enduring modification,--of which vaccination and other
methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples
that will, no doubt, be familiar to you.  A similar operation is
the transfusion of blood,--with which subject, indeed, I began.
These are all familiar cases.  Less so, and probably far more extensive,
were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made
dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,--some vestiges of whose
art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young
mountebank or contortionist.  Victor Hugo gives an account of them
in 'L'Homme qui Rit.'--But perhaps my meaning grows plain now.
You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue
from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another;
to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth; to modify
the articulations of its limbs; and, indeed, to change it in its most
intimate structure.

"And yet this extraordinary branch of knowledge has never been sought
as an end, and systematically, by modern investigators until I took it up!
Some such things have been hit upon in the last resort of surgery;
most of the kindred evidence that will recur to your mind has been
demonstrated as it were by accident,--by tyrants, by criminals,
by the breeders of horses and dogs, by all kinds of untrained
clumsy-handed men working for their own immediate ends.
I was the first man to take up this question armed with antiseptic surgery,
and with a really scientific knowledge of the laws of growth.
Yet one would imagine it must have been practised in secret before.
Such creatures as the Siamese Twins--And in the vaults of
the Inquisition.  No doubt their chief aim was artistic torture,
but some at least of the inquisitors must have had a touch of
scientific curiosity."

"But," said I, "these things--these animals talk!"

He said that was so, and proceeded to point out that the possibility
of vivisection does not stop at a mere physical metamorphosis.
A pig may be educated.  The mental structure is even less determinate
than the bodily.  In our growing science of hypnotism we find
the promise of a possibility of superseding old inherent instincts by
new suggestions, grafting upon or replacing the inherited fixed ideas.
Very much indeed of what we call moral education, he said,
is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct;
pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed
sexuality into religious emotion.  And the great difference
between man and monkey is in the larynx, he continued,--in the
incapacity to frame delicately different sound-symbols by which
thought could be sustained.  In this I failed to agree with him,
but with a certain incivility he declined to notice my objection.
He repeated that the thing was so, and continued his account of
his work.

I asked him why he had taken the human form as a model.
There seemed to me then, and there still seems to me now, a strange
wickedness for that choice.

He confessed that he had chosen that form by chance.  "I might just
as well have worked to form sheep into llamas and llamas into sheep.
I suppose there is something in the human form that appeals to
the artistic turn of mind more powerfully than any animal shape can.
But I've not confined myself to man-making. Once or twice--" He was silent,
for a minute perhaps.  "These years!  How they have slipped by!
And here I have wasted a day saving your life, and am now wasting an hour
explaining myself!"

"But," said I, "I still do not understand.  Where is your justification
for inflicting all this pain?  The only thing that could excuse
vivisection to me would be some application--"

"Precisely," said he.  "But, you see, I am differently constituted.
We are on different platforms.  You are a materialist."

"I am _not_ a materialist," I began hotly.

"In my view--in my view.  For it is just this question of pain
that parts us.  So long as visible or audible pain turns you sick;
so long as your own pains drive you; so long as pain underlies
your propositions about sin,--so long, I tell you, you are
an animal, thinking a little less obscurely what an animal feels.
This pain--"

I gave an impatient shrug at such sophistry.

"Oh, but it is such a little thing!  A mind truly opened to
what science has to teach must see that it is a little thing.
It may be that save in this little planet, this speck of cosmic dust,
invisible long before the nearest star could be attained--it may be,
I say, that nowhere else does this thing called pain occur.
But the laws we feel our way towards--Why, even on this earth, even among
living things, what pain is there?"

As he spoke he drew a little penknife from his pocket, opened the
smaller blade, and moved his chair so that I could see his thigh.
Then, choosing the place deliberately, he drove the blade into
his leg and withdrew it.

"No doubt," he said, "you have seen that before.  It does not hurt
a pin-prick. But what does it show?  The capacity for pain is not
needed in the muscle, and it is not placed there,--is but little
needed in the skin, and only here and there over the thigh is
a spot capable of feeling pain.  Pain is simply our intrinsic
medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us.  Not all living
flesh is painful; nor is all nerve, not even all sensory nerve.
There's no taint of pain, real pain, in the sensations of the optic
nerve.  If you wound the optic nerve, you merely see flashes of
light,--just as disease of the auditory nerve merely means a humming
in our ears.  Plants do not feel pain, nor the lower animals;
it's possible that such animals as the starfish and crayfish do not
feel pain at all.  Then with men, the more intelligent they become,
the more intelligently they will see after their own welfare,
and the less they will need the goad to keep them out of danger.
I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out
of existence by evolution sooner or later.  Did you?  And pain
gets needless.

"Then I am a religious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be.
It may be, I fancy, that I have seen more of the ways of this world's
Maker than you,--for I have sought his laws, in _my_ way, all my life,
while you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies.
And I tell you, pleasure and pain have nothing to do with heaven or hell.
Pleasure and pain--bah!  What is your theologian's ecstasy but
Mahomet's houri in the dark?  This store which men and women set
on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon
them,--the mark of the beast from which they came!  Pain, pain and
pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust.

"You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me.
That is the only way I ever heard of true research going.
I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer,
and got a fresh question.  Was this possible or that possible?
You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator,
what an intellectual passion grows upon him!  You cannot imagine
the strange, colourless delight of these intellectual desires!
The thing before you is no longer an animal, a fellow-creature,
but a problem!  Sympathetic pain,--all I know of it I remember
as a thing I used to suffer from years ago.  I wanted--it was
the one thing I wanted--to find out the extreme limit of plasticity
in a living shape."

"But," said I, "the thing is an abomination--"

"To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter,"
he continued.  "The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless
as Nature.  I have gone on, not heeding anything but the question I
was pursuing; and the material has--dripped into the huts yonder.
It is nearly eleven years since we came here, I and Montgomery
and six Kanakas.  I remember the green stillness of the island
and the empty ocean about us, as though it was yesterday.
The place seemed waiting for me.

"The stores were landed and the house was built.  The Kanakas founded
some huts near the ravine.  I went to work here upon what I had brought
with me.  There were some disagreeable things happened at first.
I began with a sheep, and killed it after a day and a half by a slip
of the scalpel.  I took another sheep, and made a thing of pain and fear
and left it bound up to heal.  It looked quite human to me when I
had finished it; but when I went to it I was discontented with it.
It remembered me, and was terrified beyond imagination; and it had no
more than the wits of a sheep.  The more I looked at it the clumsier
it seemed, until at last I put the monster out of its misery.
These animals without courage, these fear-haunted, pain-driven things,
without a spark of pugnacious energy to face torment,--they are no good for
man-making.

"Then I took a gorilla I had; and upon that, working with infinite
care and mastering difficulty after difficulty, I made my first man.
All the week, night and day, I moulded him.  With him it was chiefly
the brain that needed moulding; much had to be added, much changed.
I thought him a fair specimen of the negroid type when I had
finished him, and he lay bandaged, bound, and motionless before me.
It was only when his life was assured that I left him and came
into this room again, and found Montgomery much as you are.
He had heard some of the cries as the thing grew human,--cries
like those that disturbed _you_ so.  I didn't take him
completely into my confidence at first.  And the Kanakas too,
had realised something of it.  They were scared out of their wits
by the sight of me.  I got Montgomery over to me--in a way;
but I and he had the hardest job to prevent the Kanakas deserting.
Finally they did; and so we lost the yacht.  I spent many days
educating the brute,--altogether I had him for three or four months.
I taught him the rudiments of English; gave him ideas of counting;
even made the thing read the alphabet.  But at that he was slow,
though I've met with idiots slower.  He began with a clean sheet,
mentally; had no memories left in his mind of what he had been.
When his scars were quite healed, and he was no longer anything
but painful and stiff, and able to converse a little, I took
him yonder and introduced him to the Kanakas as an interesting
stowaway.

"They were horribly afraid of him at first, somehow,--which offended
me rather, for I was conceited about him; but his ways seemed so mild,
and he was so abject, that after a time they received him and took his
education in hand.  He was quick to learn, very imitative and adaptive,
and built himself a hovel rather better, it seemed to me, than their
own shanties.  There was one among the boys a bit of a missionary,
and he taught the thing to read, or at least to pick out letters,
and gave him some rudimentary ideas of morality; but it seems
the beast's habits were not all that is desirable.

"I rested from work for some days after this, and was in a mind to
write an account of the whole affair to wake up English physiology.
Then I came upon the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering
at two of the Kanakas who had been teasing him.  I threatened him,
told him the inhumanity of such a proceeding, aroused his sense of shame,
and came home resolved to do better before I took my work back to England.
I have been doing better.  But somehow the things drift back again:
the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again.
But I mean to do better things still.  I mean to conquer that.
This puma--

"But that's the story.  All the Kanaka boys are dead now;
one fell overboard of the launch, and one died of a wounded
heel that he poisoned in some way with plant-juice. Three
went away in the yacht, and I suppose and hope were drowned.
The other one--was killed.  Well, I have replaced them.
Montgomery went on much as you are disposed to do at first,
and then--

"What became of the other one?" said I, sharply,--"the other Kanaka
who was killed?"

"The fact is, after I had made a number of human creatures I made
a Thing--"  He hesitated.

"Yes?" said I.

"It was killed."

"I don't understand," said I; "do you mean to say--"

"It killed the Kanaka--yes.  It killed several other things that
it caught.  We chased it for a couple of days.  It only got loose
by accident--I never meant it to get away.  It wasn't finished.
It was purely an experiment.  It was a limbless thing, with a
horrible face, that writhed along the ground in a serpentine fashion.
It was immensely strong, and in infuriating pain.  It lurked in
the woods for some days, until we hunted it; and then it wriggled
into the northern part of the island, and we divided the party
to close in upon it.  Montgomery insisted upon coming with me.
The man had a rifle; and when his body was found, one of the barrels
was curved into the shape of an S and very nearly bitten through.
Montgomery shot the thing.  After that I stuck to the ideal of
humanity--except for little things."

He became silent.  I sat in silence watching his face.

"So for twenty years altogether--counting nine years in England--I
have been going on; and there is still something in everything I do
that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort.
Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it; but always
I fall short of the things I dream.  The human shape I can get now,
almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong;
but often there is trouble with the hands and the claws,--painful things,
that I dare not shape too freely.  But it is in the subtle grafting
and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies.
The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends,
unexpected gaps.  And least satisfactory of all is something that I
cannot touch, somewhere--I cannot determine where--in the seat
of the emotions.  Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity,
a strange hidden reservoir to burst forth suddenly and inundate
the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear.
These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you so soon
as you began to observe them; but to me, just after I make them,
they seem to be indisputably human beings.  It's afterwards, as I
observe them, that the persuasion fades.  First one animal trait,
then another, creeps to the surface and stares out at me.
But I will conquer yet!  Each time I dip a living creature into the bath
of burning pain, I say, 'This time I will burn out all the animal;
this time I will make a rational creature of my own!'  After all,
what is ten years?  Men have been a hundred thousand in the making."
He thought darkly.  "But I am drawing near the fastness.
This puma of mine--" After a silence, "And they revert.
As soon as my hand is taken from them the beast begins
to creep back, begins to assert itself again."  Another long
silence.

"Then you take the things you make into those dens?" said I.

"They go.  I turn them out when I begin to feel the beast in them,
and presently they wander there.  They all dread this house and me.
There is a kind of travesty of humanity over there.  Montgomery knows
about it, for he interferes in their affairs.  He has trained one
or two of them to our service.  He's ashamed of it, but I believe
he half likes some of those beasts.  It's his business, not mine.
They only sicken me with a sense of failure.  I take no interest in them.
I fancy they follow in the lines the Kanaka missionary marked out,
and have a kind of mockery of a rational life, poor beasts!
There's something they call the Law.  Sing hymns about 'all thine.'
They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull herbs--marry
even.  But I can see through it all, see into their very souls,
and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish,
anger and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.--Yet they're odd;
complex, like everything else alive.  There is a kind of upward
striving in them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion,
part waste curiosity.  It only mocks me.  I have some hope of this puma.
I have worked hard at her head and brain--

"And now," said he, standing up after a long gap of silence, during
which we had each pursued our own thoughts, "what do you think?  Are
you in fear of me still?"

I looked at him, and saw but a white-faced, white-haired man,
with calm eyes.  Save for his serenity, the touch almost of beauty that
resulted from his set tranquillity and his magnificent build, he might
have passed muster among a hundred other comfortable old gentlemen.
Then I shivered.  By way of answer to his second question, I handed
him a revolver with either hand.

"Keep them," he said, and snatched at a yawn.  He stood up, stared at
me for a moment, and smiled.  "You have had two eventful days,"
said he.  "I should advise some sleep.  I'm glad it's all clear.
Good-night." He thought me over for a moment, then went out by
the inner door.

I immediately turned the key in the outer one.  I sat down again;
sat for a time in a kind of stagnant mood, so weary, emotionally,
mentally, and physically, that I could not think beyond the point
at which he had left me.  The black window stared at me like an eye.
At last with an effort I put out the light and got into the hammock.
Very soon I was asleep.




XV.  CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK.


I WOKE early.  Moreau's explanation stood before my mind,
clear and definite, from the moment of my awakening.  I got out
of the hammock and went to the door to assure myself that the key
was turned.  Then I tried the window-bar, and found it firmly fixed.
That these man-like creatures were in truth only bestial monsters,
mere grotesque travesties of men, filled me with a vague uncertainty
of their possibilities which was far worse than any definite fear.

A tapping came at the door, and I heard the glutinous accents
of M'ling speaking.  I pocketed one of the revolvers (keeping one
hand upon it), and opened to him.

"Good-morning, sair," he said, bringing in, in addition to the customary
herb-breakfast, an ill-cooked rabbit.  Montgomery followed him.
His roving eye caught the position of my arm and he smiled askew.

The puma was resting to heal that day; but Moreau, who was singularly
solitary in his habits, did not join us.  I talked with Montgomery
to clear my ideas of the way in which the Beast Folk lived.
In particular, I was urgent to know how these inhuman monsters were kept
from falling upon Moreau and Montgomery and from rending one another.
He explained to me that the comparative safety of Moreau and
himself was due to the limited mental scope of these monsters.
In spite of their increased intelligence and the tendency of their
animal instincts to reawaken, they had certain fixed ideas implanted
by Moreau in their minds, which absolutely bounded their imaginations.
They were really hypnotised; had been told that certain things
were impossible, and that certain things were not to be done,
and these prohibitions were woven into the texture of their minds beyond
any possibility of disobedience or dispute.

Certain matters, however, in which old instinct was at war
with Moreau's convenience, were in a less stable condition.
A series of propositions called the Law (I had already heard them recited)
battled in their minds with the deep-seated, ever-rebellious cravings
of their animal natures.  This Law they were ever repeating,
I found, and ever breaking.  Both Montgomery and Moreau displayed
particular solicitude to keep them ignorant of the taste of blood;
they feared the inevitable suggestions of that flavour.
Montgomery told me that the Law, especially among the feline Beast People,
became oddly weakened about nightfall; that then the animal was at
its strongest; that a spirit of adventure sprang up in them at the dusk,
when they would dare things they never seemed to dream about by day.
To that I owed my stalking by the Leopard-man, on the night of my arrival.
But during these earlier days of my stay they broke the Law only
furtively and after dark; in the daylight there was a general
atmosphere of respect for its multifarious prohibitions.

And here perhaps I may give a few general facts about the island
and the Beast People.  The island, which was of irregular outline
and lay low upon the wide sea, had a total area, I suppose,
of seven or eight square miles.{2} It was volcanic in origin,
and was now fringed on three sides by coral reefs; some fumaroles
to the northward, and a hot spring, were the only vestiges of
the forces that had long since originated it.  Now and then a faint
quiver of earthquake would be sensible, and sometimes the ascent
of the spire of smoke would be rendered tumultuous by gusts of steam;
but that was all.  The population of the island, Montgomery informed me,
now numbered rather more than sixty of these strange creations
of Moreau's art, not counting the smaller monstrosities
which lived in the undergrowth and were without human form.
Altogether he had made nearly a hundred and twenty; but many had died,
and others--like the writhing Footless Thing of which he had told
me--had come by violent ends.  In answer to my question, Montgomery
said that they actually bore offspring, but that these generally died.
When they lived, Moreau took them and stamped the human form upon them.
There was no evidence of the inheritance of their acquired
human characteristics.  The females were less numerous than the males,
and liable to much furtive persecution in spite of the monogamy the
Law enjoined.

     {2} This description corresponds in every respect to Noble's Isle.
         -- C. E. P.

It would be impossible for me to describe these Beast People in detail;
my eye has had no training in details, and unhappily I cannot sketch.
Most striking, perhaps, in their general appearance was the
disproportion between the legs of these creatures and the length
of their bodies; and yet--so relative is our idea of grace--my
eye became habituated to their forms, and at last I even fell
in with their persuasion that my own long thighs were ungainly.
Another point was the forward carriage of the head and the clumsy
and inhuman curvature of the spine.  Even the Ape-man lacked
that inward sinuous curve of the back which makes the human
figure so graceful.  Most had their shoulders hunched clumsily,
and their short forearms hung weakly at their sides.  Few of them
were conspicuously hairy, at least until the end of my time upon
the island.

The next most obvious deformity was in their faces,
almost all of which were prognathous, malformed about the ears,
with large and protuberant noses, very furry or very bristly hair,
and often strangely-coloured or strangely-placed eyes.
None could laugh, though the Ape-man had a chattering titter.
Beyond these general characters their heads had little in common;
each preserved the quality of its particular species:
the human mark distorted but did not hide the leopard, the ox,
or the sow, or other animal or animals, from which the creature
had been moulded.  The voices, too, varied exceedingly.
The hands were always malformed; and though some surprised me by their
unexpected human appearance, almost all were deficient in the number
of the digits, clumsy about the finger-nails, and lacking any
tactile sensibility.

The two most formidable Animal Men were my Leopard-man and a creature
made of hyena and swine.  Larger than these were the three bull-creatures
who pulled in the boat.  Then came the silvery-hairy-man, who was also
the Sayer of the Law, M'ling, and a satyr-like creature of ape and goat.
There were three Swine-men and a Swine-woman, a mare-rhinoceros-creature,
and several other females whose sources I did not ascertain.
There were several wolf-creatures, a bear-bull, and a Saint-Bernard-man. I
have already described the Ape-man, and there was a particularly hateful
(and evil-smelling) old woman made of vixen and bear, whom I hated
from the beginning.  She was said to be a passionate votary of the Law.
Smaller creatures were certain dappled youths and my little
sloth-creature. But enough of this catalogue.

At first I had a shivering horror of the brutes, felt all too keenly
that they were still brutes; but insensibly I became a little
habituated to the idea of them, and moreover I was affected by
Montgomery's attitude towards them.  He had been with them so long
that he had come to regard them as almost normal human beings.
His London days seemed a glorious, impossible past to him.
Only once in a year or so did he go to Arica to deal with
Moreau's agent, a trader in animals there.  He hardly met the finest
type of mankind in that seafaring village of Spanish mongrels.
The men aboard-ship, he told me, seemed at first just as strange
to him as the Beast Men seemed to me,--unnaturally long in the leg,
flat in the face, prominent in the forehead, suspicious, dangerous,
and cold-hearted. In fact, he did not like men:  his heart
had warmed to me, he thought, because he had saved my life.
I fancied even then that he had a sneaking kindness for some of these
metamorphosed brutes, a vicious sympathy with some of their ways,
but that he attempted to veil it from me at first.

M'ling, the black-faced man, Montgomery's attendant, the first of
the Beast Folk I had encountered, did not live with the others across
the island, but in a small kennel at the back of the enclosure.
The creature was scarcely so intelligent as the Ape-man, but far
more docile, and the most human-looking of all the Beast Folk;
and Montgomery had trained it to prepare food, and indeed to
discharge all the trivial domestic offices that were required.
It was a complex trophy of Moreau's horrible skill,--a bear, tainted with
dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures.
It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion.
Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular
names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he
would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey,
kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees.
But whether he treated it well or ill, it loved nothing so much as to be
near him.

I say I became habituated to the Beast People, that a thousand
things which had seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became
natural and ordinary to me.  I suppose everything in existence
takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings.
Montgomery and Moreau were too peculiar and individual
to keep my general impressions of humanity well defined.
I would see one of the clumsy bovine-creatures who worked the launch
treading heavily through the undergrowth, and find myself asking,
trying hard to recall, how he differed from some really human
yokel trudging home from his mechanical labours; or I would meet
the Fox-bear woman's vulpine, shifty face, strangely human in its
speculative cunning, and even imagine I had met it before in some
city byway.

Yet every now and then the beast would flash out upon me beyond
doubt or denial.  An ugly-looking man, a hunch-backed human savage
to all appearance, squatting in the aperture of one of the dens,
would stretch his arms and yawn, showing with startling suddenness
scissor-edged incisors and sabre-like canines, keen and brilliant
as knives.  Or in some narrow pathway, glancing with a transitory
daring into the eyes of some lithe, white-swathed female figure,
I would suddenly see (with a spasmodic revulsion) that she had
slit-like pupils, or glancing down note the curving nail with which
she held her shapeless wrap about her.  It is a curious thing, by
the bye, for which I am quite unable to account, that these weird
creatures--the females, I mean--had in the earlier days of my stay an
instinctive sense of their own repulsive clumsiness, and displayed
in consequence a more than human regard for the decency and decorum
of extensive costume.




XVI.  HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD.


MY inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread
of my story.

After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across
the island to see the fumarole and the source of the hot spring
into whose scalding waters I had blundered on the previous day.
Both of us carried whips and loaded revolvers.  While going through
a leafy jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit squealing.
We stopped and listened, but we heard no more; and presently we
went on our way, and the incident dropped out of our minds.
Montgomery called my attention to certain little pink animals
with long hind-legs, that went leaping through the undergrowth.
He told me they were creatures made of the offspring of the Beast People,
that Moreau had invented.  He had fancied they might serve for meat,
but a rabbit-like habit of devouring their young had defeated
this intention.  I had already encountered some of these
creatures,--once during my moonlight flight from the Leopard-man,
and once during my pursuit by Moreau on the previous day.
By chance, one hopping to avoid us leapt into the hole caused
by the uprooting of a wind-blown tree; before it could extricate
itself we managed to catch it.  It spat like a cat, scratched and
kicked vigorously with its hind-legs, and made an attempt to bite;
but its teeth were too feeble to inflict more than a painless pinch.
It seemed to me rather a pretty little creature; and as Montgomery stated
that it never destroyed the turf by burrowing, and was very cleanly
in its habits, I should imagine it might prove a convenient substitute
for the common rabbit in gentlemen's parks.

We also saw on our way the trunk of a tree barked in long strips
and splintered deeply.  Montgomery called my attention to this.
"Not to claw bark of trees, _that_ is the Law," he said.
"Much some of them care for it!"  It was after this, I think, that we
met the Satyr and the Ape-man. The Satyr was a gleam of classical memory
on the part of Moreau,--his face ovine in expression, like the coarser
Hebrew type; his voice a harsh bleat, his nether extremities Satanic.
He was gnawing the husk of a pod-like fruit as he passed us.
Both of them saluted Montgomery.

"Hail," said they, "to the Other with the Whip!"

"There's a Third with a Whip now," said Montgomery.  "So you'd
better mind!"

"Was he not made?" said the Ape-man. "He said--he said he was made."

The Satyr-man looked curiously at me.  "The Third with the Whip,
he that walks weeping into the sea, has a thin white face."

"He has a thin long whip," said Montgomery.

"Yesterday he bled and wept," said the Satyr.  "You never bleed nor weep.
The Master does not bleed or weep."

"Ollendorffian beggar!" said Montgomery, "you'll bleed and weep
if you don't look out!"

"He has five fingers, he is a five-man like me," said the Ape-man.

"Come along, Prendick," said Montgomery, taking my arm; and I went
on with him.

The Satyr and the Ape-man stood watching us and making other remarks
to each other.

"He says nothing," said the Satyr.  "Men have voices."

"Yesterday he asked me of things to eat," said the Ape-man. "He
did not know."

Then they spoke inaudible things, and I heard the Satyr laughing.

It was on our way back that we came upon the dead rabbit.
The red body of the wretched little beast was rent to pieces, many of
the ribs stripped white, and the backbone indisputably gnawed.

At that Montgomery stopped.  "Good God!" said he, stooping down,
and picking up some of the crushed vertebrae to examine them more closely.
"Good God!" he repeated, "what can this mean?"

"Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits,"
I said after a pause.  "This backbone has been bitten through."

He stood staring, with his face white and his lip pulled askew.
"I don't like this," he said slowly.

"I saw something of the same kind," said I, "the first day I came here."

"The devil you did!  What was it?"

"A rabbit with its head twisted off."

"The day you came here?"

"The day I came here.  In the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure,
when I went out in the evening.  The head was completely wrung off."

He gave a long, low whistle.

"And what is more, I have an idea which of your brutes did the thing.
It's only a suspicion, you know.  Before I came on the rabbit I saw one
of your monsters drinking in the stream."

"Sucking his drink?"

"Yes."

"'Not to suck your drink; that is the Law.'  Much the brutes care
for the Law, eh? when Moreau's not about!"

"It was the brute who chased me."

"Of course," said Montgomery; "it's just the way with carnivores.
After a kill, they drink.  It's the taste of blood, you know.--What
was the brute like?" he continued.  "Would you know him again?"
He glanced about us, standing astride over the mess of dead rabbit,
his eyes roving among the shadows and screens of greenery,
the lurking-places and ambuscades of the forest that bounded us in.
"The taste of blood," he said again.

He took out his revolver, examined the cartridges in it and replaced it.
Then he began to pull at his dropping lip.

"I think I should know the brute again," I said.  "I stunned him.
He ought to have a handsome bruise on the forehead of him."

"But then we have to _prove_ that he killed the rabbit," said
Montgomery. "I wish I'd never brought the things here."

I should have gone on, but he stayed there thinking over the mangled
rabbit in a puzzle-headed way.  As it was, I went to such a distance
that the rabbit's remains were hidden.

"Come on!" I said.

Presently he woke up and came towards me.  "You see," he said,
almost in a whisper, "they are all supposed to have a fixed idea
against eating anything that runs on land.  If some brute has
by any accident tasted blood--"

We went on some way in silence.  "I wonder what can have happened,"
he said to himself.  Then, after a pause again:  "I did a foolish
thing the other day.  That servant of mine--I showed him how to skin
and cook a rabbit.  It's odd--I saw him licking his hands--It never
occurred to me."

Then:  "We must put a stop to this.  I must tell Moreau."

He could think of nothing else on our homeward journey.

Moreau took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I
need scarcely say that I was affected by their evident consternation.

"We must make an example," said Moreau.  "I've no doubt in my own
mind that the Leopard-man was the sinner.  But how can we prove it?
I wish, Montgomery, you had kept your taste for meat in hand, and gone
without these exciting novelties.  We may find ourselves in a mess yet,
through it."

"I was a silly ass," said Montgomery.  "But the thing's done now;
and you said I might have them, you know."

"We must see to the thing at once," said Moreau.  "I suppose
if anything should turn up, M'ling can take care of himself?"

"I'm not so sure of M'ling," said Montgomery.  "I think I ought
to know him."

In the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and M'ling went
across the island to the huts in the ravine.  We three were armed;
M'ling carried the little hatchet he used in chopping firewood,
and some coils of wire.  Moreau had a huge cowherd's horn slung over
his shoulder.

"You will see a gathering of the Beast People," said Montgomery.
"It is a pretty sight!"

Moreau said not a word on the way, but the expression of his heavy,
white-fringed face was grimly set.

We crossed the ravine down which smoked the stream of hot water,
and followed the winding pathway through the canebrakes
until we reached a wide area covered over with a thick,
powdery yellow substance which I believe was sulphur.
Above the shoulder of a weedy bank the sea glittered.  We came to a kind
of shallow natural amphitheatre, and here the four of us halted.
Then Moreau sounded the horn, and broke the sleeping stillness
of the tropical afternoon.  He must have had strong lungs.
The hooting note rose and rose amidst its echoes, to at last an
ear-penetrating intensity.

"Ah!" said Moreau, letting the curved instrument fall to his side again.

Immediately there was a crashing through the yellow canes,
and a sound of voices from the dense green jungle that marked
the morass through which I had run on the previous day.
Then at three or four points on the edge of the sulphurous area
appeared the grotesque forms of the Beast People hurrying towards us.
I could not help a creeping horror, as I perceived first one and then
another trot out from the trees or reeds and come shambling along
over the hot dust.  But Moreau and Montgomery stood calmly enough;
and, perforce, I stuck beside them.

First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal for all that he cast
a shadow and tossed the dust with his hoofs.  After him from
the brake came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros,
chewing a straw as it came; then appeared the Swine-woman
and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her red eyes
in her peaked red face, and then others,--all hurrying eagerly.
As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant,
quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half
of the litany of the Law,--"His is the Hand that wounds;
His is the Hand that heals," and so forth.  As soon as they had
approached within a distance of perhaps thirty yards they halted,
and bowing on knees and elbows began flinging the white dust upon
their heads.

Imagine the scene if you can!  We three blue-clad men, with our
misshapen black-faced attendant, standing in a wide expanse
of sunlit yellow dust under the blazing blue sky, and surrounded
by this circle of crouching and gesticulating monstrosities,--some
almost human save in their subtle expression and gestures,
some like cripples, some so strangely distorted as to resemble nothing
but the denizens of our wildest dreams; and, beyond, the reedy
lines of a canebrake in one direction, a dense tangle of palm-trees
on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts,
and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

"Sixty-two, sixty-three," counted Moreau.  "There are four more."

"I do not see the Leopard-man," said I.

Presently Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound
of it all the Beast People writhed and grovelled in the dust.
Then, slinking out of the canebrake, stooping near the ground
and trying to join the dust-throwing circle behind Moreau's back,
came the Leopard-man. The last of the Beast People to arrive was the little
Ape-man. The earlier animals, hot and weary with their grovelling,
shot vicious glances at him.

"Cease!" said Moreau, in his firm, loud voice; and the Beast People
sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping.

"Where is the Sayer of the Law?" said Moreau, and the hairy-grey
monster bowed his face in the dust.

"Say the words!" said Moreau.

Forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side
and dashing up the sulphur with their hands,--first the right hand
and a puff of dust, and then the left,--began once more to chant
their strange litany.  When they reached, "Not to eat Flesh or Fish,
that is the Law," Moreau held up his lank white hand.

"Stop!" he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all.

I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming.
I looked round at their strange faces.  When I saw their wincing
attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered
that I had ever believed them to be men.

"That Law has been broken!" said Moreau.

"None escape," from the faceless creature with the silvery hair.
"None escape," repeated the kneeling circle of Beast People.

"Who is he?" cried Moreau, and looked round at their faces,
cracking his whip.  I fancied the Hyena-swine looked dejected,
so too did the Leopard-man. Moreau stopped, facing this creature,
who cringed towards him with the memory and dread of infinite torment.

"Who is he?" repeated Moreau, in a voice of thunder.

"Evil is he who breaks the Law," chanted the Sayer of the Law.

Moreau looked into the eyes of the Leopard-man, and seemed to be
dragging the very soul out of the creature.

"Who breaks the Law--" said Moreau, taking his eyes off his victim,
and turning towards us (it seemed to me there was a touch of exultation
in his voice).

"Goes back to the House of Pain," they all clamoured,--"goes back
to the House of Pain, O Master!"

"Back to the House of Pain,--back to the House of Pain,"
gabbled the Ape-man, as though the idea was sweet to him.

"Do you hear?" said Moreau, turning back to the criminal,
"my friend--Hullo!"

For the Leopard-man, released from Moreau's eye, had risen straight
from his knees, and now, with eyes aflame and his huge feline tusks
flashing out from under his curling lips, leapt towards his tormentor.
I am convinced that only the madness of unendurable fear could have
prompted this attack.  The whole circle of threescore monsters seemed
to rise about us.  I drew my revolver.  The two figures collided.
I saw Moreau reeling back from the Leopard-man's blow.  There was a
furious yelling and howling all about us.  Every one was moving rapidly.
For a moment I thought it was a general revolt.  The furious face
of the Leopard-man flashed by mine, with M'ling close in pursuit.
I saw the yellow eyes of the Hyena-swine blazing with excitement,
his attitude as if he were half resolved to attack me.
The Satyr, too, glared at me over the Hyena-swine's hunched shoulders.
I heard the crack of Moreau's pistol, and saw the pink flash
dart across the tumult.  The whole crowd seemed to swing round
in the direction of the glint of fire, and I too was swung round
by the magnetism of the movement.  In another second I was running,
one of a tumultuous shouting crowd, in pursuit of the escaping
Leopard-man.

That is all I can tell definitely.  I saw the Leopard-man strike Moreau,
and then everything spun about me until I was running headlong.
M'ling was ahead, close in pursuit of the fugitive.  Behind, their tongues
already lolling out, ran the Wolf-women in great leaping strides.
The Swine folk followed, squealing with excitement, and the two
Bull-men in their swathings of white.  Then came Moreau in a
cluster of the Beast People, his wide-brimmed straw hat blown off,
his revolver in hand, and his lank white hair streaming out.
The Hyena-swine ran beside me, keeping pace with me and glancing furtively
at me out of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and shouting
behind us.

The Leopard-man went bursting his way through the long canes,
which sprang back as he passed, and rattled in M'ling's face.
We others in the rear found a trampled path for us when we reached
the brake.  The chase lay through the brake for perhaps a quarter
of a mile, and then plunged into a dense thicket, which retarded
our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in a crowd
together,--fronds flicking into our faces, ropy creepers catching
us under the chin or gripping our ankles, thorny plants hooking into
and tearing cloth and flesh together.

"He has gone on all-fours through this," panted Moreau, now just
ahead of me.

"None escape," said the Wolf-bear, laughing into my face with
the exultation of hunting.  We burst out again among rocks,
and saw the quarry ahead running lightly on all-fours and snarling
at us over his shoulder.  At that the Wolf Folk howled with delight.
The Thing was still clothed, and at a distance its face still seemed human;
but the carriage of its four limbs was feline, and the furtive
droop of its shoulder was distinctly that of a hunted animal.
It leapt over some thorny yellow-flowering bushes, and was hidden.
M'ling was halfway across the space.

Most of us now had lost the first speed of the chase, and had fallen
into a longer and steadier stride.  I saw as we traversed the open
that the pursuit was now spreading from a column into a line.
The Hyena-swine still ran close to me, watching me as it ran,
every now and then puckering its muzzle with a snarling laugh.
At the edge of the rocks the Leopard-man, realising that he was
making for the projecting cape upon which he had stalked me
on the night of my arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth;
but Montgomery had seen the manoeuvre, and turned him again.
So, panting, tumbling against rocks, torn by brambles, impeded by
ferns and reeds, I helped to pursue the Leopard-man who had broken
the Law, and the Hyena-swine ran, laughing savagely, by my side.
I staggered on, my head reeling and my heart beating against my ribs,
tired almost to death, and yet not daring to lose sight of the chase
lest I should be left alone with this horrible companion.
I staggered on in spite of infinite fatigue and the dense heat of the
tropical afternoon.

At last the fury of the hunt slackened.  We had pinned the wretched
brute into a corner of the island.  Moreau, whip in hand, marshalled us
all into an irregular line, and we advanced now slowly, shouting to one
another as we advanced and tightening the cordon about our victim.
He lurked noiseless and invisible in the bushes through which I
had run from him during that midnight pursuit.

"Steady!" cried Moreau, "steady!" as the ends of the line crept
round the tangle of undergrowth and hemmed the brute in.

"Ware a rush!" came the voice of Montgomery from beyond the thicket.

I was on the slope above the bushes; Montgomery and Moreau beat
along the beach beneath.  Slowly we pushed in among the fretted
network of branches and leaves.  The quarry was silent.

"Back to the House of Pain, the House of Pain, the House of Pain!"
yelped the voice of the Ape-man, some twenty yards to the right.

When I heard that, I forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had
inspired in me.  I heard the twigs snap and the boughs swish aside
before the heavy tread of the Horse-rhinoceros upon my right.
Then suddenly through a polygon of green, in the half darkness
under the luxuriant growth, I saw the creature we were hunting.
I halted.  He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass,
his luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder regarding me.

It may seem a strange contradiction in me,--I cannot explain the
fact,--but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal
attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly
human face distorted with terror, I realised again the fact of its
humanity.  In another moment other of its pursuers would see it,
and it would be overpowered and captured, to experience once more
the horrible tortures of the enclosure.  Abruptly I slipped out
my revolver, aimed between its terror-struck eyes, and fired.
As I did so, the Hyena-swine saw the Thing, and flung itself upon
it with an eager cry, thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck.
All about me the green masses of the thicket were swaying and cracking
as the Beast People came rushing together.  One face and then
another appeared.

"Don't kill it, Prendick!" cried Moreau.  "Don't kill it!"
and I saw him stooping as he pushed through under the fronds
of the big ferns.

In another moment he had beaten off the Hyena-swine with the handle of
his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous
Beast People, and particularly M'ling, from the still quivering body.
The hairy-grey Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm.
The other animals, in their animal ardour, jostled me to get a
nearer view.

"Confound you, Prendick!" said Moreau.  "I wanted him."

"I'm sorry," said I, though I was not.  "It was the impulse
of the moment."  I felt sick with exertion and excitement.
Turning, I pushed my way out of the crowding Beast People and went
on alone up the slope towards the higher part of the headland.
Under the shouted directions of Moreau I heard the three white-swathed
Bull-men begin dragging the victim down towards the water.

It was easy now for me to be alone.  The Beast People manifested a quite
human curiosity about the dead body, and followed it in a thick knot,
sniffing and growling at it as the Bull-men dragged it down the beach.
I went to the headland and watched the bull-men, black against
the evening sky as they carried the weighted dead body out to sea;
and like a wave across my mind came the realisation of the unspeakable
aimlessness of things upon the island.  Upon the beach among
the rocks beneath me were the Ape-man, the Hyena-swine, and several
other of the Beast People, standing about Montgomery and Moreau.
They were all still intensely excited, and all overflowing with noisy
expressions of their loyalty to the Law; yet I felt an absolute
assurance in my own mind that the Hyena-swine was implicated
in the rabbit-killing. A strange persuasion came upon me, that,
save for the grossness of the line, the grotesqueness of the forms,
I had here before me the whole balance of human life in miniature,
the whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate in its simplest form.
The Leopard-man had happened to go under:  that was all the difference.
Poor brute!

Poor brutes!  I began to see the viler aspect of Moreau's cruelty.
I had not thought before of the pain and trouble that came
to these poor victims after they had passed from Moreau's hands.
I had shivered only at the days of actual torment in the enclosure.
But now that seemed to me the lesser part.  Before, they had
been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings,
and happy as living things may be.  Now they stumbled in the shackles
of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they
could not understand; their mock-human existence, begun in an agony,
was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau--and for what?
It was the wantonness of it that stirred me.

Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathised at
least a little with him.  I am not so squeamish about pain as that.
I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate.
But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless!  His curiosity,
his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were
thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer,
and at last to die painfully.  They were wretched in themselves;
the old animal hate moved them to trouble one another; the Law held
them back from a brief hot struggle and a decisive end to their
natural animosities.

In those days my fear of the Beast People went the way of my personal
fear for Moreau.  I fell indeed into a morbid state, deep and enduring,
and alien to fear, which has left permanent scars upon my mind.
I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world
when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island.
A blind Fate, a vast pitiless Mechanism, seemed to cut and
shape the fabric of existence and I, Moreau (by his passion
for research), Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast
People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn
and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity
of its incessant wheels.  But this condition did not come all at once:
I think indeed that I anticipate a little in speaking of
it now.




XVII.  A CATASTROPHE.


SCARCELY six weeks passed before I had lost every feeling but
dislike and abhorrence for this infamous experiment of Moreau's.
My one idea was to get away from these horrible caricatures of my
Maker's image, back to the sweet and wholesome intercourse of men.
My fellow-creatures, from whom I was thus separated, began to assume
idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory.  My first friendship with
Montgomery did not increase.  His long separation from humanity,
his secret vice of drunkenness, his evident sympathy with the Beast People,
tainted him to me.  Several times I let him go alone among them.
I avoided intercourse with them in every possible way.
I spent an increasing proportion of my time upon the beach,
looking for some liberating sail that never appeared,--until one day
there fell upon us an appalling disaster, which put an altogether
different aspect upon my strange surroundings.

It was about seven or eight weeks after my landing,--rather more,
I think, though I had not troubled to keep account of the time,--when
this catastrophe occurred.  It happened in the early morning--I
should think about six.  I had risen and breakfasted early, having
been aroused by the noise of three Beast Men carrying wood into the
enclosure.

After breakfast I went to the open gateway of the enclosure,
and stood there smoking a cigarette and enjoying the freshness
of the early morning.  Moreau presently came round the corner
of the enclosure and greeted me.  He passed by me, and I heard him
behind me unlock and enter his laboratory.  So indurated was I
at that time to the abomination of the place, that I heard without
a touch of emotion the puma victim begin another day of torture.
It met its persecutor with a shriek, almost exactly like that of an
angry virago.

Then suddenly something happened,--I do not know what,
to this day.  I heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall,
and turning saw an awful face rushing upon me,--not human,
not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed with red branching scars,
red drops starting out upon it, and the lidless eyes ablaze.
I threw up my arm to defend myself from the blow that flung
me headlong with a broken forearm; and the great monster,
swathed in lint and with red-stained bandages fluttering about it,
leapt over me and passed.  I rolled over and over down the beach,
tried to sit up, and collapsed upon my broken arm.  Then Moreau appeared,
his massive white face all the more terrible for the blood that
trickled from his forehead.  He carried a revolver in one hand.
He scarcely glanced at me, but rushed off at once in pursuit of
the puma.

I tried the other arm and sat up.  The muffled figure in front ran
in great striding leaps along the beach, and Moreau followed her.
She turned her head and saw him, then doubling abruptly made
for the bushes.  She gained upon him at every stride.  I saw her
plunge into them, and Moreau, running slantingly to intercept her,
fired and missed as she disappeared.  Then he too vanished
in the green confusion.  I stared after them, and then the pain
in my arm flamed up, and with a groan I staggered to my feet.
Montgomery appeared in the doorway, dressed, and with his revolver in
his hand.

"Great God, Prendick!" he said, not noticing that I was hurt,
"that brute's loose!  Tore the fetter out of the wall!
Have you seen them?"  Then sharply, seeing I gripped my arm,
"What's the matter?"

"I was standing in the doorway," said I.

He came forward and took my arm.  "Blood on the sleeve,"
said he, and rolled back the flannel.  He pocketed his weapon,
felt my arm about painfully, and led me inside.  "Your arm
is broken," he said, and then, "Tell me exactly how it
happened--what happened?"

I told him what I had seen; told him in broken sentences,
with gasps of pain between them, and very dexterously and swiftly
he bound my arm meanwhile.  He slung it from my shoulder,
stood back and looked at me.

"You'll do," he said.  "And now?"

He thought.  Then he went out and locked the gates of the enclosure.
He was absent some time.

I was chiefly concerned about my arm.  The incident seemed merely
one more of many horrible things.  I sat down in the deck chair,
and I must admit swore heartily at the island.  The first dull
feeling of injury in my arm had already given way to a burning pain
when Montgomery reappeared.  His face was rather pale, and he showed
more of his lower gums than ever.

"I can neither see nor hear anything of him," he said.
"I've been thinking he may want my help."  He stared at me with
his expressionless eyes.  "That was a strong brute," he said.
"It simply wrenched its fetter out of the wall."  He went to the window,
then to the door, and there turned to me.  "I shall go after him,"
he said.  "There's another revolver I can leave with you.
To tell you the truth, I feel anxious somehow."

He obtained the weapon, and put it ready to my hand on the table;
then went out, leaving a restless contagion in the air.
I did not sit long after he left, but took the revolver in hand and went
to the doorway.

The morning was as still as death.  Not a whisper of wind was stirring;
the sea was like polished glass, the sky empty, the beach desolate.
In my half-excited, half-feverish state, this stillness of things
oppressed me.  I tried to whistle, and the tune died away.
I swore again,--the second time that morning.  Then I went to the corner
of the enclosure and stared inland at the green bush that had
swallowed up Moreau and Montgomery.  When would they return, and how?
Then far away up the beach a little grey Beast Man appeared,
ran down to the water's edge and began splashing about.
I strolled back to the doorway, then to the corner again,
and so began pacing to and fro like a sentinel upon duty.
Once I was arrested by the distant voice of Montgomery bawling,
"Coo-ee--Moreau!"  My arm became less painful, but very hot.
I got feverish and thirsty.  My shadow grew shorter.
I watched the distant figure until it went away again.  Would Moreau
and Montgomery never return?  Three sea-birds began fighting for some
stranded treasure.

Then from far away behind the enclosure I heard a pistol-shot. A
long silence, and then came another.  Then a yelling cry nearer,
and another dismal gap of silence.  My unfortunate imagination
set to work to torment me.  Then suddenly a shot close by.
I went to the corner, startled, and saw Montgomery,--his face scarlet,
his hair disordered, and the knee of his trousers torn.
His face expressed profound consternation.  Behind him slouched
the Beast Man, M'ling, and round M'ling's jaws were some queer
dark stains.

"Has he come?" said Montgomery.

"Moreau?" said I. "No."

"My God!"  The man was panting, almost sobbing.  "Go back in," he said,
taking my arm.  "They're mad.  They're all rushing about mad.  What can
have happened?  I don't know.  I'll tell you, when my breath comes.
Where's some brandy?"

Montgomery limped before me into the room and sat down in the deck chair.
M'ling flung himself down just outside the doorway and began
panting like a dog.  I got Montgomery some brandy-and-water. He
sat staring in front of him at nothing, recovering his breath.
After some minutes he began to tell me what had happened.

He had followed their track for some way.  It was plain enough at
first on account of the crushed and broken bushes, white rags torn
from the puma's bandages, and occasional smears of blood on the leaves
of the shrubs and undergrowth.  He lost the track, however, on the stony
ground beyond the stream where I had seen the Beast Man drinking,
and went wandering aimlessly westward shouting Moreau's name.
Then M'ling had come to him carrying a light hatchet.  M'ling had seen
nothing of the puma affair; had been felling wood, and heard him calling.
They went on shouting together.  Two Beast Men came crouching
and peering at them through the undergrowth, with gestures and a
furtive carriage that alarmed Montgomery by their strangeness.
He hailed them, and they fled guiltily.  He stopped shouting
after that, and after wandering some time farther in an undecided way,
determined to visit the huts.

He found the ravine deserted.

Growing more alarmed every minute, he began to retrace his steps.
Then it was he encountered the two Swine-men I had seen dancing
on the night of my arrival; blood-stained they were about the mouth,
and intensely excited.  They came crashing through the ferns,
and stopped with fierce faces when they saw him.  He cracked his whip
in some trepidation, and forthwith they rushed at him.  Never before
had a Beast Man dared to do that.  One he shot through the head;
M'ling flung himself upon the other, and the two rolled grappling.
M'ling got his brute under and with his teeth in its throat,
and Montgomery shot that too as it struggled in M'ling's grip.
He had some difficulty in inducing M'ling to come on with him.
Thence they had hurried back to me.  On the way, M'ling had suddenly
rushed into a thicket and driven out an under-sized Ocelot-man,
also blood-stained, and lame through a wound in the foot.
This brute had run a little way and then turned savagely at bay,
and Montgomery--with a certain wantonness, I thought--had shot
him.

"What does it all mean?" said I.

He shook his head, and turned once more to the brandy.




XVIII.  THE FINDING OF MOREAU.


WHEN I saw Montgomery swallow a third dose of brandy, I took it
upon myself to interfere.  He was already more than half fuddled.
I told him that some serious thing must have happened to
Moreau by this time, or he would have returned before this,
and that it behoved us to ascertain what that catastrophe was.
Montgomery raised some feeble objections, and at last agreed.
We had some food, and then all three of us started.

It is possibly due to the tension of my mind, at the time,
but even now that start into the hot stillness of the tropical
afternoon is a singularly vivid impression.  M'ling went first,
his shoulder hunched, his strange black head moving with quick
starts as he peered first on this side of the way and then on that.
He was unarmed; his axe he had dropped when he encountered
the Swine-man. Teeth were _his_ weapons, when it came to fighting.
Montgomery followed with stumbling footsteps, his hands in his pockets,
his face downcast; he was in a state of muddled sullenness
with me on account of the brandy.  My left arm was in a sling
(it was lucky it was my left), and I carried my revolver in my right.
Soon we traced a narrow path through the wild luxuriance of
the island, going northwestward; and presently M'ling stopped,
and became rigid with watchfulness.  Montgomery almost staggered
into him, and then stopped too.  Then, listening intently,
we heard coming through the trees the sound of voices and footsteps
approaching us.

"He is dead," said a deep, vibrating voice.

"He is not dead; he is not dead," jabbered another.

"We saw, we saw," said several voices.

"Hullo!" suddenly shouted Montgomery, "Hullo, there!"

"Confound you!" said I, and gripped my pistol.

There was a silence, then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation,
first here, then there, and then half-a-dozen faces appeared,--strange
faces, lit by a strange light.  M'ling made a growling
noise in his throat.  I recognised the Ape-man: I had indeed
already identified his voice, and two of the white-swathed
brown-featured creatures I had seen in Montgomery's boat.
With these were the two dappled brutes and that grey, horribly crooked
creature who said the Law, with grey hair streaming down its cheeks,
heavy grey eyebrows, and grey locks pouring off from a central
parting upon its sloping forehead,--a heavy, faceless thing,
with strange red eyes, looking at us curiously from amidst
the green.

For a space no one spoke.  Then Montgomery hiccoughed, "Who--said
he was dead?"

The Monkey-man looked guiltily at the hairy-grey Thing.  "He is dead,"
said this monster.  "They saw."

There was nothing threatening about this detachment, at any rate.
They seemed awestricken and puzzled.

"Where is he?" said Montgomery.

"Beyond," and the grey creature pointed.

"Is there a Law now?" asked the Monkey-man. "Is it still to be this
and that?  Is he dead indeed?"

"Is there a Law?" repeated the man in white.  "Is there a Law,
thou Other with the Whip?"

"He is dead," said the hairy-grey Thing.  And they all stood
watching us.

"Prendick," said Montgomery, turning his dull eyes to me.
"He's dead, evidently."

I had been standing behind him during this colloquy.
I began to see how things lay with them.  I suddenly stepped in front
of Montgomery and lifted up my voice:--"Children of the Law,"
I said, "he is _not_ dead!"  M'ling turned his sharp eyes on me.
"He has changed his shape; he has changed his body," I went on.
"For a time you will not see him.  He is--there," I pointed upward,
"where he can watch you.  You cannot see him, but he can see you.
Fear the Law!"

I looked at them squarely.  They flinched.

"He is great, he is good," said the Ape-man, peering fearfully
upward among the dense trees.

"And the other Thing?"  I demanded.

"The Thing that bled, and ran screaming and sobbing,--that is dead too,"
said the grey Thing, still regarding me.

"That's well," grunted Montgomery.

"The Other with the Whip--" began the grey Thing.

"Well?" said I.

"Said he was dead."

But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying
Moreau's death.  "He is not dead," he said slowly, "not dead at all.
No more dead than I am."

"Some," said I, "have broken the Law:  they will die.  Some have died.
Show us now where his old body lies,--the body he cast away because
he had no more need of it."

"It is this way, Man who walked in the Sea," said the grey Thing.

And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult
of ferns and creepers and tree-stems towards the northwest.
Then came a yelling, a crashing among the branches, and a little
pink homunculus rushed by us shrieking.  Immediately after appeared
a monster in headlong pursuit, blood-bedabbled, who was amongst us
almost before he could stop his career.  The grey Thing leapt aside.
M'ling, with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck aside.  Montgomery fired
and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run.
I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, into
its ugly face.  I saw its features vanish in a flash:  its face was
driven in.  Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him,
fell headlong beside him and pulled him sprawling upon itself in its
death-agony.

I found myself alone with M'ling, the dead brute, and the prostrate man.
Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at
the shattered Beast Man beside him.  It more than half sobered him.
He scrambled to his feet.  Then I saw the grey Thing returning cautiously
through the trees.

"See," said I, pointing to the dead brute, "is the Law not alive?
This came of breaking the Law."

He peered at the body.  "He sends the Fire that kills,"
said he, in his deep voice, repeating part of the Ritual.
The others gathered round and stared for a space.

At last we drew near the westward extremity of the island.
We came upon the gnawed and mutilated body of the puma,
its shoulder-bone smashed by a bullet, and perhaps twenty yards
farther found at last what we sought.  Moreau lay face downward
in a trampled space in a canebrake.  One hand was almost severed
at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood.
His head had been battered in by the fetters of the puma.
The broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood.
His revolver we could not find.  Montgomery turned him over.
Resting at intervals, and with the help of the seven Beast People
(for he was a heavy man), we carried Moreau back to the enclosure.
The night was darkling.  Twice we heard unseen creatures howling
and shrieking past our little band, and once the little pink
sloth-creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again.
But we were not attacked again.  At the gates of the enclosure
our company of Beast People left us, M'ling going with the rest.
We locked ourselves in, and then took Moreau's mangled
body into the yard and laid it upon a pile of brushwood.
Then we went into the laboratory and put an end to all we found living
there.




XIX.  MONTGOMERY'S "BANK HOLIDAY."


WHEN this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten,
Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussed
our position for the first time.  It was then near midnight.
He was almost sober, but greatly disturbed in his mind.
He had been strangely under the influence of Moreau's personality:
I do not think it had ever occurred to him that Moreau could die.
This disaster was the sudden collapse of the habits that had become part of
his nature in the ten or more monotonous years he had spent on the island.
He talked vaguely, answered my questions crookedly, wandered into
general questions.

"This silly ass of a world," he said; "what a muddle it all is!
I haven't had any life.  I wonder when it's going to begin.
Sixteen years being bullied by nurses and schoolmasters at
their own sweet will; five in London grinding hard at medicine,
bad food, shabby lodgings, shabby clothes, shabby vice, a blunder,--I
didn't know any better,--and hustled off to this beastly island.
Ten years here!  What's it all for, Prendick?  Are we bubbles blown by
a baby?"

It was hard to deal with such ravings.  "The thing we have to think
of now," said I, "is how to get away from this island."

"What's the good of getting away?  I'm an outcast.
Where am _I_ to join on?  It's all very well for _you_, Prendick.
Poor old Moreau!  We can't leave him here to have his bones picked.
As it is--And besides, what will become of the decent part of the
Beast Folk?"

"Well," said I, "that will do to-morrow. I've been thinking we might make
the brushwood into a pyre and burn his body--and those other things.
Then what will happen with the Beast Folk?"

"_I_ don't know.  I suppose those that were made of beasts of prey will
make silly asses of themselves sooner or later.  We can't massacre
the lot--can we?  I suppose that's what _your_ humanity would suggest?
But they'll change.  They are sure to change."

He talked thus inconclusively until at last I felt my temper going.

"Damnation!" he exclaimed at some petulance of mine; "can't you see I'm
in a worse hole than you are?"  And he got up, and went for the brandy.
"Drink!" he said returning, "you logic-chopping, chalky-faced saint
of an atheist, drink!"

"Not I," said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellow
paraffine flare, as he drank himself into a garrulous misery.

I have a memory of infinite tedium.  He wandered into a maudlin
defence of the Beast People and of M'ling. M'ling, he said,
was the only thing that had ever really cared for him.
And suddenly an idea came to him.

"I'm damned!" said he, staggering to his feet and clutching
the brandy bottle.

By some flash of intuition I knew what it was he intended.
"You don't give drink to that beast!"  I said, rising and facing him.

"Beast!" said he.  "You're the beast.  He takes his liquor
like a Christian.  Come out of the way, Prendick!"

"For God's sake," said I.

"Get--out of the way!" he roared, and suddenly whipped out his revolver.

"Very well," said I, and stood aside, half-minded to fall upon him
as he put his hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thought
of my useless arm.  "You've made a beast of yourself,--to the beasts
you may go."

He flung the doorway open, and stood half facing me between
the yellow lamp-light and the pallid glare of the moon;
his eye-sockets were blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows.

"You're a solemn prig, Prendick, a silly ass!  You're always fearing
and fancying.  We're on the edge of things.  I'm bound to cut my
throat to-morrow. I'm going to have a damned Bank Holiday to-night."
He turned and went out into the moonlight.  "M'ling!" he cried;
"M'ling, old friend!"

Three dim creatures in the silvery light came along the edge
of the wan beach,--one a white-wrapped creature, the other two
blotches of blackness following it.  They halted, staring.
Then I saw M'ling's hunched shoulders as he came round the corner
of the house.

"Drink!" cried Montgomery, "drink, you brutes!  Drink and be men!
Damme, I'm the cleverest.  Moreau forgot this; this is the last touch.
Drink, I tell you!"  And waving the bottle in his hand he started
off at a kind of quick trot to the westward, M'ling ranging himself
between him and the three dim creatures who followed.

I went to the doorway.  They were already indistinct in the mist
of the moonlight before Montgomery halted.  I saw him administer
a dose of the raw brandy to M'ling, and saw the five figures melt
into one vague patch.

"Sing!"  I heard Montgomery shout,--"sing all together, 'Confound
old Prendick!'  That's right; now again, 'Confound old Prendick!'"

The black group broke up into five separate figures,
and wound slowly away from me along the band of shining beach.
Each went howling at his own sweet will, yelping insults at me,
or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded.
Presently I heard Montgomery's voice shouting, "Right turn!"
and they passed with their shouts and howls into the blackness
of the landward trees.  Slowly, very slowly, they receded
into silence.

The peaceful splendour of the night healed again.
The moon was now past the meridian and travelling down the west.
It was at its full, and very bright riding through the empty blue sky.
The shadow of the wall lay, a yard wide and of inky blackness, at my feet.
The eastward sea was a featureless grey, dark and mysterious;
and between the sea and the shadow the grey sands (of volcanic
glass and crystals) flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds.
Behind me the paraffine lamp flared hot and ruddy.

Then I shut the door, locked it, and went into the enclosure where
Moreau lay beside his latest victims,--the staghounds and the llama
and some other wretched brutes,--with his massive face calm even
after his terrible death, and with the hard eyes open, staring at
the dead white moon above.  I sat down upon the edge of the sink,
and with my eyes upon that ghastly pile of silvery light and ominous
shadows began to turn over my plans.  In the morning I would gather
some provisions in the dingey, and after setting fire to the pyre
before me, push out into the desolation of the high sea once more.
I felt that for Montgomery there was no help; that he was, in truth,
half akin to these Beast Folk, unfitted for human kindred.

I do not know how long I sat there scheming.  It must have been
an hour or so.  Then my planning was interrupted by the return of
Montgomery to my neighbourhood.  I heard a yelling from many throats,
a tumult of exultant cries passing down towards the beach,
whooping and howling, and excited shrieks that seemed to come to a stop
near the water's edge.  The riot rose and fell; I heard heavy blows
and the splintering smash of wood, but it did not trouble me then.
A discordant chanting began.

My thoughts went back to my means of escape.  I got up, brought the lamp,
and went into a shed to look at some kegs I had seen there.
Then I became interested in the contents of some biscuit-tins, and
opened one.  I saw something out of the tail of my eye,--a red
figure,--and turned sharply.

Behind me lay the yard, vividly black-and-white in the moonlight,
and the pile of wood and faggots on which Moreau and his mutilated
victims lay, one over another.  They seemed to be gripping one another
in one last revengeful grapple.  His wounds gaped, black as night,
and the blood that had dripped lay in black patches upon the sand.
Then I saw, without understanding, the cause of my phantom,--a
ruddy glow that came and danced and went upon the wall opposite.
I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection of my
flickering lamp, and turned again to the stores in the shed.
I went on rummaging among them, as well as a one-armed man could,
finding this convenient thing and that, and putting them
aside for to-morrow's launch.  My movements were slow,
and the time passed quickly.  Insensibly the daylight crept
upon me.

The chanting died down, giving place to a clamour; then it
began again, and suddenly broke into a tumult.  I heard cries of,
"More! more!" a sound like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek.
The quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrested
my attention.  I went out into the yard and listened.
Then cutting like a knife across the confusion came the crack of
a revolver.

I rushed at once through my room to the little doorway.
As I did so I heard some of the packing-cases behind me go sliding down
and smash together with a clatter of glass on the floor of the shed.
But I did not heed these.  I flung the door open and looked out.

Up the beach by the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining up
sparks into the indistinctness of the dawn.  Around this struggled
a mass of black figures.  I heard Montgomery call my name.
I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver in hand.  I saw the pink
tongue of Montgomery's pistol lick out once, close to the ground.
He was down.  I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air.
I heard some one cry, "The Master!"  The knotted black struggle
broke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down.
The crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me, up the beach.
In my excitement I fired at their retreating backs as they
disappeared among the bushes.  Then I turned to the black heaps upon
the ground.

Montgomery lay on his back, with the hairy-grey Beast-man
sprawling across his body.  The brute was dead, but still
gripping Montgomery's throat with its curving claws.
Near by lay M'ling on his face and quite still, his neck bitten
open and the upper part of the smashed brandy-bottle in his hand.
Two other figures lay near the fire,--the one motionless, the other
groaning fitfully, every now and then raising its head slowly,
then dropping it again.

I caught hold of the grey man and pulled him off Montgomery's body;
his claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I dragged him away.
Montgomery was dark in the face and scarcely breathing.  I splashed
sea-water on his face and pillowed his head on my rolled-up coat.
M'ling was dead.  The wounded creature by the fire--it was a Wolf-brute
with a bearded grey face--lay, I found, with the fore part of its
body upon the still glowing timber.  The wretched thing was injured
so dreadfully that in mercy I blew its brains out at once.
The other brute was one of the Bull-men swathed in white.
He too was dead.  The rest of the Beast People had vanished from
the beach.

I went to Montgomery again and knelt beside him, cursing my ignorance
of medicine.  The fire beside me had sunk down, and only charred
beams of timber glowing at the central ends and mixed with a grey
ash of brushwood remained.  I wondered casually where Montgomery
had got his wood.  Then I saw that the dawn was upon us.
The sky had grown brighter, the setting moon was becoming pale
and opaque in the luminous blue of the day.  The sky to the eastward
was rimmed with red.

Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round,
sprang to my feet with a cry of horror.  Against the warm dawn
great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of
the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering
threads of blood-red flame.  Then the thatched roof caught.
I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw.
A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.

I knew at once what had happened.  I remembered the crash I had heard.
When I had rushed out to Montgomery's assistance, I had overturned
the lamp.

The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosure
stared me in the face.  My mind came back to my plan of flight,
and turning swiftly I looked to see where the two boats lay upon
the beach.  They were gone!  Two axes lay upon the sands beside me;
chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashes
of the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn.
Montgomery had burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our
return to mankind!

A sudden convulsion of rage shook me.  I was almost moved to batter
his foolish head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet.
Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that my
wrath vanished.  He groaned, and opened his eyes for a minute.
I knelt down beside him and raised his head.  He opened his
eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine.
The lids fell.

"Sorry," he said presently, with an effort.  He seemed trying to think.
"The last," he murmured, "the last of this silly universe.
What a mess--"

I listened.  His head fell helplessly to one side.  I thought some drink
might revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to
bring drink at hand.  He seemed suddenly heavier.  My heart went cold.
I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse.
He was dead; and even as he died a line of white heat, the limb
of the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay,
splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into
a weltering tumult of dazzling light.  It fell like a glory upon his
death-shrunken face.

I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him,
and stood up.  Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea,
the awful solitude upon which I had already suffered so much; behind me
the island, hushed under the dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen.
The enclosure, with all its provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily,
with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash.
The heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling low
over the distant tree-tops towards the huts in the ravine.
Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these five
dead bodies.

Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders,
protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive,
unfriendly eyes and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures.




XX.  ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.


I FACED these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed
now,--literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm.  In my pocket was
a revolver with two empty chambers.  Among the chips scattered about
the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats.
The tide was creeping in behind me.  There was nothing for it but
courage.  I looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters.
They avoided my eyes, and their quivering nostrils investigated
the bodies that lay beyond me on the beach.  I took half-a-dozen steps,
picked up the blood-stained whip that lay beneath the body
of the Wolf-man, and cracked it.  They stopped and stared
at me.

"Salute!" said I. "Bow down!"

They hesitated.  One bent his knees.  I repeated my command,
with my heart in my mouth, and advanced upon them.  One knelt,
then the other two.

I turned and walked towards the dead bodies, keeping my face
towards the three kneeling Beast Men, very much as an actor passing
up the stage faces the audience.

"They broke the Law," said I, putting my foot on the Sayer of the Law.
"They have been slain,--even the Sayer of the Law; even the Other with
the Whip.  Great is the Law!  Come and see."

"None escape," said one of them, advancing and peering.

"None escape," said I. "Therefore hear and do as I command."
They stood up, looking questioningly at one another.

"Stand there," said I.

I picked up the hatchets and swung them by their heads from
the sling of my arm; turned Montgomery over; picked up his revolver
still loaded in two chambers, and bending down to rummage,
found half-a-dozen cartridges in his pocket.

"Take him," said I, standing up again and pointing with the whip;
"take him, and carry him out and cast him into the sea."

They came forward, evidently still afraid of Montgomery,
but still more afraid of my cracking red whip-lash; and after
some fumbling and hesitation, some whip-cracking and shouting,
they lifted him gingerly, carried him down to the beach, and went
splashing into the dazzling welter of the sea.

"On!" said I, "on!  Carry him far."

They went in up to their armpits and stood regarding me.

"Let go," said I; and the body of Montgomery vanished with a splash.
Something seemed to tighten across my chest.

"Good!" said I, with a break in my voice; and they came back,
hurrying and fearful, to the margin of the water, leaving long
wakes of black in the silver.  At the water's edge they stopped,
turning and glaring into the sea as though they presently expected
Montgomery to arise therefrom and exact vengeance.

"Now these," said I, pointing to the other bodies.

They took care not to approach the place where they had thrown
Montgomery into the water, but instead, carried the four dead
Beast People slantingly along the beach for perhaps a hundred
yards before they waded out and cast them away.

As I watched them disposing of the mangled remains of M'ling, I
heard a light footfall behind me, and turning quickly saw the big
Hyena-swine perhaps a dozen yards away.  His head was bent down,
his bright eyes were fixed upon me, his stumpy hands clenched
and held close by his side.  He stopped in this crouching attitude
when I turned, his eyes a little averted.

For a moment we stood eye to eye.  I dropped the whip and snatched
at the pistol in my pocket; for I meant to kill this brute, the most
formidable of any left now upon the island, at the first excuse.
It may seem treacherous, but so I was resolved.  I was far
more afraid of him than of any other two of the Beast Folk.
His continued life was I knew a threat against mine.

I was perhaps a dozen seconds collecting myself.  Then cried I, "Salute!
Bow down!"

His teeth flashed upon me in a snarl.  "Who are _you_ that I should--"

Perhaps a little too spasmodically I drew my revolver, aimed quickly
and fired.  I heard him yelp, saw him run sideways and turn, knew I
had missed, and clicked back the cock with my thumb for the next shot.
But he was already running headlong, jumping from side to side,
and I dared not risk another miss.  Every now and then he looked
back at me over his shoulder.  He went slanting along the beach,
and vanished beneath the driving masses of dense smoke that were
still pouring out from the burning enclosure.  For some time I
stood staring after him.  I turned to my three obedient Beast Folk
again and signalled them to drop the body they still carried.
Then I went back to the place by the fire where the bodies had fallen
and kicked the sand until all the brown blood-stains were absorbed
and hidden.

I dismissed my three serfs with a wave of the hand, and went up
the beach into the thickets.  I carried my pistol in my hand,
my whip thrust with the hatchets in the sling of my arm.
I was anxious to be alone, to think out the position in which I
was now placed.  A dreadful thing that I was only beginning
to realise was, that over all this island there was now no safe
place where I could be alone and secure to rest or sleep.
I had recovered strength amazingly since my landing, but I was still
inclined to be nervous and to break down under any great stress.
I felt that I ought to cross the island and establish myself
with the Beast People, and make myself secure in their confidence.
But my heart failed me.  I went back to the beach, and turning
eastward past the burning enclosure, made for a point where a shallow
spit of coral sand ran out towards the reef.  Here I could sit down
and think, my back to the sea and my face against any surprise.
And there I sat, chin on knees, the sun beating down upon my head
and unspeakable dread in my mind, plotting how I could live on against
the hour of my rescue (if ever rescue came). I tried to review the whole
situation as calmly as I could, but it was difficult to clear the thing
of emotion.

I began turning over in my mind the reason of Montgomery's despair.
"They will change," he said; "they are sure to change."  And Moreau,
what was it that Moreau had said?  "The stubborn beast-flesh grows
day by day back again."  Then I came round to the Hyena-swine. I
felt sure that if I did not kill that brute, he would kill me.
The Sayer of the Law was dead:  worse luck.  They knew now that we
of the Whips could be killed even as they themselves were killed.
Were they peering at me already out of the green masses of ferns
and palms over yonder, watching until I came within their spring?
Were they plotting against me?  What was the Hyena-swine telling them?
My imagination was running away with me into a morass of unsubstantial
fears.

My thoughts were disturbed by a crying of sea-birds hurrying
towards some black object that had been stranded by the waves
on the beach near the enclosure.  I knew what that object was,
but I had not the heart to go back and drive them off.
I began walking along the beach in the opposite direction,
designing to come round the eastward corner of the island and so
approach the ravine of the huts, without traversing the possible
ambuscades of the thickets.

Perhaps half a mile along the beach I became aware of one of my three
Beast Folk advancing out of the landward bushes towards me.  I was now
so nervous with my own imaginings that I immediately drew my revolver.
Even the propitiatory gestures of the creature failed to disarm me.
He hesitated as he approached.

"Go away!" cried I.

There was something very suggestive of a dog in the cringing attitude
of the creature.  It retreated a little way, very like a dog being
sent home, and stopped, looking at me imploringly with canine
brown eyes.

"Go away," said I. "Do not come near me."

"May I not come near you?" it said.

"No; go away," I insisted, and snapped my whip.  Then putting
my whip in my teeth, I stooped for a stone, and with that threat
drove the creature away.

So in solitude I came round by the ravine of the Beast People,
and hiding among the weeds and reeds that separated this
crevice from the sea I watched such of them as appeared,
trying to judge from their gestures and appearance how the death
of Moreau and Montgomery and the destruction of the House of Pain
had affected them.  I know now the folly of my cowardice.
Had I kept my courage up to the level of the dawn, had I not
allowed it to ebb away in solitary thought, I might have grasped
the vacant sceptre of Moreau and ruled over the Beast People.
As it was I lost the opportunity, and sank to the position of a mere
leader among my fellows.

Towards noon certain of them came and squatted basking in the hot sand.
The imperious voices of hunger and thirst prevailed over my dread.
I came out of the bushes, and, revolver in hand, walked down towards
these seated figures.  One, a Wolf-woman, turned her head and stared
at me, and then the others.  None attempted to rise or salute me.
I felt too faint and weary to insist, and I let the moment pass.

"I want food," said I, almost apologetically, and drawing near.

"There is food in the huts," said an Ox-boar-man, drowsily,
and looking away from me.

I passed them, and went down into the shadow and odours of the almost
deserted ravine.  In an empty hut I feasted on some specked
and half-decayed fruit; and then after I had propped some branches
and sticks about the opening, and placed myself with my face
towards it and my hand upon my revolver, the exhaustion of the last
thirty hours claimed its own, and I fell into a light slumber,
hoping that the flimsy barricade I had erected would cause
sufficient noise in its removal to save me from surprise.




XXI.  THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK.


IN this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island
of Doctor Moreau.  When I awoke, it was dark about me.  My arm ached
in its bandages.  I sat up, wondering at first where I might be.
I heard coarse voices talking outside.  Then I saw that my
barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood clear.
My revolver was still in my hand.

I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together
close beside me.  I held my breath, trying to see what it was.
It began to move slowly, interminably.  Then something soft and warm
and moist passed across my hand.  All my muscles contracted.  I snatched
my hand away.  A cry of alarm began and was stifled in my throat.
Then I just realised what had happened sufficiently to stay my fingers on
the revolver.

"Who is that?"  I said in a hoarse whisper, the revolver still pointed.

"I--Master."

"Who are you?"

"They say there is no Master now.  But I know, I know.  I carried the
bodies into the sea, O Walker in the Sea! the bodies of those you slew.
I am your slave, Master."

"Are you the one I met on the beach?" I asked.

"The same, Master."

The Thing was evidently faithful enough, for it might have fallen
upon me as I slept.  "It is well," I said, extending my hand for
another licking kiss.  I began to realise what its presence meant,
and the tide of my courage flowed.  "Where are the others?"
I asked.

"They are mad; they are fools," said the Dog-man.  "Even now they
talk together beyond there.  They say, 'The Master is dead.
The Other with the Whip is dead.  That Other who walked in the Sea is
as we are.  We have no Master, no Whips, no House of Pain, any more.
There is an end.  We love the Law, and will keep it; but there
is no Pain, no Master, no Whips for ever again.'  So they say.
But I know, Master, I know."

I felt in the darkness, and patted the Dog-man's head.  "It is well,"
I said again.

"Presently you will slay them all," said the Dog-man.

"Presently," I answered, "I will slay them all,--after certain
days and certain things have come to pass.  Every one of them save
those you spare, every one of them shall be slain."

"What the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills," said the Dog-man
with a certain satisfaction in his voice.

"And that their sins may grow," I said, "let them live in their folly
until their time is ripe.  Let them not know that I am the Master."

"The Master's will is sweet," said the Dog-man, with the ready tact
of his canine blood.

"But one has sinned," said I. "Him I will kill, whenever I may meet him.
When I say to you, 'That is he,' see that you fall upon him.
And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together."

For a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of
the Dog-man. Then I followed and stood up, almost in the exact spot
where I had been when I had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me.
But now it was night, and all the miasmatic ravine about me was black;
and beyond, instead of a green, sunlit slope, I saw a red fire,
before which hunched, grotesque figures moved to and fro.
Farther were the thick trees, a bank of darkness, fringed above
with the black lace of the upper branches.  The moon was just riding
up on the edge of the ravine, and like a bar across its face drove
the spire of vapour that was for ever streaming from the fumaroles of
the island.

"Walk by me," said I, nerving myself; and side by side we walked
down the narrow way, taking little heed of the dim Things that peered
at us out of the huts.

None about the fire attempted to salute me.  Most of them
disregarded me, ostentatiously.  I looked round for the Hyena-swine,
but he was not there.  Altogether, perhaps twenty of the Beast
Folk squatted, staring into the fire or talking to one another.

"He is dead, he is dead! the Master is dead!" said the voice
of the Ape-man to the right of me.  "The House of Pain--there
is no House of Pain!"

"He is not dead," said I, in a loud voice.  "Even now he watches us!"

This startled them.  Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me.

"The House of Pain is gone," said I. "It will come again.
The Master you cannot see; yet even now he listens among you."

"True, true!" said the Dog-man.

They were staggered at my assurance.  An animal may be ferocious
and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.

"The Man with the Bandaged Arm speaks a strange thing,"
said one of the Beast Folk.

"I tell you it is so," I said.  "The Master and the House of Pain
will come again.  Woe be to him who breaks the Law!"

They looked curiously at one another.  With an affectation of indifference
I began to chop idly at the ground in front of me with my hatchet.
They looked, I noticed, at the deep cuts I made in the turf.

Then the Satyr raised a doubt.  I answered him.  Then one of the dappled
things objected, and an animated discussion sprang up round the fire.
Every moment I began to feel more convinced of my present security.
I talked now without the catching in my breath, due to the intensity
of my excitement, that had troubled me at first.  In the course of about
an hour I had really convinced several of the Beast Folk of the truth
of my assertions, and talked most of the others into a dubious state.
I kept a sharp eye for my enemy the Hyena-swine, but he never appeared.
Every now and then a suspicious movement would startle me, but my
confidence grew rapidly.  Then as the moon crept down from the zenith,
one by one the listeners began to yawn (showing the oddest teeth in
the light of the sinking fire), and first one and then another retired
towards the dens in the ravine; and I, dreading the silence and darkness,
went with them, knowing I was safer with several of them than with
one alone.

In this manner began the longer part of my sojourn upon this
Island of Doctor Moreau.  But from that night until the end came,
there was but one thing happened to tell save a series of innumerable
small unpleasant details and the fretting of an incessant uneasiness.
So that I prefer to make no chronicle for that gap of time,
to tell only one cardinal incident of the ten months I spent as an
intimate of these half-humanised brutes.  There is much that sticks
in my memory that I could write,--things that I would cheerfully
give my right hand to forget; but they do not help the telling of
the story.

In the retrospect it is strange to remember how soon I fell
in with these monsters' ways, and gained my confidence again.
I had my quarrels with them of course, and could show some of
their teeth-marks still; but they soon gained a wholesome respect
for my trick of throwing stones and for the bite of my hatchet.
And my Saint-Bernard-man's loyalty was of infinite service to me.
I found their simple scale of honour was based mainly on the capacity
for inflicting trenchant wounds.  Indeed, I may say--without vanity,
I hope--that I held something like pre-eminence among them.
One or two, whom in a rare access of high spirits I had scarred
rather badly, bore me a grudge; but it vented itself chiefly
behind my back, and at a safe distance from my missiles,
in grimaces.

The Hyena-swine avoided me, and I was always on the alert for him.
My inseparable Dog-man hated and dreaded him intensely.
I really believe that was at the root of the brute's attachment to me.
It was soon evident to me that the former monster had tasted blood,
and gone the way of the Leopard-man. He formed a lair somewhere in
the forest, and became solitary.  Once I tried to induce the Beast Folk to
hunt him, but I lacked the authority to make them co-operate for one end.
Again and again I tried to approach his den and come upon him unaware;
but always he was too acute for me, and saw or winded me and got away.
He too made every forest pathway dangerous to me and my ally
with his lurking ambuscades.  The Dog-man scarcely dared to leave
my side.

In the first month or so the Beast Folk, compared with their
latter condition, were human enough, and for one or two besides
my canine friend I even conceived a friendly tolerance.
The little pink sloth-creature displayed an odd affection for me,
and took to following me about.  The Monkey-man bored me, however;
he assumed, on the strength of his five digits, that he was my equal,
and was for ever jabbering at me,--jabbering the most arrant nonsense.
One thing about him entertained me a little:  he had a fantastic trick
of coining new words.  He had an idea, I believe, that to gabble
about names that meant nothing was the proper use of speech.
He called it "Big Thinks" to distinguish it from "Little Thinks,"
the sane every-day interests of life.  If ever I made a remark
he did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to say
it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it, with a word
wrong here or there, to all the milder of the Beast People.
He thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible.
I invented some very curious "Big Thinks" for his especial use.
I think now that he was the silliest creature I ever met;
he had developed in the most wonderful way the distinctive silliness
of man without losing one jot of the natural folly of a monkey.

This, I say, was in the earlier weeks of my solitude among these brutes.
During that time they respected the usage established by the Law,
and behaved with general decorum.  Once I found another rabbit torn
to pieces,--by the Hyena-swine, I am assured,--but that was all.
It was about May when I first distinctly perceived a growing difference
in their speech and carriage, a growing coarseness of articulation,
a growing disinclination to talk.  My Monkey-man's jabber multiplied
in volume but grew less and less comprehensible, more and more simian.
Some of the others seemed altogether slipping their hold upon speech,
though they still understood what I said to them at that time.
(Can you imagine language, once clear-cut and exact, softening and
guttering, losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again?)
And they walked erect with an increasing difficulty.  Though they
evidently felt ashamed of themselves, every now and then I would come
upon one or another running on toes and finger-tips, and quite unable
to recover the vertical attitude.  They held things more clumsily;
drinking by suction, feeding by gnawing, grew commoner every day.
I realised more keenly than ever what Moreau had told me about
the "stubborn beast-flesh." They were reverting, and reverting very
rapidly.

Some of them--the pioneers in this, I noticed with some surprise,
were all females--began to disregard the injunction of decency,
deliberately for the most part.  Others even attempted public outrages
upon the institution of monogamy.  The tradition of the Law was clearly
losing its force.  I cannot pursue this disagreeable subject.

My Dog-man imperceptibly slipped back to the dog again; day by day
he became dumb, quadrupedal, hairy.  I scarcely noticed the transition
from the companion on my right hand to the lurching dog at my side.

As the carelessness and disorganisation increased from day to day,
the lane of dwelling places, at no time very sweet, became so
loathsome that I left it, and going across the island made myself
a hovel of boughs amid the black ruins of Moreau's enclosure.
Some memory of pain, I found, still made that place the safest from
the Beast Folk.

It would be impossible to detail every step of the lapsing of
these monsters,--to tell how, day by day, the human semblance left them;
how they gave up bandagings and wrappings, abandoned at last every
stitch of clothing; how the hair began to spread over the exposed limbs;
how their foreheads fell away and their faces projected;
how the quasi-human intimacy I had permitted myself with some
of them in the first month of my loneliness became a shuddering
horror to recall.

The change was slow and inevitable.  For them and for me it came
without any definite shock.  I still went among them in safety,
because no jolt in the downward glide had released the increasing
charge of explosive animalism that ousted the human day by day.
But I began to fear that soon now that shock must come.
My Saint-Bernard-brute followed me to the enclosure every night,
and his vigilance enabled me to sleep at times in something like peace.
The little pink sloth-thing became shy and left me, to crawl back
to its natural life once more among the tree-branches. We were in just
the state of equilibrium that would remain in one of those "Happy Family"
cages which animal-tamers exhibit, if the tamer were to leave it
for ever.

Of course these creatures did not decline into such beasts as
the reader has seen in zoological gardens,--into ordinary bears,
wolves, tigers, oxen, swine, and apes.  There was still something
strange about each; in each Moreau had blended this animal with that.
One perhaps was ursine chiefly, another feline chiefly, another
bovine chiefly; but each was tainted with other creatures,--a kind
of generalised animalism appearing through the specific dispositions.
And the dwindling shreds of the humanity still startled me every
now and then,--a momentary recrudescence of speech perhaps,
an unexpected dexterity of the fore-feet, a pitiful attempt to
walk erect.

I too must have undergone strange changes.  My clothes hung about
me as yellow rags, through whose rents showed the tanned skin.
My hair grew long, and became matted together.  I am told that
even now my eyes have a strange brightness, a swift alertness
of movement.

At first I spent the daylight hours on the southward beach
watching for a ship, hoping and praying for a ship.
I counted on the "Ipecacuanha" returning as the year wore on;
but she never came.  Five times I saw sails, and thrice smoke;
but nothing ever touched the island.  I always had a bonfire ready,
but no doubt the volcanic reputation of the island was taken to account
for that.

It was only about September or October that I began to think of making
a raft.  By that time my arm had healed, and both my hands were at
my service again.  At first, I found my helplessness appalling.
I had never done any carpentry or such-like work in my life, and I spent
day after day in experimental chopping and binding among the trees.
I had no ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith to make ropes;
none of the abundant creepers seemed limber or strong enough,
and with all my litter of scientific education I could not devise
any way of making them so.  I spent more than a fortnight
grubbing among the black ruins of the enclosure and on
the beach where the boats had been burnt, looking for nails
and other stray pieces of metal that might prove of service.
Now and then some Beast-creature would watch me, and go leaping
off when I called to it.  There came a season of thunder-storms
and heavy rain, which greatly retarded my work; but at last the raft
was completed.

I was delighted with it.  But with a certain lack of practical sense
which has always been my bane, I had made it a mile or more from the sea;
and before I had dragged it down to the beach the thing had fallen
to pieces.  Perhaps it is as well that I was saved from launching it;
but at the time my misery at my failure was so acute that for some
days I simply moped on the beach, and stared at the water and thought
of death.

I did not, however, mean to die, and an incident occurred that warned
me unmistakably of the folly of letting the days pass so,--for each
fresh day was fraught with increasing danger from the Beast People.

I was lying in the shade of the enclosure wall, staring out to sea,
when I was startled by something cold touching the skin of my heel,
and starting round found the little pink sloth-creature blinking
into my face.  He had long since lost speech and active movement,
and the lank hair of the little brute grew thicker every day and his
stumpy claws more askew.  He made a moaning noise when he saw he had
attracted my attention, went a little way towards the bushes and looked
back at me.

At first I did not understand, but presently it occurred to me that
he wished me to follow him; and this I did at last,--slowly, for the day
was hot.  When we reached the trees he clambered into them, for he could
travel better among their swinging creepers than on the ground.
And suddenly in a trampled space I came upon a ghastly group.
My Saint-Bernard-creature lay on the ground, dead; and near
his body crouched the Hyena-swine, gripping the quivering flesh
with its misshapen claws, gnawing at it, and snarling with delight.
As I approached, the monster lifted its glaring eyes to mine,
its lips went trembling back from its red-stained teeth,
and it growled menacingly.  It was not afraid and not ashamed;
the last vestige of the human taint had vanished.  I advanced a step
farther, stopped, and pulled out my revolver.  At last I had him face
to face.

The brute made no sign of retreat; but its ears went back,
its hair bristled, and its body crouched together.
I aimed between the eyes and fired.  As I did so, the Thing rose
straight at me in a leap, and I was knocked over like a ninepin.
It clutched at me with its crippled hand, and struck me in the face.
Its spring carried it over me.  I fell under the hind part of its body;
but luckily I had hit as I meant, and it had died even as it leapt.
I crawled out from under its unclean weight and stood up trembling,
staring at its quivering body.  That danger at least was over;
but this, I knew was only the first of the series of relapses that
must come.

I burnt both of the bodies on a pyre of brushwood; but after that I saw
that unless I left the island my death was only a question of time.
The Beast People by that time had, with one or two exceptions,
left the ravine and made themselves lairs according to their taste
among the thickets of the island.  Few prowled by day, most of
them slept, and the island might have seemed deserted to a new-comer;
but at night the air was hideous with their calls and howling.
I had half a mind to make a massacre of them; to build traps,
or fight them with my knife.  Had I possessed sufficient cartridges,
I should not have hesitated to begin the killing.  There could
now be scarcely a score left of the dangerous carnivores;
the braver of these were already dead.  After the death of this poor
dog of mine, my last friend, I too adopted to some extent the practice
of slumbering in the daytime in order to be on my guard at night.
I rebuilt my den in the walls of the enclosure, with such a narrow
opening that anything attempting to enter must necessarily make
a considerable noise.  The creatures had lost the art of fire too,
and recovered their fear of it.  I turned once more, almost passionately
now, to hammering together stakes and branches to form a raft for
my escape.

I found a thousand difficulties.  I am an extremely unhandy man
(my schooling was over before the days of Slojd); but most
of the requirements of a raft I met at last in some clumsy,
circuitous way or other, and this time I took care of the strength.
The only insurmountable obstacle was that I had no vessel to contain
the water I should need if I floated forth upon these untravelled seas.
I would have even tried pottery, but the island contained no clay.
I used to go moping about the island trying with all my might
to solve this one last difficulty.  Sometimes I would give
way to wild outbursts of rage, and hack and splinter some
unlucky tree in my intolerable vexation.  But I could think
of nothing.

And then came a day, a wonderful day, which I spent in ecstasy.
I saw a sail to the southwest, a small sail like that of a little schooner;
and forthwith I lit a great pile of brushwood, and stood by it in
the heat of it, and the heat of the midday sun, watching.  All day I
watched that sail, eating or drinking nothing, so that my head reeled;
and the Beasts came and glared at me, and seemed to wonder,
and went away.  It was still distant when night came and swallowed
it up; and all night I toiled to keep my blaze bright and high,
and the eyes of the Beasts shone out of the darkness, marvelling.
In the dawn the sail was nearer, and I saw it was the dirty
lug-sail of a small boat.  But it sailed strangely.  My eyes were
weary with watching, and I peered and could not believe them.
Two men were in the boat, sitting low down,--one by the bows,
the other at the rudder.  The head was not kept to the wind; it yawed and
fell away.

As the day grew brighter, I began waving the last rag of my jacket to them;
but they did not notice me, and sat still, facing each other.  I went
to the lowest point of the low headland, and gesticulated and shouted.
There was no response, and the boat kept on her aimless course,
making slowly, very slowly, for the bay.  Suddenly a great white bird
flew up out of the boat, and neither of the men stirred nor noticed it;
it circled round, and then came sweeping overhead with its strong
wings outspread.

Then I stopped shouting, and sat down on the headland and rested my chin
on my hands and stared.  Slowly, slowly, the boat drove past towards
the west.  I would have swum out to it, but something--a cold, vague
fear--kept me back.  In the afternoon the tide stranded the boat, and left
it a hundred yards or so to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure.
The men in it were dead, had been dead so long that they fell
to pieces when I tilted the boat on its side and dragged them out.
One had a shock of red hair, like the captain of the "Ipecacuanha," and
a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat.

As I stood beside the boat, three of the Beasts came slinking
out of the bushes and sniffing towards me.  One of my spasms
of disgust came upon me.  I thrust the little boat down the beach
and clambered on board her.  Two of the brutes were Wolf-beasts,
and came forward with quivering nostrils and glittering eyes;
the third was the horrible nondescript of bear and bull.
When I saw them approaching those wretched remains, heard them
snarling at one another and caught the gleam of their teeth,
a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion.  I turned my back upon them,
struck the lug and began paddling out to sea.  I could not bring myself
to look behind me.

I lay, however, between the reef and the island that night,
and the next morning went round to the stream and filled the empty
keg aboard with water.  Then, with such patience as I could command,
I collected a quantity of fruit, and waylaid and killed two rabbits
with my last three cartridges.  While I was doing this I left
the boat moored to an inward projection of the reef, for fear
of the Beast People.




XXII.  THE MAN ALONE.


IN the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind
from the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller
and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and
finer line against the hot sunset.  The ocean rose up around me,
hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes.  The daylight, the trailing
glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside
like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue
gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating
hosts of the stars.  The sea was silent, the sky was silent.
I was alone with the night and silence.

So I drifted for three days, eating and drinking sparingly, and meditating
upon all that had happened to me,--not desiring very greatly then to see
men again.  One unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle:
no doubt my discoverers thought me a madman.

It is strange, but I felt no desire to return to mankind.
I was only glad to be quit of the foulness of the Beast People.
And on the third day I was picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco.
Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story, judging that
solitude and danger had made me mad; and fearing their opinion might
be that of others, I refrained from telling my adventure further,
and professed to recall nothing that had happened to me between
the loss of the "Lady Vain" and the time when I was picked up again,--the
space of a year.

I had to act with the utmost circumspection to save myself from the
suspicion of insanity.  My memory of the Law, of the two dead sailors,
of the ambuscades of the darkness, of the body in the canebrake,
haunted me; and, unnatural as it seems, with my return to mankind came,
instead of that confidence and sympathy I had expected, a strange
enhancement of the uncertainty and dread I had experienced
during my stay upon the island.  No one would believe me;
I was almost as queer to men as I had been to the Beast People.
I may have caught something of the natural wildness of my companions.
They say that terror is a disease, and anyhow I can witness that for
several years now a restless fear has dwelt in my mind,--such a restless
fear as a half-tamed lion cub may feel.

My trouble took the strangest form.  I could not persuade myself
that the men and women I met were not also another Beast People,
animals half wrought into the outward image of human souls, and that they
would presently begin to revert,--to show first this bestial mark
and then that.  But I have confided my case to a strangely able
man,--a man who had known Moreau, and seemed half to credit my story;
a mental specialist,--and he has helped me mightily, though I do not
expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me.
At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud,
a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the little
cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky.  Then I look about me
at my fellow-men; and I go in fear.  I see faces, keen and bright;
others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,--none that
have the calm authority of a reasonable soul.  I feel as though
the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation
of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale.
I know this is an illusion; that these seeming men and women about
me are indeed men and women,--men and women for ever, perfectly
reasonable creatures, full of human desires and tender solicitude,
emancipated from instinct and the slaves of no fantastic
Law,--beings altogether different from the Beast Folk.  Yet I shrink
from them, from their curious glances, their inquiries and assistance,
and long to be away from them and alone.  For that reason I live near
the broad free downland, and can escape thither when this shadow
is over my soul; and very sweet is the empty downland then, under the
wind-swept sky.

When I lived in London the horror was well-nigh insupportable.
I could not get away from men:  their voices came through windows;
locked doors were flimsy safeguards.  I would go out into the streets
to fight with my delusion, and prowling women would mew after me;
furtive, craving men glance jealously at me; weary, pale workers
go coughing by me with tired eyes and eager paces, like wounded
deer dripping blood; old people, bent and dull, pass murmuring
to themselves; and, all unheeding, a ragged tail of gibing children.
Then I would turn aside into some chapel,--and even there,
such was my disturbance, it seemed that the preacher gibbered
"Big Thinks," even as the Ape-man had done; or into some library,
and there the intent faces over the books seemed but patient
creatures waiting for prey.  Particularly nauseous were the blank,
expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses;
they seemed no more my fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be,
so that I did not dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone.
And even it seemed that I too was not a reasonable creature,
but only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in its
brain which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken
with gid.

This is a mood, however, that comes to me now, I thank God,
more rarely.  I have withdrawn myself from the confusion of cities
and multitudes, and spend my days surrounded by wise books,--bright
windows in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men.
I see few strangers, and have but a small household.
My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry,
and I spend many of the clear nights in the study of astronomy.
There is--though I do not know how there is or why there is--a sense
of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven.
There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter,
and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever
is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope.  I hope,
or I could not live.

And so, in hope and solitude, my story ends.

EDWARD PRENDICK.


_________________________________________________________________________


Miss Mina Harker encounters DRACULA

as told by BRAM STOKER


CHAPTER 1


Jonathan Harker's Journal

3 May. Bistritz.--Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at
Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was
an hour late.  Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse
which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through
the streets.  I feared to go very far from the station, as we had
arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible.

The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the
East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is
here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish
rule.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh.
Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale.  I had for dinner,
or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which
was very good but thirsty.  (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the
waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl," and that, as it was
a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the
Carpathians.

I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don't know
how I should be able to get on without it.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the
British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the
library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some
foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance
in dealing with a nobleman of that country.


I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the
country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia,
and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the
wildest and least known portions of Europe.

I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality
of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to
compare with our own Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz,
the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place.  I
shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when
I talk over my travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct
nationalities:  Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs,
who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and
Szekelys in the East and North.  I am going among the latter, who
claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns.  This may be so, for
when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they
found the Huns settled in it.

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the
horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of
imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting.  (Mem.,
I must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had
all sorts of queer dreams.  There was a dog howling all night under my
window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have
been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe,
and was still thirsty.  Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the
continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping
soundly then.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize
flour which they said was "mamaliga", and egg-plant stuffed with
forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata". (Mem.,
get recipe for this also.)

I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight,
or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station
at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we
began to move.

It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are
the trains.  What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of
beauty of every kind.  Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the
top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by
rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each
side of them to be subject to great floods.  It takes a lot of water,
and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.

At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in
all sorts of attire.  Some of them were just like the peasants at home
or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets,
and round hats, and home-made trousers; but others were very
picturesque.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were
very clumsy about the waist.  They had all full white sleeves of some
kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of
something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of
course there were petticoats under them.

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian
than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white
trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly
a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails.  They wore high boots,
with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and
heavy black moustaches.  They are very picturesque, but do not look
prepossessing.  On the stage they would be set down at once as some
old Oriental band of brigands.  They are, however, I am told, very
harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is
a very interesting old place.  Being practically on the frontier--for
the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina--it has had a very stormy
existence, and it certainly shows marks of it.  Fifty years ago a
series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five
separate occasions.  At the very beginning of the seventeenth century
it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the
casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I
found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of
course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.

I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a
cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--white
undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured
stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty.  When I came close she
bowed and said, "The Herr Englishman?"

"Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker."

She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white
shirtsleeves, who had followed her to the door.

He went, but immediately returned with a letter:

"My friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians.  I am anxiously expecting
you.  Sleep well tonight.  At three tomorrow the diligence will
start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you.  At the Borgo
Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me.  I trust
that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you
will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.--Your friend, Dracula."


4 May--I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count,
directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on
making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and
pretended that he could not understand my German.

This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it
perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did.

He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each
other in a frightened sort of way.  He mumbled out that the money had
been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew.  When I asked him if
he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both
he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing
at all, simply refused to speak further.  It was so near the time of
starting that I had no time to ask anyone else, for it was all very
mysterious and not by any means comforting.

Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in
a hysterical way:  "Must you go?  Oh!  Young Herr, must you go?"  She
was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of
what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language
which I did not know at all.  I was just able to follow her by asking
many questions.  When I told her that I must go at once, and that I
was engaged on important business, she asked again:

"Do you know what day it is?"  I answered that it was the fourth of
May.  She shook her head as she said again:

"Oh, yes!  I know that!  I know that, but do you know what day it is?"

On my saying that I did not understand, she went on:

"It is the eve of St. George's Day.  Do you not know that tonight,
when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will
have full sway?  Do you know where you are going, and what you are
going to?"  She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort
her, but without effect.  Finally, she went down on her knees and
implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting.

It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable.  However,
there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere
with it.

I tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I
thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go.

She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck
offered it to me.

I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been
taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it
seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such
a state of mind.

She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round
my neck and said, "For your mother's sake," and went out of the room.

I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the
coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my
neck.

Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of
this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not
feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.

If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my
goodbye.  Here comes the coach!


5 May.  The Castle.--The gray of the morning has passed, and the sun
is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with
trees or hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and
little are mixed.

I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally
I write till sleep comes.

There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may
fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my
dinner exactly.

I dined on what they called "robber steak"--bits of bacon, onion, and
beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks, and roasted over
the fire, in simple style of the London cat's meat!

The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the
tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable.

I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.

When I got on the coach, the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw
him talking to the landlady.

They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked
at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside
the door--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them
pityingly.  I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words,
for there were many nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my
polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out.

I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were
"Ordog"--Satan, "Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and
"vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other
Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire.  (Mem., I
must ask the Count about these superstitions.)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time
swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and
pointed two fingers towards me.

With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what they
meant.  He would not answer at first, but on learning that I was
English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil
eye.

This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place
to meet an unknown man.  But everyone seemed so kind-hearted, and so
sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched.

I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn yard and
its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they
stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of
oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the
yard.

Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of
the boxseat,--"gotza" they call them--cracked his big whip over his
four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey.

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of
the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or
rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might
not have been able to throw them off so easily.  Before us lay a green
sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep
hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank
gable end to the road.  There was everywhere a bewildering mass of
fruit blossom--apple, plum, pear, cherry.  And as we drove by I could
see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals.
In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the
"Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy
curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which
here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame.  The road
was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste.
I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was
evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund.  I was told
that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet
been put in order after the winter snows.  In this respect it is
different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is
an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order.  Of
old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think
that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the
war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes
of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves.  Right
and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon
them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful
range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and
brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of
jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the
distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly.  Here and there seemed
mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to
sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water.  One of
my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and
opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as
we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us.

"Look!  Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed himself reverently.

As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower
behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us.  This
was emphasized by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the
sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink.  Here and
there we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I
noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent.  By the roadside were
many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed
themselves.  Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before
a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in
the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the
outer world.  There were many things new to me.  For instance,
hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of
weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the
delicate green of the leaves.

Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon--the ordinary peasants's
cart--with its long, snakelike vertebra, calculated to suit the
inequalities of the road.  On this were sure to be seated quite a
group of homecoming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the
Slovaks with their coloured sheepskins, the latter carrying
lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end.  As the evening fell
it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge
into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine,
though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills,
as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and
there against the background of late-lying snow.  Sometimes, as the
road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be
closing down upon us, great masses of greyness which here and there
bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect,
which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in
the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the
ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind
ceaselessly through the valleys.  Sometimes the hills were so steep
that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could only go slowly.  I
wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver
would not hear of it.  "No, no," he said.  "You must not walk here.
The dogs are too fierce."  And then he added, with what he evidently
meant for grim pleasantry--for he looked round to catch the approving
smile of the rest--"And you may have enough of such matters before you
go to sleep."  The only stop he would make was a moment's pause to
light his lamps.

When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the
passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as
though urging him to further speed.  He lashed the horses unmercifully
with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on
to further exertions.  Then through the darkness I could see a sort of
patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the
hills.  The excitement of the passengers grew greater.  The crazy
coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat
tossed on a stormy sea.  I had to hold on.  The road grew more level,
and we appeared to fly along.  Then the mountains seemed to come
nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us.  We were entering
on the Borgo Pass.  One by one several of the passengers offered me
gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take
no denial.  These were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each
was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing,
and that same strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had
seen outside the hotel at Bistritz--the sign of the cross and the
guard against the evil eye.  Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned
forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the
coach, peered eagerly into the darkness.  It was evident that
something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I
asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation.
This state of excitement kept on for some little time.  And at last we
saw before us the Pass opening out on the eastern side.  There were
dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive
sense of thunder.  It seemed as though the mountain range had
separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous
one.  I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to
take me to the Count.  Each moment I expected to see the glare of
lamps through the blackness, but all was dark.  The only light was the
flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our
hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud.  We could see now the sandy
road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle.
The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock
my own disappointment.  I was already thinking what I had best do,
when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something
which I could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a
tone, I thought it was "An hour less than the time."  Then turning to
me, he spoke in German worse than my own.

"There is no carriage here.  The Herr is not expected after all.  He
will now come on to Bukovina, and return tomorrow or the next day,
better the next day."  Whilst he was speaking the horses began to
neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them
up.  Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a
universal crossing of themselves, a caleche, with four horses, drove
up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach.  I could see
from the flash of our lamps as the rays fell on them, that the horses
were coal-black and splendid animals.  They were driven by a tall man,
with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide
his face from us.  I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright
eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us.

He said to the driver, "You are early tonight, my friend."

The man stammered in reply, "The English Herr was in a hurry."

To which the stranger replied, "That is why, I suppose, you wished him
to go on to Bukovina.  You cannot deceive me, my friend.  I know too
much, and my horses are swift."

As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth,
with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory.  One of
my companions whispered to another the line from Burger's "Lenore".

"Denn die Todten reiten Schnell."  ("For the dead travel fast.")

The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a
gleaming smile.  The passenger turned his face away, at the same time
putting out his two fingers and crossing himself.  "Give me the Herr's
luggage," said the driver, and with exceeding alacrity my bags were
handed out and put in the caleche.  Then I descended from the side of
the coach, as the caleche was close alongside, the driver helping me
with a hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel.  His strength must
have been prodigious.

Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept
into the darkness of the pass.  As I looked back I saw the steam from
the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected
against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves.
Then the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off
they swept on their way to Bukovina.  As they sank into the darkness I
felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling come over me.  But a cloak
was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the
driver said in excellent German--"The night is chill, mein Herr, and
my master the Count bade me take all care of you.  There is a flask of
slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) underneath the seat, if you
should require it."

I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the
same.  I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened.  I
think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead
of prosecuting that unknown night journey.  The carriage went at a
hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along
another straight road.  It seemed to me that we were simply going over
and over the same ground again, and so I took note of some salient
point, and found that this was so.  I would have liked to have asked
the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I
thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in
case there had been an intention to delay.

By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I
struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch.  It was within a
few minutes of midnight.  This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose
the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent
experiences.  I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.

Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road, a
long, agonized wailing, as if from fear.  The sound was taken up by
another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind
which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which
seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination
could grasp it through the gloom of the night.

At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver
spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and
sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright.  Then, far off
in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder
and a sharper howling, that of wolves, which affected both the horses
and myself in the same way.  For I was minded to jump from the caleche
and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the
driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting.
In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound,
and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend
and to stand before them.

He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as
I have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for
under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they
still trembled.  The driver again took his seat, and shaking his
reins, started off at a great pace.  This time, after going to the far
side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran
sharply to the right.

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over
the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel.  And again great
frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side.  Though we were in
shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled
through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as
we swept along.  It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery
snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered
with a white blanket.  The keen wind still carried the howling of the
dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way.  The baying of
the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing
round on us from every side.  I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses
shared my fear.  The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed.
He kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see
anything through the darkness.

Suddenly, away on our left I saw a faint flickering blue flame.  The
driver saw it at the same moment.  He at once checked the horses, and,
jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness.  I did not know
what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer.  But
while I wondered, the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a
word took his seat, and we resumed our journey.  I think I must have
fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be
repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful
nightmare.  Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the
darkness around us I could watch the driver's motions.  He went
rapidly to where the blue flame arose, it must have been very faint,
for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all, and
gathering a few stones, formed them into some device.

Once there appeared a strange optical effect.  When he stood between
me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly
flicker all the same.  This startled me, but as the effect was only
momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the
darkness.  Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped
onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us,
as though they were following in a moving circle.

At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he
had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble
worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright.  I could not see
any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether.
But just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared
behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its
light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling
red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair.  They were a
hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than
even when they howled.  For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of
fear.  It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such
horrors that he can understand their true import.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had
some peculiar effect on them.  The horses jumped about and reared, and
looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to
see.  But the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side,
and they had perforce to remain within it.  I called to the coachman
to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break
out through the ring and to aid his approach, I shouted and beat the
side of the caleche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from the
side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap.  How he came
there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious
command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway.
As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable
obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still.  Just then a
heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again
in darkness.

When I could see again the driver was climbing into the caleche, and
the wolves disappeared.  This was all so strange and uncanny that a
dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move.  The
time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost
complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon.

We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in
the main always ascending.  Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact
that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the
courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came
no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line
against the sky.




CHAPTER 2


Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

5 May.--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully
awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place.  In
the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several
dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed
bigger than it really is.  I have not yet been able to see it by
daylight.

When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand
to assist me to alight.  Again I could not but notice his prodigious
strength.  His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have
crushed mine if he had chosen.  Then he took my traps, and placed them
on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and
studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of
massive stone.  I could see even in the dim light that the stone was
massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and
weather.  As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook
the reins.  The horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared
down one of the dark openings.

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do.  Of
bell or knocker there was no sign.  Through these frowning walls and
dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate.
The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding
upon me.  What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of
people?  What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked?
Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent
out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner?
Solicitor's clerk!  Mina would not like that.  Solicitor, for just
before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful,
and I am now a full-blown solicitor!  I began to rub my eyes and pinch
myself to see if I were awake.  It all seemed like a horrible
nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find
myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I
had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork.  But my
flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be
deceived.  I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians.  All I could
do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching
behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a
coming light.  Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the
clanking of massive bolts drawn back.  A key was turned with the loud
grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white
moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck
of colour about him anywhere.  He held in his hand an antique silver
lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any
kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught
of the open door.  The old man motioned me in with his right hand with
a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange
intonation.

"Welcome to my house!  Enter freely and of your own free will!"  He
made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as
though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone.  The instant,
however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively
forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which
made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it
seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man.
Again he said,

"Welcome to my house!  Enter freely.  Go safely, and leave something
of the happiness you bring!"  The strength of the handshake was so
much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had
not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person
to whom I was speaking.  So to make sure, I said interrogatively,
"Count Dracula?"

He bowed in a courtly way as he replied, "I am Dracula, and I bid you
welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house.  Come in, the night air is chill,
and you must need to eat and rest."  As he was speaking, he put the lamp
on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage.  He had
carried it in before I could forestall him.  I protested, but he
insisted.

"Nay, sir, you are my guest.  It is late, and my people are not
available.  Let me see to your comfort myself."  He insisted on carrying
my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and
along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang
heavily.  At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I
rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for
supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly
replenished, flamed and flared.

The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing
the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room
lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort.
Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to
enter.  It was a welcome sight.  For here was a great bedroom well
lighted and warmed with another log fire, also added to but lately,
for the top logs were fresh, which sent a hollow roar up the wide
chimney.  The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew,
saying, before he closed the door.

"You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your
toilet.  I trust you will find all you wish.  When you are ready, come
into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared."

The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have
dissipated all my doubts and fears.  Having then reached my normal
state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger.  So making a
hasty toilet, I went into the other room.

I found supper already laid out.  My host, who stood on one side of
the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful
wave of his hand to the table, and said,

"I pray you, be seated and sup how you please.  You will I trust,
excuse me that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do
not sup."

I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to
me.  He opened it and read it gravely.  Then, with a charming smile,
he handed it to me to read.  One passage of it, at least, gave me a
thrill of pleasure.

"I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a
constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for
some time to come.  But I am happy to say I can send a sufficient
substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence.  He is a
young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very
faithful disposition.  He is discreet and silent, and has grown into
manhood in my service.  He shall be ready to attend on you when you
will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all
matters."

The count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I
fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken.  This, with some cheese
and a salad and a bottle of old tokay, of which I had two glasses, was
my supper.  During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many
questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had
experienced.

By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had
drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he
offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke.
I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very
marked physiognomy.

His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of
the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed
forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely
elsewhere.  His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the
nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion.
The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was
fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth.
These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed
astonishing vitality in a man of his years.  For the rest, his ears
were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed.  The chin was broad and
strong, and the cheeks firm though thin.  The general effect was one
of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees
in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine.  But
seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were
rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers.  Strange to say, there were
hairs in the centre of the palm.  The nails were long and fine, and
cut to a sharp point.  As the Count leaned over me and his hands
touched me, I could not repress a shudder.  It may have been that his
breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which,
do what I would, I could not conceal.

The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back.  And with a grim sort of
smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth,
sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace.  We were both
silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first
dim streak of the coming dawn.  There seemed a strange stillness over
everything.  But as I listened, I heard as if from down below in the
valley the howling of many wolves.  The Count's eyes gleamed, and he
said.

"Listen to them, the children of the night.  What music they make!"
Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he
added, "Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the
feelings of the hunter."  Then he rose and said.

"But you must be tired.  Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you
shall sleep as late as you will.  I have to be away till the
afternoon, so sleep well and dream well!"  With a courteous bow, he
opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my
bedroom.

I am all in a sea of wonders.  I doubt.  I fear.  I think strange
things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.  God keep me, if only
for the sake of those dear to me!


7 May.--It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the
last twenty-four hours.  I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my
own accord.  When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we
had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot
by the pot being placed on the hearth.  There was a card on the table,
on which was written--"I have to be absent for a while.  Do not wait
for me.  D."  I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal.  When I had done, I
looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had
finished, but I could not find one.  There are certainly odd
deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of
wealth which are round me.  The table service is of gold, and so
beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value.  The curtains
and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are
of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of
fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though
in excellent order.  I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but
they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten.  But still in none of the
rooms is there a mirror.  There is not even a toilet glass on my
table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I
could either shave or brush my hair.  I have not yet seen a servant
anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of
wolves.  Some time after I had finished my meal, I do not know whether
to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six
o'clock when I had it, I looked about for something to read, for I did
not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's
permission.  There was absolutely nothing in the room, book,
newspaper, or even writing materials, so I opened another door in the
room and found a sort of library.  The door opposite mine I tried, but
found locked.

In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English
books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and
newspapers.  A table in the centre was littered with English magazines
and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date.  The
books were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics,
political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and
English life and customs and manners.  There were even such books of
reference as the London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books,
Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and it somehow gladdened
my heart to see it, the Law List.

Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count
entered.  He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a
good night's rest.  Then he went on.

"I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much
that will interest you.  These companions," and he laid his hand on
some of the books, "have been good friends to me, and for some years
past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me
many, many hours of pleasure.  Through them I have come to know your
great England, and to know her is to love her.  I long to go through
the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the
whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death,
and all that makes it what it is.  But alas!  As yet I only know your
tongue through books.  To you, my friend, I look that I know it to
speak."

"But, Count," I said, "You know and speak English thoroughly!"  He
bowed gravely.

"I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet
I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel.  True, I
know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them."

"Indeed," I said, "You speak excellently."

"Not so," he answered.  "Well, I know that, did I move and speak in
your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger.  That
is not enough for me.  Here I am noble.  I am a Boyar.  The common
people know me, and I am master.  But a stranger in a strange land, he
is no one.  Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for.  I
am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me,
or pauses in his speaking if he hears my words, 'Ha, ha!  A stranger!'
I have been so long master that I would be master still, or at least
that none other should be master of me.  You come to me not alone as
agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my
new estate in London.  You shall, I trust, rest here with me a while,
so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation.  And I
would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my
speaking.  I am sorry that I had to be away so long today, but you
will, I know forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand."

Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might
come into that room when I chose.  He answered, "Yes, certainly," and
added.

"You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors
are locked, where of course you will not wish to go.  There is reason
that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know
with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand."  I said I was
sure of this, and then he went on.

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England.  Our ways
are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.  Nay,
from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know
something of what strange things there may be."

This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted to
talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding
things that had already happened to me or come within my notice.
Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by
pretending not to understand, but generally he answered all I asked
most frankly.  Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I
asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as for
instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the
blue flames.  He then explained to me that it was commonly believed
that on a certain night of the year, last night, in fact, when all
evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen
over any place where treasure has been concealed.

"That treasure has been hidden," he went on, "in the region through
which you came last night, there can be but little doubt.  For it was
the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and
the Turk.  Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that
has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders.  In
the old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the
Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them,
men and women, the aged and the children too, and waited their coming
on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on
them with their artificial avalanches.  When the invader was
triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been
sheltered in the friendly soil."

"But how," said I, "can it have remained so long undiscovered, when
there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?"
The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long,
sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely.  He answered:

"Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool!  Those flames
only appear on one night, and on that night no man of this land will,
if he can help it, stir without his doors.  And, dear sir, even if he
did he would not know what to do.  Why, even the peasant that you tell
me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look
in daylight even for his own work.  Even you would not, I dare be
sworn, be able to find these places again?"

"There you are right," I said.  "I know no more than the dead where
even to look for them."  Then we drifted into other matters.

"Come," he said at last, "tell me of London and of the house which you
have procured for me."  With an apology for my remissness, I went into
my own room to get the papers from my bag.  Whilst I was placing them
in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and
as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the
lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark.  The lamps were
also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the
sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw's
Guide.  When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table,
and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts.  He
was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about
the place and its surroundings.  He clearly had studied beforehand all
he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at
the end knew very much more than I did.  When I remarked this, he
answered.

"Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should?  When I go
there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan, nay, pardon
me.  I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first,
my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid
me.  He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of
the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins.  So!"

We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at
Purfleet.  When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the
necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to
Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a
place.  I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and
which I inscribe here.

"At Purfleet, on a byroad, I came across just such a place as seemed
to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the
place was for sale.  It was surrounded by a high wall, of ancient
structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a
large number of years.  The closed gates are of heavy old oak and
iron, all eaten with rust.

"The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre
Face, as the house is four sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of
the compass.  It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded
by the solid stone wall above mentioned.  There are many trees on it,
which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond
or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear
and flows away in a fair-sized stream.  The house is very large and of
all periods back, I should say, to mediaeval times, for one part is of
stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily
barred with iron.  It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an
old chapel or church.  I could not enter it, as I had not the key of
the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my Kodak
views of it from various points.  The house had been added to, but in
a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it
covers, which must be very great.  There are but few houses close at
hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed
into a private lunatic asylum.  It is not, however, visible from the
grounds."

When I had finished, he said, "I am glad that it is old and big.  I
myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me.

A house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all, how few days
go to make up a century.  I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old
times.  We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may
lie amongst the common dead.  I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the
bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which
please the young and gay.  I am no longer young, and my heart, through
weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth.  Moreover,
the walls of my castle are broken.  The shadows are many, and the wind
breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements.  I love
the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I
may."  Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else
it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and
saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers
together.  He was some little time away, and I began to look at some
of the books around me.  One was an atlas, which I found opened
naturally to England, as if that map had been much used.  On looking
at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining
these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly
where his new estate was situated.  The other two were Exeter, and
Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned.  "Aha!" he
said.  "Still at your books?  Good!  But you must not work always.
Come!  I am informed that your supper is ready."  He took my arm, and
we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on
the table.  The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on
his being away from home.  But he sat as on the previous night, and
chatted whilst I ate.  After supper I smoked, as on the last evening,
and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every
conceivable subject, hour after hour.  I felt that it was getting very
late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation
to meet my host's wishes in every way.  I was not sleepy, as the long
sleep yesterday had fortified me, but I could not help experiencing
that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is
like, in its way, the turn of the tide.  They say that people who are
near death die generally at the change to dawn or at the turn of the
tide.  Anyone who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post,
experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it.  All at
once we heard the crow of the cock coming up with preternatural
shrillness through the clear morning air.

Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said, "Why there is the morning
again!  How remiss I am to let you stay up so long.  You must make
your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less
interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us," and with
a courtly bow, he quickly left me.

I went into my room and drew the curtains, but there was little to
notice.  My window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the
warm grey of quickening sky.  So I pulled the curtains again, and have
written of this day.


8 May.--I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too
diffuse.  But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first,
for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that
I cannot but feel uneasy.  I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had
never come.  It may be that this strange night existence is telling on
me, but would that that were all!  If there were any one to talk to I
could bear it, but there is no one.  I have only the Count to speak
with, and he--I fear I am myself the only living soul within the
place.  Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be.  It will help me to
bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me.  If it does I am
lost.  Let me say at once how I stand, or seem to.

I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could
not sleep any more, got up.  I had hung my shaving glass by the
window, and was just beginning to shave.  Suddenly I felt a hand on my
shoulder, and heard the Count's voice saying to me, "Good morning."  I
started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the
reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me.  In starting
I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment.  Having
answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see
how I had been mistaken.  This time there could be no error, for the
man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder.  But there
was no reflection of him in the mirror!  The whole room behind me was
displayed, but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself.

This was startling, and coming on the top of so many strange things,
was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I
always have when the Count is near.  But at the instant I saw that the
cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin.  I
laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some
sticking plaster.  When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a
sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat.  I
drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the
crucifix.  It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so
quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

"Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself.  It is more
dangerous that you think in this country."  Then seizing the shaving
glass, he went on, "And this is the wretched thing that has done the
mischief.  It is a foul bauble of man's vanity.  Away with it!"  And
opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out
the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of
the courtyard far below.  Then he withdrew without a word.  It is very
annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case
or the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal.

When I went into the dining room, breakfast was prepared, but I could
not find the Count anywhere.  So I breakfasted alone.  It is strange
that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink.  He must be a very
peculiar man!  After breakfast I did a little exploring in the
castle.  I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards
the South.

The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every
opportunity of seeing it.  The castle is on the very edge of a
terrific precipice.  A stone falling from the window would fall a
thousand feet without touching anything!  As far as the eye can reach
is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there
is a chasm.  Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind
in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view
I explored further.  Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked
and bolted.  In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is
there an available exit.  The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a
prisoner!




CHAPTER 3


Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over
me.  I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering
out of every window I could find, but after a little the conviction of
my helplessness overpowered all other feelings.  When I look back
after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I
behaved much as a rat does in a trap.  When, however, the conviction
had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly, as quietly as I
have ever done anything in my life, and began to think over what was
best to be done.  I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no
definite conclusion.  Of one thing only am I certain.  That it is no
use making my ideas known to the Count.  He knows well that I am
imprisoned, and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own
motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with
the facts.  So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my
knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open.  I am, I know,
either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in
desperate straits, and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need,
all my brains to get through.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below
shut, and knew that the Count had returned.  He did not come at once
into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him
making the bed.  This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along
thought, that there are no servants in the house.  When later I saw
him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in
the dining room, I was assured of it.  For if he does himself all
these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else in
the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of
the coach that brought me here.  This is a terrible thought, for if
so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by
only holding up his hand for silence?  How was it that all the people
at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me?  What
meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of
the mountain ash?

Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck!  For
it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it.  It is odd
that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as
idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help.  Is
it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that
it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and
comfort?  Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try
to make up my mind about it.  In the meantime I must find out all I
can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand.  Tonight he
may talk of himself, if I turn the conversation that way.  I must be
very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion.


Midnight.--I have had a long talk with the Count.  I asked him a few
questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject
wonderfully.  In his speaking of things and people, and especially of
battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all.  This he
afterwards explained by saying that to a Boyar the pride of his house
and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their
fate is his fate.  Whenever he spoke of his house he always said "we",
and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking.  I wish I could
put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most
fascinating.  It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country.
He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his
great white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands
as though he would crush it by main strength.  One thing he said which
I shall put down as nearly as I can, for it tells in its way the story
of his race.

"We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the
blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship.
Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down
from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which
their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of
Europe, aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that
the werewolves themselves had come.  Here, too, when they came, they
found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living
flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood
of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the
devils in the desert.  Fools, fools!  What devil or what witch was
ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?"  He held up
his arms.  "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we
were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar,
or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back?
Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the
Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier,
that the Honfoglalas was completed there?  And when the Hungarian
flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the
victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding
of the frontier of Turkeyland.  Aye, and more than that, endless duty
of the frontier guard, for as the Turks say, 'water sleeps, and the
enemy is sleepless.'  Who more gladly than we throughout the Four
Nations received the 'bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked
quicker to the standard of the King?  When was redeemed that great
shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the
Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?  Who was it but
one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk
on his own ground?  This was a Dracula indeed!  Woe was it that his
own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk
and brought the shame of slavery on them!  Was it not this Dracula,
indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again
and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland,
who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to
come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being
slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph!
They said that he thought only of himself.  Bah!  What good are
peasants without a leader?  Where ends the war without a brain and
heart to conduct it?  Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we
threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst
their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free.
Ah, young sir, the Szekelys, and the Dracula as their heart's blood,
their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom
growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach.  The
warlike days are over.  Blood is too precious a thing in these days of
dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale
that is told."

It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed.  (Mem., this
diary seems horribly like the beginning of the "Arabian Nights," for
everything has to break off at cockcrow, or like the ghost of Hamlet's
father.)


12 May.--Let me begin with facts, bare, meager facts, verified by
books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt.  I must not
confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own
observation, or my memory of them.  Last evening when the Count came
from his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and on
the doing of certain kinds of business.  I had spent the day wearily
over books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of
the matters I had been examined in at Lincoln's Inn.  There was a
certain method in the Count's inquiries, so I shall try to put them
down in sequence.  The knowledge may somehow or some time be useful to
me.

First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more.
I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not
be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as
only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to
militate against his interest.  He seemed thoroughly to understand,
and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having
one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after
shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home
of the banking solicitor.  I asked to explain more fully, so that I
might not by any chance mislead him, so he said,

"I shall illustrate.  Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from
under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far
from London, buys for me through your good self my place at London.
Good!  Now here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange
that I have sought the services of one so far off from London instead
of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest
might be served save my wish only, and as one of London residence
might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I
went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my
interest.  Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship
goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it
not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in
these ports?"

I answered that certainly it would be most easy, but that we
solicitors had a system of agency one for the other, so that local
work could be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that
the client, simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have
his wishes carried out by him without further trouble.

"But," said he, "I could be at liberty to direct myself.  Is it not
so?"

"Of course," I replied, and "Such is often done by men of business,
who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one
person."

"Good!" he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making
consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of
difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded
against.  I explained all these things to him to the best of my
ability, and he certainly left me under the impression that he would
have made a wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not
think of or foresee.  For a man who was never in the country, and who
did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and
acumen were wonderful.  When he had satisfied himself on these points
of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by
the books available, he suddenly stood up and said, "Have you written
since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any
other?"

It was with some bitterness in my heart that I answered that I had
not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to
anybody.

"Then write now, my young friend," he said, laying a heavy hand on my
shoulder, "write to our friend and to any other, and say, if it will
please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now."

"Do you wish me to stay so long?" I asked, for my heart grew cold at
the thought.

"I desire it much, nay I will take no refusal.  When your master,
employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his
behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted.  I
have not stinted.  Is it not so?"

What could I do but bow acceptance?  It was Mr. Hawkins' interest, not
mine, and I had to think of him, not myself, and besides, while Count
Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing
which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it
I could have no choice.  The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his
mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them,
but in his own smooth, resistless way.

"I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of
things other than business in your letters.  It will doubtless please
your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to
getting home to them.  Is it not so?"  As he spoke he handed me three
sheets of note paper and three envelopes.  They were all of the
thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing
his quiet smile, with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red
underlip, I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be
more careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it.  So I
determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr.
Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write
shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it.  When I had
written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst the Count
wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to some books on his
table.  Then he took up my two and placed them with his own, and put
by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door had closed
behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which were face
down on the table.  I felt no compunction in doing so for under the
circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way I
could.

One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The
Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna.  The third was to
Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth,
bankers, Buda Pesth.  The second and fourth were unsealed.  I was just
about to look at them when I saw the door handle move.  I sank back in
my seat, having just had time to resume my book before the Count,
holding still another letter in his hand, entered the room.  He took
up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then
turning to me, said,

"I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private
this evening.  You will, I hope, find all things as you wish."  At the
door he turned, and after a moment's pause said, "Let me advise you,
my dear young friend.  Nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that
should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in
any other part of the castle.  It is old, and has many memories, and
there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely.  Be warned!  Should
sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your
own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe.  But
if you be not careful in this respect, then," He finished his speech
in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing
them.  I quite understood.  My only doubt was as to whether any dream
could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and
mystery which seemed closing around me.


Later.--I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no
doubt in question.  I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is
not.  I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed, I imagine
that my rest is thus freer from dreams, and there it shall remain.

When he left me I went to my room.  After a little while, not hearing
any sound, I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could
look out towards the South.  There was some sense of freedom in the
vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the
narrow darkness of the courtyard.  Looking out on this, I felt that I
was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air,
though it were of the night.  I am beginning to feel this nocturnal
existence tell on me.  It is destroying my nerve.  I start at my own
shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings.  God knows
that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place!  I
looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight
till it was almost as light as day.  In the soft light the distant
hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of
velvety blackness.  The mere beauty seemed to cheer me.  There was
peace and comfort in every breath I drew.  As I leaned from the window
my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat
to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the
windows of the Count's own room would look out.  The window at which I
stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though weatherworn, was
still complete.  But it was evidently many a day since the case had
been there.  I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully
out.

What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window.  I did not
see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his
back and arms.  In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had
had some many opportunities of studying.  I was at first interested
and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will
interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner.  But my very feelings
changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge
from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the
dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like
great wings.  At first I could not believe my eyes.  I thought it was
some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept
looking, and it could be no delusion.  I saw the fingers and toes
grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the
stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality
move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a
wall.

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature, is it in the
semblance of man?  I feel the dread of this horrible place
overpowering me.  I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape
for me.  I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.


15 May.--Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion.
He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a
good deal to the left.  He vanished into some hole or window.  When
his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but
without avail.  The distance was too great to allow a proper angle of
sight.  I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the
opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet.  I went
back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors.  They were
all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new.
But I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered
originally.  I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and
unhook the great chains.  But the door was locked, and the key was
gone!  That key must be in the Count's room.  I must watch should his
door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape.  I went on to make
a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try
the doors that opened from them.  One or two small rooms near the hall
were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture,
dusty with age and moth-eaten.  At last, however, I found one door at
the top of the stairway which, though it seemed locked, gave a little
under pressure.  I tried it harder, and found that it was not really
locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had
fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor.  Here was an
opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and
with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter.  I was now in
a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a
storey lower down.  From the windows I could see that the suite of
rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end
room looking out both west and south.  On the latter side, as well as
to the former, there was a great precipice.  The castle was built on
the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite
impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow,
or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort,
impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured.  To
the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged
mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with
mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and
crannies of the stone.  This was evidently the portion of the castle
occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more an
air of comfort than any I had seen.

The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in
through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it
softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some
measure the ravages of time and moth.  My lamp seemed to be of little
effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me,
for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart
and made my nerves tremble.  Still, it was better than living alone in
the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the Count, and
after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude
come over me.  Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old
times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many
blushes, her ill-spelt love letter, and writing in my diary in
shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last.  It is the
nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance.  And yet, unless my
senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their
own which mere "modernity" cannot kill.


Later:  The morning of 16 May.--God preserve my sanity, for to this I
am reduced.  Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the
past.  Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that
I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already.  If I be sane,
then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that
lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me, that
to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I
can serve his purpose.  Great God!  Merciful God, let me be calm, for
out of that way lies madness indeed.  I begin to get new lights on
certain things which have puzzled me.  Up to now I never quite knew
what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say, "My tablets!  Quick,
my tablets!  'tis meet that I put it down," etc., For now, feeling as
though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which
must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose.  The habit of
entering accurately must help to soothe me.

The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time.  It frightens
me more not when I think of it, for in the future he has a fearful
hold upon me.  I shall fear to doubt what he may say!

When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book
and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy.  The Count's warning came into my
mind, but I took pleasure in disobeying it.  The sense of sleep was
upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider.  The
soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of
freedom which refreshed me.  I determined not to return tonight to the
gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat
and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad
for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars.  I drew a
great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I
could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and
uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep.  I suppose I must
have fallen asleep.  I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was
startlingly real, so real that now sitting here in the broad, full
sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all
sleep.

I was not alone.  The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I
came into it.  I could see along the floor, in the brilliant
moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long
accumulation of dust.  In the moonlight opposite me were three young
women, ladies by their dress and manner.  I thought at the time that I
must be dreaming when I saw them, they threw no shadow on the floor.
They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then
whispered together.  Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like
the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red
when contrasted with the pale yellow moon.  The other was fair, as
fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale
sapphires.  I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in
connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the
moment how or where.  All three had brilliant white teeth that shone
like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips.  There was
something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same
time some deadly fear.  I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire
that they would kiss me with those red lips.  It is not good to note
this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her
pain, but it is the truth.  They whispered together, and then they all
three laughed, such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though
the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips.
It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of waterglasses when
played on by a cunning hand.  The fair girl shook her head
coquettishly, and the other two urged her on.

One said, "Go on!  You are first, and we shall follow.  Yours is the
right to begin."

The other added, "He is young and strong.  There are kisses for us
all."

I lay quiet, looking out from under my eyelashes in an agony of
delightful anticipation.  The fair girl advanced and bent over me till
I could feel the movement of her breath upon me.  Sweet it was in one
sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as
her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter
offensiveness, as one smells in blood.

I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly
under the lashes.  The girl went on her knees, and bent over me,
simply gloating.  There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both
thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually
licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the
moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it
lapped the white sharp teeth.  Lower and lower went her head as the
lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on
my throat.  Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of
her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot
breath on my neck.  Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as
one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer,
nearer.  I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the
super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp
teeth, just touching and pausing there.  I closed my eyes in
languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.

But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as
lightning.  I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his
being as if lapped in a storm of fury.  As my eyes opened
involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair
woman and with giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed
with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks
blazing red with passion.  But the Count!  Never did I imagine such
wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit.  His eyes were
positively blazing.  The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames
of hell fire blazed behind them.  His face was deathly pale, and the
lines of it were hard like drawn wires.  The thick eyebrows that met
over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal.  With
a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then
motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back.  It was
the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves.  In a
voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through
the air and then ring in the room he said,

"How dare you touch him, any of you?  How dare you cast eyes on him
when I had forbidden it?  Back, I tell you all!  This man belongs to
me!  Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me."

The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him.
"You yourself never loved.  You never love!"  On this the other women
joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the
room that it almost made me faint to hear.  It seemed like the
pleasure of fiends.

Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said
in a soft whisper, "Yes, I too can love.  You yourselves can tell it
from the past.  Is it not so?  Well, now I promise you that when I am
done with him you shall kiss him at your will.  Now go!  Go!  I must
awaken him, for there is work to be done."

"Are we to have nothing tonight?" said one of them, with a low laugh,
as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and
which moved as though there were some living thing within it.  For
answer he nodded his head.  One of the women jumped forward and opened
it.  If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as
of a half smothered child.  The women closed round, whilst I was
aghast with horror.  But as I looked, they disappeared, and with them
the dreadful bag.  There was no door near them, and they could not
have passed me without my noticing.  They simply seemed to fade into
the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could
see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely
faded away.

Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.




CHAPTER 4


Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

I awoke in my own bed.  If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must
have carried me here.  I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but
could not arrive at any unquestionable result.  To be sure, there were
certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid
by in a manner which was not my habit.  My watch was still unwound,
and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going
to bed, and many such details.  But these things are no proof, for
they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, for
some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset.  I must watch
for proof.  Of one thing I am glad.  If it was that the Count carried
me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for
my pockets are intact.  I am sure this diary would have been a mystery
to him which he would not have brooked.  He would have taken or
destroyed it.  As I look round this room, although it has been to me
so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be
more dreadful than those awful women, who were, who are, waiting to
suck my blood.


18 May.--I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for
I must know the truth.  When I got to the doorway at the top of the
stairs I found it closed.  It had been so forcibly driven against the
jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered.  I could see that the
bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the
inside.  I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise.


19 May.--I am surely in the toils.  Last night the Count asked me in
the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here
was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days,
another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the
letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at
Bistritz.  I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present
state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count
whilst I am so absolutely in his power.  And to refuse would be to
excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger.  He knows that I know
too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him.  My
only chance is to prolong my opportunities.  Something may occur which
will give me a chance to escape.  I saw in his eyes something of that
gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from
him.  He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that
my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends.  And he
assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the
later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in
case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him
would have been to create new suspicion.  I therefore pretended to
fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the
letters.

He calculated a minute, and then said, "The first should be June 12,
the second June 19, and the third June 29."

I know now the span of my life.  God help me!


28 May.--There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to
send word home.  A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are
encamped in the courtyard.  These are gipsies.  I have notes of them
in my book.  They are peculiar to this part of the world, though
allied to the ordinary gipsies all the world over.  There are
thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside
all law.  They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble or
boyar, and call themselves by his name.  They are fearless and without
religion, save superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of
the Romany tongue.

I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have
them posted.  I have already spoken to them through my window to begin
acquaintanceship.  They took their hats off and made obeisance and
many signs, which however, I could not understand any more than I
could their spoken language . . .

I have written the letters.  Mina's is in shorthand, and I simply ask
Mr. Hawkins to communicate with her.  To her I have explained my
situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise.  It would
shock and frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her.
Should the letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my
secret or the extent of my knowledge. . . .


I have given the letters.  I threw them through the bars of my window
with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted.
The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then
put them in his cap.  I could do no more.  I stole back to the study,
and began to read.  As the Count did not come in, I have written
here . . .


The Count has come.  He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest
voice as he opened two letters, "The Szgany has given me these, of
which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take
care.  See!"--He must have looked at it.--"One is from you, and to my
friend Peter Hawkins.  The other,"--here he caught sight of the
strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into
his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly,--"The other is a vile thing,
an outrage upon friendship and hospitality!  It is not signed.  Well!
So it cannot matter to us."  And he calmly held letter and envelope in
the flame of the lamp till they were consumed.

Then he went on, "The letter to Hawkins, that I shall, of course send
on, since it is yours.  Your letters are sacred to me.  Your pardon,
my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal.  Will you not cover
it again?"  He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow
handed me a clean envelope.

I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence.  When he went
out of the room I could hear the key turn softly.  A minute later I
went over and tried it, and the door was locked.

When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his
coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa.  He was very
courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been
sleeping, he said, "So, my friend, you are tired?  Get to bed.  There
is the surest rest.  I may not have the pleasure of talk tonight,
since there are many labours to me, but you will sleep, I pray."

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept
without dreaming.  Despair has its own calms.

31 May.--This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself
with some papers and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket,
so that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a
surprise, again a shock!

Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda,
relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that
might be useful to me were I once outside the castle.  I sat and
pondered awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made
search of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my
clothes.

The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and
rug.  I could find no trace of them anywhere.  This looked like some
new scheme of villainy . . .


17 June.--This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed
cudgelling my brains, I heard without a crackling of whips and
pounding and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path beyond the
courtyard.  With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the
yard two great leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and
at the head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great
nail-studded belt, dirty sheepskin, and high boots.  They had also
their long staves in hand.  I ran to the door, intending to descend
and try and join them through the main hall, as I thought that way
might be opened for them.  Again a shock, my door was fastened on the
outside.

Then I ran to the window and cried to them.  They looked up at me
stupidly and pointed, but just then the "hetman" of the Szgany came
out, and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which
they laughed.

Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonized entreaty,
would make them even look at me.  They resolutely turned away.  The
leiter-wagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick
rope.  These were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks
handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved.

When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner
of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and
spitting on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse's head.
Shortly afterwards, I heard the crackling of their whips die away in
the distance.


24 June.--Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into
his own room.  As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and
looked out of the window, which opened South.  I thought I would watch
for the Count, for there is something going on.  The Szgany are
quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind.  I
know it, for now and then, I hear a far-away muffled sound as of
mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some
ruthless villainy.

I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw
something coming out of the Count's window.  I drew back and watched
carefully, and saw the whole man emerge.  It was a new shock to me to
find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst
travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I
had seen the women take away.  There could be no doubt as to his
quest, and in my garb, too!  This, then, is his new scheme of evil,
that he will allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may
both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages
posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall
by the local people be attributed to me.

It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up
here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law
which is even a criminal's right and consolation.

I thought I would watch for the Count's return, and for a long time
sat doggedly at the window.  Then I began to notice that there were
some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight.  They
were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and
gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way.  I watched them with a
sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me.  I leaned back in
the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy
more fully the aerial gambolling.

Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere
far below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight.  Louder it
seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating moats of dust to take new
shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight.  I felt myself
struggling to awake to some call of my instincts.  Nay, my very soul
was struggling, and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to
answer the call.  I was becoming hypnotised!

Quicker and quicker danced the dust.  The moonbeams seemed to quiver
as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond.  More and more they
gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes.  And then I
started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran
screaming from the place.

The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from
the moonbeams, were those three ghostly women to whom I was doomed.

I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no
moonlight, and where the lamp was burning brightly.

When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the
Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed.  And
then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me.  With a
beating heart, I tried the door, but I was locked in my prison, and
could do nothing.  I sat down and simply cried.

As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without, the agonised cry of
a woman.  I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered between
the bars.

There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands
over her heart as one distressed with running.  She was leaning
against the corner of the gateway.  When she saw my face at the window
she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace,
"Monster, give me my child!"

She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the
same words in tones which wrung my heart.  Then she tore her hair and
beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of
extravagant emotion.  Finally, she threw herself forward, and though I
could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against
the door.

Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of
the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper.  His call seemed to

be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves.  Before many
minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when
liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but
short.  Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips.

I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and
she was better dead.

What shall I do?  What can I do?  How can I escape from this dreadful
thing of night, gloom, and fear?


25 June.--No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet
and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.  When the sun grew
so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway
opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if
the dove from the ark had lighted there.  My fear fell from me as if
it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth.

I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon
me.  Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first
of that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my
existence from the earth.

Let me not think of it.  Action!

It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or
threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear.  I have not yet seen
the Count in the daylight.  Can it be that he sleeps when others wake,
that he may be awake whilst they sleep?  If I could only get into his
room!  But there is no possible way.  The door is always locked, no
way for me.

Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it.  Where his body has gone
why may not another body go?  I have seen him myself crawl from his
window.  Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window?  The
chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still.  I shall
risk it.  At the worst it can only be death, and a man's death is not
a calf's, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me.  God help
me in my task!  Goodbye, Mina, if I fail.  Goodbye, my faithful friend
and second father.  Goodbye, all, and last of all Mina!


Same day, later.--I have made the effort, and God helping me, have
come safely back to this room.  I must put down every detail in order.
I went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south
side, and at once got outside on this side.  The stones are big and
roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away
between them.  I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate
way.  I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of
the awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes
away from it.  I know pretty well the direction and distance of the
Count's window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to
the opportunities available.  I did not feel dizzy, I suppose I was
too excited, and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found
myself standing on the window sill and trying to raise up the sash.  I
was filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet
foremost in through the window.  Then I looked around for the Count,
but with surprise and gladness, made a discovery.  The room was
empty!  It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have
never been used.

The furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms,
and was covered with dust.  I looked for the key, but it was not in
the lock, and I could not find it anywhere.  The only thing I found
was a great heap of gold in one corner, gold of all kinds, Roman, and
British, and Austrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money,
covered with a film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground.
None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old.
There were also chains and ornaments, some jewelled, but all of them
old and stained.

At one corner of the room was a heavy door.  I tried it, for, since I
could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which
was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or
all my efforts would be in vain.  It was open, and led through a stone
passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down.

I descended, minding carefully where I went for the stairs were dark,
being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry.  At the bottom there
was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly
odour, the odour of old earth newly turned.  As I went through the
passage the smell grew closer and heavier.  At last I pulled open a
heavy door which stood ajar, and found myself in an old ruined chapel,
which had evidently been used as a graveyard.  The roof was broken,
and in two places were steps leading to vaults, but the ground had
recently been dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes,
manifestly those which had been brought by the Slovaks.

There was nobody about, and I made a search over every inch of the
ground, so as not to lose a chance.  I went down even into the vaults,
where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to my
very soul.  Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments
of old coffins and piles of dust.  In the third, however, I made a
discovery.

There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on
a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count!  He was either dead or
asleep.  I could not say which, for eyes were open and stony, but
without the glassiness of death, and the cheeks had the warmth of life
through all their pallor.  The lips were as red as ever.  But there
was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart.

I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain.  He
could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed
away in a few hours.  By the side of the box was its cover, pierced
with holes here and there.  I thought he might have the keys on him,
but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them dead though
they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my
presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room by
the window, crawled again up the castle wall.  Regaining my room, I
threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think.


29 June.--Today is the date of my last letter, and the Count has taken
steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the
castle by the same window, and in my clothes.  As he went down the
wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that
I might destroy him.  But I fear that no weapon wrought along by man's
hand would have any effect on him.  I dared not wait to see him
return, for I feared to see those weird sisters.  I came back to the
library, and read there till I fell asleep.

I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man could
look as he said, "Tomorrow, my friend, we must part.  You return to
your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that
we may never meet.  Your letter home has been despatched.  Tomorrow I
shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey.  In the
morning come the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and
also come some Slovaks.  When they have gone, my carriage shall come
for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence
from Bukovina to Bistritz.  But I am in hopes that I shall see more of
you at Castle Dracula."

I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity.  Sincerity!  It
seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with
such a monster, so I asked him point-blank, "Why may I not go
tonight?"

"Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission."

"But I would walk with pleasure.  I want to get away at once."

He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was
some trick behind his smoothness.  He said, "And your baggage?"

"I do not care about it.  I can send for it some other time."

The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub
my eyes, it seemed so real, "You English have a saying which is close
to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars, 'Welcome
the coming, speed the parting guest.'  Come with me, my dear young
friend.  Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will,
though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it.
Come!"  With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down
the stairs and along the hall.  Suddenly he stopped.  "Hark!"

Close at hand came the howling of many wolves.  It was almost as if
the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a
great orchestra seems to leap under the baton of the conductor.  After
a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door,
drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to
draw it open.

To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked.  Suspiciously,
I looked all round, but could see no key of any kind.

As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew
louder and angrier.  Their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their
blunt-clawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door.  I
knew than that to struggle at the moment against the Count was
useless.  With such allies as these at his command, I could do
nothing.

But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count's body
stood in the gap.  Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment
and means of my doom.  I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own
instigation.  There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great
enough for the Count, and as the last chance I cried out, "Shut the
door!  I shall wait till morning."  And I covered my face with my
hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment.

With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and
the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back
into their places.

In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went
to my own room.  The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his
hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile
that Judas in hell might be proud of.

When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a
whispering at my door.  I went to it softly and listened.  Unless my
ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count.

"Back!  Back to your own place!  Your time is not yet come.  Wait!
Have patience!  Tonight is mine.  Tomorrow night is yours!"

There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open
the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips.
As I appeared, they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away.

I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees.  It is then so
near the end?  Tomorrow!  Tomorrow!  Lord, help me, and those to whom
I am dear!


30 June.--These may be the last words I ever write in this diary.  I
slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my
knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready.

At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the
morning had come.  Then came the welcome cockcrow, and I felt that I
was safe.  With a glad heart, I opened the door and ran down the hall.
I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me.
With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and
threw back the massive bolts.

But the door would not move.  Despair seized me.  I pulled and pulled
at the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its
casement.  I could see the bolt shot.  It had been locked after I left
the Count.

Then a wild desire took me to obtain the key at any risk, and I
determined then and there to scale the wall again, and gain the
Count's room.  He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier
choice of evils.  Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and
scrambled down the wall, as before, into the Count's room.  It was
empty, but that was as I expected.  I could not see a key anywhere,
but the heap of gold remained.  I went through the door in the corner
and down the winding stair and along the dark passage to the old
chapel.  I knew now well enough where to find the monster I sought.

The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the
lid was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in
their places to be hammered home.

I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and
laid it back against the wall.  And then I saw something which filled
my very soul with horror.  There lay the Count, but looking as if his
youth had been half restored.  For the white hair and moustache were
changed to dark iron-grey.  The cheeks were fuller, and the white skin
seemed ruby-red underneath.  The mouth was redder than ever, for on
the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of
the mouth and ran down over the chin and neck.  Even the deep, burning
eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches
underneath were bloated.  It seemed as if the whole awful creature
were simply gorged with blood.  He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted
with his repletion.

I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me
revolted at the contact, but I had to search, or I was lost.  The
coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar war to those
horrid three.  I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of
the key.  Then I stopped and looked at the Count.  There was a mocking
smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad.  This was the
being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for
centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his
lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of
semi-demons to batten on the helpless.

The very thought drove me mad.  A terrible desire came upon me to rid
the world of such a monster.  There was no lethal weapon at hand, but
I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases,
and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful
face.  But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me,
with all their blaze of basilisk horror.  The sight seemed to paralyze
me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely
making a deep gash above the forehead.  The shovel fell from my hand
across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught
the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing
from my sight.  The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face,
blood-stained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held
its own in the nethermost hell.

I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed
on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me.  As I
waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices
coming closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and
the cracking of whips.  The Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count
had spoken were coming.  With a last look around and at the box which
contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's
room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened.
With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of
the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door.
There must have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key
for one of the locked doors.

Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some
passage which sent up a clanging echo.  I turned to run down again
towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance, but at the
moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to
the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the
lintels flying.  When I ran to push it open, I found that it was
hopelessly fast.  I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was
closing round me more closely.

As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet
and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes,
with their freight of earth.  There was a sound of hammering.  It is
the box being nailed down.  Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping
again along the hall, with with many other idle feet coming behind
them.

The door is shut, the chains rattle.  There is a grinding of the key
in the lock.  I can hear the key withdrawn, then another door opens
and shuts.  I hear the creaking of lock and bolt.

Hark!  In the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy
wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass
into the distance.

I am alone in the castle with those horrible women.  Faugh!  Mina is a
woman, and there is nought in common.  They are devils of the Pit!

I shall not remain alone with them.  I shall try to scale the castle
wall farther than I have yet attempted.  I shall take some of the gold
with me, lest I want it later.  I may find a way from this dreadful
place.

And then away for home!  Away to the quickest and nearest train!  Away
from the cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his
children still walk with earthly feet!

At least God's mercy is better than that of those monsters, and the
precipice is steep and high.  At its foot a man may sleep, as a man.
Goodbye, all.  Mina!




CHAPTER 5


LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO MISS LUCY WESTENRA

9 May.

My dearest Lucy,

Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed
with work.  The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes
trying.  I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can
talk together freely and build our castles in the air.  I have been
working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's
studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously.
When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if
I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in
this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I
am practicing very hard.

He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is
keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad.  When
I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way.  I don't
mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-
in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write
in whenever I feel inclined.

I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people, but
it is not intended for them.  I may show it to Jonathan some day if
there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise
book.  I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do,
interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember
conversations.  I am told that, with a little practice, one can
remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day.

However, we shall see.  I will tell you of my little plans when we
meet.  I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from
Transylvania.  He is well, and will be returning in about a week.  I
am longing to hear all his news.  It must be nice to see strange
countries.  I wonder if we, I mean Jonathan and I, shall ever see
them together.  There is the ten o'clock bell ringing.  Goodbye.

Your loving

Mina


Tell me all the news when you write.  You have not told me
anything for a long time.  I hear rumours, and especially
of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???



LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY


17, Chatham Street

Wednesday

My dearest Mina,


I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent.
I wrote you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only
your second.  Besides, I have nothing to tell you.  There is really
nothing to interest you.

Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a great deal to
picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park.  As
to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who
was with me at the last Pop.  Someone has evidently been
telling tales.

That was Mr. Holmwood.  He often comes to see us, and he and
Mamma get on very well together, they have so many things
to talk about in common.

We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were
not already engaged to Jonathan.  He is an excellent parti, being
handsome, well off, and of good birth.  He is a doctor and really
clever.  Just fancy!  He is only nine-and twenty, and he has an
immense lunatic asylum all under his own care.  Mr. Holmwood
introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes
now.  I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet
the most calm.  He seems absolutely imperturbable.  I can fancy what
a wonderful power he must have over his patients.  He has a curious
habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read
one's thoughts.  He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter
myself he has got a tough nut to crack.  I know that from my glass.

Do you ever try to read your own face?  I do, and I can
tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble
than you can well fancy if you have never tried it.

He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and
I humbly think I do.  I do not, as you know, take sufficient
interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions.
Dress is a bore.  That is slang again, but never mind.  Arthur
says that every day.

There, it is all out, Mina, we have told all our secrets to
each other since we were children.  We have slept together
and eaten together, and laughed and cried together, and
now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more.  Oh,
Mina, couldn't you guess?  I love him.  I am blushing as I
write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me
so in words.  But, oh, Mina, I love him.  I love him!  There,
that does me good.

I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we
used to sit, and I would try to tell you what I feel.  I do not know
how I am writing this even to you.  I am afraid to stop, or I should
tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I do so want to
tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you
think about it.  Mina, pray for my happiness.

Lucy


P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret.
Goodnight again.  L.




LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY

24 May

My dearest Mina,

Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter.  It
was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.

My dear, it never rains but it pours.  How true the old proverbs
are.  Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never
had a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I had
three.  Just fancy!  Three proposals in one day!  Isn't it awful!  I
feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows.
Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself.
And three proposals!  But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the
girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas, and
imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day
at home they did not get six at least.  Some girls are so vain!  You
and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon
soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.  Well, I must
tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from
every one except, of course, Jonathan.  You will tell him, because I
would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur.  A woman
ought to tell her husband everything.  Don't you think so, dear?  And
I must be fair.  Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite
as fair as they are.  And women, I am afraid, are not always quite
as fair as they should be.

Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch.  I told you of
him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the strong jaw
and the good forehead.  He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous
all the same.  He had evidently been schooling himself as to all
sorts of little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed
to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they
are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing
with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream.  He spoke to me,
Mina, very straightforwardly.  He told me how dear I was to him,
though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me
to help and cheer him.  He was going to tell me how unhappy he would
be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said he was
a brute and would not add to my present trouble.  Then he broke off
and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my head his
hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared
already for any one else.  He put it very nicely, saying that he did
not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because
if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope.  And then, Mina,
I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one.  I only
told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong
and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I
would be happy, and that If I ever wanted a friend I must count him
one of my best.

Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying, and you must excuse this letter
being all blotted.  Being proposed to is all very nice and all that
sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to
see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and
looking all broken hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may
say at the moment, you are passing out of his life.  My dear, I must
stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.

Evening.

Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I
left off, so I can go on telling you about the day.

Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch.  He is such a nice
fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh
that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places
and has such adventures.  I sympathize with poor Desdemona when she
had such a stream poured in her ear, even by a black man.  I suppose
that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from
fears, and we marry him.  I know now what I would do if I were a man
and wanted to make a girl love me.  No, I don't, for there was Mr.
Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and
yet . . .

My dear, I am somewhat previous.  Mr. Quincy P. Morris found me
alone.  It seems that a man always does find a girl alone.  No, he
doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him
all I could, I am not ashamed to say it now.  I must tell you
beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang, that is to
say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really
well educated and has exquisite manners, but he found out that it
amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was
present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny
things.  I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits
exactly into whatever else he has to say.  But this is a way slang
has.  I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang.  I do not
know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet.

Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as
he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous.  He
took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly . . .

"Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of
your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that
is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you
quit.  Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down
the long road together, driving in double harness?"

Well, he did look so good humoured and so jolly that it didn't seem
half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward.  So I said, as
lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and
that I wasn't broken to harness at all yet.  Then he said that he
had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a
mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, and occasion for him,
I would forgive him.  He really did look serious when he was saying
it, and I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he was
number Two in one day.  And then, my dear, before I could say a word
he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his
very heart and soul at my feet.  He looked so earnest over it that I
shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never
earnest, because he is merry at times.  I suppose he saw something
in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with
a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had
been free . . .

"Lucy, you are an honest hearted girl, I know.  I should not be here
speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit,
right through to the very depths of your soul.  Tell me, like one
good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for?
And if there is I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but
will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend."

My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little
worthy of them?  Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted,
true gentleman.  I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will
think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really
felt very badly.

Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as
want her, and save all this trouble?  But this is heresy,
and I must not say it.  I am glad to say that, though I was
crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris' brave eyes, and
I told him out straight . . .

"Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me
yet that he even loves me."  I was right to speak to him so
frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put
out both his hands and took mine, I think I put them into
his, and said in a hearty way . . .

"That's my brave girl.  It's better worth being late for a chance of
winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world.
Don't cry, my dear.  If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack, and I
take it standing up.  If that other fellow doesn't know his
happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal
with me.  Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend,
and that's rarer than a lover, it's more selfish anyhow.  My dear,
I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom
Come.  Won't you give me one kiss?  It'll be something to keep off
the darkness now and then.  You can, you know, if you like, for that
other good fellow, or you could not love him, hasn't spoken yet."

That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him,
and noble too, to a rival, wasn't it?  And he so sad, so I
leant over and kissed him.

He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my
face, I am afraid I was blushing very much, he said, "Little girl, I
hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these things don't make
us friends nothing ever will.  Thank you for your sweet honesty to
me, and goodbye."

He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the
room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause,
and I am crying like a baby.

Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of
girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on?  I know I
would if I were free, only I don't want to be free.  My dear, this
quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once,
after telling you of it, and I don't wish to tell of the number
Three until it can be all happy.  Ever your loving . . .

Lucy


P.S.--Oh, about number Three, I needn't tell you of number
Three, need I?  Besides, it was all so confused.  It seemed
only a moment from his coming into the room till both his
arms were round me, and he was kissing me.  I am very, very
happy, and I don't know what I have done to deserve it.  I
must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful
to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a
lover, such a husband, and such a friend.

Goodbye.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY (Kept in phonograph)

25 May.--Ebb tide in appetite today.  Cannot eat, cannot rest, so
diary instead.  Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty
feeling.  Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be
worth the doing.  As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing
was work, I went amongst the patients.  I picked out one who has
afforded me a study of much interest.  He is so quaint that I am
determined to understand him as well as I can.  Today I seemed to get
nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.

I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to
making myself master of the facts of his hallucination.  In my manner
of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty.  I seemed to
wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing which I avoid
with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.

(Mem., Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?)
Omnia Romae venalia sunt.  Hell has its price!  If there be anything
behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards
accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore . . .

R. M, Renfield, age 59.  Sanguine temperament, great physical
strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed
idea which I cannot make out.  I presume that the sanguine temperament
itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished
finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish.  In
selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for
themselves.  What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed
point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal.  When
duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is
paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.



LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON.  ARTHUR HOLMOOD

25 May.

My dear Art,

We've told yarns by the campfire in the prairies, and dressed one
another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas, and drunk
healths on the shore of Titicaca.  There are more yarns to be told,
and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk.
Won't you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night?  I have no
hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a
certain dinner party, and that you are free.  There will only be one
other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward.  He's coming, too, and
we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup, and to drink a
health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide
world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and best
worth winning.  We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving
greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand.  We shall
both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain
pair of eyes.  Come!

Yours, as ever and always,

Quincey P. Morris





TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO QUINCEY P. MORRIS

26 May


Count me in every time.  I bear messages which will make both
your ears tingle.

Art




CHAPTER 6


MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL

24 July.  Whitby.--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and
lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in
which they have rooms.  This is a lovely place.  The little river, the
Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near
the harbour.  A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through
which the view seems somehow further away than it really is.  The
valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on
the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are
near enough to see down.  The houses of the old town--the side away
from us, are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other
anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg.  Right over the town is
the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is
the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the
wall.  It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful
and romantic bits.  There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one
of the windows.  Between it and the town there is another church, the
parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones.
This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over
the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to
where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea.  It
descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen
away, and some of the graves have been destroyed.

In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over
the sandy pathway far below.  There are walks, with seats beside them,
through the churchyard, and people go and sit there all day long
looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze.

I shall come and sit here often myself and work.  Indeed, I am writing
now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old
men who are sitting beside me.  They seem to do nothing all day but
sit here and talk.

The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite
wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of
it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse.  A heavy seawall runs
along outside of it.  On the near side, the seawall makes an elbow
crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse.  Between the two
piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly
widens.

It is nice at high water, but when the tide is out it shoals away to
nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between
banks of sand, with rocks here and there.  Outside the harbour on this
side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp of
which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse.  At the end
of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in
a mournful sound on the wind.

They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at
sea.  I must ask the old man about this.  He is coming this way . . .

He is a funny old man.  He must be awfully old, for his face is
gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree.  He tells me that he is
nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing
fleet when Waterloo was fought.  He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical
person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady
at the abbey he said very brusquely,

"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss.  Them things be all wore
out.  Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they
wasn't in my time.  They be all very well for comers and trippers, an'
the like, but not for a nice young lady like you.  Them feet-folks
from York and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's and drinkin'
tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught.  I wonder
masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to them, even the newspapers,
which is full of fool-talk."

I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from,
so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale
fishing in the old days.  He was just settling himself to begin when
the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said,

"I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss.  My grand-daughter doesn't
like to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to
crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em, and miss, I lack
belly-timber sairly by the clock."

He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could,
down the steps.  The steps are a great feature on the place.  They
lead from the town to the church, there are hundreds of them, I do not
know how many, and they wind up in a delicate curve.  The slope is so
gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them.

I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey.
I shall go home too.  Lucy went out, visiting with her mother, and as
they were only duty calls, I did not go.


1 August.--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most
interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come
and join him.  He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should
think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person.

He will not admit anything, and down faces everybody.  If he can't
out-argue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for
agreement with his views.

Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock.  She has got
a beautiful colour since she has been here.

I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming and sitting
near her when we sat down.  She is so sweet with old people, I think
they all fell in love with her on the spot.  Even my old man succumbed
and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead.  I got
him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort
of sermon.  I must try to remember it and put it down.

"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel, that's what it be and
nowt else.  These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an'
bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women
a'belderin'.  They be nowt but air-blebs.  They, an' all grims an' signs
an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome berk-bodies an'
railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do
somethin' that they don't other incline to.  It makes me ireful to
think o' them.  Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on
paper an' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them
on the tombstones.  Look here all around you in what airt ye will.  All
them steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their
pride, is acant, simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies
wrote on them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on
all of them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at
all, an' the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about,
much less sacred.  Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or
another!  My gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of
Judgment when they come tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped
together an' trying' to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how
good they was, some of them trimmlin' an' dithering, with their hands
that dozzened an' slippery from lyin' in the sea that they can't even
keep their gurp o' them."

I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in
which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was
"showing off," so I put in a word to keep him going.

"Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious.  Surely these tombstones are
not all wrong?"

"Yabblins!  There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they
make out the people too good, for there be folk that do think a
balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their own.  The whole thing
be only lies.  Now look you here.  You come here a stranger, an' you
see this kirkgarth."

I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite
understand his dialect.  I knew it had something to do with the
church.

He went on, "And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that
be haped here, snod an' snog?"  I assented again.  "Then that be just
where the lie comes in.  Why, there be scores of these laybeds that be
toom as old Dun's 'baccabox on Friday night."

He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed.  "And, my gog!
How could they be otherwise?  Look at that one, the aftest abaft the
bier-bank, read it!"

I went over and read, "Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by
pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, age 30."  When I came
back Mr. Swales went on,

"Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here?  Murdered off the
coast of Andres!  An' you consated his body lay under!  Why, I could
name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above," he
pointed northwards, "or where the currants may have drifted them.
There be the steans around ye.  Ye can, with your young eyes, read the
small print of the lies from here.  This Braithwaite Lowery, I knew
his father, lost in the Lively off Greenland in '20, or Andrew
Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777, or John Paxton, drowned
off Cape Farewell a year later, or old John Rawlings, whose
grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in '50.  Do
ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when
the trumpet sounds?  I have me antherums aboot it!  I tell ye that
when they got here they'd be jommlin' and jostlin' one another that
way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when
we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' tryin' to tie up our
cuts by the aurora borealis."  This was evidently local pleasantry, for
the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto.

"But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the
assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to
take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment.  Do you think
that will be really necessary?"

"Well, what else be they tombstones for?  Answer me that, miss!"

"To please their relatives, I suppose."

"To please their relatives, you suppose!"  This he said with intense
scorn.  "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is
wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be
lies?"

He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab,
on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff.  "Read
the lies on that thruff-stone," he said.

The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more
opposite to them, so she leant over and read, "Sacred to the memory of
George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on
July 29,1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness.  This tomb was
erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son.  'He was the
only son of his mother, and she was a widow.'  Really, Mr. Swales, I
don't see anything very funny in that!"  She spoke her comment very
gravely and somewhat severely.

"Ye don't see aught funny!  Ha-ha!  But that's because ye don't gawm
the sorrowin' mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was
acrewk'd, a regular lamiter he was, an' he hated her so that he
committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put
on his life.  He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket
that they had for scarin' crows with.  'Twarn't for crows then, for it
brought the clegs and the dowps to him.  That's the way he fell off
the rocks.  And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often
heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was
so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to
addle where she was.  Now isn't that stean at any rate," he hammered
it with his stick as he spoke, "a pack of lies?  And won't it make
Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin' ut the grees with the
tompstean balanced on his hump, and asks to be took as evidence!"

I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she
said, rising up, "Oh, why did you tell us of this?  It is my favourite
seat, and I cannot leave it, and now I find I must go on sitting over
the grave of a suicide."

"That won't harm ye, my pretty, an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome
to have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap.  That won't hurt ye.  Why,
I've sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't
done me no harm.  Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that
doesn' lie there either!  It'll be time for ye to be getting scart
when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as
a stubble-field.  There's the clock, and I must gang.  My service to
ye, ladies!"  And off he hobbled.

Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we
took hands as we sat, and she told me all over again about Arthur and
their coming marriage.  That made me just a little heart-sick, for I
haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month.


The same day.  I came up here alone, for I am very sad.  There was no
letter for me.  I hope there cannot be anything the matter with
Jonathan.  The clock has just struck nine.  I see the lights scattered
all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and
sometimes singly.  They run right up the Esk and die away in the curve
of the valley.  To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof
of the old house next to the abbey.  The sheep and lambs are bleating
in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of donkeys' hoofs
up the paved road below.  The band on the pier is playing a harsh
waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation
Army meeting in a back street.  Neither of the bands hears the other,
but up here I hear and see them both.  I wonder where Jonathan is and
if he is thinking of me!  I wish he were here.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

5 June.--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to
understand the man.  He has certain qualities very largely developed,
selfishness, secrecy, and purpose.

I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter.  He seems to
have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not know.
His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has
such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only
abnormally cruel.  His pets are of odd sorts.

Just now his hobby is catching flies.  He has at present such a
quantity that I have had myself to expostulate.  To my astonishment,
he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter
in simple seriousness.  He thought for a moment, and then said, "May I
have three days?  I shall clear them away."  Of course, I said that
would do.  I must watch him.


18 June.--He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several
very big fellows in a box.  He keeps feeding them his flies, and the
number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has
used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room.


1 July.--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his
flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them.

He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must some of them, at
all events.  He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same
time as before for reduction.

He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blowfly,
bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it,
held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and
before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it.

I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and
very wholesome, that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him.
This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one.  I must watch how he
gets rid of his spiders.

He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little
notebook in which he is always jotting down something.  Whole pages of
it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added
up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though
he were focussing some account, as the auditors put it.


8 July.--There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in
my mind is growing.  It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh,
unconscious cerebration, you will have to give the wall to your
conscious brother.

I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if
there were any change.  Things remain as they were except that he has
parted with some of his pets and got a new one.

He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it.
His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have
diminished.  Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still
brings in the flies by tempting them with his food.

19 July--We are progressing.  My friend has now a whole colony of
sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated.  When I
came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour, a
very, very great favour.  And as he spoke, he fawned on me like a dog.

I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his
voice and bearing, "A kitten, a nice, little, sleek playful kitten,
that I can play with, and teach, and feed, and feed, and feed!"

I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets
went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his
pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner
as the flies and spiders.  So I said I would see about it, and asked
him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten.

His eagerness betrayed him as he answered, "Oh, yes, I would like a
cat!  I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat.  No
one would refuse me a kitten, would they?"

I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be
possible, but that I would see about it.  His face fell, and I could
see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong
look which meant killing.  The man is an undeveloped homicidal
maniac.  I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will
work out, then I shall know more.


10 pm.--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner
brooding.  When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and
implored me to let him have a cat, that his salvation depended upon
it.

I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon
he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the
corner where I had found him.  I shall see him in the morning early.


20 July.--Visited Renfield very early, before attendant went his
rounds.  Found him up and humming a tune.  He was spreading out his
sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning
his fly catching again, and beginning it cheerfully and with a good
grace.

I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where
they were.  He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown
away.  There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a
drop of blood.  I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report
to me if there were anything odd about him during the day.


11 am.--The attendant has just been to see me to say that Renfield has
been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers.  "My belief
is, doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just
took and ate them raw!"


11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even
him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it.  The thought
that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the
theory proved.

My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind.  I shall have to invent a
new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating)
maniac.  What he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he
has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way.  He gave many
flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a
cat to eat the many birds.  What would have been his later steps?

It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment.  It might
be done if there were only a sufficient cause.  Men sneered at
vivisection, and yet look at its results today!  Why not advance
science in its most difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge of the
brain?

Had I even the secret of one such mind, did I hold the key to the
fancy of even one lunatic, I might advance my own branch of science to
a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's
brain knowledge would be as nothing.  If only there were a sufficient
cause!  I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted.  A
good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an
exceptional brain, congenitally?

How well the man reasoned.  Lunatics always do within their own scope.
I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one.  He has
closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record.  How
many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new
hope, and that truly I began a new record.  So it shall be until the
Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance
to profit or loss.

Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my
friend whose happiness is yours, but I must only wait on hopeless and
work.  Work!  Work!

If I could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good,
unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness.



MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL

26 July.--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here.  It
is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time.  And
there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it
different from writing.  I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan.
I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned,
but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a
letter from him.  I had written asking him if he had heard, and he
said the enclosed had just been received.  It is only a line dated
from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home.  That
is not like Jonathan.  I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy.

Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old
habit of walking in her sleep.  Her mother has spoken to me about it,
and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every
night.

Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on
roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly
wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the
place.

Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that
her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit, that he would get up
in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped.

Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out
her dresses and how her house is to be arranged.  I sympathise with
her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a
very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet.

Mr. Holmwood, he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord
Godalming, is coming up here very shortly, as soon as he can leave
town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is
counting the moments till he comes.

She wants to take him up in the seat on the churchyard cliff and show
him the beauty of Whitby.  I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs
her.  She will be all right when he arrives.


27 July.--No news from Jonathan.  I am getting quite uneasy about him,
though why I should I do not know, but I do wish that he would write,
if it were only a single line.

Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving
about the room.  Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot
get cold.  But still, the anxiety and the perpetually being awakened
is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful
myself.  Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up.  Mr. Holmwood has been
suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken
seriously ill.  Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it
does not touch her looks.  She is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are
a lovely rose-pink.  She has lost the anemic look which she had.  I
pray it will all last.


3 August.--Another week gone by, and no news from Jonathan, not even
to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard.  Oh, I do hope he is not ill.
He surely would have written.  I look at that last letter of his, but
somehow it does not satisfy me.  It does not read like him, and yet it
is his writing.  There is no mistake of that.

Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an
odd concentration about her which I do not understand, even in her
sleep she seems to be watching me.  She tries the door, and finding it
locked, goes about the room searching for the key.


6 August.--Another three days, and no news.  This suspense is getting
dreadful.  If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I
should feel easier.  But no one has heard a word of Jonathan since
that last letter.  I must only pray to God for patience.

Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well.  Last night
was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a
storm.  I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs.

Today is a gray day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds,
high over Kettleness.  Everything is gray except the green grass,
which seems like emerald amongst it, gray earthy rock, gray clouds,
tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the gray sea, into
which the sandpoints stretch like gray figures.  The sea is tumbling
in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the
sea-mists drifting inland.  The horizon is lost in a gray mist.  All
vastness, the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a
'brool' over the sea that sounds like some passage of doom.  Dark
figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in
the mist, and seem 'men like trees walking'.  The fishing boats are
racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep
into the harbour, bending to the scuppers.  Here comes old Mr. Swales.
He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his
hat, that he wants to talk.

I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man.  When he
sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way, "I want to say
something to you, miss."

I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in
mine and asked him to speak fully.

So he said, leaving his hand in mine, "I'm afraid, my deary, that I
must have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been sayin' about
the dead, and such like, for weeks past, but I didn't mean them, and I
want ye to remember that when I'm gone.  We aud folks that be daffled,
and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't altogether like to think
of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it, and that's why I've took
to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit.  But,
Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit, only I don't
want to die if I can help it.  My time must be nigh at hand now, for I
be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect.  And
I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe.  Ye
see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at once.
The chafts will wag as they be used to.  Some day soon the Angel of
Death will sound his trumpet for me.  But don't ye dooal an' greet, my
deary!"--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very
night I'd not refuse to answer his call.  For life be, after all, only
a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin', and death be all
that we can rightly depend on.  But I'm content, for it's comin' to
me, my deary, and comin' quick.  It may be comin' while we be lookin'
and wonderin'.  Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's
bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts.
Look!  Look!" he cried suddenly.  "There's something in that wind and
in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells
like death.  It's in the air.  I feel it comin'.  Lord, make me answer
cheerful, when my call comes!"  He held up his arms devoutly, and
raised his hat.  His mouth moved as though he were praying.  After a
few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me,
and said goodbye, and hobbled off.  It all touched me, and upset me
very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his
arm.  He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time
kept looking at a strange ship.

"I can't make her out," he said.  "She's a Russian, by the look of
her.  But she's knocking about in the queerest way.  She doesn't know
her mind a bit.  She seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide
whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here.  Look there
again!  She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand
on the wheel, changes about with every puff of wind.  We'll hear more
of her before this time tomorrow."




CHAPTER 7


CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH", 8 AUGUST


(PASTED IN MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL)


From a correspondent.

Whitby.

One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been
experienced here, with results both strange and unique.  The weather
had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the
month of August.  Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known,
and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits
to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes,
and the various trips in the neighborhood of Whitby.  The steamers
Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was
an unusual amount of 'tripping' both to and from Whitby.  The day
was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who
frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from the commanding eminence
watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called
attention to a sudden show of 'mares tails' high in the sky to the
northwest.  The wind was then blowing from the south-west in the
mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked 'No. 2, light
breeze.'

The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman,
who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs
from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a
sudden storm.  The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so
grand in its masses of splendidly coloured clouds, that there was
quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old
churchyard to enjoy the beauty.  Before the sun dipped below the
black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky,
its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset colour,
flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold, with
here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute
blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal
silhouettes.  The experience was not lost on the painters, and
doubtless some of the sketches of the 'Prelude to the Great Storm'
will grace the R. A and R. I. walls in May next.

More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his
'cobble' or his 'mule', as they term the different classes of boats,
would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed.  The wind
fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a
dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on
the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature.

There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting
steamers, which usually hug the shore so closely, kept well to
seaward, and but few fishing boats were in sight.  The only sail
noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was
seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her
officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in
sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in the
face of her danger.  Before the night shut down she was seen with
sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of
the sea.

"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean."

Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite
oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a
sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly
heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was
like a dischord in the great harmony of nature's silence.  A little
after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high
overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming.

Then without warning the tempest broke.  With a rapidity which, at
the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to
realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed.  The
waves rose in growing fury, each over-topping its fellow, till in a
very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and
devouring monster.  White-crested waves beat madly on the level
sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs.  Others broke over the
piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses
which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour.

The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was
with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with
grim clasp to the iron stanchions.  It was found necessary to clear
the entire pier from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities
of the night would have increased manifold.  To add to the

difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came
drifting inland.  White, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly
fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort
of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were
touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and
many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by.

At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be
seen in the glare of the lightning, which came thick and fast,
followed by such peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed
trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm.

Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and
of absorbing interest.  The sea, running mountains high, threw
skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the
tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space.  Here and
there a fishing boat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter
before the blast, now and again the white wings of a storm-tossed
seabird.  On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was
ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried.  The officers in
charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of
onrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea.  Once or twice
its service was most effective, as when a fishing boat, with gunwale
under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the
sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers.
As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of
joy from the mass of people on the shore, a shout which for a moment
seemed to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush.

Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner
with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been
noticed earlier in the evening.  The wind had by this time backed to
the east, and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff
as they realized the terrible danger in which she now was.

Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many
good ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind
blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that
she should fetch the entrance of the harbour.

It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great
that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible,
and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed
that, in the words of one old salt, "she must fetch up somewhere, if
it was only in hell".  Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater
than any hitherto, a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all
things like a gray pall, and left available to men only the organ of
hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder,
and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion
even louder than before.  The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed
on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was
expected, and men waited breathless.

The wind suddenly shifted to the northeast, and the remnant of the
sea fog melted in the blast.  And then, mirabile dictu, between the
piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed,
swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and
gained the safety of the harbour.  The searchlight followed her, and
a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a
corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each
motion of the ship.  No other form could be seen on the deck at all.

A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a
miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead
man!  However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write
these words.  The schooner paused not, but rushing across the
harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel
washed by many tides and many storms into the southeast corner of
the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill
Pier.

There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up
on the sand heap.  Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some
of the 'top-hammer' came crashing down.  But, strangest of all, the
very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck
from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward,
jumped from the bow on the sand.

Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over
the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat
tombstones, thruffsteans or through-stones, as they call them in
Whitby vernacular, actually project over where the sustaining cliff
has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed
intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight.

It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill
Pier, as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either
in bed or were out on the heights above.  Thus the coastguard on
duty on the eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the
little pier, was the first to climb aboard.  The men working the
searchlight, after scouring the entrance of the harbour without
seeing anything, then turned the light on the derelict and kept it
there.  The coastguard ran aft, and when he came beside the wheel,
bent over to examine it, and recoiled at once as though under some
sudden emotion.  This seemed to pique general curiosity, and quite a
number of people began to run.

It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Draw-bridge to
Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and
came well ahead of the crowd.  When I arrived, however, I found
already assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and
police refused to allow to come on board.  By the courtesy of the
chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted to climb on
deck, and was one of a small group who saw the dead seaman whilst
actually lashed to the wheel.

It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed,
for not often can such a sight have been seen.  The man was simply
fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the
wheel.  Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set
of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and
wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords.  The poor fellow may
have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the
sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and had dragged him
to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the
flesh to the bone.

Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctor, Surgeon
J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place, who came immediately after
me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been
dead for quite two days.

In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for
a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to
the log.

The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands,
fastening the knots with his teeth.  The fact that a coastguard was
the first on board may save some complications later on, in the
Admiralty Court, for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is
the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict.  Already,
however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is
loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely
sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statues
of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of
delegated possession, is held in a dead hand.

It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently
removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward
till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young
Casabianca, and placed in the mortuary to await inquest.

Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is
abating.  Crowds are scattering backward, and the sky is
beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds.

I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details
of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously
into harbour in the storm.


9 August.--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the
storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself.  It
turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the
Demeter.  She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with
only a small amount of cargo, a number of great wooden boxes filled
with mould.

This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S.F. Billington,
of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and took formal
possession of the goods consigned to him.

The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal
possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc.

Nothing is talked about here today except the strange coincidence.
The officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in
seeing that every compliance has been made with existing
regulations.  As the matter is to be a 'nine days wonder', they are
evidently determined that there shall be no cause of other
complaint.

A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed
when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the
S.P.C.A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the
animal.  To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be
found.  It seems to have disappeared entirely from the town.  It may
be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it
is still hiding in terror.

There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later
on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce
brute.  Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff
belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead
in the roadway opposite its master's yard.  It had been fighting,
and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn
away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw.

Later.--By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been
permitted to look over the log book of the Demeter, which was in
order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special
interest except as to facts of missing men.  The greatest interest,
however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was
today produced at the inquest.  And a more strange narrative than
the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across.

As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them,
and accordingly send you a transcript, simply omitting technical
details of seamanship and supercargo.  It almost seems as though the
captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got
well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently
throughout the voyage.  Of course my statement must be taken cum
grano, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the
Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short.



  LOG OF THE "DEMETER" Varna to Whitby


  Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall
  keep accurate note henceforth till we land.


  On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes
  of earth.  At noon set sail.  East wind, fresh.  Crew, five
  hands . . . two mates, cook, and myself, (captain).


  On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus.  Boarded by Turkish
  Customs officers.  Backsheesh.  All correct.  Under way at
  4 p.m.


  On 12 July through Dardanelles.  More Customs officers and
  flagboat of guarding squadron.  Backsheesh again.  Work of
  officers thorough, but quick.  Want us off soon.  At dark
  passed into Archipelago.


  On 13 July passed Cape Matapan.  Crew dissatisfied about
  something.  Seemed scared, but would not speak out.


  On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew.  Men all steady
  fellows, who sailed with me before.  Mate could not make out what
  was wrong.  They only told him there was SOMETHING, and crossed
  themselves.  Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck
  him.  Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet.


  On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of the
  crew, Petrofsky, was missing.  Could not account for it.
  Took larboard watch eight bells last night, was relieved by
  Amramoff, but did not go to bunk.  Men more downcast than
  ever.  All said they expected something of the kind, but
  would not say more than there was SOMETHING aboard.  Mate
  getting very impatient with them.  Feared some trouble
  ahead.


  On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin,
  and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a
  strange man aboard the ship.  He said that in his watch he had
  been sheltering behind the deckhouse, as there was a rain storm,
  when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew,
  come up the companionway, and go along the deck forward and
  disappear.  He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found
  no one, and the hatchways were all closed.  He was in a panic of
  superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread.  To
  allay it, I shall today search the entire ship carefully from stem
  to stern.


  Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as
  they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would
  search from stem to stern.  First mate angry, said it was folly,
  and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men, said
  he would engage to keep them out of trouble with the handspike.  I
  let him take the helm, while the rest began a thorough search, all
  keeping abreast, with lanterns.  We left no corner unsearched.  As
  there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners
  where a man could hide.  Men much relieved when search over, and
  went back to work cheerfully.  First mate scowled, but said
  nothing.


  22 July.--Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy
  with sails, no time to be frightened.  Men seem to have
  forgotten their dread.  Mate cheerful again, and all on
  good terms.  Praised men for work in bad weather.  Passed
  Gibraltar and out through Straits.  All well.


  24 July.--There seems some doom over this ship.  Already a hand
  short, and entering the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and
  yet last night another man lost, disappeared.  Like the first, he
  came off his watch and was not seen again.  Men all in a panic of
  fear, sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they
  fear to be alone.  Mate angry.  Fear there will be some trouble,
  as either he or the men will do some violence.


  28 July.--Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of
  maelstrom, and the wind a tempest.  No sleep for any one.
  Men all worn out.  Hardly know how to set a watch, since no
  one fit to go on.  Second mate volunteered to steer and
  watch, and let men snatch a few hours sleep.  Wind abating,
  seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is
  steadier.


  29 July.--Another tragedy.  Had single watch tonight, as crew too
  tired to double.  When morning watch came on deck could find no
  one except steersman.  Raised outcry, and all came on deck.
  Thorough search, but no one found.  Are now without second mate,
  and crew in a panic.  Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and
  wait for any sign of cause.


  30 July.--Last night.  Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather
  fine, all sails set.  Retired worn out, slept soundly, awakened by
  mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing.
  Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship.

  1 August.--Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted.  Had hoped
  when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get
  in somewhere.  Not having power to work sails, have to run before
  wind.  Dare not lower, as could not raise them again.  We seem to
  be drifting to some terrible doom.  Mate now more demoralised than
  either of men.  His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly
  against himself.  Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and
  patiently, with minds made up to worst.  They are Russian, he
  Roumanian.

  2 August, midnight.--Woke up from few minutes sleep by hearing a
  cry, seemingly outside my port.  Could see nothing in fog.  Rushed
  on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me he heard cry and ran, but
  no sign of man on watch.  One more gone.  Lord, help us!  Mate
  says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog
  lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out.
  If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us
  in the fog, which seems to move with us, and God seems to have
  deserted us.


  3 August.--At midnight I went to relieve the man at the
  wheel and when I got to it found no one there.  The wind
  was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing.  I
  dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate.  After a few
  seconds, he rushed up on deck in his flannels.  He looked
  wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has
  given way.  He came close to me and whispered hoarsely,
  with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air
  might hear.  "It is here.  I know it now.  On the watch
  last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly
  pale.  It was in the bows, and looking out.  I crept behind
  It, and gave it my knife, but the knife went through It,
  empty as the air."  And as he spoke he took the knife and
  drove it savagely into space.  Then he went on, "But It is
  here, and I'll find It.  It is in the hold, perhaps in one
  of those boxes.  I'll unscrew them one by one and see.  You
  work the helm."  And with a warning look and his finger on
  his lip, he went below.  There was springing up a choppy
  wind, and I could not leave the helm.  I saw him come out
  on deck again with a tool chest and lantern, and go down
  the forward hatchway.  He is mad, stark, raving mad, and
  it's no use my trying to stop him.  He can't hurt those big
  boxes, they are invoiced as clay, and to pull them about is
  as harmless a thing as he can do.  So here I stay and mind
  the helm, and write these notes.  I can only trust in God
  and wait till the fog clears.  Then, if I can't steer to
  any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails,
  and lie by, and signal for help . . .

  It is nearly all over now.  Just as I was beginning to hope
  that the mate would come out calmer, for I heard him
  knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good
  for him, there came up the hatchway a sudden, startled
  scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he
  came as if shot from a gun, a raging madman, with his eyes
  rolling and his face convulsed with fear.  "Save me!  Save
  me!" he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog.
  His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he
  said, "You had better come too, captain, before it is too
  late.  He is there!  I know the secret now.  The sea will
  save me from Him, and it is all that is left!"  Before I
  could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang
  on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea.
  I suppose I know the secret too, now.  It was this madman
  who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has
  followed them himself.  God help me!  How am I to account
  for all these horrors when I get to port?  When I get to
  port!  Will that ever be?


  4 August.--Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce, I
  know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I
  know not.  I dared not go below, I dared not leave the
  helm, so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the
  night I saw it, Him!  God, forgive me, but the mate was
  right to jump overboard.  It was better to die like a man.
  To die like a sailor in blue water, no man can object.  But
  I am captain, and I must not leave my ship.  But I shall
  baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to
  the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with
  them I shall tie that which He, It, dare not touch.  And
  then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my
  honour as a captain.  I am growing weaker, and the night is
  coming on.  If He can look me in the face again, I may not
  have time to act. . .  If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle
  may be found, and those who find it may understand.  If
  not . . . well, then all men shall know that I have been
  true to my trust.  God and the Blessed Virgin and the
  Saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty . . .


Of course the verdict was an open one.  There is no evidence
to adduce, and whether or not the man himself committed the
murders there is now none to say.  The folk here hold almost
universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be
given a public funeral.  Already it is arranged that his body
is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece
and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps,
for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff.  The
owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their
names as wishing to follow him to the grave.

No trace has ever been found of the great dog, at which there is
much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he
would, I believe, be adopted by the town.  Tomorrow will see the
funeral, and so will end this one more 'mystery of the sea'.



MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL

8 August.--Lucy was very restless all night, and I too, could not
sleep.  The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the
chimney pots, it made me shudder.  When a sharp puff came it seemed to
be like a distant gun.  Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake, but she
got up twice and dressed herself.  Fortunately, each time I awoke in
time and managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to
bed.  It is a very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as
her will is thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be
any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine
of her life.

Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see
if anything had happened in the night.  There were very few people
about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the
big, grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam
that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the mouth
of the harbour, like a bullying man going through a crowd.  Somehow I
felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land.
But, oh, is he on land or sea?  Where is he, and how?  I am getting
fearfully anxious about him.  If I only knew what to do, and could do
anything!


10 August.--The funeral of the poor sea captain today was most
touching.  Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin
was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the
churchyard.  Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat,
whilst the cortege of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came
down again.  We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all
the way.  The poor fellow was laid to rest near our seat so that we
stood on it, when the time came and saw everything.

Poor Lucy seemed much upset.  She was restless and uneasy all the time,
and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on her.
She is quite odd in one thing.  She will not admit to me that there is
any cause for restlessness, or if there be, she does not understand it
herself.

There is an additional cause in that poor Mr. Swales was found dead
this morning on our seat, his neck being broken.  He had evidently, as
the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for
there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made
them shudder.  Poor dear old man!

Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely
than other people do.  Just now she was quite upset by a little thing
which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals.

One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was
followed by his dog.  The dog is always with him.  They are both quiet
persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark.  During
the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat
with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling.  Its master
spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily.  But it would
neither come nor cease to make a noise.  It was in a fury, with its
eyes savage, and all its hair bristling out like a cat's tail when puss
is on the war path.

Finally the man too got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and
then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw
it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed.  The moment it touched
the stone the poor thing began to tremble.  It did not try to get away,
but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable
state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it.

Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog,
but looked at it in an agonised sort of way.  I greatly fear that she
is of too super sensitive a nature to go through the world without
trouble.  She will be dreaming of this tonight, I am sure.  The whole
agglomeration of things, the ship steered into port by a dead man, his
attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads, the touching
funeral, the dog, now furious and now in terror, will all afford
material for her dreams.

I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I
shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and
back.  She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then.




CHAPTER 8


MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL

Same day, 11 o'clock P.M.--Oh, but I am tired!  If it were not that I
had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight.  We had a lovely
walk.  Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some
dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the
lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us.  I believe we forgot
everything, except of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the
slate clean and give us a fresh start.  We had a capital 'severe tea'
at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little old-fashioned inn, with a bow
window right over the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand.  I believe
we should have shocked the 'New Woman' with our appetites.  Men are
more tolerant, bless them!  Then we walked home with some, or rather
many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread
of wild bulls.

Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as
we could.  The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked
him to stay for supper.  Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the
dusty miller.  I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite
heroic.  I think that some day the bishops must get together and see
about breeding up a new class of curates, who don't take supper, no
matter how hard they may be pressed to, and who will know when girls
are tired.

Lucy is asleep and breathing softly.  She has more colour in her cheeks
than usual, and looks, oh so sweet.  If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with
her seeing her only in the drawing room, I wonder what he would say if
he saw her now.  Some of the 'New Women' writers will some day start an
idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep
before proposing or accepting.  But I suppose the 'New Woman' won't
condescend in future to accept.  She will do the proposing herself.  And
a nice job she will make of it too!  There's some consolation in that.
I am so happy tonight, because dear Lucy seems better.  I really
believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles
with dreaming.  I should be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan . . .
God bless and keep him.


11 August.--Diary again.  No sleep now, so I may as well write.  I am
too agitated to sleep.  We have had such an adventure, such an
agonizing experience.  I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.
. . .  Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense
of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me.  The room
was dark, so I could not see Lucy's bed.  I stole across and felt for
her.  The bed was empty.  I lit a match and found that she was not in
the room.  The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it.  I feared
to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw
on some clothes and got ready to look for her.  As I was leaving the
room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to
her dreaming intention.  Dressing-gown would mean house, dress outside.
Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places.  "Thank God," I said
to myself, "she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress."

I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting room.  Not there!  Then I
looked in all the other rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear
chilling my heart.  Finally, I came to the hall door and found it open.
It was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught.  The
people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I
feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was.  There was no time to
think of what might happen.  A vague over-mastering fear obscured all
details.

I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out.  The clock was striking one as I
was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight.  I ran along
the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I
expected.  At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across
the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fear, I don't know which,
of seeing Lucy in our favourite seat.

There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which
threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as
they sailed across.  For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the
shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church and all around it.  Then
as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into
view, and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut
moved along, the church and churchyard became gradually visible.
Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our
favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining
figure, snowy white.  The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to
see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately, but it
seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the
white figure shone, and bent over it.  What it was, whether man or
beast, I could not tell.

I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps
to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge, which was the
only way to reach the East Cliff.  The town seemed as dead, for not a
soul did I see.  I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of
poor Lucy's condition.  The time and distance seemed endless, and my
knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless
steps to the abbey.  I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as
if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my
body were rusty.

When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure,
for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of
shadow.  There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over
the half-reclining white figure.  I called in fright, "Lucy!  Lucy!"
and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white
face and red, gleaming eyes.

Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard.
As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute
or so I lost sight of her.  When I came in view again the cloud had
passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy
half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat.  She was
quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about.

When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep.  Her lips
were parted, and she was breathing, not softly as usual with her, but
in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every
breath.  As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled
the collar of her nightdress close around her, as though she felt the
cold.  I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight around
her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the
night air, unclad as she was.  I feared to wake her all at once, so, in
order to have my hands free to help her, I fastened the shawl at her
throat with a big safety pin.  But I must have been clumsy in my
anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her
breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and
moaned.  When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her
feet, and then began very gently to wake her.

At first she did not respond, but gradually she became more and more
uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally.  At last, as
time was passing fast, and for many other reasons, I wished to get her
home at once, I shook her forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes
and awoke.  She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she
did not realize all at once where she was.

Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must
have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking
unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace.  She
trembled a little, and clung to me.  When I told her to come at once
with me home, she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child.
As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince.
She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes, but I would
not.  However, when we got to the pathway outside the chruchyard, where
there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet
with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went
home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare
feet.

Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul.  Once we
saw a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front
of us.  But we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such
as there are here, steep little closes, or 'wynds', as they call them
in Scotland.  My heart beat so loud all the time sometimes I thought I
should faint.  I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her
health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her
reputation in case the story should get wind.  When we got in, and had
washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I
tucked her into bed.  Before falling asleep she asked, even implored,
me not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her
sleep-walking adventure.

I hesitated at first, to promise, but on thinking of the state of her
mother's health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her,
and think too, of how such a story might become distorted, nay,
infallibly would, in case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do
so.  I hope I did right.  I have locked the door, and the key is tied
to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed.  Lucy is
sleeping soundly.  The reflex of the dawn is high and far over the
sea . . .


Same day, noon.--All goes well.  Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed
not to have even changed her side.  The adventure of the night does not
seem to have harmed her, on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she
looks better this morning than she has done for weeks.  I was sorry to
notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her.  Indeed, it
might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced.  I
must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for
there are two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her
nightdress was a drop of blood.  When I apologised and was concerned
about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it.
Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny.


Same day, night.--We passed a happy day.  The air was clear, and the
sun bright, and there was a cool breeze.  We took our lunch to Mulgrave
Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the
cliff-path and joining her at the gate.  I felt a little sad myself,
for I could not but feel how absolutely happy it would have been had
Jonathan been with me.  But there!  I must only be patient.  In the
evening we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by
Spohr and Mackenzie, and went to bed early.  Lucy seems more restful
than she has been for some time, and fell asleep at once.  I shall lock
the door and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect
any trouble tonight.


12 August.--My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I
was wakened by Lucy trying to get out.  She seemed, even in her sleep,
to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed
under a sort of protest.  I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds
chirping outside of the window.  Lucy woke, too, and I was glad to see,
was even better than on the previous morning.  All her old gaiety of
manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me
and told me all about Arthur.  I told her how anxious I was about
Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me.  Well, she succeeded
somewhat, for, though sympathy can't alter facts, it can make them more
bearable.


13 August.--Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as
before.  Again I awoke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed,
still asleep, pointing to the window.  I got up quietly, and pulling
aside the blind, looked out.  It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft
effect of the light over the sea and sky, merged together in one great
silent mystery, was beautiful beyond words.  Between me and the
moonlight flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling
circles.  Once or twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose,
frightened at seeing me, and flitted away across the harbour towards
the abbey.  When I came back from the window Lucy had lain down again,
and was sleeping peacefully.  She did not stir again all night.


14 August.--On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day.  Lucy seems
to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to
get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or
dinner.  This afternoon she made a funny remark.  We were coming home
for dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier
and stopped to look at the view, as we generally do.  The setting sun,
low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness.  The red
light was thrown over on the East Cliff and the old abbey, and seemed
to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow.  We were silent for a
while, and suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself . . .

"His red eyes again!  They are just the same."  It was such an odd
expression, coming apropos of nothing, that it quite startled me.  I
slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare
at her, and saw that she was in a half dreamy state, with an odd look
on her face that I could not quite make out, so I said nothing, but
followed her eyes.  She appeared to be looking over at our own seat,
whereon was a dark figure seated alone.  I was quite a little startled
myself, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes
like burning flames, but a second look dispelled the illusion.  The red
sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary's Church behind our
seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the
refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved.  I
called Lucy's attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself
with a start, but she looked sad all the same.  It may have been that
she was thinking of that terrible night up there.  We never refer to
it, so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner.  Lucy had a headache
and went early to bed.  I saw her asleep, and went out for a little
stroll myself.

I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet
sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan.  When coming home, it was then
bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the
Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seen, I threw a glance
up at our window, and saw Lucy's head leaning out.  I opened my
handkerchief and waved it.  She did not notice or make any movement
whatever.  Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the
building, and the light fell on the window.  There distinctly was Lucy
with her head lying up against the side of the window sill and her eyes
shut.  She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the window sill, was
something that looked like a good-sized bird.  I was afraid she might
get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was
moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily.  She was
holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect if from the cold.

I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly.  I have taken care that
the door is locked and the window securely fastened.

She looks so sweet as she sleeps, but she is paler than is her wont,
and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like.
I fear she is fretting about something.  I wish I could find out what it
is.


15 August.--Rose later than usual.  Lucy was languid and tired, and
slept on after we had been called.  We had a happy surprise at
breakfast.  Arthur's father is better, and wants the marriage to come
off soon.  Lucy is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry
at once.  Later on in the day she told me the cause.  She is grieved to
lose Lucy as her very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have
some one to protect her.  Poor dear, sweet lady!  She confided to me
that she has got her death warrant.  She has not told Lucy, and made me
promise secrecy.  Her doctor told her that within a few months, at
most, she must die, for her heart is weakening.  At any time, even now,
a sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her.  Ah, we were wise to
keep from her the affair of the dreadful night of Lucy's sleep-walking.


17 August.--No diary for two whole days.  I have not had the heart to
write.  Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our
happiness.  No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker,
whilst her mother's hours are numbering to a close.  I do not
understand Lucy's fading away as she is doing.  She eats well and
sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air, but all the time the roses in
her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day.
At night I hear her gasping as if for air.

I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but
she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window.
Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to
wake her I could not.

She was in a faint.  When I managed to restore her, she was weak as
water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath.
When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head
and turned away.

I trust her feeling ill may not be from that unlucky prick of the
safety-pin.  I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the
tiny wounds seem not to have healed.  They are still open, and, if
anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white.
They are like little white dots with red centres.  Unless they heal
within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them.



LETTER, SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON, SOLICITORS WHITBY,
TO MESSRS. CARTER, PATERSON & CO., LONDON.

17 August

"Dear Sirs,--Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great
Northern Railway.  Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near
Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King's Cross.  The
house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of
which are labelled.

"You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the
consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the
house and marked 'A' on rough diagrams enclosed.  Your agent will
easily recognize the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the
mansion.  The goods leave by the train at 9:30 tonight, and will be
due at King's Cross at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon.  As our client
wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by
your having teams ready at King's Cross at the time named and
forthwith conveying the goods to destination.  In order to obviate
any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment
in your departments, we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds,
receipt of which please acknowledge.  Should the charge be less than
this amount, you can return balance, if greater, we shall at once
send cheque for difference on hearing from you.  You are to leave
the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the
proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his
duplicate key.

"Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy
in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition.

"We are, dear Sirs,
Faithfully yours,
SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON"



LETTER, MESSRS.  CARTER, PATERSON & CO., LONDON,
TO MESSRS. BILLINGTON & SON, WHITBY.

21 August.

"Dear Sirs,--We beg to acknowledge 10 pounds received and to return
cheque of 1 pound, 17s, 9d, amount of overplus, as shown in
receipted account herewith.  Goods are delivered in exact accordance
with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as
directed.

"We are, dear Sirs,
Yours respectfully,
Pro CARTER, PATERSON & CO."



MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL.

18 August.--I am happy today, and write sitting on the seat in the
churchyard.  Lucy is ever so much better.  Last night she slept well
all night, and did not disturb me once.

The roses seem coming back already to her cheeks, though she is still
sadly pale and wan-looking.  If she were in any way anemic I could
understand it, but she is not.  She is in gay spirits and full of life
and cheerfulness.  All the morbid reticence seems to have passed from
her, and she has just reminded me, as if I needed any reminding, of
that night, and that it was here, on this very seat, I found her
asleep.

As she told me she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the
stone slab and said,

"My poor little feet didn't make much noise then!  I daresay poor old
Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didn't want to wake
up Geordie."

As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she had
dreamed at all that night.

Before she answered, that sweet, puckered look came into her forehead,
which Arthur, I call him Arthur from her habit, says he loves, and
indeed, I don't wonder that he does.  Then she went on in a
half-dreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to herself.

"I didn't quite dream, but it all seemed to be real.  I only wanted to
be here in this spot.  I don't know why, for I was afraid of something,
I don't know what.  I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing
through the streets and over the bridge.  A fish leaped as I went by,
and I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howling.  The
whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at once, as
I went up the steps.  Then I had a vague memory of something long and
dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very
sweet and very bitter all around me at once.  And then I seemed sinking
into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have
heard there is to drowning men, and then everything seemed passing away
from me.  My soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the
air.  I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under
me, and then there was a sort of agonizing feeling, as if I were in an
earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body.  I saw you
do it before I felt you."

Then she began to laugh.  It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I
listened to her breathlessly.  I did not quite like it, and thought it
better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to another
subject, and Lucy was like her old self again.  When we got home the
fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more
rosy.  Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very
happy evening together.


19 August.--Joy, joy, joy!  Although not all joy.  At last, news of
Jonathan.  The dear fellow has been ill, that is why he did not write.
I am not afraid to think it or to say it, now that I know.  Mr. Hawkins
sent me on the letter, and wrote himself, oh so kindly.  I am to leave
in the morning and go over to Jonathan, and to help to nurse him if
necessary, and to bring him home.  Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a
bad thing if we were to be married out there.  I have cried over the
good Sister's letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it
lies.  It is of Jonathan, and must be near my heart, for he is in my
heart.  My journey is all mapped out, and my luggage ready.  I am only
taking one change of dress.  Lucy will bring my trunk to London and
keep it till I send for it, for it may be that . . .  I must write no
more.  I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband.  The letter that
he has seen and touched must comfort me till we meet.



LETTER, SISTER AGATHA, HOSPITAL OF ST. JOSEPH AND
STE. MARY BUDA-PESTH, TO MISS WILLHELMINA MURRAY

12 August,

"Dear Madam.

"I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong
enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St.
Joseph and Ste. Mary.  He has been under our care for nearly six
weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever.  He wishes me to convey
his love, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter
Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry
for his delay, and that all of his work is completed.  He will
require some few weeks' rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but
will then return.  He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient
money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here,
so that others who need shall not be wanting for help.

"Believe me,

"Yours, with sympathy
and all blessings.
Sister Agatha

"P.S.--My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know
something more.  He has told me all about you, and that you are
shortly to be his wife.  All blessings to you both!  He has had some
fearful shock, so says our doctor, and in his delirium his ravings
have been dreadful, of wolves and poison and blood, of ghosts and
demons, and I fear to say of what.  Be careful of him always that
there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to
come.  The traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away.
We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends,
and there was nothing on him, nothing that anyone could understand.
He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the
station master there that he rushed into the station shouting for a
ticket for home.  Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was
English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way
thither that the train reached.

"Be assured that he is well cared for.  He has won all hearts by his
sweetness and gentleness.  He is truly getting on well, and I have
no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself.  But be careful of him
for safety's sake.  There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste.
Mary, many, many, happy years for you both."



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

19 August.--Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night.  About
eight o'clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does
when setting.  The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my
interest in him, encouraged him to talk.  He is usually respectful to
the attendant and at times servile, but tonight, the man tells me, he
was quite haughty.  Would not condescend to talk with him at all.

All he would say was, "I don't want to talk to you.  You don't count
now.  The master is at hand."

The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which
has seized him.  If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man
with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous.  The
combination is a dreadful one.

At nine o'clock I visited him myself.  His attitude to me was the same
as that to the attendant.  In his sublime self-feeling the difference
between myself and the attendant seemed to him as nothing.  It looks
like religious mania, and he will soon think that he himself is God.

These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for
an Omnipotent Being.  How these madmen give themselves away!  The real
God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall.  But the God created from human
vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow.  Oh, if men
only knew!

For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and
greater degree.  I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept
strict observation all the same.  All at once that shifty look came
into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and
with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum
attendants come to know so well.  He became quite quiet, and went and
sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and looked into space with
lack-luster eyes.

I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and
tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed
to excite his attention.

At first he made no reply, but at length said testily, "Bother them
all!  I don't care a pin about them."

"What?" I said.  "You don't mean to tell me you don't care about
spiders?"  (Spiders at present are his hobby and the notebook is filling
up with columns of small figures.)

To this he answered enigmatically, "The Bride maidens rejoice the eyes
that wait the coming of the bride.  But when the bride draweth nigh,
then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled."

He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his
bed all the time I remained with him.

I am weary tonight and low in spirits.  I cannot but think of Lucy, and
how different things might have been.  If I don't sleep at once,
chloral, the modern Morpheus!  I must be careful not to let it grow
into a habit.  No, I shall take none tonight!  I have thought of Lucy,
and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two.  If need be, tonight
shall be sleepless.


Later.--Glad I made the resolution, gladder that I kept to it.  I had
lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the
night watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield
had escaped.  I threw on my clothes and ran down at once.  My patient
is too dangerous a person to be roaming about.  Those ideas of his
might work out dangerously with strangers.

The attendant was waiting for me.  He said he had seen him not ten
minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through
the observation trap in the door.  His attention was called by the
sound of the window being wrenched out.  He ran back and saw his feet
disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me.  He was
only in his night gear, and cannot be far off.

The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should
go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out
of the building by the door.  He is a bulky man, and couldn't get
through the window.

I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and as we
were only a few feet above ground landed unhurt.

The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a
straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could.  As I got through the
belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates
our grounds from those of the deserted house.

I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men
immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our
friend might be dangerous.  I got a ladder myself, and crossing the
wall, dropped down on the other side.  I could see Renfield's figure
just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him.  On
the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old
iron-bound oak door of the chapel.

He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near
enough to hear what he was saying, lest I might frighten him, and he
should run off.

Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked
lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him!  After a few minutes,
however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him,
and so ventured to draw nearer to him, the more so as my men had now
crossed the wall and were closing him in.  I heard him say . . .

"I am here to do your bidding, Master.  I am your slave, and you will
reward me, for I shall be faithful.  I have worshipped you long and afar
off.  Now that you are near, I await your commands, and you will not
pass me by, will you, dear Master, in your distribution of good
things?"

He is a selfish old beggar anyhow.  He thinks of the loaves and fishes
even when he believes his is in a real Presence.  His manias make a
startling combination.  When we closed in on him he fought like a
tiger.  He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than
a man.

I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before, and I hope I
shall not again.  It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and
his danger in good time.  With strength and determination like his, he
might have done wild work before he was caged.

He is safe now, at any rate.  Jack Sheppard himself couldn't get free
from the strait waistcoat that keeps him restrained, and he's chained
to the wall in the padded room.

His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more
deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement.

Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time.  "I shall be
patient, Master.  It is coming, coming, coming!"

So I took the hint, and came too.  I was too excited to sleep, but this
diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep tonight.




CHAPTER 9


LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA


Buda-Pesth, 24 August.

"My dearest Lucy,

"I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened
since we parted at the railway station at Whitby.

"Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to
Hamburg, and then the train on here.  I feel that I can hardly
recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to
Jonathan, and that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better
get all the sleep I could.  I found my dear one, oh, so thin and
pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear
eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has
vanished.  He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember
anything that has happened to him for a long time past.  At least,
he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask.

"He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor
brain if he were to try to recall it.  Sister Agatha, who is a good
creature and a born nurse, tells me that he wanted her to tell me
what they were, but she would only cross herself, and say she would
never tell.  That the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God,
and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she
should respect her trust.

"She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was
troubled, she opened up the subject my poor dear raved about, added,
'I can tell you this much, my dear.  That it was not about anything
which he has done wrong himself, and you, as his wife to be, have no
cause to be concerned.  He has not forgotten you or what he owes to
you.  His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can
treat of.'

"I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my poor
dear should have fallen in love with any other girl.  The idea of my
being jealous about Jonathan!  And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I
felt a thrill of joy through me when I knew that no other woman was
a cause for trouble.  I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can
see his face while he sleeps.  He is waking!

"When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get
something from the pocket.  I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought
all his things.  I saw amongst them was his notebook, and was was
going to ask him to let me look at it, for I knew that I might find
some clue to his trouble, but I suppose he must have seen my wish in
my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be
quite alone for a moment.

"Then he called me back, and he said to me very solemnly,
'Wilhelmina', I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has
never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him, 'You
know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife.  There
should be no secret, no concealment.  I have had a great shock, and
when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I
do not know if it was real of the dreaming of a madman.  You know I
had brain fever, and that is to be mad.  The secret is here, and I
do not want to know it.  I want to take up my life here, with our
marriage.'  For, my dear, we had decided to be married as soon as
the formalities are complete.  'Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to
share my ignorance?  Here is the book.  Take it and keep it, read it
if you will, but never let me know unless, indeed, some solemn duty
should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake,
sane or mad, recorded here.'  He fell back exhausted, and I put the
book under his pillow, and kissed him.  I have asked Sister Agatha
to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon, and am
waiting her reply . . ."


"She has come and told me that the Chaplain of the English mission
church has been sent for.  We are to be married in an hour, or as
soon after as Jonathan awakes."

"Lucy, the time has come and gone.  I feel very solemn, but very,
very happy.  Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was
ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows.  He answered
his 'I will' firmly and strong.  I could hardly speak.  My heart was
so full that even those words seemed to choke me.

"The dear sisters were so kind.  Please, God, I shall never, never
forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken
upon me.  I must tell you of my wedding present.  When the chaplain
and the sisters had left me alone with my husband--oh, Lucy, it is
the first time I have written the words 'my husband'--left me alone
with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped
it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue
ribbon which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with
sealing wax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring.  Then I kissed
it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it
so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our
lives that we trusted each other, that I would never open it unless
it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty.
Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it was the first time he
took his wife's hand, and said that it was the dearest thing in all
the wide world, and that he would go through all the past again to
win it, if need be.  The poor dear meant to have said a part of the
past, but he cannot think of time yet, and I shall not wonder if at
first he mixes up not only the month, but the year.

"Well, my dear, what could I say?  I could only tell him that I was
the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to
give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these
went my love and duty for all the days of my life.  And, my dear,
when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it
was like a solemn pledge between us.

"Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this?  It is not only
because it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are,
very dear to me.  It was my privilege to be your friend and guide
when you came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life.
I want you to see now, and with the eyes of a very happy wife,
whither duty has led me, so that in your own married life you too
may be all happy, as I am.  My dear, please Almighty God, your life
may be all it promises, a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind,
no forgetting duty, no distrust.  I must not wish you no pain, for
that can never be, but I do hope you will be always as happy as I am
now.  Goodbye, my dear.  I shall post this at once, and perhaps,
write you very soon again.  I must stop, for Jonathan is waking.  I
must attend my husband!

"Your ever-loving
Mina Harker."



LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA HARKER.

Whitby, 30 August.

"My dearest Mina,

"Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your
own home with your husband.  I wish you were coming home soon enough
to stay with us here.  The strong air would soon restore Jonathan.
It has quite restored me.  I have an appetite like a cormorant, am
full of life, and sleep well.  You will be glad to know that I have
quite given up walking in my sleep.  I think I have not stirred out
of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night.
Arthur says I am getting fat.  By the way, I forgot to tell you that
Arthur is here.  We have such walks and drives, and rides, and
rowing, and tennis, and fishing together, and I love him more than
ever.  He tells me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at
first he told me that he couldn't love me more than he did then.
But this is nonsense.  There he is, calling to me.  So no more just
at present from your loving,

"Lucy.

"P.S.--Mother sends her love.  She seems better, poor dear.

"P.P.S.--We are to be married on 28 September."



DR. SEWARDS DIARY

20 August.--The case of Renfield grows even more interesting.  He has
now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his
passion.  For the first week after his attack he was perpetually
violent.  Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and
kept murmuring to himself.  "Now I can wait.  Now I can wait."

The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at
him.  He was still in the strait waistcoat and in the padded room, but
the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something
of their old pleading.  I might almost say, cringing, softness.  I was
satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved.
The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without
protest.

It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their
distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while
looking furtively at them, "They think I could hurt you!  Fancy me
hurting you!  The fools!"

It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself disassociated
even in the mind of this poor madman from the others, but all the same
I do not follow his thought.  Am I to take it that I have anything in
common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together.  Or
has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well being is
needful to Him?  I must find out later on.  Tonight he will not speak.
Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt
him.

He will only say, "I don't take any stock in cats.  I have more to
think of now, and I can wait.  I can wait."

After a while I left him.  The attendant tells me that he was quiet
until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at
length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted
him so that he swooned into a sort of coma.


. . . Three nights has the same thing happened, violent all day then
quiet from moonrise to sunrise.  I wish I could get some clue to the
cause.  It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came
and went.  Happy thought!  We shall tonight play sane wits against mad
ones.  He escaped before without our help.  Tonight he shall escape
with it.  We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow
in case they are required.


23 August.--"The expected always happens."  How well Disraeli knew
life.  Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our
subtle arrangements were for nought.  At any rate, we have proved one
thing, that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time.  We shall
in future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day.  I have
given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded
room, when once he is quiet, until the hour before sunrise.  The poor
soul's body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate
it.  Hark!  The unexpected again!  I am called.  The patient has once
more escaped.


Later.--Another night adventure.  Renfield artfully waited until the
attendant was entering the room to inspect.  Then he dashed out past
him and flew down the passage.  I sent word for the attendants to
follow.  Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we
found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door.
When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized
him in time, he would have tried to kill me.  As we were holding him a
strange thing happened.  He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then
as suddenly grew calm.  I looked round instinctively, but could see
nothing.  Then I caught the patient's eye and followed it, but could
trace nothing as it looked into the moonlight sky, except a big bat,
which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west.  Bats
usually wheel about, but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it
knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own.

The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said, "You
needn't tie me.  I shall go quietly!"  Without trouble, we came back
to the house.  I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and
shall not forget this night.



LUCY WESTENRA'S DIARY

Hillingham, 24 August.--I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things
down.  Then we can have long talks when we do meet.  I wonder when it
will be.  I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy.  Last
night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby.  Perhaps
it is the change of air, or getting home again.  It is all dark and
horrid to me, for I can remember nothing.  But I am full of vague
fear, and I feel so weak and worn out.  When Arthur came to lunch he
looked quite grieved when he saw me, and I hadn't the spirit to try to
be cheerful.  I wonder if I could sleep in mother's room tonight.  I
shall make an excuse to try.


25 August.--Another bad night.  Mother did not seem to take to my
proposal.  She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to
worry me.  I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while, but when
the clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been
falling asleep.  There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the
window, but I did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I
must have fallen asleep.  More bad dreams.  I wish I could remember
them.  This morning I am horribly weak.  My face is ghastly pale, and
my throat pains me.  It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I
don't seem to be getting air enough.  I shall try to cheer up when
Arthur comes, or else I know he will be miserable to see me so.



LETTER, ARTHUR TO DR. SEWARD

"Albemarle Hotel, 31 August

"My dear Jack,

"I want you to do me a favour.  Lucy is ill, that is she has no
special disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every
day.  I have asked her if there is any cause, I not dare to ask her
mother, for to disturb the poor lady's mind about her daughter in
her present state of health would be fatal.  Mrs. Westenra has
confided to me that her doom is spoken, disease of the heart, though
poor Lucy does not know it yet.  I am sure that there is something
preying on my dear girl's mind.  I am almost distracted when I think
of her.  To look at her gives me a pang.  I told her I should ask
you to see her, and though she demurred at first, I know why, old
fellow, she finally consented.  It will be a painful task for you, I
know, old friend, but it is for her sake, and I must not hesitate to
ask, or you to act.  You are to come to lunch at Hillingham
tomorrow, two o'clock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in Mrs.
Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being
alone with you.  I am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with
you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her.  Do not fail!

"Arthur."



TELEGRAM, ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO SEWARD

1 September

"Am summoned to see my father, who is worse.  Am writing.  Write
me fully by tonight's post to Ring.  Wire me if necessary."



LETTER FROM DR. SEWARD TO ARTHUR HOLMWOOD

2 September

"My dear old fellow,

"With regard to Miss Westenra's health I hasten to let you know at
once that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or
any malady that I know of.  At the same time, I am not by any means
satisfied with her appearance. She is woefully different from what
she was when I saw her last.  Of course you must bear in mind that I
did not have full opportunity of examination such as I should wish.
Our very friendship makes a little difficulty which not even medical
science or custom can bridge over.  I had better tell you exactly
what happened, leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own
conclusions.  I shall then say what I have done and propose doing.

"I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits.  Her mother was
present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying
all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being
anxious.  I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what
need of caution there is.

"We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful,
we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real
cheerfulness amongst us.  Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and
Lucy was left with me.  We went into her boudoir, and till we got
there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going.

"As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her
face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her
eyes with her hand.  When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I
at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis.

"She said to me very sweetly, 'I cannot tell you how I loathe
talking about myself.'  I reminded her that a doctor's confidence
was sacred, but that you were grievously anxious about her.  She
caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that matter in a word.
'Tell Arthur everything you choose.  I do not care for myself, but
for him!'  So I am quite free.

"I could easily see that she was somewhat bloodless, but I could not
see the usual anemic signs, and by the chance, I was able to test
the actual quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was
stiff a cord gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken
glass.  It was a slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident
chance, and I secured a few drops of the blood and have analysed
them.

"The qualitative analysis give a quite normal condition, and shows,
I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health.  In other
physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need for
anxiety, but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the
conclusion that it must be something mental.

"She complains of difficulty breathing satisfactorily at times, and
of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but
regarding which she can remember nothing.  She says that as a child,
she used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit
came back, and that once she walked out in the night and went to
East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her.  But she assures me that of
late the habit has not returned.

"I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of. I have
written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of
Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in
the world.  I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that
all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who
you are and your relations to Miss Westenra.  This, my dear fellow,
is in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to
do anything I can for her.

"Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal
reason, so no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his
wishes.  He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows
what he is talking about better than any one else.  He is a
philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced
scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open
mind.  This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and
indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from
virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats,
these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for
mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide
as his all-embracing sympathy.  I tell you these facts that you may
know why I have such confidence in him.  I have asked him to come at
once.  I shall see Miss Westenra tomorrow again.  She is to meet me
at the Stores, so that I may not alarm her mother by too early a
repetition of my call.

"Yours always."

John Seward




LETTER, ABRAHAM VAN HELSING, MD, DPh, D. Lit, ETC, ETC, TO DR. SEWARD

2 September.

"My good Friend,

"When I received your letter I am already coming to you.  By good
fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who
have trusted me.  Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who
have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those
he holds dear.  Tell your friend that when that time you suck from
my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that
our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when
he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune
could do.  But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend, it
is to you that I come.  Have near at hand, and please it so arrange
that we may see the young lady not too late on tomorrow, for it is
likely that I may have to return here that night.  But if need be I
shall come again in three days, and stay longer if it must.  Till
then goodbye, my friend John.

"Van Helsing."



LETTER, DR. SEWARD TO HON. ARTHUR HOLMWOOD

3 September

"My dear Art,

"Van Helsing has come and gone.  He came on with me to Hillingham,
and found that, by Lucy's discretion, her mother was lunching out,
so that we were alone with her.

"Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient.  He is
to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not
present all the time.  He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he
must think.  When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to
me in the matter, he said, 'You must tell him all you think.  Tell
him him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will.  Nay, I am
not jesting.  This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.'  I
asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious.  This was when
we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before
starting on his return to Amsterdam.  He would not give me any
further clue.  You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very
reticence means that all his brains are working for her good.  He
will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure.  So I told
him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were
doing a descriptive special article for THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.  He
seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts of London were not
quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here.  I am to
get his report tomorrow if he can possibly make it.  In any case I
am to have a letter.

"Well, as to the visit, Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I
first saw her, and certainly looked better.  She had lost something
of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal.
She was very sweet to the Professor (as she always is), and tried to
make him feel at ease, though I could see the poor girl was making a
hard struggle for it.

"I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look
under his bushy brows that I knew of old.  Then he began to
chat of all things except ourselves and diseases and with
such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy's
pretense of animation merge into reality.  Then, without
any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round
to his visit, and suavely said,

"'My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are
so much beloved.  That is much, my dear, even were there that which
I do not see.  They told me you were down in the spirit, and that
you were of a ghastly pale.  To them I say "Pouf!"'  And he snapped
his fingers at me and went on.  'But you and I shall show them how
wrong they are.  How can he,' and he pointed at me with the same
look and gesture as that with which he pointed me out in his class,
on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to
remind me of, 'know anything of a young ladies?  He has his madmen
to play with, and to bring them back to happiness, and to those that
love them.  It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards in that
we can bestow such happiness.  But the young ladies!  He has no wife
nor daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but
to the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes
of them.  So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette
in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves.'
I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the professor
came to the window and called me in.  He looked grave, but said, 'I
have made careful examination, but there is no functional cause.
With you I agree that there has been much blood lost, it has been
but is not.  But the conditions of her are in no way anemic.  I have
asked her to send me her maid, that I may ask just one or two
questions, that so I may not chance to miss nothing.  I know well
what she will say.  And yet there is cause.  There is always cause
for everything.  I must go back home and think.  You must send me
the telegram every day, and if there be cause I shall come again.
The disease, for not to be well is a disease, interest me, and the
sweet, young dear, she interest me too.  She charm me, and for her,
if not for you or disease, I come.'

"As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were
alone.  And so now, Art, you know all I know.  I shall keep stern
watch.  I trust your poor father is rallying.  It must be a terrible
thing to you, my dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position
between two people who are both so dear to you.  I know your idea of
duty to your father, and you are right to stick to it.  But if need
be, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy, so do not be
over-anxious unless you hear from me."



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

4 September.--Zoophagous patient still keeps up our interest in him.
He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time.
Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless.  The
attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid.  Fortunately
the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of
noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him.
In about five minutes, however, he began to get more quiet, and
finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained
up to now.  The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the
paroxysm were really appalling.  I found my hands full when I got in,
attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him.
Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed
even me, though I was some distance away.  It is now after the dinner
hour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding,
with a dull, sullen, woe-begone look in his face, which seems rather
to indicate than to show something directly.  I cannot quite
understand it.


Later.--Another change in my patient.  At five o'clock I looked in on
him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be.
He was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his
capture by making nailmarks on the edge of the door between the ridges
of padding.  When he saw me, he came over and apologized for his bad
conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be led back to
his own room, and to have his notebook again.  I thought it well to
humour him, so he is back in his room with the window open.  He has
the sugar of his tea spread out on the window sill, and is reaping
quite a harvest of flies.  He is not now eating them, but putting them
into a box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his
room to find a spider.  I tried to get him to talk about the past few
days, for any clue to his thoughts would be of immense help to me, but
he would not rise.  For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said
in a sort of far away voice, as though saying it rather to himself
than to me.

"All over!  All over!  He has deserted me.  No hope for me now unless
I do it myself!"  Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he
said, "Doctor, won't you be very good to me and let me have a little
more sugar?  I think it would be very good for me."

"And the flies?" I said.

"Yes!  The flies like it, too, and I like the flies, therefore I like
it."  And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do
not argue.  I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a
man as, I suppose, any in the world.  I wish I could fathom his mind.


Midnight.--Another change in him.  I had been to see Miss Westenra,
whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at
our own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him
yelling.  As his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it
better than in the morning.  It was a shock to me to turn from the
wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights
and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds
even as on foul water, and to realize all the grim sternness of my own
cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own
desolate heart to endure it all.  I reached him just as the sun was
going down, and from his window saw the red disc sink.  As it sank he
became less and less frenzied, and just as it dipped he slid from the
hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor.  It is wonderful,
however, what intellectual recuperative power lunatics have, for
within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him.  I
signalled to the attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious to see
what he would do.  He went straight over to the window and brushed out
the crumbs of sugar.  Then he took his fly box, and emptied it
outside, and threw away the box.  Then he shut the window, and
crossing over, sat down on his bed.  All this surprised me, so I asked
him, "Are you going to keep flies any more?"

"No," said he.  "I am sick of all that rubbish!"  He certainly is a
wonderfully interesting study.  I wish I could get some glimpse of his
mind or of the cause of his sudden passion.  Stop.  There may be a
clue after all, if we can find why today his paroxysms came on at high
noon and at sunset.  Can it be that there is a malign influence of the
sun at periods which affects certain natures, as at times the moon
does others?  We shall see.



TELEGRAM.  SEWARD, LONDON, TO VAN HELSING, AMSTERDAM

"4 September.--Patient still better today."



TELEGRAM, SEWARD, LONDON, TO VAN HELSING, AMSTERDAM

"5 September.--Patient greatly improved.  Good appetite, sleeps
naturally, good spirits, colour coming back."



TELEGRAM, SEWARD, LONDON, TO VAN HELSING, AMSTERDAM

"6 September.--Terrible change for the worse.  Come at once.
Do not lose an hour.  I hold over telegram to Holmwood till
have seen you."




CHAPTER 10


LETTER, DR. SEWARD TO HON.  ARTHUR HOLMWOOD


6 September

"My dear Art,

"My news today is not so good.  Lucy this morning had gone back a
bit.  There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it.
Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has
consulted me professionally about her.  I took advantage of the
opportunity, and told her that my old master, Van Helsing, the great
specialist, was coming to stay with me, and that I would put her in
his charge conjointly with myself.  So now we can come and go
without alarming her unduly, for a shock to her would mean sudden
death, and this, in Lucy's weak condition, might be disastrous to
her.  We are hedged in with difficulties, all of us, my poor fellow,
but, please God, we shall come through them all right.  If any need
I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from me, take it for
granted that I am simply waiting for news, In haste,

"Yours ever,"

John Seward



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

7 September.--The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at
Liverpool Street was, "Have you said anything to our young friend, to
lover of her?"

"No," I said.  "I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my
telegram.  I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were
coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him
know if need be."

"Right, my friend," he said.  "Quite right!  Better he not know as
yet.  Perhaps he will never know.  I pray so, but if it be needed,
then he shall know all.  And, my good friend John, let me caution you.
You deal with the madmen.  All men are mad in some way or the other,
and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with
God's madmen too, the rest of the world.  You tell not your madmen
what you do nor why you do it.  You tell them not what you think.  So
you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest, where it may
gather its kind around it and breed.  You and I shall keep as yet what
we know here, and here."  He touched me on the heart and on the
forehead, and then touched himself the same way.  "I have for myself
thoughts at the present.  Later I shall unfold to you."

"Why not now?" I asked.  "It may do some good.  We may arrive at some
decision."  He looked at me and said, "My friend John, when the corn is
grown, even before it has ripened, while the milk of its mother earth
is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his
gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough
hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you, 'Look!  He's
good corn, he will make a good crop when the time comes.'"

I did not see the application and told him so.  For reply he reached
over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used
long ago to do at lectures, and said, "The good husbandman tell you so
then because he knows, but not till then.  But you do not find the
good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow.  That is
for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it
as of the work of their life.  See you now, friend John?  I have sown
my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout, if he
sprout at all, there's some promise, and I wait till the ear begins to
swell."  He broke off, for he evidently saw that I understood.  Then he
went on gravely, "You were always a careful student, and your case
book was ever more full than the rest.  And I trust that good habit
have not fail.  Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than
memory, and we should not trust the weaker.  Even if you have not kept
the good practice, let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is
one that may be, mind, I say may be, of such interest to us and others
that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your people say.
Take then good note of it.  Nothing is too small.  I counsel you, put
down in record even your doubts and surmises.  Hereafter it may be of
interest to you to see how true you guess.  We learn from failure, not
from success!"

When I described Lucy's symptoms, the same as before, but infinitely
more marked, he looked very grave, but said nothing.  He took with him
a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, "the ghastly
paraphernalia of our beneficial trade," as he once called, in one of
his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing craft.

When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us.  She was alarmed, but not
nearly so much as I expected to find her.  Nature in one of her
beneficient moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to
its own terrors.  Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal,
matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not
personal, even the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so
attached, do not seem to reach her.  It is something like the way dame
Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive
tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm
by contact.  If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause
before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be
deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of.

I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and set down
a rule that she should not be present with Lucy, or think of her
illness more than was absolutely required.  She assented readily, so
readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life.  Van
Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy's room.  If I was shocked when I
saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her today.

She was ghastly, chalkily pale.  The red seemed to have gone even from
her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out prominently.
Her breathing was painful to see or hear.  Van Helsing's face grew set
as marble, and his eyebrows converged till they almost touched over his
nose.  Lucy lay motionless, and did not seem to have strength to
speak, so for a while we were all silent.  Then Van Helsing beckoned
to me, and we went gently out of the room.  The instant we had closed
the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which
was open.  Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door.
"My god!" he said.  "This is dreadful.  There is not time to be lost.
She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart's action as it
should be.  There must be a transfusion of blood at once.  Is it you
or me?"

"I am younger and stronger, Professor.  It must be me."

"Then get ready at once.  I will bring up my bag.  I am prepared."

I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at
the hall door.  When we reached the hall, the maid had just opened the
door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in.  He rushed up to me, saying
in an eager whisper,

"Jack, I was so anxious.  I read between the lines of your letter, and
have been in an agony.  The dad was better, so I ran down here to see
for myself.  Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing?  I am so thankful
to you, sir, for coming."

When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him, he had been angry at
his interruption at such a time, but now, as he took in his stalwart
proportions and recognized the strong young manhood which seemed to
emanate from him, his eyes gleamed.  Without a pause he said to him as
he held out his hand,

"Sir, you have come in time.  You are the lover of our dear miss.  She
is bad, very, very bad.  Nay, my child, do not go like that."  For he
suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting.  "You are
to help her.  You can do more than any that live, and your courage is
your best help."

"What can I do?" asked Arthur hoarsely.  "Tell me, and I shall do it.
My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for
her."

The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old
knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer.

"My young sir, I do not ask so much as that, not the last!"

"What shall I do?"  There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostrils
quivered with intent.  Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder.

"Come!" he said.  "You are a man, and it is a man we want.  You are
better than me, better than my friend John."  Arthur looked bewildered,
and the Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way.

"Young miss is bad, very bad.  She wants blood, and blood she must
have or die.  My friend John and I have consulted, and we are about to
perform what we call transfusion of blood, to transfer from full veins
of one to the empty veins which pine for him.  John was to give his
blood, as he is the more young and strong than me."--Here Arthur took
my hand and wrung it hard in silence.--"But now you are here, you are
more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of
thought.  Our nerves are not so calm and our blood so bright than
yours!"

Arthur turned to him and said, "If you only knew how gladly I would
die for her you would understand . . ."  He stopped with a sort of
choke in his voice.

"Good boy!" said Van Helsing.  "In the not-so-far-off you will be
happy that you have done all for her you love.  Come now and be
silent.  You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must
go, and you must leave at my sign.  Say no word to Madame.  You know
how it is with her.  There must be no shock, any knowledge of this
would be one.  Come!"

We all went up to Lucy's room.  Arthur by direction remained outside.
Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing.  She was not
asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort.  Her eyes
spoke to us, that was all.

Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little
table out of sight.  Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to the
bed, said cheerily, "Now, little miss, here is your medicine.  Drink
it off, like a good child.  See, I lift you so that to swallow is
easy.  Yes."  She had made the effort with success.

It astonished me how long the drug took to act.  This, in fact, marked
the extent of her weakness.  The time seemed endless until sleep began
to flicker in her eyelids.  At last, however, the narcotic began to
manifest its potency, and she fell into a deep sleep.  When the
Professor was satisfied, he called Arthur into the room, and bade him
strip off his coat.  Then he added, "You may take that one little kiss
whiles I bring over the table.  Friend John, help to me!"  So neither
of us looked whilst he bent over her.

Van Helsing, turning to me, said, "He is so young and strong, and of
blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it."

Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed
the operation.  As the transfusion went on, something like life seemed
to come back to poor Lucy's cheeks, and through Arthur's growing
pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine.  After a bit I
began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur,
strong man as he was.  It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain
Lucy's system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only
partially restored her.

But the Professor's face was set, and he stood watch in hand, and with
his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur.  I could hear my
own heart beat.  Presently, he said in a soft voice, "Do not stir an
instant.  It is enough.  You attend him.  I will look to her."

When all was over, I could see how much Arthur was weakened.  I
dressed the wound and took his arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing
spoke without turning round, the man seems to have eyes in the back of
his head, "The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he
shall have presently."  And as he had now finished his operation, he
adjusted the pillow to the patient's head.  As he did so the narrow
black velvet band which she seems always to wear round her throat,
buckled with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was
dragged a little up, and showed a red mark on her throat.

Arthur did not notice it, but I could hear the deep hiss of indrawn
breath which is one of Van Helsing's ways of betraying emotion.  He
said nothing at the moment, but turned to me, saying, "Now take down
our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down
a while.  He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much, that
he may be recruited of what he has so given to his love.  He must not
stay here.  Hold a moment!  I may take it, sir, that you are anxious
of result.  Then bring it with you, that in all ways the operation is
successful.  You have saved her life this time, and you can go home
and rest easy in mind that all that can be is.  I shall tell her all
when she is well.  She shall love you none the less for what you have
done.  Goodbye."

When Arthur had gone I went back to the room.  Lucy was sleeping
gently, but her breathing was stronger.  I could see the counterpane
move as her breast heaved.  By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at
her intently.  The velvet band again covered the red mark.  I asked
the Professor in a whisper, "What do you make of that mark on her
throat?"

"What do you make of it?"

"I have not examined it yet," I answered, and then and there proceeded
to loose the band.  Just over the external jugular vein there were two
punctures, not large, but not wholesome looking.  There was no sign of
disease, but the edges were white and worn looking, as if by some
trituration.  It at once occurred to me that that this wound, or
whatever it was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood.
But I abandoned the idea as soon as it formed, for such a thing could
not be.  The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the
blood which the girl must have lost to leave such a pallor as she had
before the transfusion.

"Well?" said Van Helsing.

"Well," said I.  "I can make nothing of it."

The Professor stood up.  "I must go back to Amsterdam tonight," he
said "There are books and things there which I want.  You must remain
here all night, and you must not let your sight pass from her."

"Shall I have a nurse?" I asked.

"We are the best nurses, you and I.  You keep watch all night.  See
that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her.  You must not
sleep all the night.  Later on we can sleep, you and I.  I shall be
back as soon as possible.  And then we may begin."

"May begin?" I said.  "What on earth do you mean?"

"We shall see!" he answered, as he hurried out.  He came back a moment
later and put his head inside the door and said with a warning finger
held up, "Remember, she is your charge.  If you leave her, and harm
befall, you shall not sleep easy hereafter!"



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--CONTINUED

8 September.--I sat up all night with Lucy.  The opiate worked itself
off towards dusk, and she waked naturally.  She looked a different
being from what she had been before the operation.  Her spirits even
were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see
evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone.  When I
told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit
up with her, she almost pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out her
daughter's renewed strength and excellent spirits.  I was firm,
however, and made preparations for my long vigil.  When her maid had
prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had
supper, and took a seat by the bedside.

She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me gratefully
whenever I caught her eye.  After a long spell she seemed sinking off
to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook
it off.  It was apparent that she did not want to sleep, so I tackled
the subject at once.

"You do not want to sleep?"

"No.  I am afraid."

"Afraid to go to sleep!  Why so?  It is the boon we all crave for."

"Ah, not if you were like me, if sleep was to you a presage of
horror!"

"A presage of horror!  What on earth do you mean?"

"I don't know.  Oh, I don't know.  And that is what is so terrible.
All this weakness comes to me in sleep, until I dread the very
thought."

"But, my dear girl, you may sleep tonight.  I am here watching you,
and I can promise that nothing will happen."

"Ah, I can trust you!" she said.

I seized the opportunity, and said, "I promise that if I see any
evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once."

"You will?  Oh, will you really?  How good you are to me.  Then I will
sleep!"  And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and
sank back, asleep.

All night long I watched by her.  She never stirred, but slept on and
on in a deep, tranquil, life-giving, health-giving sleep.  Her lips
were slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity
of a pendulum.  There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that
no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind.

In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took
myself back home, for I was anxious about many things.  I sent a short
wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent
result of the operation.  My own work, with its manifold arrears, took
me all day to clear off.  It was dark when I was able to inquire about
my zoophagous patient.  The report was good.  He had been quite quiet
for the past day and night.  A telegram came from Van Helsing at
Amsterdam whilst I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at
Hillingham tonight, as it might be well to be at hand, and stating
that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the
morning.


9 September.--I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to
Hillingham.  For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my
brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral
exhaustion.  Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits.  When she shook
hands with me she looked sharply in my face and said,

"No sitting up tonight for you.  You are worn out.  I am quite well
again.  Indeed, I am, and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I
who will sit up with you."

I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper.  Lucy came
with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I made an excellent
meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port.
Then Lucy took me upstairs, and showed me a room next her own, where a
cozy fire was burning.

"Now," she said.  "You must stay here.  I shall leave this door open
and my door too.  You can lie on the sofa for I know that nothing
would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient
above the horizon.  If I want anything I shall call out, and you can
come to me at once."

I could not but acquiesce, for I was dog tired, and could not have sat
up had I tried.  So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she
should want anything, I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about
everything.



LUCY WESTENRA'S DIARY

9 September.--I feel so happy tonight.  I have been so miserably weak,
that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after
a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky.  Somehow Arthur feels
very, very close to me.  I seem to feel his presence warm about me.  I
suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn
our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength
give love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he
wills.  I know where my thoughts are.  If only Arthur knew!  My dear,
my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking.  Oh,
the blissful rest of last night!  How I slept, with that dear, good
Dr. Seward watching me.  And tonight I shall not fear to sleep, since
he is close at hand and within call.  Thank everybody for being so
good to me.  Thank God!  Goodnight Arthur.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

10 September.--I was conscious of the Professor's hand on my head, and
started awake all in a second.  That is one of the things that we
learn in an asylum, at any rate.

"And how is our patient?"

"Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me," I answered.

"Come, let us see," he said.  And together we went into the room.

The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van
Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like tread, over to the bed.

As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I
heard the Professor's low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity,
a deadly fear shot through my heart.  As I passed over he moved back,
and his exclamation of horror, "Gott in Himmel!" needed no enforcement
from his agonized face.  He raised his hand and pointed to the bed,
and his iron face was drawn and ashen white.  I felt my knees begin to
tremble.

There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly
white and wan-looking than ever.  Even the lips were white, and the
gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see
in a corpse after a prolonged illness.

Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his
life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down
again softly.

"Quick!" he said.  "Bring the brandy."

I flew to the dining room, and returned with the decanter.  He wetted
the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and
heart.  He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonizing
suspense said,

"It is not too late.  It beats, though but feebly.  All our work is
undone.  We must begin again.  There is no young Arthur here now.  I
have to call on you yourself this time, friend John."  As he spoke, he
was dipping into his bag, and producing the instruments of
transfusion.  I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt sleeve.
There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of
one; and so, without a moment's delay, we began the operation.

After a time, it did not seem a short time either, for the draining
away of one's blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a
terrible feeling, Van Helsing held up a warning finger.  "Do not
stir," he said.  "But I fear that with growing strength she may wake,
and that would make danger, oh, so much danger.  But I shall
precaution take.  I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia."  He
proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent.

The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly
into the narcotic sleep.  It was with a feeling of personal pride that
I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks
and lips.  No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel
his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.

The Professor watched me critically.  "That will do," he said.
"Already?" I remonstrated.  "You took a great deal more from Art."  To
which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied,

"He is her lover, her fiance.  You have work, much work to do for her
and for others, and the present will suffice."

When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied
digital pressure to my own incision.  I laid down, while I waited his
leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick.  By and
by he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine
for myself.  As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half
whispered.

"Mind, nothing must be said of this.  If our young lover should turn
up unexpected, as before, no word to him.  It would at once frighten
him and enjealous him, too.  There must be none.  So!"

When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said, "You are
not much the worse.  Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest
awhile, then have much breakfast and come here to me."

I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were.  I
had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength.  I
felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at
what had occurred.  I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over
and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how
she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign any where to
show for it.  I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams,
for, sleeping and waking my thoughts always came back to the little
punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their
edges, tiny though they were.

Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well
and strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before.  When Van
Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge,
with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment.  I
could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest
telegraph office.

Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that
anything had happened.  I tried to keep her amused and interested.
When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any
change whatever, but said to me gratefully,

"We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really
must now take care not to overwork yourself.  You are looking pale
yourself.  You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit, that you
do!"  As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only
momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long an
unwonted drain to the head.  The reaction came in excessive pallor as
she turned imploring eyes on me.  I smiled and nodded, and laid my
finger on my lips.  With a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows.

Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me:
"Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough.  Make yourself
strong.  I stay here tonight, and I shall sit up with little miss
myself.  You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to
know.  I have grave reasons.  No, do not ask me.  Think what you will.
Do not fear to think even the most not-improbable.  Goodnight."

In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either
of them might not sit up with Miss Lucy.  They implored me to let
them, and when I said it was Dr. Van Helsing's wish that either he or
I should sit up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with
the 'foreign gentleman'.  I was much touched by their kindness.  Perhaps
it is because I am weak at present, and perhaps because it was on
Lucy's account, that their devotion was manifested.  For over and over
again have I seen similar instances of woman's kindness.  I got back
here in time for a late dinner, went my rounds, all well, and set this
down whilst waiting for sleep.  It is coming.


11 September.--This afternoon I went over to Hillingham.  Found Van
Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better.  Shortly after I
had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor.  He
opened it with much impressment, assumed, of course, and showed a
great bundle of white flowers.

"These are for you, Miss Lucy," he said.

"For me?  Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!"

"Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with.  These are medicines."
Here Lucy made a wry face.  "Nay, but they are not to take in a
decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming
nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have
to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort.
Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again.
This is medicinal, but you do not know how.  I put him in your window,
I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so you sleep well.
Oh, yes!  They, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten.
It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth
that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all
too late."

Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and
smelling them.  Now she threw them down saying, with half laughter,
and half disgust,

"Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me.  Why,
these flowers are only common garlic."

To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness,
his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting,

"No trifling with me!  I never jest!  There is grim purpose in what I
do, and I warn you that you do not thwart me.  Take care, for the sake
of others if not for your own."  Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she
might well be, he went on more gently, "Oh, little miss, my dear, do
not fear me.  I only do for your good, but there is much virtue to you
in those so common flowers.  See, I place them myself in your room.  I
make myself the wreath that you are to wear.  But hush!  No telling to
others that make so inquisitive questions.  We must obey, and silence
is a part of obedience, and obedience is to bring you strong and well
into loving arms that wait for you.  Now sit still a while.  Come with
me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic,
which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise
herb in his glass houses all the year.  I had to telegraph yesterday,
or they would not have been here."

We went into the room, taking the flowers with us.  The Professor's
actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopeia
that I ever heard of.  First he fastened up the windows and latched
them securely.  Next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them
all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that
might get in would be laden with the garlic smell.  Then with the wisp
he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each
side, and round the fireplace in the same way.  It all seemed
grotesque to me, and presently I said, "Well, Professor, I know you
always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me.
It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were
working some spell to keep out an evil spirit."

"Perhaps I am!" he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath
which Lucy was to wear round her neck.

We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she
was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her
neck.  The last words he said to her were,

"Take care you do not disturb it, and even if the room feel close, do
not tonight open the window or the door."

"I promise," said Lucy.  "And thank you both a thousand times for all
your kindness to me!  Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such
friends?"

As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said,
"Tonight I can sleep in peace, and sleep I want, two nights of travel,
much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to
follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink.  Tomorrow in the
morning early you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty
miss, so much more strong for my 'spell' which I have work.  Ho, ho!"

He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two
nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror.
It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my
friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears.




CHAPTER 11


LUCY WESTENRA'S DIARY

12 September.--How good they all are to me.  I quite love that dear
Dr. Van Helsing.  I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers.
He positively frightened me, he was so fierce.  And yet he must have
been right, for I feel comfort from them already.  Somehow, I do not
dread being alone tonight, and I can go to sleep without fear.  I
shall not mind any flapping outside the window.  Oh, the terrible
struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late, the pain of
sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown
horrors as it has for me!  How blessed are some people, whose lives
have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes
nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.  Well, here I am
tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with
'virgin crants and maiden strewments.'  I never liked garlic before,
but tonight it is delightful!  There is peace in its smell.  I feel
sleep coming already.  Goodnight, everybody.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

13 September.--Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual,
up to time.  The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting.  The
Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now.

Let all be put down exactly.  Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham
at eight o'clock.  It was a lovely morning.  The bright sunshine and
all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of
nature's annual work.  The leaves were turning to all kinds of
beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees.  When
we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room.  She
is always an early riser.  She greeted us warmly and said,

"You will be glad to know that Lucy is better.  The dear child is
still asleep.  I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in,
lest I should disturb her."  The Professor smiled, and looked quite
jubilant.  He rubbed his hands together, and said, "Aha!  I thought I
had diagnosed the case.  My treatment is working."

To which she replied, "You must not take all the credit to yourself,
doctor.  Lucy's state this morning is due in part to me."

"How do you mean, ma'am?" asked the Professor.

"Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into
her room.  She was sleeping soundly, so soundly that even my coming
did not wake her.  But the room was awfully stuffy.  There were a lot
of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she
had actually a bunch of them round her neck.  I feared that the heavy
odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took
them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh
air.  You will be pleased with her, I am sure."

She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early.
As she had spoken, I watched the Professor's face, and saw it turn
ashen gray.  He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the
poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a
shock would be.  He actually smiled on her as he held open the door
for her to pass into her room.  But the instant she had disappeared he
pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the dining room and closed the
door.

Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down.  He
raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then
beat his palms together in a helpless way.  Finally he sat down on a
chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud,
dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart.

Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole
universe.  "God!  God!  God!" he said.  "What have we done, what has
this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset?  Is there fate
amongst us still, send down from the pagan world of old, that such
things must be, and in such way?  This poor mother, all unknowing, and
all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter
body and soul, and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or
she die, then both die.  Oh, how we are beset!  How are all the powers
of the devils against us!"

Suddenly he jumped to his feet.  "Come," he said, "come, we must see and
act.  Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not.
We must fight him all the same."  He went to the hall door for his
bag, and together we went up to Lucy's room.

Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the
bed.  This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with
the same awful, waxen pallor as before.  He wore a look of stern
sadness and infinite pity.

"As I expected," he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his
which meant so much.  Without a word he went and locked the door, and
then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet
another operation of transfusion of blood.  I had long ago recognized
the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a
warning hand.  "No!" he said.  "Today you must operate.  I shall
provide.  You are weakened already."  As he spoke he took off his coat
and rolled up his shirtsleeve.

Again the operation.  Again the narcotic.  Again some return of colour
to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep.  This
time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested.

Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she
must not remove anything from Lucy's room without consulting him.
That the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of
their odour was a part of the system of cure.  Then he took over the
care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and
the next, and would send me word when to come.

After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and
seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal.

What does it all mean?  I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of
life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain.



LUCY WESTENRA'S DIARY

17 September.--Four days and nights of peace.  I am getting so strong
again that I hardly know myself.  It is as if I had passed through
some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful
sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me.  I have a
dim half remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing,
darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present
distress more poignant.  And then long spells of oblivion, and the
rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of
water.  Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad
dreaming seems to have passed away.  The noises that used to frighten
me out of my wits, the flapping against the windows, the distant
voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I
know not where and commanded me to do I know not what, have all
ceased.  I go to bed now without any fear of sleep.  I do not even try
to keep awake.  I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful
arrives for me every day from Haarlem.  Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is
going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam.  But I need not be
watched.  I am well enough to be left alone.

Thank God for Mother's sake, and dear Arthur's, and for all our
friends who have been so kind!  I shall not even feel the change, for
last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time.  I
found him asleep twice when I awoke.  But I did not fear to go to
sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something flapped almost
angrily against the window panes.




THE PALL MALL GAZETTE 18 September.

THE ESCAPED WOLF PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER

INTERVIEW WITH THE KEEPER IN THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS

After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually
using the words 'PALL MALL GAZETTE' as a sort of talisman, I managed
to find the keeper of the section of the Zoological Gardens in which
the wolf department is included.  Thomas Bilder lives in one of the
cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant house, and was just
sitting down to his tea when I found him.  Thomas and his wife are
hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen
I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives
must be pretty comfortable.  The keeper would not enter on what he
called business until the supper was over, and we were all
satisfied.  Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his
pipe, he said,

"Now, Sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want.  You'll excoose
me refoosin' to talk of perfeshunal subjucts afore meals.  I gives
the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their
tea afore I begins to arsk them questions."

"How do you mean, ask them questions?" I queried, wishful to get him
into a talkative humor.

"'Ittin' of them over the 'ead with a pole is one way.  Scratchin' of
their ears in another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-
orf to their gals.  I don't so much mind the fust, the 'ittin of the
pole part afore I chucks in their dinner, but I waits till they've
'ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the
ear scratchin'.  Mind you," he added philosophically, "there's a
deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here's you
a-comin' and arskin' of me questions about my business, and I that
grump-like that only for your bloomin' 'arf-quid I'd 'a' seen you
blowed fust 'fore I'd answer.  Not even when you arsked me sarcastic
like if I'd like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me
questions.  Without offence did I tell yer to go to 'ell?"

"You did."

"An' when you said you'd report me for usin' obscene language that
was 'ittin' me over the 'ead.  But the 'arf-quid made that all
right.  I weren't a-goin' to fight, so I waited for the food, and
did with my 'owl as the wolves and lions and tigers does.  But, lor'
love yer 'art, now that the old 'ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-
cake in me, an' rinsed me out with her bloomin' old teapot, and I've
lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you're worth, and won't
even get a growl out of me.  Drive along with your questions.  I
know what yer a-comin' at, that 'ere escaped wolf."

"Exactly.  I want you to give me your view of it.  Just tell me how
it happened, and when I know the facts I'll get you to say what you
consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair
will end."

"All right, guv'nor.  This 'ere is about the 'ole story.
That 'ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three gray
ones that came from Norway to Jamrach's, which we bought
off him four years ago.  He was a nice well-behaved wolf,
that never gave no trouble to talk of.  I'm more surprised
at 'im for wantin' to get out nor any other animile in the
place.  But, there, you can't trust wolves no more nor women."

"Don't you mind him, Sir!" broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery
laugh.  "'E's got mindin' the animiles so long that blest
if he ain't like a old wolf 'isself!  But there ain't no
'arm in 'im."

"Well, Sir, it was about two hours after feedin' yesterday when I
first hear my disturbance.  I was makin' up a litter in the monkey
house for a young puma which is ill.  But when I heard the yelpin'
and 'owlin' I kem away straight.  There was Bersicker a-tearin' like
a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out.  There wasn't
much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a
tall, thin chap, with a 'ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few
white hairs runnin' through it.  He had a 'ard, cold look and red
eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it
was 'im as they was hirritated at.  He 'ad white kid gloves on 'is
'ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says, 'Keeper,
these wolves seem upset at something.'

"'Maybe it's you,' says I, for I did not like the airs as he
give 'isself.  He didn't get angry, as I 'oped he would, but
he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white,
sharp teeth.  'Oh no, they wouldn't like me,' 'e says.

"'Ow yes, they would,' says I, a-imitatin' of him.  'They
always like a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea
time, which you 'as a bagful.'

"Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us
a-talkin' they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker
he let me stroke his ears same as ever.  That there man kem
over, and blessed but if he didn't put in his hand and stroke
the old wolf's ears too!

"'Tyke care,' says I. 'Bersicker is quick.'

"'Never mind,' he says.  I'm used to 'em!'

"'Are you in the business yourself?' I says, tyking off my
'at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good
friend to keepers.

"'Nom,' says he, 'not exactly in the business, but I 'ave made pets
of several.'  And with that he lifts his 'at as perlite as a lord,
and walks away.  Old Bersicker kep' a-lookin' arter 'im till 'e was
out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn't
come hout the 'ole hevening.  Well, larst night, so soon as the moon
was hup, the wolves here all began a-'owling.  There warn't nothing
for them to 'owl at.  There warn't no one near, except some one that
was evidently a-callin' a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in
the Park road.  Once or twice I went out to see that all was right,
and it was, and then the 'owling stopped.  Just before twelve
o'clock I just took a look round afore turnin' in, an', bust me, but
when I kem opposite to old Bersicker's cage I see the rails broken
and twisted about and the cage empty.  And that's all I know for
certing."

"Did any one else see anything?"

"One of our gard'ners was a-comin' 'ome about that time from a
'armony, when he sees a big gray dog comin' out through the garding
'edges.  At least, so he says, but I don't give much for it myself,
for if he did 'e never said a word about it to his missis when 'e
got 'ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made
known, and we had been up all night a-huntin' of the Park for
Bersicker, that he remembered seein' anything.  My own belief was
that the 'armony 'ad got into his 'ead."

"Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape
of the wolf?"

"Well, Sir," he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, "I think I
can, but I don't know as 'ow you'd be satisfied with the theory."

"Certainly I shall.  If a man like you, who knows the animals from
experience, can't hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to
try?"

"Well then, Sir, I accounts for it this way.  It seems to me that
'ere wolf escaped--simply because he wanted to get out."

From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the
joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole
explanation was simply an elaborate sell.  I couldn't cope in
badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to
his heart, so I said, "Now, Mr. Bilder, we'll consider that first
half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be
claimed when you've told me what you think will happen."

"Right y'are, Sir," he said briskly.  "Ye'll excoose me, I
know, for a-chaffin' of ye, but the old woman here winked at
me, which was as much as telling me to go on."

"Well, I never!" said the old lady.

"My opinion is this: that 'ere wolf is a'idin' of, somewheres.  The
gard'ner wot didn't remember said he was a-gallopin' northward
faster than a horse could go, but I don't believe him, for, yer see,
Sir, wolves don't gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein' built
that way.  Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when
they gets in packs and does be chivyin' somethin' that's more
afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it
up, whatever it is.  But, Lor' bless you, in real life a wolf is
only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog, and
not half a quarter so much fight in 'im.  This one ain't been used
to fightin' or even to providin' for hisself, and more like he's
somewhere round the Park a'hidin' an' a'shiverin' of, and if he
thinks at all, wonderin' where he is to get his breakfast from.  Or
maybe he's got down some area and is in a coal cellar.  My eye,
won't some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes
a-shinin' at her out of the dark!  If he can't get food he's bound to
look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher's shop
in time.  If he doesn't, and some nursemaid goes out walkin' or orf
with a soldier, leavin' of the hinfant in the perambulator--well,
then I shouldn't be surprised if the census is one babby the less.
That's all."

I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up
against the window, and Mr. Bilder's face doubled its natural length
with surprise.

"God bless me!" he said.  "If there ain't old Bersicker come back by
'isself!"

He went to the door and opened it, a most unnecessary proceeding it
seemed to me.  I have always thought that a wild animal never looks
so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between
us.  A personal experience has intensified rather than diminished
that idea.

After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder
nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog.
The animal itself was a peaceful and well-behaved as that father of
all picture-wolves, Red Riding Hood's quondam friend, whilst moving
her confidence in masquerade.

The whole scene was a unutterable mixture of comedy and
pathos.  The wicked wolf that for a half a day had
paralyzed London and set all the children in town shivering
in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and
was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal
son.  Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender
solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent
said,

"There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of
trouble.  Didn't I say it all along?  Here's his head all
cut and full of broken glass.  'E's been a-gettin' over
some bloomin' wall or other.  It's a shyme that people are
allowed to top their walls with broken bottles.  This 'ere's
what comes of it.  Come along, Bersicker."

He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece
of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary
conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report.

I came off too, to report the only exclusive information
that is given today regarding the strange escapade at the
Zoo.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

17 September.--I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my
books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy,
had fallen sadly into arrear.  Suddenly the door was burst open, and
in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion.  I was
thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord
into the Superintendent's study is almost unknown.

Without an instant's notice he made straight at me.  He had a dinner
knife in his hand, and as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the
table between us.  He was too quick and too strong for me, however,
for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left
wrist rather severely.

Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right hand and he
was sprawling on his back on the floor.  My wrist bled freely, and
quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet.  I saw that my friend
was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my
wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time.  When
the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his
employment positively sickened me.  He was lying on his belly on the
floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my
wounded wrist.  He was easily secured, and to my surprise, went with
the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again,
"The blood is the life!  The blood is the life!"

I cannot afford to lose blood just at present.  I have lost too much
of late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy's
illness and its horrible phases is telling on me.  I am over excited
and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest.  Happily Van Helsing has not
summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep.  Tonight I could not well
do without it.



TELEGRAM, VAN HELSING, ANTWERP, TO SEWARD, CARFAX

(Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given, delivered late
by twenty-two hours.)

17 September.--Do not fail to be at Hilllingham tonight.
If not watching all the time, frequently visit and see that
flowers are as placed, very important, do not fail.  Shall
be with you as soon as possible after arrival.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

18 September.--Just off train to London.  The arrival of Van
Helsing's telegram filled me with dismay.  A whole night lost,
and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night.
Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what may
have happened?  Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us
that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do.
I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete
my entry on Lucy's phonograph.




MEMORANDUM LEFT BY LUCY WESTENRA

17 September, Night.--I write this and leave it to be seen,
so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through
me.  This is an exact record of what took place tonight.  I
feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to
write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.

I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were
placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep.

I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after
that sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and
which now I know so well.  I was not afraid, but I did wish that
Dr. Seward was in the next room, as Dr. Van Helsing said he would
be, so that I might have called him.  I tried to sleep, but I
could not.  Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I
determined to keep awake.  Perversely sleep would try to come then
when I did not want it.  So, as I feared to be alone, I opened my
door and called out, "Is there anybody there?"  There was no
answer.  I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door
again.  Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like
a dog's, but more fierce and deeper.  I went to the window and
looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had
evidently been buffeting its wings against the window.  So I went
back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep.  Presently
the door opened, and mother looked in.  Seeing by my moving that
I was not asleep, she came in and sat by me.  She said to me even
more sweetly and softly than her wont,

"I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that
you were all right."

I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her
to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay
down beside me.  She did not take off her dressing gown,
for she said she would only stay a while and then go back
to her own bed.  As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers
the flapping and buffeting came to the window again.  She
was startled and a little frightened, and cried out, "What
is that?"

I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay
quiet.  But I could hear her poor dear heart still beating
terribly.  After a while there was the howl again out in
the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the
window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor.
The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in,
and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head
of a great, gaunt gray wolf.

Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a
sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would
help her.  Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of
flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round
my neck, and tore it away from me.  For a second or two she
sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and
horrible gurgling in her throat.  Then she fell over, as if
struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and
made me dizzy for a moment or two.

The room and all round seemed to spin round.  I kept my eyes
fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole
myriad of little specks seems to come blowing in through the
broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of
dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the
desert.  I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and
dear Mother's poor body, which seemed to grow cold already, for
her dear heart had ceased to beat, weighed me down, and I
remembered no more for a while.

The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I
recovered consciousness again.  Somewhere near, a passing
bell was tolling.  The dogs all round the neighbourhood were
howling, and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a
nightingale was singing.  I was dazed and stupid with pain
and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale
seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me.
The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could
hear their bare feet pattering outside my door.  I called to
them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and
what it was that lay over me on the bed, they screamed out.  The
wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed
to.  They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her,
covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up.  They
were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to
the dining room and each have a glass of wine.  The door flew
open for an instant and closed again.  The maids shrieked, and
then went in a body to the dining room, and I laid what flowers I
had on my dear mother's breast.  When they were there I
remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didn't like to
remove them, and besides, I would have some of the servants to
sit up with me now.  I was surprised that the maids did not come
back.  I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the dining
room to look for them.

My heart sank when I saw what had happened.  They all four
lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily.  The decanter
of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer,
acrid smell about.  I was suspicious, and examined the decanter.
It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that
the bottle which Mother's doctor uses for her--oh! did use--was
empty.  What am I to do? What am I to do?  I am back in the room
with Mother.  I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the
sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged.  Alone with the
dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf
through the broken window.

The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the
draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim.
What am I to do?  God shield me from harm this night!  I
shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find
it when they come to lay me out.  My dear mother gone!  It
is time that I go too.  Goodbye, dear Arthur, if I should
not survive this night.  God keep you, dear, and God help
me!




CHAPTER 12


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

18 September.--I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early.
Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone.  I knocked
gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy
or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door.  After a
while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again, still no
answer.  I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie
abed at such an hour, for it was now ten o'clock, and so rang and
knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response.
Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began
to assail me.  Was this desolation but another link in the chain of
doom which seemed drawing tight round us?  Was it indeed a house of
death to which I had come, too late?  I know that minutes, even
seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had
again one of those frightful relapses, and I went round the house to
try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere.

I could find no means of ingress.  Every window and door was fastened
and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch.  As I did so, I heard
the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse's feet.  They stopped at
the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the
avenue.  When he saw me, he gasped out, "Then it was you, and just
arrived.  How is she?  Are we too late?  Did you not get my telegram?"

I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got
his telegram early in the morning, and had not a minute in coming
here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me.  He
paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly, "Then I fear we are too
late.  God's will be done!"

With his usual recuperative energy, he went on, "Come.  If there be no
way open to get in, we must make one.  Time is all in all to us now."

We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen
window.  The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and
handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window.
I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them.
Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the
sashes and opened the window.  I helped the Professor in, and followed
him.  There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants' rooms, which
were close at hand.  We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in
the dining room, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters,
found four servant women lying on the floor.  There was no need to
think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of
laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition.

Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said,
"We can attend to them later."  Then we ascended to Lucy's room.  For an
instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound
that we could hear.  With white faces and trembling hands, we opened
the door gently, and entered the room.

How shall I describe what we saw?  On the bed lay two women, Lucy and
her mother.  The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a
white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the drought
through the broken window, showing the drawn, white, face, with a look
of terror fixed upon it.  By her side lay Lucy, with face white and
still more drawn.  The flowers which had been round her neck we found
upon her mother's bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two
little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white
and mangled.  Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head
almost touching poor Lucy's breast.  Then he gave a quick turn of his
head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to
me, "It is not yet too late!  Quick!  Quick!  Bring the brandy!"

I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste
it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I
found on the table.  The maids were still breathing, but more
restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off.  I did
not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing.  He rubbed the
brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists
and the palms of her hands.  He said to me, "I can do this, all that
can be at the present.  You go wake those maids.  Flick them in the
face with a wet towel, and flick them hard.  Make them get heat and
fire and a warm bath.  This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside
her.  She will need be heated before we can do anything more."

I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the
women.  The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently
affected her more strongly so I lifted her on the sofa and let her
sleep.

The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them
they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner.  I was stern with them,
however, and would not let them talk.  I told them that one life was
bad enough to lose, and if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss
Lucy.  So, sobbing and crying they went about their way, half clad as
they were, and prepared fire and water.  Fortunately, the kitchen and
boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water.  We
got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it.
Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall
door.  One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and
opened it.  Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a
gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood.  I bade her
simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now.  She
went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean
forgot all about him.

I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly
earnest.  I knew, as he knew, that it was a stand-up fight with death,
and in a pause told him so.  He answered me in a way that I did not
understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear.

"If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her
fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon."  He
went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied
vigour.

Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to
be of some effect.  Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the
stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement.  Van Helsing's
face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her
in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me, "The first gain is ours!
Check to the King!"

We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and
laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat.  I
noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her
throat.  She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not
worse than, we had ever seen her.

Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her
and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned
me out of the room.

"We must consult as to what is to be done," he said as we descended
the stairs.  In the hall he opened the dining room door, and we passed
in, he closing the door carefully behind him.  The shutters had been
opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the
etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always
rigidly observes.  The room was, therefore, dimly dark.  It was,
however, light enough for our purposes.  Van Helsing's sternness was
somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity.  He was evidently torturing
his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke.

"What are we to do now?  Where are we to turn for help?  We must have
another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl's life
won't be worth an hour's purchase.  You are exhausted already.  I am
exhausted too.  I fear to trust those women, even if they would have
courage to submit.  What are we to do for some one who will open his
veins for her?"

"What's the matter with me, anyhow?"

The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought
relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris.

Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened
and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out, "Quincey Morris!"
and rushed towards him with outstretched hands.

"What brought you here?" I cried as our hands met.

"I guess Art is the cause."

He handed me a telegram.--'Have not heard from Seward for three days,
and am terribly anxious.  Cannot leave.  Father still in same
condition.  Send me word how Lucy is.  Do not delay.--Holmwood.'

"I think I came just in the nick of time.  You know you have only to
tell me what to do."

Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in
the eyes as he said, "A brave man's blood is the best thing on this
earth when a woman is in trouble.  You're a man and no mistake.  Well,
the devil may work against us for all he's worth, but God sends us men
when we want them."

Once again we went through that ghastly operation.  I have not the
heart to go through with the details.  Lucy had got a terrible shock
and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went
into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as
on the other occasions.  Her struggle back into life was something
frightful to see and hear.  However, the action of both heart and
lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a sub-cutaneous injection of
morphia, as before, and with good effect.  Her faint became a profound
slumber.  The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey
Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who
were waiting.

I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the
cook to get ready a good breakfast.  Then a thought struck me, and I
went back to the room where Lucy now was.  When I came softly in, I
found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of note paper in his hand.  He
had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his
hand to his brow.  There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face,
as of one who has had a doubt solved.  He handed me the paper saying
only, "It dropped from Lucy's breast when we carried her to the bath."

When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a
pause asked him, "In God's name, what does it all mean?  Was she, or
is she, mad, or what sort of horrible danger is it?"  I was so
bewildered that I did not know what to say more.  Van Helsing put out
his hand and took the paper, saying,

"Do not trouble about it now.  Forget it for the present.  You shall
know and understand it all in good time, but it will be later.  And
now what is it that you came to me to say?"  This brought me back to
fact, and I was all myself again.

"I came to speak about the certificate of death.  If we do not act
properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would
have to be produced.  I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for
if we had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did.  I
know, and you know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that
Mrs. Westenra had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she
died of it.  Let us fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take
it myself to the registrar and go on to the undertaker."

"Good, oh my friend John!  Well thought of!  Truly Miss Lucy, if she
be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends
that love her.  One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides
one old man.  Ah, yes, I know, friend John.  I am not blind!  I love
you all the more for it!  Now go."

In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling
him that Mrs. Westenra was dead, that Lucy also had been ill, but was
now going on better, and that Van Helsing and I were with her.  I told
him where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said,

"When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to
ourselves?"  I nodded in reply and went out.  I found no difficulty
about the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come
up in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements.

When I got back Quincey was waiting for me.  I told him I would see
him as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room.  She was
still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his
seat at her side.  From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered
that he expected her to wake before long and was afraid of
fore-stalling nature.  So I went down to Quincey and took him into the
breakfast room, where the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a
little more cheerful, or rather less cheerless, than the other rooms.

When we were alone, he said to me, "Jack Seward, I don't want to shove
myself in anywhere where I've no right to be, but this is no ordinary
case.  You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her, but
although that's all past and gone, I can't help feeling anxious about
her all the same.  What is it that's wrong with her?  The Dutchman,
and a fine old fellow he is, I can see that, said that time you two
came into the room, that you must have another transfusion of blood,
and that both you and he were exhausted.  Now I know well that you
medical men speak in camera, and that a man must not expect to know
what they consult about in private.  But this is no common matter, and
whatever it is, I have done my part.  Is not that so?"

"That's so," I said, and he went on.

"I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did
today.  Is not that so?"

"That's so."

"And I guess Art was in it too.  When I saw him four days ago down at
his own place he looked queer.  I have not seen anything pulled down
so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of
go to grass all in a night.  One of those big bats that they call
vampires had got at her in the night, and what with his gorge and the
vein left open, there wasn't enough blood in her to let her stand up,
and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay.  Jack, if you may
tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur was the first, is not
that so?"

As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious.  He was in a
torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter
ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her
intensified his pain.  His very heart was bleeding, and it took all
the manhood of him, and there was a royal lot of it, too, to keep him
from breaking down.  I paused before answering, for I felt that I must
not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret, but
already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could be no
reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase.

"That's so."

"And how long has this been going on?"

"About ten days."

"Ten days!  Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature
that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood
of four strong men.  Man alive, her whole body wouldn't hold it."  Then
coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper.  "What took it
out?"

I shook my head.  "That," I said, "is the crux.  Van Helsing is simply
frantic about it, and I am at my wits' end.  I can't even hazard a
guess.  There has been a series of little circumstances which have
thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched.
But these shall not occur again.  Here we stay until all be well, or
ill."

Quincey held out his hand.  "Count me in," he said.  "You and the
Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy's first movement was to feel
in her breast, and to my surprise, produced the paper which Van
Helsing had given me to read.  The careful Professor had replaced it
where it had come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed.  Her
eyes then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and gladdened.  Then she
looked round the room, and seeing where she was, shuddered.  She gave
a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands before her pale face.

We both understood what was meant, that she had realized to the full
her mother's death.  So we tried what we could to comfort her.
Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in thought
and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time.  We told her
that either or both of us would now remain with her all the time, and
that seemed to comfort her.  Towards dusk she fell into a doze.  Here
a very odd thing occurred.  Whilst still asleep she took the paper
from her breast and tore it in two.  Van Helsing stepped over and took
the pieces from her.  All the same, however, she went on with the
action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands.
Finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering the
fragments.  Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as if
in thought, but he said nothing.


19 September.--All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid
to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it.  The Professor
and I took in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment
unattended.  Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I
knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the house.

When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor
Lucy's strength.  She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little
nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good.  At times
she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her,
between sleeping and waking.  Whilst asleep she looked stronger,
although more haggard, and her breathing was softer.  Her open mouth
showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which looked
positively longer and sharper than usual.  When she woke the softness
of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own
self, although a dying one.  In the afternoon she asked for Arthur,
and we telegraphed for him.  Quincey went off to meet him at the
station.

When he arrived it was nearly six o'clock, and the sun was setting
full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and
gave more colour to the pale cheeks.  When he saw her, Arthur was
simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak.  In the hours
that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that
passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the pauses when
conversation was possible were shortened.  Arthur's presence, however,
seemed to act as a stimulant.  She rallied a little, and spoke to him
more brightly than she had done since we arrived.  He too pulled
himself together, and spoke as cheerily as he could, so that the best
was made of everything.

It is now nearly one o'clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with
her.  I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering
this on Lucy's phonograph.  Until six o'clock they are to try to rest.
I fear that tomorrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too
great.  The poor child cannot rally.  God help us all.




LETTER MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA

(Unopened by her)

17 September

My dearest Lucy,

"It seems an age since I heard from you, or indeed since I
wrote.  You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when
you have read all my budget of news.  Well, I got my husband back
all right.  When we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage
waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr.
Hawkins.  He took us to his house, where there were rooms for us
all nice and comfortable, and we dined together.  After dinner
Mr. Hawkins said,

"'My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity, and
may every blessing attend you both.  I know you both from
children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up.
Now I want you to make your home here with me.  I have left
to me neither chick nor child.  All are gone, and in my
will I have left you everything.'  I cried, Lucy dear, as
Jonathan and the old man clasped hands.  Our evening was a
very, very happy one.

"So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and
from both my bedroom and the drawing room I can see the
great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black
stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral,
and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and
chattering and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner
of rooks--and humans.  I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging
things and housekeeping.  Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all
day, for now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to
tell him all about the clients.

"How is your dear mother getting on?  I wish I could run up
to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not
go yet, with so much on my shoulders, and Jonathan wants
looking after still.  He is beginning to put some flesh on
his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long
illness.  Even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in
a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him
back to his usual placidity.  However, thank God, these
occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they
will in time pass away altogether, I trust.  And now I have
told you my news, let me ask yours.  When are you to be
married, and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and
what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or private
wedding?  Tell me all about it, dear, tell me all about
everything, for there is nothing which interests you which
will not be dear to me.  Jonathan asks me to send his 'respectful
duty', but I do not think that is good enough from the junior
partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker.  And so, as you
love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and
tenses of the verb, I send you simply his 'love' instead.
Goodbye, my dearest Lucy, and blessings on you.

"Yours,

"Mina Harker"



REPORT FROM PATRICK HENNESSEY, MD, MRCSLK, QCPI, ETC, ETC,
TO JOHN SEWARD, MD

20 September

My dear Sir:

"In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the
conditions of everything left in my charge.  With regard to
patient, Renfield, there is more to say.  He has had another
outbreak, which might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as
it fortunately happened, was unattended with any unhappy results.
This afternoon a carrier's cart with two men made a call at the
empty house whose grounds abut on ours, the house to which, you
will remember, the patient twice ran away.  The men stopped at
our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers.

"I was myself looking out of the study window, having a
smoke after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the
house.  As he passed the window of Renfield's room, the
patient began to rate him from within, and called him all
the foul names he could lay his tongue to.  The man, who
seemed a decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling
him to 'shut up for a foul-mouthed beggar', whereon our man
accused him of robbing him and wanting to murder him and
said that he would hinder him if he were to swing for it.
I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so
he contented himself after looking the place over and making up
his mind as to what kind of place he had got to by saying, 'Lor'
bless yer, sir, I wouldn't mind what was said to me in a bloomin'
madhouse.  I pity ye and the guv'nor for havin' to live in the
house with a wild beast like that.'

"Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him where
the gate of the empty house was.  He went away followed by
threats and curses and revilings from our man.  I went down
to see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since
he is usually such a well-behaved man, and except his violent
fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred.  I found him, to my
astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner.  I
tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me
questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was
completely oblivious of the affair.  It was, I am sorry to say,
however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an
hour I heard of him again.  This time he had broken out through
the window of his room, and was running down the avenue.  I
called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I
feared he was intent on some mischief.  My fear was justified
when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming down the
road, having on it some great wooden boxes.  The men were wiping
their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with violent
exercise.  Before I could get up to him, the patient rushed at
them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his
head against the ground.  If I had not seized him just at the
moment, I believe he would have killed the man there and then.
The other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with
the butt end of his heavy whip.  It was a horrible blow, but he
did not seem to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with
the three of us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens.
You know I am no lightweight, and the others were both burly men.
At first he was silent in his fighting, but as we began to master
him, and the attendants were putting a strait waistcoat on him,
he began to shout, 'I'll frustrate them! They shan't rob me!
They shan't murder me by inches!  I'll fight for my Lord and
Master!' and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings.  It was
with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the
house and put him in the padded room.  One of the attendants,
Hardy, had a finger broken.  However, I set it all right, and he
is going on well.

"The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of
actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties
of the law on us.  Their threats were, however, mingled
with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the
two of them by a feeble madman.  They said that if it had
not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying
and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made
short work of him.  They gave as another reason for their defeat
the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced
by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible
distance from the scene of their labors of any place of public
entertainment.  I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff
glass of strong grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a
sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that
they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of
meeting so 'bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent.  I took
their names and addresses, in case they might be needed.  They
are as follows:  Jack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's
Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row,
Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of
Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard,
Soho.

"I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and
shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance.

"Believe me, dear Sir,

"Yours faithfully,

"Patrick Hennessey."



LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA (Unopened by her)

18 September

"My dearest Lucy,

"Such a sad blow has befallen us.  Mr. Hawkins has died very
suddenly.  Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had
both come to so love him that it really seems as though we
had lost a father.  I never knew either father or mother,
so that the dear old man's death is a real blow to me. Jonathan
is greatly distressed.  It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep
sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his
life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and
left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is
wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on
another account.  He says the amount of responsibility which it
puts upon him makes him nervous.  He begins to doubt himself.  I
try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a
belief in himself.  But it is here that the grave shock that he
experienced tells upon him the most.  Oh, it is too hard that a
sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his, a nature which
enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise from clerk to
master in a few years, should be so injured that the very essence
of its strength is gone.  Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my
troubles in the midst of your own happiness, but Lucy dear, I
must tell someone, for the strain of keeping up a brave and
cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here
that I can confide in.  I dread coming up to London, as we must
do that day after tomorrow, for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will
that he was to be buried in the grave with his father.  As there
are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner.
I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few
minutes.  Forgive me for troubling you.  With all blessings,

"Your loving

"Mina Harker"



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

20 September.--Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry
tonight.  I am too miserable, too low spirited, too sick of the world
and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard
this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death.  And he
has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of late, Lucy's
mother and Arthur's father, and now . . . Let me get on with my work.

I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy.  We wanted Arthur
to go to rest also, but he refused at first.  It was only when I told
him that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we
must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer,
that he agreed to go.

Van Helsing was very kind to him.  "Come, my child," he said.  "Come
with me.  You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much
mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of.
You must not be alone, for to be alone is to be full of fears and
alarms.  Come to the drawing room, where there is a big fire, and
there are two sofas.  You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and
our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do not
speak, and even if we sleep."

Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy's face,
which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn.  She lay quite
still, and I looked around the room to see that all was as it should
be.  I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, as
in the other, his purpose of using the garlic.  The whole of the
window sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy's neck, over the silk
handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet
of the same odorous flowers.

Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its
worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums.  Her teeth, in the
dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in
the morning.  In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine
teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest.

I sat down beside her, and presently she moved uneasily.  At the same
moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the window.
I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of the blind.
There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the noise was made by
a great bat, which wheeled around, doubtless attracted by the light,
although so dim, and every now and again struck the window with its
wings.  When I came back to my seat, I found that Lucy had moved
slightly, and had torn away the garlic flowers from her throat.  I
replaced them as well as I could, and sat watching her.

Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had
prescribed.  She took but a little, and that languidly.  There did not
seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength
that had hitherto so marked her illness.  It struck me as curious that
the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close
to her.  It was certainly odd that whenever she got into that
lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers
from her, but that when she waked she clutched them close, There was
no possibility of making any mistake about this, for in the long hours
that followed, she had many spells of sleeping and waking and repeated
both actions many times.

At six o'clock Van Helsing came to relieve me.  Arthur had then fallen
into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on.  When he saw Lucy's
face I could hear the hissing indraw of breath, and he said to me in a
sharp whisper.  "Draw up the blind.  I want light!"  Then he bent down,
and, with his face almost touching Lucy's, examined her carefully.  He
removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat.
As he did so he started back and I could hear his ejaculation, "Mein
Gott!" as it was smothered in his throat.  I bent over and looked,
too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me.  The wounds on
the throat had absolutely disappeared.

For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face
at its sternest.  Then he turned to me and said calmly, "She is
dying.  It will not be long now.  It will be much difference, mark me,
whether she dies conscious or in her sleep.  Wake that poor boy, and
let him come and see the last.  He trusts us, and we have promised
him."

I went to the dining room and waked him.  He was dazed for a moment,
but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the
shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear.  I assured
him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that
both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near.  He covered his
face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he
remained, perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, whilst his
shoulders shook with grief.  I took him by the hand and raised him up.
"Come," I said, "my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude.  It
will be best and easiest for her."

When we came into Lucy's room I could see that Van Helsing had, with
his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making
everything look as pleasing as possible.  He had even brushed Lucy's
hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples.  When
we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered
softly, "Arthur!  Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!"

He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back.
"No," he whispered, "not yet!  Hold her hand, it will comfort her
more."

So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best,
with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes.  Then
gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep.  For a little bit
her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired
child's.

And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed
in the night.  Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and
the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than
ever.  In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened
her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft,
voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips, "Arthur!
Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!  Kiss me!"

Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her, but at that instant Van Helsing,
who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and
catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury
of strength which I never thought he could have possessed, and
actually hurled him almost across the room.

"Not on your life!" he said, "not for your living soul and hers!"  And
he stood between them like a lion at bay.

Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do
or say, and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realized
the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting.

I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm
as of rage flit like a shadow over her face.  The sharp teeth clamped
together.  Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily.

Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and
putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great brown
one, drawing it close to her, she kissed it.  "My true friend," she
said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, "My true friend,
and his!  Oh, guard him, and give me peace!"

"I swear it!" he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his
hand, as one who registers an oath.  Then he turned to Arthur, and
said to him, "Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on
the forehead, and only once."

Their eyes met instead of their lips, and so they parted.  Lucy's eyes
closed, and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthur's
arm, and drew him away.

And then Lucy's breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it
ceased.

"It is all over," said Van Helsing.  "She is dead!"

I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawing room, where
he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way
that nearly broke me down to see.

I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy,
and his face was sterner than ever.  Some change had come over her
body.  Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and
cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines.  Even the lips had
lost their deadly pallor.  It was as if the blood, no longer needed
for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death
as little rude as might be.

"We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she died."


I stood beside Van Helsing, and said, "Ah well, poor girl, there is
peace for her at last.  It is the end!"

He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity, "Not so, alas!  Not
so.  It is only the beginning!"

When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered,
"We can do nothing as yet.  Wait and see."




CHAPTER 13


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--cont.

The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and
her mother might be buried together.  I attended to all the ghastly
formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff was
afflicted, or blessed, with something of his own obsequious suavity.
Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to
me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out
from the death chamber,

"She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir.  It's quite a privilege to
attend on her.  It's not too much to say that she will do credit to
our establishment!"

I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away.  This was possible
from the disordered state of things in the household.  There were no
relatives at hand, and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend
at his father's funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should
have been bidden.  Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it
upon ourselves to examine papers, etc.  He insisted upon looking over
Lucy's papers himself.  I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a
foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and
so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble.

He answered me, "I know, I know.  You forget that I am a lawyer as
well as a doctor.  But this is not altogether for the law.  You knew
that, when you avoided the coroner.  I have more than him to avoid.
There may be papers more, such as this."

As he spoke he took from his pocket book the memorandum which had been
in Lucy's breast, and which she had torn in her sleep.

"When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs.
Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him tonight.  For me, I watch
here in the room and in Miss Lucy's old room all night, and I myself
search for what may be.  It is not well that her very thoughts go into
the hands of strangers."

I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had found
the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor and had written to
him.  All the poor lady's papers were in order.  Explicit directions
regarding the place of burial were given.  I had hardly sealed the
letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room,
saying,

"Can I help you friend John?  I am free, and if I may, my service is
to you."

"Have you got what you looked for?" I asked.

To which he replied, "I did not look for any specific thing.  I only
hoped to find, and find I have, all that there was, only some letters
and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun.  But I have them here, and
we shall for the present say nothing of them.  I shall see that poor
lad tomorrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some."

When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me, "And now, friend
John, I think we may to bed.  We want sleep, both you and I, and rest
to recuperate.  Tomorrow we shall have much to do, but for the tonight
there is no need of us.  Alas!"

Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy.  The undertaker had
certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small
chapelle ardente.  There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers,
and death was made as little repulsive as might be.  The end of the
winding sheet was laid over the face.  When the Professor bent over
and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us.
The tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well.  All
Lucy's loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that
had passed, instead of leaving traces of 'decay's effacing fingers',
had but restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not
believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse.

The Professor looked sternly grave.  He had not loved her as I had,
and there was no need for tears in his eyes.  He said to me, "Remain
till I return," and left the room.  He came back with a handful of
wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been
opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the
bed.  Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold
crucifix, and placed it over the mouth.  He restored the sheet to its
place, and we came away.

I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the
door, he entered, and at once began to speak.

"Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem
knives."

"Must we make an autopsy?" I asked.

"Yes and no.  I want to operate, but not what you think.  Let me tell
you now, but not a word to another.  I want to cut off her head and
take out her heart.  Ah!  You a surgeon, and so shocked!  You, whom I
have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and
death that make the rest shudder.  Oh, but I must not forget, my dear
friend John, that you loved her, and I have not forgotten it for is I
that shall operate, and you must not help.  I would like to do it
tonight, but for Arthur I must not.  He will be free after his
father's funeral tomorrow, and he will want to see her, to see it.
Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and I shall
come when all sleep.  We shall unscrew the coffin lid, and shall do
our operation, and then replace all, so that none know, save we
alone."

"But why do it at all?  The girl is dead.  Why mutilate her poor body
without need?  And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and
nothing to gain by it, no good to her, to us, to science, to human
knowledge, why do it?  Without such it is monstrous."

For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite
tenderness, "Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart, and I love
you the more because it does so bleed.  If I could, I would take on
myself the burden that you do bear.  But there are things that you
know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though
they are not pleasant things.  John, my child, you have been my friend
now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good
cause?  I may err, I am but man, but I believe in all I do.  Was it
not for these causes that you send for me when the great trouble
came?  Yes!  Were you not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let
Arthur kiss his love, though she was dying, and snatched him away by
all my strength?  Yes!  And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her
so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss my
rough old hand and bless me?  Yes!  And did you not hear me swear
promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful?  Yes!

"Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do.  You have for many
years trust me.  You have believe me weeks past, when there be things
so strange that you might have well doubt.  Believe me yet a little,
friend John.  If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think, and
that is not perhaps well.  And if I work, as work I shall, no matter
trust or no trust, without my friend trust in me, I work with heavy
heart and feel oh so lonely when I want all help and courage that may
be!"  He paused a moment and went on solemnly, "Friend John, there are
strange and terrible days before us.  Let us not be two, but one, that
so we work to a good end.  Will you not have faith in me?"

I took his hand, and promised him.  I held my door open as he went
away, and watched him go to his room and close the door.  As I stood
without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the
passage, she had her back to me, so did not see me, and go into the
room where Lucy lay.  The sight touched me.  Devotion is so rare, and
we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love.  Here
was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of
death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so
that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.

I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van
Helsing waked me by coming into my room.  He came over to my bedside
and said, "You need not trouble about the knives.  We shall not do
it."

"Why not?" I asked.  For his solemnity of the night before had
greatly impressed me.

"Because," he said sternly, "it is too late, or too early.  See!"
Here he held up the little golden crucifix.

"This was stolen in the night."

"How stolen," I asked in wonder, "since you have it now?"

"Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from
the woman who robbed the dead and the living.  Her punishment will
surely come, but not through me.  She knew not altogether what she
did, and thus unknowing, she only stole.  Now we must wait."  He went
away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a new
puzzle to grapple with.

The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came, Mr.
Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale.  He was very
genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our
hands all cares as to details.  During lunch he told us that Mrs.
Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and
had put her affairs in absolute order.  He informed us that, with the
exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy's father which now,
in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the
family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to
Arthur Holmwood.  When he had told us so much he went on,

"Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition,
and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter
either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a
matrimonial alliance.  Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we
almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not
prepared to carry out her wishes.  Of course, we had then no
alternative but to accept.  We were right in principle, and
ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic
of events, the accuracy of our judgment.

"Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of
disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her
wishes.  For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have
come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived
her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no
will, and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case, have
been treated at her decease as under intestacy.  In which case Lord
Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the
world.  And the inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to
abandon their just rights, for sentimental reasons regarding an entire
stranger.  I assure you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result,
perfectly rejoiced."

He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part, in
which he was officially interested, of so great a tragedy, was an
object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding.

He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and
see Lord Godalming.  His coming, however, had been a certain comfort
to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile
criticism as to any of our acts.  Arthur was expected at five o'clock,
so a little before that time we visited the death chamber.  It was so
in very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it.  The
undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of
his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered
our spirits at once.

Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to,
explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be
less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his fiancee
quite alone.

The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted himself
to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night
before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we
could avoid were saved.

Poor fellow!  He looked desperately sad and broken.  Even his stalwart
manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his
much-tried emotions.  He had, I knew, been very genuinely and
devotedly attached to his father, and to lose him, and at such a time,
was a bitter blow to him.  With me he was warm as ever, and to Van
Helsing he was sweetly courteous.  But I could not help seeing that
there was some constraint with him.  The professor noticed it too, and
motioned me to bring him upstairs.  I did so, and left him at the door
of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone with her, but
he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily,

"You loved her too, old fellow.  She told me all about it, and there
was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you.  I don't know
how to thank you for all you have done for her.  I can't think
yet . . ."

Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and
laid his head on my breast, crying, "Oh, Jack!  Jack!  What shall I
do?  The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is
nothing in the wide world for me to live for."

I comforted him as well as I could.  In such cases men do not need
much expression.  A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over
the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a
man's heart.  I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and
then I said softly to him, "Come and look at her."

Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her
face.  God!  How beautiful she was.  Every hour seemed to be enhancing
her loveliness.  It frightened and amazed me somewhat.  And as for
Arthur, he fell to trembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as
with an ague.  At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint
whisper, "Jack, is she really dead?"

I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest, for I felt
that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer
than I could help, that it often happened that after death faces
become softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty, that
this was especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or
prolonged suffering.  I seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and
after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her
lovingly and long, he turned aside.  I told him that that must be
goodbye, as the coffin had to be prepared, so he went back and took
her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her
forehead.  He came away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her
as he came.

I left him in the drawing room, and told Van Helsing that he had said
goodbye, so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker's
men to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin.  When
he came out of the room again I told him of Arthur's question, and he
replied, "I am not surprised.  Just now I doubted for a moment
myself!"

We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to
make the best of things.  Van Helsing had been silent all dinner time,
but when we had lit our cigars he said, "Lord . . ." but Arthur
interrupted him.

"No, no, not that, for God's sake!  Not yet at any rate.  Forgive me,
sir.  I did not mean to speak offensively.  It is only because my loss
is so recent."

The Professor answered very sweetly, "I only used that name because I
was in doubt.  I must not call you 'Mr.' and I have grown to love you,
yes, my dear boy, to love you, as Arthur."

Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man's warmly.  "Call me
what you will," he said.  "I hope I may always have the title of a
friend.  And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for
your goodness to my poor dear."  He paused a moment, and went on, "I
know that she understood your goodness even better than I do.  And if
I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted so, you
remember"--the Professor nodded--"you must forgive me."

He answered with a grave kindness, "I know it was hard for you to
quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand,
and I take it that you do not, that you cannot, trust me now, for you
do not yet understand.  And there may be more times when I shall want
you to trust when you cannot, and may not, and must not yet
understand.  But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and
complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight
himself shone through.  Then you shall bless me from first to last for
your own sake, and for the sake of others, and for her dear sake to
whom I swore to protect."

"And indeed, indeed, sir," said Arthur warmly.  "I shall in all ways
trust you.  I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you
are Jack's friend, and you were hers.  You shall do what you like."

The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to
speak, and finally said, "May I ask you something now?"

"Certainly."

"You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?"

"No, poor dear.  I never thought of it."

"And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will.
I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's papers and
letters.  Believe me, it is no idle curiosity.  I have a motive of
which, be sure, she would have approved.  I have them all here.  I
took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand
might touch them, no strange eye look through words into her soul.  I
shall keep them, if I may.  Even you may not see them yet, but I shall
keep them safe.  No word shall be lost, and in the good time I shall
give them back to you.  It is a hard thing that I ask, but you will do
it, will you not, for Lucy's sake?"

Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self, "Dr. Van Helsing, you
may do what you will.  I feel that in saying this I am doing what my
dear one would have approved.  I shall not trouble you with questions
till the time comes."

The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly, "And you are right.
There will be pain for us all, but it will not be all pain, nor will
this pain be the last.  We and you too, you most of all, dear boy,
will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet.
But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all
will be well!"

I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night.  Van Helsing did not go
to bed at all.  He went to and fro, as if patroling the house, and was
never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn
with the wild garlic flowers, which sent through the odour of lily and
rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night.




MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

22 September.--In the train to Exeter.  Jonathan sleeping.  It seems
only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between
then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news
of him, and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner,
rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and
Jonathan with another attack that may harm him.  Some day he may ask
me about it.  Down it all goes.  I am rusty in my shorthand, see what
unexpected prosperity does for us, so it may be as well to freshen it
up again with an exercise anyhow.

The service was very simple and very solemn.  There were only
ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from
Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John
Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society.  Jonathan and I
stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was
gone from us.

We came back to town quietly, taking a bus to Hyde Park Corner.
Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while,
so we sat down.  But there were very few people there, and it was
sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs.  It made us
think of the empty chair at home.  So we got up and walked down
Piccadilly.  Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in
the old days before I went to school.  I felt it very improper, for
you can't go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other
girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit.  But it
was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn't know anybody who
saw us, and we didn't care if they did, so on we walked.  I was
looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in
a victoria outside Guiliano's, when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so
tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath, "My God!"

I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit
may upset him again.  So I turned to him quickly, and asked him what
it was that disturbed him.

He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror
and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose
and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the
pretty girl.  He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either
of us, and so I had a good view of him.  His face was not a good
face.  It was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and big white teeth, that
looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like
an animal's.  Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would
notice.  I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty.
I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently
thinking that I knew as much about it as he did, "Do you see who it
is?"

"No, dear," I said.  "I don't know him, who is it?"  His answer seemed
to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it
was me, Mina, to whom he was speaking.  "It is the man himself!"

The poor dear was evidently terrified at something, very greatly
terrified.  I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to
support him he would have sunk down.  He kept staring.  A man came out
of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then
drove off.  The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the
carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and
hailed a hansom.  Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to
himself,

"I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young.  My God, if this
be so!  Oh, my God!  My God!  If only I knew!  If only I knew!"  He was
distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the
subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent.  I drew
away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily.  We walked a little
further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park.  It
was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady
place.  After a few minutes' staring at nothing, Jonathan's eyes
closed, and he went quickly into a sleep, with his head on my
shoulder.  I thought it was the best thing for him, so did not disturb
him.  In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said to me quite
cheerfully,

"Why, Mina, have I been asleep!  Oh, do forgive me for being so rude.
Come, and we'll have a cup of tea somewhere."

He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in his
illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of.  I
don't like this lapsing into forgetfulness.  It may make or continue
some injury to the brain.  I must not ask him, for fear I shall do
more harm than good, but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey
abroad.  The time is come, I fear, when I must open the parcel, and
know what is written.  Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know, forgive me if I
do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake.


Later.--A sad homecoming in every way, the house empty of the dear
soul who was so good to us.  Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a
slight relapse of his malady, and now a telegram from Van Helsing,
whoever he may be.  "You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra
died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday.  They
were both buried today."

Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words!  Poor Mrs. Westenra!  Poor
Lucy!  Gone, gone, never to return to us!  And poor, poor Arthur, to
have lost such a sweetness out of his life!  God help us all to bear
our troubles.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY-CONT.

22 September.--It is all over.  Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has
taken Quincey Morris with him.  What a fine fellow is Quincey!  I
believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy's
death as any of us, but he bore himself through it like a moral
Viking.  If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a
power in the world indeed.  Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest
preparatory to his journey.  He goes to Amsterdam tonight, but says he
returns tomorrow night, that he only wants to make some arrangements
which can only be made personally.  He is to stop with me then, if he
can.  He says he has work to do in London which may take him some
time.  Poor old fellow!  I fear that the strain of the past week has
broken down even his iron strength.  All the time of the burial he
was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on himself.  When it
was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was
speaking of his part in the operation where his blood had been
transfused to his Lucy's veins.  I could see Van Helsing's face grow
white and purple by turns.  Arthur was saying that he felt since then
as if they two had been really married, and that she was his wife in
the sight of God.  None of us said a word of the other operations, and
none of us ever shall.  Arthur and Quincey went away together to the
station, and Van Helsing and I came on here.  The moment we were alone
in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics.  He has
denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was
only his sense of humor asserting itself under very terrible
conditions.  He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down the
blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge.  And then he cried,
till he laughed again, and laughed and cried together, just as a woman
does.  I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the
circumstances, but it had no effect.  Men and women are so different
in manifestations of nervous strength or weakness!  Then when his face
grew grave and stern again I asked him why his mirth, and why at such
a time.  His reply was in a way characteristic of him, for it was
logical and forceful and mysterious.  He said,

"Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John.  Do not think that I am not
sad, though I laugh.  See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke
me.  But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh
he come just the same.  Keep it always with you that laughter who
knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not true laughter.
No!  He is a king, and he come when and how he like.  He ask no
person, he choose no time of suitability.  He say, 'I am here.'
Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young
girl.  I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn.  I give my
time, my skill, my sleep.  I let my other sufferers want that she may
have all.  And yet I can laugh at her very grave, laugh when the clay
from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say 'Thud,
thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek.  My
heart bleed for that poor boy, that dear boy, so of the age of mine
own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes
the same.

"There, you know now why I love him so.  And yet when he say things
that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my father-heart
yearn to him as to no other man, not even you, friend John, for we are
more level in experiences than father and son, yet even at such a
moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, 'Here I
am!  Here I am!' till the blood come dance back and bring some of the
sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek.  Oh, friend John, it is a
strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and
troubles.  And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the
tune he play.  Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and
tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he
make with that smileless mouth of him.  And believe me, friend John,
that he is good to come, and kind.  Ah, we men and women are like
ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways.  Then tears
come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps
the strain become too great, and we break.  But King Laugh he come
like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go
on with our labor, what it may be."

I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea, but as
I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked him.  As
he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a different
tone,

"Oh, it was the grim irony of it all, this so lovely lady garlanded
with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we wondered
if she were truly dead, she laid in that so fine marble house in that
lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her kin, laid there with the
mother who loved her, and whom she loved, and that sacred bell going
'Toll!  Toll!  Toll!' so sad and slow, and those holy men, with the
white garments of the angel, pretending to read books, and yet all the
time their eyes never on the page, and all of us with the bowed head.
And all for what?  She is dead, so!  Is it not?"

"Well, for the life of me, Professor," I said, "I can't see anything
to laugh at in all that.  Why, your expression makes it a harder
puzzle than before.  But even if the burial service was comic, what
about poor Art and his trouble?  Why his heart was simply breaking."

"Just so.  Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins
had made her truly his bride?"

"Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him."

"Quite so.  But there was a difficulty, friend John.  If so that, then
what about the others?  Ho, ho!  Then this so sweet maid is a
polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by
Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful
husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist."

"I don't see where the joke comes in there either!" I said, and I did
not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things.  He
laid his hand on my arm, and said,

"Friend John, forgive me if I pain.  I showed not my feeling to others
when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust.
If you could have looked into my heart then when I want to laugh, if
you could have done so when the laugh arrived, if you could do so now,
when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him, for he
go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time, maybe you would
perhaps pity me the most of all."

I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why.

"Because I know!"

And now we are all scattered, and for many a long day loneliness will
sit over our roofs with brooding wings.  Lucy lies in the tomb of her
kin, a lordly death house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming
London, where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill,
and where wild flowers grow of their own accord.

So I can finish this diary, and God only knows if I shall ever begin
another.  If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal
with different people and different themes, for here at the end, where
the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of
my life-work, I say sadly and without hope, "FINIS".




THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY

The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised
with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel
to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as
"The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The
Woman in Black."  During the past two or three days several
cases have occurred of young children straying from home or
neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath.  In
all these cases the children were too young to give any
properly intelligible account of themselves, but the
consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a
"bloofer lady."  It has always been late in the evening when
they have been missed, and on two occasions the children
have not been found until early in the following morning.
It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the
first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a
"bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others
had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served.  This
is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones
at present is luring each other away by wiles.  A correspondent
writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the
"bloofer lady" is supremely funny.  Some of our caricaturists
might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by
comparing the reality and the picture.  It is only in accordance
with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady"
should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.  Our
correspondent naively says that even Ellen Terry could not be so
winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little
children pretend, and even imagine themselves, to be.

There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question,
for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed
at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat.
The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small
dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend
to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method
of its own.  The police of the division have been instructed to
keep a sharp lookout for straying children, especially when very
young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which
may be about.




THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER EXTRA SPECIAL

THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR


ANOTHER CHILD INJURED

THE "BLOOFER LADY"

We have just received intelligence that another child,
missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning
under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead
Heath, which is perhaps, less frequented than the other
parts.  It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has
been noticed in other cases.  It was terribly weak, and
looked quite emaciated.  It too, when partially restored,
had the common story to tell of being lured away by the
"bloofer lady".




CHAPTER 14


MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

23 September.--Jonathan is better after a bad night.  I am so glad
that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the
terrible things, and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down
with the responsibility of his new position.  I knew he would be true
to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the
height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties
that come upon him.  He will be away all day till late, for he said he
could not lunch at home.  My household work is done, so I shall take
his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it.


24 September.--I hadn't the heart to write last night, that terrible
record of Jonathan's upset me so.  Poor dear!  How he must have
suffered, whether it be true or only imagination.  I wonder if there
is any truth in it at all.  Did he get his brain fever, and then write
all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all?  I suppose
I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.  And yet
that man we saw yesterday!  He seemed quite certain of him, poor
fellow!  I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back
on some train of thought.

He believes it all himself.  I remember how on our wedding day he said
"Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours,
asleep or awake, mad or sane . . ."  There seems to be through it all
some thread of continuity.  That fearful Count was coming to London.
If it should be, and he came to London, with its teeming millions . . .
There may be a solemn duty, and if it come we must not shrink from
it.  I shall be prepared.  I shall get my typewriter this very hour
and begin transcribing.  Then we shall be ready for other eyes if
required.  And if it be wanted, then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor
Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him
be troubled or worried with it at all.  If ever Jonathan quite gets
over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask
him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him.




LETTER, VAN HELSING TO MRS. HARKER

24 September

(Confidence)

"Dear Madam,

"I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far
friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy
Westenra's death.  By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am
empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply
concerned about certain matters vitally important.  In them
I find some letters from you, which show how great friends
you were and how you love her.  Oh, Madam Mina, by that
love, I implore you, help me.  It is for others' good that
I ask, to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible
troubles, that may be more great than you can know.  May it be
that I see you?  You can trust me.  I am friend of Dr. John
Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy).  I
must keep it private for the present from all.  I should come to
Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come,
and where and when.  I implore your pardon, Madam.  I have read
your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your
husband suffer.  So I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not,
least it may harm.  Again your pardon, and forgive me.

"VAN HELSING"




TELEGRAM, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING

25 September.--Come today by quarter past ten train if you
can catch it.  Can see you any time you call.
"WILHELMINA HARKER"




MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

25 September.--I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time
draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that
it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience, and as he
attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about
her.  That is the reason of his coming.  It is concerning Lucy and her
sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan.  Then I shall never know the
real truth now!  How silly I am.  That awful journal gets hold of my
imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour.  Of
course it is about Lucy.  That habit came back to the poor dear, and
that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill.  I had almost
forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards.  She must have
told him of her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew
all about it, and now he wants me to tell him what I know, so that he
may understand.  I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to
Mrs. Westenra.  I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were
it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy.  I hope too,
Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me.  I have had so much trouble and
anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present.

I suppose a cry does us all good at times, clears the air as other
rain does.  Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset
me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a
whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our
marriage.  I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and
that nothing will occur to upset him.  It is two o'clock, and the
doctor will be here soon now.  I shall say nothing of Jonathan's
journal unless he asks me.  I am so glad I have typewritten out my own
journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him.
It will save much questioning.

Later.--He has come and gone.  Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it
all makes my head whirl round.  I feel like one in a dream.  Can it be
all possible, or even a part of it?  If I had not read Jonathan's
journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility.  Poor,
poor, dear Jonathan!  How he must have suffered.  Please the good God,
all this may not upset him again.  I shall try to save him from it.
But it may be even a consolation and a help to him, terrible though it
be and awful in its consequences, to know for certain that his eyes
and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true.  It
may be that it is the doubt which haunts him, that when the doubt is
removed, no matter which, waking or dreaming, may prove the truth, he
will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock.  Dr. Van
Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's
friend and Dr. Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from
Holland to look after Lucy.  I feel from having seen him that he is
good and kind and of a noble nature.  When he comes tomorrow I shall
ask him about Jonathan.  And then, please God, all this sorrow and
anxiety may lead to a good end.  I used to think I would like to
practice interviewing.  Jonathan's friend on "The Exeter News" told
him that memory is everything in such work, that you must be able to
put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine
some of it afterwards.  Here was a rare interview.  I shall try to
record it verbatim.

It was half-past two o'clock when the knock came.  I took my courage a
deux mains and waited.  In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and
announced "Dr. Van Helsing".

I rose and bowed, and he came towards me, a man of medium weight,
strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest
and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck.  The
poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and
power.  The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the
ears.  The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large
resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with
quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows
come down and the mouth tightens.  The forehead is broad and fine,
rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps
or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot
possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides.
Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or
stern with the man's moods.  He said to me,

"Mrs. Harker, is it not?"  I bowed assent.

"That was Miss Mina Murray?"  Again I assented.

"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear
child Lucy Westenra.  Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead that I
come."

"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you
were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra."  And I held out my hand.
He took it and said tenderly,

"Oh, Madam Mina, I know that the friend of that poor little girl must
be good, but I had yet to learn . . ."  He finished his speech with a
courtly bow.  I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about,
so he at once began.

"I have read your letters to Miss Lucy.  Forgive me, but I had to
begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask.  I know that
you were with her at Whitby.  She sometimes kept a diary, you need not
look surprised, Madam Mina.  It was begun after you had left, and was
an imitation of you, and in that diary she traces by inference certain
things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her.
In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so
much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember."

"I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it."

"Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details?  It is not
always so with young ladies."

"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time.  I can show it to
you if you like."

"Oh, Madam Mina, I well be grateful.  You will do me much favour."

I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose
it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our
mouths, so I handed him the shorthand diary.  He took it with a
grateful bow, and said, "May I read it?"

"If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could.  He opened it, and
for an instant his face fell.  Then he stood up and bowed.

"Oh, you so clever woman!" he said.  "I knew long that Mr. Jonathan
was a man of much thankfulness, but see, his wife have all the good
things.  And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read
it for me?  Alas!  I know not the shorthand."

By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed.  So I
took the typewritten copy from my work basket and handed it to him.

"Forgive me," I said.  "I could not help it, but I had been thinking
that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might
not have time to wait, not on my account, but because I know your time
must be precious, I have written it out on the typewriter for you."

He took it and his eyes glistened.  "You are so good," he said.  "And
may I read it now?  I may want to ask you some things when I have
read."

"By all means," I said, "read it over whilst I order lunch, and then
you can ask me questions whilst we eat."

He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light,
and became so absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch
chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed.  When I came back, I
found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze
with excitement.  He rushed up to me and took me by both hands.

"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you?  This
paper is as sunshine.  It opens the gate to me.  I am dazed, I am
dazzled, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light
every time.  But that you do not, cannot comprehend.  Oh, but I am
grateful to you, you so clever woman.  Madame," he said this very
solemnly, "if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or
yours, I trust you will let me know.  It will be pleasure and delight
if I may serve you as a friend, as a friend, but all I have ever
learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love.  There
are darknesses in life, and there are lights.  You are one of the
lights.  You will have a happy life and a good life, and your husband
will be blessed in you."

"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and you do not know me."

"Not know you, I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and
women, I who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to
him and all that follow from him!  And I have read your diary that you
have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every
line.  I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your
marriage and your trust, not know you!  Oh, Madam Mina, good women
tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such
things that angels can read.  And we men who wish to know have in us
something of angels' eyes.  Your husband is noble nature, and you are
noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean
nature.  And your husband, tell me of him.  Is he quite well?  Is all
that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?"

I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said, "He was
almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins death."

He interrupted, "Oh, yes.  I know.  I know.  I have read your last two
letters."

I went on, "I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on
Thursday last he had a sort of shock."

"A shock, and after brain fever so soon!  That is not good.  What kind
of shock was it?"

"He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something
which led to his brain fever."  And here the whole thing seemed to
overwhelm me in a rush.  The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he
experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that
has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult.  I suppose
I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands
to him, and implored him to make my husband well again.  He took my
hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me.  He
held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness,

"My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have
not had much time for friendships, but since I have been summoned to
here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and
seen such nobility that I feel more than ever, and it has grown with
my advancing years, the loneliness of my life.  Believe me, then, that
I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope, hope,
not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left
to make life happy, good women, whose lives and whose truths may make
good lesson for the children that are to be.  I am glad, glad, that I
may here be of some use to you.  For if your husband suffer, he suffer
within the range of my study and experience.  I promise you that I
will gladly do all for him that I can, all to make his life strong and
manly, and your life a happy one.  Now you must eat.  You are
overwrought and perhaps over-anxious.  Husband Jonathan would not like
to see you so pale, and what he like not where he love, is not to his
good.  Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile.  You have told
me about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress.
I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what you
have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I
may.  And then too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so
far as you can, but not yet.  You must eat now, afterwards you shall
tell me all."

After lunch, when we went back to the drawing room, he said to me,
"And now tell me all about him."

When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear
that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman, that
journal is all so strange, and I hesitated to go on.  But he was so
sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I
said,

"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must
not laugh at me or at my husband.  I have been since yesterday in a
sort of fever of doubt.  You must be kind to me, and not think me
foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things."

He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said, "Oh,
my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I
am here, it is you who would laugh.  I have learned not to think
little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be.  I have
tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life
that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things,
the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane."

"Thank you, thank you a thousand times!  You have taken a weight off my
mind.  If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read.  It is
long, but I have typewritten it out.  It will tell you my trouble and
Jonathan's.  It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that
happened.  I dare not say anything of it.  You will read for yourself
and judge.  And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind
and tell me what you think."

"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers.  "I shall in the
morning, as soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I
may."

"Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch
with us and see him then.  You could catch the quick 3:34 train, which
will leave you at Paddington before eight."  He was surprised at my
knowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not know that I have made
up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in
case he is in a hurry.

So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking,
thinking I don't know what.




LETTER (by hand), VAN HELSING TO MRS. HARKER

25 September, 6 o'clock

"Dear Madam Mina,

"I have read your husband's so wonderful diary.  You may
sleep without doubt.  Strange and terrible as it is, it is
true!  I will pledge my life on it.  It may be worse for
others, but for him and you there is no dread.  He is a
noble fellow, and let me tell you from experience of men,
that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and
to that room, aye, and going a second time, is not one to
be injured in permanence by a shock.  His brain and his
heart are all right, this I swear, before I have even seen
him, so be at rest.  I shall have much to ask him of other
things.  I am blessed that today I come to see you, for I
have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzled,
dazzled more than ever, and I must think.

"Yours the most faithful,

"Abraham Van Helsing."


LETTER, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING

25 September, 6:30 P.M.

"My dear Dr. Van Helsing,

"A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a
great weight off my mind.  And yet, if it be true, what
terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful
thing if that man, that monster, be really in London!  I
fear to think.  I have this moment, whilst writing, had a
wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25 tonight
from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have
no fear tonight.  Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with
us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock, if this be not too
early for you?  You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the
10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35.  Do not
answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will
come to breakfast.

"Believe me,

"Your faithful and grateful friend,

"Mina Harker."





JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

26 September.--I thought never to write in this diary again, but the
time has come.  When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and
when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her
having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she
has been about me.  She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I
wrote down was true.  It seems to have made a new man of me.  It was
the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over.
I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful.  But, now that I
know, I am not afraid, even of the Count.  He has succeeded after all,
then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw.  He has
got younger, and how?  Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt
him out, if he is anything like what Mina says.  We sat late, and
talked it over.  Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a
few minutes and bring him over.


He was, I think, surprised to see me.  When I came into the room where
he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned
my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny,

"But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock."

It was so funny to hear my wife called 'Madam Mina' by this kindly,
strong-faced old man.  I smiled, and said, "I was ill, I have had a
shock, but you have cured me already."

"And how?"

"By your letter to Mina last night.  I was in doubt, and then
everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust,
even the evidence of my own senses.  Not knowing what to trust, I did
not know what to do, and so had only to keep on working in what had
hitherto been the groove of my life.  The groove ceased to avail me,
and I mistrusted myself.  Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt
everything, even yourself.  No, you don't, you couldn't with eyebrows
like yours."

He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said, "So!  You are a
physiognomist.  I learn more here with each hour.  I am with so much
pleasure coming to you to breakfast, and, oh, sir, you will pardon
praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife."

I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply
nodded and stood silent.

"She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men
and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that
its light can be here on earth.  So true, so sweet, so noble, so
little an egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so
sceptical and selfish.  And you, sir . . . I have read all the letters
to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since
some days from the knowing of others, but I have seen your true self
since last night.  You will give me your hand, will you not?  And let
us be friends for all our lives."

We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me
quite choky.

"And now," he said, "may I ask you for some more help?  I have a great
task to do, and at the beginning it is to know.  You can help me
here.  Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania?
Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind, but at first
this will do."

"Look here, Sir," I said, "does what you have to do concern the
Count?"

"It does," he said solemnly.

"Then I am with you heart and soul.  As you go by the 10:30 train, you
will not have time to read them, but I shall get the bundle of papers.
You can take them with you and read them in the train."

After breakfast I saw him to the station.  When we were parting he
said, "Perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and take Madam
Mina too."

"We shall both come when you will," I said.

I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous
night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for
the train to start, he was turning them over.  His eyes suddenly
seemed to catch something in one of them, "The Westminster Gazette", I
knew it by the colour, and he grew quite white.  He read something
intently, groaning to himself, "Mein Gott!  Mein Gott!  So soon!  So
soon!"  I do not think he remembered me at the moment.  Just then the
whistle blew, and the train moved off.  This recalled him to himself,
and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out, "Love
to Madam Mina.  I shall write so soon as ever I can."




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

26 September.--Truly there is no such thing as finality.  Not a week
since I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh again, or
rather going on with the record.  Until this afternoon I had no cause
to think of what is done.  Renfield had become, to all intents, as
sane as he ever was.  He was already well ahead with his fly business,
and he had just started in the spider line also, so he had not been of
any trouble to me.  I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and
from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well.  Quincey
Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a
bubbling well of good spirits.  Quincey wrote me a line too, and from
him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old
buoyancy, so as to them all my mind is at rest.  As for myself, I was
settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for
it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy
left on me was becoming cicatrised.

Everything is, however, now reopened, and what is to be the end God
only knows.  I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but
he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity.  He went to
Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night.  Today he came back, and
almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o'clock, and
thrust last night's "Westminster Gazette" into my hand.

"What do you think of that?" he asked as he stood back and folded his
arms.

I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant, but
he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being
decoyed away at Hampstead.  It did not convey much to me, until I
reached a passage where it described small puncture wounds on their
throats.  An idea struck me, and I looked up.

"Well?" he said.

"It is like poor Lucy's."

"And what do you make of it?"

"Simply that there is some cause in common.  Whatever it was that
injured her has injured them."  I did not quite understand his answer.

"That is true indirectly, but not directly."

"How do you mean, Professor?" I asked.  I was a little inclined to
take his seriousness lightly, for, after all, four days of rest and
freedom from burning, harrowing, anxiety does help to restore one's
spirits, but when I saw his face, it sobered me.  Never, even in the
midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern.

"Tell me!" I said.  "I can hazard no opinion.  I do not know what to
think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture."

"Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to
what poor Lucy died of, not after all the hints given, not only by
events, but by me?"

"Of nervous prostration following a great loss or waste of blood."

"And how was the blood lost or wasted?"  I shook my head.

He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on, "You are a clever
man, friend John.  You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are
too prejudiced.  You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and
that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you.  Do
you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and
yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot?  But
there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's
eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other
men have told them.  Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants
to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing
to explain.  But yet we see around us every day the growth of new
beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old,
which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera.  I
suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference.  No?  Nor in
materialization.  No?  Nor in astral bodies.  No?  Nor in the reading
of thought.  No?  Nor in hypnotism . . ."

"Yes," I said.  "Charcot has proved that pretty well."

He smiled as he went on, "Then you are satisfied as to it.  Yes?  And
of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of
the great Charcot, alas that he is no more, into the very soul of the
patient that he influence.  No?  Then, friend John, am I to take it
that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to
conclusion be a blank?  No?  Then tell me, for I am a student of the
brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading.  Let
me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical
science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who
discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been
burned as wizards.  There are always mysteries in life.  Why was it
that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred
and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her
poor veins, could not live even one day?  For, had she live one more
day, we could save her.  Do you know all the mystery of life and
death?  Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say
wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others?
Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one
great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish
church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil
of all the church lamps?  Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and
elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins of
cattle and horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands of the
Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those
who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the
sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them
and then, and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even
Miss Lucy was?"

"Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up.  "Do you mean to tell me
that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is here in
London in the nineteenth century?"

He waved his hand for silence, and went on, "Can you tell me why the
tortoise lives more long than generations of men, why the elephant
goes on and on till he have sees dynasties, and why the parrot never
die only of bite of cat of dog or other complaint?  Can you tell me
why men believe in all ages and places that there are men and women
who cannot die?  We all know, because science has vouched for the
fact, that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of
years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of
the world.  Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to
die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it,
and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and
then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the
Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as
before?"

Here I interrupted him.  I was getting bewildered.  He so crowded on
my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible
impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired.  I had a dim
idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in
his study at Amsterdam.  But he used them to tell me the thing, so
that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time.  But now
I was without his help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said,

"Professor, let me be your pet student again.  Tell me the thesis, so
that I may apply your knowledge as you go on.  At present I am going
in my mind from point to point as a madman, and not a sane one,
follows an idea.  I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a
midst, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to
move on without knowing where I am going."

"That is a good image," he said.  "Well, I shall tell you.  My thesis
is this, I want you to believe."

"To believe what?"

"To believe in things that you cannot.  Let me illustrate.  I heard
once of an American who so defined faith, 'that faculty which enables
us to believe things which we know to be untrue.'  For one, I follow
that man.  He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a
little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock
does a railway truck.  We get the small truth first.  Good!  We keep
him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think
himself all the truth in the universe."

"Then you want me not to let some previous conviction inure the
receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter.  Do I read
your lesson aright?"

"Ah, you are my favourite pupil still.  It is worth to teach you.  Now
that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to
understand.  You think then that those so small holes in the
children's throats were made by the same that made the holes in Miss
Lucy?"

"I suppose so."

He stood up and said solemnly, "Then you are wrong.  Oh, would it were
so!  But alas!  No.  It is worse, far, far worse."

"In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I cried.

He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed
his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke.

"They were made by Miss Lucy!"




CHAPTER 15


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY-cont.

For a while sheer anger mastered me.  It was as if he had during her
life struck Lucy on the face.  I smote the table hard and rose up as I
said to him, "Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?"

He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his
face calmed me at once.  "Would I were!" he said.  "Madness were easy
to bear compared with truth like this.  Oh, my friend, why, think
you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell so simple a
thing?  Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life?  Was
it because I wished to give you pain?  Was it that I wanted, now so
late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful
death?  Ah no!"

"Forgive me," said I.

He went on, "My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the
breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady.  But
even yet I do not expect you to believe.  It is so hard to accept at
once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we
have always believed the 'no' of it.  It is more hard still to accept
so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy.  Tonight I go
to prove it.  Dare you come with me?"

This staggered me.  A man does not like to prove such a truth, Byron
excepted from the category, jealousy.

    "And prove the very truth he most abhorred."

He saw my hesitation, and spoke, "The logic is simple, no madman's
logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog.  If
it not be true, then proof will be relief.  At worst it will not harm.
If it be true!  Ah, there is the dread.  Yet every dread should help my
cause, for in it is some need of belief.  Come, I tell you what I
propose.  First, that we go off now and see that child in the
hospital.  Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say
the child is, is a friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were
in class at Amsterdam.  He will let two scientists see his case, if he
will not let two friends.  We shall tell him nothing, but only that we
wish to learn.  And then . . ."

"And then?"

He took a key from his pocket and held it up.  "And then we spend the
night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies.  This is the key
that lock the tomb.  I had it from the coffin man to give to Arthur."

My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal
before us.  I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I
could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was
passing.

We found the child awake.  It had had a sleep and taken some food, and
altogether was going on well.  Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its
throat, and showed us the punctures.  There was no mistaking the
similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat.  They were
smaller, and the edges looked fresher, that was all.  We asked Vincent
to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a
bite of some animal, perhaps a rat, but for his own part, he was
inclined to think it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the
northern heights of London.  "Out of so many harmless ones," he said,
"there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant
species.  Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to
escape, or even from the Zoological Gardens a young one may have got
loose, or one be bred there from a vampire.  These things do occur,
you, know.  Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe,
traced up in this direction.  For a week after, the children were
playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in
the place until this 'bloofer lady' scare came along, since then it
has been quite a gala time with them.  Even this poor little mite,
when he woke up today, asked the nurse if he might go away.  When she
asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the
'bloofer lady'."

"I hope," said Van Helsing, "that when you are sending the child home
you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it.  These
fancies to stray are most dangerous, and if the child were to remain
out another night, it would probably be fatal.  But in any case I
suppose you will not let it away for some days?"

"Certainly not, not for a week at least, longer if the wound is not
healed."

Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and
the sun had dipped before we came out.  When Van Helsing saw how dark
it was, he said,

"There is not hurry.  It is more late than I thought.  Come, let us
seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way."

We dined at 'Jack Straw's Castle' along with a little crowd of
bicyclists and others who were genially noisy.  About ten o'clock we
started from the inn.  It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps
made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual
radius.  The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for
he went on unhesitatingly, but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as
to locality.  As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till
at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of
horse police going their usual suburban round.  At last we reached the
wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over.  With some little
difficulty, for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so
strange to us, we found the Westenra tomb.  The Professor took the
key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite
unconsciously, motioned me to precede him.  There was a delicious
irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a
ghastly occasion.  My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously
drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a
falling, and not a spring one.  In the latter case we should have been
in a bad plight.  Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a
matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light.  The tomb
in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim
and gruesome enough, but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers
hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to
browns, when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed
dominance, when the time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar,
and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating
gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more
miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.  It conveyed
irresistibly the idea that life, animal life, was not the only thing
which could pass away.

Van Helsing went about his work systematically.  Holding his candle so
that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm
dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he
made assurance of Lucy's coffin.  Another search in his bag, and he
took out a turnscrew.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"To open the coffin.  You shall yet be convinced."

Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the
lid, showing the casing of lead beneath.  The sight was almost too
much for me.  It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it
would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst
living.  I actually took hold of his hand to stop him.

He only said, "You shall see," and again fumbling in his bag took out
a tiny fret saw.  Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift
downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was,
however, big enough to admit the point of the saw.  I had expected a
rush of gas from the week-old corpse.  We doctors, who have had to
study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I
drew back towards the door.  But the Professor never stopped for a
moment.  He sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead
coffin, and then across, and down the other side.  Taking the edge of
the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and
holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look.

I drew near and looked.  The coffin was empty.  It was certainly a
surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was
unmoved.  He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so
emboldened to proceed in his task.  "Are you satisfied now, friend
John?" he asked.

I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as
I answered him, "I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that
coffin, but that only proves one thing."

"And what is that, friend John?"

"That it is not there."

"That is good logic," he said, "so far as it goes.  But how do you,
how can you, account for it not being there?"

"Perhaps a body-snatcher," I suggested.  "Some of the undertaker's
people may have stolen it."  I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet
it was the only real cause which I could suggest.

The Professor sighed.  "Ah well!" he said, "we must have more proof.
Come with me."

He put on the coffin lid again, gathered up all his things and placed
them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the
bag.  We opened the door, and went out.  Behind us he closed the door
and locked it.  He handed me the key, saying, "Will you keep it?  You
had better be assured."

I laughed, it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say, as I
motioned him to keep it.  "A key is nothing," I said, "there are many
duplicates, and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of this
kind."

He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket.  Then he told me to
watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the
other.

I took up my place behind a yew tree, and I saw his dark figure move
until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight.

It was a lonely vigil.  Just after I had taken my place I heard a
distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two.  I was
chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on
such an errand and with myself for coming.  I was too cold and too
sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my
trust, so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time.

Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white
streak, moving between two dark yew trees at the side of the
churchyard farthest from the tomb.  At the same time a dark mass moved
from the Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards
it.  Then I too moved, but I had to go round headstones and railed-off
tombs, and I stumbled over graves.  The sky was overcast, and
somewhere far off an early cock crew.  A little ways off, beyond a
line of scattered juniper trees, which marked the pathway to the
church, a white dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb.  The
tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure
had disappeared.  I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had
first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor
holding in his arms a tiny child.  When he saw me he held it out to
me, and said, "Are you satisfied now?"

"No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.

"Do you not see the child?"

"Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here?  And is it wounded?"

"We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our
way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.

When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of
trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat.  It was
without a scratch or scar of any kind.

"Was I right?" I asked triumphantly.

"We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully.

We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so
consulted about it.  If we were to take it to a police station we
should have to give some account of our movements during the night.
At least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had
come to find the child.  So finally we decided that we would take it
to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it
where he could not fail to find it.  We would then seek our way home
as quickly as we could.  All fell out well.  At the edge of Hampstead
Heath we heard a policeman's heavy tramp, and laying the child on the
pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his
lantern to and fro.  We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and
then we went away silently.  By good chance we got a cab near the
'Spainiards,' and drove to town.

I cannot sleep, so I make this entry.  But I must try to get a few
hours' sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon.  He insists
that I go with him on another expedition.


27 September.--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable
opportunity for our attempt.  The funeral held at noon was all
completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken
themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of
alder trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him.  We knew that
we were safe till morning did we desire it, but the Professor told me
that we should not want more than an hour at most.  Again I felt that
horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of
imagination seemed out of place, and I realized distinctly the perils
of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work.  Besides, I
felt it was all so useless.  Outrageous as it was to open a leaden
coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now
seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from
the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty.  I
shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had
a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated.  He took
the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to
precede.  The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how
unutterably mean looking when the sunshine streamed in.  Van Helsing
walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed.  He bent over and again
forced back the leaden flange, and a shock of surprise and dismay shot
through me.

There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her
funeral.  She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever,
and I could not believe that she was dead.  The lips were red, nay
redder than before, and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.

"Is this a juggle?" I said to him.

"Are you convinced now?" said the Professor, in response, and as he
spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled
back the dead lips and showed the white teeth.  "See," he went on,
"they are even sharper than before.  With this and this," and he
touched one of the canine teeth and that below it, "the little
children can be bitten.  Are you of belief now, friend John?"

Once more argumentative hostility woke within me.  I could not accept
such an overwhelming idea as he suggested.  So, with an attempt to
argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said, "She may have
been placed here since last night."

"Indeed?  That is so, and by whom?"

"I do not know.  Someone has done it."

"And yet she has been dead one week.  Most peoples in that time would
not look so."

I had no answer for this, so was silent.  Van Helsing did not seem to
notice my silence.  At any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor
triumph.  He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman,
raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the
lips and examining the teeth.  Then he turned to me and said,

"Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded.  Here
is some dual life that is not as the common.  She was bitten by the
vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking, oh, you start.  You
do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it later, and in
trance could he best come to take more blood.  In trance she dies, and
in trance she is UnDead, too.  So it is that she differ from all
other.  Usually when the UnDead sleep at home," as he spoke he made a
comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was
'home', "their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was
when she not UnDead she go back to the nothings of the common dead.
There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill
her in her sleep."

This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was
accepting Van Helsing's theories.  But if she were really dead, what
was there of terror in the idea of killing her?

He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he
said almost joyously, "Ah, you believe now?"

I answered, "Do not press me too hard all at once.  I am willing to
accept.  How will you do this bloody work?"

"I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall
drive a stake through her body."

It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman
whom I had loved.  And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had
expected.  I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of
this being, this UnDead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it.
Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?

I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as
if wrapped in thought.  Presently he closed the catch of his bag with
a snap, and said,

"I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best.
If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment,
what is to be done.  But there are other things to follow, and things
that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know.
This is simple.  She have yet no life taken, though that is of time,
and to act now would be to take danger from her forever.  But then we
may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this?  If you,
who saw the wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on
the child's at the hospital, if you, who saw the coffin empty last
night and full today with a woman who have not change only to be more
rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she die, if you know of
this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to
the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how
then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe?

"He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying.  I
know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done
things that prevent him say goodbye as he ought, and he may think that
in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive, and that in
most mistake of all we have killed her.  He will then argue back that
it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas, and so he
will be much unhappy always.  Yet he never can be sure, and that is
the worst of all.  And he will sometimes think that she he loved was
buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she
must have suffered, and again, he will think that we may be right, and
that his so beloved was, after all, an UnDead.  No!  I told him once,
and since then I learn much.  Now, since I know it is all true, a
hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the
bitter waters to reach the sweet.  He, poor fellow, must have one hour
that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him, then we can
act for good all round and send him peace.  My mind is made up.  Let
us go.  You return home for tonight to your asylum, and see that all
be well.  As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard
in my own way.  Tomorrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley
Hotel at ten of the clock.  I shall send for Arthur to come too, and
also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood.  Later we
shall all have work to do.  I come with you so far as Piccadilly and
there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set."

So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the
churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to
Piccadilly.




NOTE LEFT BY VAN HELSING IN HIS PORTMANTEAU, BERKELEY HOTEL DIRECTED TO
JOHN SEWARD, M. D. (Not Delivered)

27 September

"Friend John,

"I write this in case anything should happen.  I go alone to
watch in that churchyard.  It pleases me that the UnDead,
Miss Lucy, shall not leave tonight, that so on the morrow
night she may be more eager.  Therefore I shall fix some
things she like not, garlic and a crucifix, and so seal up
the door of the tomb.  She is young as UnDead, and will
heed.  Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out.
They may not prevail on her wanting to get in, for then the
UnDead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance,
whatsoever it may be.  I shall be at hand all the night from
sunset till after sunrise, and if there be aught that may be
learned I shall learn it.  For Miss Lucy or from her, I have no
fear, but that other to whom is there that she is UnDead, he have
not the power to seek her tomb and find shelter.  He is cunning,
as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he
have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and
we lost, and in many ways the UnDead are strong.  He have always
the strength in his hand of twenty men, even we four who gave our
strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him.  Besides, he can
summon his wolf and I know not what.  So if it be that he came
thither on this night he shall find me.  But none other shall,
until it be too late.  But it may be that he will not attempt the
place.  There is no reason why he should.  His hunting ground is
more full of game than the churchyard where the UnDead woman
sleeps, and the one old man watch.

"Therefore I write this in case . . . Take the papers that
are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read
them, and then find this great UnDead, and cut off his head
and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that the
world may rest from him.

"If it be so, farewell.

"VAN HELSING."




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

28 September.--It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for
one.  Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing's monstrous
ideas, but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on
common sense.  I have no doubt that he believes it all.  I wonder if
his mind can have become in any way unhinged.  Surely there must be
some rational explanation of all these mysterious things.  Is it
possible that the Professor can have done it himself?  He is so
abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his
intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way.  I am loathe
to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the
other to find that Van Helsing was mad, but anyhow I shall watch him
carefully.  I may get some light on the mystery.


29 September.--Last night, at a little before ten o'clock, Arthur and
Quincey came into Van Helsing's room.  He told us all what he wanted
us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our
wills were centred in his.  He began by saying that he hoped we would
all come with him too, "for," he said, "there is a grave duty to be
done there.  You were doubtless surprised at my letter?"  This query
was directly addressed to Lord Godalming.

"I was.  It rather upset me for a bit.  There has been so much trouble
around my house of late that I could do without any more.  I have been
curious, too, as to what you mean.

"Quincey and I talked it over, but the more we talked, the more
puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I'm about up a tree
as to any meaning about anything."

"Me too," said Quincey Morris laconically.

"Oh," said the Professor, "then you are nearer the beginning, both of
you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he
can even get so far as to begin."

It was evident that he recognized my return to my old doubting frame
of mind without my saying a word.  Then, turning to the other two, he
said with intense gravity,

"I want your permission to do what I think good this night.  It is, I
know, much to ask, and when you know what it is I propose to do you
will know, and only then how much.  Therefore may I ask that you
promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry
with me for a time, I must not disguise from myself the possibility
that such may be, you shall not blame yourselves for anything."

"That's frank anyhow," broke in Quincey.  "I'll answer for the
Professor.  I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest, and
that's good enough for me."

"I thank you, Sir," said Van Helsing proudly.  "I have done myself the
honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is
dear to me."  He held out a hand, which Quincey took.

Then Arthur spoke out, "Dr. Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a
pig in a poke', as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in
which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is
concerned, I cannot make such a promise.  If you can assure me that
what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my
consent at once, though for the life of me, I cannot understand what
you are driving at."

"I accept your limitation," said Van Helsing, "and all I ask of you is
that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will
first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your
reservations."

"Agreed!" said Arthur.  "That is only fair.  And now that the
pourparlers are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?"

"I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard
at Kingstead."

Arthur's face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way,

"Where poor Lucy is buried?"

The Professor bowed.

Arthur went on, "And when there?"

"To enter the tomb!"

Arthur stood up.  "Professor, are you in earnest, or is it some
monstrous joke?  Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest."  He sat
down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who
is on his dignity.  There was silence until he asked again, "And when
in the tomb?"

"To open the coffin."

"This is too much!" he said, angrily rising again.  "I am willing to
be patient in all things that are reasonable, but in this, this
desecration of the grave, of one who . . ."  He fairly choked with
indignation.

The Professor looked pityingly at him.  "If I could spare you one pang,
my poor friend," he said, "God knows I would.  But this night our feet
must tread in thorny paths, or later, and for ever, the feet you love
must walk in paths of flame!"

Arthur looked up with set white face and said, "Take care, sir, take
care!"

"Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?" said Van Helsing.
"And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose.  Shall I go
on?"

"That's fair enough," broke in Morris.

After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort, "Miss
Lucy is dead, is it not so?  Yes!  Then there can be no wrong to her.
But if she be not dead . . ."

Arthur jumped to his feet, "Good God!" he cried.  "What do you mean?
Has there been any mistake, has she been buried alive?"  He groaned in
anguish that not even hope could soften.

"I did not say she was alive, my child.  I did not think it.  I go no
further than to say that she might be UnDead."

"UnDead!  Not alive!  What do you mean?  Is this all a nightmare, or
what is it?"

"There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age
they may solve only in part.  Believe me, we are now on the verge of
one.  But I have not done.  May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?"

"Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion.  "Not for
the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body.  Dr.
Van Helsing, you try me too far.  What have I done to you that you
should torture me so?  What did that poor, sweet girl do that you
should want to cast such dishonour on her grave?  Are you mad, that you
speak of such things, or am I mad to listen to them?  Don't dare think
more of such a desecration.  I shall not give my consent to anything
you do.  I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage, and
by God, I shall do it!"

Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and
said, gravely and sternly, "My Lord Godalming, I too, have a duty to
do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead, and by God, I
shall do it!  All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you
look and listen, and if when later I make the same request you do not
be more eager for its fulfillment even than I am, then, I shall do my
duty, whatever it may seem to me.  And then, to follow your Lordship's
wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to
you, when and where you will."  His voice broke a little, and he went
on with a voice full of pity.

"But I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me.  In a long life
of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did
wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now.  Believe me
that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one
look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what
a man can to save you from sorrow.  Just think.  For why should I give
myself so much labor and so much of sorrow?  I have come here from my
own land to do what I can of good, at the first to please my friend
John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom too, I come to love.
For her, I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness, I gave
what you gave, the blood of my veins.  I gave it, I who was not, like
you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend.  I gave her my
nights and days, before death, after death, and if my death can do her
good even now, when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it freely."
He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much
affected by it.

He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice, "Oh, it is hard
to think of it, and I cannot understand, but at least I shall go with
you and wait."




CHAPTER 16


DR SEWARD'S DIARY-cont.

It was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the
churchyard over the low wall.  The night was dark with occasional
gleams of moonlight between the dents of the heavy clouds that scudded
across the sky.  We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing
slightly in front as he led the way.  When we had come close to the
tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared the proximity to a place
laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him, but he bore himself
well.  I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some
way a counteractant to his grief.  The Professor unlocked the door,
and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved
the difficulty by entering first himself.  The rest of us followed,
and he closed the door.  He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to a
coffin.  Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly.  Van Helsing said to me,
"You were with me here yesterday.  Was the body of Miss Lucy in that
coffin?"

"It was."

The Professor turned to the rest saying, "You hear, and yet there is
no one who does not believe with me."

He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin.
Arthur looked on, very pale but silent.  When the lid was removed he
stepped forward.  He evidently did not know that there was a leaden
coffin, or at any rate, had not thought of it.  When he saw the rent
in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as
quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness.
He was still silent.  Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and
we all looked in and recoiled.

The coffin was empty!

For several minutes no one spoke a word.  The silence was broken by
Quincey Morris, "Professor, I answered for you.  Your word is all I
want.  I wouldn't ask such a thing ordinarily, I wouldn't so dishonour
you as to imply a doubt, but this is a mystery that goes beyond any
honour or dishonour.  Is this your doing?"

"I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed or
touched her.  What happened was this.  Two nights ago my friend Seward
and I came here, with good purpose, believe me.  I opened that coffin,
which was then sealed up, and we found it as now, empty.  We then
waited, and saw something white come through the trees.  The next day
we came here in daytime and she lay there.  Did she not, friend John?

"Yes."

"That night we were just in time.  One more so small child was
missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves.
Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the UnDead can
move.  I waited here all night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing.
It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of
those doors garlic, which the UnDead cannot bear, and other things
which they shun.  Last night there was no exodus, so tonight before
the sundown I took away my garlic and other things.  And so it is we
find this coffin empty.  But bear with me.  So far there is much that
is strange.  Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things
much stranger are yet to be.  So," here he shut the dark slide of his
lantern, "now to the outside."  He opened the door, and we filed out,
he coming last and locking the door behind him.

Oh!  But it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of
that vault.  How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the
passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing
and passing, like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life.  How sweet
it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay.
How humanizing to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and
to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great
city.  Each in his own way was solemn and overcome.  Arthur was
silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the
inner meaning of the mystery.  I was myself tolerably patient, and
half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's
conclusions.  Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who
accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery,
with hazard of all he has at stake.  Not being able to smoke, he cut
himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew.  As to Van
Helsing, he was employed in a definite way.  First he took from his
bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was
carefully rolled up in a white napkin.  Next he took out a double
handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty.  He crumbled the
wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands.  This he
then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the
crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb.  I was somewhat
puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was
doing.  Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious.

He answered, "I am closing the tomb so that the UnDead may not enter."

"And is that stuff you have there going to do it?"

"It is."

"What is that which you are using?"  This time the question was by
Arthur.  Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered.

"The Host.  I brought it from Amsterdam.  I have an Indulgence."

It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt
individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the
Professor's, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of
things, it was impossible to distrust.  In respectful silence we took
the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the
sight of any one approaching.  I pitied the others, especially Arthur.
I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching
horror, and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs,
felt my heart sink within me.  Never did tombs look so ghastly white.
Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of
funeral gloom.  Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously.
Never did bough creak so mysteriously, and never did the far-away
howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.

There was a long spell of silence, big, aching, void, and then from
the Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!"  He pointed, and far down the avenue of
yews we saw a white figure advance, a dim white figure, which held
something dark at its breast.  The figure stopped, and at the moment a
ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds, and showed in
startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of
the grave.  We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what
we saw to be a fair-haired child.  There was a pause and a sharp
little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before
the fire and dreams.  We were starting forward, but the Professor's
warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew tree, kept us back.
And then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again.  It was
now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held.
My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as
we recognized the features of Lucy Westenra.  Lucy Westenra, but yet
how changed.  The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless
cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness.

Van Helsing stepped out, and obedient to his gesture, we all advanced
too.  The four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb.  Van
Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide.  By the concentrated
light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips were crimson
with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and
stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.

We shuddered with horror.  I could see by the tremulous light that
even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed.  Arthur was next to me, and
if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.

When Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore
her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat
gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us.  Lucy's eyes
in form and colour, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire,
instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew.  At that moment the remnant
of my love passed into hate and loathing.  Had she then to be killed,
I could have done it with savage delight.  As she looked, her eyes
blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a
voluptuous smile.  Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it!  With a
careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the
child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast,
growling over it as a dog growls over a bone.  The child gave a sharp
cry, and lay there moaning.  There was a cold-bloodedness in the act
which wrung a groan from Arthur.  When she advanced to him with
outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in
his hands.

She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace,
said, "Come to me, Arthur.  Leave these others and come to me.  My
arms are hungry for you.  Come, and we can rest together.  Come, my
husband, come!"

There was something diabolically sweet in her tones, something of the
tinkling of glass when struck, which rang through the brains even of
us who heard the words addressed to another.

As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell, moving his hands from his
face, he opened wide his arms.  She was leaping for them, when Van
Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden
crucifix.  She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face,
full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb.

When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if
arrested by some irresistible force.  Then she turned, and her face
was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had
now no quiver from Van Helsing's nerves.  Never did I see such baffled
malice on a face, and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by
mortal eyes.  The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to
throw out sparks of hell fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the
folds of flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely,
blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of
the Greeks and Japanese.  If ever a face meant death, if looks could
kill, we saw it at that moment.

And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained
between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of
entry.

Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur, "Answer me, oh my
friend!  Am I to proceed in my work?"

"Do as you will, friend.  Do as you will.  There can be no horror like
this ever any more."  And he groaned in spirit.

Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms.  We
could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it
down.  Coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks
some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there.  We all looked on
with horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman,
with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass through
the interstice where scarce a knife blade could have gone.  We all
felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring
the strings of putty to the edges of the door.

When this was done, he lifted the child and said, "Come now, my
friends.  We can do no more till tomorrow.  There is a funeral at
noon, so here we shall all come before long after that.  The friends
of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton locks the
gate we shall remain.  Then there is more to do, but not like this of
tonight.  As for this little one, he is not much harmed, and by
tomorrow night he shall be well.  We shall leave him where the police
will find him, as on the other night, and then to home."

Coming close to Arthur, he said, "My friend Arthur, you have had a sore
trial, but after, when you look back, you will see how it was
necessary.  You are now in the bitter waters, my child.  By this time
tomorrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the
sweet waters.  So do not mourn over-much.  Till then I shall not ask
you to forgive me."

Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other
on the way.  We had left behind the child in safety, and were tired.
So we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.


29 September, night.--A little before twelve o'clock we three, Arthur,
Quincey Morris, and myself, called for the Professor.  It was odd to
notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes.  Of
course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest
of us wore it by instinct.  We got to the graveyard by half-past one,
and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when
the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton, under the
belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place
all to ourselves.  Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had
with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag.  It was
manifestly of fair weight.

When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up
the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the
Professor to the tomb.  He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing
it behind us.  Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit,
and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck by melting
their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light
sufficient to work by.  When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin
we all looked, Arthur trembling like an aspen, and saw that the corpse
lay there in all its death beauty.  But there was no love in my own
heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's
shape without her soul.  I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as
he looked.  Presently he said to Van Helsing, "Is this really Lucy's
body, or only a demon in her shape?"

"It is her body, and yet not it.  But wait a while, and you shall see
her as she was, and is."

She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there, the pointed
teeth, the blood stained, voluptuous mouth, which made one shudder to
see, the whole carnal and unspirited appearance, seeming like a
devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity.  Van Helsing, with his usual
methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and
placing them ready for use.  First he took out a soldering iron and
some plumbing solder, and then small oil lamp, which gave out, when
lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at a fierce heat with a
blue flame, then his operating knives, which he placed to hand, and
last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick
and about three feet long.  One end of it was hardened by charring in
the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point.  With this stake came a
heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal cellar for
breaking the lumps.  To me, a doctor's preparations for work of any
kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on
both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation.
They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet.

When all was ready, Van Helsing said, "Before we do anything, let me
tell you this.  It is out of the lore and experience of the ancients
and of all those who have studied the powers of the UnDead.  When they
become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality.
They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and
multiplying the evils of the world.  For all that die from the preying
of the Undead become themselves Undead, and prey on their kind.  And
so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone
thrown in the water.  Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which
you know of before poor Lucy die, or again, last night when you open
your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become
nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would for all time
make more of those Un-Deads that so have filled us with horror.  The
career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun.  Those children
whose blood she sucked are not as yet so much the worse, but if she
lives on, UnDead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power
over them they come to her, and so she draw their blood with that so
wicked mouth.  But if she die in truth, then all cease.  The tiny
wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their play
unknowing ever of what has been.  But of the most blessed of all, when
this now UnDead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the
poor lady whom we love shall again be free.  Instead of working
wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it
by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels.  So that, my
friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow
that sets her free.  To this I am willing, but is there none amongst
us who has a better right?  Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in
the silence of the night when sleep is not, 'It was my hand that sent
her to the stars.  It was the hand of him that loved her best, the
hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to
choose?'  Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?"

We all looked at Arthur.  He saw too, what we all did, the infinite
kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would
restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory.  He stepped
forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was
as pale as snow, "My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I
thank you.  Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!"

Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said, "Brave lad!  A
moment's courage, and it is done.  This stake must be driven through
her.  It well be a fearful ordeal, be not deceived in that, but it
will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your
pain was great.  From this grim tomb you will emerge as though you
tread on air.  But you must not falter when once you have begun.  Only
think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for
you all the time."

"Go on," said Arthur hoarsely.  "Tell me what I am to do."

"Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place to the point over
the heart, and the hammer in your right.  Then when we begin our
prayer for the dead, I shall read him, I have here the book, and the
others shall follow, strike in God's name, that so all may be well
with the dead that we love and that the UnDead pass away."

Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set
on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered.  Van Helsing
opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as
well as we could.

Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its
dint in the white flesh.  Then he struck with all his might.

The thing in the coffin writhed, and a hideous, blood-curdling screech
came from the opened red lips.  The body shook and quivered and
twisted in wild contortions.  The sharp white teeth champed together till
the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam.  But
Arthur never faltered.  He looked like a figure of Thor as his
untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the
mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled
and spurted up around it.  His face was set, and high duty seemed to
shine through it.  The sight of it gave us courage so that our voices
seemed to ring through the little vault.

And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the
teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver.  Finally it lay still.
The terrible task was over.

The hammer fell from Arthur's hand.  He reeled and would have fallen
had we not caught him.  The great drops of sweat sprang from his
forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps.  It had indeed been an
awful strain on him, and had he not been forced to his task by more
than human considerations he could never have gone through with it.
For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look
towards the coffin.  When we did, however, a murmur of startled
surprise ran from one to the other of us.  We gazed so eagerly that
Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked
too, and then a glad strange light broke over his face and dispelled
altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it.

There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so
dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded
as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen
her in life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.  True
that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care
and pain and waste.  But these were all dear to us, for they marked
her truth to what we knew.  One and all we felt that the holy calm
that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an
earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever.

Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to
him, "And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?"

The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand
in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said, "Forgiven!
God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me
peace."  He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying his
head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood
unmoving.

When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him, "And now, my child,
you may kiss her.  Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have
you to, if for her to choose.  For she is not a grinning devil now,
not any more a foul Thing for all eternity.  No longer she is the
devil's UnDead.  She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!"

Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the
tomb.  The Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the
point of it in the body.  Then we cut off the head and filled the
mouth with garlic.  We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the
coffin lid, and gathering up our belongings, came away.  When the
Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur.

Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it
seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch.  There was
gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves
on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy.

Before we moved away Van Helsing said, "Now, my friends, one step of
our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves.  But there
remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow
and to stamp him out.  I have clues which we can follow, but it is a
long task, and a difficult one, and there is danger in it, and pain.
Shall you not all help me?  We have learned to believe, all of us, is
it not so?  And since so, do we not see our duty?  Yes!  And do we not
promise to go on to the bitter end?"

Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made.  Then said
the Professor as we moved off, "Two nights hence you shall meet with
me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John.  I shall
entreat two others, two that you know not as yet, and I shall be ready
to all our work show and our plans unfold.  Friend John, you come with
me home, for I have much to consult you about, and you can help me.
Tonight I leave for Amsterdam, but shall return tomorrow night.  And
then begins our great quest.  But first I shall have much to say, so
that you may know what to do and to dread.  Then our promise shall be
made to each other anew.  For there is a terrible task before us, and
once our feet are on the ploughshare we must not draw back."




CHAPTER 17


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY-cont.

When we arrived at the Berkely Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram
waiting for him.

"Am coming up by train.  Jonathan at Whitby.  Important news.  Mina
Harker."


The Professor was delighted.  "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina," he
said, "pearl among women!  She arrive, but I cannot stay.  She must go
to your house, friend John.  You must meet her at the station.
Telegraph her en route so that she may be prepared."

When the wire was dispatched he had a cup of tea.  Over it he told me
of a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a
typewritten copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker's diary at Whitby.
"Take these," he said, "and study them well.  When I have returned you
will be master of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our
inquisition.  Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure.
You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience
as that of today.  What is here told," he laid his hand heavily and
gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, "may be the beginning of
the end to you and me and many another, or it may sound the knell of
the UnDead who walk the earth.  Read all, I pray you, with the open
mind, and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for
it is all important.  You have kept a diary of all these so strange
things, is it not so?  Yes!  Then we shall go through all these
together when we meet."  He then made ready for his departure and
shortly drove off to Liverpool Street.  I took my way to Paddington,
where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in.

The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival
platforms, and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my
guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty looking girl stepped up to me, and
after a quick glance said, "Dr. Seward, is it not?"

"And you are Mrs. Harker!" I answered at once, whereupon she held out
her hand.

"I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy, but . . ."  She
stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face.

The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for
it was a tacit answer to her own.  I got her luggage, which included a
typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I
had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting room and a bedroom
prepared at once for Mrs. Harker.

In due time we arrived.  She knew, of course, that the place was a
lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a
shudder when we entered.

She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study,
as she had much to say.  So here I am finishing my entry in my
phonograph diary whilst I await her.  As yet I have not had the chance
of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they
lie open before me.  I must get her interested in something, so that I
may have an opportunity of reading them.  She does not know how
precious time is, or what a task we have in hand.  I must be careful
not to frighten her.  Here she is!




MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

29 September.--After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward's
study.  At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him
talking with some one.  As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I
knocked at the door, and on his calling out, "Come in," I entered.

To my intense surprise, there was no one with him.  He was quite
alone, and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the
description to be a phonograph.  I had never seen one, and was much
interested.

"I hope I did not keep you waiting," I said, "but I stayed at the door
as I heard you talking, and thought there was someone with you."

"Oh," he replied with a smile, "I was only entering my diary."

"Your diary?" I asked him in surprise.

"Yes," he answered.  "I keep it in this."  As he spoke he laid his
hand on the phonograph.  I felt quite excited over it, and blurted
out, "Why, this beats even shorthand!  May I hear it say something?"

"Certainly," he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train
for speaking.  Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his
face.

"The fact is," he began awkwardly, "I only keep my diary in it, and as
it is entirely, almost entirely, about my cases it may be awkward,
that is, I mean . . ."  He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his
embarrassment.

"You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end.  Let me hear how she died,
for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful.  She was very,
very dear to me."

To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face,
"Tell you of her death?  Not for the wide world!"

"Why not?" I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me.

Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an
excuse.  At length, he stammered out, "You see, I do not know how to
pick out any particular part of the diary."

Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said with
unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naivete of
a child, "that's quite true, upon my honour.  Honest Indian!"

I could not but smile, at which he grimaced.  "I gave myself away that
time!" he said.  "But do you know that, although I have kept the diary
for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any
particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up?"

By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who
attended Lucy might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge
of that terrible Being, and I said boldly, "Then, Dr. Seward, you had
better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter."

He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said, "No!  No!  No!  For
all the world.  I wouldn't let you know that terrible story!"

Then it was terrible.  My intuition was right!  For a moment, I
thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for
something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of
typewriting on the table.  His eyes caught the look in mine, and
without his thinking, followed their direction.  As they saw the
parcel he realized my meaning.

"You do not know me," I said.  "When you have read those papers, my
own diary and my husband's also, which I have typed, you will know me
better.  I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart
in this cause.  But, of course, you do not know me, yet, and I must
not expect you to trust me so far."

He is certainly a man of noble nature.  Poor dear Lucy was right about
him.  He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in
order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and
said,

"You are quite right.  I did not trust you because I did not know
you.  But I know you now, and let me say that I should have known you
long ago.  I know that Lucy told you of me.  She told me of you too.
May I make the only atonement in my power?  Take the cylinders and
hear them.  The first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they
will not horrify you.  Then you will know me better.  Dinner will by
then be ready.  In the meantime I shall read over some of these
documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things."

He carried the phonograph himself up to my sitting room and adjusted
it for me.  Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure.  For it
will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one
side already.




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

29 September.--I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan
Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without
thinking.  Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce
dinner, so I said, "She is possibly tired.  Let dinner wait an hour,"
and I went on with my work.  I had just finished Mrs. Harker's diary,
when she came in.  She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her
eyes were flushed with crying.  This somehow moved me much.  Of late I
have had cause for tears, God knows!  But the relief of them was
denied me, and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened by recent
tears, went straight to my heart.  So I said as gently as I could, "I
greatly fear I have distressed you."

"Oh, no, not distressed me," she replied.  "But I have been more
touched than I can say by your grief.  That is a wonderful machine,
but it is cruelly true.  It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of
your heart.  It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God.  No one
must hear them spoken ever again!  See, I have tried to be useful.  I
have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now
hear your heart beat, as I did."

"No one need ever know, shall ever know," I said in a low voice.  She
laid her hand on mine and said very gravely, "Ah, but they must!"

"Must!  But why?" I asked.

"Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor Lucy's
death and all that led to it.  Because in the struggle which we have
before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all
the knowledge and all the help which we can get.  I think that the
cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to
know.  But I can see that there are in your record many lights to this
dark mystery.  You will let me help, will you not?  I know all up to a
certain point, and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7
September, how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was
being wrought out.  Jonathan and I have been working day and night
since Professor Van Helsing saw us.  He is gone to Whitby to get more
information, and he will be here tomorrow to help us.  We need have no
secrets amongst us.  Working together and with absolute trust, we can
surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark."

She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such
courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her
wishes.  "You shall," I said, "do as you like in the matter.  God
forgive me if I do wrong!  There are terrible things yet to learn of,
but if you have so far traveled on the road to poor Lucy's death, you
will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark.  Nay, the end, the
very end, may give you a gleam of peace.  Come, there is dinner.  We
must keep one another strong for what is before us.  We have a cruel
and dreadful task.  When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and
I shall answer any questions you ask, if there be anything which you
do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present."



MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

29 September.--After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study.  He
brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took a chair, and
arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up,
and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause.  Then he
very thoughtfully took a chair, with his back to me, so that I might
be as free as possible, and began to read.  I put the forked metal to
my ears and listened.

When the terrible story of Lucy's death, and all that followed, was
done, I lay back in my chair powerless.  Fortunately I am not of a
fainting disposition.  When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a
horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case bottle from the
cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat
restored me.  My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came
through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my
dear Lucy was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it
without making a scene.  It is all so wild and mysterious, and strange
that if I had not known Jonathan's experience in Transylvania I could
not have believed.  As it was, I didn't know what to believe, and so
got out of my difficulty by attending to something else.  I took the
cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward,

"Let me write this all out now.  We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing
when he comes.  I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here
when he arrives in London from Whitby.  In this matter dates are
everything, and I think that if we get all of our material ready, and
have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much.

"You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too.  Let
us be able to tell them when they come."

He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to
typewrite from the beginning of the seventeenth cylinder.  I used
manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done
with the rest.  It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went
about his work of going his round of the patients.  When he had
finished he came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel
too lonely whilst I worked.  How good and thoughtful he is.  The world
seems full of good men, even if there are monsters in it.

Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the
Professor's perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at
the station at Exeter, so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his
newspapers, I borrowed the files of 'The Westminster Gazette' and 'The
Pall Mall Gazette' and took them to my room.  I remember how much the
'Dailygraph' and 'The Whitby Gazette', of which I had made cuttings,
had helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count
Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then,
and perhaps I shall get some new light.  I am not sleepy, and the work
will help to keep me quiet.




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

30 September.--Mr. Harker arrived at nine o'clock.  He got his wife's
wire just before starting.  He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge
from his face, and full of energy.  If this journal be true, and
judging by one's own wonderful experiences, it must be, he is also a
man of great nerve.  That going down to the vault a second time was a
remarkable piece of daring.  After reading his account of it I was
prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet,
businesslike gentleman who came here today.


LATER.--After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room,
and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter.  They
are hard at it.  Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in
chronological order every scrap of evidence they have.  Harker has got
the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the
carriers in London who took charge of them.  He is now reading his
wife's transcript of my diary.  I wonder what they make out of it.
Here it is . . .

Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the
Count's hiding place!  Goodness knows that we had enough clues from
the conduct of the patient Renfield!  The bundle of letters relating
to the purchase of the house were with the transcript.  Oh, if we had
only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy!  Stop!  That way
madness lies!  Harker has gone back, and is again collecting material.
He says that by dinner time they will be able to show a whole
connected narrative.  He thinks that in the meantime I should see
Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of index to the coming and
going of the Count.  I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the
dates I suppose I shall.  What a good thing that Mrs. Harker put my
cylinders into type!  We never could have found the dates otherwise.

I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded,
smiling benignly.  At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever
saw.  I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of
which he treated naturally.  He then, of his own accord, spoke of
going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during
his sojourn here.  In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his
discharge at once.  I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker
and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have
been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation.  As
it is, I am darkly suspicious.  All those out-breaks were in some way
linked with the proximity of the Count.  What then does this absolute
content mean?  Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the
vampire's ultimate triumph?  Stay.  He is himself zoophagous, and in
his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he
always spoke of 'master'.  This all seems confirmation of our idea.
However, after a while I came away.  My friend is just a little too
sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions.
He might begin to think, and then . . . So I came away.  I mistrust
these quiet moods of of his, so I have given the attendant a hint to
look closely after him, and to have a strait waistcoat ready in case
of need.





JOHNATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

29 September, in train to London.--When I received Mr. Billington's
courteous message that he would give me any information in his power I
thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such
inquiries as I wanted.  It was now my object to trace that horrid
cargo of the Count's to its place in London.  Later, we may be able to
deal with it.  Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station,
and brought me to his father's house, where they had decided that I
must spend the night.  They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire
hospitality, give a guest everything and leave him to do as he likes.
They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr.
Billington had ready in his office all the papers concerning the
consignment of boxes.  It gave me almost a turn to see again one of
the letters which I had seen on the Count's table before I knew of his
diabolical plans.  Everything had been carefully thought out, and done
systematically and with precision.  He seemed to have been prepared
for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his
intentions being carried out.  To use an Americanism, he had 'taken no
chances', and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were
fulfilled was simply the logical result of his care.  I saw the
invoice, and took note of it.  'Fifty cases of common earth, to be used
for experimental purposes'.  Also the copy of the letter to Carter
Paterson, and their reply.  Of both these I got copies.  This was all
the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the
port and saw the coastguards, the Customs Officers and the harbour
master, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had
actually received the boxes.  Their tally was exact with the list, and
they had nothing to add to the simple description 'fifty cases of
common earth', except that the boxes were 'main and mortal heavy', and
that shifting them was dry work.  One of them added that it was hard
lines that there wasn't any gentleman 'such like as like yourself,
squire', to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a
liquid form.  Another put in a rider that the thirst then generated
was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely
allayed it.  Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift,
forever and adequately, this source of reproach.

30 September.--The station master was good enough to give me a line to
his old companion the station master at King's Cross, so that when I
arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival
of the boxes.  He, too put me at once in communication with the proper
officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original
invoice.  The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been
here limited.  A noble use of them had, however, been made, and again
I was compelled to deal with the result in ex post facto manner.

From thence I went to Carter Paterson's central office, where I met
with the utmost courtesy.  They looked up the transaction in their day
book and letter book, and at once telephoned to their King's Cross
office for more details.  By good fortune, the men who did the teaming
were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over,
sending also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected
with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax.  Here again I found the
tally agreeing exactly.  The carriers' men were able to supplement the
paucity of the written words with a few more details.  These were, I
shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the
job, and the consequent thirst engendered in the operators.  On my
affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the
realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one
of the men remarked,

"That 'ere 'ouse, guv'nor, is the rummiest I ever was in.  Blyme!  But
it ain't been touched sence a hundred years.  There was dust that
thick in the place that you might have slep' on it without 'urtin' of
yer bones.  An' the place was that neglected that yer might 'ave
smelled ole Jerusalem in it.  But the old chapel, that took the cike,
that did!  Me and my mate, we thort we wouldn't never git out quick
enough.  Lor', I wouldn't take less nor a quid a moment to stay there
arter dark."

Having been in the house, I could well believe him, but if he knew
what I know, he would, I think have raised his terms.

Of one thing I am now satisfied.  That all those boxes which arrived at
Whitby from Varna in the Demeter were safely deposited in the old
chapel at Carfax.  There should be fifty of them there, unless any
have since been removed, as from Dr. Seward's diary I fear.


Later.--Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers
into order.




MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

30 September.--I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself.
It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have
had, that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound
might act detrimentally on Jonathan.  I saw him leave for Whitby with
as brave a face as could, but I was sick with apprehension.  The
effort has, however, done him good.  He was never so resolute, never
so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present.  It is
just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said, he is true grit,
and he improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature.  He came
back full of life and hope and determination.  We have got everything
in order for tonight.  I feel myself quite wild with excitement.  I
suppose one ought to pity anything so hunted as the Count.  That is
just it.  This thing is not human, not even a beast.  To read Dr.
Seward's account of poor Lucy's death, and what followed, is enough to
dry up the springs of pity in one's heart.


Later.--Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we
expected.  Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with
him, so I had to see them.  It was to me a painful meeting, for it
brought back all poor dear Lucy's hopes of only a few months ago.  Of
course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van
Helsing, too, had been quite 'blowing my trumpet', as Mr. Morris
expressed it.  Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all
about the proposals they made to Lucy.  They did not quite know what
to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge.  So
they had to keep on neutral subjects.  However, I thought the matter
over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would
be to post them on affairs right up to date.  I knew from Dr. Seward's
diary that they had been at Lucy's death, her real death, and that I
need not fear to betray any secret before the time.  So I told them,
as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and
that my husband and I, having typewritten them, had just finished
putting them in order.  I gave them each a copy to read in the
library.  When Lord Godalming got his and turned it over, it does make
a pretty good pile, he said, "Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?"

I nodded, and he went on.

"I don't quite see the drift of it, but you people are all so good and
kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that
all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you.  I
have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man
humble to the last hour of his life.  Besides, I know you loved my
Lucy . . ."

Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands.  I could hear
the tears in his voice.  Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just
laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out
of the room.  I suppose there is something in a woman's nature that
makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on
the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his
manhood.  For when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat
down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly.  I sat down beside
him and took his hand.  I hope he didn't think it forward of me, and
that if he ever thinks of it afterwards he never will have such a
thought.  There I wrong him.  I know he never will.  He is too true a
gentleman.  I said to him, for I could see that his heart was
breaking, "I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what
you were to her.  She and I were like sisters, and now she is gone,
will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble?  I know
what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them.
If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, won't you let me be
of some little service, for Lucy's sake?"

In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief.  It
seemed to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence
found a vent at once.  He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open
hands, beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief.  He stood
up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks.  I
felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly.  With
a sob he laid his head on my shoulder and cried like a wearied child,
whilst he shook with emotion.

We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above
smaller matters when the mother spirit is invoked.  I felt this big
sorrowing man's head resting on me, as though it were that of a baby
that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he
were my own child.  I never thought at the time how strange it all
was.

After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an
apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion.  He told me that
for days and nights past, weary days and sleepless nights, he had been
unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of
sorrow.  There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or
with whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which his sorrow
was surrounded, he could speak freely.

"I know now how I suffered," he said, as he dried his eyes, "but I do
not know even yet, and none other can ever know, how much your sweet
sympathy has been to me today.  I shall know better in time, and
believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will
grow with my understanding.  You will let me be like a brother, will
you not, for all our lives, for dear Lucy's sake?"

"For dear Lucy's sake," I said as we clasped hands.  "Ay, and for your
own sake," he added, "for if a man's esteem and gratitude are ever
worth the winning, you have won mine today.  If ever the future should
bring to you a time when you need a man's help, believe me, you will
not call in vain.  God grant that no such time may ever come to you to
break the sunshine of your life, but if it should ever come, promise
me that you will let me know."

He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would
comfort him, so I said, "I promise."

As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window.
He turned as he heard my footsteps.  "How is Art?" he said.  Then
noticing my red eyes, he went on, "Ah, I see you have been comforting
him.  Poor old fellow!  He needs it.  No one but a woman can help a
man when he is in trouble of the heart, and he had no one to comfort
him."

He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him.  I saw
the manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would
realize how much I knew, so I said to him, "I wish I could comfort all
who suffer from the heart.  Will you let me be your friend, and will
you come to me for comfort if you need it?  You will know later why I
speak."

He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising
it to his lips, kissed it.  It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and
unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed him.  The
tears rose in his eyes, and there was a momentary choking in his
throat.  He said quite calmly, "Little girl, you will never forget
that true hearted kindness, so long as ever you live!"  Then he went
into the study to his friend.

"Little girl!"  The very words he had used to Lucy, and, oh, but he
proved himself a friend.




CHAPTER 18


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

30 September.--I got home at five o'clock, and found that Godalming
and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the
transcript of the various diaries and letters which Harker had not yet
returned from his visit to the carriers' men, of whom Dr. Hennessey
had written to me.  Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea, and I can
honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this
old house seemed like home.  When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said,

"Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour?  I want to see your patient, Mr.
Renfield.  Do let me see him.  What you have said of him in your diary
interests me so much!"

She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and
there was no possible reason why I should, so I took her with me.
When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see
him, to which he simply answered, "Why?"

"She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it," I
answered.

"Oh, very well," he said, "let her come in, by all means, but just
wait a minute till I tidy up the place."

His method of tidying was peculiar, he simply swallowed all the flies
and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him.  It was quite
evident that he feared, or was jealous of, some interference.  When he
had got through his disgusting task, he said cheerfully, "Let the lady
come in," and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down, but
with his eyelids raised so that he could see her as she entered.  For
a moment I thought that he might have some homicidal intent.  I
remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own
study, and I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he
attempted to make a spring at her.

She came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once
command the respect of any lunatic, for easiness is one of the
qualities mad people most respect.  She walked over to him, smiling
pleasantly, and held out her hand.

"Good evening, Mr. Renfield," said she.  "You see, I know you, for Dr.
Seward has told me of you."  He made no immediate reply, but eyed her
all over intently with a set frown on his face.  This look gave way to
one of wonder, which merged in doubt, then to my intense astonishment
he said, "You're not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you?  You
can't be, you know, for she's dead."

Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied, "Oh no!  I have a husband
of my own, to whom I was married before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he
me.  I am Mrs. Harker."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward."

"Then don't stay."

"But why not?"

I thought that this style of conversation might not be pleasant to
Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in, "How did you
know I wanted to marry anyone?"

His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned
his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again,
"What an asinine question!"

"I don't see that at all, Mr. Renfield," said Mrs. Harker, at once
championing me.

He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as he had shown
contempt to me, "You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that
when a man is so loved and honoured as our host is, everything
regarding him is of interest in our little community.  Dr. Seward is
loved not only by his household and his friends, but even by his
patients, who, being some of them hardly in mental equilibrium, are
apt to distort causes and effects.  Since I myself have been an inmate
of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies
of some of its inmates lean towards the errors of non causa and
ignoratio elenche."

I positively opened my eyes at this new development.  Here was my own
pet lunatic, the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with,
talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished
gentleman.  I wonder if it was Mrs. Harker's presence which had
touched some chord in his memory.  If this new phase was spontaneous,
or in any way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some
rare gift or power.

We continued to talk for some time, and seeing that he was seemingly
quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she
began, to lead him to his favourite topic.  I was again astonished,
for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of
the completest sanity.  He even took himself as an example when he
mentioned certain things.

"Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief.
Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on
my being put under control.  I used to fancy that life was a positive
and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live
things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might
indefinitely prolong life.  At times I held the belief so strongly
that I actually tried to take human life.  The doctor here will bear
me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of
strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of
his life through the medium of his blood, relying of course, upon the
Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.'  Though, indeed, the
vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarized the truism to the very
point of contempt.  Isn't that true, doctor?"

I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to either
think or say, it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his
spiders and flies not five minutes before.  Looking at my watch, I saw
that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs.
Harker that it was time to leave.

She came at once, after saying pleasantly to Mr. Renfield, "Goodbye,
and I hope I may see you often, under auspices pleasanter to
yourself."

To which, to my astonishment, he replied, "Goodbye, my dear.  I pray
God I may never see your sweet face again.  May He bless and keep
you!"

When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind
me.  Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first
took ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has
been for many a long day.

Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a
boy.  He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying, "Ah, friend
John, how goes all?  Well?  So!  I have been busy, for I come here to
stay if need be.  All affairs are settled with me, and I have much to
tell.  Madam Mina is with you?  Yes.  And her so fine husband?  And
Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too?  Good!"

As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my
own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker's suggestion,
at which the Professor interrupted me.

"Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina!  She has man's brain, a brain that a
man should have were he much gifted, and a woman's heart.  The good
God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good
combination.  Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of
help to us, after tonight she must not have to do with this so
terrible affair.  It is not good that she run a risk so great.  We men
are determined, nay, are we not pledged, to destroy this monster?  But
it is no part for a woman.  Even if she be not harmed, her heart may
fail her in so much and so many horrors and hereafter she may suffer,
both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams.  And,
besides, she is young woman and not so long married, there may be
other things to think of some time, if not now.  You tell me she has
wrote all, then she must consult with us, but tomorrow she say goodbye
to this work, and we go alone."

I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we had found in
his absence, that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next
one to my own.  He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on
him.

"Oh that we had known it before!" he said, "for then we might have
reached him in time to save poor Lucy.  However, 'the milk that is
spilt cries not out afterwards,' as you say.  We shall not think of
that, but go on our way to the end."  Then he fell into a silence that
lasted till we entered my own gateway.  Before we went to prepare for
dinner he said to Mrs. Harker, "I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend
John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things
that have been, up to this moment."

"Not up to this moment, Professor," she said impulsively, "but up to
this morning."

"But why not up to now?  We have seen hitherto how good light all the
little things have made.  We have told our secrets, and yet no one who
has told is the worse for it."

Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she
said, "Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go
in.  It is my record of today.  I too have seen the need of putting
down at present everything, however trivial, but there is little in
this except what is personal.  Must it go in?"

The Professor read it over gravely, and handed it back, saying, "It
need not go in if you do not wish it, but I pray that it may.  It can
but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends,
more honour you, as well as more esteem and love."  She took it back
with another blush and a bright smile.

And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete
and in order.  The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner,
and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o'clock.  The rest of
us have already read everything, so when we meet in the study we shall
all be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with
this terrible and mysterious enemy.





MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

30 September.--When we met in Dr. Seward's study two hours after
dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort
of board or committee.  Professor Van Helsing took the head of the
table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room.  He
made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as
secretary.  Jonathan sat next to me.  Opposite us were Lord Godalming,
Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris, Lord Godalming being next the Professor,
and Dr. Seward in the centre.

The Professor said, "I may, I suppose, take it that we are all
acquainted with the facts that are in these papers."  We all expressed
assent, and he went on, "Then it were, I think, good that I tell you
something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal.  I shall
then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has
been ascertained for me.  So we then can discuss how we shall act, and
can take our measure according.

"There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they
exist.  Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the
teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane
peoples.  I admit that at the first I was sceptic.  Were it not that
through long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind, I could
not have believed until such time as that fact thunder on my ear.  'See!
See!  I prove, I prove.'  Alas!  Had I known at first what now I know,
nay, had I even guess at him, one so precious life had been spared to
many of us who did love her.  But that is gone, and we must so work,
that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save.  The nosferatu
do not die like the bee when he sting once.  He is only stronger, and
being stronger, have yet more power to work evil.  This vampire which
is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men, he is
of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages, he
have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply,
the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to
are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil
in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within his range,
direct the elements, the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command
all the meaner things, the rat, and the owl, and the bat, the moth,
and the fox, and the wolf, he can grow and become small; and he can at
times vanish and come unknown.  How then are we to begin our strike to
destroy him?  How shall we find his where, and having found it, how
can we destroy?  My friends, this is much, it is a terrible task that
we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder.
For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win, and then where
end we?  Life is nothings, I heed him not.  But to fail here, is not
mere life or death.  It is that we become as him, that we henceforward
become foul things of the night like him, without heart or conscience,
preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best.  To us
forever are the gates of heaven shut, for who shall open them to us
again?  We go on for all time abhorred by all, a blot on the face of
God's sunshine, an arrow in the side of Him who died for man.  But we
are face to face with duty, and in such case must we shrink?  For me,
I say no, but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair
places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind.  You
others are young.  Some have seen sorrow, but there are fair days yet
in store.  What say you?"

Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand.  I feared, oh so
much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when
I saw his hand stretch out, but it was life to me to feel its touch,
so strong, so self reliant, so resolute.  A brave man's hand can speak
for itself, it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music.

When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and
I in his, there was no need for speaking between us.

"I answer for Mina and myself," he said.

"Count me in, Professor," said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as
usual.

"I am with you," said Lord Godalming, "for Lucy's sake, if for no
other reason."

Dr. Seward simply nodded.

The Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the
table, held out his hand on either side.  I took his right hand, and
Lord Godalming his left, Jonathan held my right with his left and
stretched across to Mr. Morris.  So as we all took hands our solemn
compact was made.  I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur
to me to draw back.  We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went
on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had
begun.  It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way,
as any other transaction of life.

"Well, you know what we have to contend against, but we too, are not
without strength.  We have on our side power of combination, a power
denied to the vampire kind, we have sources of science, we are free to
act and think, and the hours of the day and the night are ours
equally.  In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered,
and we are free to use them.  We have self devotion in a cause and an
end to achieve which is not a selfish one.  These things are much.

"Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are
restrict, and how the individual cannot.  In fine, let us consider the
limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.

"All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions.  These do
not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and
death, nay of more than either life or death.  Yet must we be
satisfied, in the first place because we have to be, no other means is
at our control, and secondly, because, after all these things,
tradition and superstition, are everything.  Does not the belief in
vampires rest for others, though not, alas! for us, on them?  A year
ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst
of our scientific, sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century?  We
even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes.  Take
it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his
cure, rest for the moment on the same base.  For, let me tell you, he
is known everywhere that men have been.  In old Greece, in old Rome,
he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the
Chermosese, and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is
he, and the peoples for him at this day.  He have follow the wake of
the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon,
the Magyar.

"So far, then, we have all we may act upon, and let me tell you that
very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own
so unhappy experience.  The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere
passing of the time, he can flourish when that he can fatten on the
blood of the living.  Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can
even grow younger, that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem
as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty.

"But he cannot flourish without this diet, he eat not as others.  Even
friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him eat,
never!  He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect, as
again Jonathan observe.  He has the strength of many of his hand,
witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, and
when he help him from the diligence too.  He can transform himself to
wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open
the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at
Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as
my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy.

"He can come in mist which he create, that noble ship's captain proved
him of this, but, from what we know, the distance he can make this
mist is limited, and it can only be round himself.

"He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust, as again Jonathan saw
those sisters in the castle of Dracula.  He become so small, we
ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a
hairbreadth space at the tomb door.  He can, when once he find his
way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it
be bound or even fused up with fire, solder you call it.  He can see
in the dark, no small power this, in a world which is one half shut
from the light.  Ah, but hear me through.

"He can do all these things, yet he is not free.  Nay, he is even more
prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell.
He cannot go where he lists, he who is not of nature has yet to obey
some of nature's laws, why we know not.  He may not enter anywhere at
the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to
come, though afterwards he can come as he please.  His power ceases,
as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day.

"Only at certain times can he have limited freedom.  If he be not at
the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or
at exact sunrise or sunset.  These things we are told, and in this
record of ours we have proof by inference.  Thus, whereas he can do as
he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home, his
coffin-home, his hell-home, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he
went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby, still at other time he can
only change when the time come.  It is said, too, that he can only
pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide.  Then there
are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic
that we know of, and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my
crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is
nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent
with respect.  There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest
in our seeking we may need them.

"The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from
it, a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true
dead, and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace,
or the cut off head that giveth rest.  We have seen it with our eyes.

"Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine
him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know.  But he is
clever.  I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to
make his record, and from all the means that are, he tell me of what
he has been.  He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won
his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier
of Turkeyland.  If it be so, then was he no common man, for in that
time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and
the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land
beyond the forest.'  That mighty brain and that iron resolution went
with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us.  The
Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and
again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings
with the Evil One.  They learned his secrets in the Scholomance,
amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims
the tenth scholar as his due.  In the records are such words as
'stregoica' witch, 'ordog' and 'pokol' Satan and hell, and in one
manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all
understand too well.  There have been from the loins of this very one
great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where
alone this foulness can dwell.  For it is not the least of its terrors
that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good, in soil barren of
holy memories it cannot rest."

Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the
window, and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room.  There
was a little pause, and then the Professor went on.

"And now we must settle what we do.  We have here much data, and we
must proceed to lay out our campaign.  We know from the inquiry of
Jonathan that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all
of which were delivered at Carfax, we also know that at least some of
these boxes have been removed.  It seems to me, that our first step
should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond
that wall where we look today, or whether any more have been removed.
If the latter, we must trace . . ."

Here we were interrupted in a very startling way.  Outside the house
came the sound of a pistol shot, the glass of the window was shattered
with a bullet, which ricochetting from the top of the embrasure,
struck the far wall of the room.  I am afraid I am at heart a coward,
for I shrieked out.  The men all jumped to their feet, Lord Godalming
flew over to the window and threw up the sash.  As he did so we heard
Mr. Morris' voice without, "Sorry!  I fear I have alarmed you.  I
shall come in and tell you about it."

A minute later he came in and said, "It was an idiotic thing of me to
do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely, I fear I must
have frightened you terribly.  But the fact is that whilst the
Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the window sill.
I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that
I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been
doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one.  You used to
laugh at me for it then, Art."

"Did you hit it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing.

"I don't know, I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood."  Without
saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume
his statement.

"We must trace each of these boxes, and when we are ready, we must
either capture or kill this monster in his lair, or we must, so to
speak, sterilize the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it.
Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours
of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most
weak.

"And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well.
You are too precious to us to have such risk.  When we part tonight,
you no more must question.  We shall tell you all in good time.  We
are men and are able to bear, but you must be our star and our hope,
and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger,
such as we are."

All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved, but it did not seem to me
good that they should brave danger and, perhaps lessen their safety,
strength being the best safety, through care of me, but their minds
were made up, and though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I
could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me.

Mr. Morris resumed the discussion, "As there is no time to lose, I
vote we have a look at his house right now.  Time is everything with
him, and swift action on our part may save another victim."

I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so
close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I
appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave
me out of their counsels altogether.  They have now gone off to
Carfax, with means to get into the house.

Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep, as if a woman can
sleep when those she loves are in danger!  I shall lie down, and
pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he
returns.




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

1 October, 4 A.M.--Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent
message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at
once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me.  I
told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the
morning, I was busy just at the moment.

The attendant added, "He seems very importunate, sir.  I have never
seen him so eager.  I don't know but what, if you don't see him soon,
he will have one of his violent fits."  I knew the man would not have
said this without some cause, so I said, "All right, I'll go now," and
I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and
see my patient.

"Take me with you, friend John," said the Professor.  "His case in your
diary interest me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on our
case.  I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is
disturbed."

"May I come also?" asked Lord Godalming.

"Me too?" said Quincey Morris.  "May I come?" said Harker.  I nodded,
and we all went down the passage together.

We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more
rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him.  There was
an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had
ever met with in a lunatic, and he took it for granted that his
reasons would prevail with others entirely sane.  We all five went
into the room, but none of the others at first said anything.  His
request was that I would at once release him from the asylum and send
him home.  This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete
recovery, and adduced his own existing sanity.

"I appeal to your friends," he said, "they will, perhaps, not mind
sitting in judgement on my case.  By the way, you have not introduced
me."

I was so much astonished, that the oddness of introducing a madman in
an asylum did not strike me at the moment, and besides, there was a
certain dignity in the man's manner, so much of the habit of equality,
that I at once made the introduction, "Lord Godalming, Professor Van
Helsing, Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas, Mr. Jonathan Harker, Mr.
Renfield."

He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn, "Lord Godalming, I
had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham; I grieve to
know, by your holding the title, that he is no more.  He was a man
loved and honoured by all who knew him, and in his youth was, I have
heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronized on Derby
night.  Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state.  Its
reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching
effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to
the Stars and Stripes.  The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast
engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place
as a political fable.  What shall any man say of his pleasure at
meeting Van Helsing?  Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of
conventional prefix.  When an individual has revolutionized
therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain
matter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to
limit him to one of a class.  You, gentlemen, who by nationality, by
heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold
your respective places in the moving world, I take to witness that I
am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession
of their liberties.  And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian
and medico-jurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to
deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional
circumstances."  He made this last appeal with a courtly air of
conviction which was not without its own charm.

I think we were all staggered.  For my own part, I was under the
conviction, despite my knowledge of the man's character and history,
that his reason had been restored, and I felt under a strong impulse
to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about
the necessary formalities for his release in the morning.  I thought
it better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of
old I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was
liable.  So I contented myself with making a general statement that he
appeared to be improving very rapidly, that I would have a longer chat
with him in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the
direction of meeting his wishes.

This did not at all satisfy him, for he said quickly, "But I fear, Dr.
Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish.  I desire to go at once,
here, now, this very hour, this very moment, if I may.  Time presses,
and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of the
essence of the contract.  I am sure it is only necessary to put before
so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so momentous
a wish, to ensure its fulfilment."

He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to
the others, and scrutinized them closely.  Not meeting any sufficient
response, he went on, "Is it possible that I have erred in my
supposition?"

"You have," I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally.

There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly, "Then I
suppose I must only shift my ground of request.  Let me ask for this
concession, boon, privilege, what you will.  I am content to implore
in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others.  I
am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons, but you may, I
assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and
unselfish, and spring from the highest sense of duty.

"Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the
sentiments which animate me.  Nay, more, you would count me amongst
the best and truest of your friends."

Again he looked at us all keenly.  I had a growing conviction that
this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was but yet
another phase of his madness, and so determined to let him go on a
little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like all
lunatics, give himself away in the end.  Van Helsing was gazing at him
with a look of utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting
with the fixed concentration of his look.  He said to Renfield in a
tone which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of
it afterwards, for it was as of one addressing an equal, "Can you not
tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free tonight?  I will
undertake that if you will satisfy even me, a stranger, without
prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind, Dr. Seward will
give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege
you seek."

He shook his head sadly, and with a look of poignant regret on his
face.  The Professor went on, "Come, sir, bethink yourself.  You claim
the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to
impress us with your complete reasonableness.  You do this, whose
sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from
medical treatment for this very defect.  If you will not help us in
our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty
which you yourself put upon us?  Be wise, and help us, and if we can
we shall aid you to achieve your wish."

He still shook his head as he said, "Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to
say.  Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should
not hesitate a moment, but I am not my own master in the matter.  I

can only ask you to trust me.  If I am refused, the responsibility
does not rest with me."

I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too
comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying, "Come, my
friends, we have work to do.  Goodnight."

As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient.
He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he
was about to make another homicidal attack.  My fears, however, were
groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his
petition in a moving manner.  As he saw that the very excess of his
emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old
relations, he became still more demonstrative.  I glanced at Van
Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes, so I became a
little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him
that his efforts were unavailing.  I had previously seen something of
the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some
request of which at the time he had thought much, such for instance,
as when he wanted a cat, and I was prepared to see the collapse into
the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion.

My expectation was not realized, for when he found that his appeal
would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition.  He
threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in
plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with
the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form
expressive of the deepest emotion.

"Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out
of this house at once.  Send me away how you will and where you will,
send keepers with me with whips and chains, let them take me in a
strait waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to gaol, but let me go
out of this.  You don't know what you do by keeping me here.  I am
speaking from the depths of my heart, of my very soul.  You don't know
whom you wrong, or how, and I may not tell.  Woe is me!  I may not
tell.  By all you hold sacred, by all you hold dear, by your love that
is lost, by your hope that lives, for the sake of the Almighty, take
me out of this and save my soul from guilt!  Can't you hear me, man?
Can't you understand?  Will you never learn?  Don't you know that I am
sane and earnest now, that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane
man fighting for his soul?  Oh, hear me!  Hear me!  Let me go, let me
go, let me go!"

I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so
would bring on a fit, so I took him by the hand and raised him up.

"Come," I said sternly, "no more of this, we have had quite enough
already.  Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly."

He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments.
Then, without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of
the bed.  The collapse had come, as on former occasions, just as I had
expected.

When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a
quiet, well-bred voice, "You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the
justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince
you tonight."




CHAPTER 19


JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

1 October, 5 A.M.--I went with the party to the search with an easy
mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well.  I
am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work.
Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at
all, but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy
and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such
a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is
finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us.  We were,
I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield.  When we
came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study.

Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward, "Say, Jack, if that man wasn't
attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw.  I'm
not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he
had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance."

Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added, "Friend
John, you know more lunatics than I do, and I'm glad of it, for I fear
that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last
hysterical outburst have given him free.  But we live and learn, and
in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would
say.  All is best as they are."

Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way, "I
don't know but that I agree with you.  If that man had been an
ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him, but he
seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am
afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads.  I can't forget
how he prayed with almost equal fervor for a cat, and then tried to
tear my throat out with his teeth.  Besides, he called the Count 'lord
and master', and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical
way.  That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind
to help him, so I suppose he isn't above trying to use a respectable
lunatic.  He certainly did seem earnest, though.  I only hope we have
done what is best.  These things, in conjunction with the wild work we
have in hand, help to unnerve a man."

The Professor stepped over, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said
in his grave, kindly way, "Friend John, have no fear.  We are trying
to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case, we can only do as we
deem best.  What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good
God?"

Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he
returned.  He held up a little silver whistle as he remarked, "That
old place may be full of rats, and if so, I've got an antidote on
call."

Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care to
keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone
out.  When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took
out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four
little groups, evidently one for each.  Then he spoke.

"My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of
many kinds.  Our enemy is not merely spiritual.  Remember that he has
the strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our
windpipes are of the common kind, and therefore breakable or
crushable, his are not amenable to mere strength.  A stronger man, or
a body of men more strong in all than him, can at certain times hold
him, but they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him.  We must,
therefore, guard ourselves from his touch.  Keep this near your
heart."  As he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it
out to me, I being nearest to him, "put these flowers round your
neck," here he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms, "for
other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife, and for aid
in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your
breast, and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must
not desecrate needless."

This was a portion of Sacred Wafer, which he put in an envelope and
handed to me.  Each of the others was similarly equipped.

"Now," he said, "friend John, where are the skeleton keys?  If so that
we can open the door, we need not break house by the window, as before
at Miss Lucy's."

Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as
a surgeon standing him in good stead.  Presently he got one to suit,
after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and with a
rusty clang, shot back.  We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges
creaked, and it slowly opened.  It was startlingly like the image
conveyed to me in Dr. Seward's diary of the opening of Miss Westenra's
tomb, I fancy that the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with
one accord they shrank back.  The Professor was the first to move
forward, and stepped into the open door.

"In manus tuas, Domine!" he said, crossing himself as he passed over
the threshold.  We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have
lit our lamps we should possibly attract attention from the road.  The
Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open
it from within should we be in a hurry making our exit.  Then we all
lit our lamps and proceeded on our search.

The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the
rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great
shadows.  I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there
was someone else amongst us.  I suppose it was the recollection, so
powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that
terrible experience in Transylvania.  I think the feeling was common
to us all, for I noticed that the others kept looking over their
shoulders at every sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself
doing.

The whole place was thick with dust.  The floor was seemingly inches
deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding
down my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was cracked.
The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were
masses of spider's webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they
looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down.
On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a time-yellowed
label on each.  They had been used several times, for on the table
were several similar rents in the blanket of dust, similar to that
exposed when the Professor lifted them.

He turned to me and said, "You know this place, Jonathan.  You have
copied maps of it, and you know it at least more than we do.  Which is
the way to the chapel?"

I had an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not
been able to get admission to it, so I led the way, and after a few
wrong turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed
with iron bands.

"This is the spot," said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a
small map of the house, copied from the file of my original
correspondence regarding the purchase.  With a little trouble we found
the key on the bunch and opened the door.  We were prepared for some
unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous
air seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected
such an odour as we encountered.  None of the others had met the Count
at all at close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the
fasting stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was bloated
with fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air, but here the
place was small and close, and the long disuse had made the air
stagnant and foul.  There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma,
which came through the fouler air.  But as to the odour itself, how
shall I describe it?  It was not alone that it was composed of all the
ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it
seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt.  Faugh!  It
sickens me to think of it.  Every breath exhaled by that monster
seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness.

Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our
enterprise to an end, but this was no ordinary case, and the high and
terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which
rose above merely physical considerations.  After the involuntary
shrinking consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set
about our work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses.

We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as
we began, "The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left,
we must then examine every hole and corner and cranny and see if we
cannot get some clue as to what has become of the rest."

A glance was sufficient to show how many remained, for the great earth
chests were bulky, and there was no mistaking them.

There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty!  Once I got a
fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the
vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an
instant my heart stood still.  Somewhere, looking out from the shadow,
I seemed to see the high lights of the Count's evil face, the ridge of
the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor.  It was only
for a moment, for, as Lord Godalming said, "I thought I saw a face,
but it was only the shadows," and resumed his inquiry, I turned my
lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage.  There was no
sign of anyone, and as there were no corners, no doors, no aperture of
any kind, but only the solid walls of the passage, there could be no
hiding place even for him.  I took it that fear had helped
imagination, and said nothing.

A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner,
which he was examining.  We all followed his movements with our eyes,
for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole
mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars.  We all
instinctively drew back.  The whole place was becoming alive with
rats.

For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who
was seemingly prepared for such an emergency.  Rushing over to the
great iron-bound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the
outside, and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock,
drew the huge bolts, and swung the door open.  Then, taking his little
silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call.  It was
answered from behind Dr. Seward's house by the yelping of dogs, and
after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of
the house.  Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we
moved I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed.  The boxes
which had been taken out had been brought this way.  But even in the
minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased.
They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight,
shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made
the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies.  The dogs
dashed on, but at the threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and
then, simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most
lugubrious fashion.  The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we
moved out.

Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him
on the floor.  The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to
recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies.  They fled
before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score,
the other dogs, who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but
small prey ere the whole mass had vanished.

With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for
the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at
their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in
the air with vicious shakes.  We all seemed to find our spirits rise.
Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening
of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding
ourselves in the open I know not, but most certainly the shadow of
dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our
coming lost something of its grim significance, though we did not
slacken a whit in our resolution.  We closed the outer door and barred
and locked it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the
house.  We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary
proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had
made my first visit.  Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of
uneasiness, and even when we returned to the chapel they frisked about
as though they had been rabbit hunting in a summer wood.

The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front.
Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall door from the bunch, and
locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket
when he had done.

"So far," he said, "our night has been eminently successful.  No harm
has come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained
how many boxes are missing.  More than all do I rejoice that this, our
first, and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous, step has been
accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina
or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds
and smells of horror which she might never forget.  One lesson, too,
we have learned, if it be allowable to argue a particulari, that the
brute beasts which are to the Count's command are yet themselves not
amenable to his spiritual power, for look, these rats that would come
to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your
going and to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him, they run
pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur.  We have other
matters before us, other dangers, other fears, and that monster . . .
He has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the
last time tonight.  So be it that he has gone elsewhere.  Good!  It
has given us opportunity to cry 'check' in some ways in this chess
game, which we play for the stake of human souls.  And now let us go
home.  The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content
with our first night's work.  It may be ordained that we have many
nights and days to follow, if full of peril, but we must go on, and
from no danger shall we shrink."

The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who
was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning
sound from Renfield's room.  The poor wretch was doubtless torturing
himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of
pain.

I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so
softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it.  She looks paler than
usual.  I hope the meeting tonight has not upset her.  I am truly
thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of
our deliberations.  It is too great a strain for a woman to bear.  I
did not think so at first, but I know better now.  Therefore I am glad
that it is settled.  There may be things which would frighten her to
hear, and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her
if once she suspected that there was any concealment.  Henceforth our
work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can
tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of
the nether world.  I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep
silence after such confidence as ours, but I must be resolute, and
tomorrow I shall keep dark over tonight's doings, and shall refuse to
speak of anything that has happened.  I rest on the sofa, so as not to
disturb her.


1 October, later.--I suppose it was natural that we should have all
overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no
rest at all.  Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I
slept till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call
two or three times before she awoke.  Indeed, she was so sound asleep
that for a few seconds she did not recognize me, but looked at me with
a sort of blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad
dream.  She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest
till later in the day.  We now know of twenty-one boxes having been
removed, and if it be that several were taken in any of these removals
we may be able to trace them all.  Such will, of course, immensely
simplify our labor, and the sooner the matter is attended to the
better.  I shall look up Thomas Snelling today.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

1 October.--It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor
walking into my room.  He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and
it is quite evident that last night's work has helped to take some of
the brooding weight off his mind.

After going over the adventure of the night he suddenly said, "Your
patient interests me much.  May it be that with you I visit him this
morning?  Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may be.
It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy,
and reason so sound."

I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him that if he would go
alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to keep him waiting,
so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions.
Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against getting any
false impression from my patient.

"But," he answered, "I want him to talk of himself and of his delusion
as to consuming live things.  He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your
diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief.  Why do you
smile, friend John?"

"Excuse me," I said, "but the answer is here."  I laid my hand on the
typewritten matter.  "When our sane and learned lunatic made that very
statement of how he used to consume life, his mouth was actually
nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before
Mrs. Harker entered the room."

Van Helsing smiled in turn.  "Good!" he said.  "Your memory is true,
friend John.  I should have remembered.  And yet it is this very
obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a
fascinating study.  Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly
of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise.  Who
knows?"

I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand.  It
seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van
Helsing back in the study.

"Do I interrupt?" he asked politely as he stood at the door.

"Not at all," I answered.  "Come in.  My work is finished, and I am
free.  I can go with you now, if you like."

"It is needless, I have seen him!"

"Well?"

"I fear that he does not appraise me at much.  Our interview was
short.  When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the
centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of
sullen discontent.  I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with
such a measure of respect as I could assume.  He made no reply
whatever.  'Don't you know me?' I asked.  His answer was not
reassuring: 'I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van
Helsing.  I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain
theories somewhere else.  Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!'  Not a word
more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent
to me as though I had not been in the room at all.  Thus departed for
this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic, so I
shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that
sweet soul Madam Mina.  Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable
that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our
terrible things.  Though we shall much miss her help, it is better
so."

"I agree with you with all my heart," I answered earnestly, for I did
not want him to weaken in this matter.  "Mrs. Harker is better out of
it.  Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who
have been in many tight places in our time, but it is no place for a
woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in
time infallibly have wrecked her."

So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker, Quincey
and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earth boxes.  I
shall finish my round of work and we shall meet tonight.





MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

1 October.--It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am today,
after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him
manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all.
This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though
Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier.  He spoke to me before he
went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a
word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house.  And yet
he must have known how terribly anxious I was.  Poor dear fellow!  I
suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me.  They
all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into
this awful work, and I acquiesced.  But to think that he keeps
anything from me!  And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know
it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes
of those other strong men.

That has done me good.  Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all.  And
lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept
anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual.  Then if he has
feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my
heart put down for his dear eyes to read.  I feel strangely sad and
low-spirited today.  I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible
excitement.

Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they
told me to.  I didn't feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring
anxiety.  I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since
Jonathan came to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible
tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end.
Everything that one does seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring
on the very thing which is most to be deplored.  If I hadn't gone to
Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now.  She hadn't taken
to visiting the churchyard till I came, and if she hadn't come there
in the day time with me she wouldn't have walked in her sleep.  And if
she hadn't gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldn't have
destroyed her as he did.  Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby?  There now,
crying again!  I wonder what has come over me today.  I must hide it
from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one
morning . . . I, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has
never caused to shed a tear, the dear fellow would fret his heart out.
I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see
it.  I suppose it is just one of the lessons that we poor women have
to learn . . .

I can't quite remember how I fell asleep last night.  I remember
hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like
praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield's room, which is
somewhere under this.  And then there was silence over everything,
silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out
of the window.  All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by
the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own.  Not a
thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or
fate, so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost
imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to
have a sentience and a vitality of its own.  I think that the
digression of my thoughts must have done me good, for when I got back
to bed I found a lethargy creeping over me.  I lay a while, but could
not quite sleep, so I got out and looked out of the window again.  The
mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could
see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to
the windows.  The poor man was more loud than ever, and though I could
not distinguish a word he said, I could in some way recognize in his
tones some passionate entreaty on his part.  Then there was the sound
of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him.
I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled the clothes over
my head, putting my fingers in my ears.  I was not then a bit sleepy,
at least so I thought, but I must have fallen asleep, for except
dreams, I do not remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan
woke me.  I think that it took me an effort and a little time to
realize where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me.
My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way that
waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams.

I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back.  I
was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act, my feet, and
my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at
the usual pace.  And so I slept uneasily and thought.  Then it began
to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold.  I put
back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was
dim around.  The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but
turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which
had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room.  Then it
occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed.  I
would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden
lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will.  I lay still and
endured, that was all.  I closed my eyes, but could still see through
my eyelids.  (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how
conveniently we can imagine.)  The mist grew thicker and thicker and I
could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke, or with
the white energy of boiling water, pouring in, not through the window,
but through the joinings of the door.  It got thicker and thicker,
till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of
cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of
the gas shining like a red eye.  Things began to whirl through my
brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and
through it all came the scriptural words "a pillar of cloud by day and
of fire by night."  Was it indeed such spiritual guidance that was
coming to me in my sleep?  But the pillar was composed of both the day
and the night guiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the
thought got a new fascination for me, till, as I looked, the fire
divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes,
such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the
cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary's Church.
Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had
seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist
in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became
black darkness.  The last conscious effort which imagination made was
to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist.

I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one's reason if
there were too much of them.  I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr.
Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only
that I fear to alarm them.  Such a dream at the present time would
become woven into their fears for me.  Tonight I shall strive hard to
sleep naturally.  If I do not, I shall tomorrow night get them to give
me a dose of chloral, that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give
me a good night's sleep.  Last night tired me more than if I had not
slept at all.


2 October 10 P.M.--Last night I slept, but did not dream.  I must have
slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed, but the
sleep has not refreshed me, for today I feel terribly weak and
spiritless.  I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down
dozing.  In the afternoon, Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me.  Poor
man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and
bade God bless me.  Some way it affected me much.  I am crying when I
think of him.  This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful.
Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying.  He and the
others were out till dinner time, and they all came in tired.  I did
what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me
good, for I forgot how tired I was.  After dinner they sent me to bed,
and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they
wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day.
I could see from Jonathan's manner that he had something important to
communicate.  I was not so sleepy as I should have been, so before
they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind,
as I had not slept well the night before.  He very kindly made me up a
sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me
no harm, as it was very mild . . . I have taken it, and am waiting for
sleep, which still keeps aloof.  I hope I have not done wrong, for as
sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been
foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking.  I might want
it.  Here comes sleep.  Goodnight.




CHAPTER 20


JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

1 October, evening.--I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal
Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything.
The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him
had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected
debauch.  I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor
soul, that he was only the assistant of Smollet, who of the two mates
was the responsible person.  So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr.
Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out
of a saucer.  He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good,
reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own.  He
remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful
dog-eared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle
about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries
in thick, half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the
boxes.  There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from
Carfax and left at 197 Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and
another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey.  If then
the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London,
these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he
might distribute more fully.  The systematic manner in which this was
done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two
sides of London.  He was now fixed on the far east on the northern
shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south.  The north
and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical
scheme, let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable
London in the south-west and west.  I went back to Smollet, and asked
him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax.

He replied, "Well guv'nor, you've treated me very 'an'some", I had
given him half a sovereign, "an I'll tell yer all I know.  I heard a
man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds,
in Pincher's Alley, as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in
a old 'ouse at Purfleet.  There ain't a many such jobs as this 'ere,
an' I'm thinkin' that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut."

I asked if he could tell me where to find him.  I told him that if he
could get me the address it would be worth another half sovereign to
him.  So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that
he was going to begin the search then and there.

At the door he stopped, and said, "Look 'ere, guv'nor, there ain't no
sense in me a keepin' you 'ere.  I may find Sam soon, or I mayn't, but
anyhow he ain't like to be in a way to tell ye much tonight.  Sam is a
rare one when he starts on the booze.  If you can give me a envelope
with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, I'll find out where Sam
is to be found and post it ye tonight.  But ye'd better be up arter
'im soon in the mornin', never mind the booze the night afore."

This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny
to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change.  When
she came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when
Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found,
I took my way to home.  We're on the track anyhow.  I am tired
tonight, and I want to sleep.  Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little
too pale.  Her eyes look as though she had been crying.  Poor dear,
I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her
doubly anxious about me and the others.  But it is best as it is.  It
is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to
have her nerve broken.  The doctors were quite right to insist on her
being kept out of this dreadful business.  I must be firm, for on me
this particular burden of silence must rest.  I shall not ever enter
on the subject with her under any circumstances.  Indeed, It may not
be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the
subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we
told her of our decision.


2 October, evening--A long and trying and exciting day.  By the first
post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed,
on which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand,
"Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4 Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth.  Arsk
for the depite."

I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina.  She looked
heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well.  I determined not to
wake her, but that when I should return from this new search, I would
arrange for her going back to Exeter.  I think she would be happier in
our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here
amongst us and in ignorance.  I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and
told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest
so soon as I should have found out anything.  I drove to Walworth and
found, with some difficulty, Potter's Court.  Mr. Smollet's spelling
misled me, as I asked for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court.
However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in
discovering Corcoran's lodging house.

When I asked the man who came to the door for the "depite," he shook
his head, and said, "I dunno 'im.  There ain't no such a person 'ere.
I never 'eard of 'im in all my bloomin' days.  Don't believe there
ain't nobody of that kind livin' 'ere or anywheres."

I took out Smollet's letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the
lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me.  "What
are you?" I asked.

"I'm the depity," he answered.

I saw at once that I was on the right track.  Phonetic spelling had
again misled me.  A half crown tip put the deputy's knowledge at my
disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains
of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran's, had left for his work
at Poplar at five o'clock that morning.  He could not tell me where
the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was
some kind of a "new-fangled ware'us," and with this slender clue I had
to start for Poplar.  It was twelve o'clock before I got any
satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffee shop,
where some workmen were having their dinner.  One of them suggested
that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new "cold
storage" building, and as this suited the condition of a "new-fangled
ware'us," I at once drove to it.  An interview with a surly gatekeeper
and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the
realm, put me on the track of Bloxam.  He was sent for on my
suggestion that I was willing to pay his days wages to his foreman for
the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter.  He
was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing.  When I
had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he
told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in
Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great
boxes, "main heavy ones," with a horse and cart hired by him for this
purpose.

I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly,
to which he replied, "Well, guv'nor, I forgits the number, but it was
only a few door from a big white church, or somethink of the kind, not
long built.  It was a dusty old 'ouse, too, though nothin' to the
dustiness of the 'ouse we tooked the bloomin' boxes from."

"How did you get in if both houses were empty?"

"There was the old party what engaged me a waitin' in the 'ouse at
Purfleet.  He 'elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray.
Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an' him a old
feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he
couldn't throw a shadder."

How this phrase thrilled through me!

"Why, 'e took up 'is end o' the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and
me a puffin' an' a blowin' afore I could upend mine anyhow, an' I'm no
chicken, neither."

"How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?" I asked.

"He was there too.  He must 'a started off and got there afore me, for
when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped
me carry the boxes into the 'all."

"The whole nine?" I asked.

"Yus, there was five in the first load an' four in the second.  It was
main dry work, an' I don't so well remember 'ow I got 'ome."

I interrupted him, "Were the boxes left in the hall?"

"Yus, it was a big 'all, an' there was nothin' else in it."

I made one more attempt to further matters.  "You didn't have any
key?"

"Never used no key nor nothink.  The old gent, he opened the door
'isself an' shut it again when I druv off.  I don't remember the last
time, but that was the beer."

"And you can't remember the number of the house?"

"No, sir.  But ye needn't have no difficulty about that.  It's a 'igh
'un with a stone front with a bow on it, an' 'igh steps up to the
door.  I know them steps, 'avin' 'ad to carry the boxes up with three
loafers what come round to earn a copper.  The old gent give them
shillin's, an' they seein' they got so much, they wanted more.  But 'e
took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw 'im down the
steps, till the lot of them went away cussin'."

I thought that with this description I could find the house, so having
paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly.  I
had gained a new painful experience.  The Count could, it was evident,
handle the earth boxes himself.  If so, time was precious, for now
that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by
choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved.  At Piccadilly
Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward.  Beyond the Junior
Constitutional I came across the house described and was satisfied
that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula.  The house
looked as though it had been long untenanted.  The windows were
encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up.  All the framework was
black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away.
It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice board
in front of the balcony.  It had, however, been roughly torn away, the
uprights which had supported it still remaining.  Behind the rails of
the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked
white.  I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the
notice board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the
ownership of the house.  I remembered my experience of the investigation
and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find
the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access
to the house.

There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side,
and nothing could be done, so I went around to the back to see if
anything could be gathered from this quarter.  The mews were active,
the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation.  I asked one or two
of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me
anything about the empty house.  One of them said that he heard it had
lately been taken, but he couldn't say from whom.  He told me,
however, that up to very lately there had been a notice board of "For
Sale" up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy the house agents
could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name
of that firm on the board.  I did not wish to seem too eager, or to
let my informant know or guess too much, so thanking him in the usual
manner, I strolled away.  It was now growing dusk, and the autumn
night was closing in, so I did not lose any time.  Having learned the
address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I
was soon at their office in Sackville Street.

The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but
uncommunicative in equal proportion.  Having once told me that the
Piccadilly house, which throughout our interview he called a
"mansion," was sold, he considered my business as concluded.  When I
asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and
paused a few seconds before replying, "It is sold, sir."

"Pardon me," I said, with equal politeness, "but I have a special
reason for wishing to know who purchased it."

Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more.  "It is
sold, sir," was again his laconic reply.

"Surely," I said, "you do not mind letting me know so much."

"But I do mind," he answered.  "The affairs of their clients are
absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy."

This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use
arguing with him.  I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so
I said, "Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian
of their confidence.  I am myself a professional man."

Here I handed him my card.  "In this instance I am not prompted by
curiosity, I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know
something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale."

These words put a different complexion on affairs.  He said, "I would
like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like
to oblige his lordship.  We once carried out a small matter of renting
some chambers for him when he was the honourable Arthur Holmwood.  If
you will let me have his lordship's address I will consult the House
on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship
by tonight's post.  It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate
from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship."

I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked
him, gave the address at Dr. Seward's and came away.  It was now dark,
and I was tired and hungry.  I got a cup of tea at the Aerated Bread
Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train.

I found all the others at home.  Mina was looking tired and pale, but
she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful.  It wrung my
heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused
her inquietude.  Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking
on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our
confidence.  It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of
keeping her out of our grim task.  She seems somehow more reconciled,
or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for
when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders.  I am glad
we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our
growing knowledge would be torture to her.

I could not tell the others of the day's discovery till we were alone,
so after dinner, followed by a little music to save appearances even
amongst ourselves, I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed.
The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me
as though she would detain me, but there was much to be talked of and
I came away.  Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no
difference between us.

When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire
in the study.  In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply
read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of
my own information.

When I had finished Van Helsing said, "This has been a great day's
work, friend Jonathan.  Doubtless we are on the track of the missing
boxes.  If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the
end.  But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them.
Then shall we make our final coup, and hunt the wretch to his real
death."

We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke, "Say!  How
are we going to get into that house?"

"We got into the other," answered Lord Godalming quickly.

"But, Art, this is different.  We broke house at Carfax, but we had
night and a walled park to protect us.  It will be a mighty different
thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night.  I
confess I don't see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck
can find us a key of some sort."

Lord Godalming's brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the
room.  By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to another of
us, "Quincey's head is level.  This burglary business is getting
serious.  We got off once all right, but we have now a rare job on
hand.  Unless we can find the Count's key basket."

As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at
least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from
Mitchell's, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast
time.  For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in
its various lights and bearings.  I took the opportunity of bringing
this diary right up to the moment.  I am very sleepy and shall go to
bed . . .

Just a line.  Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular.  Her
forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks
even in her sleep.  She is still too pale, but does not look so
haggard as she did this morning.  Tomorrow will, I hope, mend all
this.  She will be herself at home in Exeter.  Oh, but I am sleepy!




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

1 October.--I am puzzled afresh about Renfield.  His moods change so
rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they
always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more
than interesting study.  This morning, when I went to see him after
his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding
destiny.  He was, in fact, commanding destiny, subjectively.  He did
not really care for any of the things of mere earth, he was in the
clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor
mortals.

I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked
him, "What about the flies these times?"

He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way, such a smile as would
have become the face of Malvolio, as he answered me, "The fly, my dear
sir, has one striking feature.  It's wings are typical of the aerial
powers of the psychic faculties.  The ancients did well when they
typified the soul as a butterfly!"

I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said
quickly, "Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?"

His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face
as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in
him.

He said, "Oh, no, oh no!  I want no souls.  Life is all I want."  Here
he brightened up.  "I am pretty indifferent about it at present.  Life
is all right.  I have all I want.  You must get a new patient, doctor,
if you wish to study zoophagy!"

This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on.  "Then you command life.
You are a god, I suppose?"

He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority.  "Oh no!  Far be it
from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity.  I am not
even concerned in His especially spiritual doings.  If I may state my
intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely
terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied
spiritually!"

This was a poser to me.  I could not at the moment recall Enoch's
appositeness, so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by
so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic.  "And why
with Enoch?"

"Because he walked with God."

I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it, so I harked
back to what he had denied.  "So you don't care about life and you
don't want souls.  Why not?"  I put my question quickly and somewhat
sternly, on purpose to disconcert him.

The effort succeeded, for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into
his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon
me as he replied.  "I don't want any souls, indeed, indeed!  I don't.
I couldn't use them if I had them.  They would be no manner of use to
me.  I couldn't eat them or . . ."

He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face,
like a wind sweep on the surface of the water.

"And doctor, as to life, what is it after all?  When you've got all
you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all.  I
have friends, good friends, like you, Dr. Seward."  This was said with
a leer of inexpressible cunning.  "I know that I shall never lack the
means of life!"

I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some
antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such
as he, a dogged silence.  After a short time I saw that for the
present it was useless to speak to him.  He was sulky, and so I came
away.

Later in the day he sent for me.  Ordinarily I would not have come
without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him
that I would gladly make an effort.  Besides, I am glad to have
anything to help pass the time.  Harker is out, following up clues,
and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey.  Van Helsing sits in my study
poring over the record prepared by the Harkers.  He seems to think
that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light up on some
clue.  He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause.  I
would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that
after his last repulse he might not care to go again.  There was also
another reason.  Renfield might not speak so freely before a third
person as when he and I were alone.

I found him sitting in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose
which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part.  When
I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on
his lips.  "What about souls?"

It was evident then that my surmise had been correct.  Unconscious
cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic.  I determined
to have the matter out.

"What about them yourself?" I asked.

He did not reply for a moment but looked all around him, and up and
down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer.

"I don't want any souls!" he said in a feeble, apologetic way.  The
matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it, to
"be cruel only to be kind."  So I said, "You like life, and you want
life?"

"Oh yes!  But that is all right.  You needn't worry about that!"

"But," I asked, "how are we to get the life without getting the soul
also?"

This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up, "A nice time you'll
have some time when you're flying out here, with the souls of
thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and
twittering and moaning all around you.  You've got their lives, you
know, and you must put up with their souls!"

Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to
his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small
boy does when his face is being soaped.  There was something pathetic
in it that touched me.  It also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that
before me was a child, only a child, though the features were worn,
and the stubble on the jaws was white.  It was evident that he was
undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and knowing how his
past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I
thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him.

The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking
pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears, "Would
you like some sugar to get your flies around again?"

He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head.  With a laugh he
replied, "Not much!  Flies are poor things, after all!"  After a pause
he added, "But I don't want their souls buzzing round me, all the
same."

"Or spiders?" I went on.

"Blow spiders!  What's the use of spiders?  There isn't anything in
them to eat or . . ."  He stopped suddenly as though reminded of a
forbidden topic.

"So, so!" I thought to myself, "this is the second time he has
suddenly stopped at the word 'drink'.  What does it mean?"

Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried
on, as though to distract my attention from it, "I don't take any
stock at all in such matters.  'Rats and mice and such small deer,' as
Shakespeare has it, 'chicken feed of the larder' they might be called.
I'm past all that sort of nonsense.  You might as well ask a man to
eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks, as to try to interest me
about the less carnivora, when I know of what is before me."

"I see," I said.  "You want big things that you can make your teeth
meet in?  How would you like to breakfast on an elephant?"

"What ridiculous nonsense you are talking?"  He was getting too wide
awake, so I thought I would press him hard.

"I wonder," I said reflectively, "what an elephant's soul is like!"

The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his
high-horse and became a child again.

"I don't want an elephant's soul, or any soul at all!" he said.  For a
few moments he sat despondently.  Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with
his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement.
"To hell with you and your souls!" he shouted.  "Why do you plague me
about souls?  Haven't I got enough to worry, and pain, to distract me
already, without thinking of souls?"

He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal
fit, so I blew my whistle.

The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said
apologetically, "Forgive me, Doctor.  I forgot myself.  You do not
need any help.  I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be
irritable.  If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am
working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me.  Pray do not
put me in a strait waistcoat.  I want to think and I cannot think
freely when my body is confined.  I am sure you will understand!"

He had evidently self-control, so when the attendants came I told them
not to mind, and they withdrew.  Renfield watched them go.  When the
door was closed he said with considerable dignity and sweetness, "Dr.
Seward, you have been very considerate towards me.  Believe me that I
am very, very grateful to you!"

I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away.
There is certainly something to ponder over in this man's state.
Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls "a
story," if one could only get them in proper order.  Here they are:

    Will not mention "drinking."

    Fears the thought of being burdened with the "soul" of anything.

    Has no dread of wanting "life" in the future.

    Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads
    being haunted by their souls.

    Logically all these things point one way!  He has assurance of
    some kind that he will acquire some higher life.

    He dreads the consequence, the burden of a soul.  Then it is a
    human life he looks to!

    And the assurance . . .?

Merciful God!  The Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme
of terror afoot!


Later.--I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my
suspicion.  He grew very grave, and after thinking the matter over for
a while asked me to take him to Renfield.  I did so.  As we came to
the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do
in the time which now seems so long ago.

When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar
as of old.  The flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to
buzz into the room.  We tried to make him talk of the subject of our
previous conversation, but he would not attend.  He went on with his
singing, just as though we had not been present.  He had got a scrap
of paper and was folding it into a notebook.  We had to come away as
ignorant as we went in.

His is a curious case indeed.  We must watch him tonight.





LETTER, MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY TO LORD GODALMING.

"1 October.

"My Lord,

"We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes.  We beg,
with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr.
Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information
concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly.  The
original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald
Winter-Suffield.  The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de
Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase
money in notes 'over the counter,' if your Lordship will pardon
us using so vulgar an expression.  Beyond this we know nothing
whatever of him.

"We are, my Lord,

"Your Lordship's humble servants,

"MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY."




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

2 October.--I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to
make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield's room,
and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he
was to call me.  After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire
in the study, Mrs. Harker having gone to bed, we discussed the
attempts and discoveries of the day.  Harker was the only one who had
any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an
important one.

Before going to bed I went round to the patient's room and looked in
through the observation trap.  He was sleeping soundly, his heart rose
and fell with regular respiration.

This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after
midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly.
I asked him if that was all.  He replied that it was all he heard.
There was something about his manner, so suspicious that I asked him
point blank if he had been asleep.  He denied sleep, but admitted to
having "dozed" for a while.  It is too bad that men cannot be trusted
unless they are watched.

Today Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are
looking after horses.  Godalming thinks that it will be well to have
horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we
seek there will be no time to lose.  We must sterilize all the
imported earth between sunrise and sunset.  We shall thus catch the
Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to.  Van Helsing is
off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient
medicine.  The old physicians took account of things which their
followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and
demon cures which may be useful to us later.

I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity
in strait waistcoats.

Later.--We have met again.  We seem at last to be on the track, and
our work of tomorrow may be the beginning of the end.  I wonder if
Renfield's quiet has anything to do with this.  His moods have so
followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the
monster may be carried to him some subtle way.  If we could only get
some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my
argument with him today and his resumption of fly-catching, it might
afford us a valuable clue.  He is now seemingly quiet for a spell . . .
Is he?  That wild yell seemed to come from his room . . .

The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had
somehow met with some accident.  He had heard him yell, and when he
went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with
blood.  I must go at once . . .




CHAPTER 21


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

3 October.--Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well
as I can remember, since last I made an entry.  Not a detail that I
can recall must be forgotten.  In all calmness I must proceed.

When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his
left side in a glittering pool of blood.  When I went to move him, it
became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries.
There seemed none of the unity of purpose between the parts of the
body which marks even lethargic sanity.  As the face was exposed I
could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten
against the floor.  Indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool
of blood originated.

The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned
him over, "I think, sir, his back is broken.  See, both his right arm
and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed."  How such a
thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure.  He
seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said, "I
can't understand the two things.  He could mark his face like that by
beating his own head on the floor.  I saw a young woman do it once at
the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her.  And I
suppose he might have broken his neck by falling out of bed, if he got
in an awkward kink.  But for the life of me I can't imagine how the
two things occurred.  If his back was broke, he couldn't beat his
head, and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there
would be marks of it."

I said to him, "Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here
at once.  I want him without an instant's delay."

The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his
dressing gown and slippers, appeared.  When he saw Renfield on the
ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me.  I
think he recognized my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly,
manifestly for the ears of the attendant, "Ah, a sad accident!  He
will need very careful watching, and much attention.  I shall stay
with you myself, but I shall first dress myself.  If you will remain I
shall in a few minutes join you."

The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that
he had suffered some terrible injury.

Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a
surgical case.  He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made
up, for almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me,
"Send the attendant away.  We must be alone with him when he becomes
conscious, after the operation."

I said, "I think that will do now, Simmons.  We have done all that we
can at present.  You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing
will operate.  Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual
anywhere."

The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the
patient.  The wounds of the face were superficial.  The real injury
was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the
motor area.

The Professor thought a moment and said, "We must reduce the pressure
and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be.  The rapidity of
the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury.  The whole
motor area seems affected.  The suffusion of the brain will increase
quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late."

As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door.  I went over
and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in
pajamas and slippers; the former spoke, "I heard your man call up Dr.
Van Helsing and tell him of an accident.  So I woke Quincey or rather
called for him as he was not asleep.  Things are moving too quickly
and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times.  I've
been thinking that tomorrow night will not see things as they have
been.  We'll have to look back, and forward a little more than we have
done.  May we come in?"

I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered, then I closed
it again.  When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and
noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly, "My God!  What
has happened to him?  Poor, poor devil!"

I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover
consciousness after the operation, for a short time, at all events.
He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming
beside him.  We all watched in patience.

"We shall wait," said Van Helsing, "just long enough to fix the best
spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove
the blood clot, for it is evident that the haemorrhage is increasing."

The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness.  I
had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing's face I
gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to
come.  I dreaded the words Renfield might speak.  I was positively
afraid to think.  But the conviction of what was coming was on me, as
I have read of men who have heard the death watch.  The poor man's
breathing came in uncertain gasps.  Each instant he seemed as though
he would open his eyes and speak, but then would follow a prolonged
stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed
insensibility.  Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this suspense
grew and grew upon me.  I could almost hear the beating of my own
heart, and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows
from a hammer.  The silence finally became agonizing.  I looked at my
companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and
damp brows that they were enduring equal torture.  There was a nervous
suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal
out powerfully when we should least expect it.

At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was
sinking fast.  He might die at any moment.  I looked up at the
Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine.  His face was sternly set
as he spoke, "There is no time to lose.  His words may be worth many
lives.  I have been thinking so, as I stood here.  It may be there is
a soul at stake!  We shall operate just above the ear."

Without another word he made the operation.  For a few moments the
breathing continued to be stertorous.  Then there came a breath so
prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest.
Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare.
This was continued for a few moments, then it was softened into a glad
surprise, and from his lips came a sigh of relief.  He moved
convulsively, and as he did so, said, "I'll be quiet, Doctor.  Tell
them to take off the strait waistcoat.  I have had a terrible dream,
and it has left me so weak that I cannot move.  What's wrong with my
face?  It feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully."

He tried to turn his head, but even with the effort his eyes seemed to
grow glassy again so I gently put it back.  Then Van Helsing said in a
quiet grave tone, "Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield."

As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its mutilation, and
he said, "That is Dr. Van Helsing.  How good it is of you to be here.
Give me some water, my lips are dry, and I shall try to tell you.  I
dreamed . . ."

He stopped and seemed fainting.  I called quietly to Quincey, "The
brandy, it is in my study, quick!"  He flew and returned with a glass,
the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water.  We moistened the
parched lips, and the patient quickly revived.

It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in
the interval, for when he was quite conscious, he looked at me
piercingly with an agonized confusion which I shall never forget, and
said, "I must not deceive myself.  It was no dream, but all a grim
reality."  Then his eyes roved round the room.  As they caught sight
of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went
on, "If I were not sure already, I would know from them."

For an instant his eyes closed, not with pain or sleep but
voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear.
When he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he
had yet displayed, "Quick, Doctor, quick, I am dying!  I feel that I
have but a few minutes, and then I must go back to death, or worse!
Wet my lips with brandy again.  I have something that I must say
before I die.  Or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow.  Thank
you!  It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let
me go away.  I couldn't speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied.
But I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now.  I was in an
agony of despair for a long time after you left me, it seemed hours.
Then there came a sudden peace to me.  My brain seemed to become cool
again, and I realized where I was.  I heard the dogs bark behind our
house, but not where He was!"

As he spoke, Van Helsing's eyes never blinked, but his hand came out
and met mine and gripped it hard.  He did not, however, betray
himself.  He nodded slightly and said, "Go on," in a low voice.

Renfield proceeded.  "He came up to the window in the mist, as I had
seen him often before, but he was solid then, not a ghost, and his
eyes were fierce like a man's when angry.  He was laughing with his
red mouth, the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he
turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were
barking.  I wouldn't ask him to come in at first, though I knew he
wanted to, just as he had wanted all along.  Then he began promising
me things, not in words but by doing them."

He was interrupted by a word from the Professor, "How?"

"By making them happen.  Just as he used to send in the flies when the
sun was shining.  Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their
wings.  And big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on
their backs."

Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously, "The
Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the 'Death's-head
Moth'?"

The patient went on without stopping, "Then he began to whisper.  'Rats,
rats, rats!  Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a
life.  And dogs to eat them, and cats too.  All lives!  All red blood,
with years of life in it, and not merely buzzing flies!'  I laughed at
him, for I wanted to see what he could do.  Then the dogs howled, away
beyond the dark trees in His house.  He beckoned me to the window.  I
got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out
without using any words.  A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on
like the shape of a flame of fire.  And then He moved the mist to the
right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with
their eyes blazing red, like His only smaller.  He held up his hand,
and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be saying, 'All these
lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through
countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!'  And then a red
cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes, and
before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and
saying to Him, 'Come in, Lord and Master!'  The rats were all gone, but
He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an
inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in through the
tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour."

His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again,
and he continued, but it seemed as though his memory had gone on
working in the interval for his story was further advanced.  I was
about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me,
"Let him go on.  Do not interrupt him.  He cannot go back, and maybe
could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought."

He proceeded, "All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send
me anything, not even a blowfly, and when the moon got up I was pretty
angry with him.  When he did slide in through the window, though it
was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him.  He sneered at
me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes
gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was
no one.  He didn't even smell the same as he went by me.  I couldn't
hold him.  I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the
room."

The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind
him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better.
They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered.  His
face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still.  Renfield went on
without noticing, "When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon
she wasn't the same.  It was like tea after the teapot has been
watered."  Here we all moved, but no one said a word.

He went on, "I didn't know that she was here till she spoke, and she
didn't look the same.  I don't care for the pale people.  I like them
with lots of blood in them, and hers all seemed to have run out.  I
didn't think of it at the time, but when she went away I began to
think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out
of her."  I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did; but we
remained otherwise still.  "So when He came tonight I was ready for
Him.  I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight.  I had heard
that madmen have unnatural strength.  And as I knew I was a madman, at
times anyhow, I resolved to use my power.  Ay, and He felt it too, for
He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me.  I held tight, and
I thought I was going to win, for I didn't mean Him to take any more
of her life, till I saw His eyes.  They burned into me, and my
strength became like water.  He slipped through it, and when I tried
to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down.  There was a red
cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to
steal away under the door."

His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous.  Van
Helsing stood up instinctively.

"We know the worst now," he said.  "He is here, and we know his
purpose.  It may not be too late.  Let us be armed, the same as we
were the other night, but lose no time, there is not an instant to
spare."

There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words, we
shared them in common.  We all hurried and took from our rooms the
same things that we had when we entered the Count's house.  The
Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to
them significantly as he said, "They never leave me, and they shall
not till this unhappy business is over.  Be wise also, my friends.  It
is no common enemy that we deal with Alas!  Alas!  That dear Madam
Mina should suffer!"  He stopped, his voice was breaking, and I do not
know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart.

Outside the Harkers' door we paused.  Art and Quincey held back, and
the latter said, "Should we disturb her?"

"We must," said Van Helsing grimly.  "If the door be locked, I shall
break it in."

"May it not frighten her terribly?  It is unusual to break into a
lady's room!"

Van Helsing said solemnly, "You are always right.  But this is life
and death.  All chambers are alike to the doctor.  And even were they
not they are all as one to me tonight.  Friend John, when I turn the
handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and
shove; and you too, my friends.  Now!"

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield.  We
threw ourselves against it.  With a crash it burst open, and we almost
fell headlong into the room.  The Professor did actually fall, and I
saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees.  What I
saw appalled me.  I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my
neck, and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the
room was light enough to see.  On the bed beside the window lay
Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a
stupor.  Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the
white-clad figure of his wife.  By her side stood a tall, thin man,
clad in black.  His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we
all recognized the Count, in every way, even to the scar on his
forehead.  With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands,
keeping them away with her arms at full tension.  His right hand
gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his
bosom.  Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream
trickled down the man's bare chest which was shown by his torn-open
dress.  The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child
forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.
As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish
look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it.  His eyes
flamed red with devilish passion.  The great nostrils of the white
aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge, and the white
sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood dripping mouth, clamped
together like those of a wild beast.  With a wrench, which threw his
victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and
sprang at us.  But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and
was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer.
The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the
tomb, and cowered back.  Further and further back he cowered, as we,
lifting our crucifixes, advanced.  The moonlight suddenly failed, as a
great black cloud sailed across the sky.  And when the gaslight sprang
up under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour.  This, as
we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its
bursting open, had swung back to its old position.  Van Helsing, Art,
and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her
breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so
despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till
my dying day.  For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and
disarray.  Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated
by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin.  From her
throat trickled a thin stream of blood.  Her eyes were mad with
terror.  Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which
bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count's terrible grip, and
from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible
scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief.  Van
Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body,
whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran
out of the room.

Van Helsing whispered to me, "Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know
the Vampire can produce.  We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a
few moments till she recovers herself.  I must wake him!"

He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick
him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her
hands and sobbing in a way that was heart breaking to hear.  I raised
the blind, and looked out of the window.  There was much moonshine,
and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and
hide himself in the shadow of a great yew tree.  It puzzled me to
think why he was doing this.  But at the instant I heard Harker's
quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to
the bed.  On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild
amazement.  He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full
consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up.

His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her
arms stretched out, as though to embrace him.  Instantly, however, she
drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands
before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.

"In God's name what does this mean?" Harker cried out.  "Dr. Seward,
Dr. Van Helsing, what is it?  What has happened?  What is wrong?  Mina,
dear what is it?  What does that blood mean?  My God, my God!  Has it
come to this!"  And, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands
wildly together.  "Good God help us!  Help her!  Oh, help her!"

With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his
clothes, all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion.
"What has happened?  Tell me all about it!" he cried without pausing.
"Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know.  Oh, do something to save her.
It cannot have gone too far yet.  Guard her while I look for him!"

His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure
danger to him.  Instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of
him and cried out.

"No!  No!  Jonathan, you must not leave me.  I have suffered enough
tonight, God knows, without the dread of his harming you.  You must
stay with me.  Stay with these friends who will watch over you!"  Her
expression became frantic as she spoke.  And, he yielding to her, she
pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both.  The Professor held up his
golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness, "Do not fear, my
dear.  We are here, and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can
approach.  You are safe for tonight, and we must be calm and take
counsel together."

She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband's
breast.  When she raised it, his white nightrobe was stained with
blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in the
neck had sent forth drops.  The instant she saw it she drew back, with
a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs.

"Unclean, unclean!  I must touch him or kiss him no more.  Oh, that it
should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may
have most cause to fear."

To this he spoke out resolutely, "Nonsense, Mina.  It is a shame to me
to hear such a word.  I would not hear it of you.  And I shall not
hear it from you.  May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with
more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of
mine anything ever come between us!"

He put out his arms and folded her to his breast.  And for a while she
lay there sobbing.  He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes
that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils.  His mouth was set
as steel.

After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then
he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his
nervous power to the utmost.

"And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it.  Too well I know the broad
fact.  Tell me all that has been."

I told him exactly what had happened and he listened with seeming
impassiveness, but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told
how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible
and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast.
It interested me, even at that moment, to see that whilst the face of
white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands
tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair.  Just as I had
finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door.  They entered in
obedience to our summons.  Van Helsing looked at me questioningly.  I
understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to
divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from
each other and from themselves.  So on nodding acquiescence to him he
asked them what they had seen or done.  To which Lord Godalming
answered.

"I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms.
I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone.  He
had, however . . ."  He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping
figure on the bed.

Van Helsing said gravely, "Go on, friend Arthur.  We want here no more
concealments.  Our hope now is in knowing all.  Tell freely!"

So Art went on, "He had been there, and though it could only have been
for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place.  All the manuscript
had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white
ashes.  The cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire,
and the wax had helped the flames."

Here I interrupted.  "Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!"

His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on.  "I ran
downstairs then, but could see no sign of him.  I looked into
Renfield's room, but there was no trace there except . . ."  Again he
paused.

"Go on," said Harker hoarsely.  So he bowed his head and moistening his
lips with his tongue, added, "except that the poor fellow is dead."

Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us she
said solemnly, "God's will be done!"

I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something.  But, as I
took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing.

Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked, "And you, friend Quincey, have
you any to tell?"

"A little," he answered.  "It may be much eventually, but at present I
can't say.  I thought it well to know if possible where the Count
would go when he left the house.  I did not see him, but I saw a bat
rise from Renfield's window, and flap westward.  I expected to see him
in some shape go back to Carfax, but he evidently sought some other
lair.  He will not be back tonight, for the sky is reddening in the
east, and the dawn is close.  We must work tomorrow!"

He said the latter words through his shut teeth.  For a space of
perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that
I could hear the sound of our hearts beating.

Then Van Helsing said, placing his hand tenderly on Mrs. Harker's
head, "And now, Madam Mina, poor dear, dear, Madam Mina, tell us
exactly what happened.  God knows that I do not want that you be
pained, but it is need that we know all.  For now more than ever has
all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest.  The day
is close to us that must end all, if it may be so, and now is the
chance that we may live and learn."

The poor dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves
as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and
lower still on his breast.  Then she raised her head proudly, and held
out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and after stooping and
kissing it reverently, held it fast.  The other hand was locked in
that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her
protectingly.  After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her
thoughts, she began.

"I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for
a long time it did not act.  I seemed to become more wakeful, and
myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind.  All of
them connected with death, and vampires, with blood, and pain, and
trouble."  Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and
said lovingly, "Do not fret, dear.  You must be brave and strong, and
help me through the horrible task.  If you only knew what an effort it
is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand
how much I need your help.  Well, I saw I must try to help the
medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I
resolutely set myself to sleep.  Sure enough sleep must soon have come
to me, for I remember no more.  Jonathan coming in had not waked me,
for he lay by my side when next I remember.  There was in the room the
same thin white mist that I had before noticed.  But I forget now if
you know of this.  You will find it in my diary which I shall show you
later.  I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and
the same sense of some presence.  I turned to wake Jonathan, but found
that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken
the sleeping draught, and not I.  I tried, but I could not wake him.
This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified.  Then
indeed, my heart sank within me.  Beside the bed, as if he had stepped
out of the mist, or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure,
for it had entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin man, all in
black.  I knew him at once from the description of the others.  The
waxen face, the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin
white line, the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing
between, and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on
the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby.  I knew, too, the red scar
on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him.  For an instant my
heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was
paralyzed.  In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper,
pointing as he spoke to Jonathan.

"'Silence!  If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains
out before your very eyes.'  I was appalled and was too bewildered to
do or say anything.  With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my
shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying
as he did so, 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions.
You may as well be quiet.  It is not the first time, or the second,
that your veins have appeased my thirst!'  I was bewildered, and
strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him.  I suppose it is a
part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his
victim.  And oh, my God, my God, pity me!  He placed his reeking lips
upon my throat!"  Her husband groaned again.  She clasped his hand
harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one,
and went on.

"I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon.  How long
this horrible thing lasted I know not, but it seemed that a long time
must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away.
I saw it drip with the fresh blood!"  The remembrance seemed for a while
to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her
husband's sustaining arm.  With a great effort she recovered herself
and went on.

"Then he spoke to me mockingly, 'And so you, like the others, would
play your brains against mine.  You would help these men to hunt me
and frustrate me in my design!  You know now, and they know in part
already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my
path.  They should have kept their energies for use closer to home.
Whilst they played wits against me, against me who commanded nations,
and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before
they were born, I was countermining them.  And you, their best beloved
one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my
kin, my bountiful wine-press for a while, and shall be later on my
companion and my helper.  You shall be avenged in turn, for not one of
them but shall minister to your needs.  But as yet you are to be
punished for what you have done.  You have aided in thwarting me.  Now
you shall come to my call.  When my brain says "Come!" to you, you
shall cross land or sea to do my bidding.  And to that end this!'

"With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails
opened a vein in his breast.  When the blood began to spurt out, he
took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other
seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must
either suffocate or swallow some to the . . . Oh, my God!  My God!
What have I done?  What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have
tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days.  God pity
me!  Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril.  And in
mercy pity those to whom she is dear!"  Then she began to rub her lips
as though to cleanse them from pollution.

As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to
quicken, and everything became more and more clear.  Harker was still
and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a
grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when
the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood
darkly out against the whitening hair.

We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy
pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action.

Of this I am sure.  The sun rises today on no more miserable house in
all the great round of its daily course.




CHAPTER 22


JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

3 October.--As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary.  It
is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour
and take something to eat, for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are
agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best.  Our best will
be, God knows, required today.  I must keep writing at every chance,
for I dare not stop to think.  All, big and little, must go down.
Perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most.  The teaching,
big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we
are today.  However, we must trust and hope.  Poor Mina told me just
now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in
trouble and trial that our faith is tested.  That we must keep on
trusting, and that God will aid us up to the end.  The end!  Oh my
God!  What end? . . . To work!  To work!

When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor
Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done.  First, Dr. Seward
told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room
below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap.  His
face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were
broken.

Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he
had heard anything.  He said that he had been sitting down, he
confessed to half dozing, when he heard loud voices in the room, and
then Renfield had called out loudly several times, "God!  God!  God!"
After that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room
he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had
seen him.  Van Helsing asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice,"
and he said he could not say.  That at first it had seemed to him as
if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have
been only one.  He could swear to it, if required, that the word "God"
was spoken by the patient.

Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go
into the matter.  The question of an inquest had to be considered, and
it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe
it.  As it was, he thought that on the attendant's evidence he could
give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed.  In
case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest,
necessarily to the same result.

When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next
step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full
confidence.  That nothing of any sort, no matter how painful, should
be kept from her.  She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was
pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth
of despair.

"There must be no concealment," she said.  "Alas!  We have had too
much already.  And besides there is nothing in all the world that can
give me more pain than I have already endured, than I suffer now!
Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!"

Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said,
suddenly but quietly, "But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid.  Not
for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?"

Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion
of a martyr as she answered, "Ah no!  For my mind is made up!"

"To what?" he asked gently, whilst we were all very still, for each in
our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant.

Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she was simply
stating a fact, "Because if I find in myself, and I shall watch keenly
for it, a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!"

"You would not kill yourself?" he asked, hoarsely.

"I would.  If there were no friend who loved me, who would save me
such a pain, and so desperate an effort!"  She looked at him meaningly
as she spoke.

He was sitting down, but now he rose and came close to her and put his
hand on her head as he said solemnly.  "My child, there is such an one
if it were for your good.  For myself I could hold it in my account
with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it
were best.  Nay, were it safe!  But my child . . ."

For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat.  He
gulped it down and went on, "There are here some who would stand
between you and death.  You must not die.  You must not die by any
hand, but least of all your own.  Until the other, who has fouled your
sweet life, is true dead you must not die.  For if he is still with
the quick Undead, your death would make you even as he is.  No, you
must live!  You must struggle and strive to live, though death would
seem a boon unspeakable.  You must fight Death himself, though he come
to you in pain or in joy.  By the day, or the night, in safety or in
peril!  On your living soul I charge you that you do not die.  Nay,
nor think of death, till this great evil be past."

The poor dear grew white as death, and shook and shivered, as I have
seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide.  We
were all silent.  We could do nothing.  At length she grew more calm
and turning to him said sweetly, but oh so sorrowfully, as she held
out her hand, "I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me
live, I shall strive to do so.  Till, if it may be in His good time,
this horror may have passed away from me."

She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were
strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what
we were to do.  I told her that she was to have all the papers in the
safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter
use, and was to keep the record as she had done before.  She was
pleased with the prospect of anything to do, if "pleased" could be
used in connection with so grim an interest.

As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was
prepared with an exact ordering of our work.

"It is perhaps well," he said, "that at our meeting after our visit to
Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth boxes that lay
there.  Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and
would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an
effort with regard to the others.  But now he does not know our
intentions.  Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such
a power exists to us as can sterilize his lairs, so that he cannot use
them as of old.

"We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their
disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may
track the very last of them.  Today then, is ours, and in it rests our
hope.  The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its
course.  Until it sets tonight, that monster must retain whatever form
he now has.  He is confined within the limitations of his earthly
envelope.  He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks
or chinks or crannies.  If he go through a doorway, he must open the
door like a mortal.  And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs
and sterilize them.  So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and
destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the
destroying shall be, in time, sure."

Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that
the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina's life and
happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was
impossible.  But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly.

"Nay, friend Jonathan," he said, "in this, the quickest way home is
the longest way, so your proverb say.  We shall all act and act with
desperate quick, when the time has come.  But think, in all probable
the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly.  The Count
may have many houses which he has bought.  Of them he will have deeds
of purchase, keys and other things.  He will have paper that he write
on.  He will have his book of cheques.  There are many belongings that
he must have somewhere.  Why not in this place so central, so quiet,
where he come and go by the front or the back at all hours, when in
the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice.  We shall go
there and search that house.  And when we learn what it holds, then we
do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt 'stop the
earths' and so we run down our old fox, so?  Is it not?"

"Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are wasting the precious,
precious time!"

The Professor did not move, but simply said, "And how are we to get
into that house in Piccadilly?"

"Any way!" I cried.  "We shall break in if need be."

"And your police?  Where will they be, and what will they say?"

I was staggered, but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good
reason for it.  So I said, as quietly as I could, "Don't wait more
than need be.  You know, I am sure, what torture I am in."

"Ah, my child, that I do.  And indeed there is no wish of me to add to
your anguish.  But just think, what can we do, until all the world be
at movement.  Then will come our time.  I have thought and thought,
and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all.  Now we
wish to get into the house, but we have no key.  Is it not so?"  I
nodded.

"Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and
could not still get in.  And think there was to you no conscience of
the housebreaker, what would you do?"

"I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the
lock for me."

"And your police, they would interfere, would they not?"

"Oh no!  Not if they knew the man was properly employed."

"Then," he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, "all that is in doubt
is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as
to whether or not that employer has a good conscience or a bad one.
Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever, oh so clever, in
reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter.  No,
no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty
houses in this your London, or of any city in the world, and if you do
it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are
rightly done, no one will interfere.  I have read of a gentleman who
owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer
to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar come and broke
window at back and got in.  Then he went and made open the shutters in
front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of
the police.  Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it,
and put up big notice.  And when the day come he sell off by a great
auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them.  Then he go
to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he
pull it down and take all away within a certain time.  And your police
and other authority help him all they can.  And when that owner come
back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where
his house had been.  This was all done en regle, and in our work we
shall be en regle too.  We shall not go so early that the policemen
who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange.  But we shall
go after ten o'clock, when there are many about, and such things would
be done were we indeed owners of the house."

I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of
Mina's face became relaxed in thought.  There was hope in such good
counsel.

Van Helsing went on, "When once within that house we may find more
clues.  At any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find
the other places where there be more earth boxes, at Bermondsey and
Mile End."

Lord Godalming stood up.  "I can be of some use here," he said.  "I
shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will
be most convenient."

"Look here, old fellow," said Morris, "it is a capital idea to have
all ready in case we want to go horse backing, but don't you think
that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a
byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our
purpose?  It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south
or east.  And even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are
going to."

"Friend Quincey is right!" said the Professor.  "His head is what you
call in plane with the horizon.  It is a difficult thing that we go to
do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may."

Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see
that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the
terrible experience of the night.  She was very, very pale, almost
ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth
in somewhat of prominence.  I did not mention this last, lest it
should give her needless pain, but it made my blood run cold in my
veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had
sucked her blood.  As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing
sharper, but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear.

When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of
the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt.  It
was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should
destroy the Count's lair close at hand.  In case he should find it out
too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of
destruction.  And his presence in his purely material shape, and at
his weakest, might give us some new clue.

As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that,
after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in
Piccadilly.  That the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst
Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End
and destroyed them.  It was possible, if not likely, the Professor
urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and
that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there.  At any
rate, we might be able to follow him in force.  To this plan I
strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said
that I intended to stay and protect Mina.  I thought that my mind was
made up on the subject, but Mina would not listen to my objection.  She
said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful.
That amongst the Count's papers might be some clue which I could
understand out of my experience in Transylvania.  And that, as it was,
all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count's
extraordinary power.  I had to give in, for Mina's resolution was
fixed.  She said that it was the last hope for her that we should all
work together.

"As for me," she said, "I have no fear.  Things have been as bad as
they can be.  And whatever may happen must have in it some element of
hope or comfort.  Go, my husband!  God can, if He wishes it, guard me
as well alone as with any one present."

So I started up crying out, "Then in God's name let us come at once,
for we are losing time.  The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than
we think."

"Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.

"But why?" I asked.

"Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he
banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?"

Did I forget!  Shall I ever . . . can I ever!  Can any of us ever
forget that terrible scene!  Mina struggled hard to keep her brave
countenance, but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands
before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned.  Van Helsing had not
intended to recall her frightful experience.  He had simply lost sight
of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort.

When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his
thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her.

"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "dear, dear, Madam Mina, alas!  That I of
all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful.  These
stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so,
but you will forget it, will you not?"  He bent low beside her as he
spoke.

She took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said
hoarsely, "No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember.
And with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take
it all together.  Now, you must all be going soon.  Breakfast is
ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong."

Breakfast was a strange meal to us all.  We tried to be cheerful and
encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of
us.  When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said, "Now, my dear
friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise.  Are we all armed, as
we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's lair.  Armed
against ghostly as well as carnal attack?"

We all assured him.

"Then it is well.  Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe
here until the sunset.  And before then we shall return . . . if . . .
We shall return!  But before we go let me see you armed against personal
attack.  I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by
the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enter.  Now
let me guard yourself.  On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred
Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and . . ."

There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear.  As
he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it . . . had
burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal.
My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as
quickly as her nerves received the pain of it, and the two so
overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that
dreadful scream.

But the words to her thought came quickly.  The echo of the scream had
not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she
sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement.  Pulling her
beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she
wailed out.

"Unclean!  Unclean!  Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh!  I
must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement
Day."

They all paused.  I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of
helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight.  For a few
minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around
us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently.  Then Van Helsing
turned and said gravely.  So gravely that I could not help feeling
that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside
himself.

"It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see
fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgement Day, to redress all
wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon.
And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to
see, when that red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what has been,
shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know.
For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees
right to lift the burden that is hard upon us.  Till then we bear our
Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will.  It may be that we are
chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His
bidding as that other through stripes and shame.  Through tears and
blood.  Through doubts and fear, and all that makes the difference
between God and man."

There was hope in his words, and comfort.  And they made for
resignation.  Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took
one of the old man's hands and bent over and kissed it.  Then without
a word we all knelt down together, and all holding hands, swore to be
true to each other.  We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of
sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved.  And
we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before
us.  It was then time to start.  So I said farewell to Mina, a parting
which neither of us shall forget to our dying day, and we set out.

To one thing I have made up my mind.  If we find out that Mina must be
a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and
terrible land alone.  I suppose it is thus that in old times one
vampire meant many.  Just as their hideous bodies could only rest in
sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for
their ghastly ranks.

We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on
the first occasion.  It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic
surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for
such fear as already we knew.  Had not our minds been made up, and had
there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have
proceeded with our task.  We found no papers, or any sign of use in
the house.  And in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we
had seen them last.

Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before him, "And now,
my friends, we have a duty here to do.  We must sterilize this earth,
so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant
land for such fell use.  He has chosen this earth because it has been
holy.  Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more
holy still.  It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it
to God."

As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very
soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open.  The earth smelled
musty and close, but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our
attention was concentrated on the Professor.  Taking from his box a
piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then
shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he
worked.

One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and
left them as we had found them to all appearance.  But in each was a
portion of the Host.  When we closed the door behind us, the Professor
said solemnly, "So much is already done.  It may be that with all the
others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may
shine of Madam Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!"

As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our
train we could see the front of the asylum.  I looked eagerly, and in
the window of my own room saw Mina.  I waved my hand to her, and
nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished.  She
nodded in reply to show that she understood.  The last I saw, she was
waving her hand in farewell.  It was with a heavy heart that we sought
the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we
reached the platform.  I have written this in the train.


Piccadilly, 12:30 o'clock.--Just before we reached Fenchurch Street
Lord Godalming said to me, "Quincey and I will find a locksmith.  You
had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty.
For under the circumstances it wouldn't seem so bad for us to break
into an empty house.  But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law
Society might tell you that you should have known better."

I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went
on, "Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many
of us.  My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with
any policeman that may come along.  You had better go with Jack and
the Professor and stay in the Green Park.  Somewhere in sight of the
house, and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away,
do you all come across.  We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall
let you in."

"The advice is good!" said Van Helsing, so we said no more.  Godalming
and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another.  At the
corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into
the Green Park.  My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of
our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted
condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours.  We
sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as
to attract as little attention as possible.  The minutes seemed to
pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.

At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up.  Out of it, in leisurely
fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris.  And down from the box
descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools.
Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away.  Together
the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he
wanted done.  The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on
one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who
just then sauntered along.  The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the
man kneeling down placed his bag beside him.  After searching through
it, he took out a selection of tools which he proceeded to lay beside
him in orderly fashion.  Then he stood up, looked in the keyhole, blew
into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark.  Lord
Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a good sized bunch of keys.
Selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his
way with it.  After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and
then a third.  All at once the door opened under a slight push from
him, and he and the two others entered the hall.  We sat still.  My
own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing's went cold altogether.  We
waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring his bag.
Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst
he fitted a key to the lock.  This he finally handed to Lord
Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something.  The man
touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed.  Not a
soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction.

When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked
at the door.  It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom
stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar.

"The place smells so vilely," said the latter as we came in.  It did
indeed smell vilely.  Like the old chapel at Carfax.  And with our
previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using
the place pretty freely.  We moved to explore the house, all keeping
together in case of attack, for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy
to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not
be in the house.

In the dining room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight
boxes of earth.  Eight boxes only out of the nine which we sought!
Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found
the missing box.

First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a
narrow stone flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to
look like the front of a miniature house.  There were no windows in
it, so we were not afraid of being overlooked.  We did not lose any
time in examining the chests.  With the tools which we had brought
with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated
those others in the old chapel.  It was evident to us that the Count
was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of
his effects.

After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to
attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining room contained any
effects which might belong to the Count.  And so we proceeded to
minutely examine them.  They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the
great dining room table.

There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle,
deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey,
notepaper, envelopes, and pens and ink.  All were covered up in thin
wrapping paper to keep them from the dust.  There were also a clothes
brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin.  The latter containing
dirty water which was reddened as if with blood.  Last of all was a
little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging
to the other houses.

When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris
taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the
East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set
out to destroy the boxes in these places.  The rest of us are, with
what patience we can, waiting their return, or the coming of the
Count.




CHAPTER 23


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

3 October.--The time seemed terribly long whilst we were waiting for
the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris.  The Professor tried to
keep our minds active by using them all the time.  I could see his
beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to
time at Harker.  The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is
appalling to see.  Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with
strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair.
Today he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well
with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face.  His
energy is still intact.  In fact, he is like a living flame.  This may
yet be his salvation, for if all go well, it will tide him over the
despairing period.  He will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the
realities of life.  Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad
enough, but his . . . !

The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep
his mind active.  What he has been saying was, under the
circumstances, of absorbing interest.  So well as I can remember, here
it is:

"I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands,
all the papers relating to this monster, and the more I have studied,
the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out.  All through
there are signs of his advance.  Not only of his power, but of his
knowledge of it.  As I learned from the researches of my friend
Arminius of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man.  Soldier,
statesman, and alchemist--which latter was the highest development of
the science knowledge of his time.  He had a mighty brain, a learning
beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse.  He
dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of
knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

"Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death.  Though it
would seem that memory was not all complete.  In some faculties of
mind he has been, and is, only a child.  But he is growing, and some
things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature.  He
is experimenting, and doing it well.  And if it had not been that we
have crossed his path he would be yet, he may be yet if we fail, the
father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead
through Death, not Life."

Harker groaned and said, "And this is all arrayed against my darling!
But how is he experimenting?  The knowledge may help us to defeat
him!"

"He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but
surely.  That big child-brain of his is working.  Well for us, it is
as yet a child-brain.  For had he dared, at the first, to attempt
certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power.  However,
he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford
to wait and to go slow.  Festina lente may well be his motto."

"I fail to understand," said Harker wearily.  "Oh, do be more plain to
me!  Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain."

The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke, "Ah,
my child, I will be plain.  Do you not see how, of late, this monster
has been creeping into knowledge experimentally.  How he has been
making use of the zoophagous patient to effect his entry into friend
John's home.  For your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come
when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked
thereto by an inmate.  But these are not his most important
experiments.  Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes
were moved by others.  He knew not then but that must be so.  But all
the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to
consider whether he might not himself move the box.  So he began to
help.  And then, when he found that this be all right, he try to move
them all alone.  And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of
him.  And none but he know where they are hidden.

"He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground.  So that only he
use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they
do him equal well, and none may know these are his hiding place!  But,
my child, do not despair, this knowledge came to him just too late!
Already all of his lairs but one be sterilize as for him.  And before
the sunset this shall be so.  Then he have no place where he can move
and hide.  I delayed this morning that so we might be sure.  Is there
not more at stake for us than for him?  Then why not be more careful
than him?  By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be well,
friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us.  Today is our day,
and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance.  See!  There are
five of us when those absent ones return."

Whilst we were speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door,
the double postman's knock of the telegraph boy.  We all moved out to
the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us
to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it.  The boy handed in
a dispatch.  The Professor closed the door again, and after looking at
the direction, opened it and read aloud.

"Look out for D.  He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax
hurriedly and hastened towards the South.  He seems to be
going the round and may want to see you:  Mina."

There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker's voice, "Now, God be
thanked, we shall soon meet!"

Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said, "God will act in His own
way and time.  Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet.  For what we
wish for at the moment may be our own undoings."

"I care for nothing now," he answered hotly, "except to wipe out this
brute from the face of creation.  I would sell my soul to do it!"

"Oh, hush, hush, my child!" said Van Helsing.  "God does not purchase
souls in this wise, and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not
keep faith.  But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and
your devotion to that dear Madam Mina.  Think you, how her pain would
be doubled, did she but hear your wild words.  Do not fear any of us,
we are all devoted to this cause, and today shall see the end.  The
time is coming for action.  Today this Vampire is limit to the powers
of man, and till sunset he may not change.  It will take him time to
arrive here, see it is twenty minutes past one, and there are yet some
times before he can hither come, be he never so quick.  What we must
hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first."

About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker's telegram, there
came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door.  It was just an
ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but
it made the Professor's heart and mine beat loudly.  We looked at each
other, and together moved out into the hall.  We each held ready to
use our various armaments, the spiritual in the left hand, the mortal
in the right.  Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and holding the door
half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action.  The
gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the
step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris.
They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former
saying, as they moved along the hall:

"It is all right.  We found both places.  Six boxes in each and we
destroyed them all."

"Destroyed?" asked the Professor.

"For him!"  We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said,
"There's nothing to do but to wait here.  If, however, he doesn't turn
up by five o'clock, we must start off.  For it won't do to leave Mrs.
Harker alone after sunset."

"He will be here before long now," said Van Helsing, who had been
consulting his pocketbook.  "Nota bene, in Madam's telegram he went
south from Carfax.  That means he went to cross the river, and he
could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before
one o'clock.  That he went south has a meaning for us.  He is as yet
only suspicious, and he went from Carfax first to the place where he
would suspect interference least.  You must have been at Bermondsey
only a short time before him.  That he is not here already shows that
he went to Mile End next.  This took him some time, for he would then
have to be carried over the river in some way.  Believe me, my
friends, we shall not have long to wait now.  We should have ready
some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance.  Hush, there
is no time now.  Have all your arms!  Be ready!"  He held up a warning
hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the
lock of the hall door.

I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a
dominant spirit asserted itself.  In all our hunting parties and
adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always
been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been
accustomed to obey him implicitly.  Now, the old habit seemed to be
renewed instinctively.  With a swift glance around the room, he at
once laid out our plan of attack, and without speaking a word, with a
gesture, placed us each in position.  Van Helsing, Harker, and I were
just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could
guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door.
Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to
move in front of the window.  We waited in a suspense that made the
seconds pass with nightmare slowness.  The slow, careful steps came
along the hall.  The Count was evidently prepared for some surprise,
at least he feared it.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room.  Winning a way
past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him.  There was
something so pantherlike in the movement, something so unhuman, that
it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming.  The first to
act was Harker, who with a quick movement, threw himself before the
door leading into the room in the front of the house.  As the Count
saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the
eyeteeth long and pointed.  But the evil smile as quickly passed into
a cold stare of lion-like disdain.  His expression again changed as,
with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him.  It was a pity that
we had not some better organized plan of attack, for even at the
moment I wondered what we were to do.  I did not myself know whether
our lethal weapons would avail us anything.

Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great
Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him.  The blow was a
powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back
saved him.  A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through
his heart.  As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat,
making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream
of gold fell out.  The expression of the Count's face was so hellish,
that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the
terrible knife aloft again for another stroke.  Instinctively I moved
forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in
my left hand.  I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was
without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar
movement made spontaneously by each one of us.  It would be impossible
to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and
hellish rage, which came over the Count's face.  His waxen hue became
greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar
on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound.
The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere
his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the
floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window.  Amid the
crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged
area below.  Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the
"ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging.

We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground.  He, rushing up
the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door.
There he turned and spoke to us.

"You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like
sheep in a butcher's.  You shall be sorry yet, each one of you!  You
think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more.  My
revenge is just begun!  I spread it over centuries, and time is on my
side.  Your girls that you all love are mine already.  And through
them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding
and to be my jackals when I want to feed.  Bah!"

With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we
heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him.  A door
beyond opened and shut.  The first of us to speak was the Professor.
Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved
toward the hall.

"We have learnt something . . . much!  Notwithstanding his brave words,
he fears us.  He fears time, he fears want!  For if not, why he hurry
so?  His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive.  Why take that
money?  You follow quick.  You are hunters of the wild beast, and
understand it so.  For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use
to him, if so that he returns."

As he spoke he put the money remaining in his pocket, took the title
deeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining
things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a
match.

Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had
lowered himself from the window to follow the Count.  He had, however,
bolted the stable door, and by the time they had forced it open there
was no sign of him.  Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the
back of the house.  But the mews was deserted and no one had seen him
depart.

It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off.  We had
to recognize that our game was up.  With heavy hearts we agreed with
the Professor when he said, "Let us go back to Madam Mina.  Poor, poor
dear Madam Mina.  All we can do just now is done, and we can there, at
least, protect her.  But we need not despair.  There is but one more
earth box, and we must try to find it.  When that is done all may yet
be well."

I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker.
The poor fellow was quite broken down, now and again he gave a low
groan which he could not suppress.  He was thinking of his wife.

With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker
waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her
bravery and unselfishness.  When she saw our faces, her own became as
pale as death.  For a second or two her eyes were closed as if she
were in secret prayer.

And then she said cheerfully, "I can never thank you all enough.  Oh,
my poor darling!"

As she spoke, she took her husband's grey head in her hands and kissed
it.

"Lay your poor head here and rest it.  All will yet be well, dear!  God
will protect us if He so will it in His good intent."  The poor fellow
groaned.  There was no place for words in his sublime misery.

We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered
us all up somewhat.  It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to
hungry people, for none of us had eaten anything since breakfast, or
the sense of companionship may have helped us, but anyhow we were all
less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope.

True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed.
And although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to
threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was
manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness.  When we came to
the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung
to her husband's arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could
protect him from any harm that might come.  She said nothing, however,
till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought up to
the present time.

Then without letting go her husband's hand she stood up amongst us and
spoke.  Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene.  Of that sweet,
sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and
animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was
conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth, remembering
whence and how it came.  Her loving kindness against our grim hate.
Her tender faith against all our fears and doubting.  And we, knowing
that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and
faith, was outcast from God.

"Jonathan," she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it
was so full of love and tenderness, "Jonathan dear, and you all my
true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all
this dreadful time.  I know that you must fight.  That you must
destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy
might live hereafter.  But it is not a work of hate.  That poor soul
who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all.  Just
think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser
part that his better part may have spiritual immortality.  You must be
pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his
destruction."

As she spoke I could see her husband's face darken and draw together,
as though the passion in him were shriveling his being to its core.
Instinctively the clasp on his wife's hand grew closer, till his
knuckles looked white.  She did not flinch from the pain which I knew
she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more
appealing than ever.

As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand
from hers as he spoke.

"May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that
earthly life of him which we are aiming at.  If beyond it I could send
his soul forever and ever to burning hell I would do it!"

"Oh, hush!  Oh, hush in the name of the good God.  Don't say such
things, Jonathan, my husband, or you will crush me with fear and
horror.  Just think, my dear . . . I have been thinking all this long,
long day of it . . . that . . . perhaps . . . some day . . . I, too, may
need such pity, and that some other like you, and with equal cause for
anger, may deny it to me!  Oh, my husband!  My husband, indeed I would
have spared you such a thought had there been another way.  But I pray
that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the
heart-broken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man.  Oh, God,
let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who
all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have
come."

We men were all in tears now.  There was no resisting them, and we
wept openly.  She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had
prevailed.  Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and
putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress.
Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the
two loving hearts alone with their God.

Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming
of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace.
She tried to school herself to the belief, and manifestly for her
husband's sake, tried to seem content.  It was a brave struggle, and
was, I think and believe, not without its reward.  Van Helsing had
placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any
emergency.  When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged
that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over
the safety of the poor stricken lady.  The first watch falls to
Quincey, so the rest of us shall be off to bed as soon as we can.

Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch.  Now
that my work is done I, too, shall go to bed.



JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

3-4 October, close to midnight.--I thought yesterday would never end.
There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief
that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must
now be for the better.  Before we parted, we discussed what our next
step was to be, but we could arrive at no result.  All we knew was
that one earth box remained, and that the Count alone knew where it
was.  If he chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years.  And in
the meantime, the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even
now.  This I know, that if ever there was a woman who was all
perfection, that one is my poor wronged darling.  I loved her a
thousand times more for her sweet pity of last night, a pity that made
my own hate of the monster seem despicable.  Surely God will not
permit the world to be the poorer by the loss of such a creature.  This
is hope to me.  We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our
only anchor.  Thank God!  Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without
dreams.  I fear what her dreams might be like, with such terrible
memories to ground them in.  She has not been so calm, within my
seeing, since the sunset.  Then, for a while, there came over her face
a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March.  I thought
at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her face,
but somehow now I think it has a deeper meaning.  I am not sleepy
myself, though I am weary . . . weary to death.  However, I must try
to sleep.  For there is tomorrow to think of, and there is no rest for
me until . . .


Later--I must have fallen asleep, for I was awakened by Mina, who was
sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face.  I could see
easily, for we did not leave the room in darkness.  She had placed a
warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear, "Hush!
There is someone in the corridor!"  I got up softly, and crossing the
room, gently opened the door.

Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake.  He
raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me, "Hush!  Go
back to bed.  It is all right.  One of us will be here all night.  We
don't mean to take any chances!"

His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina.
She sighed and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor,
pale face as she put her arms round me and said softly, "Oh, thank God
for good brave men!"  With a sigh she sank back again to sleep.  I
write this now as I am not sleepy, though I must try again.


4 October, morning.--Once again during the night I was wakened by
Mina.  This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the
coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas
flame was like a speck rather than a disc of light.

She said to me hurriedly, "Go, call the Professor.  I want to see him
at once."

"Why?" I asked.

"I have an idea.  I suppose it must have come in the night, and
matured without my knowing it.  He must hypnotize me before the dawn,
and then I shall be able to speak.  Go quick, dearest, the time is
getting close."

I went to the door.  Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and
seeing me, he sprang to his feet.

"Is anything wrong?" he asked, in alarm.

"No," I replied.  "But Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once."

"I will go," he said, and hurried into the Professor's room.

Two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressing
gown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the
door asking questions.  When the Professor saw Mina a smile, a
positive smile ousted the anxiety of his face.

He rubbed his hands as he said, "Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is
indeed a change.  See!  Friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam
Mina, as of old, back to us today!"  Then turning to her, he said
cheerfully, "And what am I to do for you?  For at this hour you do not
want me for nothing."

"I want you to hypnotize me!" she said.  "Do it before the dawn, for I
feel that then I can speak, and speak freely.  Be quick, for the time
is short!"  Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed.

Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her,
from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn.  Mina
gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat
like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand.
Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still.  Only by the
gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive.  The
Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see
that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration.  Mina
opened her eyes, but she did not seem the same woman.  There was a
far-away look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which
was new to me.  Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor
motioned to me to bring the others in.  They came on tiptoe, closing
the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on.
Mina appeared not to see them.  The stillness was broken by Van
Helsing's voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the
current of her thoughts.

"Where are you?"  The answer came in a neutral way.

"I do not know.  Sleep has no place it can call its own."  For several
minutes there was silence.  Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood
staring at her fixedly.

The rest of us hardly dared to breathe.  The room was growing lighter.
Without taking his eyes from Mina's face, Dr. Van Helsing motioned me
to pull up the blind.  I did so, and the day seemed just upon us.  A
red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse itself through
the room.  On the instant the Professor spoke again.

"Where are you now?"

The answer came dreamily, but with intention.  It were as though she
were interpreting something.  I have heard her use the same tone when
reading her shorthand notes.

"I do not know.  It is all strange to me!"

"What do you see?"

"I can see nothing.  It is all dark."

"What do you hear?"  I could detect the strain in the Professor's
patient voice.

"The lapping of water.  It is gurgling by, and little waves leap.  I
can hear them on the outside."

"Then you are on a ship?'"

We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the
other.  We were afraid to think.

The answer came quick, "Oh, yes!"

"What else do you hear?"

"The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about.  There is the
creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan
falls into the ratchet."

"What are you doing?"

"I am still, oh so still.  It is like death!"  The voice faded away
into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again.

By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of
day.  Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Mina's shoulders, and laid
her head down softly on her pillow.  She lay like a sleeping child for
a few moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder
to see us all around her.

"Have I been talking in my sleep?" was all she said.  She seemed,
however, to know the situation without telling, though she was eager
to know what she had told.  The Professor repeated the conversation,
and she said, "Then there is not a moment to lose.  It may not be yet
too late!"

Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door but the Professor's
calm voice called them back.

"Stay, my friends.  That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor at
the moment in your so great Port of London.  Which of them is it that
you seek?  God be thanked that we have once again a clue, though
whither it may lead us we know not.  We have been blind somewhat.
Blind after the manner of men, since we can look back we see what we
might have seen looking forward if we had been able to see what we
might have seen!  Alas, but that sentence is a puddle, is it not?  We
can know now what was in the Count's mind, when he seize that money,
though Jonathan's so fierce knife put him in the danger that even he
dread.  He meant escape.  Hear me, ESCAPE!  He saw that with but one
earth box left, and a pack of men following like dogs after a fox,
this London was no place for him.  He have take his last earth box on
board a ship, and he leave the land.  He think to escape, but no!  We
follow him.  Tally Ho!  As friend Arthur would say when he put on his
red frock!  Our old fox is wily.  Oh!  So wily, and we must follow
with wile.  I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while.
In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are between us which
he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he would.  Unless
the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide.
See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is us.  Let us
take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, and which
we can eat comfortably since he be not in the same land with us."

Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked, "But why need we seek him
further, when he is gone away from us?"

He took her hand and patted it as he replied, "Ask me nothing as yet.
When we have breakfast, then I answer all questions."  He would say no
more, and we separated to dress.

After breakfast Mina repeated her question.  He looked at her gravely
for a minute and then said sorrowfully, "Because my dear, dear Madam
Mina, now more than ever must we find him even if we have to follow
him to the jaws of Hell!"

She grew paler as she asked faintly, "Why?"

"Because," he answered solemnly, "he can live for centuries, and you
are but mortal woman.  Time is now to be dreaded, since once he put
that mark upon your throat."

I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint.




CHAPTER 24


DR. SEWARD'S PHONOGRAPH DIARY

SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING

This to Jonathan Harker.

You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina.  We shall go to make our
search, if I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we
seek confirmation only.  But do you stay and take care of her today.
This is your best and most holiest office.  This day nothing can find
him here.

Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, for I
have tell them.  He, our enemy, have gone away.  He have gone back to
his Castle in Transylvania.  I know it so well, as if a great hand of
fire wrote it on the wall.  He have prepare for this in some way, and
that last earth box was ready to ship somewheres.  For this he took
the money.  For this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before
the sun go down.  It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the
tomb that he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep
open to him.  But there was not of time.  When that fail he make
straight for his last resource, his last earth-work I might say did I
wish double entente.  He is clever, oh so clever!  He know that his
game here was finish.  And so he decide he go back home.  He find ship
going by the route he came, and he go in it.

We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound.  When we have
discover that, we come back and tell you all.  Then we will comfort
you and poor Madam Mina with new hope.  For it will be hope when you
think it over, that all is not lost.  This very creature that we
pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London.  And yet in
one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out.  He is
finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we
do.  But we are strong, each in our purpose, and we are all more
strong together.  Take heart afresh, dear husband of Madam Mina.  This
battle is but begun and in the end we shall win.  So sure as that God
sits on high to watch over His children.  Therefore be of much comfort
till we return.

VAN HELSING.





JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

4 October.--When I read to Mina, Van Helsing's message in the
phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably.  Already the
certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort.
And comfort is strength to her.  For my own part, now that his
horrible danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost
impossible to believe in it.  Even my own terrible experiences in
Castle Dracula seem like a long forgotten dream.  Here in the crisp
autumn air in the bright sunlight.

Alas!  How can I disbelieve!  In the midst of my thought my eye fell
on the red scar on my poor darling's white forehead.  Whilst that
lasts, there can be no disbelief.  Mina and I fear to be idle, so we
have been over all the diaries again and again.  Somehow, although the
reality seem greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less.  There
is something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is
comforting.  Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate
good.  It may be!  I shall try to think as she does.  We have never
spoken to each other yet of the future.  It is better to wait till we
see the Professor and the others after their investigations.

The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run
for me again.  It is now three o'clock.





MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

5 October, 5 P.M.--Our meeting for report.  Present:  Professor Van
Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan
Harker, Mina Harker.

Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to
discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape.

"As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure
that he must go by the Danube mouth, or by somewhere in the Black Sea,
since by that way he come.  It was a dreary blank that was before us.
Omme ignotum pro magnifico, and so with heavy hearts we start to find
what ships leave for the Black Sea last night.  He was in sailing
ship, since Madam Mina tell of sails being set.  These not so
important as to go in your list of the shipping in the Times, and so
we go, by suggestion of Lord Godalming, to your Lloyd's, where are
note of all ships that sail, however so small.  There we find that
only one Black Sea bound ship go out with the tide.  She is the
Czarina Catherine, and she sail from Doolittle's Wharf for Varna, and
thence to other ports and up the Danube.  'So!' said I, 'this is the
ship whereon is the Count.'  So off we go to Doolittle's Wharf, and
there we find a man in an office.  From him we inquire of the goings
of the Czarina Catherine.  He swear much, and he red face and loud of
voice, but he good fellow all the same.  And when Quincey give him
something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and put it
in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he still
better fellow and humble servant to us.  He come with us, and ask many
men who are rough and hot.  These be better fellows too when they have
been no more thirsty.  They say much of blood and bloom, and of others
which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean.  But
nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know.

"They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five
o'clock comes a man so hurry.  A tall man, thin and pale, with high
nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning.  That he be
all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or
the time.  That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to
what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where.  Some took him to the
office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at
shore end of gangplank, and ask that the captain come to him.  The
captain come, when told that he will be pay well, and though he swear
much at the first he agree to term.  Then the thin man go and some one
tell him where horse and cart can be hired.  He go there and soon he
come again, himself driving cart on which a great box.  This he
himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the
ship.  He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to
be place.  But the captain like it not and swear at him in many
tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it
shall be.  But he say 'no,' that he come not yet, for that he have
much to do.  Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be
quick, with blood, for that his ship will leave the place, of blood,
before the turn of the tide, with blood.  Then the thin man smile and
say that of course he must go when he think fit, but he will be
surprise if he go quite so soon.  The captain swear again, polyglot,
and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so
far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing.
Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues, tell him
that he doesn't want no Frenchmen, with bloom upon them and also with
blood, in his ship, with blood on her also.  And so, after asking
where he might purchase ship forms, he departed.

"No one knew where he went 'or bloomin' well cared' as they said, for
they had something else to think of, well with blood again.  For it
soon became apparent to all that the Czarina Catherine would not sail
as was expected.  A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it
grew, and grew.  Till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all
around her.  The captain swore polyglot, very polyglot, polyglot with
bloom and blood, but he could do nothing.  The water rose and rose,
and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether.  He was
in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the
gangplank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed.  Then
the captain replied that he wished that he and his box, old and with
much bloom and blood, were in hell.  But the thin man did not be
offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and
came up and stood awhile on deck in fog.  He must have come off by
himself, for none notice him.  Indeed they thought not of him, for
soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again.  My friends
of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as
they told how the captain's swears exceeded even his usual polyglot,
and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other
mariners who were on movement up and down the river that hour, he
found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay
round the wharf.  However, the ship went out on the ebb tide, and was
doubtless by morning far down the river mouth.  She was then, when
they told us, well out to sea.

"And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time,
for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way
to the Danube mouth.  To sail a ship takes time, go she never so
quick.  And when we start to go on land more quick, and we meet him
there.  Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between
sunrise and sunset.  For then he can make no struggle, and we may deal
with him as we should.  There are days for us, in which we can make
ready our plan.  We know all about where he go.  For we have seen the
owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can
be.  The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an
agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials.  And so our
merchant friend will have done his part.  When he ask if there be any
wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna,
we say 'no,' for what is to be done is not for police or of the
customs.  It must be done by us alone and in our own way."

When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain
that the Count had remained on board the ship.  He replied, "We have
the best proof of that, your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance
this morning."

I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue
the Count, for oh!  I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he
would surely go if the others went.  He answered in growing passion,
at first quietly.  As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more
forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least
some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master
amongst men.

"Yes, it is necessary, necessary, necessary!  For your sake in the
first, and then for the sake of humanity.  This monster has done much
harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the
short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small
measure in darkness and not knowing.  All this have I told these
others.  You, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of
my friend John, or in that of your husband.  I have told them how the
measure of leaving his own barren land, barren of peoples, and coming
to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude
of standing corn, was the work of centuries.  Were another of the
Undead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the
centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him.
With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and
strong must have worked together in some wonderous way.  The very
place, where he have been alive, Undead for all these centuries, is
full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world.  There are
deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither.  There have
been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of
strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify.  Doubtless,
there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations
of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way, and in
himself were from the first some great qualities.  In a hard and
warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more
subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man.  In him some vital
principle have in strange way found their utmost.  And as his body
keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too.  All this
without that diabolic aid which is surely to him.  For it have to
yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good.  And
now this is what he is to us.  He have infect you, oh forgive me, my
dear, that I must say such, but it is for good of you that I speak.  He
infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to
live, to live in your own old, sweet way, and so in time, death, which
is of man's common lot and with God's sanction, shall make you like to
him.  This must not be!  We have sworn together that it must not.
Thus are we ministers of God's own wish.  That the world, and men for
whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very
existence would defame Him.  He have allowed us to redeem one soul
already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem
more.  Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise.  And like them,
if we fall, we fall in good cause."

He paused and I said, "But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely?
Since he has been driven from England, will he not avoid it, as a
tiger does the village from which he has been hunted?"

"Aha!" he said, "your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall
adopt him.  Your maneater, as they of India call the tiger who has
once tasted blood of the human, care no more for the other prey, but
prowl unceasing till he get him.  This that we hunt from our village
is a tiger, too, a maneater, and he never cease to prowl.  Nay, in
himself he is not one to retire and stay afar.  In his life, his
living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on
his own ground.  He be beaten back, but did he stay?  No!  He come
again, and again, and again.  Look at his persistence and endurance.
With the child-brain that was to him he have long since conceive the
idea of coming to a great city.  What does he do?  He find out the
place of all the world most of promise for him.  Then he deliberately
set himself down to prepare for the task.  He find in patience just
how is his strength, and what are his powers.  He study new tongues.
He learn new social life, new environment of old ways, the politics,
the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new land and a new
people who have come to be since he was.  His glimpse that he have
had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire.  Nay, it help him
to grow as to his brain.  For it all prove to him how right he was at
the first in his surmises.  He have done this alone, all alone!  From
a ruin tomb in a forgotten land.  What more may he not do when the
greater world of thought is open to him.  He that can smile at death,
as we know him.  Who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill
off whole peoples.  Oh!  If such an one was to come from God, and not
the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of
ours.  But we are pledged to set the world free.  Our toil must be in
silence, and our efforts all in secret.  For in this enlightened age,
when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men
would be his greatest strength.  It would be at once his sheath and
his armor, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing
to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we love.  For the
good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God."

After a general discussion it was determined that for tonight nothing
be definitely settled.  That we should all sleep on the facts, and try
to think out the proper conclusions.  Tomorrow, at breakfast, we are
to meet again, and after making our conclusions known to one another,
we shall decide on some definite cause of action . . .

I feel a wonderful peace and rest tonight.  It is as if some haunting
presence were removed from me.  Perhaps . . .

My surmise was not finished, could not be, for I caught sight in the
mirror of the red mark upon my forehead, and I knew that I was still
unclean.




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

5 October.--We all arose early, and I think that sleep did much for
each and all of us.  When we met at early breakfast there was more
general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience
again.

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature.
Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even
by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.
More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder
whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream.  It was only
when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker's forehead that I
was brought back to reality.  Even now, when I am gravely revolving
the matter, it is almost impossible to realize that the cause of all
our trouble is still existent.  Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight
of her trouble for whole spells.  It is only now and again, when
something recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible
scar.  We are to meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on
our course of action.  I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it
by instinct rather than reason.  We shall all have to speak frankly.
And yet I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker's tongue
is tied.  I know that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all
that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be.
But she will not, or cannot, give them utterance.  I have mentioned
this to Van Helsing, and he and I are to talk it over when we are
alone.  I suppose it is some of that horrid poison which has got into
her veins beginning to work.  The Count had his own purposes when he
gave her what Van Helsing called "the Vampire's baptism of blood."
Well, there may be a poison that distills itself out of good things.
In an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not
wonder at anything!  One thing I know, that if my instinct be true
regarding poor Mrs. Harker's silences, then there is a terrible
difficulty, an unknown danger, in the work before us.  The same power
that compels her silence may compel her speech.  I dare not think
further, for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman!


Later.--When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of
things.  I could see that he had something on his mind, which he
wanted to say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject.
After beating about the bush a little, he said, "Friend John, there is
something that you and I must talk of alone, just at the first at any
rate.  Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence."

Then he stopped, so I waited.  He went on, "Madam Mina, our poor, dear
Madam Mina is changing."

A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed.
Van Helsing continued.

"With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned
before things go too far.  Our task is now in reality more difficult
than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst
importance.  I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in
her face.  It is now but very, very slight.  But it is to be seen if
we have eyes to notice without prejudge.  Her teeth are sharper, and
at times her eyes are more hard.  But these are not all, there is to
her the silence now often, as so it was with Miss Lucy.  She did not
speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later.
Now my fear is this.  If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance,
tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have
hypnotize her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her
drink of his, should if he will, compel her mind to disclose to him
that which she know?"

I nodded acquiescence.  He went on, "Then, what we must do is to
prevent this.  We must keep her ignorant of our intent, and so she
cannot tell what she know not.  This is a painful task!  Oh, so
painful that it heartbreak me to think of it, but it must be.  When
today we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to
speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by
us."

He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration at
the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor
soul already so tortured.  I knew that it would be some sort of
comfort to him if I told him that I also had come to the same
conclusion.  For at any rate it would take away the pain of doubt.  I
told him, and the effect was as I expected.

It is now close to the time of our general gathering.  Van Helsing has
gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it.  I
really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone.


Later.--At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was
experienced by both Van Helsing and myself.  Mrs. Harker had sent a
message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present,
as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our
movements without her presence to embarrass us.  The Professor and I
looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed
relieved.  For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realized the
danger herself, it was much pain as well as much danger averted.
Under the circumstances we agreed, by a questioning look and answer,
with finger on lip, to preserve silence in our suspicions, until we
should have been able to confer alone again.  We went at once into our
Plan of Campaign.

Van Helsing roughly put the facts before us first, "The Czarina
Catherine left the Thames yesterday morning.  It will take her at the
quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to reach Varna.
But we can travel overland to the same place in three days.  Now, if
we allow for two days less for the ship's voyage, owing to such
weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear, and if
we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us,
then we have a margin of nearly two weeks.

"Thus, in order to be quite safe, we must leave here on 17th at
latest.  Then we shall at any rate be in Varna a day before the ship
arrives, and able to make such preparations as may be necessary.  Of
course we shall all go armed, armed against evil things, spiritual as
well as physical."

Here Quincey Morris added, "I understand that the Count comes from a
wolf country, and it may be that he shall get there before us.  I
propose that we add Winchesters to our armament.  I have a kind of
belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around.
Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk?  What
wouldn't we have given then for a repeater apiece!"

"Good!" said Van Helsing, "Winchesters it shall be.  Quincey's head is
level at times, but most so when there is to hunt, metaphor be more
dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man.  In the meantime
we can do nothing here.  And as I think that Varna is not familiar to
any of us, why not go there more soon?  It is as long to wait here as
there.  Tonight and tomorrow we can get ready, and then if all be
well, we four can set out on our journey."

"We four?" said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of
us.

"Of course!" answered the Professor quickly.  "You must remain to take
care of your so sweet wife!"

Harker was silent for awhile and then said in a hollow voice, "Let us
talk of that part of it in the morning.  I want to consult with Mina."

I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to
disclose our plan to her, but he took no notice.  I looked at him
significantly and coughed.  For answer he put his finger to his lips
and turned away.



JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

5 October, afternoon.--For some time after our meeting this morning I
could not think.  The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of
wonder which allows no room for active thought.  Mina's determination
not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking.  And as I
could not argue the matter with her, I could only guess.  I am as far
as ever from a solution now.  The way the others received it, too
puzzled me.  The last time we talked of the subject we agreed that
there was to be no more concealment of anything amongst us.  Mina is
sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child.  Her lips are
curved and her face beams with happiness.  Thank God, there are such
moments still for her.


Later.--How strange it all is.  I sat watching Mina's happy sleep, and
I came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be.  As
the evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun
sinking lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to
me.

All at once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly said,
"Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour.
A promise made to me, but made holily in God's hearing, and not to be
broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter
tears.  Quick, you must make it to me at once."

"Mina," I said, "a promise like that, I cannot make at once.  I may
have no right to make it."

"But, dear one," she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes
were like pole stars, "it is I who wish it.  And it is not for myself.
You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right.  If he disagrees you
may do as you will.  Nay, more if you all agree, later you are
absolved from the promise."

"I promise!" I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy.
Though to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her
forehead.

She said, "Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans
formed for the campaign against the Count.  Not by word, or inference,
or implication, not at any time whilst this remains to me!"  And she
solemnly pointed to the scar.  I saw that she was in earnest, and said
solemnly, "I promise!" and as I said it I felt that from that instant
a door had been shut between us.


Later, midnight.--Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening.
So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected
somewhat with her gaiety.  As a result even I myself felt as if the
pall of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted.  We all
retired early.  Mina is now sleeping like a little child.  It is
wonderful thing that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst
of her terrible trouble.  Thank God for it, for then at least she can
forget her care.  Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did
tonight.  I shall try it.  Oh!  For a dreamless sleep.

6 October, morning.--Another surprise.  Mina woke me early, about the
same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing.  I
thought that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without
question went for the Professor.  He had evidently expected some such
call, for I found him dressed in his room.  His door was ajar, so that
he could hear the opening of the door of our room.  He came at once.
As he passed into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come,
too.

"No," she said quite simply, "it will not be necessary.  You can tell
them just as well.  I must go with you on your journey."

Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was.  After a moment's pause he
asked, "But why?"

"You must take me with you.  I am safer with you, and you shall be
safer, too."

"But why, dear Madam Mina?  You know that your safety is our solemnest
duty.  We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable
than any of us from . . . from circumstances . . . things that have
been."  He paused embarrassed.

As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead.  "I
know.  That is why I must go.  I can tell you now, whilst the sun is
coming up.  I may not be able again.  I know that when the Count wills
me I must go.  I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must by
wile.  By any device to hoodwink, even Jonathan."  God saw the look
that she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording
Angel that look is noted to her ever-lasting honour.  I could only
clasp her hand.  I could not speak.  My emotion was too great for even
the relief of tears.

She went on.  "You men are brave and strong.  You are strong in your
numbers, for you can defy that which would break down the human
endurance of one who had to guard alone.  Besides, I may be of
service, since you can hypnotize me and so learn that which even I
myself do not know."

Dr. Van Helsing said gravely, "Madam Mina, you are, as always, most
wise.  You shall with us come.  And together we shall do that which we
go forth to achieve."

When he had spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her.
She had fallen back on her pillow asleep.  She did not even wake when
I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the
room.  Van Helsing motioned to me to come with him quietly.  We went
to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr.
Morris were with us also.

He told them what Mina had said, and went on.  "In the morning we
shall leave for Varna.  We have now to deal with a new factor, Madam
Mina.  Oh, but her soul is true.  It is to her an agony to tell us so
much as she has done.  But it is most right, and we are warned in
time.  There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be ready to
act the instant when that ship arrives."

"What shall we do exactly?" asked Mr. Morris laconically.

The Professor paused before replying, "We shall at the first board
that ship.  Then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a
branch of the wild rose on it.  This we shall fasten, for when it is
there none can emerge, so that at least says the superstition.  And to
superstition must we trust at the first.  It was man's faith in the
early, and it have its root in faith still.  Then, when we get the
opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall open the
box, and . . . and all will be well."

"I shall not wait for any opportunity," said Morris.  "When I see the
box I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a
thousand men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next
moment!"  I grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a
piece of steel.  I think he understood my look.  I hope he did.

"Good boy," said Dr. Van Helsing.  "Brave boy.  Quincey is all man.
God bless him for it.  My child, believe me none of us shall lag
behind or pause from any fear.  I do but say what we may do . . . what
we must do.  But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we may do.  There
are so many things which may happen, and their ways and their ends are
so various that until the moment we may not say.  We shall all be
armed, in all ways.  And when the time for the end has come, our
effort shall not be lack.  Now let us today put all our affairs in
order.  Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us
depend, be complete.  For none of us can tell what, or when, or how,
the end may be.  As for me, my own affairs are regulate, and as I have
nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangements for the travel.  I
shall have all tickets and so forth for our journey."

There was nothing further to be said, and we parted.  I shall now
settle up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come.


Later.--It is done.  My will is made, and all complete.  Mina if she
survive is my sole heir.  If it should not be so, then the others who
have been so good to us shall have remainder.

It is now drawing towards the sunset.  Mina's uneasiness calls my
attention to it.  I am sure that there is something on her mind which
the time of exact sunset will reveal.  These occasions are becoming
harrowing times for us all.  For each sunrise and sunset opens up some
new danger, some new pain, which however, may in God's will be means
to a good end.  I write all these things in the diary since my darling
must not hear them now.  But if it may be that she can see them again,
they shall be ready.  She is calling to me.




CHAPTER 25


DR SEWARD'S DIARY

11 October, Evening.--Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he
says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record
kept.

I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs.
Harker a little before the time of sunset.  We have of late come to
understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar
freedom.  When her old self can be manifest without any controlling
force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action.  This
mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise
or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds
are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon.  At first
there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened,
and then the absolute freedom quickly follows.  When, however, the
freedom ceases the change back or relapse comes quickly, preceded
only by a spell of warning silence.

Tonight, when we met, she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the
signs of an internal struggle.  I put it down myself to her making a
violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so.

A very few minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself.
Then, motioning her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she
was half reclining, she made the rest of us bring chairs up close.

Taking her husband's hand in hers, she began, "We are all here
together in freedom, for perhaps the last time!  I know that you will
always be with me to the end."  This was to her husband whose hand had,
as we could see, tightened upon her.  "In the morning we go out upon
our task, and God alone knows what may be in store for any of us.  You
are going to be so good to me to take me with you.  I know that all
that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak woman, whose soul
perhaps is lost, no, no, not yet, but is at any rate at stake, you
will do.  But you must remember that I am not as you are.  There is a
poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me, which must
destroy me, unless some relief comes to us.  Oh, my friends, you know
as well as I do, that my soul is at stake.  And though I know there is
one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it!"  She looked
appealingly to us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband.

"What is that way?" asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice.  "What is
that way, which we must not, may not, take?"

"That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before
the greater evil is entirely wrought.  I know, and you know, that were
I once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as
you did my poor Lucy's.  Were death, or the fear of death, the only
thing that stood in the way I would not shrink to die here now, amidst
the friends who love me.  But death is not all.  I cannot believe that
to die in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task
to be done, is God's will.  Therefore, I on my part, give up here the
certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the
blackest things that the world or the nether world holds!"

We were all silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a
prelude.  The faces of the others were set, and Harker's grew ashen
grey.  Perhaps, he guessed better than any of us what was coming.

She continued, "This is what I can give into the hotch-pot."  I could
not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place,
and with all seriousness.  "What will each of you give?  Your lives I
know," she went on quickly, "that is easy for brave men.  Your lives
are God's, and you can give them back to Him, but what will you give
to me?"  She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her
husband's face.  Quincey seemed to understand, he nodded, and her face
lit up.  "Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be
no doubtful matter in this connection between us now.  You must
promise me, one and all, even you, my beloved husband, that should the
time come, you will kill me."

"What is that time?"  The voice was Quincey's, but it was low and
strained.

"When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better
that I die that I may live.  When I am thus dead in the flesh, then
you will, without a moment's delay, drive a stake through me and cut
off my head, or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest!"

Quincey was the first to rise after the pause.  He knelt down before
her and taking her hand in his said solemnly, "I'm only a rough
fellow, who hasn't, perhaps, lived as a man should to win such a
distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear
that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that
you have set us.  And I promise you, too, that I shall make all
certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has
come!"

"My true friend!" was all she could say amid her fast-falling tears,
as bending over, she kissed his hand.

"I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!" said Van Helsing.  "And I!"
said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to take the
oath.  I followed, myself.

Then her husband turned to her wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor
which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked, "And must I,
too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?"

"You too, my dearest," she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her
voice and eyes.  "You must not shrink.  You are nearest and dearest
and all the world to me.  Our souls are knit into one, for all life
and all time.  Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men
have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling
into the hands of the enemy.  Their hands did not falter any the more
because those that they loved implored them to slay them.  It is men's
duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial!  And
oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it
be at the hand of him that loves me best.  Dr. Van Helsing, I have not
forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy's case to him who loved."  She
stopped with a flying blush, and changed her phrase, "to him who had
best right to give her peace.  If that time shall come again, I look
to you to make it a happy memory of my husband's life that it was his
loving hand which set me free from the awful thrall upon me."

"Again I swear!" came the Professor's resonant voice.

Mrs. Harker smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she
leaned back and said, "And now one word of warning, a warning which
you must never forget.  This time, if it ever come, may come quickly
and unexpectedly, and in such case you must lose no time in using your
opportunity.  At such a time I myself might be . . . nay!  If the time
ever come, shall be, leagued with your enemy against you.

"One more request," she became very solemn as she said this, "it is
not vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing
for me, if you will."

We all acquiesced, but no one spoke.  There was no need to speak.

"I want you to read the Burial Service."  She was interrupted by a
deep groan from her husband.  Taking his hand in hers, she held it
over her heart, and continued.  "You must read it over me some day.
Whatever may be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will
be a sweet thought to all or some of us.  You, my dearest, will I hope
read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory forever, come
what may!"

"But oh, my dear one," he pleaded, "death is afar off from you."

"Nay," she said, holding up a warning hand.  "I am deeper in death at
this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!"

"Oh, my wife, must I read it?" he said, before he began.

"It would comfort me, my husband!" was all she said, and he began to
read when she had got the book ready.

How can I, how could anyone, tell of that strange scene, its
solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror, and withal, its
sweetness.  Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of
bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to
the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends
kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender
passion of her husband's voice, as in tones so broken and emotional
that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service
from the Burial of the Dead.  I cannot go on . . . words . . . and
v-voices . . . f-fail m-me!

She was right in her instinct.  Strange as it was, bizarre as it may
hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time,
it comforted us much.  And the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker's
coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of
despair to any of us as we had dreaded.





JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

15 October, Varna.--We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th,
got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the
Orient Express.  We traveled night and day, arriving here at about
five o'clock.  Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any
telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this
hotel, "the Odessus."  The journey may have had incidents.  I was,
however, too eager to get on, to care for them.  Until the Czarina
Catherine comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything
in the wide world.  Thank God!  Mina is well, and looks to be getting
stronger.  Her colour is coming back.  She sleeps a great deal.
Throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time.  Before sunrise
and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert.  And it has become
a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotize her at such times.  At first,
some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes.  But now, she
seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcely any action is
needed.  He seems to have power at these particular moments to simply
will, and her thoughts obey him.  He always asks her what she can see
and hear.

She answers to the first, "Nothing, all is dark."

And to the second, "I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and
the water rushing by.  Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards
creak.  The wind is high . . . I can hear it in the shrouds, and the
bow throws back the foam."

It is evident that the Czarina Catherine is still at sea, hastening on
her way to Varna.  Lord Godalming has just returned.  He had four
telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect.
That the Czarina Catherine had not been reported to Lloyd's from
anywhere.  He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should
send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported.
He was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he
might be sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of
the wire.

We had dinner and went to bed early.  Tomorrow we are to see the Vice
Consul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship as
soon as she arrives.  Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get
on the boat between sunrise and sunset.  The Count, even if he takes
the form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition,
and so cannot leave the ship.  As he dare not change to man's form
without suspicion, which he evidently wishes to avoid, he must remain
in the box.  If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at
our mercy, for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of
poor Lucy, before he wakes.  What mercy he shall get from us all will
not count for much.  We think that we shall not have much trouble with
officials or the seamen.  Thank God!  This is the country where
bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money.  We have
only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset
and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe.  Judge
Moneybag will settle this case, I think!


16 October.--Mina's report still the same.  Lapping waves and rushing
water, darkness and favouring winds.  We are evidently in good time,
and when we hear of the Czarina Catherine we shall be ready.  As she
must pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report.


17 October.--Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome
the Count on his return from his tour.  Godalming told the shippers
that he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something
stolen from a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open
it at his own risk.  The owner gave him a paper telling the Captain to
give him every facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship,
and also a similar authorization to his agent at Varna.  We have seen
the agent, who was much impressed with Godalming's kindly manner to
him, and we are all satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our
wishes will be done.

We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open.  If
the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at
once and drive a stake through his heart.  Morris and Godalming and I
shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we
shall have ready.  The Professor says that if we can so treat the
Count's body, it will soon after fall into dust.  In such case there
would be no evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were
aroused.  But even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act,
and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come between
some of us and a rope.  For myself, I should take the chance only too
thankfully if it were to come.  We mean to leave no stone unturned to
carry out our intent.  We have arranged with certain officials that
the instant the Czarina Catherine is seen, we are to be informed by a
special messenger.


24 October.--A whole week of waiting.  Daily telegrams to Godalming,
but only the same story.  "Not yet reported."  Mina's morning and
evening hypnotic answer is unvaried.  Lapping waves, rushing water,
and creaking masts.




TELEGRAM, OCTOBER 24TH RUFUS SMITH, LLOYD'S, LONDON,
TO LORD GODALMING, CARE OF H. B. M. VICE CONSUL, VARNA

"Czarina Catherine reported this morning from Dardanelles."



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

25 October.--How I miss my phonograph!  To write a diary with a pen is
irksome to me!  But Van Helsing says I must.  We were all wild with
excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd's.  I
know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard.
Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion.
After all, it is not strange that she did not, for we took special
care not to let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to
show any excitement when we were in her presence.  In old days she
would, I am sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to
conceal it.  But in this way she is greatly changed during the past
three weeks.  The lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong
and well, and is getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are
not satisfied.  We talk of her often.  We have not, however, said a
word to the others.  It would break poor Harker's heart, certainly his
nerve, if he knew that we had even a suspicion on the subject.  Van
Helsing examines, he tells me, her teeth very carefully, whilst she is
in the hypnotic condition, for he says that so long as they do not
begin to sharpen there is no active danger of a change in her.  If
this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!  We both
know what those steps would have to be, though we do not mention our
thoughts to each other.  We should neither of us shrink from the task,
awful though it be to contemplate.  "Euthanasia" is an excellent and a
comforting word!  I am grateful to whoever invented it.

It is only about 24 hours' sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the
rate the Czarina Catherine has come from London.  She should therefore
arrive some time in the morning, but as she cannot possibly get in
before noon, we are all about to retire early.  We shall get up at one
o'clock, so as to be ready.


25 October, Noon.--No news yet of the ship's arrival.  Mrs. Harker's
hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible
that we may get news at any moment.  We men are all in a fever of
excitement, except Harker, who is calm.  His hands are cold as ice,
and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka
knife which he now always carries with him.  It will be a bad lookout
for the Count if the edge of that "Kukri" ever touches his throat,
driven by that stern, ice-cold hand!

Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker today.
About noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like.
Although we kept silence to the others, we were neither of us happy
about it.  She had been restless all the morning, so that we were at
first glad to know that she was sleeping.  When, however, her husband
mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not
wake her, we went to her room to see for ourselves.  She was breathing
naturally and looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that the
sleep was better for her than anything else.  Poor girl, she has so
much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion
to her, does her good.


Later.--Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep
of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she had
been for days.  At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report.
Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his
destination.  To his doom, I trust!



26 October.--Another day and no tidings of the Czarina Catherine.  She
ought to be here by now.  That she is still journeying somewhere is
apparent, for Mrs. Harker's hypnotic report at sunrise was still the
same.  It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for
fog.  Some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches
of fog both to north and south of the port.  We must continue our
watching, as the ship may now be signalled any moment.


27 October, Noon.--Most strange.  No news yet of the ship we wait for.
Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual.  "Lapping
waves and rushing water," though she added that "the waves were very
faint."  The telegrams from London have been the same, "no further
report."  Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he
fears the Count is escaping us.

He added significantly, "I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina's.
Souls and memories can do strange things during trance."  I was about
to ask him more, but Harker just then came in, and he held up a
warning hand.  We must try tonight at sunset to make her speak more
fully when in her hypnotic state.


28 October.--Telegram.  Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, care
H. B. M. Vice Consul, Varna

"Czarina Catherine reported entering Galatz at one o'clock today."




DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

28 October.--When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I
do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been
expected.  True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt
would come.  But I think we all expected that something strange would
happen.  The day of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied
that things would not be just as we had expected.  We only waited to
learn where the change would occur.  None the less, however, it was a
surprise.  I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we
believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not
as we should know that they will be.  Transcendentalism is a beacon to
the angels, even if it be a will-o'-the-wisp to man.  Van Helsing
raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance
with the Almighty.  But he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood
up with his face sternly set.

Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily.  I was
myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another.
Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I
knew so well.  In our old wandering days it meant "action."  Mrs.
Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to
burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer.  Harker
smiled, actually smiled, the dark, bitter smile of one who is without
hope, but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands
instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested
there.

"When does the next train start for Galatz?" said Van Helsing to us
generally.

"At 6:30 tomorrow morning!"  We all started, for the answer came from
Mrs. Harker.

"How on earth do you know?" said Art.

"You forget, or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so
does Dr. Van Helsing, that I am the train fiend.  At home in Exeter I
always used to make up the time tables, so as to be helpful to my
husband.  I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study
of the time tables now.  I knew that if anything were to take us to
Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through
Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully.  Unhappily there are
not many to learn, as the only train tomorrow leaves as I say."

"Wonderful woman!" murmured the Professor.

"Can't we get a special?" asked Lord Godalming.

Van Helsing shook his head, "I fear not.  This land is very different
from yours or mine.  Even if we did have a special, it would probably
not arrive as soon as our regular train.  Moreover, we have something
to prepare.  We must think.  Now let us organize.  You, friend Arthur,
go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for
us to go in the morning.  Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of
the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with
authority to make a search of the ship just as it was here.  Quincey
Morris, you see the Vice Consul, and get his aid with his fellow in
Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be
lost when over the Danube.  John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and
we shall consult.  For so if time be long you may be delayed.  And it
will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make
report."

"And I," said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than
she had been for many a long day, "shall try to be of use in all ways,
and shall think and write for you as I used to do.  Something is
shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have
been of late!"

The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to
realize the significance of her words.  But Van Helsing and I, turning
to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance.  We said nothing
at the time, however.

When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs.
Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of
Harker's journal at the Castle.  She went away to get it.

When the door was shut upon her he said to me, "We mean the same!
Speak out!"

"Here is some change.  It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may
deceive us."

"Quite so.  Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?"

"No!" said I, "unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me
alone."

"You are in part right, friend John, but only in part.  I want to tell
you something.  And oh, my friend, I am taking a great, a terrible,
risk.  But I believe it is right.  In the moment when Madam Mina said
those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to
me.  In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to
read her mind.  Or more like he took her to see him in his earth box
in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of
sun.  He learn then that we are here, for she have more to tell in her
open life with eyes to see ears to hear than he, shut as he is, in his
coffin box.  Now he make his most effort to escape us.  At present he
want her not.

"He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his
call.  But he cut her off, take her, as he can do, out of his own
power, that so she come not to him.  Ah!  There I have hope that our
man brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the
grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his
tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only
work selfish and therefore small.  Here comes Madam Mina.  Not a word
to her of her trance!  She knows it not, and it would overwhelm her
and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage, when
most we want all her great brain which is trained like man's brain,
but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give
her, and which he may not take away altogether, though he think not
so.  Hush!  Let me speak, and you shall learn.  Oh, John, my friend,
we are in awful straits.  I fear, as I never feared before.  We can
only trust the good God.  Silence!  Here she comes!"

I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have
hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he
controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker
tripped into the room, bright and happy looking and, in the doing of
work, seemingly forgetful of her misery.  As she came in, she handed a
number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing.  He looked over them
gravely, his face brightening up as he read.

Then holding the pages between his finger and thumb he said, "Friend
John, to you with so much experience already, and you too, dear Madam
Mina, that are young, here is a lesson.  Do not fear ever to think.  A
half thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him
loose his wings.  Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where
that half thought come from and I find that he be no half thought at
all.  That be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet
strong to use his little wings.  Nay, like the 'Ugly Duck' of my
friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck thought at all, but a big swan
thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to
try them.  See I read here what Jonathan have written.

"That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought
his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land, who when he was
beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come
alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered,
since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph.

"What does this tell us?  Not much?  No!  The Count's child thought
see nothing, therefore he speak so free.  Your man thought see
nothing.  My man thought see nothing, till just now.  No!  But there
comes another word from some one who speak without thought because
she, too, know not what it mean, what it might mean.  Just as there
are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on
their way and they touch, the pouf!  And there comes a flash of light,
heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some.  But that show up
all earth below for leagues and leagues.  Is it not so?  Well, I shall
explain.  To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime?
'Yes' and 'No.'  You, John, yes, for it is a study of insanity.  You,
no, Madam Mina, for crime touch you not, not but once.  Still, your
mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale.  There is
this peculiarity in criminals.  It is so constant, in all countries
and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy,
come to know it empirically, that it is.  That is to be empiric.  The
criminal always work at one crime, that is the true criminal who seems
predestinate to crime, and who will of none other.  This criminal has
not full man brain.  He is clever and cunning and resourceful, but he
be not of man stature as to brain.  He be of child brain in much.  Now
this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also.  He, too, have
child brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done.  The
little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by
principle, but empirically.  And when he learn to do, then there is to
him the ground to start from to do more.  'Dos pou sto,' said
Archimedes.  'Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!'  To do
once, is the fulcrum whereby child brain become man brain.  And until
he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every
time, just as he have done before!  Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes
are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues,"
for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled.

He went on, "Now you shall speak.  Tell us two dry men of science what
you see with those so bright eyes."  He took her hand and held it
whilst he spoke.  His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I
thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke.

"The Count is a criminal and of criminal type.  Nordau and Lombroso
would so classify him, and qua criminal he is of an imperfectly formed
mind.  Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit.  His
past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know, and that from his
own lips, tells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call
a 'tight place,' he went back to his own country from the land he had
tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself
for a new effort.  He came again better equipped for his work, and
won.  So he came to London to invade a new land.  He was beaten, and
when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he
fled back over the sea to his home.  Just as formerly he had fled back
over the Danube from Turkey Land."

"Good, good!  Oh, you so clever lady!" said Van Helsing,
enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand.  A moment later
he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick room
consultation, "Seventy-two only, and in all this excitement.  I have
hope."

Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation, "But go on.  Go
on!  There is more to tell if you will.  Be not afraid.  John and I
know.  I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right.  Speak,
without fear!"

"I will try to.  But you will forgive me if I seem too egotistical."

"Nay!  Fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think."

"Then, as he is criminal he is selfish.  And as his intellect is small
and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one
purpose.  That purpose is remorseless.  As he fled back over the
Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on
being safe, careless of all.  So his own selfishness frees my soul
somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that
dreadful night.  I felt it!  Oh, I felt it!  Thank God, for His great
mercy!  My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour.  And
all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have
used my knowledge for his ends."

The Professor stood up, "He has so used your mind, and by it he has
left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through
enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation
for escaping from us.  But his child mind only saw so far.  And it may
be that as ever is in God's Providence, the very thing that the evil
doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his
chiefest harm.  The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great
Psalmist says.  For now that he think he is free from every trace of
us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his
selfish child brain will whisper him to sleep.  He think, too, that as
he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge
of him to you.  There is where he fail!  That terrible baptism of
blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you
have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set.
At such times you go by my volition and not by his.  And this power to
good of you and others, you have won from your suffering at his hands.
This is now all more precious that he know it not, and to guard
himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where.
We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us
through all this blackness, and these many dark hours.  We shall
follow him, and we shall not flinch, even if we peril ourselves that
we become like him.  Friend John, this has been a great hour, and it
have done much to advance us on our way.  You must be scribe and write
him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can
give it to them, then they shall know as we do."

And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker
has written with the typewriter all since she brought the MS to us.




CHAPTER 26


DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

29 October.--This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz.  Last
night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset.  Each of us
had done his work as well as he could, so far as thought, and
endeavour, and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our
journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz.  When the usual time
came round Mrs. Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort, and
after a longer and more serious effort on the part of Van Helsing than
has been usually necessary, she sank into the trance.  Usually she
speaks on a hint, but this time the Professor had to ask her
questions, and to ask them pretty resolutely, before we could learn
anything.  At last her answer came.

"I can see nothing.  We are still.  There are no waves lapping, but
only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser.  I can
hear men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of
oars in the rowlocks.  A gun is fired somewhere, the echo of it seems
far away.  There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains
are dragged along.  What is this?  There is a gleam of light.  I can
feel the air blowing upon me."

Here she stopped.  She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she
lay on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if
lifting a weight.  Van Helsing and I looked at each other with
understanding.  Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her
intently, whilst Harker's hand instinctively closed round the hilt of
his Kukri.  There was a long pause.  We all knew that the time when
she could speak was passing, but we felt that it was useless to say
anything.

Suddenly she sat up, and as she opened her eyes said sweetly, "Would
none of you like a cup of tea?  You must all be so tired!"

We could only make her happy, and so acqueisced.  She bustled off to
get tea.  When she had gone Van Helsing said, "You see, my friends.  He
is close to land.  He has left his earth chest.  But he has yet to get
on shore.  In the night he may lie hidden somewhere, but if he be not
carried on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot achieve
the land.  In such case he can, if it be in the night, change his form
and jump or fly on shore, then, unless he be carried he cannot escape.
And if he be carried, then the customs men may discover what the box
contain.  Thus, in fine, if he escape not on shore tonight, or before
dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him.  We may then arrive in
time.  For if he escape not at night we shall come on him in daytime,
boxed up and at our mercy.  For he dare not be his true self, awake
and visible, lest he be discovered."

There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn,
at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker.

Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her
response in her trance.  The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming
than before, and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise
was so short that we began to despair.  Van Helsing seemed to throw
his whole soul into the effort.  At last, in obedience to his will she
made reply.

"All is dark.  I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking
as of wood on wood."  She paused, and the red sun shot up.  We must
wait till tonight.

And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of
expectation.  We are due to arrive between two and three in the
morning.  But already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we
cannot possibly get in till well after sunup.  Thus we shall have two
more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker!  Either or both may possibly
throw more light on what is happening.


Later.--Sunset has come and gone.  Fortunately it came at a time when
there was no distraction.  For had it occurred whilst we were at a
station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation.
Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than
this morning.  I am in fear that her power of reading the Count's
sensations may die away, just when we want it most.  It seems to me
that her imagination is beginning to work.  Whilst she has been in the
trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts.  If
this goes on it may ultimately mislead us.  If I thought that the
Count's power over her would die away equally with her power of
knowledge it would be a happy thought.  But I am afraid that it may
not be so.

When she did speak, her words were enigmatical, "Something is going
out.  I can feel it pass me like a cold wind.  I can hear, far off,
confused sounds, as of men talking in strange tongues, fierce falling
water, and the howling of wolves."  She stopped and a shudder ran
through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till at the
end, she shook as though in a palsy.  She said no more, even in answer
to the Professor's imperative questioning.  When she woke from the
trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid, but her mind was all
alert.  She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said.
When she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in
silence.


30 October, 7 A.M.--We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to
write later.  Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all.
Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance,
Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual.  They produced no
effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still
greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose.  The Professor
lost no time in his questioning.

Her answer came with equal quickness, "All is dark.  I hear water
swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood.
Cattle low far off.  There is another sound, a queer one like . . ."
She stopped and grew white, and whiter still.

"Go on, go on!  Speak, I command you!" said Van Helsing in an agonized
voice.  At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen
sun was reddening even Mrs. Harker's pale face.  She opened her eyes,
and we all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost
unconcern.

"Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can't?  I don't
remember anything."  Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces,
she said, turning from one to the other with a troubled look, "What
have I said?  What have I done?  I know nothing, only that I was lying
here, half asleep, and heard you say 'go on! speak, I command you!'  It
seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad child!"

"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, sadly, "it is proof, if proof be needed, of
how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more
earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom
I am proud to obey!"

The whistles are sounding.  We are nearing Galatz.  We are on fire
with anxiety and eagerness.



MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

30 October.--Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been
ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since
he does not speak any foreign language.  The forces were distributed
much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the
Vice Consul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some
sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry.  Jonathan and the two
doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival
of the Czarina Catherine.


Later.--Lord Godalming has returned.  The Consul is away, and the Vice
Consul sick.  So the routine work has been attended to by a clerk.  He
was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power.



JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

30 October.--At nine o'clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called
on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of
Hapgood.  They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord
Godalming's telegraphed request, asking them to show us any civility
in their power.  They were more than kind and courteous, and took us
at once on board the Czarina Catherine, which lay at anchor out in the
river harbor.  There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us
of his voyage.  He said that in all his life he had never had so
favourable a run.

"Man!" he said, "but it made us afeard, for we expect it that we
should have to pay for it wi' some rare piece o' ill luck, so as to
keep up the average.  It's no canny to run frae London to the Black
Sea wi' a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin' on
yer sail for his ain purpose.  An' a' the time we could no speer a
thing.  Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell
on us and travelled wi' us, till when after it had lifted and we
looked out, the deil a thing could we see.  We ran by Gibraltar wi'
oot bein' able to signal.  An' til we came to the Dardanelles and had
to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o'
aught.  At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the
fog was lifted.  But whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to
get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would
or no.  If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit
wi' the owners, or no hurt to our traffic, an' the Old Mon who had
served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin'
him."

This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial
reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said, "Mine friend, that Devil is
more clever than he is thought by some, and he know when he meet his
match!"

The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on, "When
we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble.  Some o' them, the
Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had
been put on board by a queer lookin' old man just before we had
started frae London.  I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out
their twa fingers when they saw him, to guard them against the evil
eye.  Man! but the supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly
rideeculous!  I sent them aboot their business pretty quick, but as
just after a fog closed in on us I felt a wee bit as they did anent
something, though I wouldn't say it was again the big box.  Well, on
we went, and as the fog didn't let up for five days I joost let the
wind carry us, for if the Deil wanted to get somewheres, well, he
would fetch it up a'reet.  An' if he didn't, well, we'd keep a sharp
lookout anyhow.  Sure eneuch, we had a fair way and deep water all the
time.  And two days ago, when the mornin' sun came through the fog, we
found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz.  The Roumanians
were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the box and fling
it in the river.  I had to argy wi' them aboot it wi' a handspike.  An'
when the last o' them rose off the deck wi' his head in his hand, I
had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the property and the
trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the river Danube.
They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to fling in, and as
it was marked Galatz via Varna, I thocht I'd let it lie till we
discharged in the port an' get rid o't althegither.  We didn't do much
clearin' that day, an' had to remain the nicht at anchor.  But in the
mornin', braw an' airly, an hour before sunup, a man came aboard wi'
an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one
Count Dracula.  Sure eneuch the matter was one ready to his hand.  He
had his papers a' reet, an' glad I was to be rid o' the dam' thing,
for I was beginnin' masel' to feel uneasy at it.  If the Deil did have
any luggage aboord the ship, I'm thinkin' it was nane ither than that
same!"

"What was the name of the man who took it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing with
restrained eagerness.

"I'll be tellin' ye quick!" he answered, and stepping down to his
cabin, produced a receipt signed "Immanuel Hildesheim."  Burgen-strasse
16 was the address.  We found out that this was all the Captain knew,
so with thanks we came away.

We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi
Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez.  His arguments were
pointed with specie, we doing the punctuation, and with a little
bargaining he told us what he knew.  This turned out to be simple but
important.  He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London,
telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid
customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the Czarina Catherine.
This he was to give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt
with the Slovaks who traded down the river to the port.  He had been
paid for his work by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed
for gold at the Danube International Bank.  When Skinsky had come to
him, he had taken him to the ship and handed over the box, so as to
save porterage.  That was all he knew.

We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him.  One of his
neighbors, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he
had gone away two days before, no one knew whither.  This was
corroborated by his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of
the house together with the rent due, in English money.  This had been
between ten and eleven o'clock last night.  We were at a standstill
again.

Whilst we were talking one came running and breathlessly gasped out
that the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the
churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if
by some wild animal.  Those we had been speaking with ran off to see
the horror, the women crying out.  "This is the work of a Slovak!"  We
hurried away lest we should have been in some way drawn into the
affair, and so detained.

As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion.  We were
all convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere, but
where that might be we would have to discover.  With heavy hearts we
came home to the hotel to Mina.

When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina
again into our confidence.  Things are getting desperate, and it is at
least a chance, though a hazardous one.  As a preliminary step, I was
released from my promise to her.





MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

30 October, evening.--They were so tired and worn out and dispirited
that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest, so I asked
them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything
up to the moment.  I feel so grateful to the man who invented the
"Traveller's" typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for
me.  I should have felt quite astray doing the work if I had to write
with a pen . . .

It is all done.  Poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered,
what he must be suffering now.  He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to
breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse.  His brows are knit.
His face is drawn with pain.  Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I
can see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his
thoughts.  Oh! if I could only help at all.  I shall do what I can.

I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I
have not yet seen.  Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all
carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion.  I shall try
to follow the Professor's example, and think without prejudice on the
facts before me . . .

I do believe that under God's providence I have made a discovery.  I
shall get the maps and look over them.

I am more than ever sure that I am right.  My new conclusion is ready,
so I shall get our party together and read it.  They can judge it.  It
is well to be accurate, and every minute is precious.



MINA HARKER'S MEMORANDUM

(ENTERED IN HER JOURNAL)


Ground of inquiry.--Count Dracula's problem is to get back
to his own place.

(a) He must be brought back by some one.  This is evident;
for had he power to move himself as he wished he could go
either as man, or wolf, or bat, or in some other way.  He
evidently fears discovery or interference, in the state of
helplessness in which he must be, confined as he is between
dawn and sunset in his wooden box.

(b) How is he to be taken?--Here a process of exclusions may
help us.  By road, by rail, by water?

1.  By Road.--There are endless difficulties, especially in
leaving the city.

(x) There are people.  And people are curious, and
investigate.  A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might
be in the box, would destroy him.

(y) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers
to pass.

(z) His pursuers might follow.  This is his highest fear.
And in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled,
so far as he can, even his victim, me!

2.  By Rail.--There is no one in charge of the box.  It
would have to take its chance of being delayed, and delay
would be fatal, with enemies on the track.  True, he might
escape at night.  But what would he be, if left in a strange
place with no refuge that he could fly to?  This is not what he
intends, and he does not mean to risk it.

3.  By Water.--Here is the safest way, in one respect, but
with most danger in another.  On the water he is powerless
except at night.  Even then he can only summon fog and storm and
snow and his wolves.  But were he wrecked, the living water would
engulf him, helpless, and he would indeed be lost.  He could have
the vessel drive to land, but if it were unfriendly land, wherein
he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate.

We know from the record that he was on the water, so what
we have to do is to ascertain what water.

The first thing is to realize exactly what he has done as
yet.  We may, then, get a light on what his task is to be.

Firstly.--We must differentiate between what he did in
London as part of his general plan of action, when he was
pressed for moments and had to arrange as best he could.

Secondly.--We must see, as well as we can surmise it from the
facts we know of, what he has done here.

As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz,
and sent invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain
his means of exit from England.  His immediate and sole purpose
then was to escape.  The proof of this, is the letter of
instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim to clear and take away
the box before sunrise.  There is also the instruction to Petrof
Skinsky.  These we must only guess at, but there must have been
some letter or message, since Skinsky came to Hildesheim.

That, so far, his plans were successful we know.  The Czarina
Catherine made a phenomenally quick journey.  So much so that
Captain Donelson's suspicions were aroused.  But his superstition
united with his canniness played the Count's game for him, and he
ran with his favouring wind through fogs and all till he brought
up blindfold at Galatz.  That the Count's arrangements were well
made, has been proved.  Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off,
and gave it to Skinsky.  Skinsky took it, and here we lose the
trail.  We only know that the box is somewhere on the water,
moving along.  The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have
been avoided.

Now we come to what the Count must have done after his
arrival, on land, at Galatz.

The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise.  At sunrise
the Count could appear in his own form.  Here, we ask why
Skinsky was chosen at all to aid in the work?  In my husband's
diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing with the Slovaks who trade
down the river to the port.  And the man's remark, that the
murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general feeling
against his class.  The Count wanted isolation.

My surmise is this, that in London the Count decided to get
back to his castle by water, as the most safe and secret
way.  He was brought from the castle by Szgany, and probably they
delivered their cargo to Slovaks who took the boxes to Varna, for
there they were shipped to London.  Thus the Count had knowledge
of the persons who could arrange this service.  When the box was
on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out from his
box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to arranging
the carriage of the box up some river.  When this was done, and
he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he
thought, by murdering his agent.

I have examined the map and find that the river most
suitable for the Slovaks to have ascended is either the
Pruth or the Sereth.  I read in the typescript that in my
trance I heard cows low and water swirling level with my
ears and the creaking of wood.  The Count in his box, then,
was on a river in an open boat, propelled probably either
by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working
against stream.  There would be no such if floating down
stream.

Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but
we may possibly investigate further.  Now of these two, the
Pruth is the more easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at
Fundu, joined by the Bistritza which runs up round the Borgo
Pass.  The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula's
castle as can be got by water.



MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL--CONTINUED

When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me.
The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said,
"Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher.  Her eyes have been
where we were blinded.  Now we are on the track once again, and this
time we may succeed.  Our enemy is at his most helpless.  And if we
can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over.  He has a
start, but he is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave this box
lest those who carry him may suspect.  For them to suspect would be to
prompt them to throw him in the stream where he perish.  This he
knows, and will not.  Now men, to our Council of War, for here and
now, we must plan what each and all shall do."

"I shall get a steam launch and follow him," said Lord Godalming.

"And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land," said Mr.
Morris.

"Good!" said the Professor, "both good.  But neither must go alone.
There must be force to overcome force if need be.  The Slovak is
strong and rough, and he carries rude arms."  All the men smiled, for
amongst them they carried a small arsenal.

Said Mr. Morris, "I have brought some Winchesters.  They are pretty
handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves.  The Count, if you
remember, took some other precautions.  He made some requisitions on
others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand.  We must
be ready at all points."

Dr. Seward said, "I think I had better go with Quincey.  We have been
accustomed to hunt together, and we two, well armed, will be a match
for whatever may come along.  You must not be alone, Art.  It may be
necessary to fight the Slovaks, and a chance thrust, for I don't
suppose these fellows carry guns, would undo all our plans.  There
must be no chances, this time.  We shall not rest until the Count's
head and body have been separated, and we are sure that he cannot
reincarnate."

He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me.  I could
see that the poor dear was torn about in his mind.  Of course he
wanted to be with me.  But then the boat service would, most likely,
be the one which would destroy the . . . the . . . Vampire.  (Why did
I hesitate to write the word?)

He was silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke,
"Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons.  First, because
you are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed
at the last.  And again that it is your right to destroy him.  That,
which has wrought such woe to you and yours.  Be not afraid for Madam
Mina.  She will be my care, if I may.  I am old.  My legs are not so
quick to run as once.  And I am not used to ride so long or to pursue
as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons.  But I can be of other
service.  I can fight in other way.  And I can die, if need be, as
well as younger men.  Now let me say that what I would is this.  While
you, my Lord Godalming and friend Jonathan go in your so swift little
steamboat up the river, and whilst John and Quincey guard the bank
where perchance he might be landed, I will take Madam Mina right into
the heart of the enemy's country.  Whilst the old fox is tied in his
box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to land,
where he dares not raise the lid of his coffin box lest his Slovak
carriers should in fear leave him to perish, we shall go in the track
where Jonathan went, from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to
the Castle of Dracula.  Here, Madam Mina's hypnotic power will surely
help, and we shall find our way, all dark and unknown otherwise, after
the first sunrise when we are near that fateful place.  There is much
to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of
vipers be obliterated."

Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly, "Do you mean to say, Professor
Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as
she is with that devil's illness, right into the jaws of his
deathtrap?  Not for the world!  Not for Heaven or Hell!"

He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on, "Do you
know what the place is?  Have you seen that awful den of hellish
infamy, with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every
speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo?
Have you felt the Vampire's lips upon your throat?"

Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up
his arms with a cry, "Oh, my God, what have we done to have this
terror upon us?" and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery.

The Professor's voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed
to vibrate in the air, calmed us all.

"Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful
place that I would go.  God forbid that I should take her into that
place.  There is work, wild work, to be done before that place can be
purify.  Remember that we are in terrible straits.  If the Count
escape us this time, and he is strong and subtle and cunning, he may
choose to sleep him for a century, and then in time our dear one," he
took my hand, "would come to him to keep him company, and would be as
those others that you, Jonathan, saw.  You have told us of their
gloating lips.  You heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the
moving bag that the Count threw to them.  You shudder, and well may it
be.  Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary.  My
friend, is it not a dire need for that which I am giving, possibly my
life?  If it were that any one went into that place to stay, it is I
who would have to go to keep them company."

"Do as you will," said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over,
"we are in the hands of God!"


Later.--Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked.
How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true,
and so brave!  And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of
money!  What can it not do when basely used.  I felt so thankful that
Lord Godalming is rich, and both he and Mr. Morris, who also has
plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely.  For if they did
not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so
well equipped, as it will within another hour.  It is not three hours
since it was arranged what part each of us was to do.  And now Lord
Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready
to start at a moment's notice.  Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a
dozen good horses, well appointed.  We have all the maps and
appliances of various kinds that can be had.  Professor Van Helsing
and I are to leave by the 11:40 train tonight for Veresti, where we
are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass.  We are bringing a
good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and horses.  We
shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust in the
matter.  The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so
we shall get on all right.  We have all got arms, even for me a large
bore revolver.  Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like
the rest.  Alas!  I cannot carry one arm that the rest do, the scar on
my forehead forbids that.  Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling
me that I am fully armed as there may be wolves.  The weather is
getting colder every hour, and there are snow flurries which come and
go as warnings.


Later.--It took all my courage to say goodbye to my darling.  We may
never meet again.  Courage, Mina!  The Professor is looking at you
keenly.  His look is a warning.  There must be no tears now, unless it
may be that God will let them fall in gladness.



JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

30 October, night.--I am writing this in the light from the furnace
door of the steam launch.  Lord Godalming is firing up.  He is an
experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his
own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads.  Regarding our
plans, we finally decided that Mina's guess was correct, and that if
any waterway was chosen for the Count's escape back to his Castle, the
Sereth and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one.  We
took it, that somewhere about the 47th degree, north latitude, would
be the place chosen for crossing the country between the river and the
Carpathians.  We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at
night.  There is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart
to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough.  Lord Godalming tells
me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be
on watch.  But I cannot sleep, how can I with the terrible danger
hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place . . .

My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God.  Only for that
faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all
the trouble.  Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride
before we started.  They are to keep up the right bank, far enough off
to get on higher lands where they can see a good stretch of river and
avoid the following of its curves.  They have, for the first stages,
two men to ride and lead their spare horses, four in all, so as not to
excite curiosity.  When they dismiss the men, which shall be shortly,
they shall themselves look after the horses.  It may be necessary for
us to join forces.  If so they can mount our whole party.  One of the
saddles has a moveable horn, and can be easily adapted for Mina, if
required.

It is a wild adventure we are on.  Here, as we are rushing along
through the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up
and strike us, with all the mysterious voices of the night around us,
it all comes home.  We seem to be drifting into unknown places and
unknown ways.  Into a whole world of dark and dreadful things.
Godalming is shutting the furnace door . . .


31 October.--Still hurrying along.  The day has come, and Godalming is
sleeping.  I am on watch.  The morning is bitterly cold, the furnace
heat is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats.  As yet we have
passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or
package of anything like the size of the one we seek.  The men were
scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on
their knees and prayed.


1 November, evening.--No news all day.  We have found nothing of the
kind we seek.  We have now passed into the Bistritza, and if we are
wrong in our surmise our chance is gone.  We have overhauled every
boat, big and little.  Early this morning, one crew took us for a
Government boat, and treated us accordingly.  We saw in this a way of
smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the
Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously.  With
every boat which we have overhauled since then this trick has
succeeded.  We have had every deference shown to us, and not once any
objection to whatever we chose to ask or do.  Some of the Slovaks tell
us that a big boat passed them, going at more than usual speed as she
had a double crew on board.  This was before they came to Fundu, so
they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or
continued on up the Sereth.  At Fundu we could not hear of any such
boat, so she must have passed there in the night.  I am feeling very
sleepy.  The cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me, and nature
must have rest some time.  Godalming insists that he shall keep the
first watch.  God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and
me.


2 November, morning.--It is broad daylight.  That good fellow would
not wake me.  He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept
peacefully and was forgetting my trouble.  It seems brutally selfish
to me to have slept so long, and let him watch all night, but he was
quite right.  I am a new man this morning.  And, as I sit here and
watch him sleeping, I can do all that is necessary both as to minding
the engine, steering, and keeping watch.  I can feel that my strength
and energy are coming back to me.  I wonder where Mina is now, and Van
Helsing.  They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday.  It
would take them some time to get the carriage and horses.  So if they
had started and travelled hard, they would be about now at the Borgo
Pass.  God guide and help them!  I am afraid to think what may
happen.  If we could only go faster.  But we cannot.  The engines are
throbbing and doing their utmost.  I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr.
Morris are getting on.  There seem to be endless streams running down
the mountains into this river, but as none of them are very large, at
present, at all events, though they are doubtless terrible in winter
and when the snow melts, the horsemen may not have met much
obstruction.  I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see them.
For if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be
necessary to take counsel together what to do next.





DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

2 November.--Three days on the road.  No news, and no time to write it
if there had been, for every moment is precious.  We have had only the
rest needful for the horses.  But we are both bearing it wonderfully.
Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful.  We must push
on.  We shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again.


3 November.--We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the
Bistritza.  I wish it wasn't so cold.  There are signs of snow coming.
And if it falls heavy it will stop us.  In such case we must get a
sledge and go on, Russian fashion.

4 November.--Today we heard of the launch having been detained by an
accident when trying to force a way up the rapids.  The Slovak boats
get up all right, by aid of a rope and steering with knowledge.  Some
went up only a few hours before.  Godalming is an amateur fitter
himself, and evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again.

Finally, they got up the rapids all right, with local help, and are off
on the chase afresh.  I fear that the boat is not any better for the
accident, the peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water
again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in
sight.  We must push on harder than ever.  Our help may be wanted
soon.





MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

31 October.--Arrived at Veresti at noon.  The Professor tells me that
this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotize me at all, and that all
I could say was, "dark and quiet."  He is off now buying a carriage
and horses.  He says that he will later on try to buy additional
horses, so that we may be able to change them on the way.  We have
something more than 70 miles before us.  The country is lovely, and
most interesting.  If only we were under different conditions, how
delightful it would be to see it all.  If Jonathan and I were driving
through it alone what a pleasure it would be.  To stop and see people,
and learn something of their life, and to fill our minds and memories
with all the colour and picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful
country and the quaint people!  But, alas!


Later.--Dr. Van Helsing has returned.  He has got the carriage and
horses.  We are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour.  The
landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions.  It seems
enough for a company of soldiers.  The Professor encourages her, and
whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any food again.
He has been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of
fur coats and wraps, and all sorts of warm things.  There will not be
any chance of our being cold.

We shall soon be off.  I am afraid to think what may happen to us.  We
are truly in the hands of God.  He alone knows what may be, and I pray
Him, with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will
watch over my beloved husband.  That whatever may happen, Jonathan may
know that I loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my
latest and truest thought will be always for him.




CHAPTER 27


MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

1 November.--All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed.  The
horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go
willingly their full stage at best speed.  We have now had so many
changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged
to think that the journey will be an easy one.  Dr. Van Helsing is
laconic, he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and
pays them well to make the exchange of horses.  We get hot soup, or
coffee, or tea, and off we go.  It is a lovely country.  Full of
beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and
strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities.  They are very,
very superstitious.  In the first house where we stopped, when the
woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself
and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye.  I
believe they went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic
into our food, and I can't abide garlic.  Ever since then I have taken
care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have escaped their
suspicions.  We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us
to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal.  But I daresay that fear of
the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way.  The Professor
seems tireless.  All day he would not take any rest, though he made me
sleep for a long spell.  At sunset time he hypnotized me, and he says
I answered as usual, "darkness, lapping water and creaking wood."  So
our enemy is still on the river.  I am afraid to think of Jonathan,
but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself.  I write this
whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be ready.  Dr. Van
Helsing is sleeping.  Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey,
but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror's.  Even in his sleep he
is intense with resolution.  When we have well started I must make him
rest whilst I drive.  I shall tell him that we have days before us,
and he must not break down when most of all his strength will be
needed . . . All is ready.  We are off shortly.


2 November, morning.--I was successful, and we took turns driving all
night.  Now the day is on us, bright though cold.  There is a strange
heaviness in the air.  I say heaviness for want of a better word.  I
mean that it oppresses us both.  It is very cold, and only our warm
furs keep us comfortable.  At dawn Van Helsing hypnotized me.  He says
I answered "darkness, creaking wood and roaring water," so the river
is changing as they ascend.  I do hope that my darling will not run
any chance of danger, more than need be, but we are in God's hands.


2 November, night.--All day long driving.  The country gets wilder as
we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed
so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us
and tower in front.  We both seem in good spirits.  I think we make an
effort each to cheer the other, in the doing so we cheer ourselves.
Dr. Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass.
The houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last
horse we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to
change.  He got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we
have a rude four-in-hand.  The dear horses are patient and good, and
they give us no trouble.  We are not worried with other travellers,
and so even I can drive.  We shall get to the Pass in daylight.  We do
not want to arrive before.  So we take it easy, and have each a long
rest in turn.  Oh, what will tomorrow bring to us?  We go to seek the
place where my poor darling suffered so much.  God grant that we may
be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and
those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril.  As for me, I
am not worthy in His sight.  Alas!  I am unclean to His eyes, and
shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one
of those who have not incurred His wrath.





MEMORANDUM BY ABRAHAM VAN HELSING

4 November.--This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D.,
of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him.  It may
explain.  It is morning, and I write by a fire which all
the night I have kept alive, Madam Mina aiding me.  It is
cold, cold.  So cold that the grey heavy sky is full of
snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the
ground is hardening to receive it.  It seems to have affected
Madam Mina.  She has been so heavy of head all day that she was
not like herself.  She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps!  She who
is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day.  She
even have lost her appetite.  She make no entry into her little
diary, she who write so faithful at every pause.  Something
whisper to me that all is not well.  However, tonight she is more
/vif/.  Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for
now she is all sweet and bright as ever.  At sunset I try to
hypnotize her, but alas! with no effect.  The power has grown
less and less with each day, and tonight it fail me altogether.
Well, God's will be done, whatever it may be, and whithersoever
it may lead!

Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her
stenography, I must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so
each day of us may not go unrecorded.

We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday
morning.  When I saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for
the hypnotism.  We stopped our carriage, and got down so
that there might be no disturbance.  I made a couch with
furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual,
but more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic
sleep.  As before, came the answer, "darkness and the swirling of
water."  Then she woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way
and soon reach the Pass.  At this time and place, she become all
on fire with zeal.  Some new guiding power be in her manifested,
for she point to a road and say, "This is the way."

"How know you it?" I ask.

"Of course I know it," she answer, and with a pause, add,
"Have not my Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?"

At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be
only one such byroad.  It is used but little, and very different
from the coach road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more
wide and hard, and more of use.

So we came down this road.  When we meet other ways, not
always were we sure that they were roads at all, for they
be neglect and light snow have fallen, the horses know and
they only.  I give rein to them, and they go on so patient.  By
and by we find all the things which Jonathan have note in that
wonderful diary of him.  Then we go on for long, long hours and
hours.  At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep.  She try, and
she succeed.  She sleep all the time, till at the last, I feel
myself to suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her.  But she
sleep on, and I may not wake her though I try.  I do not wish to
try too hard lest I harm her.  For I know that she have suffer
much, and sleep at times be all-in-all to her.  I think I drowse
myself, for all of sudden I feel guilt, as though I have done
something.  I find myself bolt up, with the reins in my hand, and
the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever.  I look down and
find Madam Mina still asleep.  It is now not far off sunset time,
and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood,
so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so
steep.  For we are going up, and up, and all is oh so wild and
rocky, as though it were the end of the world.

Then I arouse Madam Mina.  This time she wake with not much
trouble, and then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep.  But
she sleep not, being as though I were not.  Still I try and
try, till all at once I find her and myself in dark, so I
look round, and find that the sun have gone down.  Madam
Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her.  She is now quite
awake, and look so well as I never saw her since that night
at Carfax when we first enter the Count's house.  I am amaze, and
not at ease then.  But she is so bright and tender and thoughtful
for me that I forget all fear.  I light a fire, for we have
brought supply of wood with us, and she prepare food while I undo
the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, to feed.  Then when
I return to the fire she have my supper ready.  I go to help her,
but she smile, and tell me that she have eat already.  That she
was so hungry that she would not wait.  I like it not, and I have
grave doubts.  But I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of
it.  She help me and I eat alone, and then we wrap in fur and lie
beside the fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch.  But
presently I forget all of watching.  And when I sudden remember
that I watch, I find her lying quiet, but awake, and looking at
me with so bright eyes.  Once, twice more the same occur, and I
get much sleep till before morning.  When I wake I try to
hypnotize her, but alas! though she shut her eyes obedient, she
may not sleep.  The sun rise up, and up, and up, and then sleep
come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake.  I
have to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when
I have harnessed the horses and made all ready.  Madam still
sleep, and she look in her sleep more healthy and more redder
than before.  And I like it not.  And I am afraid, afraid,
afraid!  I am afraid of all things, even to think but I must go
on my way.  The stake we play for is life and death, or more than
these, and we must not flinch.


5 November, morning.--Let me be accurate in everything, for
though you and I have seen some strange things together,
you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am mad.
That the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has
at the last turn my brain.

All yesterday we travel, always getting closer to the
mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert
land.  There are great, frowning precipices and much falling
water, and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival.  Madam
Mina still sleep and sleep.  And though I did have hunger and
appeased it, I could not waken her, even for food.  I began to
fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as
she is with that Vampire baptism.  "Well," said I to myself, "if
it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not
sleep at night."  As we travel on the rough road, for a road of
an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and
slept.

Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and
found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down.  But
all was indeed changed.  The frowning mountains seemed further
away, and we were near the top of a steep rising hill, on summit
of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary.  At
once I exulted and feared.  For now, for good or ill, the end was
near.

I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotize her, but
alas!  unavailing till too late.  Then, ere the great dark
came upon us, for even after down sun the heavens reflected
the gone sun on the snow, and all was for a time in a great
twilight.  I took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I
could.  Then I make a fire, and near it I make Madam Mina, now
awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid her rugs.
I got ready food, but she would not eat, simply saying that she
had not hunger.  I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness.
But I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all.  Then,
with the fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for
her comfort, round where Madam Mina sat.  And over the ring I
passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was
well guarded.  She sat still all the time, so still as one dead.
And she grew whiter and even whiter till the snow was not more
pale, and no word she said.  But when I drew near, she clung to
me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to
feet with a tremor that was pain to feel.

I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet,
"Will you not come over to the fire?" for I wished to make
a test of what she could.  She rose obedient, but when she
have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken.

"Why not go on?" I asked.  She shook her head, and coming
back, sat down in her place.  Then, looking at me with open
eyes, as of one waked from sleep, she said simply, "I cannot!"
and remained silent.  I rejoiced, for I knew that what she could
not, none of those that we dreaded could.  Though there might be
danger to her body, yet her soul was safe!

Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their
tethers till I came to them and quieted them.  When they
did feel my hands on them, they whinnied low as in joy, and
licked at my hands and were quiet for a time.  Many times
through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to the
cold hour when all nature is at lowest, and every time my
coming was with quiet of them.  In the cold hour the fire
began to die, and I was about stepping forth to replenish
it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps and with it a
chill mist.  Even in the dark there was a light of some
kind, as there ever is over snow, and it seemed as though
the snow flurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of
women with trailing garments.  All was in dead, grim silence only
that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the
worst.  I began to fear, horrible fears.  But then came to me the
sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood.  I began too, to
think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and
the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible
anxiety.  It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's horrid
experience were befooling me.  For the snow flakes and the mist
began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a
shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him.  And
then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as
men do in pain.  Even the madness of fright was not to them, so
that they could break away.  I feared for my dear Madam Mina when
these weird figures drew near and circled round.  I looked at her,
but she sat calm, and smiled at me.  When I would have stepped to
the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and
whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was.

"No!  No!  Do not go without.  Here you are safe!"

I turned to her, and looking in her eyes said, "But you?
It is for you that I fear!"

Whereat she laughed, a laugh low and unreal, and said, "Fear
for me!  Why fear for me?  None safer in all the world from
them than I am," and as I wondered at the meaning of her
words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the
red scar on her forehead.  Then, alas!  I knew.  Did I not,
I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist
and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy
circle.  Then they began to materialize till, if God have
not taken away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes.
There were before me in actual flesh the same three women
that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed
his throat.  I knew the swaying round forms, the bright
hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous
lips.  They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina.  And as
their laugh came through the silence of the night, they
twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so
sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable
sweetness of the water glasses, "Come, sister.  Come to us.
Come!"

In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with
gladness leapt like flame.  For oh! the terror in her sweet
eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart
that was all of hope.  God be thanked she was not, yet, of
them.  I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and
holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the
fire.  They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid
laugh.  I fed the fire, and feared them not.  For I knew that we
were safe within the ring, which she could not leave no more than
they could enter.  The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still
on the ground.  The snow fell on them softly, and they grew
whiter.  I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of
terror.

And so we remained till the red of the dawn began to fall
through the snow gloom.  I was desolate and afraid, and
full of woe and terror.  But when that beautiful sun began
to climb the horizon life was to me again.  At the first
coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling
mist and snow.  The wreaths of transparent gloom moved away
towards the castle, and were lost.

Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina,
intending to hypnotize her.  But she lay in a deep and sudden
sleep, from which I could not wake her.  I tried to hypnotize
through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all, and the
day broke.  I fear yet to stir.  I have made my fire and have
seen the horses, they are all dead.  Today I have much to do here,
and I keep waiting till the sun is up high.  For there may be
places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist
obscure it, will be to me a safety.

I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will do my
terrible work.  Madam Mina still sleeps, and God be thanked!  She
is calm in her sleep . . .



JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL

4 November, evening.--The accident to the launch has been a terrible
thing for us.  Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago,
and by now my dear Mina would have been free.  I fear to think of her,
off on the wolds near that horrid place.  We have got horses, and we
follow on the track.  I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready.
We have our arms.  The Szgany must look out if they mean to fight.  Oh,
if only Morris and Seward were with us.  We must only hope!  If I
write no more Goodby Mina!  God bless and keep you.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

5 November.--With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing
away from the river with their leiter wagon.  They surrounded it in a
cluster, and hurried along as though beset.  The snow is falling
lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air.  It may be our
own feelings, but the depression is strange.  Far off I hear the
howling of wolves.  The snow brings them down from the mountains, and
there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides.  The horses are
nearly ready, and we are soon off.  We ride to death of some one.  God
alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be . . .





DR. VAN HELSING'S MEMORANDUM

5 November, afternoon.--I am at least sane.  Thank God for
that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been
dreadful.  When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy
circle, I took my way to the castle.  The blacksmith hammer
which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful, though the
doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some
ill intent or ill chance should close them, so that being entered
I might not get out.  Jonathan's bitter experience served me
here.  By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel,
for I knew that here my work lay.  The air was oppressive.  It
seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made
me dizzy.  Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar
off the howl of wolves.  Then I bethought me of my dear Madam
Mina, and I was in terrible plight.  The dilemma had me between
his horns.

Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe
from the Vampire in that Holy circle.  And yet even there
would be the wolf!  I resolve me that my work lay here, and
that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God's will.  At
any rate it was only death and freedom beyond.  So did I choose
for her.  Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy,
the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the
Vampire!  So I make my choice to go on with my work.

I knew that there were at least three graves to find, graves
that are inhabit.  So I search, and search, and I find one
of them.  She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and
voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to
do murder.  Ah, I doubt not that in the old time, when such
things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as
mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his
nerve.  So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere
beauty and the fascination of the wanton Undead have hypnotize
him.  And he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire
sleep be over.  Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open
and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss, and
the man is weak.  And there remain one more victim in the
Vampire fold.  One more to swell the grim and grisly ranks
of the Undead! . . .

There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the
mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a
tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries,
though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the
Count have had.  Yes, I was moved.  I, Van Helsing, with
all my purpose and with my motive for hate.  I was moved to
a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyze my faculties
and to clog my very soul.  It may have been that the need
of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air
were beginning to overcome me.  Certain it was that I was
lapsing into sleep, the open eyed sleep of one who yields
to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled
air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me
like the sound of a clarion.  For it was the voice of my dear
Madam Mina that I heard.

Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by
wrenching away tomb tops one other of the sisters, the other dark
one.  I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister,
lest once more I should begin to be enthrall.  But I go on
searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if
made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like
Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the
mist.  She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so
exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me,
which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers,
made my head whirl with new emotion.  But God be thanked, that
soul wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears.
And, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had
nerved myself to my wild work.  By this time I had searched all
the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell.  And as there
had been only three of these Undead phantoms around us in the
night, I took it that there were no more of active Undead
existent.  There was one great tomb more lordly than all the
rest.  Huge it was, and nobly proportioned.  On it was but one
word.


            DRACULA


This then was the Undead home of the King Vampire, to whom
so many more were due.  Its emptiness spoke eloquent to
make certain what I knew.  Before I began to restore these
women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in
Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from
it, Undead, for ever.

Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it.  Had it been
but one, it had been easy, comparative.  But three!  To
begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror.
For it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it
not be with these strange ones who had survived through
centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of
the years.  Who would, if they could, have fought for their
foul lives . . .

Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work.  Had I not
been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living
over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone
on.  I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was
over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand.  Had I not seen
the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole
over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realization
that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further
with my butchery.  I could not have endured the horrid screeching
as the stake drove home, the plunging of writhing form, and lips
of bloody foam.  I should have fled in terror and left my work
undone.  But it is over!  And the poor souls, I can pity them now
and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of
death for a short moment ere fading.  For, friend John, hardly
had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body
began to melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though
the death that should have come centuries ago had at last assert
himself and say at once and loud, "I am here!"

Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never
more can the Count enter there Undead.

When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she
woke from her sleep and, seeing me, cried out in pain that
I had endured too much.

"Come!" she said, "come away from this awful place!  Let us
go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us."
She was looking thin and pale and weak.  But her eyes were
pure and glowed with fervour.  I was glad to see her paleness and
her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that
ruddy vampire sleep.

And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go
eastward to meet our friends, and him, whom Madam Mina tell
me that she know are coming to meet us.





MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL

6 November.--It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I
took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming.  We
did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to
take heavy rugs and wraps with us.  We dared not face the possibility
of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow.  We had to take
some of our provisions too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and
so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the
sign of habitation.  When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with
the heavy walking and sat down to rest.  Then we looked back and saw
where the clear line of Dracula's castle cut the sky.  For we were so
deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective
of the Carpathian mountains was far below it.  We saw it in all its
grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice,
and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the
adjacent mountain on any side.  There was something wild and uncanny
about the place.  We could hear the distant howling of wolves.  They
were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the
deadening snowfall, was full of terror.  I knew from the way Dr. Van
Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic
point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack.  The rough
roadway still led downwards.  We could trace it through the drifted
snow.

In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and
joined him.  He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow
in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders.  He
took me by the hand and drew me in.

"See!" he said, "here you will be in shelter.  And if the wolves do
come I can meet them one by one."

He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some
provisions and forced them upon me.  But I could not eat, to even try
to do so was repulsive to me, and much as I would have liked to please
him, I could not bring myself to the attempt.  He looked very sad, but
did not reproach me.  Taking his field glasses from the case, he stood
on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon.

Suddenly he called out, "Look!  Madam Mina, look!  Look!"

I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock.  He handed me his
glasses and pointed.  The snow was now falling more heavily, and
swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow.
However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow
flurries and I could see a long way round.  From the height where we
were it was possible to see a great distance.  And far off, beyond the
white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon
in kinks and curls as it wound its way.  Straight in front of us and
not far off, in fact so near that I wondered we had not noticed
before, came a group of mounted men hurrying along.  In the midst of
them was a cart, a long leiter wagon which swept from side to side,
like a dog's tail wagging, with each stern inequality of the road.
Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from the men's
clothes that they were peasants or gypsies of some kind.

On the cart was a great square chest.  My heart leaped as I saw it, for
I felt that the end was coming.  The evening was now drawing close,
and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then
imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many
forms elude pursuit.  In fear I turned to the Professor.  To my
consternation, however, he was not there.  An instant later, I saw him
below me.  Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found
shelter in last night.

When he had completed it he stood beside me again saying, "At least
you shall be safe here from him!"  He took the glasses from me, and at
the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us.  "See," he
said, "they come quickly.  They are flogging the horses, and galloping
as hard as they can."

He paused and went on in a hollow voice, "They are racing for the
sunset.  We may be too late.  God's will be done!"  Down came another
blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted
out.  It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses were fixed on
the plain.

Then came a sudden cry, "Look!  Look!  Look!  See, two horsemen follow
fast, coming up from the south.  It must be Quincey and John.  Take
the glass.  Look before the snow blots it all out!"  I took it and
looked.  The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris.  I knew at
all events that neither of them was Jonathan.  At the same time I knew
that Jonathan was not far off.  Looking around I saw on the north side
of the coming party two other men, riding at breakneck speed.  One of
them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord
Godalming.  They too, were pursuing the party with the cart.  When I
told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and after
looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he laid his
Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of
our shelter.

"They are all converging," he said.  "When the time comes we shall have
gypsies on all sides."  I got out my revolver ready to hand, for
whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer.
When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again.  It was strange
to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond,
the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down towards the far
mountain tops.  Sweeping the glass all around us I could see here and
there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger numbers.
The wolves were gathering for their prey.

Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited.  The wind came now in
fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us
in circling eddies.  At times we could not see an arm's length before
us.  But at others, as the hollow sounding wind swept by us, it seemed
to clear the air space around us so that we could see afar off.  We
had of late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that
we knew with fair accuracy when it would be.  And we knew that before
long the sun would set.  It was hard to believe that by our watches it
was less than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the
various bodies began to converge close upon us.  The wind came now
with fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the
north.  It seemingly had driven the snow clouds from us, for with only
occasional bursts, the snow fell.  We could distinguish clearly the
individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers.  Strangely
enough those pursued did not seem to realize, or at least to care,
that they were pursued.  They seemed, however, to hasten with
redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain
tops.

Closer and closer they drew.  The Professor and I crouched down behind
our rock, and held our weapons ready.  I could see that he was
determined that they should not pass.  One and all were quite unaware
of our presence.

All at once two voices shouted out to "Halt!"  One was my Jonathan's,
raised in a high key of passion.  The other Mr. Morris' strong
resolute tone of quiet command.  The gypsies may not have known the
language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the
words were spoken.  Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant
Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and
Mr. Morris on the other.  The leader of the gypsies, a splendid
looking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and
in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed.  They
lashed the horses which sprang forward.  But the four men raised their
Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop.
At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and
pointed our weapons at them.  Seeing that they were surrounded the men
tightened their reins and drew up.  The leader turned to them and gave
a word at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he
carried, knife or pistol, and held himself in readiness to attack.
Issue was joined in an instant.

The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in
front, and pointed first to the sun, now close down on the hill tops,
and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand.
For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their
horses and dashed towards the cart.  I should have felt terrible fear
at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardor of battle must
have been upon me as well as the rest of them.  I felt no fear, but
only a wild, surging desire to do something.  Seeing the quick
movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command.  His
men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined
endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness
to carry out the order.

In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring
of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart.  It
was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun
should set.  Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them.  Neither
the levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front,
nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their
attention.  Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his
purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him.  Instinctively they
cowered aside and let him pass.  In an instant he had jumped upon the
cart, and with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great
box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground.  In the meantime, Mr.
Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of
Szgany.  All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had,
with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and
had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them,
and they cut at him.  He had parried with his great bowie knife, and
at first I thought that he too had come through in safety.  But as he
sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could
see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the
blood was spurting through his fingers.  He did not delay
notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked
one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with his great
Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie.  Under
the efforts of both men the lid began to yield.  The nails drew with a
screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.

By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the
Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had
given in and made no further resistance.  The sun was almost down on
the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell upon the
snow.  I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of
which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him.  He was
deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with
the horrible vindictive look which I knew so well.

As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in
them turned to triumph.

But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great
knife.  I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat.  Whilst at
the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the
drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from
our sight.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final
dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never
could have imagined might have rested there.

The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every
stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of
the setting sun.

The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary
disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away
as if for their lives.  Those who were unmounted jumped upon the
leiter wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them.  The
wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their
wake, leaving us alone.

Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding
his hand pressed to his side.  The blood still gushed through his
fingers.  I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back;
so did the two doctors.  Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man
laid back his head on his shoulder.  With a sigh he took, with a
feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained.

He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at
me and said, "I am only too happy to have been of service!  Oh, God!"
he cried suddenly, struggling to a sitting posture and pointing to me.
"It was worth for this to die!  Look!  Look!"

The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams
fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light.  With one
impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest "Amen"
broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger.

The dying man spoke, "Now God be thanked that all has not been in
vain!  See!  The snow is not more stainless than her forehead!  The
curse has passed away!"

And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a
gallant gentleman.


___________________________________________________________________

Henry Jekyll is embroiled in THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

as told by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

                         Story of the Door



Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was
never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in
discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and
yet somehow lovable.  At friendly meetings, and when the wine was
to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;
something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but
which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner
face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life.  He was
austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a
taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not
crossed the doors of one for twenty years.  But he had an approved
tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at
the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in
any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove.  "I incline
to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly:  "I let my brother go
to the devil in his own way."  In this character, it was
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and
the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men.  And to
such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never
marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

    No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was
undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be
founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature.  It is the mark
of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the
hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way.  His friends
were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the
longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they
implied no aptness in the object.  Hence, no doubt the bond that
united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the
well-known man about town.  It was a nut to crack for many, what
these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find
in common.  It was reported by those who encountered them in their
Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull and
would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend.  For
all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions,
counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside
occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business,
that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

    It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them
down a by-street in a busy quarter of London.  The street was
small and what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on
the weekdays.  The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed and
all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the
surplus of their grains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood
along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of
smiling saleswomen.  Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more
florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street
shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a
forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished
brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly
caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.

    Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east the
line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point a
certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the
street.  It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a
door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall
on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged
and sordid negligence.  The door, which was equipped with neither
bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained.  Tramps slouched
into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept
shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the
mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to
drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages.

    Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the
by-street; but when they came abreast of the entry, the former
lifted up his cane and pointed.

    "Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his
companion had replied in the affirmative.  "It is connected in my
mind," added he, "with a very odd story."

   "Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice,
"and what was that?"

    "Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield:  "I was coming
home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock
of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town
where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps.  Street
after street and all the folks asleep--street after street, all
lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church--
till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and
listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.  All at
once, I saw two figures:  one a little man who was stumping along
eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or
ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street.
Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the
corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man
trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on
the ground.  It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.
It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut.  I gave
a few halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought
him back to where there was already quite a group about the
screaming child.  He was perfectly cool and made no resistance,
but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me
like running.  The people who had turned out were the girl's own
family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent
put in his appearance.  Well, the child was not much the worse,
more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might
have supposed would be an end to it.  But there was one curious
circumstance.  I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first
sight.  So had the child's family, which was only natural.  But
the doctor's case was what struck me.  He was the usual cut and
dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong
Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe.  Well, sir,
he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I
saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with desire to kill him.  I
knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and
killing being out of the question, we did the next best.  We told
the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this as
should make his name stink from one end of London to the other.
If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should
lose them.  And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot,
we were keeping the women off him as best we could for they were
as wild as harpies.  I never saw a circle of such hateful faces;
and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black sneering
coolness--frightened too, I could see that--but carrying it
off, sir, really like Satan.  `If you choose to make capital out
of this accident,' said he, `I am naturally helpless.  No
gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he.  `Name your
figure.'  Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the
child's family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but
there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and
at last he struck.  The next thing was to get the money; and where
do you think he carried us but to that place with the
door?--whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with
the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on
Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I
can't mention, though it's one of the points of my story, but it
was a name at least very well known and often printed.  The figure
was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that if it was
only genuine.  I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman
that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does
not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning
and come out with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred
pounds.  But he was quite easy and sneering.  `Set your mind at
rest,' says he, `I will stay with you till the banks open and cash
the cheque myself.'  So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's
father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the
night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went
in a body to the bank.  I gave in the cheque myself, and said I
had every reason to believe it was a forgery.  Not a bit of it.
The cheque was genuine."

    "Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

    "I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield.  "Yes, it's a bad
story.  For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with,
a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the
very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it
worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good.  Black mail
I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the
capers of his youth.  Black Mail House is what I call the place
with the door, in consequence.  Though even that, you know, is far
from explaining all," he added, and with the words fell into a
vein of musing.

    From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather
suddenly:  "And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives
there?"

    "A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield.  "But I
happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or
other."

    "And you never asked about the--place with the door?" said
Mr. Utterson.

    "No, sir:  I had a delicacy," was the reply.  "I feel very
strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style
of the day of judgment.  You start a question, and it's like
starting a stone.  You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away
the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird
(the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his
own back garden and the family have to change their name.  No sir,
I make it a rule of mine:  the more it looks like Queer Street, the
less I ask."

    "A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.

    "But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr.
Enfield.  "It seems scarcely a house.  There is no other door, and
nobody goes in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the
gentleman of my adventure.  There are three windows looking on the
court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut
but they're clean.  And then there is a chimney which is generally
smoking; so somebody must live there.  And yet it's not so sure;
for the buildings are so packed together about the court, that
it's hard to say where one ends and another begins."

    The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then
"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."

    "Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.

    "But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I
want to ask:  I want to ask the name of that man who walked over
the child."

    "Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do.
It was a man of the name of Hyde."

    "Hm," said Mr. Utterson.  "What sort of a man is he to see?"

    "He is not easy to describe.  There is something wrong with his
appearance; something displeasing, something down-right
detestable.  I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce
know why.  He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong
feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point.  He's
an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing
out of the way.  No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can't
describe him.  And it's not want of memory; for I declare I can
see him this moment."

    Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously
under a weight of consideration.  "You are sure he used a key?" he
inquired at last.

    "My dear sir ..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.

    "Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange.
The fact is, if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it
is because I know it already.  You see, Richard, your tale has
gone home.  If you have been inexact in any point you had better
correct it."

    "I think you might have warned me," returned the other with a
touch of sullenness.  "But I have been pedantically exact, as you
call it.  The fellow had a key; and what's more, he has it still.
I saw him use it not a week ago."

    Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the
young man presently resumed.  "Here is another lesson to say
nothing," said he.  "I am ashamed of my long tongue.  Let us make
a bargain never to refer to this again."

    "With all my heart," said the lawyer.  "I shake hands on that,
Richard."




                        Search for Mr. Hyde



That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in
sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish.  It was his
custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the
fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the
clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when
he would go soberly and gratefully to bed.  On this night however,
as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went
into his business room.  There he opened his safe, took from the
most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr.
Jekyll's Will and sat down with a clouded brow to study its
contents.  The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson though he took
charge of it now that it was made, had refused to lend the least
assistance in the making of it; it provided not only that, in case
of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S.,
etc., all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his
"friend and benefactor Edward Hyde," but that in case of Dr.
Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period
exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step
into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free
from any burthen or obligation beyond the payment of a few small
sums to the members of the doctor's household.  This document had
long been the lawyer's eyesore.  It offended him both as a lawyer
and as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom
the fanciful was the immodest.  And hitherto it was his ignorance
of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden
turn, it was his knowledge.  It was already bad enough when the
name was but a name of which he could learn no more.  It was worse
when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and
out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled
his eye, there leaped up the sudden, definite presentment of a
fiend.

    "I thought it was madness," he said, as he replaced the
obnoxious paper in the safe, "and now I begin to fear it is
disgrace."

    With that he blew out his candle, put on a greatcoat, and set
forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of
medicine, where his friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house
and received his crowding patients.  "If anyone knows, it will be
Lanyon," he had thought.

    The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was subjected to
no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the door to the
dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine.  This was a
hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair
prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided manner.  At sight
of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him with
both hands.  The geniality, as was the way of the man, was
somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling.
For these two were old friends, old mates both at school and
college, both thorough respectors of themselves and of each other,
and what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed each
other's company.

    After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject
which so disagreeably preoccupied his mind.

    "I suppose, Lanyon," said he, "you and I must be the two
oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?"

    "I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon.  "But
I suppose we are.  And what of that?  I see little of him now."

    "Indeed?" said Utterson.  "I thought you had a bond of common
interest."

    "We had," was the reply.  "But it is more than ten years since
Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me.  He began to go wrong,
wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest
in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen
devilish little of the man.  Such unscientific balderdash," added
the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have estranged Damon
and Pythias."

    This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to
Mr. Utterson.  "They have only differed on some point of science,"
he thought; and being a man of no scientific passions (except in
the matter of conveyancing), he even added:  "It is nothing worse
than that!"  He gave his friend a few seconds to recover his
composure, and then approached the question he had come to put.
"Did you ever come across a protege of his--one Hyde?" he asked.

    "Hyde?" repeated Lanyon.  "No.  Never heard of him.  Since my
time."

    That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried
back with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and
fro, until the small hours of the morning began to grow large.  It
was a night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere
darkness and beseiged by questions.

    Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so
conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was
digging at the problem.  Hitherto it had touched him on the
intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged,
or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness
of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures.  He would be
aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the
figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the
doctor's; and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the
child down and passed on regardless of her screams.  Or else he
would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room
would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the
sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure
to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise
and do its bidding.  The figure in these two phases haunted the
lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to
see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the
more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness,
through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street
corner crush a child and leave her screaming.  And still the
figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams,
it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his
eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and grew apace in the
lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity
to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde.  If he could but once
set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps
roll altogether away, as was the habit of mysterious things when
well examined.  He might see a reason for his friend's strange
preference or bondage (call it which you please) and even for the
startling clause of the will.  At least it would be a face worth
seeing:  the face of a man who was without bowels of mercy:  a face
which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind of the
unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.

    From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door
in the by-street of shops.  In the morning before office hours, at
noon when business was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the
face of the fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of
solitude or concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen
post.

    "If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."

    And at last his patience was rewarded.  It was a fine dry
night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor;
the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of
light and shadow.  By ten o'clock, when the shops were closed the
by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of
London from all round, very silent.  Small sounds carried far;
domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either
side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of any
passenger preceded him by a long time.  Mr. Utterson had been some
minutes at his post, when he was aware of an odd light footstep
drawing near.  In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long
grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls
of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly
spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city.
Yet his attention had never before been so sharply and decisively
arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision of
success that he withdrew into the entry of the court.

    The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder
as they turned the end of the street.  The lawyer, looking forth
from the entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal
with.  He was small and very plainly dressed and the look of him,
even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's
inclination.  But he made straight for the door, crossing the
roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his
pocket like one approaching home.

    Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he
passed.  "Mr. Hyde, I think?"

    Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath.  But
his fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer
in the face, he answered coolly enough:  "That is my name.  What do
you want?"

    "I see you are going in," returned the lawyer.  "I am an old
friend of Dr. Jekyll's--Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street--you must
have heard of my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought
you might admit me."

    "You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home," replied Mr.
Hyde, blowing in the key.  And then suddenly, but still without
looking up, "How did you know me?" he asked.

    "On your side," said Mr. Utterson "will you do me a favour?"

    "With pleasure," replied the other.  "What shall it be?"

    "Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.

    Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some
sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the
pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds.  "Now
I shall know you again," said Mr. Utterson.  "It may be useful."

    "Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "It is as well we have met; and
apropos, you should have my address."  And he gave a number of a
street in Soho.

    "Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, have been
thinking of the will?"  But he kept his feelings to himself and
only grunted in acknowledgment of the address.

    "And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"

    "By description," was the reply.

    "Whose description?"

    "We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson.

    "Common friends," echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely.  "Who
are they?"

    "Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.

    "He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger.
"I did not think you would have lied."

    "Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."

    The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next
moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and
disappeared into the house.

    The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the
picture of disquietude.  Then he began slowly to mount the street,
pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a
man in mental perplexity.  The problem he was thus debating as he
walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved.  Mr. Hyde was
pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any
nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne
himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity
and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat
broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of
these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust,
loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.  "There
must be something else,"  said the perplexed gentleman.  "There
is something more, if I could find a name for it.  God bless me,
the man seems hardly human!  Something troglodytic, shall we say?
or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radiance
of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its
clay continent?  The last, I think; for, O my poor old Harry
Jekyll, if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on
that of your new friend."

    Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of
ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their
high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and
conditions of men; map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and
the agents of obscure enterprises.  One house, however, second
from the corner, was still occupied entire; and at the door of
this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it was
now plunged in darkness except for the fanlight, Mr. Utterson
stopped and knocked.  A well-dressed, elderly servant opened the
door.

    "Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?" asked the lawyer.

    "I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor,
as he spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall paved with
flags, warmed (after the fashion of a country house) by a bright,
open fire, and furnished with costly cabinets of oak.  "Will you
wait here by the fire, sir? or shall I give you a light in the
dining-room?"

    "Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near and
leaned on the tall fender.  This hall, in which he was now left
alone, was a pet fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson
himself was wont to speak of it as the pleasantest room in London.
But tonight there was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat
heavy on his memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea
and distaste of life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed
to read a menace in the flickering of the firelight on the
polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the shadow on the
roof.  He was ashamed of his relief, when Poole presently
returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll was gone out.

    "I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting room, Poole," he
said.  "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"

    "Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant.  "Mr.
Hyde has a key."

    "Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that
young man, Poole," resumed the other musingly.

    "Yes, sir, he does indeed," said Poole.  "We have all orders
to obey him."

    "I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.

    "O, dear no, sir.  He never dines here," replied the butler.
"Indeed we see very little of him on this side of the house; he
mostly comes and goes by the laboratory."

    "Well, good-night, Poole."

    "Good-night, Mr. Utterson."

    And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy heart.
"Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind misgives me he is in
deep waters!  He was wild when he was young; a long while ago to
be sure; but in the law of God, there is no statute of
limitations.  Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the
cancer of some concealed disgrace:  punishment coming, PEDE CLAUDO,
years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the
fault."  And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on
his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, least by
chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to
light there.  His past was fairly blameless; few men could read
the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled
to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up
again into a sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come
so near to doing yet avoided.  And then by a return on his former
subject, he conceived a spark of hope.  "This Master Hyde, if he
were studied," thought he, "must have secrets of his own; black
secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor
Jekyll's worst would be like sunshine.  Things cannot continue as
they are.  It turns me cold to think of this creature stealing
like a thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening!  And
the danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the
will, he may grow impatient to inherit.  Ay, I must put my
shoulders to the wheel--if Jekyll will but let me," he added,
"if Jekyll will only let me."  For once more he saw before his
mind's eye, as clear as transparency, the strange clauses of the
will.





                   Dr. Jekyll Was Quite at Ease



    A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave
one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all
intelligent, reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr.
Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had
departed.  This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had
befallen many scores of times.  Where Utterson was liked, he was
liked well.  Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the
light-hearted and loose-tongued had already their foot on the
threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company,
practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich
silence after the expense and strain of gaiety.  To this rule, Dr.
Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of
the fire--a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with
something of a stylish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity
and kindness--you could see by his looks that he cherished for
Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection.

    "I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began the
latter.  "You know that will of yours?"

    A close observer might have gathered that the topic was
distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily.  "My poor
Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such a client.  I
never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it
were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my
scientific heresies.  O, I know he's a good fellow--you needn't
frown--an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of
him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant
pedant.  I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon."

    "You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson,
ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic.

    "My will?  Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a
trifle sharply.  "You have told me so."

    "Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer.  "I have
been learning something of young Hyde."

    The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very
lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes.  "I do not care
to hear more," said he.  "This is a matter I thought we had agreed
to drop."

    "What I heard was abominable," said Utterson.

    "It can make no change.  You do not understand my position,"
returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner.  "I am
painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange--a
very strange one.  It is one of those affairs that cannot be
mended by talking."

    "Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me:  I am a man to be
trusted.  Make a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no
doubt I can get you out of it."

    "My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very good of
you, this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to
thank you in.  I believe you fully; I would trust you before any
man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make the choice; but
indeed it isn't what you fancy; it is not as bad as that; and just
to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing:  the
moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde.  I give you my hand
upon that; and I thank you again and again; and I will just add
one little word, Utterson, that I'm sure you'll take in good part: 
this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep."

    Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.

    "I have no doubt you are perfectly right," he said at last,
getting to his feet.

    "Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for
the last time I hope," continued the doctor, "there is one point I
should like you to understand.  I have really a very great
interest in poor Hyde.  I know you have seen him; he told me so;
and I fear he was rude.  But I do sincerely take a great, a very
great interest in that young man; and if I am taken away,
Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear with him and
get his rights for him.  I think you would, if you knew all; and
it would be a weight off my mind if you would promise."

    "I can't pretend that I shall ever like him," said the lawyer.

    "I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the
other's arm; "I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him
for my sake, when I am no longer here."

    Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh.  "Well," said he,
"I promise."





                       The Carew Murder Case



    Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18--, London was
startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more
notable by the high position of the victim.  The details were few
and startling.  A maid servant living alone in a house not far
from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven.  Although a
fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the
night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's window
overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon.  It seems she
was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood
immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing.
Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated
that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all men
or thought more kindly of the world.  And as she so sat she became
aware of an aged beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing near
along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small
gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention.  When they
had come within speech (which was just under the maid's eyes) the
older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner
of politeness.  It did not seem as if the subject of his address
were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it some times
appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone
on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it
seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of
disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded
self-content.  Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she
was surprised to recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once
visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike.  He
had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he
answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained
impatience.  And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great
flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and
carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.  The old
gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much
surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all
bounds and clubbed him to the earth.  And next moment, with
ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing
down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly
shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.  At the horror of
these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.

    It was two o'clock when she came to herself and called for the
police.  The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim
in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled.  The stick with
which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and
very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the
stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had
rolled in the neighbouring gutter--the other, without doubt, had
been carried away by the murderer.  A purse and gold watch were
found upon the victim:  but no cards or papers, except a sealed and
stamped envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post,
and which bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.

    This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was
out of bed; and he had no sooner seen it and been told the
circumstances, than he shot out a solemn lip.  "I shall say
nothing till I have seen the body," said he; "this may be very
serious.  Have the kindness to wait while I dress."  And with the
same grave countenance he hurried through his breakfast and drove
to the police station, whither the body had been carried.  As soon
as he came into the cell, he nodded.

    "Yes," said he, "I recognise him.  I am sorry to say that this
is Sir Danvers Carew."

    "Good God, sir," exclaimed the officer, "is it possible?"  And
the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition.
"This will make a deal of noise," he said.  "And perhaps you can
help us to the man."  And he briefly narrated what the maid had
seen, and showed the broken stick.

    Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde; but when
the stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken
and battered as it was, he recognized it for one that he had
himself presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.

    "Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?"  he inquired.

    "Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, is what
the maid calls him," said the officer.

    Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, "If you
will come with me in my cab," he said, "I think I can take you to
his house."

    It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first
fog of the season.  A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over
heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these
embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to
street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues
of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of
evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like
the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment,
the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight
would glance in between the swirling wreaths.  The dismal quarter
of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways,
and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been
extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful
reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like a
district of some city in a nightmare.  The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the
companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that
terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times
assail the most honest.

    As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog
lifted a little and showed him a dingy street, a gin palace, a low
French eating house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and
twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and
many women of many different nationalities passing out, key in
hand, to have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled
down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from
his blackguardly surroundings.  This was the home of Henry
Jekyll's favourite; of a man who was heir to a quarter of a
million sterling.

    An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door.
She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy:  but her manners were
excellent.  Yes, she said, this was Mr. Hyde's, but he was not at
home; he had been in that night very late, but he had gone away
again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; his
habits were very irregular, and he was often absent; for instance,
it was nearly two months since she had seen him till yesterday.

    "Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms," said the lawyer;
and when the woman began to declare it was impossible, "I had
better tell you who this person is," he added.  "This is Inspector
Newcomen of Scotland Yard."

    A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman's face.  "Ah!"
said she, "he is in trouble!  What has he done?"

    Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances.  "He don't
seem a very popular character," observed the latter.  "And now, my
good woman, just let me and this gentleman have a look about us."

    In the whole extent of the house, which but for the old woman
remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of
rooms; but these were furnished with luxury and good taste.  A
closet was filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery
elegant; a good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson
supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and
the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour.  At this
moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently
and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their
pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the
hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had
been burned.  From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt
end of a green cheque book, which had resisted the action of the
fire; the other half of the stick was found behind the door; and
as this clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself
delighted.  A visit to the bank, where several thousand pounds
were found to be lying to the murderer's credit, completed his
gratification.

    "You may depend upon it, sir," he told Mr. Utterson:  "I have
him in my hand.  He must have lost his head, or he never would
have left the stick or, above all, burned the cheque book.  Why,
money's life to the man.  We have nothing to do but wait for him
at the bank, and get out the handbills."

    This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Mr.
Hyde had numbered few familiars--even the master of the servant
maid had only seen him twice; his family could nowhere be traced;
he had never been photographed; and the few who could describe him
differed widely, as common observers will.  Only on one point were
they agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed
deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.





                      Incident of the Letter



It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to
Dr. Jekyll's door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and
carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had
once been a garden, to the building which was indifferently known
as the laboratory or dissecting rooms.  The doctor had bought the
house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon; and his own tastes
being rather chemical than anatomical, had changed the destination
of the block at the bottom of the garden.  It was the first time
that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend's
quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with
curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness
as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and
now lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with chemical
apparatus, the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing
straw, and the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola.  At
the further end, a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with
red baize; and through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received
into the doctor's cabinet.  It was a large room fitted round with
glass presses, furnished, among other things, with a cheval-glass
and a business table, and looking out upon the court by three
dusty windows barred with iron.  The fire burned in the grate; a
lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses
the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth,
sat Dr. Jekyll, looking deathly sick.  He did not rise to meet his
visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a
changed voice.

    "And now," said Mr. Utterson, as soon as Poole had left them,
"you have heard the news?"

    The doctor shuddered.  "They were crying it in the square," he
said.  "I heard them in my dining-room."

    "One word," said the lawyer.  "Carew was my client, but so are
you, and I want to know what I am doing.  You have not been mad
enough to hide this fellow?"

    "Utterson, I swear to God," cried the doctor, "I swear to God
I will never set eyes on him again.  I bind my honour to you that
I am done with him in this world.  It is all at an end.  And
indeed he does not want my help; you do not know him as I do; he
is safe, he is quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be
heard of."

    The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his friend's
feverish manner.  "You seem pretty sure of him," said he; "and for
your sake, I hope you may be right.  If it came to a trial, your
name might appear."

    "I am quite sure of him," replied Jekyll; "I have grounds
for certainty that I cannot share with any one.  But there is one
thing on which you may advise me.  I have--I have received a
letter; and I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police.
I should like to leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would judge
wisely, I am sure; I have so great a trust in you."

    "You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?"
asked the lawyer.

    "No," said the other.  "I cannot say that I care what becomes
of Hyde; I am quite done with him.  I was thinking of my own
character, which this hateful business has rather exposed."

    Utterson ruminated awhile; he was surprised at his friend's
selfishness, and yet relieved by it.  "Well," said he, at last,
"let me see the letter."

    The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed
"Edward Hyde":  and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's
benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for
a thousand generosities, need labour under no alarm for his
safety, as he had means of escape on which he placed a sure
dependence.  The lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a
better colour on the intimacy than he had looked for; and he
blamed himself for some of his past suspicions.

    "Have you the envelope?" he asked.

    "I burned it," replied Jekyll, "before I thought what I was
about.  But it bore no postmark.  The note was handed in."

    "Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Utterson.

    "I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply.  "I have
lost confidence in myself."

    "Well, I shall consider," returned the lawyer.  "And now one
word more:  it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about
that disappearance?"

    The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; he shut
his mouth tight and nodded.

    "I knew it," said Utterson.  "He meant to murder you.  You had
a fine escape."

    "I have had what is far more to the purpose," returned the
doctor solemnly:  "I have had a lesson--O God, Utterson, what a
lesson I have had!"  And he covered his face for a moment with his
hands.

    On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with
Poole.  "By the bye," said he, "there was a letter handed in
to-day:  what was the messenger like?"  But Poole was positive
nothing had come except by post; "and only circulars by that," he
added.

    This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed.
Plainly the letter had come by the laboratory door; possibly,
indeed, it had been written in the cabinet; and if that were so,
it must be differently judged, and handled with the more caution.
The newsboys, as he went, were crying themselves hoarse along the
footways:  "Special edition.  Shocking murder of an M.P."  That was
the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not
help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should
be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.  It was, at least, a
ticklish decision that he had to make; and self-reliant as he was
by habit, he began to cherish a longing for advice.  It was not to
be had directly; but perhaps, he thought, it might be fished for.

    Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, with
Mr. Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at
a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a
particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the
foundations of his house.  The fog still slept on the wing above
the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and
through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the
procession of the town's life was still rolling in through the
great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind.  But the room was
gay with firelight.  In the bottle the acids were long ago
resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, as the colour
grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn
afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and to
disperse the fogs of London.  Insensibly the lawyer melted.  There
was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. Guest; and he
was not always sure that he kept as many as he meant.  Guest had
often been on business to the doctor's; he knew Poole; he could
scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the
house; he might draw conclusions:  was it not as well, then, that
he should see a letter which put that mystery to right? and above
all since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting,
would consider the step natural and obliging?  The clerk, besides,
was a man of counsel; he could scarce read so strange a document
without dropping a remark; and by that remark Mr. Utterson might
shape his future course.

    "This is a sad business about Sir Danvers," he said.

    "Yes, sir, indeed.  It has elicited a great deal of public
feeling," returned Guest.  "The man, of course, was mad."

    "I should like to hear your views on that," replied Utterson.
"I have a document here in his handwriting; it is between
ourselves, for I scarce know what to do about it; it is an ugly
business at the best.  But there it is; quite in your way:  a
murderer's autograph."

    Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied
it with passion.  "No sir," he said:  "not mad; but it is an odd
hand."

    "And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the lawyer.

    Just then the servant entered with a note.

    "Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?" inquired the clerk.  "I
thought I knew the writing.  Anything private, Mr. Utterson?"

    "Only an invitation to dinner.  Why?  Do you want to see it?"

    "One moment.  I thank you, sir;" and the clerk laid the two
sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents.
"Thank you, sir," he said at last, returning both; "it's a very
interesting autograph."

    There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson struggled with
himself.  "Why did you compare them, Guest?" he inquired suddenly.

    "Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a rather singular
resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical:  only
differently sloped."

    "Rather quaint," said Utterson.

    "It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Guest.

    "I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the master.

    "No, sir," said the clerk.  "I understand."

    But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night, than he
locked the note into his safe, where it reposed from that time
forward.  "What!" he thought.  "Henry Jekyll forge for a
murderer!"  And his blood ran cold in his veins.





                      Incident of Dr. Lanyon



Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in reward, for the
death of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury; but Mr.
Hyde had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had
never existed.  Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all
disreputable:  tales came out of the man's cruelty, at once so
callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates,
of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of
his present whereabouts, not a whisper.  From the time he had left
the house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he was simply
blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to
recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at quiet
with himself.  The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of
thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde.
Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began
for Dr. Jekyll.  He came out of his seclusion, renewed relations
with his friends, became once more their familiar guest and
entertainer; and whilst he had always been known for charities, he
was now no less distinguished for religion.  He was busy, he was
much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to open and
brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for
more than two months, the doctor was at peace.

    On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor's with
a small party; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had
looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were
inseparable friends.  On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door
was shut against the lawyer.  "The doctor was confined to the
house," Poole said, "and saw no one."  On the 15th, he tried again,
and was again refused; and having now been used for the last two
months to see his friend almost daily, he found this return of
solitude to weigh upon his spirits.  The fifth night he had in
Guest to dine with him; and the sixth he betook himself to Dr.
Lanyon's.

    There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came
in, he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the
doctor's appearance.  He had his death-warrant written legibly
upon his face.  The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen
away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much
these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer's
notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to
testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind.  It was unlikely
that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson
was tempted to suspect.  "Yes," he thought; "he is a doctor, he
must know his own state and that his days are counted; and the
knowledge is more than he can bear."  And yet when Utterson
remarked on his ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness
that Lanyon declared himself a doomed man.

    "I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover.  It
is a question of weeks.  Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it;
yes, sir, I used to like it.  I sometimes think if we knew all, we
should be more glad to get away."

    "Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson.  "Have you seen him?"

    But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trembling hand.
"I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud,
unsteady voice.  "I am quite done with that person; and I beg that
you will spare me any allusion to one whom I regard as dead."

    "Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then after a considerable
pause, "Can't I do anything?" he inquired.  "We are three very old
friends, Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."

    "Nothing can be done," returned Lanyon; "ask himself."

    "He will not see me," said the lawyer.

    "I am not surprised at that," was the reply.  "Some day,
Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right
and wrong of this.  I cannot tell you.  And in the meantime, if
you can sit and talk with me of other things, for God's sake, stay
and do so; but if you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic,
then in God's name, go, for I cannot bear it."

    As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,
complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause
of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a
long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly
mysterious in drift.  The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable.  "I
do not blame our old friend," Jekyll wrote, "but I share his view
that we must never meet.  I mean from henceforth to lead a life of
extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt
my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you.  You must
suffer me to go my own dark way.  I have brought on myself a
punishment and a danger that I cannot name.  If I am the chief of
sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.  I could not think that
this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so
unmanning; and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this
destiny, and that is to respect my silence."  Utterson was amazed;
the dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor had
returned to his old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect
had smiled with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age;
and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole
tenor of his life were wrecked.  So great and unprepared a change
pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words,
there must lie for it some deeper ground.

    A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in something
less than a fortnight he was dead.  The night after the funeral,
at which he had been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of
his business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy
candle, drew out and set before him an envelope addressed by the
hand and sealed with the seal of his dead friend.  "PRIVATE:  for
the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE, and in case of his predecease
to be destroyed unread," so it was emphatically superscribed; and
the lawyer dreaded to behold the contents.  "I have buried one
friend to-day," he thought:  "what if this should cost me another?"
And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the
seal.  Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and
marked upon the cover as "not to be opened till the death or
disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll."  Utterson could not trust his
eyes.  Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad will
which he had long ago restored to its author, here again were the
idea of a disappearance and the name of Henry Jekyll bracketted.
But in the will, that idea had sprung from the sinister suggestion
of the man Hyde; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and
horrible.  Written by the hand of Lanyon, what should it mean?  A
great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition
and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries; but
professional honour and faith to his dead friend were stringent
obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of his
private safe.

    It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it;
and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Utterson desired
the society of his surviving friend with the same eagerness.  He
thought of him kindly; but his thoughts were disquieted and
fearful.  He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to
be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak
with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and sounds
of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of
voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable
recluse.  Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news to communicate.
The doctor, it appeared, now more than ever confined himself to
the cabinet over the laboratory, where he would sometimes even
sleep; he was out of spirits, he had grown very silent, he did not
read; it seemed as if he had something on his mind.  Utterson
became so used to the unvarying character of these reports, that
he fell off little by little in the frequency of his visits.





                      Incident at the Window



It chanced on Sunday, when Mr. Utterson was on his usual walk with
Mr. Enfield, that their way lay once again through the by-street;
and that when they came in front of the door, both stopped to gaze
on it.

    "Well," said Enfield, "that story's at an end at least.  We
shall never see more of Mr. Hyde."

    "I hope not," said Utterson.  "Did I ever tell you that I once
saw him, and shared your feeling of repulsion?"

    "It was impossible to do the one without the other," returned
Enfield.  "And by the way, what an ass you must have thought me,
not to know that this was a back way to Dr. Jekyll's!  It was
partly your own fault that I found it out, even when I did."

    "So you found it out, did you?" said Utterson.  "But if that
be so, we may step into the court and take a look at the windows.
To tell you the truth, I am uneasy about poor Jekyll; and even
outside, I feel as if the presence of a friend might do him good."

    The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of
premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still
bright with sunset.  The middle one of the three windows was
half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an
infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner,
Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

    "What!  Jekyll!" he cried.  "I trust you are better."

    "I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor drearily, "very
low.  It will not last long, thank God."

    "You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer.  "You should be
out, whipping up the circulation like Mr. Enfield and me.  (This
is my cousin--Mr. Enfield--Dr. Jekyll.)  Come now; get your
hat and take a quick turn with us."

    "You are very good," sighed the other.  "I should like to very
much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not.  But
indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is really a
great pleasure; I would ask you and Mr. Enfield up, but the place
is really not fit."

    "Why, then," said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the best thing
we can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we
are."

    "That is just what I was about to venture to propose,"
returned the doctor with a smile.  But the words were hardly
uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded
by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the
very blood of the two gentlemen below.  They saw it but for a
glimpse for the window was instantly thrust down; but that glimpse
had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court without a
word.  In silence, too, they traversed the by-street; and it was
not until they had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare, where
even upon a Sunday there were still some stirrings of life, that
Mr. Utterson at last turned and looked at his companion.  They
were both pale; and there was an answering horror in their eyes.

    "God forgive us, God forgive us," said Mr. Utterson.

    But Mr. Enfield only nodded his head very seriously, and
walked on once more in silence.





                          The Last Night



Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one evening after dinner,
when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole.

    "Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?" he cried; and then
taking a second look at him, "What ails you?" he added; "is the
doctor ill?"

    "Mr. Utterson," said the man, "there is something wrong."

    "Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you," said the
lawyer.  "Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want."

    "You know the doctor's ways, sir," replied Poole, "and how he
shuts himself up.  Well, he's shut up again in the cabinet; and I
don't like it, sir--I wish I may die if I like it.  Mr.
Utterson, sir, I'm afraid."

    "Now, my good man," said the lawyer, "be explicit.  What are
you afraid of?"

    "I've been afraid for about a week," returned Poole, doggedly
disregarding the question, "and I can bear it no more."

    The man's appearance amply bore out his words; his manner was
altered for the worse; and except for the moment when he had first
announced his terror, he had not once looked the lawyer in the
face.  Even now, he sat with the glass of wine untasted on his
knee, and his eyes directed to a corner of the floor.  "I can bear
it no more," he repeated.

    "Come," said the lawyer, "I see you have some good reason,
Poole; I see there is something seriously amiss.  Try to tell me
what it is."

    "I think there's been foul play," said Poole, hoarsely.

    "Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a good deal frightened and
rather inclined to be irritated in consequence.  "What foul play!
What does the man mean?"

    "I daren't say, sir," was the answer; "but will you come along
with me and see for yourself?"

    Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat and
greatcoat; but he observed with wonder the greatness of the relief
that appeared upon the butler's face, and perhaps with no less,
that the wine was still untasted when he set it down to follow.

    It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale
moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and
flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture.  The wind
made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face.  It
seemed to have swept the streets unusually bare of passengers,
besides; for Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of
London so deserted.  He could have wished it otherwise; never in
his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch
his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there was borne in
upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity.  The square,
when they got there, was full of wind and dust, and the thin trees
in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing.  Poole,
who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled up in the
middle of the pavement, and in spite of the biting weather, took
off his hat and mopped his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief.
But for all the hurry of his coming, these were not the dews of
exertion that he wiped away, but the moisture of some strangling
anguish; for his face was white and his voice, when he spoke,
harsh and broken.

    "Well, sir," he said, "here we are, and God grant there be
nothing wrong."

    "Amen, Poole," said the lawyer.

    Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded manner; the
door was opened on the chain; and a voice asked from within, "Is
that you, Poole?"

    "It's all right," said Poole.  "Open the door."

    The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the
fire was built high; and about the hearth the whole of the
servants, men and women, stood huddled together like a flock of
sheep.  At the sight of Mr. Utterson, the housemaid broke into
hysterical whimpering; and the cook, crying out "Bless God! it's
Mr. Utterson," ran forward as if to take him in her arms.

    "What, what?  Are you all here?" said the lawyer peevishly.
"Very irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far from
pleased."

    "They're all afraid," said Poole.

    Blank silence followed, no one protesting; only the maid
lifted her voice and now wept loudly.

    "Hold your tongue!"  Poole said to her, with a ferocity of
accent that testified to his own jangled nerves; and indeed, when
the girl had so suddenly raised the note of her lamentation, they
had all started and turned towards the inner door with faces of
dreadful expectation.  "And now," continued the butler, addressing
the knife-boy, "reach me a candle, and we'll get this through
hands at once."  And then he begged Mr. Utterson to follow him,
and led the way to the back garden.

    "Now, sir," said he, "you come as gently as you can.  I want
you to hear, and I don't want you to be heard.  And see here, sir,
if by any chance he was to ask you in, don't go."

    Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for termination, gave
a jerk that nearly threw him from his balance; but he recollected
his courage and followed the butler into the laboratory building
through the surgical theatre, with its lumber of crates and
bottles, to the foot of the stair.  Here Poole motioned him to
stand on one side and listen; while he himself, setting down the
candle and making a great and obvious call on his resolution,
mounted the steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand on
the red baize of the cabinet door.

    "Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you," he called; and even as
he did so, once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.

    A voice answered from within:  "Tell him I cannot see anyone,"
it said complainingly.

    "Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of something like
triumph in his voice; and taking up his candle, he led Mr.
Utterson back across the yard and into the great kitchen, where
the fire was out and the beetles were leaping on the floor.

    "Sir," he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes, "Was that my
master's voice?"

    "It seems much changed," replied the lawyer, very pale, but
giving look for look.

    "Changed?  Well, yes, I think so," said the butler.  "Have I
been twenty years in this man's house, to be deceived about his
voice?  No, sir; master's made away with; he was made away with
eight days ago, when we heard him cry out upon the name of God;
and who's in there instead of him, and why it stays there, is a
thing that cries to Heaven, Mr. Utterson!"

    "This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a wild
tale my man," said Mr. Utterson, biting his finger.  "Suppose it
were as you suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll to have been--well,
murdered what could induce the murderer to stay?  That won't hold
water; it doesn't commend itself to reason."

    "Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, but I'll
do it yet," said Poole.  "All this last week (you must know) him,
or it, whatever it is that lives in that cabinet, has been crying
night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it to his
mind.  It was sometimes his way--the master's, that is--to
write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.
We've had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a
closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when
nobody was looking.  Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and
thrice in the same day, there have been orders and complaints, and
I have been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town.
Every time I brought the stuff back, there would be another paper
telling me to return it, because it was not pure, and another
order to a different firm.  This drug is wanted bitter bad, sir,
whatever for."

    "Have you any of these papers?" asked Mr. Utterson.

    Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note, which
the lawyer, bending nearer to the candle, carefully examined.  Its
contents ran thus:  "Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs.
Maw.  He assures them that their last sample is impure and quite
useless for his present purpose.  In the year 18--, Dr. J.
purchased a somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M.  He now begs
them to search with most sedulous care, and should any of the same
quality be left, forward it to him at once.  Expense is no
consideration.  The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be
exaggerated."  So far the letter had run composedly enough, but
here with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had
broken loose.  "For God's sake," he added, "find me some of the
old."

    "This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson; and then sharply,
"How do you come to have it open?"

    "The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and he threw it back to
me like so much dirt," returned Poole.

    "This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do you know?"
resumed the lawyer.

    "I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather
sulkily; and then, with another voice, "But what matters hand of
write?" he said.  "I've seen him!"

    "Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson.  "Well?"

    "That's it!" said Poole.  "It was this way.  I came suddenly
into the theater from the garden.  It seems he had slipped out to
look for this drug or whatever it is; for the cabinet door was
open, and there he was at the far end of the room digging among
the crates.  He looked up when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and
whipped upstairs into the cabinet.  It was but for one minute that
I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills.  Sir, if
that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?  If it was my
master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me?  I have
served him long enough.  And then..."  The man paused and passed
his hand over his face.

    "These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr.
Utterson, "but I think I begin to see daylight.  Your master,
Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both
torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the
alteration of his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his
friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which
the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery--God grant
that he be not deceived!  There is my explanation; it is sad
enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and
natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant
alarms."

    "Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor,
"that thing was not my master, and there's the truth.  My
master"--here he looked round him and began to whisper--"is a
tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf."
Utterson attempted to protest.  "O, sir," cried Poole, "do you
think I do not know my master after twenty years?  Do you think I
do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door, where I
saw him every morning of my life?  No, sir, that thing in the mask
was never Dr. Jekyll--God knows what it was, but it was never
Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of my heart that there was murder
done."

    "Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will become
my duty to make certain.  Much as I desire to spare your master's
feelings, much as I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove
him to be still alive, I shall consider it my duty to break in
that door."

    "Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" cried the butler.

    "And now comes the second question," resumed Utterson:  "Who
is going to do it?"

    "Why, you and me, sir," was the undaunted reply.

    "That's very well said," returned the lawyer; "and whatever
comes of it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser."

    "There is an axe in the theatre," continued Poole; "and you
might take the kitchen poker for yourself."

    The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his
hand, and balanced it.  "Do you know, Poole," he said, looking up,
"that you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of
some peril?"

    "You may say so, sir, indeed," returned the butler.

    "It is well, then that we should be frank," said the other.
"We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast.
This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?"

    "Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled
up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer.  "But if
you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was!  You see,
it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light
way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory
door?  You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he
had still the key with him?  But that's not all.  I don't know,
Mr. Utterson, if you ever met this Mr. Hyde?"

    "Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him."

    "Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was
something queer about that gentleman--something that gave a man
a turn--I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this: 
that you felt in your marrow kind of cold and thin."

    "I own I felt something of what you describe," said Mr.
Utterson.

    "Quite so, sir," returned Poole.  "Well, when that masked
thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped
into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice.  O, I know it's
not evidence, Mr. Utterson; I'm book-learned enough for that; but
a man has his feelings, and I give you my bible-word it was Mr.
Hyde!"

    "Ay, ay," said the lawyer.  "My fears incline to the same
point.  Evil, I fear, founded--evil was sure to come--of that
connection.  Ay truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is
killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone
can tell) is still lurking in his victim's room.  Well, let our
name be vengeance.  Call Bradshaw."

    The footman came at the summons, very white and nervous.

    "Put yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer.  "This
suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our
intention to make an end of it.  Poole, here, and I are going to
force our way into the cabinet.  If all is well, my shoulders are
broad enough to bear the blame.  Meanwhile, lest anything should
really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you
and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks
and take your post at the laboratory door.  We give you ten
minutes, to get to your stations."

    As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch.  "And now,
Poole, let us get to ours," he said; and taking the poker under
his arm, led the way into the yard.  The scud had banked over the
moon, and it was now quite dark.  The wind, which only broke in
puffs and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the
light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came
into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to
wait.  London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the
stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to
and fro along the cabinet floor.

    "So it will walk all day, sir," whispered Poole; "ay, and the
better part of the night.  Only when a new sample comes from the
chemist, there's a bit of a break.  Ah, it's an ill conscience
that's such an enemy to rest!  Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed
in every step of it!  But hark again, a little closer--put your
heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and tell me, is that the
doctor's foot?"

    The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for
all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy
creaking tread of Henry Jekyll.  Utterson sighed.  "Is there never
anything else?" he asked.

    Poole nodded.  "Once," he said.  "Once I heard it weeping!"

    "Weeping? how that?" said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden
chill of horror.

    "Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said the butler.  "I
came away with that upon my heart, that I could have wept too."

    But now the ten minutes drew to an end.  Poole disinterred the
axe from under a stack of packing straw; the candle was set upon
the nearest table to light them to the attack; and they drew near
with bated breath to where that patient foot was still going up
and down, up and down, in the quiet of the night.  "Jekyll," cried
Utterson, with a loud voice, "I demand to see you."  He paused a
moment, but there came no reply.  "I give you fair warning, our
suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall see you," he resumed;
"if not by fair means, then by foul--if not of your consent,
then by brute force!"

    "Utterson," said the voice, "for God's sake, have mercy!"

    "Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice--it's Hyde's!" cried
Utterson.  "Down with the door, Poole!"

    Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow shook the
building, and the red baize door leaped against the lock and
hinges.  A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the
cabinet.  Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and
the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was
tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was
not until the fifth, that the lock burst and the wreck of the door
fell inwards on the carpet.

    The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness
that had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in.  There lay
the cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire
glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin
strain, a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth on the
business table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea;
the quietest room, you would have said, and, but for the glazed
presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in
London.

    Right in the middle there lay the body of a man sorely
contorted and still twitching.  They drew near on tiptoe, turned
it on its back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde.  He was dressed
in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor's bigness;
the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but
life was quite gone:  and by the crushed phial in the hand and the
strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that
he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.

    "We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or
punish.  Hyde is gone to his account; and it only remains for us
to find the body of your master."

    The far greater proportion of the building was occupied by
the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground storey and was
lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper
story at one end and looked upon the court.  A corridor joined the
theatre to the door on the by-street; and with this the cabinet
communicated separately by a second flight of stairs.  There were
besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar.  All these they
now thoroughly examined.  Each closet needed but a glance, for all
were empty, and all, by the dust that fell from their doors, had
stood long unopened.  The cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy
lumber, mostly dating from the times of the surgeon who was
Jekyll's predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were
advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the fall of a
perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed up the entrance.
No where was there any trace of Henry Jekyll dead or alive.

    Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor.  "He must be
buried here," he said, hearkening to the sound.

    "Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine
the door in the by-street.  It was locked; and lying near by on
the flags, they found the key, already stained with rust.

    "This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.

    "Use!" echoed Poole.  "Do you not see, sir, it is broken?
much as if a man had stamped on it."

    "Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty."
The two men looked at each other with a scare.  "This is beyond
me, Poole," said the lawyer.  "Let us go back to the cabinet."

    They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an
occasional awestruck glance at the dead body, proceeded more
thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet.  At one table,
there were traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some
white salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an
experiment in which the unhappy man had been prevented.

    "That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said
Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise
boiled over.

    This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was
drawn cosily up, and the tea things stood ready to the sitter's
elbow, the very sugar in the cup.  There were several books on a
shelf; one lay beside the tea things open, and Utterson was amazed
to find it a copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several
times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand with
startling blasphemies.

    Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the
searchers came to the cheval-glass, into whose depths they looked
with an involuntary horror.  But it was so turned as to show them
nothing but the rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling
in a hundred repetitions along the glazed front of the presses,
and their own pale and fearful countenances stooping to look in.

    "This glass has seen some strange things, sir," whispered
Poole.

    "And surely none stranger than itself," echoed the lawyer in
the same tones.  "For what did Jekyll"--he caught himself up at
the word with a start, and then conquering the weakness--"what
could Jekyll want with it?" he said.

    "You may say that!" said Poole.

    Next they turned to the business table.  On the desk, among
the neat array of papers, a large envelope was uppermost, and
bore, in the doctor's hand, the name of Mr. Utterson.  The lawyer
unsealed it, and several enclosures fell to the floor.  The first
was a will, drawn in the same eccentric terms as the one which he
had returned six months before, to serve as a testament in case of
death and as a deed of gift in case of disappearance; but in place
of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable
amazement read the name of Gabriel John Utterson.  He looked at
Poole, and then back at the paper, and last of all at the dead
malefactor stretched upon the carpet.

    "My head goes round," he said.  "He has been all these days in
possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see
himself displaced; and he has not destroyed this document."

    He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the
doctor's hand and dated at the top.  "O Poole!" the lawyer cried,
"he was alive and here this day.  He cannot have been disposed of
in so short a space; he must be still alive, he must have fled!
And then, why fled? and how? and in that case, can we venture to
declare this suicide?  O, we must be careful.  I foresee that we
may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe."

    "Why don't you read it, sir?" asked Poole.

    "Because I fear," replied the lawyer solemnly.  "God grant I
have no cause for it!"  And with that he brought the paper to his
eyes and read as follows: 

    "My dear Utterson,--When this shall fall into your hands, I
shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the
penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances
of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be
early.  Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned
me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more,
turn to the confession of

    "Your unworthy and unhappy friend,

                              "HENRY JEKYLL."

    "There was a third enclosure?" asked Utterson.

    "Here, sir," said Poole, and gave into his hands a
considerable packet sealed in several places.

    The lawyer put it in his pocket.  "I would say nothing of this
paper.  If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save
his credit.  It is now ten; I must go home and read these
documents in quiet; but I shall be back before midnight, when we
shall send for the police."

    They went out, locking the door of the theatre behind them;
and Utterson, once more leaving the servants gathered about the
fire in the hall, trudged back to his office to read the two
narratives in which this mystery was now to be explained.





                      Dr. Lanyon's Narrative



On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the
evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of
my colleague and old school companion, Henry Jekyll.  I was a good
deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of
correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the
night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse
that should justify formality of registration.  The contents
increased my wonder; for this is how the letter ran: 

                                      "10th December, 18--.

    "Dear Lanyon,--You are one of my oldest friends; and
although we may have differed at times on scientific questions, I
cannot remember, at least on my side, any break in our affection.
There was never a day when, if you had said to me, `Jekyll, my
life, my honour, my reason, depend upon you,'  I would not have
sacrificed my left hand to help you.  Lanyon my life, my honour,
my reason, are all at your mercy; if you fail me to-night, I am
lost.  You might suppose, after this preface, that I am going to
ask you for something dishonourable to grant.  Judge for yourself.

    "I want you to postpone all other engagements for to-night--
ay, even if you were summoned to the bedside of an emperor; to
take a cab, unless your carriage should be actually at the door;
and with this letter in your hand for consultation, to drive
straight to my house.  Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will
find him waiting your arrival with a locksmith.  The door of my
cabinet is then to be forced:  and you are to go in alone; to open
the glazed press (letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if
it be shut; and to draw out, with all its contents as they stand,
the fourth drawer from the top or (which is the same thing) the
third from the bottom.  In my extreme distress of mind, I have a
morbid fear of misdirecting you; but even if I am in error, you
may know the right drawer by its contents:  some powders, a phial
and a paper book.  This drawer I beg of you to carry back with you
to Cavendish Square exactly as it stands.

    "That is the first part of the service:  now for the second.
You should be back, if you set out at once on the receipt of this,
long before midnight; but I will leave you that amount of margin,
not only in the fear of one of those obstacles that can neither be
prevented nor foreseen, but because an hour when your servants are
in bed is to be preferred for what will then remain to do.  At
midnight, then, I have to ask you to be alone in your consulting
room, to admit with your own hand into the house a man who will
present himself in my name, and to place in his hands the drawer
that you will have brought with you from my cabinet.  Then you
will have played your part and earned my gratitude completely.
Five minutes afterwards, if you insist upon an explanation, you
will have understood that these arrangements are of capital
importance; and that by the neglect of one of them, fantastic as
they must appear, you might have charged your conscience with my
death or the shipwreck of my reason.

    "Confident as I am that you will not trifle with this appeal,
my heart sinks and my hand trembles at the bare thought of such a
possibility.  Think of me at this hour, in a strange place,
labouring under a blackness of distress that no fancy can
exaggerate, and yet well aware that, if you will but punctually
serve me, my troubles will roll away like a story that is told.
Serve me, my dear Lanyon and save

                                 "Your friend,
                                              "H.J.

    "P.S.--I had already sealed this up when a fresh terror
struck upon my soul.  It is possible that the post-office may fail
me, and this letter not come into your hands until to-morrow
morning.  In that case, dear Lanyon, do my errand when it shall be
most convenient for you in the course of the day; and once more
expect my messenger at midnight.  It may then already be too late;
and if that night passes without event, you will know that you
have seen the last of Henry Jekyll."

    Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was
insane; but till that was proved beyond the possibility of doubt,
I felt bound to do as he requested.  The less I understood of this
farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance;
and an appeal so worded could not be set aside without a grave
responsibility.  I rose accordingly from table, got into a hansom,
and drove straight to Jekyll's house.  The butler was awaiting my
arrival; he had received by the same post as mine a registered
letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and a
carpenter.  The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and we
moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, from which
(as you are doubtless aware) Jekyll's private cabinet is most
conveniently entered.  The door was very strong, the lock
excellent; the carpenter avowed he would have great trouble and
have to do much damage, if force were to be used; and the
locksmith was near despair.  But this last was a handy fellow, and
after two hour's work, the door stood open.  The press marked E
was unlocked; and I took out the drawer, had it filled up with
straw and tied in a sheet, and returned with it to Cavendish
Square.

    Here I proceeded to examine its contents.  The powders were
neatly enough made up, but not with the nicety of the dispensing
chemist; so that it was plain they were of Jekyll's private
manufacture:  and when I opened one of the wrappers I found what
seemed to me a simple crystalline salt of a white colour.  The
phial, to which I next turned my attention, might have been about
half full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to the
sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some
volatile ether.  At the other ingredients I could make no guess.
The book was an ordinary version book and contained little but a
series of dates.  These covered a period of many years, but I
observed that the entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite
abruptly.  Here and there a brief remark was appended to a date,
usually no more than a single word:  "double" occurring perhaps six
times in a total of several hundred entries; and once very early
in the list and followed by several marks of exclamation, "total
failure!!!"  All this, though it whetted my curiosity, told me
little that was definite.  Here were a phial of some salt, and the
record of a series of experiments that had led (like too many of
Jekyll's investigations) to no end of practical usefulness.  How
could the presence of these articles in my house affect either the
honour, the sanity, or the life of my flighty colleague?  If his
messenger could go to one place, why could he not go to another?
And even granting some impediment, why was this gentleman to be
received by me in secret?  The more I reflected the more convinced
I grew that I was dealing with a case of cerebral disease; and
though I dismissed my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver,
that I might be found in some posture of self-defence.

    Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over London, ere the
knocker sounded very gently on the door.  I went myself at the
summons, and found a small man crouching against the pillars of
the portico.

    "Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?" I asked.

    He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when I had
bidden him enter, he did not obey me without a searching backward
glance into the darkness of the square.  There was a policeman not
far off, advancing with his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I
thought my visitor started and made greater haste.

    These particulars struck me, I confess, disagreeably; and as I
followed him into the bright light of the consulting room, I kept
my hand ready on my weapon.  Here, at last, I had a chance of
clearly seeing him.  I had never set eyes on him before, so much
was certain.  He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides
with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable
combination of great muscular activity and great apparent debility
of constitution, and--last but not least--with the odd,
subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood.  This bore
some resemblance to incipient rigour, and was accompanied by a
marked sinking of the pulse.  At the time, I set it down to some
idiosyncratic, personal distaste, and merely wondered at the
acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had reason to believe
the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man, and to turn on
some nobler hinge than the principle of hatred.

    This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his
entrance, struck in me what I can only, describe as a disgustful
curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would have made an
ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although
they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for
him in every measurement--the trousers hanging on his legs and
rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat
below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his
shoulders.  Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far
from moving me to laughter.  Rather, as there was something
abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that
now faced me--something seizing, surprising and revolting--
this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce
it; so that to my interest in the man's nature and character,
there was added a curiosity as to his origin, his life, his
fortune and status in the world.

    These observations, though they have taken so great a space to
be set down in, were yet the work of a few seconds.  My visitor
was, indeed, on fire with sombre excitement.

    "Have you got it?" he cried.  "Have you got it?"  And so
lively was his impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm
and sought to shake me.

    I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang
along my blood.  "Come, sir," said I.  "You forget that I have not
yet the pleasure of your acquaintance.  Be seated, if you please."
And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary
seat and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a
patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of my
preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer
me to muster.

    "I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly enough.
"What you say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown
its heels to my politeness.  I come here at the instance of your
colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some
moment; and I understood ..."  He paused and put his hand to his
throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he
was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria--"I
understood, a drawer ..."

    But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some
perhaps on my own growing curiosity.

    "There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer, where it
lay on the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.

    He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his
heart:  I could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of
his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed
both for his life and reason.

    "Compose yourself," said I.

    He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision
of despair, plucked away the sheet.  At sight of the contents, he
uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified.
And the next moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under
control, "Have you a graduated glass?" he asked.

    I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him
what he asked.

    He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of
the red tincture and added one of the powders.  The mixture, which
was at first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the
crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and
to throw off small fumes of vapour.  Suddenly and at the same
moment, the ebullition ceased and the compound changed to a dark
purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green.  My
visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye,
smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then turned and
looked upon me with an air of scrutiny.

    "And now," said he, "to settle what remains.  Will you be
wise? will you be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in
my hand and to go forth from your house without further parley? or
has the greed of curiosity too much command of you?  Think before
you answer, for it shall be done as you decide.  As you decide,
you shall be left as you were before, and neither richer nor
wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortal
distress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul.  Or, if
you shall so prefer to choose, a new province of knowledge and new
avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here, in this
room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by a
prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan."

    "Sir," said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly
possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder
that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief.  But I
have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause
before I see the end."

    "It is well," replied my visitor.  "Lanyon, you remember your
vows:  what follows is under the seal of our profession.  And now,
you who have so long been bound to the most narrow and material
views, you who have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine,
you who have derided your superiors--behold!"

    He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp.  A cry
followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on,
staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I
looked there came, I thought, a change--he seemed to swell--
his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and
alter--and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped
back against the wall, my arms raised to shield me from that
prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.

    "O God!"  I screamed, and "O God!" again and again; for there
before my eyes--pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping
before him with his hands, like a man restored from death--there
stood Henry Jekyll!

    What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to
set on paper.  I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul
sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my
eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer.  My life
is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror
sits by me at all hours of the day and night; and I feel that my
days are numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall die
incredulous.  As for the moral turpitude that man unveiled to me,
even with tears of penitence, I can not, even in memory, dwell on
it without a start of horror.  I will say but one thing, Utterson,
and that (if you can bring your mind to credit it) will be more
than enough.  The creature who crept into my house that night was,
on Jekyll's own confession, known by the name of Hyde and hunted
for in every corner of the land as the murderer of Carew.

                                 HASTIE LANYON






             Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case



I was born in the year 18-- to a large fortune, endowed besides
with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the
respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen, and thus, as
might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable
and distinguished future.  And indeed the worst of my faults was a
certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the
happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with
my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than
commonly grave countenance before the public.  Hence it came about
that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of
reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my
progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a
profound duplicity of me.  Many a man would have even blazoned
such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views
that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost
morbid sense of shame.  It was thus rather the exacting nature of
my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that
made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the
majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill
which divide and compound man's dual nature.  In this case, I was
driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of
life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most
plentiful springs of distress.  Though so profound a
double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me
were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside
restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye
of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and
suffering.  And it chanced that the direction of my scientific
studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the
transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this
consciousness of the perennial war among my members.  With every
day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the
intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose
partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: 
that man is not truly one, but truly two.  I say two, because the
state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point.  Others
will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I
hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere
polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens.  I,
for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in
one direction and in one direction only.  It was on the moral
side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the
thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two
natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I
could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was
radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of
my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked
possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with
pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation
of these elements.  If each, I told myself, could be housed in
separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was
unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the
aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just
could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the
good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed
to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.
It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were
thus bound together--that in the agonised womb of consciousness,
these polar twins should be continuously struggling.  How, then
were they dissociated?

    I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side
light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table.
I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated,
the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this
seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired.  Certain agents
I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly
vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion.
For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific
branch of my confession.  First, because I have been made to learn
that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man's
shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but
returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.
Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my
discoveries were incomplete.  Enough then, that I not only
recognised my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of
certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to
compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from
their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted,
none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and
bore the stamp of lower elements in my soul.

    I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of
practice.  I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so
potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity,
might, by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least
inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that
immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change.  But the
temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last
overcame the suggestions of alarm.  I had long since prepared my
tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists,
a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my
experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one
accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and
smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided,
with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.

    The most racking pangs succeeded:  a grinding in the bones,
deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded
at the hour of birth or death.  Then these agonies began swiftly
to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness.
There was something strange in my sensations, something
indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet.  I
felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of
a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images
running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of
obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.  I
knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more
wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and
the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.  I
stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these
sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost
in stature.

    There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which
stands beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for
the very purpose of these transformations.  The night however, was
far gone into the morning--the morning, black as it was, was
nearly ripe for the conception of the day--the inmates of my
house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I
determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in
my new shape as far as to my bedroom.  I crossed the yard, wherein
the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought, with
wonder, the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping
vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the
corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I
saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.

    I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I
know, but that which I suppose to be most probable.  The evil side
of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping
efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I
had just deposed.  Again, in the course of my life, which had
been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control,
it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted.  And
hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much
smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.  Even as good
shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly
and plainly on the face of the other.  Evil besides (which I must
still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body
an imprint of deformity and decay.  And yet when I looked upon
that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance,
rather of a leap of welcome.  This, too, was myself.  It seemed
natural and human.  In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the
spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and
divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine.
And in so far I was doubtless right.  I have observed that when I
wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at
first without a visible misgiving of the flesh.  This, as I take
it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled
out of good and evil:  and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of
mankind, was pure evil.

    I lingered but a moment at the mirror:  the second and
conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to
be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee
before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying
back to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once
more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once
more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.

    That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads.  Had I
approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the
experiment while under the empire of generous or pious
aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies
of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.
The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical
nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my
disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood
within ran forth.  At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept
awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and
the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde.  Hence, although I
had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly
evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that
incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had
already learned to despair.  The movement was thus wholly toward
the worse.

    Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the
dryness of a life of study.  I would still be merrily disposed at
times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified,
and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing
towards the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily
growing more unwelcome.  It was on this side that my new power
tempted me until I fell in slavery.  I had but to drink the cup,
to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume,
like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde.  I smiled at the notion;
it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my
preparations with the most studious care.  I took and furnished
that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and
engaged as a housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent
and unscrupulous.  On the other side, I announced to my servants
that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and
power about my house in the square; and to parry mishaps, I even
called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character.
I next drew up that will to which you so much objected; so that if
anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on
that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss.  And thus fortified,
as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange
immunities of my position.

    Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while
their own person and reputation sat under shelter.  I was the
first that ever did so for his pleasures.  I was the first that
could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability,
and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and
spring headlong into the sea of liberty.  But for me, in my
impenetrable mantle, the safely was complete.  Think of it--I
did not even exist!  Let me but escape into my laboratory door,
give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I
had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde
would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there
in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his
study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be
Henry Jekyll.

    The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were,
as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term.
But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward
the monstrous.  When I would come back from these excursions, I
was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity.
This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth
alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and
villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking
pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to
another; relentless like a man of stone.  Henry Jekyll stood at
times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was
apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of
conscience.  It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was
guilty.  Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities
seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was
possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde.  And thus his conscience
slumbered.

    Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for
even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design
of entering; I mean but to point out the warnings and the
successive steps with which my chastisement approached.  I met
with one accident which, as it brought on no consequence, I shall
no more than mention.  An act of cruelty to a child aroused
against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other
day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the child's
family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life;
and at last, in order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward
Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn
in the name of Henry Jekyll.  But this danger was easily
eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank
in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own
hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I
thought I sat beyond the reach of fate.

    Some two months before the murder of Sir Danvers, I had been
out for one of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and
woke the next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations.  It was in
vain I looked about me; in vain I saw the decent furniture and
tall proportions of my room in the square; in vain that I
recognised the pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the
mahogany frame; something still kept insisting that I was not
where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but in
the little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the
body of Edward Hyde.  I smiled to myself, and in my psychological
way, began lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion,
occasionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable
morning doze.  I was still so engaged when, in one of my more
wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon my hand.  Now the hand of Henry
Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was professional in shape and
size:  it was large, firm, white and comely.  But the hand which I
now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London
morning, lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, corder,
knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth
of hair.  It was the hand of Edward Hyde.

    I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I
was in the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my
breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and
bounding from my bed I rushed to the mirror.  At the sight that
met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin
and icy.  Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened
Edward Hyde.  How was this to be explained?  I asked myself; and
then, with another bound of terror--how was it to be remedied?
It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs
were in the cabinet--a long journey down two pairs of stairs,
through the back passage, across the open court and through the
anatomical theatre, from where I was then standing horror-struck.
It might indeed be possible to cover my face; but of what use was
that, when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature?
And then with an overpowering sweetness of relief, it came back
upon my mind that the servants were already used to the coming and
going of my second self.  I had soon dressed, as well as I was
able, in clothes of my own size:  had soon passed through the
house, where Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at
such an hour and in such a strange array; and ten minutes later,
Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting down,
with a darkened brow, to make a feint of breakfasting.

    Small indeed was my appetite.  This inexplicable incident,
this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the
Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of
my judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever
before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence.
That part of me which I had the power of projecting, had lately
been much exercised and nourished; it had seemed to me of late as
though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though
(when I wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide
of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much
prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently
overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the
character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine.  The power of
the drug had not been always equally displayed.  Once, very early
in my career, it had totally failed me; since then I had been
obliged on more than one occasion to double, and once, with
infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; and these rare
uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment.
Now, however, and in the light of that morning's accident, I was
led to remark that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had
been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but
decidedly transferred itself to the other side.  All things
therefore seemed to point to this; that I was slowly losing hold
of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated
with my second and worse.

    Between these two, I now felt I had to choose.  My two natures
had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally
shared between them.  Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most
sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and
shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was
indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain
bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from
pursuit.  Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more
than a son's indifference.  To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to
die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had
of late begun to pamper.  To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a
thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and
forever, despised and friendless.  The bargain might appear
unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales;
for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of
abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had
lost.  Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate
are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and
alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it
fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my
fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the
strength to keep to it.

    Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor,
surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a
resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light
step, leaping impulses and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in
the disguise of Hyde.  I made this choice perhaps with some
unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho,
nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in
my cabinet.  For two months, however, I was true to my
determination; for two months, I led a life of such severity as I
had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an
approving conscience.  But time began at last to obliterate the
freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow
into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and
longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an
hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the
transforming draught.

    I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself
upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by
the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical
insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my
position, made enough allowance for the complete moral
insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the
leading characters of Edward Hyde.  Yet it was by these that I was
punished.  My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.  I
was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled,
a more furious propensity to ill.  It must have been this, I
suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with
which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I
declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been
guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I
struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick
child may break a plaything.  But I had voluntarily stripped
myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of
us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among
temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was
to fall.

    Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged.  With a
 transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight
 from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to
 succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium,
 struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror.  A mist
 dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene
 of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of
 evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the
 topmost peg.  I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance
 doubly sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the
 lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on
 my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future, and yet
 still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of
 the avenger.  Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the
 draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man.  The pangs of
 transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll,
 with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon
 his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God.  The veil of
 self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.  I saw my life as a
 whole:  I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had
 walked with my father's hand, and through the self-denying toils
 of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same
 sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening.  I
 could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to
 smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my
 memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the
 ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul.  As the acuteness
 of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of
 joy.  The problem of my conduct was solved.  Hyde was thenceforth
 impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the
 better part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think of
 it! with what willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions
 of natural life! with what sincere renunciation I locked the door
 by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under
 my heel!

    The next day, came the news that the murder had not been
overlooked, that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and
that the victim was a man high in public estimation.  It was not
only a crime, it had been a tragic folly.  I think I was glad to
know it; I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus
buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the scaffold.  Jekyll was
now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an instant, and the
hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him.

    I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can
say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good.  You
know yourself how earnestly, in the last months of the last year,
I laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for
others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for
myself.  Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and
innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more
completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and
as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me,
so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for
licence.  Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea
of that would startle me to frenzy:  no, it was in my own person
that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it
was as an ordinary secret sinner that I at last fell before the
assaults of temptation.

    There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure
is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally
destroyed the balance of my soul.  And yet I was not alarmed; the
fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had
made my discovery.  It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under
foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the
Regent's Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with spring
odours.  I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking
the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed,
promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.  After
all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled,
comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will
with the lazy cruelty of their neglect.  And at the very moment
of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid
nausea and the most deadly shuddering.  These passed away, and
left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began
to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater
boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of
obligation.  I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my
shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy.
I was once more Edward Hyde.  A moment before I had been safe of
all men's respect, wealthy, beloved--the cloth laying for me in
the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of
mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the
gallows.

    My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly.  I have
more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties
seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic;
thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have
succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.  My drugs
were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach them?
That was the problem that (crushing my temples in my hands) I set
myself to solve.  The laboratory door I had closed.  If I sought
to enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the
gallows.  I saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lanyon.
How was he to be reached? how persuaded?  Supposing that I escaped
capture in the streets, how was I to make my way into his
presence? and how should I, an unknown and displeasing visitor,
prevail on the famous physician to rifle the study of his
colleague, Dr. Jekyll?  Then I remembered that of my original
character, one part remained to me:  I could write my own hand; and
once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must
follow became lighted up from end to end.

    Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, and
summoning a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street,
the name of which I chanced to remember.  At my appearance (which
was indeed comical enough, however tragic a fate these garments
covered) the driver could not conceal his mirth.  I gnashed my
teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the smile
withered from his face--happily for him--yet more happily for
myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from
his perch.  At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so
black a countenance as made the attendants tremble; not a look did
they exchange in my presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led
me to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write.  Hyde
in danger of his life was a creature new to me; shaken with
inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to
inflict pain.  Yet the creature was astute; mastered his fury with
a great effort of the will; composed his two important letters,
one to Lanyon and one to Poole; and that he might receive actual
evidence of their being posted, sent them out with directions that
they should be registered.  Thenceforward, he sat all day over the
fire in the private room, gnawing his nails; there he dined,
sitting alone with his fears, the waiter visibly quailing before
his eye; and thence, when the night was fully come, he set forth
in the corner of a closed cab, and was driven to and fro about the
streets of the city.  He, I say--I cannot say, I.  That child of
Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.
And when at last, thinking the driver had begun to grow
suspicious, he discharged the cab and ventured on foot, attired in
his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observation, into
the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base passions
raged within him like a tempest.  He walked fast, hunted by his
fears, chattering to himself, skulking through the less frequented
thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still divided him from
midnight.  Once a woman spoke to him, offering, I think, a box of
lights.  He smote her in the face, and she fled.

    When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the horror of my old friend
perhaps affected me somewhat:  I do not know; it was at least but a
drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon
these hours.  A change had come over me.  It was no longer the
fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked
me.  I received Lanyon's condemnation partly in a dream; it was
partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into
bed.  I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent
and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me
could avail to break.  I awoke in the morning shaken, weakened,
but refreshed.  I still hated and feared the thought of the brute
that slept within me, and I had not of course forgotten the
appalling dangers of the day before; but I was once more at home,
in my own house and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my escape
shone so strong in my soul that it almost rivalled the brightness
of hope.

    I was stepping leisurely across the court after breakfast,
drinking the chill of the air with pleasure, when I was seized
again with those indescribable sensations that heralded the
change; and I had but the time to gain the shelter of my cabinet,
before I was once again raging and freezing with the passions of
Hyde.  It took on this occasion a double dose to recall me to
myself; and alas! six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the
fire, the pangs returned, and the drug had to be re-administered.
In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as
of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the
drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll.  At all
hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory
shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my
chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened.  Under the strain of
this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which
I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought
possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up
and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and
solely occupied by one thought:  the horror of my other self.  But
when I slept, or when the virtue of the medicine wore off, I would
leap almost without transition (for the pangs of transformation
grew daily less marked) into the possession of a fancy brimming
with images of terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and
a body that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging
energies of life.  The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with
the sickliness of Jekyll.  And certainly the hate that now divided
them was equal on each side.  With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital
instinct.  He had now seen the full deformity of that creature
that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and
was co-heir with him to death:  and beyond these links of
community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his
distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of
something not only hellish but inorganic.  This was the shocking
thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices;
that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was
dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.  And
this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than
a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard
it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of
weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him,
and deposed him out of life.  The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of
a different order.  His terror of the gallows drove him
continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his
subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed
the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was
now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself
regarded.  Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me,
scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books,
burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and
indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago
have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin.  But his
love of me is wonderful; I go further:  I, who sicken and freeze at
the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion
of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut
him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.

    It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this
description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that
suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought--no, not
alleviation--but a certain callousness of soul, a certain
acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for
years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which
has finally severed me from my own face and nature.  My provision
of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of the
first experiment, began to run low.  I sent out for a fresh supply
and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and the first
change of colour, not the second; I drank it and it was without
efficiency.  You will learn from Poole how I have had London
ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first
supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which
lent efficacy to the draught.

    About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement
under the influence of the last of the old powders.  This, then,
is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think
his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in
the glass.  Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an
end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has
been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck.
Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde
will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after
I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription
to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of
his ape-like spite.  And indeed the doom that is closing on us
both has already changed and crushed him.  Half an hour from now,
when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I
know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or
continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of
listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge)
and give ear to every sound of menace.  Will Hyde die upon the
scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last
moment?  God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death,
and what is to follow concerns another than myself.  Here then, as
I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring
the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.

***End***

__________________________________________________________________


Hawley Griffin becomes THE INVISIBLE MAN

as told by H. G. WELLS



CHAPTER I

THE STRANGE MAN'S ARRIVAL


The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a
biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over
the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a
little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped
up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every
inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled
itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to
the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more
dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried,
"in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and
shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall
into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much
introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table,
he took up his quarters in the inn.

Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare
him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the
wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who
was no "haggler," and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her
good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie,
her lymphatic aid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen
expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses
into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost _eclat_.
Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see
that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back
to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard.
His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost
in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled
his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. "Can I take your hat and coat,
sir?" she said, "and give them a good dry in the kitchen?"

"No," he said without turning.

She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her
question.

He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. "I prefer to
keep them on," he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he wore
big blue spectacles with sidelights, and had a bush side-whisker
over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face.

"Very well, sir," she said. "_As_ you like. In a bit the room will
be warmer."

He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and
Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed,
laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked
out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like
a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping
hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put
down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called
rather than said to him, "Your lunch is served, sir."

"Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir until she
was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table
with a certain eager quickness.

As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated
at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a
spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. "That girl!" she said.
"There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And while she
herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal
stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs,
laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!) had
only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and
wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it
with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried
it into the parlour.

She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved
quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing
behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the
floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she
noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair
in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to her
steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may
have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no denial.

"Leave the hat," said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning
she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her.

For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak.

He held a white cloth--it was a serviette he had brought with
him--over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws
were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled
voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact
that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white
bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of
his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright,
pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown
velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about
his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and
between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns,
giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and
bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a
moment she was rigid.

He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she
saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his
inscrutable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very
distinctly through the white cloth.

Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She
placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir,"
she began, "that--" and she stopped embarrassed.

"Thank you," he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then
at her again.

"I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried
his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head
and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his
napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she
closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise
and perplexity. "I _never_," she whispered. "There!" She went quite
softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what
she was messing about with _now_, when she got there.

The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced
inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and
resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the
window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette
in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to
the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This
left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier
air to the table and his meal.

"The poor soul's had an accident or an op'ration or somethin'," said
Mrs. Hall. "What a turn them bandages did give me, to be sure!"

She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended
the traveller's coat upon this. "And they goggles! Why, he looked
more like a divin' helmet than a human man!" She hung his muffler
on a corner of the horse. "And holding that handkerchief over his
mouth all the time. Talkin' through it! ... Perhaps his mouth was
hurt too--maybe."

She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. "Bless my soul
alive!" she said, going off at a tangent; "ain't you done them
taters _yet_, Millie?"

When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch, her idea
that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident
she supposed him to have suffered, was confirmed, for he was smoking
a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened
the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to
put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for
she saw he glanced at it as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner
with his back to the window-blind and spoke now, having eaten and
drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive
brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red
animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto.

"I have some luggage," he said, "at Bramblehurst station," and he
asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head
quite politely in acknowledgment of her explanation. "To-morrow?" he
said. "There is no speedier delivery?" and seemed quite disappointed
when she answered, "No." Was she quite sure? No man with a trap who
would go over?

Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions and developed a
conversation. "It's a steep road by the down, sir," she said in
answer to the question about a trap; and then, snatching at an
opening, said, "It was there a carriage was upsettled, a year ago
and more. A gentleman killed, besides his coachman. Accidents, sir,
happen in a moment, don't they?"

But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. "They do," he said
through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable
glasses.

"But they take long enough to get well, don't they? ... There was
my sister's son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, tumbled on it
in the 'ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up sir.
You'd hardly believe it. It's regular given me a dread of a scythe,
sir."

"I can quite understand that," said the visitor.

"He was afraid, one time, that he'd have to have an op'ration--he
was that bad, sir."

The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to
bite and kill in his mouth. "_Was_ he?" he said.

"He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for
him, as I had--my sister being took up with her little ones so
much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that
if I may make so bold as to say it, sir--"

"Will you get me some matches?" said the visitor, quite abruptly.
"My pipe is out."

Mrs. Hall was pulled up suddenly. It was certainly rude of him,
after telling him all she had done. She gasped at him for a moment,
and remembered the two sovereigns. She went for the matches.

"Thanks," he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his
shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was
altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the
topic of operations and bandages. She did not "make so bold as to
say," however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her,
and Millie had a hot time of it that afternoon.

The visitor remained in the parlour until four o'clock, without
giving the ghost of an excuse for an intrusion. For the most part
he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the
growing darkness smoking in the firelight--perhaps dozing.

Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals,
and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room.
He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as
he sat down again.



CHAPTER II

MR. TEDDY HENFREY'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS


At four o'clock, when it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing
up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some
tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar. "My sakes!
Mrs. Hall," said he, "but this is terrible weather for thin boots!"
The snow outside was falling faster.

Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him. "Now
you're here, Mr. Teddy," said she, "I'd be glad if you'd give th'
old clock in the parlour a bit of a look. 'Tis going, and it strikes
well and hearty; but the hour-hand won't do nuthin' but point at
six."

And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped
and entered.

Her visitor, she saw as she opened the door, was seated in the
armchair before the fire, dozing it would seem, with his bandaged
head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red
glow from the fire--which lit his eyes like adverse railway signals,
but left his downcast face in darkness--and the scanty vestiges of
the day that came in through the open door. Everything was ruddy,
shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been
lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second
it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth
wide open--a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of
the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment:
the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn
below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand.
She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter, and she saw
him more clearly, with the muffler held up to his face just as she
had seen him hold the serviette before. The shadows, she fancied,
had tricked her.

"Would you mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?"
she said, recovering from the momentary shock.

"Look at the clock?" he said, staring round in a drowsy manner,
and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake,
"certainly."

Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched
himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was
confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, "taken aback."

"Good afternoon," said the stranger, regarding him--as Mr. Henfrey
says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles--"like a lobster."

"I hope," said Mr. Henfrey, "that it's no intrusion."

"None whatever," said the stranger. "Though, I understand," he said
turning to Mrs. Hall, "that this room is really to be mine for my
own private use."

"I thought, sir," said Mrs. Hall, "you'd prefer the clock--"

"Certainly," said the stranger, "certainly--but, as a rule, I
like to be alone and undisturbed.

"But I'm really glad to have the clock seen to," he said, seeing a
certain hesitation in Mr. Henfrey's manner. "Very glad." Mr. Henfrey
had intended to apologise and withdraw, but this anticipation
reassured him. The stranger turned round with his back to the
fireplace and put his hands behind his back. "And presently," he
said, "when the clock-mending is over, I think I should like to
have some tea. But not till the clock-mending is over."

Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room--she made no conversational
advances this time, because she did not want to be snubbed in front
of Mr. Henfrey--when her visitor asked her if she had made any
arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst. She told him she had
mentioned the matter to the postman, and that the carrier could
bring them over on the morrow. "You are certain that is the
earliest?" he said.

She was certain, with a marked coldness.

"I should explain," he added, "what I was really too cold and
fatigued to do before, that I am an experimental investigator."

"Indeed, sir," said Mrs. Hall, much impressed.

"And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances."

"Very useful things indeed they are, sir," said Mrs. Hall.

"And I'm very naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries."

"Of course, sir."

"My reason for coming to Iping," he proceeded, with a certain
deliberation of manner, "was ... a desire for solitude. I do not
wish to be disturbed in my work. In addition to my work, an
accident--"

"I thought as much," said Mrs. Hall to herself.

"--necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes--are sometimes so
weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for
hours together. Lock myself up. Sometimes--now and then. Not at
present, certainly. At such times the slightest disturbance, the
entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating
annoyance to me--it is well these things should be understood."

"Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Hall. "And if I might make so bold as
to ask--"

"That I think, is all," said the stranger, with that quietly
irresistible air of finality he could assume at will. Mrs. Hall
reserved her question and sympathy for a better occasion.

After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of
the fire, glaring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock-mending. Mr.
Henfrey not only took off the hands of the clock, and the face, but
extracted the works; and he tried to work in as slow and quiet and
unassuming a manner as possible. He worked with the lamp close to
him, and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands,
and upon the frame and wheels, and left the rest of the room
shadowy. When he looked up, coloured patches swam in his eyes.
Being constitutionally of a curious nature, he had removed the
works--a quite unnecessary proceeding--with the idea of delaying his
departure and perhaps falling into conversation with the stranger.
But the stranger stood there, perfectly silent and still. So still,
it got on Henfrey's nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up,
and there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head and huge blue lenses
staring fixedly, with a mist of green spots drifting in front of
them. It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained
staring blankly at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very
uncomfortable position! One would like to say something. Should he
remark that the weather was very cold for the time of year?

He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. "The
weather--" he began.

"Why don't you finish and go?" said the rigid figure, evidently in
a state of painfully suppressed rage. "All you've got to do is to
fix the hour-hand on its axle. You're simply humbugging--"

"Certainly, sir--one minute more. I overlooked--" and Mr. Henfrey
finished and went.

But he went feeling excessively annoyed. "Damn it!" said Mr. Henfrey
to himself, trudging down the village through the thawing snow; "a
man must do a clock at times, sure-ly."

And again "Can't a man look at you?--Ugly!"

And yet again, "Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you
couldn't be more wropped and bandaged."

At Gleeson's corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the
stranger's hostess at the "Coach and Horses," and who now drove
the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to
Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that
place. Hall had evidently been "stopping a bit" at Sidderbridge,
to judge by his driving. "'Ow do, Teddy?" he said, passing.

"You got a rum un up home!" said Teddy.

Hall very sociably pulled up. "What's that?" he asked.

"Rum-looking customer stopping at the 'Coach and Horses,'" said
Teddy. "My sakes!"

And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque
guest. "Looks a bit like a disguise, don't it? I'd like to see a
man's face if I had him stopping in _my_ place," said Henfrey. "But
women are that trustful--where strangers are concerned. He's took
your rooms and he ain't even given a name, Hall."

"You don't say so!" said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension.

"Yes," said Teddy. "By the week. Whatever he is, you can't get rid
of him under the week. And he's got a lot of luggage coming
to-morrow, so he says. Let's hope it won't be stones in boxes, Hall."

He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been swindled by a
stranger with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely
suspicious. "Get up, old girl," said Hall. "I s'pose I must see
'bout this."

Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved.

Instead of "seeing 'bout it," however, Hall on his return was
severely rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in
Sidderbridge, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and
in a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy
had sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these
discouragements. "You wim' don't know everything," said Mr. Hall,
resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at
the earliest possible opportunity. And after the stranger had gone
to bed, which he did about half-past nine, Mr. Hall went very
aggressively into the parlour and looked very hard at his wife's
furniture, just to show that the stranger wasn't master there,
and scrutinised closely and a little contemptuously a sheet of
mathematical computations the stranger had left. When retiring
for the night he instructed Mrs. Hall to look very closely at
the stranger's luggage when it came next day.

"You mind you own business, Hall," said Mrs. Hall, "and I'll mind
mine."

She was all the more inclined to snap at Hall because the stranger
was undoubtedly an unusually strange sort of stranger, and she was
by no means assured about him in her own mind. In the middle of the
night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that
came trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with
vast black eyes. But being a sensible woman, she subdued her
terrors and turned over and went to sleep again.



CHAPTER III

THE THOUSAND AND ONE BOTTLES


So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning
of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping
village. Next day his luggage arrived through the slush--and very
remarkable luggage it was. There were a couple of trunks indeed,
such as a rational man might need, but in addition there were
a box of books--big, fat books, of which some were just in an
incomprehensible handwriting--and a dozen or more crates, boxes,
and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed to
Hall, tugging with a casual curiosity at the straw--glass bottles.
The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out
impatiently to meet Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a word
or so of gossip preparatory to helping being them in. Out he came,
not noticing Fearenside's dog, who was sniffing in a _dilettante_
spirit at Hall's legs. "Come along with those boxes," he said.
"I've been waiting long enough."

And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to
lay hands on the smaller crate.

No sooner had Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, than
it began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the
steps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his
hand. "Whup!" cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with
dogs, and Fearenside howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip.

They saw the dog's teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the
dog execute a flanking jump and get home on the stranger's leg, and
heard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside's
whip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay,
retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of
a swift half-minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger
glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if he
would stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up the
steps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passage
and up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom.

"You brute, you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his
whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel.
"Come here," said Fearenside--"You'd better."

Hall had stood gaping. "He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go and
see to en," and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in
the passage. "Carrier's darg," he said "bit en."

He went straight upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, he
pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of a
naturally sympathetic turn of mind.

The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most
singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and
a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like the
face of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest,
hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked. It was so
rapid that it gave him no time to observe. A waving of indecipherable
shapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark little
landing, wondering what it might be that he had seen.

A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that had
formed outside the "Coach and Horses." There was Fearenside telling
about it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall
saying his dog didn't have no business to bite her guests; there
was Huxter, the general dealer from over the road, interrogative;
and Sandy Wadgers from the forge, judicial; besides women and
children, all of them saying fatuities: "Wouldn't let en bite
_me_, I knows"; "'Tasn't right _have_ such dargs"; "Whad _'e_ bite
'n for, than?" and so forth.

Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it
incredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happen
upstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was altogether too limited to
express his impressions.

"He don't want no help, he says," he said in answer to his wife's
inquiry. "We'd better be a-takin' of his luggage in."

"He ought to have it cauterised at once," said Mr. Huxter;
"especially if it's at all inflamed."

"I'd shoot en, that's what I'd do," said a lady in the group.

Suddenly the dog began growling again.

"Come along," cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stood
the muffled stranger with his collar turned up, and his hat-brim
bent down. "The sooner you get those things in the better I'll be
pleased." It is stated by an anonymous bystander that his trousers
and gloves had been changed.

"Was you hurt, sir?" said Fearenside. "I'm rare sorry the darg--"

"Not a bit," said the stranger. "Never broke the skin. Hurry up
with those things."

He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts.

Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions,
carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it with
extraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering the
straw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Hall's carpet. And from it he
began to produce bottles--little fat bottles containing powders,
small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids,
fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies and
slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles,
bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with fine
corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles,
salad-oil bottles--putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the
mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the
bookshelf--everywhere. The chemist's shop in Bramblehurst could not
boast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yielded
bottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; the
only things that came out of these crates besides the bottles were
a number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance.

And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the
window and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litter
of straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside,
nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs.

When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so
absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into
test-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away the
bulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some little
emphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then he
half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she
saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table,
and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily
hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced
her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he
anticipated her.

"I wish you wouldn't come in without knocking," he said in the tone
of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him.

"I knocked, but seemingly--"

"Perhaps you did. But in my investigations--my really very urgent
and necessary investigations--the slightest disturbance, the jar
of a door--I must ask you--"

"Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you're like that, you
know. Any time."

"A very good idea," said the stranger.

"This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark--"

"Don't. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill." And he
mumbled at her--words suspiciously like curses.

He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle
in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite
alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should
like to know, sir, what you consider--"

"A shilling--put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?"

"So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning
to spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course--"

He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.

All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall
testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a
concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the
table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down,
and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was
the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to
knock.

"I can't go on," he was raving. "I _can't_ go on. Three hundred
thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All
my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool!
fool!"

There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs.
Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy.
When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint
crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle.
It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.

When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the
room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been
carelessly wiped. She called attention to it.

"Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sake
don't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill,"
and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him.

"I'll tell you something," said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was
late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop of
Iping Hanger.

"Well?" said Teddy Henfrey.

"This chap you're speaking of, what my dog bit. Well--he's black.
Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousers
and the tear of his glove. You'd have expected a sort of pinky to
show, wouldn't you? Well--there wasn't none. Just blackness. I
tell you, he's as black as my hat."

"My sakes!" said Henfrey. "It's a rummy case altogether. Why, his
nose is as pink as paint!"

"That's true," said Fearenside. "I knows that. And I tell 'ee what
I'm thinking. That marn's a piebald, Teddy. Black here and white
there--in patches. And he's ashamed of it. He's a kind of half-breed,
and the colour's come off patchy instead of mixing. I've heard of
such things before. And it's the common way with horses, as any one
can see."



CHAPTER IV

MR. CUSS INTERVIEWS THE STRANGER


I have told the circumstances of the stranger's arrival in Iping
with a certain fulness of detail, in order that the curious
impression he created may be understood by the reader. But
excepting two odd incidents, the circumstances of his stay until
the extraordinary day of the club festival may be passed over very
cursorily. There were a number of skirmishes with Mrs. Hall on
matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late April,
when the first signs of penury began, he over-rode her by the easy
expedient of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever
he dared he talked of the advisability of getting rid of him; but
he showed his dislike chiefly by concealing it ostentatiously, and
avoiding his visitor as much as possible. "Wait till the summer,"
said Mrs. Hall sagely, "when the artisks are beginning to come.
Then we'll see. He may be a bit overbearing, but bills settled
punctual is bills settled punctual, whatever you'd like to say."

The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference
between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He
worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would
come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise
late, pace his room, fretting audibly for hours together, smoke,
sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world
beyond the village he had none. His temper continued very
uncertain; for the most part his manner was that of a man suffering
under almost unendurable provocation, and once or twice things were
snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic gusts of violence.
He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His
habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily upon him,
but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could make
neither head nor tail of what she heard.

He rarely went abroad by daylight, but at twilight he would go out
muffled up invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he
chose the loneliest paths and those most overshadowed by trees and
banks. His goggling spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under the
penthouse of his hat, came with a disagreeable suddenness out of
the darkness upon one or two home-going labourers, and Teddy
Henfrey, tumbling out of the "Scarlet Coat" one night, at half-past
nine, was scared shamefully by the stranger's skull-like head (he
was walking hat in hand) lit by the sudden light of the opened inn
door. Such children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of bogies, and
it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked
him, or the reverse; but there was certainly a vivid enough dislike
on either side.

It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance and
bearing should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping.
Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. Mrs. Hall was
sensitive on the point. When questioned, she explained very
carefully that he was an "experimental investigator," going
gingerly over the syllables as one who dreads pitfalls. When asked
what an experimental investigator was, she would say with a touch
of superiority that most educated people knew such things as that,
and would thus explain that he "discovered things." Her visitor had
had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face
and hands, and being of a sensitive disposition, he was averse to
any public notice of the fact.

Out of her hearing there was a view largely entertained that he was
a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so
as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This
idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. No crime of any
magnitude dating from the middle or end of February was known to
have occurred. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the
probationary assistant in the National School, this theory took the
form that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing
explosives, and he resolved to undertake such detective operations
as his time permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking
very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people
who had never seen the stranger, leading questions about him. But
he detected nothing.

Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either
accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for
instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he choses
to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and
being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with
the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by
regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the
advantage of accounting for everything straight away.

Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers.
Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the
events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was
first whispered in the village. Even then it was only credited
among the women folk.

But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping, on the whole,
agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have
been comprehensible to an urban brain-worker, was an amazing thing
to these quiet Sussex villagers. The frantic gesticulations they
surprised now and then, the headlong pace after nightfall that
swept him upon them round quiet corners, the inhuman bludgeoning
of all tentative advances of curiosity, the taste for twilight
that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds,
the extinction of candles and lamps--who could agree with such
goings on? They drew aside as he passed down the village, and when
he had gone by, young humourists would up with coat-collars and
down with hat-brims, and go pacing nervously after him in imitation
of his occult bearing. There was a song popular at that time called
"The Bogey Man". Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert
(in aid of the church lamps), and thereafter whenever one or two of
the villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, a
bar or so of this tune, more or less sharp or flat, was whistled in
the midst of them. Also belated little children would call "Bogey
Man!" after him, and make off tremulously elated.

Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The
bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the
thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through
April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger,
and at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer, but
hit upon the subscription-list for a village nurse as an excuse. He
was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name.
"He give a name," said Mrs. Hall--an assertion which was quite
unfounded--"but I didn't rightly hear it." She thought it seemed
so silly not to know the man's name.

Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. There was a fairly
audible imprecation from within. "Pardon my intrusion," said Cuss,
and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of
the conversation.

She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then
a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark
of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face
white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. He left the door open
behind him, and without looking at her strode across the hall and
went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the
road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door,
looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the
stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the
room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door
slammed, and the place was silent again.

Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar. "Am I mad?"
Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. "Do I
look like an insane person?"

"What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the ammonite on the
loose sheets of his forth-coming sermon.

"That chap at the inn--"

"Well?"

"Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down.

When his nerves had been steadied by a glass of cheap sherry--the
only drink the good vicar had available--he told him of the
interview he had just had. "Went in," he gasped, "and began to
demand a subscription for that Nurse Fund. He'd stuck his hands in
his pockets as I came in, and he sat down lumpily in his chair.
Sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific
things. He said yes. Sniffed again. Kept on sniffing all the time;
evidently recently caught an infernal cold. No wonder, wrapped up
like that! I developed the nurse idea, and all the while kept my
eyes open. Bottles--chemicals--everywhere. Balance, test-tubes
in stands, and a smell of--evening primrose. Would he subscribe?
Said he'd consider it. Asked him, point-blank, was he researching.
Said he was. A long research? Got quite cross. 'A damnable long
research,' said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. 'Oh,' said
I. And out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and my
question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, most
valuable prescription--what for he wouldn't say. Was it medical?
'Damn you! What are you fishing after?' I apologised. Dignified
sniff and cough. He resumed. He'd read it. Five ingredients. Put it
down; turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper.
Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he
said. Saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and
lifting chimneyward. Rushed towards it just as it whisked up the
chimney. So! Just at that point, to illustrate his story, out came
his arm."

"Well?"

"No hand--just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, _that's_ a
deformity! Got a cork arm, I suppose, and has taken it off. Then, I
thought, there's something odd in that. What the devil keeps that
sleeve up and open, if there's nothing in it? There was nothing in
it, I tell you. Nothing down it, right down to the joint. I could
see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light
shining through a tear of the cloth. 'Good God!' I said. Then he
stopped. Stared at me with those black goggles of his, and then
at his sleeve."

"Well?"

"That's all. He never said a word; just glared, and put his sleeve
back in his pocket quickly. 'I was saying,' said he, 'that there
was the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Interrogative cough.
'How the devil,' said I, 'can you move an empty sleeve like that?'
'Empty sleeve?' 'Yes,' said I, 'an empty sleeve.'

"'It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?' He
stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three
very slow steps, and stood quite close. Sniffed venomously. I
didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged knob of his, and
those blinkers, aren't enough to unnerve any one, coming quietly
up to you.

"'You said it was an empty sleeve?' he said. 'Certainly,' I said.
At staring and saying nothing a barefaced man, unspectacled, starts
scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket
again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to
me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. Seemed an
age. 'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.'

"Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could
see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly,
slowly--just like that--until the cuff was six inches from my
face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that!
And then--"

"Well?"

"Something--exactly like a finger and thumb it felt--nipped my
nose."

Bunting began to laugh.

"There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice running up into
a shriek at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but
I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned
around, and cut out of the room--I left him--"

Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic.
He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the
excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his cuff," said
Cuss, "I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there
wasn't an arm! There wasn't the ghost of an arm!"

Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. "It's
a most remarkable story," he said. He looked very wise and grave
indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a
most remarkable story."



CHAPTER V

THE BURGLARY AT THE VICARAGE


The facts of the burglary at the vicarage came to us chiefly
through the medium of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the
small hours of Whit Monday, the day devoted in Iping to the Club
festivities. Mrs. Bunting, it seems, woke up suddenly in the
stillness that comes before the dawn, with the strong impression
that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not
arouse her husband at first, but sat up in bed listening. She then
distinctly heard the pad, pad, pad of bare feet coming out of the
adjoining dressing-room and walking along the passage towards the
staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused the
Rev. Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. He did not strike a light,
but putting on his spectacles, her dressing-gown and his bath
slippers, he went out on the landing to listen. He heard quite
distinctly a fumbling going on at his study desk down-stairs, and
then a violent sneeze.

At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the most
obvious weapon, the poker, and descended the staircase as
noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing.

The hour was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was
past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study
doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the
faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the
slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer
was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an
imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with
yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the
crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a
candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He
stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her
face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing
kept Mr. Bunting's courage; the persuasion that this burglar was a
resident in the village.

They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had
found the housekeeping reserve of gold--two pounds ten in half
sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting was nerved to
abrupt action. Gripping the poker firmly, he rushed into the room,
closely followed by Mrs. Bunting. "Surrender!" cried Mr. Bunting,
fiercely, and then stooped amazed. Apparently the room was
perfectly empty.

Yet their conviction that they had, that very moment, heard somebody
moving in the room had amounted to a certainty. For half a minute,
perhaps, they stood gaping, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room
and looked behind the screen, while Mr. Bunting, by a kindred
impulse, peered under the desk. Then Mrs. Bunting turned back the
window-curtains, and Mr. Bunting looked up the chimney and probed it
with the poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinised the waste-paper basket
and Mr. Bunting opened the lid of the coal-scuttle. Then they came
to a stop and stood with eyes interrogating each other.

"I could have sworn--" said Mr. Bunting.

"The candle!" said Mr. Bunting. "Who lit the candle?"

"The drawer!" said Mrs. Bunting. "And the money's gone!"

She went hastily to the doorway.

"Of all the strange occurrences--"

There was a violent sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as
they did so the kitchen door slammed. "Bring the candle," said Mr.
Bunting, and led the way. They both heard a sound of bolts being
hastily shot back.

As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that
the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn
displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that
nothing went out of the door. It opened, stood open for a moment,
and then closed with a slam. As it did so, the candle Mrs. Bunting
was carrying from the study flickered and flared. It was a minute
or more before they entered the kitchen.

The place was empty. They refastened the back door, examined the
kitchen, pantry, and scullery thoroughly, and at last went down
into the cellar. There was not a soul to be found in the house,
search as they would.

Daylight found the vicar and his wife, a quaintly-costumed little
couple, still marvelling about on their own ground floor by the
unnecessary light of a guttering candle.



CHAPTER VI

THE FURNITURE THAT WENT MAD


Now it happened that in the early hours of Whit Monday, before
Millie was hunted out for the day, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose
and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Their business there was
of a private nature, and had something to do with the specific
gravity of their beer. They had hardly entered the cellar when Mrs.
Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of sarsaparilla
from their joint-room. As she was the expert and principal operator
in this affair, Hall very properly went upstairs for it.

On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger's door was
ajar. He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had
been directed.

But returning with the bottle, he noticed that the bolts of the
front door had been shot back, that the door was in fact simply on
the latch. And with a flash of inspiration he connected this with
the stranger's room upstairs and the suggestions of Mr. Teddy
Henfrey. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs.
Hall shot these bolts overnight. At the sight he stopped, gaping,
then with the bottle still in his hand went upstairs again. He
rapped at the stranger's door. There was no answer. He rapped
again; then pushed the door wide open and entered.

It was as he expected. The bed, the room also, was empty. And what
was stranger, even to his heavy intelligence, on the bedroom chair
and along the rail of the bed were scattered the garments, the only
garments so far as he knew, and the bandages of their guest. His
big slouch hat even was cocked jauntily over the bed-post.

As Hall stood there he heard his wife's voice coming out of the
depth of the cellar, with that rapid telescoping of the syllables
and interrogative cocking up of the final words to a high note,
by which the West Sussex villager is wont to indicate a brisk
impatience. "George! You gart whad a wand?"

At that he turned and hurried down to her. "Janny," he said, over
the rail of the cellar steps, "'tas the truth what Henfrey sez.
'E's not in uz room, 'e en't. And the front door's onbolted."

At first Mrs. Hall did not understand, and as soon as she did she
resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the
bottle, went first. "If 'e en't there," he said, "'is close are.
And what's 'e doin' 'ithout 'is close, then? 'Tas a most curious
business."

As they came up the cellar steps they both, it was afterwards
ascertained, fancied they heard the front door open and shut, but
seeing it closed and nothing there, neither said a word to the other
about it at the time. Mrs. Hall passed her husband in the passage
and ran on first upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall,
following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She,
going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing.
She flung open the door and stood regarding the room. "Of all the
curious!" she said.

She heard a sniff close behind her head as it seemed, and turning,
was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair.
But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put
her hand on the pillow and then under the clothes.

"Cold," she said. "He's been up this hour or more."

As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes
gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly into a sort of peak,
and then jumped headlong over the bottom rail. It was exactly as if
a hand had clutched them in the centre and flung them aside.
Immediately after, the stranger's hat hopped off the bed-post,
described a whirling flight in the air through the better part of
a circle, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall's face. Then as
swiftly came the sponge from the washstand; and then the chair,
flinging the stranger's coat and trousers carelessly aside, and
laughing drily in a voice singularly like the stranger's, turned
itself up with its four legs at Mrs. Hall, seemed to take aim at her
for a moment, and charged at her. She screamed and turned, and then
the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled
her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was
locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph
for a moment, and then abruptly everything was still.

Mrs. Hall was left almost in a fainting condition in Mr. Hall's
arms on the landing. It was with the greatest difficulty that Mr.
Hall and Millie, who had been roused by her scream of alarm,
succeeded in getting her downstairs, and applying the restoratives
customary in such cases.

"'Tas sperits," said Mrs. Hall. "I know 'tas sperits. I've read in
papers of en. Tables and chairs leaping and dancing..."

"Take a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "'Twill steady ye."

"Lock him out," said Mrs. Hall. "Don't let him come in again.
I half guessed--I might ha' known. With them goggling eyes and
bandaged head, and never going to church of a Sunday. And all
they bottles--more'n it's right for any one to have. He's put the
sperits into the furniture.... My good old furniture! 'Twas in
that very chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a
little girl. To think it should rise up against me now!"

"Just a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "Your nerves is all upset."

They sent Millie across the street through the golden five o'clock
sunshine to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Mr.
Hall's compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most
extraordinary. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a knowing man,
was Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful. He took quite a grave view
of the case. "Arm darmed if thet ent witchcraft," was the view of
Mr. Sandy Wadgers. "You warnt horseshoes for such gentry as he."

He came round greatly concerned. They wanted him to lead the way
upstairs to the room, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry. He
preferred to talk in the passage. Over the way Huxter's apprentice
came out and began taking down the shutters of the tobacco window.
He was called over to join the discussion. Mr. Huxter naturally
followed over in the course of a few minutes. The Anglo-Saxon
genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a
great deal of talk and no decisive action. "Let's have the facts
first," insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. "Let's be sure we'd be acting
perfectly right in bustin' that there door open. A door onbust is
always open to bustin', but ye can't onbust a door once you've
busted en."

And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs
opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement,
they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger
staring more blackly and blankly than ever with those unreasonably
large blue glass eyes of his. He came down stiffly and slowly,
staring all the time; he walked across the passage staring, then
stopped.

"Look there!" he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his
gloved finger and saw a bottle of sarsaparilla hard by the cellar
door. Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, swiftly,
viciously, slammed the door in their faces.

Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died
away. They stared at one another. "Well, if that don't lick
everything!" said Mr. Wadgers, and left the alternative unsaid.

"I'd go in and ask'n 'bout it," said Wadgers, to Mr. Hall. "I'd
d'mand an explanation."

It took some time to bring the landlady's husband up to that pitch.
At last he rapped, opened the door, and got as far as, "Excuse me--"

"Go to the devil!" said the stranger in a tremendous voice, and
"Shut that door after you." So that brief interview terminated.



CHAPTER VII

THE UNVEILING OF THE STRANGER


The stranger went into the little parlour of the "Coach and Horses"
about half-past five in the morning, and there he remained until
near midday, the blinds down, the door shut, and none, after Hall's
repulse, venturing near him.

All that time he must have fasted. Thrice he rang his bell, the
third time furiously and continuously, but no one answered him.
"Him and his 'go to the devil' indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. Presently
came an imperfect rumour of the burglary at the vicarage, and two
and two were put together. Hall, assisted by Wadgers, went off to
find Mr. Shuckleforth, the magistrate, and take his advice. No one
ventured upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown.
Now and then he would stride violently up and down, and twice came
an outburst of curses, a tearing of paper, and a violent smashing
of bottles.

The little group of scared but curious people increased. Mrs. Huxter
came over; some gay young fellows resplendent in black ready-made
jackets and _pique_ paper ties--for it was Whit Monday--joined
the group with confused interrogations. Young Archie Harker
distinguished himself by going up the yard and trying to peep
under the window-blinds. He could see nothing, but gave reason
for supposing that he did, and others of the Iping youth
presently joined him.

It was the finest of all possible Whit Mondays, and down the
village street stood a row of nearly a dozen booths, a shooting
gallery, and on the grass by the forge were three yellow and
chocolate waggons and some picturesque strangers of both sexes
putting up a cocoanut shy. The gentlemen wore blue jerseys, the
ladies white aprons and quite fashionable hats with heavy plumes.
Wodger, of the "Purple Fawn," and Mr. Jaggers, the cobbler, who
also sold old second-hand ordinary bicycles, were stretching a
string of union-jacks and royal ensigns (which had originally
celebrated the first Victorian Jubilee) across the road.

And inside, in the artificial darkness of the parlour, into which
only one thin jet of sunlight penetrated, the stranger, hungry we
must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings,
pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty
little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible
if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace
lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent
twang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was
heard at the time and from what was subsequently seen in the room.

About noon he suddenly opened his parlour door and stood glaring
fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. "Mrs. Hall," he
said. Somebody went sheepishly and called for Mrs. Hall.

Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval, a little short of breath, but
all the fiercer for that. Hall was still out. She had deliberated
over this scene, and she came holding a little tray with an
unsettled bill upon it. "Is it your bill you're wanting, sir?" she
said.

"Why wasn't my breakfast laid? Why haven't you prepared my meals
and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?"

"Why isn't my bill paid?" said Mrs. Hall. "That's what I want to
know."

"I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance--"

"I told you two days ago I wasn't going to await no remittances.
You can't grumble if your breakfast waits a bit, if my bill's been
waiting these five days, can you?"

The stranger swore briefly but vividly.

"Nar, nar!" from the bar.

"And I'd thank you kindly, sir, if you'd keep your swearing to
yourself, sir," said Mrs. Hall.

The stranger stood looking more like an angry diving-helmet than
ever. It was universally felt in the bar that Mrs. Hall had the
better of him. His next words showed as much.

"Look here, my good woman--" he began.

"Don't 'good woman' _me_," said Mrs. Hall.

"I've told you my remittance hasn't come."

"Remittance indeed!" said Mrs. Hall.

"Still, I daresay in my pocket--"

"You told me three days ago that you hadn't anything but a
sovereign's worth of silver upon you."

"Well, I've found some more--"

"'Ul-lo!" from the bar.

"I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall.

That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot.
"What do you mean?" he said.

"That I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall. "And before I
take any bills or get any breakfasts, or do any such things
whatsoever, you got to tell me one or two things I don't understand,
and what nobody don't understand, and what everybody is very anxious
to understand. I want to know what you been doing t'my chair
upstairs, and I want to know how 'tis your room was empty, and how
you got in again. Them as stops in this house comes in by the
doors--that's the rule of the house, and that you _didn't_ do, and
what I want to know is how you _did_ come in. And I want to know--"

Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands clenched, stamped his
foot, and said, "Stop!" with such extraordinary violence that he
silenced her instantly.

"You don't understand," he said, "who I am or what I am. I'll show
you. By Heaven! I'll show you." Then he put his open palm over his
face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity.
"Here," he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something
which she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically.
Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and
staggered back. The nose--it was the stranger's nose! pink and
shining--rolled on the floor.

Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He
took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers
and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible
anticipation passed through the bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some one.
Then off they came.

It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and
horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw, and made for the door of
the house. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars,
disfigurements, tangible horrors, but nothing! The bandages and
false hair flew across the passage into the bar, making a
hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else
down the steps. For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent
explanation, was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar
of him, and then--nothingness, no visible thing at all!

People down the village heard shouts and shrieks, and looking up
the street saw the "Coach and Horses" violently firing out its
humanity. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down and Mr. Teddy Henfrey jump
to avoid tumbling over her, and then they heard the frightful
screams of Millie, who, emerging suddenly from the kitchen at the
noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless stranger from
behind. These increased suddenly.

Forthwith everyone all down the street, the sweetstuff seller,
cocoanut shy proprietor and his assistant, the swing man, little
boys and girls, rustic dandies, smart wenches, smocked elders
and aproned gipsies--began running towards the inn, and in a
miraculously short space of time a crowd of perhaps forty people,
and rapidly increasing, swayed and hooted and inquired and
exclaimed and suggested, in front of Mrs. Hall's establishment.
Everyone seemed eager to talk at once, and the result was Babel. A
small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was picked up in a state of
collapse. There was a conference, and the incredible evidence of a
vociferous eye-witness. "O Bogey!" "What's he been doin', then?"
"Ain't hurt the girl, 'as 'e?" "Run at en with a knife, I believe."
"No 'ed, I tell ye. I don't mean no manner of speaking. I mean _marn
'ithout a 'ed_!" "Narnsense! 'tis some conjuring trick." "Fetched
off 'is wrapping, 'e did--"

In its struggles to see in through the open door, the crowd formed
itself into a straggling wedge, with the more adventurous apex
nearest the inn. "He stood for a moment, I heerd the gal scream,
and he turned. I saw her skirts whisk, and he went after her.
Didn't take ten seconds. Back he comes with a knife in uz hand and
a loaf; stood just as if he was staring. Not a moment ago. Went in
that there door. I tell 'e, 'e ain't gart no 'ed at all. You just
missed en--"

There was a disturbance behind, and the speaker stopped to step
aside for a little procession that was marching very resolutely
towards the house; first Mr. Hall, very red and determined, then
Mr. Bobby Jaffers, the village constable, and then the wary Mr.
Wadgers. They had come now armed with a warrant.

People shouted conflicting information of the recent circumstances.
"'Ed or no 'ed," said Jaffers, "I got to 'rest en, and 'rest en I
_will_."

Mr. Hall marched up the steps, marched straight to the door of the
parlour and flung it open. "Constable," he said, "do your duty."

Jaffers marched in. Hall next, Wadgers last. They saw in the dim
light the headless figure facing them, with a gnawed crust of bread
in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other.

"That's him!" said Hall.

"What the devil's this?" came in a tone of angry expostulation from
above the collar of the figure.

"You're a damned rum customer, mister," said Mr. Jaffers. "But 'ed
or no 'ed, the warrant says 'body,' and duty's duty--"

"Keep off!" said the figure, starting back.

Abruptly he whipped down the bread and cheese, and Mr. Hall just
grasped the knife on the table in time to save it. Off came the
stranger's left glove and was slapped in Jaffers' face. In another
moment Jaffers, cutting short some statement concerning a warrant,
had gripped him by the handless wrist and caught his invisible
throat. He got a sounding kick on the shin that made him shout, but
he kept his grip. Hall sent the knife sliding along the table to
Wadgers, who acted as goal-keeper for the offensive, so to speak,
and then stepped forward as Jaffers and the stranger swayed and
staggered towards him, clutching and hitting in. A chair stood in
the way, and went aside with a crash as they came down together.

"Get the feet," said Jaffers between his teeth.

Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, received a sounding
kick in the ribs that disposed of him for a moment, and Mr.
Wadgers, seeing the decapitated stranger had rolled over and got
the upper side of Jaffers, retreated towards the door, knife in
hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the Sidderbridge carter
coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came
three or four bottles from the chiffonnier and shot a web of
pungency into the air of the room.

"I'll surrender," cried the stranger, though he had Jaffers down,
and in another moment he stood up panting, a strange figure,
headless and handless--for he had pulled off his right glove now
as well as his left. "It's no good," he said, as if sobbing for
breath.

It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that voice coming
as if out of empty space, but the Sussex peasants are perhaps the
most matter-of-fact people under the sun. Jaffers got up also and
produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared.

"I say!" said Jaffers, brought up short by a dim realization of the
incongruity of the whole business, "Darn it! Can't use 'em as I can
see."

The stranger ran his arm down his waistcoat, and as if by a miracle
the buttons to which his empty sleeve pointed became undone. Then
he said something about his shin, and stooped down. He seemed to be
fumbling with his shoes and socks.

"Why!" said Huxter, suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just
empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of
his clothes. I could put my arm--"

He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and
he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your
fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage
expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here--head, hands, legs, and
all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded
nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to
pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?"

The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon
its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo.

Several other of the men folks had now entered the room, so that it
was closely crowded. "Invisible, eh?" said Huxter, ignoring the
stranger's abuse. "Who ever heard the likes of that?"

"It's strange, perhaps, but it's not a crime. Why am I assaulted by
a policeman in this fashion?"

"Ah! that's a different matter," said Jaffers. "No doubt you are a
bit difficult to see in this light, but I got a warrant and it's
all correct. What I'm after ain't no invisibility,--it's burglary.
There's a house been broke into and money took."

"Well?"

"And circumstances certainly point--"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Invisible Man.

"I hope so, sir; but I've got my instructions."

"Well," said the stranger, "I'll come. I'll _come_. But no
handcuffs."

"It's the regular thing," said Jaffers.

"No handcuffs," stipulated the stranger.

"Pardon me," said Jaffers.

Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise was
was being done, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked
off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat.

"Here, stop that," said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was
happening. He gripped at the waistcoat; it struggled, and the shirt
slipped out of it and left it limply and empty in his hand. "Hold
him!" said Jaffers, loudly. "Once he gets the things off--"

"Hold him!" cried everyone, and there was a rush at the fluttering
white shirt which was now all that was visible of the stranger.

The shirt-sleeve planted a shrewd blow in Hall's face that stopped
his open-armed advance, and sent him backward into old Toothsome
the sexton, and in another moment the garment was lifted up and
became convulsed and vacantly flapping about the arms, even as a
shirt that is being thrust over a man's head. Jaffers clutched at
it, and only helped to pull it off; he was struck in the mouth out
of the air, and incontinently threw his truncheon and smote Teddy
Henfrey savagely upon the crown of his head.

"Look out!" said everybody, fencing at random and hitting at
nothing. "Hold him! Shut the door! Don't let him loose! I got
something! Here he is!" A perfect Babel of noises they made.
Everybody, it seemed, was being hit all at once, and Sandy Wadgers,
knowing as ever and his wits sharpened by a frightful blow in the
nose, reopened the door and led the rout. The others, following
incontinently, were jammed for a moment in the corner by the
doorway. The hitting continued. Phipps, the Unitarian, had a front
tooth broken, and Henfrey was injured in the cartilage of his ear.
Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something
that intervened between him and Huxter in the melee, and prevented
their coming together. He felt a muscular chest, and in another
moment the whole mass of struggling, excited men shot out into the
crowded hall.

"I got him!" shouted Jaffers, choking and reeling through them all,
and wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his
unseen enemy.

Men staggered right and left as the extraordinary conflict swayed
swiftly towards the house door, and went spinning down the
half-dozen steps of the inn. Jaffers cried in a strangled
voice--holding tight, nevertheless, and making play with his
knee--spun around, and fell heavily undermost with his head on
the gravel. Only then did his fingers relax.

There were excited cries of "Hold him!" "Invisible!" and so forth,
and a young fellow, a stranger in the place whose name did not come
to light, rushed in at once, caught something, missed his hold,
and fell over the constable's prostrate body. Half-way across the
road a woman screamed as something pushed by her; a dog, kicked
apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter's yard, and with
that the transit of the Invisible Man was accomplished. For a space
people stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic, and
scattered them abroad through the village as a gust scatters dead
leaves.

But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent, at the foot
of the steps of the inn.



CHAPTER VIII

IN TRANSIT


The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons,
the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying out on the
spacious open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him,
as he thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as
of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself;
and looking, beheld nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It
continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes
the swearing of a cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished
again, and died away in the distance, going as it seemed to him in
the direction of Adderdean. It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and
ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning's occurrences, but
the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical
tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the
steepness of the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go.



CHAPTER IX

MR. THOMAS MARVEL


You must picture Mr. Thomas Marvel as a person of copious, flexible
visage, a nose of cylindrical protrusion, a liquorish, ample,
fluctuating mouth, and a beard of bristling eccentricity. His figure
inclined to embonpoint; his short limbs accentuated this inclination.
He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of twine and
shoe-laces for buttons, apparent at critical points of his costume,
marked a man essentially bachelor.

Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the
roadside over the down towards Adderdean, about a mile and a half
out of Iping. His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were
bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a
watchful dog. In a leisurely manner--he did everything in a
leisurely manner--he was contemplating trying on a pair of boots.
They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but
too large for him; whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a
very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel
hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp. He had never properly
thought out which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and
there was nothing better to do. So he put the four shoes in a
graceful group on the turf and looked at them. And seeing them there
among the grass and springing agrimony, it suddenly occurred to him
that both pairs were exceedingly ugly to see. He was not at all
startled by a voice behind him.

"They're boots, anyhow," said the Voice.

"They are--charity boots," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with his head
on one side regarding them distastefully; "and which is the ugliest
pair in the whole blessed universe, I'm darned if I know!"

"H'm," said the Voice.

"I've worn worse--in fact, I've worn none. But none so owdacious
ugly--if you'll allow the expression. I've been cadging boots--in
particular--for days. Because I was sick of _them_. They're sound
enough, of course. But a gentleman on tramp sees such a thundering
lot of his boots. And if you'll believe me, I've raised nothing in
the whole blessed country, try as I would, but _them_. Look at 'em!
And a good country for boots, too, in a general way. But it's just
my promiscuous luck. I've got my boots in this country ten years or
more. And then they treat you like this."

"It's a beast of a country," said the Voice. "And pigs for people."

"Ain't it?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Lord! But them boots! It beats
it."

He turned his head over his shoulder to the right, to look at the
boots of his interlocutor with a view to comparisons, and lo! where
the boots of his interlocutor should have been were neither legs
nor boots. He was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement.
"Where _are_ yer?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder and
coming on all fours. He saw a stretch of empty downs with the wind
swaying the remote green-pointed furze bushes.

"Am I drunk?" said Mr. Marvel. "Have I had visions? Was I talking
to myself? What the--"

"Don't be alarmed," said a Voice.

"None of your ventriloquising _me_," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising
sharply to his feet. "Where _are_ yer? Alarmed, indeed!"

"Don't be alarmed," repeated the Voice.

"_You'll_ be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas
Marvel. "Where _are_ yer? Lemme get my mark on yer...

"Are yer _buried_?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval.

There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed,
his jacket nearly thrown off.

"Peewit," said a peewit, very remote.

"Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This ain't no time for
foolery." The down was desolate, east and west, north and south;
the road with its shallow ditches and white bordering stakes, ran
smooth and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the
blue sky was empty too. "So help me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel,
shuffling his coat on to his shoulders again. "It's the drink!
I might ha' known."

"It's not the drink," said the Voice. "You keep your nerves
steady."

"Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white amidst its patches.
"It's the drink!" his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring
about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have _swore_ I heard
a voice," he whispered.

"Of course you did."

"It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping
his hand on his brow with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken
by the collar and shaken violently, and left more dazed than ever.
"Don't be a fool," said the Voice.

"I'm--off--my--blooming--chump," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good.
It's fretting about them blarsted boots. I'm off my blessed blooming
chump. Or it's spirits."

"Neither one thing nor the other," said the Voice. "Listen!"

"Chump," said Mr. Marvel.

"One minute," said the Voice, penetratingly, tremulous with
self-control.

"Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having
been dug in the chest by a finger.

"You think I'm just imagination? Just imagination?"

"What else _can_ you be?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of
his neck.

"Very well," said the Voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going
to throw flints at you till you think differently."

"But where _are_ yer?"

The Voice made no answer. Whizz came a flint, apparently out of
the air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's-breadth.
Mr. Marvel, turning, saw a flint jerk up into the air, trace a
complicated path, hang for a moment, and then fling at his feet
with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz
it came, and ricochetted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas
Marvel jumped a foot and howled aloud. Then he started to run,
tripped over an unseen obstacle, and came head over heels into a
sitting position.

"_Now_," said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in
the air above the tramp. "Am I imagination?"

Mr. Marvel by way of reply struggled to his feet, and was
immediately rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment. "If you
struggle any more," said the Voice, "I shall throw the flint at
your head."

"It's a fair do," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his
wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I
don't understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking.
Put yourself down. Rot away. I'm done."

The third flint fell.

"It's very simple," said the Voice. "I'm an invisible man."

"Tell us something I don't know," said Mr. Marvel, gasping with
pain. "Where you've hid--how you do it--I _don't_ know. I'm beat."

"That's all," said the Voice. "I'm invisible. That's what I want
you to understand."

"Anyone could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded
impatient, mister. _Now_ then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?"

"I'm invisible. That's the great point. And what I want you to
understand is this--"

"But whereabouts?" interrupted Mr. Marvel.

"Here! Six yards in front of you."

"Oh, _come_! I ain't blind. You'll be telling me next you're just
thin air. I'm not one of your ignorant tramps--"

"Yes, I am--thin air. You're looking through me."

"What! Ain't there any stuff to you. _Vox et_--what is it?--jabber.
Is it that?"

"I am just a human being--solid, needing food and drink, needing
covering too--But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea.
Invisible."

"What, real like?"

"Yes, real."

"Let's have a hand of you," said Marvel, "if you _are_ real. It won't
be so darn out-of-the-way like, then--_Lord_!" he said, "how you made
me jump!--gripping me like that!"

He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged
fingers, and his fingers went timorously up the arm, patted a
muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel's face was
astonishment.

"I'm dashed!" he said. "If this don't beat cock-fighting! Most
remarkable!--And there I can see a rabbit clean through you, 'arf
a mile away! Not a bit of you visible--except--"

He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. "You 'aven't been
eatin' bread and cheese?" he asked, holding the invisible arm.

"You're quite right, and it's not quite assimilated into the system."

"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. "Sort of ghostly, though."

"Of course, all this isn't half so wonderful as you think."

"It's quite wonderful enough for _my_ modest wants," said Mr. Thomas
Marvel. "Howjer manage it! How the dooce is it done?"

"It's too long a story. And besides--"

"I tell you, the whole business fairly beats me," said Mr. Marvel.

"What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to
that--I came upon you suddenly. I was wandering, mad with rage,
naked, impotent. I could have murdered. And I saw you--"

"_Lord_!" said Mr. Marvel.

"I came up behind you--hesitated--went on--"

Mr. Marvel's expression was eloquent.

"--then stopped. 'Here,' I said, 'is an outcast like myself. This is
the man for me.' So I turned back and came to you--you. And--"

"_Lord_!" said Mr. Marvel. "But I'm all in a tizzy. May I ask--How
is it? And what you may be requiring in the way of help?--Invisible!"

"I want you to help me get clothes--and shelter--and then, with
other things. I've left them long enough. If you won't--well! But
you _will--must_."

"Look here," said Mr. Marvel. "I'm too flabbergasted. Don't knock
me about any more. And leave me go. I must get steady a bit. And
you've pretty near broken my toe. It's all so unreasonable. Empty
downs, empty sky. Nothing visible for miles except the bosom of
Nature. And then comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones!
And a fist--Lord!"

"Pull yourself together," said the Voice, "for you have to do the
job I've chosen for you."

Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round.

"I've chosen you," said the Voice. "You are the only man except
some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as
an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me--and I will
do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power." He
stopped for a moment to sneeze violently.

"But if you betray me," he said, "if you fail to do as I direct you--"
He paused and tapped Mr. Marvel's shoulder smartly. Mr. Marvel
gave a yelp of terror at the touch. "I don't want to betray you,"
said Mr. Marvel, edging away from the direction of the fingers.
"Don't you go a-thinking that, whatever you do. All I want to do is
to help you--just tell me what I got to do. (Lord!) Whatever you
want done, that I'm most willing to do."



CHAPTER X

MR. MARVEL'S VISIT TO IPING


After the first gusty panic had spent itself Iping became
argumentative. Scepticism suddenly reared its head--rather nervous
scepticism, not at all assured of its back, but scepticism
nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an invisible
man; and those who had actually seen him dissolve into air, or felt
the strength of his arm, could be counted on the fingers of two
hands. And of these witnesses Mr. Wadgers was presently missing,
having retired impregnably behind the bolts and bars of his own
house, and Jaffers was lying stunned in the parlour of the "Coach
and Horses." Great and strange ideas transcending experience often
have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible
considerations. Iping was gay with bunting, and everybody was in
gala dress. Whit Monday had been looked forward to for a month or
more. By the afternoon even those who believed in the Unseen were
beginning to resume their little amusements in a tentative fashion,
on the supposition that he had quite gone away, and with the
sceptics he was already a jest. But people, sceptics and believers
alike, were remarkably sociable all that day.

Haysman's meadow was gay with a tent, in which Mrs. Bunting and
other ladies were preparing tea, while, without, the Sunday-school
children ran races and played games under the noisy guidance of the
curate and the Misses Cuss and Sackbut. No doubt there was a slight
uneasiness in the air, but people for the most part had the sense
to conceal whatever imaginative qualms they experienced. On the
village green an inclined strong, down which, clinging the while
to a pulley-swung handle, one could be hurled violently against a
sack at the other end, came in for considerable favour among the
adolescent, as also did the swings and the cocoanut shies. There
was also promenading, and the steam organ attached to a small
roundabout filled the air with a pungent flavour of oil and with
equally pungent music. Members of the club, who had attended
church in the morning, were splendid in badges of pink and green,
and some of the gayer-minded had also adorned their bowler hats
with brilliant-coloured favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher, whose
conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through the
jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way
you chose to look), poised delicately on a plank supported on two
chairs, and whitewashing the ceiling of his front room.

About four o'clock a stranger entered the village from the direction
of the downs. He was a short, stout person in an extraordinarily
shabby top hat, and he appeared to be very much out of breath. His
cheeks were alternately limp and tightly puffed. His mottled face
was apprehensive, and he moved with a sort of reluctant alacrity. He
turned the corner of the church, and directed his way to the "Coach
and Horses." Among others old Fletcher remembers seeing him, and
indeed the old gentleman was so struck by his peculiar agitation
that he inadvertently allowed a quantity of whitewash to run down
the brush into the sleeve of his coat while regarding him.

This stranger, to the perceptions of the proprietor of the cocoanut
shy, appeared to be talking to himself, and Mr. Huxter remarked the
same thing. He stopped at the foot of the "Coach and Horses" steps,
and, according to Mr. Huxter, appeared to undergo a severe internal
struggle before he could induce himself to enter the house. Finally
he marched up the steps, and was seen by Mr. Huxter to turn to the
left and open the door of the parlour. Mr. Huxter heard voices from
within the room and from the bar apprising the man of his error.
"That room's private!" said Hall, and the stranger shut the door
clumsily and went into the bar.

In the course of a few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with
the back of his hand with an air of quiet satisfaction that somehow
impressed Mr. Huxter as assumed. He stood looking about him for
some moments, and then Mr. Huxter saw him walk in an oddly furtive
manner towards the gates of the yard, upon which the parlour window
opened. The stranger, after some hesitation, leant against one of
the gate-posts, produced a short clay pipe, and prepared to fill
it. His fingers trembled while doing so. He lit it clumsily, and
folding his arms began to smoke in a languid attitude, an attitude
which his occasional glances up the yard altogether belied.

All this Mr. Huxter saw over the canisters of the tobacco window,
and the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted him to maintain
his observation.

Presently the stranger stood up abruptly and put his pipe in his
pocket. Then he vanished into the yard. Forthwith Mr. Huxter,
conceiving he was witness of some petty larceny, leapt round his
counter and ran out into the road to intercept the thief. As he did
so, Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat askew, a big bundle in a blue
table-cloth in one hand, and three books tied together--as it proved
afterwards with the Vicar's braces--in the other. Directly he saw
Huxter he gave a sort of gasp, and turning sharply to the left,
began to run. "Stop, thief!" cried Huxter, and set off after him.
Mr. Huxter's sensations were vivid but brief. He saw the man just
before him and spurting briskly for the church corner and the hill
road. He saw the village flags and festivities beyond, and a face or
so turned towards him. He bawled, "Stop!" again. He had hardly gone
ten strides before his shin was caught in some mysterious fashion,
and he was no longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity
through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The
world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and
subsequent proceedings interested him no more.



CHAPTER XI

IN THE "COACH AND HORSES"


Now in order clearly to understand what had happened in the inn, it
is necessary to go back to the moment when Mr. Marvel first came
into view of Mr. Huxter's window.

At that precise moment Mr. Cuss and Mr. Bunting were in the parlour.
They were seriously investigating the strange occurrences of the
morning, and were, with Mr. Hall's permission, making a thorough
examination of the Invisible Man's belongings. Jaffers had partially
recovered from his fall and had gone home in the charge of his
sympathetic friends. The stranger's scattered garments had been
removed by Mrs. Hall and the room tidied up. And on the table under
the window where the stranger had been wont to work, Cuss had hit
almost at once on three big books in manuscript labelled "Diary."

"Diary!" said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. "Now, at
any rate, we shall learn something." The Vicar stood with his hands
on the table.

"Diary," repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to
support the third, and opening it. "H'm--no name on the fly-leaf.
Bother!--cypher. And figures."

The vicar came round to look over his shoulder.

Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed.
"I'm--dear me! It's all cypher, Bunting."

"There are no diagrams?" asked Mr. Bunting. "No illustrations
throwing light--"

"See for yourself," said Mr. Cuss. "Some of it's mathematical and
some of it's Russian or some such language (to judge by the
letters), and some of it's Greek. Now the Greek I thought _you_--"

"Of course," said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles
and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable--for he had no Greek
left in his mind worth talking about; "yes--the Greek, of course,
may furnish a clue."

"I'll find you a place."

"I'd rather glance through the volumes first," said Mr. Bunting,
still wiping. "A general impression first, Cuss, and _then_, you
know, we can go looking for clues."

He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed
again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly
inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a
leisurely manner. And then something did happen.

The door opened suddenly.

Both gentlemen started violently, looked round, and were relieved
to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?"
asked the face, and stood staring.

"No," said both gentlemen at once.

"Over the other side, my man," said Mr. Bunting. And "Please shut
that door," said Mr. Cuss, irritably.

"All right," said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice
curiously different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. "Right
you are," said the intruder in the former voice. "Stand clear!" and
he vanished and closed the door.

"A sailor, I should judge," said Mr. Bunting. "Amusing fellows, they
are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting
back out of the room, I suppose."

"I daresay so," said Cuss. "My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite
made me jump--the door opening like that."

Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. "And now," he said with
a sigh, "these books."

Someone sniffed as he did so.

"One thing is indisputable," said Bunting, drawing up a chair next
to that of Cuss. "There certainly have been very strange things
happen in Iping during the last few days--very strange. I cannot
of course believe in this absurd invisibility story--"

"It's incredible," said Cuss--"incredible. But the fact remains
that I saw--I certainly saw right down his sleeve--"

"But did you--are you sure? Suppose a mirror, for instance--
hallucinations are so easily produced. I don't know if you
have ever seen a really good conjuror--"

"I won't argue again," said Cuss. "We've thrashed that out,
Bunting. And just now there's these books--Ah! here's some of
what I take to be Greek! Greek letters certainly."

He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly
and brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty
with his glasses. Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at
the nape of his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered
an immovable resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the
grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to
the table. "Don't move, little men," whispered a voice, "or I'll
brain you both!" He looked into the face of Cuss, close to his own,
and each saw a horrified reflection of his own sickly astonishment.

"I'm sorry to handle you so roughly," said the Voice, "but it's
unavoidable."

"Since when did you learn to pry into an investigator's private
memoranda," said the Voice; and two chins struck the table
simultaneously, and two sets of teeth rattled.

"Since when did you learn to invade the private rooms of a man in
misfortune?" and the concussion was repeated.

"Where have they put my clothes?"

"Listen," said the Voice. "The windows are fastened and I've taken
the key out of the door. I am a fairly strong man, and I have the
poker handy--besides being invisible. There's not the slightest
doubt that I could kill you both and get away quite easily if I
wanted to--do you understand? Very well. If I let you go will you
promise not to try any nonsense and do what I tell you?"

The vicar and the doctor looked at one another, and the doctor
pulled a face. "Yes," said Mr. Bunting, and the doctor repeated it.
Then the pressure on the necks relaxed, and the doctor and the
vicar sat up, both very red in the face and wriggling their heads.

"Please keep sitting where you are," said the Invisible Man.
"Here's the poker, you see."

"When I came into this room," continued the Invisible Man, after
presenting the poker to the tip of the nose of each of his visitors,
"I did not expect to find it occupied, and I expected to find, in
addition to my books of memoranda, an outfit of clothing. Where is
it? No--don't rise. I can see it's gone. Now, just at present,
though the days are quite warm enough for an invisible man to run
about stark, the evenings are quite chilly. I want clothing--and
other accommodation; and I must also have those three books."



CHAPTER XII

THE INVISIBLE MAN LOSES HIS TEMPER


It is unavoidable that at this point the narrative should break off
again, for a certain very painful reason that will presently be
apparent. While these things were going on in the parlour, and
while Mr. Huxter was watching Mr. Marvel smoking his pipe against
the gate, not a dozen yards away were Mr. Hall and Teddy Henfrey
discussing in a state of cloudy puzzlement the one Iping topic.

Suddenly there came a violent thud against the door of the parlour,
a sharp cry, and then--silence.

"Hul-lo!" said Teddy Henfrey.

"Hul-lo!" from the Tap.

Mr. Hall took things in slowly but surely. "That ain't right," he
said, and came round from behind the bar towards the parlour door.

He and Teddy approached the door together, with intent faces. Their
eyes considered. "Summat wrong," said Hall, and Henfrey nodded
agreement. Whiffs of an unpleasant chemical odour met them, and
there was a muffled sound of conversation, very rapid and subdued.

"You all right thur?" asked Hall, rapping.

The muttered conversation ceased abruptly, for a moment silence,
then the conversation was resumed, in hissing whispers, then a
sharp cry of "No! no, you don't!" There came a sudden motion and
the oversetting of a chair, a brief struggle. Silence again.

"What the dooce?" exclaimed Henfrey, _sotto voce_.

"You--all--right thur?" asked Mr. Hall, sharply, again.

The Vicar's voice answered with a curious jerking intonation:
"Quite ri-right. Please don't--interrupt."

"Odd!" said Mr. Henfrey.

"Odd!" said Mr. Hall.

"Says, 'Don't interrupt,'" said Henfrey.

"I heerd'n," said Hall.

"And a sniff," said Henfrey.

They remained listening. The conversation was rapid and subdued.
"I _can't_," said Mr. Bunting, his voice rising; "I tell you, sir,
I _will_ not."

"What was that?" asked Henfrey.

"Says he wi' nart," said Hall. "Warn't speaking to us, wuz he?"

"Disgraceful!" said Mr. Bunting, within.

"'Disgraceful,'" said Mr. Henfrey. "I heard it--distinct."

"Who's that speaking now?" asked Henfrey.

"Mr. Cuss, I s'pose," said Hall. "Can you hear--anything?"

Silence. The sounds within indistinct and perplexing.

"Sounds like throwing the table-cloth about," said Hall.

Mrs. Hall appeared behind the bar. Hall made gestures of silence and
invitation. This aroused Mrs. Hall's wifely opposition. "What yer
listenin' there for, Hall?" she asked. "Ain't you nothin' better to
do--busy day like this?"

Hall tried to convey everything by grimaces and dumb show, but Mrs.
Hall was obdurate. She raised her voice. So Hall and Henfrey, rather
crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to
her.

At first she refused to see anything in what they had heard at
all. Then she insisted on Hall keeping silence, while Henfrey told
her his story. She was inclined to think the whole business
nonsense--perhaps they were just moving the furniture about. "I
heerd'n say 'disgraceful'; _that_ I did," said Hall.

"_I_ heerd that, Mrs. Hall," said Henfrey.

"Like as not--" began Mrs. Hall.

"Hsh!" said Mr. Teddy Henfrey. "Didn't I hear the window?"

"What window?" asked Mrs. Hall.

"Parlour window," said Henfrey.

Everyone stood listening intently. Mrs. Hall's eyes, directed
straight before her, saw without seeing the brilliant oblong of the
inn door, the road white and vivid, and Huxter's shop-front
blistering in the June sun. Abruptly Huxter's door opened and Huxter
appeared, eyes staring with excitement, arms gesticulating. "Yap!"
cried Huxter. "Stop thief!" and he ran obliquely across the oblong
towards the yard gates, and vanished.

Simultaneously came a tumult from the parlour, and a sound of
windows being closed.

Hall, Henfrey, and the human contents of the tap rushed out at once
pell-mell into the street. They saw someone whisk round the corner
towards the road, and Mr. Huxter executing a complicated leap in
the air that ended on his face and shoulder. Down the street people
were standing astonished or running towards them.

Mr. Huxter was stunned. Henfrey stopped to discover this, but Hall
and the two labourers from the Tap rushed at once to the corner,
shouting incoherent things, and saw Mr. Marvel vanishing by the
corner of the church wall. They appear to have jumped to the
impossible conclusion that this was the Invisible Man suddenly
become visible, and set off at once along the lane in pursuit. But
Hall had hardly run a dozen yards before he gave a loud shout of
astonishment and went flying headlong sideways, clutching one of
the labourers and bringing him to the ground. He had been charged
just as one charges a man at football. The second labourer came
round in a circle, stared, and conceiving that Hall had tumbled
over of his own accord, turned to resume the pursuit, only to be
tripped by the ankle just as Huxter had been. Then, as the first
labourer struggled to his feet, he was kicked sideways by a blow
that might have felled an ox.

As he went down, the rush from the direction of the village green
came round the corner. The first to appear was the proprietor of
the cocoanut shy, a burly man in a blue jersey. He was astonished
to see the lane empty save for three men sprawling absurdly on the
ground. And then something happened to his rear-most foot, and he
went headlong and rolled sideways just in time to graze the feet
of his brother and partner, following headlong. The two were then
kicked, knelt on, fallen over, and cursed by quite a number of
over-hasty people.

Now when Hall and Henfrey and the labourers ran out of the house,
Mrs. Hall, who had been disciplined by years of experience,
remained in the bar next the till. And suddenly the parlour door
was opened, and Mr. Cuss appeared, and without glancing at her
rushed at once down the steps toward the corner. "Hold him!" he
cried. "Don't let him drop that parcel."

He knew nothing of the
existence of Marvel. For the Invisible Man had handed over the
books and bundle in the yard. The face of Mr. Cuss was angry and
resolute, but his costume was defective, a sort of limp white kilt
that could only have passed muster in Greece. "Hold him!" he
bawled. "He's got my trousers! And every stitch of the Vicar's
clothes!"

"'Tend to him in a minute!" he cried to Henfrey as he passed the
prostrate Huxter, and, coming round the corner to join the tumult,
was promptly knocked off his feet into an indecorous sprawl.
Somebody in full flight trod heavily on his finger. He yelled,
struggled to regain his feet, was knocked against and thrown on all
fours again, and became aware that he was involved not in a capture,
but a rout. Everyone was running back to the village. He rose again
and was hit severely behind the ear. He staggered and set off back
to the "Coach and Horses" forthwith, leaping over the deserted
Huxter, who was now sitting up, on his way.

Behind him as he was halfway up the inn steps he heard a sudden
yell of rage, rising sharply out of the confusion of cries, and a
sounding smack in someone's face. He recognised the voice as that
of the Invisible Man, and the note was that of a man suddenly
infuriated by a painful blow.

In another moment Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. "He's coming
back, Bunting!" he said, rushing in. "Save yourself!"

Mr. Bunting was standing in the window engaged in an attempt to
clothe himself in the hearth-rug and a _West Surrey Gazette_. "Who's
coming?" he said, so startled that his costume narrowly escaped
disintegration.

"Invisible Man," said Cuss, and rushed on to the window. "We'd
better clear out from here! He's fighting mad! Mad!"

In another moment he was out in the yard.

"Good heavens!" said Mr. Bunting, hesitating between two horrible
alternatives. He heard a frightful struggle in the passage of the
inn, and his decision was made. He clambered out of the window,
adjusted his costume hastily, and fled up the village as fast as
his fat little legs would carry him.

From the moment when the Invisible Man screamed with rage and Mr.
Bunting made his memorable flight up the village, it became
impossible to give a consecutive account of affairs in Iping.
Possibly the Invisible Man's original intention was simply to cover
Marvel's retreat with the clothes and books. But his temper, at no
time very good, seems to have gone completely at some chance blow,
and forthwith he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere
satisfaction of hurting.

You must figure the street full of running figures, of doors
slamming and fights for hiding-places. You must figure the tumult
suddenly striking on the unstable equilibrium of old Fletcher's
planks and two chairs--with cataclysmic results. You must figure
an appalled couple caught dismally in a swing. And then the whole
tumultuous rush has passed and the Iping street with its gauds and
flags is deserted save for the still raging unseen, and littered
with cocoanuts, overthrown canvas screens, and the scattered stock
in trade of a sweetstuff stall. Everywhere there is a sound of
closing shutters and shoving bolts, and the only visible humanity
is an occasional flitting eye under a raised eyebrow in the corner
of a window pane.

The Invisible Man amused himself for a little while by breaking all
the windows in the "Coach and Horses," and then he thrust a street
lamp through the parlour window of Mrs. Gribble. He it must have
been who cut the telegraph wire to Adderdean just beyond Higgins'
cottage on the Adderdean road. And after that, as his peculiar
qualities allowed, he passed out of human perceptions altogether,
and he was neither heard, seen, nor felt in Iping any more. He
vanished absolutely.

But it was the best part of two hours before any human being
ventured out again into the desolation of Iping street.



CHAPTER XIII

MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION


When the dusk was gathering and Iping was just beginning to peep
timorously forth again upon the shattered wreckage of its Bank
Holiday, a short, thick-set man in a shabby silk hat was marching
painfully through the twilight behind the beechwoods on the road to
Bramblehurst. He carried three books bound together by some sort
of ornamental elastic ligature, and a bundle wrapped in a blue
table-cloth. His rubicund face expressed consternation and fatigue;
he appeared to be in a spasmodic sort of hurry. He was accompanied
by a voice other than his own, and ever and again he winced under
the touch of unseen hands.

"If you give me the slip again," said the Voice, "if you attempt to
give me the slip again--"

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "That shoulder's a mass of bruises as it
is."

"On my honour," said the Voice, "I will kill you."

"I didn't try to give you the slip," said Marvel, in a voice that
was not far remote from tears. "I swear I didn't. I didn't know the
blessed turning, that was all! How the devil was I to know the
blessed turning? As it is, I've been knocked about--"

"You'll get knocked about a great deal more if you don't mind,"
said the Voice, and Mr. Marvel abruptly became silent. He blew out
his cheeks, and his eyes were eloquent of despair.

"It's bad enough to let these floundering yokels explode my little
secret, without _your_ cutting off with my books. It's lucky for some
of them they cut and ran when they did! Here am I ... No one knew I
was invisible! And now what am I to do?"

"What am _I_ to do?" asked Marvel, _sotto voce_.

"It's all about. It will be in the papers! Everybody will be
looking for me; everyone on their guard--" The Voice broke off
into vivid curses and ceased.

The despair of Mr. Marvel's face deepened, and his pace slackened.

"Go on!" said the Voice.

Mr. Marvel's face assumed a greyish tint between the ruddier
patches.

"Don't drop those books, stupid," said the Voice, sharply--overtaking
him.

"The fact is," said the Voice, "I shall have to make use of you....
You're a poor tool, but I must."

"I'm a _miserable_ tool," said Marvel.

"You are," said the Voice.

"I'm the worst possible tool you could have," said Marvel.

"I'm not strong," he said after a discouraging silence.

"I'm not over strong," he repeated.

"No?"

"And my heart's weak. That little business--I pulled it through,
of course--but bless you! I could have dropped."

"Well?"

"I haven't the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you want."

"_I'll_ stimulate you."

"I wish you wouldn't. I wouldn't like to mess up your plans, you
know. But I might--out of sheer funk and misery."

"You'd better not," said the Voice, with quiet emphasis.

"I wish I was dead," said Marvel.

"It ain't justice," he said; "you must admit.... It seems to me I've
a perfect right--"

"_Get_ on!" said the Voice.

Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a time they went in silence
again.

"It's devilish hard," said Mr. Marvel.

This was quite ineffectual. He tried another tack.

"What do I make by it?" he began again in a tone of unendurable
wrong.

"Oh! _shut up_!" said the Voice, with sudden amazing vigour. "I'll
see to you all right. You do what you're told. You'll do it all
right. You're a fool and all that, but you'll do--"

"I tell you, sir, I'm not the man for it. Respectfully--but
it _is_ so--"

"If you don't shut up I shall twist your wrist again," said the
Invisible Man. "I want to think."

Presently two oblongs of yellow light appeared through the trees,
and the square tower of a church loomed through the gloaming. "I
shall keep my hand on your shoulder," said the Voice, "all through
the village. Go straight through and try no foolery. It will be the
worse for you if you do."

"I know that," sighed Mr. Marvel, "I know all that."

The unhappy-looking figure in the obsolete silk hat passed up the
street of the little village with his burdens, and vanished into
the gathering darkness beyond the lights of the windows.



CHAPTER XIV

AT PORT STOWE


Ten o'clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and
travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep
in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and
inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside
a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the
books, but now they were tied with string. The bundle had been
abandoned in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with
a change in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel sat on the
bench, and although no one took the slightest notice of him, his
agitation remained at fever heat. His hands would go ever and again
to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling.

When he had been sitting for the best part of an hour, however, an
elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat
down beside him. "Pleasant day," said the mariner.

Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror.
"Very," he said.

"Just seasonable weather for the time of year," said the mariner,
taking no denial.

"Quite," said Mr. Marvel.

The mariner produced a toothpick, and (saving his regard) was
engrossed thereby for some minutes. His eyes meanwhile were at
liberty to examine Mr. Marvel's dusty figure, and the books beside
him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the
dropping of coins into a pocket. He was struck by the contrast of
Mr. Marvel's appearance with this suggestion of opulence. Thence
his mind wandered back again to a topic that had taken a curiously
firm hold of his imagination.

"Books?" he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick.

Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes,
they're books."

"There's some extra-ordinary things in books," said the mariner.

"I believe you," said Mr. Marvel.

"And some extra-ordinary things out of 'em," said the mariner.

"True likewise," said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and
then glanced about him.

"There's some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for example,"
said the mariner.

"There are."

"In _this_ newspaper," said the mariner.

"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel.

"There's a story," said the mariner, fixing Mr. Marvel with an eye
that was firm and deliberate; "there's a story about an Invisible
Man, for instance."

Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt
his ears glowing. "What will they be writing next?" he asked
faintly. "Ostria, or America?"

"Neither," said the mariner. "_Here_."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, starting.

"When I say _here_," said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel's intense
relief, "I don't of course mean here in this place, I mean
hereabouts."

"An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel. "And what's _he_ been up to?"

"Everything," said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye,
and then amplifying, "every--blessed--thing."

"I ain't seen a paper these four days," said Marvel.

"Iping's the place he started at," said the mariner.

"In-_deed_!" said Mr. Marvel.

"He started there. And where he came from, nobody don't seem to
know. Here it is: 'Pe-culiar Story from Iping.' And it says in this
paper that the evidence is extra-ordinary strong--extra-ordinary."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.

"But then, it's an extra-ordinary story. There is a clergyman and a
medical gent witnesses--saw 'im all right and proper--or leastways
didn't see 'im. He was staying, it says, at the 'Coach an' Horses,'
and no one don't seem to have been aware of his misfortune, it says,
aware of his misfortune, until in an Altercation in the inn, it
says, his bandages on his head was torn off. It was then ob-served
that his head was invisible. Attempts were At Once made to secure
him, but casting off his garments, it says, he succeeded in
escaping, but not until after a desperate struggle, in which he
had inflicted serious injuries, it says, on our worthy and able
constable, Mr. J. A. Jaffers. Pretty straight story, eh? Names and
everything."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking nervously about him, trying to
count the money in his pockets by his unaided sense of touch, and
full of a strange and novel idea. "It sounds most astonishing."

"Don't it? Extra-ordinary, _I_ call it. Never heard tell of Invisible
Men before, I haven't, but nowadays one hears such a lot of
extra-ordinary things--that--"

"That all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease.

"It's enough, ain't it?" said the mariner.

"Didn't go Back by any chance?" asked Marvel. "Just escaped and
that's all, eh?"

"All!" said the mariner. "Why!--ain't it enough?"

"Quite enough," said Marvel.

"I should think it was enough," said the mariner. "I should think
it was enough."

"He didn't have any pals--it don't say he had any pals, does it?"
asked Mr. Marvel, anxious.

"Ain't one of a sort enough for you?" asked the mariner. "No, thank
Heaven, as one might say, he didn't."

He nodded his head slowly. "It makes me regular uncomfortable,
the bare thought of that chap running about the country! He is at
present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he
has--taken--_took_, I suppose they mean--the road to Port Stowe. You
see we're right _in_ it! None of your American wonders, this time.
And just think of the things he might do! Where'd you be, if he took
a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he
wants to rob--who can prevent him? He can trespass, he can burgle,
he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you
could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind
chaps hear uncommon sharp, I'm told. And wherever there was liquor
he fancied--"

"He's got a tremenjous advantage, certainly," said Mr. Marvel.
"And--well..."

"You're right," said the mariner. "He _has_."

All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently,
listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible
movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He
coughed behind his hand.

He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and
lowered his voice: "The fact of it is--I happen--to know just a
thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources."

"Oh!" said the mariner, interested. "_You_?"

"Yes," said Mr. Marvel. "Me."

"Indeed!" said the mariner. "And may I ask--"

"You'll be astonished," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. "It's
tremenjous."

"Indeed!" said the mariner.

"The fact is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone.
Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. "Ow!" he said. He rose
stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering.
"Wow!" he said.

"What's up?" said the mariner, concerned.

"Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught
hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He
edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor.
"But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!"
protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself.
"Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a hoax," said Mr. Marvel.

"But it's in the paper," said the mariner.

"Hoax all the same," said Marvel. "I know the chap that started the
lie. There ain't no Invisible Man whatsoever--Blimey."

"But how 'bout this paper? D'you mean to say--?"

"Not a word of it," said Marvel, stoutly.

The mariner stared, paper in hand. Mr. Marvel jerkily faced about.
"Wait a bit," said the mariner, rising and speaking slowly, "D'you
mean to say--?"

"I do," said Mr. Marvel.

"Then why did you let me go on and tell you all this blarsted
stuff, then? What d'yer mean by letting a man make a fool of
himself like that for? Eh?"

Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks. The mariner was suddenly very red
indeed; he clenched his hands. "I been talking here this ten
minutes," he said; "and you, you little pot-bellied, leathery-faced
son of an old boot, couldn't have the elementary manners--"

"Don't you come bandying words with _me_," said Mr. Marvel.

"Bandying words! I'm a jolly good mind--"

"Come up," said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly whirled about
and started marching off in a curious spasmodic manner. "You'd
better move on," said the mariner. "Who's moving on?" said Mr.
Marvel. He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with
occasional violent jerks forward. Some way along the road he began
a muttered monologue, protests and recriminations.

"Silly devil!" said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo,
watching the receding figure. "I'll show you, you silly ass--hoaxing
_me_! It's here--on the paper!"

Mr. Marvel retorted incoherently and, receding, was hidden by a bend
in the road, but the mariner still stood magnificent in the midst
of the way, until the approach of a butcher's cart dislodged him.
Then he turned himself towards Port Stowe. "Full of extra-ordinary
asses," he said softly to himself. "Just to take me down a bit--that
was his silly game--It's on the paper!"

And there was another extraordinary thing he was presently to hear,
that had happened quite close to him. And that was a vision of a
"fist full of money" (no less) travelling without visible agency,
along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael's Lane. A brother
mariner had seen this wonderful sight that very morning. He had
snatched at the money forthwith and had been knocked headlong, and
when he had got to his feet the butterfly money had vanished. Our
mariner was in the mood to believe anything, he declared, but that
was a bit _too_ stiff. Afterwards, however, he began to think things
over.

The story of the flying money was true. And all about that
neighbourhood, even from the august London and Country Banking
Company, from the tills of shops and inns--doors standing that sunny
weather entirely open--money had been quietly and dexterously making
off that day in handfuls and rouleaux, floating quietly along by
walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of
men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its
mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the
obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts
of Port Stowe.

It was ten days after--and indeed only when the Burdock story was
already old--that the mariner collated these facts and began to
understand how near he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man.



CHAPTER XV

THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING


In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the
belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little
room, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelves
covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad
writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass
slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of
reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still
bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there
was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down.
Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a
moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he
hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think
of it.

And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunset
blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a
minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden
colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the
little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow
towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat,
and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled.

"Another of those fools," said Dr. Kemp. "Like that ass who ran
into me this morning round a corner, with the ''Visible Man
a-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possess people. One might
think we were in the thirteenth century."

He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, and
the dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confounded
hurry," said Dr. Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. If
his pockets were full of lead, he couldn't run heavier."

"Spurted, sir," said Dr. Kemp.

In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the
hill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visible
again for a moment, and again, and then again, three times between
the three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hid
him.

"Asses!" said Dr. Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walking
back to his writing-table.

But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived the abject
terror on his perspiring face, being themselves in the open roadway,
did not share in the doctor's contempt. By the man pounded, and as
he ran he chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to and
fro. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but his dilated
eyes stared straight downhill to where the lamps were being lit, and
the people were crowded in the street. And his ill-shaped mouth fell
apart, and a glairy foam lay on his lips, and his breath came hoarse
and noisy. All he passed stopped and began staring up the road and
down, and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfort
for the reason of his haste.

And then presently, far up the hill, a dog playing in the road
yelped and ran under a gate, and as they still wondered
something--a wind--a pad, pad, pad,--a sound like a panting breathing,
rushed by.

People screamed. People sprang off the pavement: It passed in
shouts, it passed by instinct down the hill. They were shouting in
the street before Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting into
houses and slamming the doors behind them, with the news. He heard
it and made one last desperate spurt. Fear came striding by, rushed
ahead of him, and in a moment had seized the town.

"The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man!"



CHAPTER XVI

IN THE "JOLLY CRICKETERS"


The "Jolly Cricketers" is just at the bottom of the hill, where the
tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter
and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded
man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and
conversed in American with a policeman off duty.

"What's the shouting about!" said the anaemic cabman, going off at a
tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in
the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. "Fire, perhaps,"
said the barman.

Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open
violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the
neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and
attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap.

"Coming!" he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. "He's coming.
The 'Visible Man! After me! For Gawd's sake! 'Elp! 'Elp! 'Elp!"

"Shut the doors," said the policeman. "Who's coming? What's the
row?" He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The
American closed the other door.

"Lemme go inside," said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still
clutching the books. "Lemme go inside. Lock me in--somewhere. I
tell you he's after me. I give him the slip. He said he'd kill me
and he will."

"_You're_ safe," said the man with the black beard. "The door's shut.
What's it all about?"

"Lemme go inside," said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow
suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried
rapping and a shouting outside. "Hullo," cried the policeman, "who's
there?" Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked
like doors. "He'll kill me--he's got a knife or something. For
Gawd's sake--!"

"Here you are," said the barman. "Come in here." And he held up the
flap of the bar.

Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was
repeated. "Don't open the door," he screamed. "_Please_ don't open
the door. _Where_ shall I hide?"

"This, this Invisible Man, then?" asked the man with the black
beard, with one hand behind him. "I guess it's about time we saw
him."

The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a
screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had
been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at
the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. "It's that," he said.
The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now
locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window, and came round
to the two other men.

Everything was suddenly quiet. "I wish I had my truncheon," said
the policeman, going irresolutely to the door. "Once we open, in he
comes. There's no stopping him."

"Don't you be in too much hurry about that door," said the anaemic
cabman, anxiously.

"Draw the bolts," said the man with the black beard, "and if he
comes--" He showed a revolver in his hand.

"That won't do," said the policeman; "that's murder."

"I know what country I'm in," said the man with the beard. "I'm
going to let off at his legs. Draw the bolts."

"Not with that blinking thing going off behind me," said the
barman, craning over the blind.

"Very well," said the man with the black beard, and stooping down,
revolver ready, drew them himself. Barman, cabman, and policeman
faced about.

"Come in," said the bearded man in an undertone, standing back and
facing the unbolted doors with his pistol behind him. No one came
in, the door remained closed. Five minutes afterwards when a second
cabman pushed his head in cautiously, they were still waiting, and
an anxious face peered out of the bar-parlour and supplied
information. "Are all the doors of the house shut?" asked Marvel.
"He's going round--prowling round. He's as artful as the devil."

"Good Lord!" said the burly barman. "There's the back! Just watch
them doors! I say--!" He looked about him helplessly. The
bar-parlour door slammed and they heard the key turn. "There's
the yard door and the private door. The yard door--"

He rushed out of the bar.

In a minute he reappeared with a carving-knife in his hand. "The
yard door was open!" he said, and his fat underlip dropped. "He may
be in the house now!" said the first cabman.

"He's not in the kitchen," said the barman. "There's two women
there, and I've stabbed every inch of it with this little beef
slicer. And they don't think he's come in. They haven't noticed--"

"Have you fastened it?" asked the first cabman.

"I'm out of frocks," said the barman.

The man with the beard replaced his revolver. And even as he did so
the flap of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then
with a tremendous thud the catch of the door snapped and the
bar-parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught
leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his
rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass at
the back of the parlour starred and came smashing and tinkling down.

As the barman entered the room he saw Marvel, curiously crumpled up
and struggling against the door that led to the yard and kitchen.
The door flew open while the barman hesitated, and Marvel was
dragged into the kitchen. There was a scream and a clatter of pans.
Marvel, head down, and lugging back obstinately, was forced to the
kitchen door, and the bolts were drawn.

Then the policeman, who had been trying to pass the barman, rushed
in, followed by one of the cabmen, gripped the wrist of the
invisible hand that collared Marvel, was hit in the face and went
reeling back. The door opened, and Marvel made a frantic effort to
obtain a lodgment behind it. Then the cabman collared something.
"I got him," said the cabman. The barman's red hands came clawing
at the unseen. "Here he is!" said the barman.

Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly dropped to the ground and made an
attempt to crawl behind the legs of the fighting men. The struggle
blundered round the edge of the door. The voice of the Invisible
Man was heard for the first time, yelling out sharply, as the
policeman trod on his foot. Then he cried out passionately and
his fists flew round like flails. The cabman suddenly whooped
and doubled up, kicked under the diaphragm. The door into the
bar-parlour from the kitchen slammed and covered Mr. Marvel's
retreat. The men in the kitchen found themselves clutching at and
struggling with empty air.

"Where's he gone?" cried the man with the beard. "Out?"

"This way," said the policeman, stepping into the yard and
stopping.

A piece of tile whizzed by his head and smashed among the crockery
on the kitchen table.

"I'll show him," shouted the man with the black beard, and suddenly
a steel barrel shone over the policeman's shoulder, and five
bullets had followed one another into the twilight whence the
missile had come. As he fired, the man with the beard moved his
hand in a horizontal curve, so that his shots radiated out into the
narrow yard like spokes from a wheel.

A silence followed. "Five cartridges," said the man with the black
beard. "That's the best of all. Four aces and a joker. Get a
lantern, someone, and come and feel about for his body."



CHAPTER XVII

DR. KEMP'S VISITOR


Dr. Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots
aroused him. Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other.

"Hullo!" said Dr. Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and
listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the
asses at now?"

He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared
down on the network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops, with its
black interstices of roof and yard that made up the town at night.
"Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'"
and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far
away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed--a little
illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon
in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were
clear and almost tropically bright.

After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a
remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost
itself at last over the time dimension, Dr. Kemp roused himself
with a sigh, pulled down the window again, and returned to his
writing desk.

It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell
rang. He had been writing slackly, and with intervals of
abstraction, since the shots. He sat listening. He heard the servant
answer the door, and waited for her feet on the staircase, but she
did not come. "Wonder what that was," said Dr. Kemp.

He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from
his study to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to
the housemaid as she appeared in the hall below. "Was that a
letter?" he asked.

"Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered.

"I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his
study, and this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little
while he was hard at work again, and the only sounds in the room
were the ticking of the clock and the subdued shrillness of his
quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of light his
lampshade threw on his table.

It was two o'clock before Dr. Kemp had finished his work for the
night. He rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already
removed his coat and vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He
took a candle and went down to the dining-room in search of a
syphon and whiskey.

Dr. Kemp's scientific pursuits have made him a very observant
man, and as he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the
linoleum near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He went on
upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to him to ask himself what
the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some subconscious
element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went
back to the hall, put down the syphon and whiskey, and bending
down, touched the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had
the stickiness and colour of drying blood.

He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about
him and trying to account for the blood-spot. On the landing he saw
something and stopped astonished. The door-handle of his own room
was blood-stained.

He looked at his own hand. It was quite clean, and then he
remembered that the door of his room had been open when he came down
from his study, and that consequently he had not touched the handle
at all. He went straight into his room, his face quite calm--perhaps
a trifle more resolute than usual. His glance, wandering
inquisitively, fell on the bed. On the counterpane was a mess of
blood, and the sheet had been torn. He had not noticed this before
because he had walked straight to the dressing-table. On the further
side the bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been recently
sitting there.

Then he had an odd impression that he had heard a low voice say,
"Good Heavens!--Kemp!" But Dr. Kemp was no believer in voices.

He stood staring at the tumbled sheets. Was that really a voice? He
looked about again, but noticed nothing further than the disordered
and blood-stained bed. Then he distinctly heard a movement across
the room, near the wash-hand stand. All men, however highly
educated, retain some superstitious inklings. The feeling that is
called "eerie" came upon him. He closed the door of the room, came
forward to the dressing-table, and put down his burdens. Suddenly,
with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of
linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand.

He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage
properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it,
but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him.

"Kemp!" said the Voice.

"Eh?" said Kemp, with his mouth open.

"Keep your nerve," said the Voice. "I'm an Invisible Man."

Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage.
"Invisible Man," he said.

"I am an Invisible Man," repeated the Voice.

The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed
through Kemp's brain. He does not appear to have been either very
much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment.
Realisation came later.

"I thought it was all a lie," he said. The thought uppermost in his
mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. "Have you a
bandage on?" he asked.

"Yes," said the Invisible Man.

"Oh!" said Kemp, and then roused himself. "I say!" he said. "But
this is nonsense. It's some trick." He stepped forward suddenly,
and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers.

He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed.

"Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!"

The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it.

"Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip
tightened.

A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand
of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly
tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to
shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth.
The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and
he struck and tried to kick savagely.

"Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to
him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden
me in a minute!

"Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear.

Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still.

"If you shout, I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man,
relieving his mouth.

"I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really
am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt
you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you
remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?"

"Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit
quiet for a minute."

He sat up and felt his neck.

"I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself
invisible. I am just an ordinary man--a man you have known--made
invisible."

"Griffin?" said Kemp.

"Griffin," answered the Voice. A younger student than you were,
almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white
face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry."

"I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to
do with Griffin?"

"I _am_ Griffin."

Kemp thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must
happen to make a man invisible?"

"It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough--"

"It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth--?"

"It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded and in pain, and tired ...
Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food
and drink, and let me sit down here."

Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a
basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed.
It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so.
He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he
said, and laughed stupidly.

"That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!"

"Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes.

"Give me some whiskey. I'm near dead."

"It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you?
_There_! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?"

The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He
let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to
rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the
chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. "This is--this
must be--hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible."

"Nonsense," said the Voice.

"It's frantic."

"Listen to me."

"I demonstrated conclusively this morning," began Kemp, "that
invisibility--"

"Never mind what you've demonstrated!--I'm starving," said the
Voice, "and the night is chilly to a man without clothes."

"Food?" said Kemp.

The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. "Yes," said the Invisible Man
rapping it down. "Have you a dressing-gown?"

Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe
and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was
taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered
weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in
his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the
Unseen, curtly. "And food."

"Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my
life!"

He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs
to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and
bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest.
"Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air,
with a sound of gnawing.

"Invisible!" said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair.

"I always like to get something about me before I eat," said the
Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. "Queer fancy!"

"I suppose that wrist is all right," said Kemp.

"Trust me," said the Invisible Man.

"Of all the strange and wonderful--"

"Exactly. But it's odd I should blunder into _your_ house to get my
bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow I meant to sleep in this
house to-night. You must stand that! It's a filthy nuisance, my
blood showing, isn't it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as
it coagulates, I see. It's only the living tissue I've changed, and
only for as long as I'm alive.... I've been in the house three hours."

"But how's it done?" began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation.
"Confound it! The whole business--it's unreasonable from
beginning to end."

"Quite reasonable," said the Invisible Man. "Perfectly reasonable."

He reached over and secured the whiskey bottle. Kemp stared at the
devouring dressing gown. A ray of candle-light penetrating a torn
patch in the right shoulder, made a triangle of light under the
left ribs. "What were the shots?" he asked. "How did the shooting
begin?"

"There was a real fool of a man--a sort of confederate of
mine--curse him!--who tried to steal my money. _Has_ done so."

"Is _he_ invisible too?"

"No."

"Well?"

"Can't I have some more to eat before I tell you all that? I'm
hungry--in pain. And you want me to tell stories!"

Kemp got up. "_You_ didn't do any shooting?" he asked.

"Not me," said his visitor. "Some fool I'd never seen fired at
random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse
them!--I say--I want more to eat than this, Kemp."

"I'll see what there is to eat downstairs," said Kemp. "Not much,
I'm afraid."

After he had done eating, and he made a heavy meal, the Invisible
Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely before Kemp could
find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened. It was
strange to see him smoking; his mouth, and throat, pharynx and
nares, became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast.

"This blessed gift of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously.
"I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy
tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape--I've been mad,
I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things yet.
Let me tell you--"

He helped himself to more whiskey and soda. Kemp got up, looked
about him, and fetched a glass from his spare room. "It's wild--but
I suppose I may drink."

"You haven't changed much, Kemp, these dozen years. You fair men
don't. Cool and methodical--after the first collapse. I must tell
you. We will work together!"

"But how was it all done?" said Kemp, "and how did you get like
this?"

"For God's sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then
I will begin to tell you."

But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man's wrist
was growing painful; he was feverish, exhausted, and his mind came
round to brood upon his chase down the hill and the struggle about
the inn. He spoke in fragments of Marvel, he smoked faster, his
voice grew angry. Kemp tried to gather what he could.

"He was afraid of me, I could see that he was afraid of me," said
the Invisible Man many times over. "He meant to give me the slip--he
was always casting about! What a fool I was!"

"The cur!

"I should have killed him!"

"Where did you get the money?" asked Kemp, abruptly.

The Invisible Man was silent for a space. "I can't tell you
to-night," he said.

He groaned suddenly and leant forward, supporting his invisible
head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for
near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. I
must sleep soon."

"Well, have my room--have this room."

"But how can I sleep? If I sleep--he will get away. Ugh! What
does it matter?"

"What's the shot wound?" asked Kemp, abruptly.

"Nothing--scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!"

"Why not?"

The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. "Because I've a
particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men," he said
slowly.

Kemp started.

"Fool that I am!" said the Invisible Man, striking the table
smartly. "I've put the idea into your head."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE INVISIBLE MAN SLEEPS


Exhausted and wounded as the Invisible Man was, he refused to accept
Kemp's word that his freedom should be respected. He examined the
two windows of the bedroom, drew up the blinds and opened the
sashes, to confirm Kemp's statement that a retreat by them would be
possible. Outside the night was very quiet and still, and the new
moon was setting over the down. Then he examined the keys of the
bedroom and the two dressing-room doors, to satisfy himself that
these also could be made an assurance of freedom. Finally he
expressed himself satisfied. He stood on the hearth rug and Kemp
heard the sound of a yawn.

"I'm sorry," said the Invisible Man, "if I cannot tell you all that
I have done to-night. But I am worn out. It's grotesque, no doubt.
It's horrible! But believe me, Kemp, in spite of your arguments of
this morning, it is quite a possible thing. I have made a discovery.
I meant to keep it to myself. I can't. I must have a partner. And
you.... We can do such things ... But to-morrow. Now, Kemp, I feel
as though I must sleep or perish."

Kemp stood in the middle of the room staring at the headless garment.
"I suppose I must leave you," he said. "It's--incredible. Three
things happening like this, overturning all my preconceptions--would
make me insane. But it's real! Is there anything more that I can
get you?"

"Only bid me good-night," said Griffin.

"Good-night," said Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked
sideways to the door. Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly
towards him. "Understand me!" said the dressing-gown. "No attempts
to hamper me, or capture me! Or--"

Kemp's face changed a little. "I thought I gave you my word," he
said.

Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned upon
him forthwith. Then, as he stood with an expression of passive
amazement on his face, the rapid feet came to the door of the
dressing-room and that too was locked. Kemp slapped his brow with
his hand. "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad--or have I?"

He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. "Barred out of my
own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!" he said.

He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the
locked doors. "It's fact," he said. He put his fingers to his
slightly bruised neck. "Undeniable fact!

"But--"

He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs.

He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the
room, ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself.

"Invisible!" he said.

"Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? ... In the sea, yes.
Thousands--millions. All the larvae, all the little nauplii and
tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish. In the sea
there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of
that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond-life
things--specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No!

"It can't be.

"But after all--why not?

"If a man was made of glass he would still be visible."

His meditation became profound. The bulk of three cigars had passed
into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before
he spoke again. Then it was merely an exclamation. He turned aside,
walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting-room and
lit the gas there. It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not
live by practice, and in it were the day's newspapers. The morning's
paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside. He caught it up,
turned it over, and read the account of a "Strange Story from Iping"
that the mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr.
Marvel. Kemp read it swiftly.

"Wrapped up!" said Kemp. "Disguised! Hiding it! 'No one seems to
have been aware of his misfortune.' What the devil _is_ his game?"

He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. "Ah!" he said, and
caught up the _St. James' Gazette_, lying folded up as it arrived.
"Now we shall get at the truth," said Dr. Kemp. He rent the paper
open; a couple of columns confronted him. "An Entire Village in
Sussex goes Mad" was the heading.

"Good Heavens!" said Kemp, reading eagerly an incredulous account
of the events in Iping, of the previous afternoon, that have
already been described. Over the leaf the report in the morning
paper had been reprinted.

He re-read it. "Ran through the streets striking right and left.
Jaffers insensible. Mr. Huxter in great pain--still unable to
describe what he saw. Painful humiliation--vicar. Woman ill with
terror! Windows smashed. This extraordinary story probably a
fabrication. Too good not to print--_cum grano_!"

He dropped the paper and stared blankly in front of him. "Probably
a fabrication!"

He caught up the paper again, and re-read the whole business. "But
when does the Tramp come in? Why the deuce was he chasing a tramp?"

He sat down abruptly on the surgical bench. "He's not only
invisible," he said, "but he's mad! Homicidal!"

When dawn came to mingle its pallor with the lamp-light and cigar
smoke of the dining-room, Kemp was still pacing up and down, trying
to grasp the incredible.

He was altogether too excited to sleep. His servants, descending
sleepily, discovered him, and were inclined to think that
over-study had worked this ill on him. He gave them extraordinary
but quite explicit instructions to lay breakfast for two in the
belvedere study--and then to confine themselves to the basement
and ground-floor. Then he continued to pace the dining-room until
the morning's paper came. That had much to say and little to tell,
beyond the confirmation of the evening before, and a very badly
written account of another remarkable tale from Port Burdock. This
gave Kemp the essence of the happenings at the "Jolly Cricketers,"
and the name of Marvel. "He has made me keep with him twenty-four
hours," Marvel testified. Certain minor facts were added to the
Iping story, notably the cutting of the village telegraph-wire.
But there was nothing to throw light on the connexion between
the Invisible Man and the Tramp; for Mr. Marvel had supplied no
information about the three books, or the money with which he was
lined. The incredulous tone had vanished and a shoal of reporters
and inquirers were already at work elaborating the matter.

Kemp read every scrap of the report and sent his housemaid out to
get everyone of the morning papers she could. These also he
devoured.

"He is invisible!" he said. "And it reads like rage growing to
mania! The things he may do! The things he may do! And he's
upstairs free as the air. What on earth ought I to do?"

"For instance, would it be a breach of faith if--? No."

He went to a little untidy desk in the corner, and began a note. He
tore this up half written, and wrote another. He read it over and
considered it. Then he took an envelope and addressed it to "Colonel
Adye, Port Burdock."

The Invisible Man awoke even as Kemp was doing this. He awoke in an
evil temper, and Kemp, alert for every sound, heard his pattering
feet rush suddenly across the bedroom overhead. Then a chair was
flung over and the wash-hand stand tumbler smashed. Kemp hurried
upstairs and rapped eagerly.



CHAPTER XIX

CERTAIN FIRST PRINCIPLES


"What's the matter?" asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man admitted him.

"Nothing," was the answer.

"But, confound it! The smash?"

"Fit of temper," said the Invisible Man. "Forgot this arm; and it's
sore."

"You're rather liable to that sort of thing."

"I am."

Kemp walked across the room and picked up the fragments of broken
glass. "All the facts are out about you," said Kemp, standing up
with the glass in his hand; "all that happened in Iping, and down
the hill. The world has become aware of its invisible citizen. But
no one knows you are here."

The Invisible Man swore.

"The secret's out. I gather it was a secret. I don't know what your
plans are, but of course I'm anxious to help you."

The Invisible Man sat down on the bed.

"There's breakfast upstairs," said Kemp, speaking as easily as
possible, and he was delighted to find his strange guest rose
willingly. Kemp led the way up the narrow staircase to the
belvedere.

"Before we can do anything else," said Kemp, "I must understand a
little more about this invisibility of yours." He had sat down,
after one nervous glance out of the window, with the air of a man
who has talking to do. His doubts of the sanity of the entire
business flashed and vanished again as he looked across to
where Griffin sat at the breakfast-table--a headless, handless
dressing-gown, wiping unseen lips on a miraculously held serviette.

"It's simple enough--and credible enough," said Griffin, putting
the serviette aside and leaning the invisible head on an invisible
hand.

"No doubt, to you, but--" Kemp laughed.

"Well, yes; to me it seemed wonderful at first, no doubt. But now,
great God! ... But we will do great things yet! I came on the stuff
first at Chesilstowe."

"Chesilstowe?"

"I went there after I left London. You know I dropped medicine and
took up physics? No; well, I did. _Light_ fascinated me."

"Ah!"

"Optical density! The whole subject is a network of riddles--a
network with solutions glimmering elusively through. And being but
two-and-twenty and full of enthusiasm, I said, 'I will devote my
life to this. This is worth while.' You know what fools we are at
two-and-twenty?"

"Fools then or fools now," said Kemp.

"As though knowing could be any satisfaction to a man!

"But I went to work--like a slave. And I had hardly worked and
thought about the matter six months before light came through one
of the meshes suddenly--blindingly! I found a general principle
of pigments and refraction--a formula, a geometrical expression
involving four dimensions. Fools, common men, even common
mathematicians, do not know anything of what some general expression
may mean to the student of molecular physics. In the books--the
books that tramp has hidden--there are marvels, miracles! But this
was not a method, it was an idea, that might lead to a method by
which it would be possible, without changing any other property of
matter--except, in some instances colours--to lower the refractive
index of a substance, solid or liquid, to that of air--so far as all
practical purposes are concerned."

"Phew!" said Kemp. "That's odd! But still I don't see quite ... I
can understand that thereby you could spoil a valuable stone, but
personal invisibility is a far cry."

"Precisely," said Griffin. "But consider, visibility depends on the
action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light,
or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it
neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of
itself be visible. You see an opaque red box, for instance, because
the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the
red part of the light, to you. If it did not absorb any particular
part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining
white box. Silver! A diamond box would neither absorb much of the
light nor reflect much from the general surface, but just here
and there where the surfaces were favourable the light would
be reflected and refracted, so that you would get a brilliant
appearance of flashing reflections and translucencies--a sort of
skeleton of light. A glass box would not be so brilliant, not so
clearly visible, as a diamond box, because there would be less
refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points of view
you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would
be more visible than others, a box of flint glass would be brighter
than a box of ordinary window glass. A box of very thin common
glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb
hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you
put a sheet of common white glass in water, still more if you
put it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost
altogether, because light passing from water to glass is only
slightly refracted or reflected or indeed affected in any way.
It is almost as invisible as a jet of coal gas or hydrogen is in
air. And for precisely the same reason!"

"Yes," said Kemp, "that is pretty plain sailing."

"And here is another fact you will know to be true. If a sheet of
glass is smashed, Kemp, and beaten into a powder, it becomes much
more visible while it is in the air; it becomes at last an opaque
white powder. This is because the powdering multiplies the surfaces
of the glass at which refraction and reflection occur. In the sheet
of glass there are only two surfaces; in the powder the light is
reflected or refracted by each grain it passes through, and very
little gets right through the powder. But if the white powdered
glass is put into water, it forthwith vanishes. The powdered glass
and water have much the same refractive index; that is, the light
undergoes very little refraction or reflection in passing from one
to the other.

"You make the glass invisible by putting it into a liquid of nearly
the same refractive index; a transparent thing becomes invisible if
it is put in any medium of almost the same refractive index. And if
you will consider only a second, you will see also that the powder
of glass might be made to vanish in air, if its refractive index
could be made the same as that of air; for then there would be no
refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air."

"Yes, yes," said Kemp. "But a man's not powdered glass!"

"No," said Griffin. "He's more transparent!"

"Nonsense!"

"That from a doctor! How one forgets! Have you already forgotten
your physics, in ten years? Just think of all the things that are
transparent and seem not to be so. Paper, for instance, is made up
of transparent fibres, and it is white and opaque only for the same
reason that a powder of glass is white and opaque. Oil white paper,
fill up the interstices between the particles with oil so that there
is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, and
it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton
fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and _bone_, Kemp,
_flesh_, Kemp, _hair_, Kemp, _nails_ and _nerves_, Kemp, in fact
the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black
pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue.
So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the
most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than
water."

"Great Heavens!" cried Kemp. "Of course, of course! I was thinking
only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!"

"_Now_ you have me! And all that I knew and had in mind a year after
I left London--six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do
my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a
scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas--he
was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific
world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I
went on working; I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an
experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to
flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous
at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain
gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a
discovery in physiology."

"Yes?"

"You know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made
white--colourless--and remain with all the functions it has now!"

Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement.

The Invisible Man rose and began pacing the little study. "You may
well exclaim. I remember that night. It was late at night--in the
daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students--and I
worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and
complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the
tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments
I have been alone. 'One could make an animal--a tissue--transparent!
One could make it invisible! All except the pigments--I could be
invisible!' I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino
with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was
doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars.
'I could be invisible!' I repeated.

"To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld,
unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility
might mean to a man--the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks
I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck,
hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college,
might suddenly become--this. I ask you, Kemp if _you_ ... Anyone, I
tell you, would have flung himself upon that research. And I worked
three years, and every mountain of difficulty I toiled over showed
another from its summit. The infinite details! And the exasperation!
A professor, a provincial professor, always prying. 'When are you
going to publish this work of yours?' was his everlasting question.
And the students, the cramped means! Three years I had of it--

"And after three years of secrecy and exasperation, I found that to
complete it was impossible--impossible."

"How?" asked Kemp.

"Money," said the Invisible Man, and went again to stare out of the
window.

He turned around abruptly. "I robbed the old man--robbed my
father.

"The money was not his, and he shot himself."



CHAPTER XX

AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET


For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the
headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought,
rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from the
outlook.

"You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Have
my chair."

He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window.

For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly:

"I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when that
happened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, a
large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum
near Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliances
I had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily,
successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from a
thicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to
bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift
a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap
hearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and the
old college friend of his who read the service over him--a shabby,
black, bent old man with a snivelling cold.

"I remember walking back to the empty house, through the place that
had once been a village and was now patched and tinkered by the
jerry builders into the ugly likeness of a town. Every way the
roads ran out at last into the desecrated fields and ended in
rubble heaps and rank wet weeds. I remember myself as a gaunt black
figure, going along the slippery, shiny pavement, and the strange
sense of detachment I felt from the squalid respectability, the
sordid commercialism of the place.

"I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be
the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cant
required my attendance at his funeral, but it was really not my
affair.

"But going along the High Street, my old life came back to me
for a space, for I met the girl I had known ten years since.
Our eyes met.

"Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a very
ordinary person.

"It was all like a dream, that visit to the old places. I did not
feel then that I was lonely, that I had come out from the world
into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy, but I put
it down to the general inanity of things. Re-entering my room
seemed like the recovery of reality. There were the things I knew
and loved. There stood the apparatus, the experiments arranged and
waiting. And now there was scarcely a difficulty left, beyond the
planning of details.

"I will tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicated
processes. We need not go into that now. For the most part, saving
certain gaps I chose to remember, they are written in cypher in
those books that tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We must
get those books again. But the essential phase was to place the
transparent object whose refractive index was to be lowered between
two radiating centres of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which I
will tell you more fully later. No, not those Roentgen vibrations--I
don't know that these others of mine have been described. Yet
they are obvious enough. I needed two little dynamos, and these I
worked with a cheap gas engine. My first experiment was with a bit
of white wool fabric. It was the strangest thing in the world to
see it in the flicker of the flashes soft and white, and then to
watch it fade like a wreath of smoke and vanish.

"I could scarcely believe I had done it. I put my hand into the
emptiness, and there was the thing as solid as ever. I felt it
awkwardly, and threw it on the floor. I had a little trouble
finding it again.

"And then came a curious experience. I heard a miaow behind me, and
turning, saw a lean white cat, very dirty, on the cistern cover
outside the window. A thought came into my head. 'Everything ready
for you,' I said, and went to the window, opened it, and called
softly. She came in, purring--the poor beast was starving--and
I gave her some milk. All my food was in a cupboard in the
corner of the room. After that she went smelling round the room,
evidently with the idea of making herself at home. The invisible
rag upset her a bit; you should have seen her spit at it! But I
made her comfortable on the pillow of my truckle-bed. And I gave
her butter to get her to wash."

"And you processed her?"

"I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And
the process failed."

"Failed!"

"In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff,
what is it?--at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?"

"_Tapetum_."

"Yes, the _tapetum_. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff to
bleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave the
beast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on the
apparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, there
remained two little ghosts of her eyes."

"Odd!"

"I can't explain it. She was bandaged and clamped, of course--so
I had her safe; but she woke while she was still misty, and miaowed
dismally, and someone came knocking. It was an old woman from
downstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting--a drink-sodden old
creature, with only a white cat to care for in all the world. I
whipped out some chloroform, applied it, and answered the door.
'Did I hear a cat?' she asked. 'My cat?' 'Not here,' said I, very
politely. She was a little doubtful and tried to peer past me into
the room; strange enough to her no doubt--bare walls, uncurtained
windows, truckle-bed, with the gas engine vibrating, and the
seethe of the radiant points, and that faint ghastly stinging of
chloroform in the air. She had to be satisfied at last and went
away again."

"How long did it take?" asked Kemp.

"Three or four hours--the cat. The bones and sinews and the fat
were the last to go, and the tips of the coloured hairs. And, as I
say, the back part of the eye, tough, iridescent stuff it is,
wouldn't go at all.

"It was night outside long before the business was over, and nothing
was to be seen but the dim eyes and the claws. I stopped the gas
engine, felt for and stroked the beast, which was still insensible,
and then, being tired, left it sleeping on the invisible pillow and
went to bed. I found it hard to sleep. I lay awake thinking weak
aimless stuff, going over the experiment over and over again, or
dreaming feverishly of things growing misty and vanishing about me,
until everything, the ground I stood on, vanished, and so I came to
that sickly falling nightmare one gets. About two, the cat began
miaowing about the room. I tried to hush it by talking to it, and
then I decided to turn it out. I remember the shock I had when
striking a light--there were just the round eyes shining green--and
nothing round them. I would have given it milk, but I hadn't any. It
wouldn't be quiet, it just sat down and miaowed at the door. I tried
to catch it, with an idea of putting it out of the window, but it
wouldn't be caught, it vanished. Then it began miaowing in different
parts of the room. At last I opened the window and made a bustle. I
suppose it went out at last. I never saw any more of it.

"Then--Heaven knows why--I fell thinking of my father's funeral
again, and the dismal windy hillside, until the day had come. I
found sleeping was hopeless, and, locking my door after me,
wandered out into the morning streets."

"You don't mean to say there's an invisible cat at large!" said
Kemp.

"If it hasn't been killed," said the Invisible Man. "Why not?"

"Why not?" said Kemp. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's very probably been killed," said the Invisible Man. "It
was alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in Great
Titchfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, trying
to see whence the miaowing came."

He was silent for the best part of a minute. Then he resumed
abruptly:

"I remember that morning before the change very vividly. I must have
gone up Great Portland Street. I remember the barracks in Albany
Street, and the horse soldiers coming out, and at last I found the
summit of Primrose Hill. It was a sunny day in January--one of those
sunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year. My weary
brain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action.

"I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how
inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked
out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left
me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I
tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries,
the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even the
downfall of my father's grey hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I saw
pretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and want
of sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible to
recover my energies.

"All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carried
through; the fixed idea still ruled me. And soon, for the money I
had was almost exhausted. I looked about me at the hillside, with
children playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of all
the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world.
After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of
strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed.
Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of
a man."

"It's the devil," said Kemp. "It's the palaeolithic in a bottle."

"I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?"

"I know the stuff."

"And there was someone rapping at the door. It was my landlord
with threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coat
and greasy slippers. I had been tormenting a cat in the night, he
was sure--the old woman's tongue had been busy. He insisted on
knowing all about it. The laws in this country against vivisection
were very severe--he might be liable. I denied the cat. Then the
vibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over the
house, he said. That was true, certainly. He edged round me into
the room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and a
sudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away something
of my secret. I tried to keep between him and the concentrating
apparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious. What
was I doing? Why was I always alone and secretive? Was it legal?
Was it dangerous? I paid nothing but the usual rent. His had always
been a most respectable house--in a disreputable neighbourhood.
Suddenly my temper gave way. I told him to get out. He began to
protest, to jabber of his right of entry. In a moment I had him by
the collar; something ripped, and he went spinning out into his own
passage. I slammed and locked the door and sat down quivering.

"He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time he
went away.

"But this brought matters to a crisis. I did not know what he
would do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to fresh
apartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twenty
pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank--and I
could not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then there
would be an inquiry, the sacking of my room.

"At the thought of the possibility of my work being exposed or
interrupted at its very climax, I became very angry and active. I
hurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque-book--the tramp
has them now--and directed them from the nearest Post Office to a
house of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street. I
tried to go out noiselessly. Coming in, I found my landlord going
quietly upstairs; he had heard the door close, I suppose. You would
have laughed to see him jump aside on the landing as came tearing
after him. He glared at me as I went by him, and I made the house
quiver with the slamming of my door. I heard him come shuffling up
to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I set to work upon my
preparations forthwith.

"It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sitting
under the sickly, drowsy influence of the drugs that decolourise
blood, there came a repeated knocking at the door. It ceased,
footsteps went away and returned, and the knocking was resumed.
There was an attempt to push something under the door--a blue
paper. Then in a fit of irritation I rose and went and flung the
door wide open. 'Now then?' said I.

"It was my landlord, with a notice of ejectment or something. He
held it out to me, saw something odd about my hands, I expect, and
lifted his eyes to my face.

"For a moment he gaped. Then he gave a sort of inarticulate cry,
dropped candle and writ together, and went blundering down the dark
passage to the stairs. I shut the door, locked it, and went to the
looking-glass. Then I understood his terror.... My face was
white--like white stone.

"But it was all horrible. I had not expected the suffering. A night
of racking anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my teeth, though my
skin was presently afire, all my body afire; but I lay there like
grim death. I understood now how it was the cat had howled until I
chloroformed it. Lucky it was I lived alone and untended in my room.
There were times when I sobbed and groaned and talked. But I stuck
to it.... I became insensible and woke languid in the darkness.

"The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did not
care. I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror of
seeing that my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching them
grow clearer and thinner as the day went by, until at last I could
see the sickly disorder of my room through them, though I closed my
transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones and arteries
faded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I gritted
my teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips of
the fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of
some acid upon my fingers.

"I struggled up. At first I was as incapable as a swathed
infant--stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and very
hungry. I went and stared at nothing in my shaving-glass, at nothing
save where an attenuated pigment still remained behind the retina of
my eyes, fainter than mist. I had to hang on to the table and press
my forehead against the glass.

"It was only by a frantic effort of will that I dragged myself back
to the apparatus and completed the process.

"I slept during the forenoon, pulling the sheet over my eyes to shut
out the light, and about midday I was awakened again by a knocking.
My strength had returned. I sat up and listened and heard a
whispering. I sprang to my feet and as noiselessly as possible began
to detach the connections of my apparatus, and to distribute it
about the room, so as to destroy the suggestions of its arrangement.
Presently the knocking was renewed and voices called, first my
landlord's, and then two others. To gain time I answered them. The
invisible rag and pillow came to hand and I opened the window and
pitched them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, a
heavy crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the idea
of smashing the lock. But the stout bolts I had screwed up some
days before stopped him. That startled me, made me angry. I began
to tremble and do things hurriedly.

"I tossed together some loose paper, straw, packing paper and so
forth, in the middle of the room, and turned on the gas. Heavy
blows began to rain upon the door. I could not find the matches. I
beat my hands on the wall with rage. I turned down the gas again,
stepped out of the window on the cistern cover, very softly lowered
the sash, and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering with
anger, to watch events. They split a panel, I saw, and in another
moment they had broken away the staples of the bolts and stood in
the open doorway. It was the landlord and his two step-sons, sturdy
young men of three or four and twenty. Behind them fluttered the
old hag of a woman from downstairs.

"You may imagine their astonishment to find the room empty. One of
the younger men rushed to the window at once, flung it up and stared
out. His staring eyes and thick-lipped bearded face came a foot
from my face. I was half minded to hit his silly countenance, but I
arrested my doubled fist. He stared right through me. So did the
others as they joined him. The old man went and peered under the
bed, and then they all made a rush for the cupboard. They had to
argue about it at length in Yiddish and Cockney English. They
concluded I had not answered them, that their imagination had
deceived them. A feeling of extraordinary elation took the place
of my anger as I sat outside the window and watched these four
people--for the old lady came in, glancing suspiciously about her
like a cat, trying to understand the riddle of my behaviour.

"The old man, so far as I could understand his _patois_, agreed with
the old lady that I was a vivisectionist. The sons protested in
garbled English that I was an electrician, and appealed to the
dynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about my arrival,
although I found subsequently that they had bolted the front door.
The old lady peered into the cupboard and under the bed, and one of
the young men pushed up the register and stared up the chimney. One
of my fellow lodgers, a coster-monger who shared the opposite room
with a butcher, appeared on the landing, and he was called in and
told incoherent things.

"It occurred to me that the radiators, if they fell into the hands
of some acute well-educated person, would give me away too much,
and watching my opportunity, I came into the room and tilted one of
the little dynamos off its fellow on which it was standing, and
smashed both apparatus. Then, while they were trying to explain the
smash, I dodged out of the room and went softly downstairs.

"I went into one of the sitting-rooms and waited until they came
down, still speculating and argumentative, all a little disappointed
at finding no 'horrors,' and all a little puzzled how they stood
legally towards me. Then I slipped up again with a box of matches,
fired my heap of paper and rubbish, put the chairs and bedding
thereby, led the gas to the affair, by means of an india-rubber
tube, and waving a farewell to the room left it for the last time."

"You fired the house!" exclaimed Kemp.

"Fired the house. It was the only way to cover my trail--and no
doubt it was insured. I slipped the bolts of the front door quietly
and went out into the street. I was invisible, and I was only just
beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility
gave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild and
wonderful things I had now impunity to do."



CHAPTER XXI

IN OXFORD STREET


"In going downstairs the first time I found an unexpected difficulty
because I could not see my feet; indeed I stumbled twice, and there
was an unaccustomed clumsiness in gripping the bolt. By not looking
down, however, I managed to walk on the level passably well.

"My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man
might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the
blind. I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to
clap men on the back, fling people's hats astray, and generally
revel in my extraordinary advantage.

"But hardly had I emerged upon Great Portland Street, however (my
lodging was close to the big draper's shop there), when I heard a
clashing concussion and was hit violently behind, and turning saw
a man carrying a basket of soda-water syphons, and looking in
amazement at his burden. Although the blow had really hurt me, I
found something so irresistible in his astonishment that I laughed
aloud. 'The devil's in the basket,' I said, and suddenly twisted
it out of his hand. He let go incontinently, and I swung the whole
weight into the air.

"But a fool of a cabman, standing outside a public house, made a
sudden rush for this, and his extending fingers took me with
excruciating violence under the ear. I let the whole down with a
smash on the cabman, and then, with shouts and the clatter of feet
about me, people coming out of shops, vehicles pulling up, I
realised what I had done for myself, and cursing my folly, backed
against a shop window and prepared to dodge out of the confusion. In
a moment I should be wedged into a crowd and inevitably discovered.
I pushed by a butcher boy, who luckily did not turn to see the
nothingness that shoved him aside, and dodged behind the cab-man's
four-wheeler. I do not know how they settled the business, I hurried
straight across the road, which was happily clear, and hardly
heeding which way I went, in the fright of detection the incident
had given me, plunged into the afternoon throng of Oxford Street.

"I tried to get into the stream of people, but they were too thick
for me, and in a moment my heels were being trodden upon. I took to
the gutter, the roughness of which I found painful to my feet, and
forthwith the shaft of a crawling hansom dug me forcibly under the
shoulder blade, reminding me that I was already bruised severely. I
staggered out of the way of the cab, avoided a perambulator by a
convulsive movement, and found myself behind the hansom. A happy
thought saved me, and as this drove slowly along I followed in its
immediate wake, trembling and astonished at the turn of my
adventure. And not only trembling, but shivering. It was a bright
day in January and I was stark naked and the thin slime of mud that
covered the road was freezing. Foolish as it seems to me now, I had
not reckoned that, transparent or not, I was still amenable to the
weather and all its consequences.

"Then suddenly a bright idea came into my head. I ran round and got
into the cab. And so, shivering, scared, and sniffing with the first
intimations of a cold, and with the bruises in the small of my back
growing upon my attention, I drove slowly along Oxford Street and
past Tottenham Court Road. My mood was as different from that in
which I had sallied forth ten minutes ago as it is possible to
imagine. This invisibility indeed! The one thought that possessed
me was--how was I to get out of the scrape I was in.

"We crawled past Mudie's, and there a tall woman with five or six
yellow-labelled books hailed my cab, and I sprang out just in time
to escape her, shaving a railway van narrowly in my flight. I made
off up the roadway to Bloomsbury Square, intending to strike north
past the Museum and so get into the quiet district. I was now
cruelly chilled, and the strangeness of my situation so unnerved me
that I whimpered as I ran. At the northward corner of the Square a
little white dog ran out of the Pharmaceutical Society's offices,
and incontinently made for me, nose down.

"I had never realised it before, but the nose is to the mind of a
dog what the eye is to the mind of a seeing man. Dogs perceive the
scent of a man moving as men perceive his vision. This brute began
barking and leaping, showing, as it seemed to me, only too plainly
that he was aware of me. I crossed Great Russell Street, glancing
over my shoulder as I did so, and went some way along Montague
Street before I realised what I was running towards.

"Then I became aware of a blare of music, and looking along the
street saw a number of people advancing out of Russell Square, red
shirts, and the banner of the Salvation Army to the fore. Such a
crowd, chanting in the roadway and scoffing on the pavement, I
could not hope to penetrate, and dreading to go back and farther
from home again, and deciding on the spur of the moment, I ran up
the white steps of a house facing the museum railings, and stood
there until the crowd should have passed. Happily the dog stopped
at the noise of the band too, hesitated, and turned tail, running
back to Bloomsbury Square again.

"On came the band, bawling with unconscious irony some hymn about
'When shall we see His face?' and it seemed an interminable time
to me before the tide of the crowd washed along the pavement by me.
Thud, thud, thud, came the drum with a vibrating resonance, and for
the moment I did not notice two urchins stopping at the railings by
me. 'See 'em,' said one. 'See what?' said the other. 'Why--them
footmarks--bare. Like what you makes in mud.'

"I looked down and saw the youngsters had stopped and were gaping
at the muddy footmarks I had left behind me up the newly whitened
steps. The passing people elbowed and jostled them, but their
confounded intelligence was arrested. 'Thud, thud, thud, when,
thud, shall we see, thud, his face, thud, thud.' 'There's a
barefoot man gone up them steps, or I don't know nothing,' said
one. 'And he ain't never come down again. And his foot was
a-bleeding.'

"The thick of the crowd had already passed. 'Looky there, Ted,'
quoth the younger of the detectives, with the sharpness of surprise
in his voice, and pointed straight to my feet. I looked down and
saw at once the dim suggestion of their outline sketched in
splashes of mud. For a moment I was paralysed.

"'Why, that's rum,' said the elder. 'Dashed rum! It's just like
the ghost of a foot, ain't it?' He hesitated and advanced with
outstretched hand. A man pulled up short to see what he was
catching, and then a girl. In another moment he would have touched
me. Then I saw what to do. I made a step, the boy started back with
an exclamation, and with a rapid movement I swung myself over into
the portico of the next house. But the smaller boy was sharp-eyed
enough to follow the movement, and before I was well down the
steps and upon the pavement, he had recovered from his momentary
astonishment and was shouting out that the feet had gone over the
wall.

"They rushed round and saw my new footmarks flash into being on the
lower step and upon the pavement. 'What's up?' asked someone.
'Feet! Look! Feet running!'

"Everybody in the road, except my three pursuers, was pouring along
after the Salvation Army, and this blow not only impeded me but them.
There was an eddy of surprise and interrogation. At the cost of
bowling over one young fellow I got through, and in another moment
I was rushing headlong round the circuit of Russell Square, with
six or seven astonished people following my footmarks. There was
no time for explanation, or else the whole host would have been
after me.

"Twice I doubled round corners, thrice I crossed the road and came
back upon my tracks, and then, as my feet grew hot and dry, the
damp impressions began to fade. At last I had a breathing space
and rubbed my feet clean with my hands, and so got away altogether.
The last I saw of the chase was a little group of a dozen people
perhaps, studying with infinite perplexity a slowly drying
footprint that had resulted from a puddle in Tavistock Square, a
footprint as isolated and incomprehensible to them as Crusoe's
solitary discovery.

"This running warmed me to a certain extent, and I went on with a
better courage through the maze of less frequented roads that runs
hereabouts. My back had now become very stiff and sore, my tonsils
were painful from the cabman's fingers, and the skin of my neck
had been scratched by his nails; my feet hurt exceedingly and I
was lame from a little cut on one foot. I saw in time a blind
man approaching me, and fled limping, for I feared his subtle
intuitions. Once or twice accidental collisions occurred and I left
people amazed, with unaccountable curses ringing in their ears.
Then came something silent and quiet against my face, and across
the Square fell a thin veil of slowly falling flakes of snow. I had
caught a cold, and do as I would I could not avoid an occasional
sneeze. And every dog that came in sight, with its pointing nose
and curious sniffing, was a terror to me.

"Then came men and boys running, first one and then others, and
shouting as they ran. It was a fire. They ran in the direction of
my lodging, and looking back down a street I saw a mass of black
smoke streaming up above the roofs and telephone wires. It was my
lodging burning; my clothes, my apparatus, all my resources indeed,
except my cheque-book and the three volumes of memoranda that
awaited me in Great Portland Street, were there. Burning! I had
burnt my boats--if ever a man did! The place was blazing."

The Invisible Man paused and thought. Kemp glanced nervously out of
the window. "Yes?" he said. "Go on."



CHAPTER XXII

IN THE EMPORIUM


"So last January, with the beginning of a snowstorm in the air
about me--and if it settled on me it would betray me!--weary,
cold, painful, inexpressibly wretched, and still but half convinced
of my invisible quality, I began this new life to which I am
committed. I had no refuge, no appliances, no human being in the
world in whom I could confide. To have told my secret would have
given me away--made a mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, I
was half-minded to accost some passer-by and throw myself upon his
mercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and brutal cruelty my
advances would evoke. I made no plans in the street. My sole object
was to get shelter from the snow, to get myself covered and warm;
then I might hope to plan. But even to me, an Invisible Man, the
rows of London houses stood latched, barred, and bolted
impregnably.

"Only one thing could I see clearly before me--the cold exposure
and misery of the snowstorm and the night.

"And then I had a brilliant idea. I turned down one of the roads
leading from Gower Street to Tottenham Court Road, and found myself
outside Omniums, the big establishment where everything is to be
bought--you know the place: meat, grocery, linen, furniture,
clothing, oil paintings even--a huge meandering collection of shops
rather than a shop. I had thought I should find the doors open, but
they were closed, and as I stood in the wide entrance a carriage
stopped outside, and a man in uniform--you know the kind of
personage with 'Omnium' on his cap--flung open the door. I contrived
to enter, and walking down the shop--it was a department where they
were selling ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind of
thing--came to a more spacious region devoted to picnic baskets and
wicker furniture.

"I did not feel safe there, however; people were going to and fro,
and I prowled restlessly about until I came upon a huge section in
an upper floor containing multitudes of bedsteads, and over these I
clambered, and found a resting-place at last among a huge pile of
folded flock mattresses. The place was already lit up and agreeably
warm, and I decided to remain where I was, keeping a cautious
eye on the two or three sets of shopmen and customers who were
meandering through the place, until closing time came. Then I
should be able, I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing,
and disguised, prowl through it and examine its resources, perhaps
sleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan.
My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a muffled but
acceptable figure, to get money, and then to recover my books
and parcels where they awaited me, take a lodging somewhere and
elaborate plans for the complete realisation of the advantages my
invisibility gave me (as I still imagined) over my fellow-men.

"Closing time arrived quickly enough. It could not have been more
than an hour after I took up my position on the mattresses before I
noticed the blinds of the windows being drawn, and customers being
marched doorward. And then a number of brisk young men began with
remarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods that remained disturbed. I
left my lair as the crowds diminished, and prowled cautiously out
into the less desolate parts of the shop. I was really surprised to
observe how rapidly the young men and women whipped away the goods
displayed for sale during the day. All the boxes of goods, the
hanging fabrics, the festoons of lace, the boxes of sweets in the
grocery section, the displays of this and that, were being whipped
down, folded up, slapped into tidy receptacles, and everything that
could not be taken down and put away had sheets of some coarse
stuff like sacking flung over them. Finally all the chairs were
turned up on to the counters, leaving the floor clear. Directly
each of these young people had done, he or she made promptly for
the door with such an expression of animation as I have rarely
observed in a shop assistant before. Then came a lot of youngsters
scattering sawdust and carrying pails and brooms. I had to dodge
to get out of the way, and as it was, my ankle got stung with the
sawdust. For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkened
departments, I could hear the brooms at work. And at last a good
hour or more after the shop had been closed, came a noise of
locking doors. Silence came upon the place, and I found myself
wandering through the vast and intricate shops, galleries, show-rooms
of the place, alone. It was very still; in one place I remember
passing near one of the Tottenham Court Road entrances and listening
to the tapping of boot-heels of the passers-by.

"My first visit was to the place where I had seen stockings and
gloves for sale. It was dark, and I had the devil of a hunt after
matches, which I found at last in the drawer of the little cash
desk. Then I had to get a candle. I had to tear down wrappings and
ransack a number of boxes and drawers, but at last I managed to turn
out what I sought; the box label called them lambswool pants, and
lambswool vests. Then socks, a thick comforter, and then I went to
the clothing place and got trousers, a lounge jacket, an overcoat
and a slouch hat--a clerical sort of hat with the brim turned down.
I began to feel a human being again, and my next thought was food.

"Upstairs was a refreshment department, and there I got cold meat.
There was coffee still in the urn, and I lit the gas and warmed it
up again, and altogether I did not do badly. Afterwards, prowling
through the place in search of blankets--I had to put up at last
with a heap of down quilts--I came upon a grocery section with
a lot of chocolate and candied fruits, more than was good for me
indeed--and some white burgundy. And near that was a toy department,
and I had a brilliant idea. I found some artificial noses--dummy
noses, you know, and I thought of dark spectacles. But Omniums had
no optical department. My nose had been a difficulty indeed--I had
thought of paint. But the discovery set my mind running on wigs and
masks and the like. Finally I went to sleep in a heap of down
quilts, very warm and comfortable.

"My last thoughts before sleeping were the most agreeable I had had
since the change. I was in a state of physical serenity, and that
was reflected in my mind. I thought that I should be able to slip
out unobserved in the morning with my clothes upon me, muffling my
face with a white wrapper I had taken, purchase, with the money I
had taken, spectacles and so forth, and so complete my disguise. I
lapsed into disorderly dreams of all the fantastic things that had
happened during the last few days. I saw the ugly little Jew of a
landlord vociferating in his rooms; I saw his two sons marvelling,
and the wrinkled old woman's gnarled face as she asked for her cat.
I experienced again the strange sensation of seeing the cloth
disappear, and so I came round to the windy hillside and the
sniffing old clergyman mumbling 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,
dust to dust,' at my father's open grave.

"'You also,' said a voice, and suddenly I was being forced towards
the grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but they
continued stonily following the service; the old clergyman, too,
never faltered droning and sniffing through the ritual. I realised
I was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had their
grip on me. I struggled in vain, I was forced over the brink, the
coffin rang hollow as I fell upon it, and the gravel came flying
after me in spadefuls. Nobody heeded me, nobody was aware of me. I
made convulsive struggles and awoke.

"The pale London dawn had come, the place was full of a chilly grey
light that filtered round the edges of the window blinds. I sat up,
and for a time I could not think where this ample apartment, with
its counters, its piles of rolled stuff, its heap of quilts and
cushions, its iron pillars, might be. Then, as recollection came
back to me, I heard voices in conversation.

"Then far down the place, in the brighter light of some department
which had already raised its blinds, I saw two men approaching. I
scrambled to my feet, looking about me for some way of escape, and
even as I did so the sound of my movement made them aware of me. I
suppose they saw merely a figure moving quietly and quickly away.
'Who's that?' cried one, and 'Stop, there!' shouted the other. I
dashed around a corner and came full tilt--a faceless figure,
mind you!--on a lanky lad of fifteen. He yelled and I bowled him
over, rushed past him, turned another corner, and by a happy
inspiration threw myself behind a counter. In another moment feet
went running past and I heard voices shouting, 'All hands to the
doors!' asking what was 'up,' and giving one another advice how to
catch me.

"Lying on the ground, I felt scared out of my wits. But--odd as
it may seem--it did not occur to me at the moment to take off my
clothes as I should have done. I had made up my mind, I suppose, to
get away in them, and that ruled me. And then down the vista of the
counters came a bawling of 'Here he is!'

"I sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the counter, and sent it
whirling at the fool who had shouted, turned, came into another
round a corner, sent him spinning, and rushed up the stairs. He
kept his footing, gave a view hallo, and came up the staircase hot
after me. Up the staircase were piled a multitude of those
bright-coloured pot things--what are they?"

"Art pots," suggested Kemp.

"That's it! Art pots. Well, I turned at the top step and swung
round, plucked one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly head
as he came at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and I heard
shouting and footsteps running from all parts. I made a mad rush
for the refreshment place, and there was a man in white like a man
cook, who took up the chase. I made one last desperate turn and
found myself among lamps and ironmongery. I went behind the counter
of this, and waited for my cook, and as he bolted in at the head of
the chase, I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went, and I
crouched down behind the counter and began whipping off my clothes
as fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers, shoes were all right,
but a lambswool vest fits a man like a skin. I heard more men
coming, my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the counter,
stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another dash for
it, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile.

"'This way, policeman!' I heard someone shouting. I found myself in
my bedstead storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness of
wardrobes. I rushed among them, went flat, got rid of my vest after
infinite wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared,
as the policeman and three of the shopmen came round the corner.
They made a rush for the vest and pants, and collared the trousers.
'He's dropping his plunder,' said one of the young men. 'He _must_
be somewhere here.'

"But they did not find me all the same.

"I stood watching them hunt for me for a time, and cursing my
ill-luck in losing the clothes. Then I went into the refreshment-room,
drank a little milk I found there, and sat down by the fire to
consider my position.

"In a little while two assistants came in and began to talk over
the business very excitedly and like the fools they were. I heard a
magnified account of my depredations, and other speculations as to
my whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming again. The insurmountable
difficulty of the place, especially now it was alarmed, was to get
any plunder out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see if
there was any chance of packing and addressing a parcel, but I
could not understand the system of checking. About eleven o'clock,
the snow having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and a
little warmer than the previous one, I decided that the Emporium
was hopeless, and went out again, exasperated at my want of
success, with only the vaguest plans of action in my mind."



CHAPTER XXIII

IN DRURY LANE


"But you begin now to realise," said the Invisible Man, "the full
disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter--no covering--to
get clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make myself a
strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill
myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become grotesquely
visible again."

"I never thought of that," said Kemp.

"Nor had I. And the snow had warned me of other dangers. I could not
go abroad in snow--it would settle on me and expose me. Rain, too,
would make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a man--a
bubble. And fog--I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog,
a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity. Moreover, as I went
abroad--in the London air--I gathered dirt about my ankles, floating
smuts and dust upon my skin. I did not know how long it would be
before I should become visible from that cause also. But I saw
clearly it could not be for long.

"Not in London at any rate.

"I went into the slums towards Great Portland Street, and found
myself at the end of the street in which I had lodged. I did not
go that way, because of the crowd halfway down it opposite to the
still smoking ruins of the house I had fired. My most immediate
problem was to get clothing. What to do with my face puzzled me.
Then I saw in one of those little miscellaneous shops--news,
sweets, toys, stationery, belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so
forth--an array of masks and noses. I realised that problem was
solved. In a flash I saw my course. I turned about, no longer
aimless, and went--circuitously in order to avoid the busy ways,
towards the back streets north of the Strand; for I remembered,
though not very distinctly where, that some theatrical costumiers
had shops in that district.

"The day was cold, with a nipping wind down the northward running
streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every crossing was
a danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One man as I
was about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned upon
me abruptly and came into me, sending me into the road and almost
under the wheel of a passing hansom. The verdict of the cab-rank
was that he had had some sort of stroke. I was so unnerved by this
encounter that I went into Covent Garden Market and sat down for
some time in a quiet corner by a stall of violets, panting and
trembling. I found I had caught a fresh cold, and had to turn out
after a time lest my sneezes should attract attention.

"At last I reached the object of my quest, a dirty, fly-blown little
shop in a by-way near Drury Lane, with a window full of tinsel
robes, sham jewels, wigs, slippers, dominoes and theatrical
photographs. The shop was old-fashioned and low and dark, and the
house rose above it for four storeys, dark and dismal. I peered
through the window and, seeing no one within, entered. The opening
of the door set a clanking bell ringing. I left it open, and walked
round a bare costume stand, into a corner behind a cheval glass. For
a minute or so no one came. Then I heard heavy feet striding across
a room, and a man appeared down the shop.

"My plans were now perfectly definite. I proposed to make my way
into the house, secrete myself upstairs, watch my opportunity, and
when everything was quiet, rummage out a wig, mask, spectacles, and
costume, and go into the world, perhaps a grotesque but still a
credible figure. And incidentally of course I could rob the house
of any available money.

"The man who had just entered the shop was a short, slight,
hunched, beetle-browed man, with long arms and very short bandy
legs. Apparently I had interrupted a meal. He stared about the shop
with an expression of expectation. This gave way to surprise, and
then to anger, as he saw the shop empty. 'Damn the boys!' he said.
He went to stare up and down the street. He came in again in a
minute, kicked the door to with his foot spitefully, and went
muttering back to the house door.

"I came forward to follow him, and at the noise of my movement he
stopped dead. I did so too, startled by his quickness of ear. He
slammed the house door in my face.

"I stood hesitating. Suddenly I heard his quick footsteps returning,
and the door reopened. He stood looking about the shop like one who
was still not satisfied. Then, murmuring to himself, he examined the
back of the counter and peered behind some fixtures. Then he stood
doubtful. He had left the house door open and I slipped into the
inner room.

"It was a queer little room, poorly furnished and with a number of
big masks in the corner. On the table was his belated breakfast,
and it was a confoundedly exasperating thing for me, Kemp, to have
to sniff his coffee and stand watching while he came in and resumed
his meal. And his table manners were irritating. Three doors opened
into the little room, one going upstairs and one down, but they
were all shut. I could not get out of the room while he was there;
I could scarcely move because of his alertness, and there was a
draught down my back. Twice I strangled a sneeze just in time.

"The spectacular quality of my sensations was curious and novel, but
for all that I was heartily tired and angry long before he had done
his eating. But at last he made an end and putting his beggarly
crockery on the black tin tray upon which he had had his teapot, and
gathering all the crumbs up on the mustard stained cloth, he took
the whole lot of things after him. His burden prevented his shutting
the door behind him--as he would have done; I never saw such a man
for shutting doors--and I followed him into a very dirty underground
kitchen and scullery. I had the pleasure of seeing him begin to wash
up, and then, finding no good in keeping down there, and the brick
floor being cold on my feet, I returned upstairs and sat in his
chair by the fire. It was burning low, and scarcely thinking, I put
on a little coal. The noise of this brought him up at once, and
he stood aglare. He peered about the room and was within an ace
of touching me. Even after that examination, he scarcely seemed
satisfied. He stopped in the doorway and took a final inspection
before he went down.

"I waited in the little parlour for an age, and at last he came up
and opened the upstairs door. I just managed to get by him.

"On the staircase he stopped suddenly, so that I very nearly
blundered into him. He stood looking back right into my face and
listening. 'I could have sworn,' he said. His long hairy hand
pulled at his lower lip. His eye went up and down the staircase.
Then he grunted and went on up again.

"His hand was on the handle of a door, and then he stopped again
with the same puzzled anger on his face. He was becoming aware of
the faint sounds of my movements about him. The man must have had
diabolically acute hearing. He suddenly flashed into rage. 'If
there's anyone in this house--' he cried with an oath, and left the
threat unfinished. He put his hand in his pocket, failed to find
what he wanted, and rushing past me went blundering noisily and
pugnaciously downstairs. But I did not follow him. I sat on the
head of the staircase until his return.

"Presently he came up again, still muttering. He opened the door of
the room, and before I could enter, slammed it in my face.

"I resolved to explore the house, and spent some time in doing so
as noiselessly as possible. The house was very old and tumble-down,
damp so that the paper in the attics was peeling from the walls, and
rat infested. Some of the door handles were stiff and I was afraid
to turn them. Several rooms I did inspect were unfurnished, and
others were littered with theatrical lumber, bought second-hand, I
judged, from its appearance. In one room next to his I found a lot
of old clothes. I began routing among these, and in my eagerness
forgot again the evident sharpness of his ears. I heard a stealthy
footstep and, looking up just in time, saw him peering in at the
tumbled heap and holding an old-fashioned revolver in his hand.
I stood perfectly still while he stared about open-mouthed and
suspicious. 'It must have been her,' he said slowly. 'Damn her!'

"He shut the door quietly, and immediately I heard the key turn in
the lock. Then his footsteps retreated. I realised abruptly that I
was locked in. For a minute I did not know what to do. I walked
from door to window and back, and stood perplexed. A gust of anger
came upon me. But I decided to inspect the clothes before I did
anything further, and my first attempt brought down a pile from an
upper shelf. This brought him back, more sinister than ever. That
time he actually touched me, jumped back with amazement and stood
astonished in the middle of the room.

"Presently he calmed a little. 'Rats,' he said in an undertone,
fingers on lips. He was evidently a little scared. I edged quietly
out of the room, but a plank creaked. Then the infernal little brute
started going all over the house, revolver in hand and locking door
after door and pocketing the keys. When I realised what he was up to
I had a fit of rage--I could hardly control myself sufficiently to
watch my opportunity. By this time I knew he was alone in the house,
and so I made no more ado, but knocked him on the head."

"Knocked him on the head?" exclaimed Kemp.

"Yes--stunned him--as he was going downstairs. Hit him from
behind with a stool that stood on the landing. He went downstairs
like a bag of old boots."

"But--I say! The common conventions of humanity--"

"Are all very well for common people. But the point was, Kemp, that
I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his seeing me.
I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. And then I gagged
him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a sheet."

"Tied him up in a sheet!"

"Made a sort of bag of it. It was rather a good idea to keep the
idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out
of--head away from the string. My dear Kemp, it's no good your
sitting glaring as though I was a murderer. It had to be done. He
had his revolver. If once he saw me he would be able to describe
me--"

"But still," said Kemp, "in England--to-day. And the man was in
his own house, and you were--well, robbing."

"Robbing! Confound it! You'll call me a thief next! Surely, Kemp,
you're not fool enough to dance on the old strings. Can't you see
my position?"

"And his too," said Kemp.

The Invisible Man stood up sharply. "What do you mean to say?"

Kemp's face grew a trifle hard. He was about to speak and checked
himself. "I suppose, after all," he said with a sudden change of
manner, "the thing had to be done. You were in a fix. But still--"

"Of course I was in a fix--an infernal fix. And he made me wild
too--hunting me about the house, fooling about with his revolver,
locking and unlocking doors. He was simply exasperating. You don't
blame me, do you? You don't blame me?"

"I never blame anyone," said Kemp. "It's quite out of fashion. What
did you do next?"

"I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese--more
than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some brandy and
water, and then went up past my impromptu bag--he was lying quite
still--to the room containing the old clothes. This looked out
upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the
window. I went and peered out through their interstices. Outside
the day was bright--by contrast with the brown shadows of the
dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly bright. A brisk
traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a four-wheeler with a
pile of boxes, a fishmonger's cart. I turned with spots of colour
swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures behind me. My
excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of my position
again. The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline, used, I
suppose, in cleaning the garments.

"I began a systematic search of the place. I should judge the
hunchback had been alone in the house for some time. He was a
curious person. Everything that could possibly be of service to me
I collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate
selection. I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and
some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster.

"I had thought of painting and powdering my face and all that
there was to show of me, in order to render myself visible, but
the disadvantage of this lay in the fact that I should require
turpentine and other appliances and a considerable amount of time
before I could vanish again. Finally I chose a mask of the better
type, slightly grotesque but not more so than many human beings,
dark glasses, greyish whiskers, and a wig. I could find no
underclothing, but that I could buy subsequently, and for the time I
swathed myself in calico dominoes and some white cashmere scarfs. I
could find no socks, but the hunchback's boots were rather a loose
fit and sufficed. In a desk in the shop were three sovereigns and
about thirty shillings' worth of silver, and in a locked cupboard I
burst in the inner room were eight pounds in gold. I could go forth
into the world again, equipped.

"Then came a curious hesitation. Was my appearance really
credible? I tried myself with a little bedroom looking-glass,
inspecting myself from every point of view to discover any
forgotten chink, but it all seemed sound. I was grotesque to the
theatrical pitch, a stage miser, but I was certainly not a physical
impossibility. Gathering confidence, I took my looking-glass down
into the shop, pulled down the shop blinds, and surveyed myself
from every point of view with the help of the cheval glass in the
corner.

"I spent some minutes screwing up my courage and then unlocked the
shop door and marched out into the street, leaving the little man
to get out of his sheet again when he liked. In five minutes a
dozen turnings intervened between me and the costumier's shop. No
one appeared to notice me very pointedly. My last difficulty seemed
overcome."

He stopped again.

"And you troubled no more about the hunchback?" said Kemp.

"No," said the Invisible Man. "Nor have I heard what became of him.
I suppose he untied himself or kicked himself out. The knots were
pretty tight."

He became silent and went to the window and stared out.

"What happened when you went out into the Strand?"

"Oh!--disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were over.
Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose,
everything--save to give away my secret. So I thought. Whatever I
did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had
merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold
me. I could take my money where I found it. I decided to treat
myself to a sumptuous feast, and then put up at a good hotel, and
accumulate a new outfit of property. I felt amazingly confident;
it's not particularly pleasant recalling that I was an ass. I went
into a place and was already ordering lunch, when it occurred to me
that I could not eat unless I exposed my invisible face. I finished
ordering the lunch, told the man I should be back in ten minutes,
and went out exasperated. I don't know if you have ever been
disappointed in your appetite."

"Not quite so badly," said Kemp, "but I can imagine it."

"I could have smashed the silly devils. At last, faint with the
desire for tasteful food, I went into another place and demanded a
private room. 'I am disfigured,' I said. 'Badly.' They looked at
me curiously, but of course it was not their affair--and so at
last I got my lunch. It was not particularly well served, but it
sufficed; and when I had had it, I sat over a cigar, trying to plan
my line of action. And outside a snowstorm was beginning.

"The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what a
helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was--in a cold and dirty
climate and a crowded civilised city. Before I made this mad
experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon
it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things
a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible
to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they
are got. Ambition--what is the good of pride of place when you
cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when
her name must needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for
the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was
I to do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed
and bandaged caricature of a man!"

He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the
window.

"But how did you get to Iping?" said Kemp, anxious to keep his
guest busy talking.

"I went there to work. I had one hope. It was a half idea! I have
it still. It is a full blown idea now. A way of getting back! Of
restoring what I have done. When I choose. When I have done all I
mean to do invisibly. And that is what I chiefly want to talk to
you about now."

"You went straight to Iping?"

"Yes. I had simply to get my three volumes of memoranda and my
cheque-book, my luggage and underclothing, order a quantity of
chemicals to work out this idea of mine--I will show you the
calculations as soon as I get my books--and then I started. Jove!
I remember the snowstorm now, and the accursed bother it was to
keep the snow from damping my pasteboard nose."

"At the end," said Kemp, "the day before yesterday, when they found
you out, you rather--to judge by the papers--"

"I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?"

"No," said Kemp. "He's expected to recover."

"That's his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools! Why
couldn't they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?"

"There are no deaths expected," said Kemp.

"I don't know about that tramp of mine," said the Invisible Man,
with an unpleasant laugh.

"By Heaven, Kemp, you don't know what rage _is_! ... To have worked
for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some
fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! ... Every
conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has
been sent to cross me.

"If I have much more of it, I shall go wild--I shall start
mowing 'em.

"As it is, they've made things a thousand times more difficult."

"No doubt it's exasperating," said Kemp, drily.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE PLAN THAT FAILED


"But now," said Kemp, with a side glance out of the window, "what
are we to do?"

He moved nearer his guest as he spoke in such a manner as to
prevent the possibility of a sudden glimpse of the three men who
were advancing up the hill road--with an intolerable slowness, as
it seemed to Kemp.

"What were you planning to do when you were heading for Port
Burdock? _Had_ you any plan?"

"I was going to clear out of the country. But I have altered that
plan rather since seeing you. I thought it would be wise, now the
weather is hot and invisibility possible, to make for the South.
Especially as my secret was known, and everyone would be on the
lookout for a masked and muffled man. You have a line of steamers
from here to France. My idea was to get aboard one and run the
risks of the passage. Thence I could go by train into Spain, or else
get to Algiers. It would not be difficult. There a man might always
be invisible--and yet live. And do things. I was using that tramp
as a money box and luggage carrier, until I decided how to get my
books and things sent over to meet me."

"That's clear."

"And then the filthy brute must needs try and rob me! He _has_ hidden
my books, Kemp. Hidden my books! If I can lay my hands on him!"

"Best plan to get the books out of him first."

"But where is he? Do you know?"

"He's in the town police station, locked up, by his own request, in
the strongest cell in the place."

"Cur!" said the Invisible Man.

"But that hangs up your plans a little."

"We must get those books; those books are vital."

"Certainly," said Kemp, a little nervously, wondering if he heard
footsteps outside. "Certainly we must get those books. But that
won't be difficult, if he doesn't know they're for you."

"No," said the Invisible Man, and thought.

Kemp tried to think of something to keep the talk going, but the
Invisible Man resumed of his own accord.

"Blundering into your house, Kemp," he said, "changes all my plans.
For you are a man that can understand. In spite of all that has
happened, in spite of this publicity, of the loss of my books, of
what I have suffered, there still remain great possibilities, huge
possibilities--"

"You have told no one I am here?" he asked abruptly.

Kemp hesitated. "That was implied," he said.

"No one?" insisted Griffin.

"Not a soul."

"Ah! Now--" The Invisible Man stood up, and sticking his arms akimbo
began to pace the study.

"I made a mistake, Kemp, a huge mistake, in carrying this thing
through alone. I have wasted strength, time, opportunities. Alone--it
is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little,
to hurt a little, and there is the end.

"What I want, Kemp, is a goal-keeper, a helper, and a hiding-place,
an arrangement whereby I can sleep and eat and rest in peace, and
unsuspected. I must have a confederate. With a confederate, with
food and rest--a thousand things are possible.

"Hitherto I have gone on vague lines. We have to consider all that
invisibility means, all that it does not mean. It means little
advantage for eavesdropping and so forth--one makes sounds. It's
of little help--a little help perhaps--in housebreaking and so
forth. Once you've caught me you could easily imprison me. But on
the other hand I am hard to catch. This invisibility, in fact, is
only good in two cases: It's useful in getting away, it's useful in
approaching. It's particularly useful, therefore, in killing. I can
walk round a man, whatever weapon he has, choose my point, strike
as I like. Dodge as I like. Escape as I like."

Kemp's hand went to his moustache. Was that a movement
downstairs?

"And it is killing we must do, Kemp."

"It is killing we must do," repeated Kemp. "I'm listening to your
plan, Griffin, but I'm not agreeing, mind. _Why_ killing?"

"Not wanton killing, but a judicious slaying. The point is, they
know there is an Invisible Man--as well as we know there is an
Invisible Man. And that Invisible Man, Kemp, must now establish a
Reign of Terror. Yes; no doubt it's startling. But I mean it. A
Reign of Terror. He must take some town like your Burdock and
terrify and dominate it. He must issue his orders. He can do that
in a thousand ways--scraps of paper thrust under doors would
suffice. And all who disobey his orders he must kill, and kill
all who would defend them."

"Humph!" said Kemp, no longer listening to Griffin but to the sound
of his front door opening and closing.

"It seems to me, Griffin," he said, to cover his wandering
attention, "that your confederate would be in a difficult
position."

"No one would know he was a confederate," said the Invisible Man,
eagerly. And then suddenly, "Hush! What's that downstairs?"

"Nothing," said Kemp, and suddenly began to speak loud and fast.
"I don't agree to this, Griffin," he said. "Understand me, I don't
agree to this. Why dream of playing a game against the race? How
can you hope to gain happiness? Don't be a lone wolf. Publish
your results; take the world--take the nation at least--into your
confidence. Think what you might do with a million helpers--"

The Invisible Man interrupted--arm extended. "There are
footsteps coming upstairs," he said in a low voice.

"Nonsense," said Kemp.

"Let me see," said the Invisible Man, and advanced, arm extended,
to the door.

And then things happened very swiftly. Kemp hesitated for a second
and then moved to intercept him. The Invisible Man started and stood
still. "Traitor!" cried the Voice, and suddenly the dressing-gown
opened, and sitting down the Unseen began to disrobe. Kemp made
three swift steps to the door, and forthwith the Invisible Man--his
legs had vanished--sprang to his feet with a shout. Kemp flung the
door open.

As it opened, there came a sound of hurrying feet downstairs and
voices.

With a quick movement Kemp thrust the Invisible Man back, sprang
aside, and slammed the door. The key was outside and ready. In
another moment Griffin would have been alone in the belvedere
study, a prisoner. Save for one little thing. The key had been
slipped in hastily that morning. As Kemp slammed the door it fell
noisily upon the carpet.

Kemp's face became white. He tried to grip the door handle with
both hands. For a moment he stood lugging. Then the door gave six
inches. But he got it closed again. The second time it was jerked a
foot wide, and the dressing-gown came wedging itself into the
opening. His throat was gripped by invisible fingers, and he left
his hold on the handle to defend himself. He was forced back,
tripped and pitched heavily into the corner of the landing. The
empty dressing-gown was flung on the top of him.

Halfway up the staircase was Colonel Adye, the recipient of Kemp's
letter, the chief of the Burdock police. He was staring aghast at
the sudden appearance of Kemp, followed by the extraordinary sight
of clothing tossing empty in the air. He saw Kemp felled, and
struggling to his feet. He saw him rush forward, and go down again,
felled like an ox.

Then suddenly he was struck violently. By nothing! A vast weight,
it seemed, leapt upon him, and he was hurled headlong down the
staircase, with a grip on his throat and a knee in his groin. An
invisible foot trod on his back, a ghostly patter passed downstairs,
he heard the two police officers in the hall shout and run, and the
front door of the house slammed violently.

He rolled over and sat up staring. He saw, staggering down the
staircase, Kemp, dusty and disheveled, one side of his face white
from a blow, his lip bleeding, and a pink dressing-gown and some
underclothing held in his arms.

"My God!" cried Kemp, "the game's up! He's gone!"



CHAPTER XXV

THE HUNTING OF THE INVISIBLE MAN


For a space Kemp was too inarticulate to make Adye understand the
swift things that had just happened. They stood on the landing,
Kemp speaking swiftly, the grotesque swathings of Griffin still on
his arm. But presently Adye began to grasp something of the
situation.

"He is mad," said Kemp; "inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks
of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened
to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking.... He has wounded
men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a
panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now--furious!"

"He must be caught," said Adye. "That is certain."

"But how?" cried Kemp, and suddenly became full of ideas. "You must
begin at once. You must set every available man to work; you must
prevent his leaving this district. Once he gets away, he may go
through the countryside as he wills, killing and maiming. He dreams
of a reign of terror! A reign of terror, I tell you. You must set a
watch on trains and roads and shipping. The garrison must help. You
must wire for help. The only thing that may keep him here is the
thought of recovering some books of notes he counts of value. I will
tell you of that! There is a man in your police station--Marvel."

"I know," said Adye, "I know. Those books--yes. But the tramp...."

"Says he hasn't them. But he thinks the tramp has. And you must
prevent him from eating or sleeping; day and night the country must
be astir for him. Food must be locked up and secured, all food, so
that he will have to break his way to it. The houses everywhere must
be barred against him. Heaven send us cold nights and rain! The
whole country-side must begin hunting and keep hunting. I tell you,
Adye, he is a danger, a disaster; unless he is pinned and secured,
it is frightful to think of the things that may happen."

"What else can we do?" said Adye. "I must go down at once and begin
organising. But why not come? Yes--you come too! Come, and we
must hold a sort of council of war--get Hopps to help--and the
railway managers. By Jove! it's urgent. Come along--tell me as we
go. What else is there we can do? Put that stuff down."

In another moment Adye was leading the way downstairs. They found
the front door open and the policemen standing outside staring at
empty air. "He's got away, sir," said one.

"We must go to the central station at once," said Adye. "One of you
go on down and get a cab to come up and meet us--quickly. And
now, Kemp, what else?"

"Dogs," said Kemp. "Get dogs. They don't see him, but they wind
him. Get dogs."

"Good," said Adye. "It's not generally known, but the prison
officials over at Halstead know a man with bloodhounds. Dogs. What
else?"

"Bear in mind," said Kemp, "his food shows. After eating, his food
shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating.
You must keep on beating. Every thicket, every quiet corner. And
put all weapons--all implements that might be weapons, away. He
can't carry such things for long. And what he can snatch up and
strike men with must be hidden away."

"Good again," said Adye. "We shall have him yet!"

"And on the roads," said Kemp, and hesitated.

"Yes?" said Adye.

"Powdered glass," said Kemp. "It's cruel, I know. But think of what
he may do!"

Adye drew the air in sharply between his teeth. "It's
unsportsmanlike. I don't know. But I'll have powdered glass got
ready. If he goes too far...."

"The man's become inhuman, I tell you," said Kemp. "I am as sure he
will establish a reign of terror--so soon as he has got over the
emotions of this escape--as I am sure I am talking to you. Our
only chance is to be ahead. He has cut himself off from his kind.
His blood be upon his own head."



CHAPTER XXVI

THE WICKSTEED MURDER


The Invisible Man seems to have rushed out of Kemp's house in a
state of blind fury. A little child playing near Kemp's gateway was
violently caught up and thrown aside, so that its ankle was broken,
and thereafter for some hours the Invisible Man passed out of human
perceptions. No one knows where he went nor what he did. But one
can imagine him hurrying through the hot June forenoon, up the
hill and on to the open downland behind Port Burdock, raging and
despairing at his intolerable fate, and sheltering at last, heated
and weary, amid the thickets of Hintondean, to piece together again
his shattered schemes against his species. That seems to most
probable refuge for him, for there it was he re-asserted himself in
a grimly tragical manner about two in the afternoon.

One wonders what his state of mind may have been during that time,
and what plans he devised. No doubt he was almost ecstatically
exasperated by Kemp's treachery, and though we may be able to
understand the motives that led to that deceit, we may still
imagine and even sympathise a little with the fury the attempted
surprise must have occasioned. Perhaps something of the stunned
astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to
him, for he had evidently counted on Kemp's co-operation in his
brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from
human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did
until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for
humanity, but for him it was a fatal inaction.

During that time a growing multitude of men scattered over the
countryside were busy. In the morning he had still been simply a
legend, a terror; in the afternoon, by virtue chiefly of Kemp's
drily worded proclamation, he was presented as a tangible
antagonist, to be wounded, captured, or overcome, and the
countryside began organising itself with inconceivable rapidity.
By two o'clock even he might still have removed himself out of
the district by getting aboard a train, but after two that became
impossible. Every passenger train along the lines on a great
parallelogram between Southampton, Manchester, Brighton and Horsham,
travelled with locked doors, and the goods traffic was almost
entirely suspended. And in a great circle of twenty miles round Port
Burdock, men armed with guns and bludgeons were presently setting
out in groups of three and four, with dogs, to beat the roads and
fields.

Mounted policemen rode along the country lanes, stopping at every
cottage and warning the people to lock up their houses, and keep
indoors unless they were armed, and all the elementary schools had
broken up by three o'clock, and the children, scared and keeping
together in groups, were hurrying home. Kemp's proclamation--signed
indeed by Adye--was posted over almost the whole district by four or
five o'clock in the afternoon. It gave briefly but clearly all the
conditions of the struggle, the necessity of keeping the Invisible
Man from food and sleep, the necessity for incessant watchfulness
and for a prompt attention to any evidence of his movements. And
so swift and decided was the action of the authorities, so prompt
and universal was the belief in this strange being, that before
nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a stringent
state of siege. And before nightfall, too, a thrill of horror
went through the whole watching nervous countryside. Going from
whispering mouth to mouth, swift and certain over the length and
breadth of the country, passed the story of the murder of Mr.
Wicksteed.

If our supposition that the Invisible Man's refuge was the
Hintondean thickets, then we must suppose that in the early
afternoon he sallied out again bent upon some project that involved
the use of a weapon. We cannot know what the project was, but the
evidence that he had the iron rod in hand before he met Wicksteed
is to me at least overwhelming.

Of course we can know nothing of the details of that encounter.
It occurred on the edge of a gravel pit, not two hundred yards
from Lord Burdock's lodge gate. Everything points to a desperate
struggle--the trampled ground, the numerous wounds Mr. Wicksteed
received, his splintered walking-stick; but why the attack was made,
save in a murderous frenzy, it is impossible to imagine. Indeed the
theory of madness is almost unavoidable. Mr. Wicksteed was a man of
forty-five or forty-six, steward to Lord Burdock, of inoffensive
habits and appearance, the very last person in the world to provoke
such a terrible antagonist. Against him it would seem the Invisible
Man used an iron rod dragged from a broken piece of fence. He
stopped this quiet man, going quietly home to his midday meal,
attacked him, beat down his feeble defences, broke his arm, felled
him, and smashed his head to a jelly.

Of course, he must have dragged this rod out of the fencing before
he met his victim--he must have been carrying it ready in his hand.
Only two details beyond what has already been stated seem to bear
on the matter. One is the circumstance that the gravel pit was not
in Mr. Wicksteed's direct path home, but nearly a couple of hundred
yards out of his way. The other is the assertion of a little girl
to the effect that, going to her afternoon school, she saw the
murdered man "trotting" in a peculiar manner across a field towards
the gravel pit. Her pantomime of his action suggests a man pursuing
something on the ground before him and striking at it ever and
again with his walking-stick. She was the last person to see him
alive. He passed out of her sight to his death, the struggle being
hidden from her only by a clump of beech trees and a slight
depression in the ground.

Now this, to the present writer's mind at least, lifts the murder
out of the realm of the absolutely wanton. We may imagine that
Griffin had taken the rod as a weapon indeed, but without any
deliberate intention of using it in murder. Wicksteed may then have
come by and noticed this rod inexplicably moving through the air.
Without any thought of the Invisible Man--for Port Burdock is ten
miles away--he may have pursued it. It is quite conceivable that
he may not even have heard of the Invisible Man. One can then
imagine the Invisible Man making off--quietly in order to avoid
discovering his presence in the neighbourhood, and Wicksteed,
excited and curious, pursuing this unaccountably locomotive
object--finally striking at it.

No doubt the Invisible Man could easily have distanced his
middle-aged pursuer under ordinary circumstances, but the position
in which Wicksteed's body was found suggests that he had the
ill luck to drive his quarry into a corner between a drift of
stinging nettles and the gravel pit. To those who appreciate the
extraordinary irascibility of the Invisible Man, the rest of the
encounter will be easy to imagine.

But this is pure hypothesis. The only undeniable facts--for stories
of children are often unreliable--are the discovery of Wicksteed's
body, done to death, and of the blood-stained iron rod flung among
the nettles. The abandonment of the rod by Griffin, suggests that
in the emotional excitement of the affair, the purpose for which
he took it--if he had a purpose--was abandoned. He was certainly
an intensely egotistical and unfeeling man, but the sight of his
victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have
released some long pent fountain of remorse which for a time may
have flooded whatever scheme of action he had contrived.

After the murder of Mr. Wicksteed, he would seem to have struck
across the country towards the downland. There is a story of a
voice heard about sunset by a couple of men in a field near Fern
Bottom. It was wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning, and ever
and again it shouted. It must have been queer hearing. It drove up
across the middle of a clover field and died away towards the
hills.

That afternoon the Invisible Man must have learnt something of
the rapid use Kemp had made of his confidences. He must have
found houses locked and secured; he may have loitered about
railway stations and prowled about inns, and no doubt he read the
proclamations and realised something of the nature of the campaign
against him. And as the evening advanced, the fields became dotted
here and there with groups of three or four men, and noisy with the
yelping of dogs. These men-hunters had particular instructions in
the case of an encounter as to the way they should support one
another. But he avoided them all. We may understand something of
his exasperation, and it could have been none the less because
he himself had supplied the information that was being used so
remorselessly against him. For that day at least he lost heart; for
nearly twenty-four hours, save when he turned on Wicksteed, he was
a hunted man. In the night, he must have eaten and slept; for in
the morning he was himself again, active, powerful, angry, and
malignant, prepared for his last great struggle against the world.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE SIEGE OF KEMP'S HOUSE


Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy sheet of
paper.

"You have been amazingly energetic and clever," this letter ran,
"though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are
against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to
rob me of a night's rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I
have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The
game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the
Terror. This announces the first day of the Terror. Port Burdock
is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and
the rest of them; it is under me--the Terror! This is day one of
year one of the new epoch--the Epoch of the Invisible Man. I am
Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy. The
first day there will be one execution for the sake of example--a
man named Kemp. Death starts for him to-day. He may lock himself
away, hide himself away, get guards about him, put on armour
if he likes--Death, the unseen Death, is coming. Let him take
precautions; it will impress my people. Death starts from the
pillar box by midday. The letter will fall in as the postman comes
along, then off! The game begins. Death starts. Help him not, my
people, lest Death fall upon you also. To-day Kemp is to die."

Kemp read this letter twice, "It's no hoax," he said. "That's
his voice! And he means it."

He turned the folded sheet over and saw on the addressed side of it
the postmark Hintondean, and the prosaic detail "2d. to pay."

He got up slowly, leaving his lunch unfinished--the letter had
come by the one o'clock post--and went into his study. He rang
for his housekeeper, and told her to go round the house at once,
examine all the fastenings of the windows, and close all the
shutters. He closed the shutters of his study himself. From a
locked drawer in his bedroom he took a little revolver, examined it
carefully, and put it into the pocket of his lounge jacket. He
wrote a number of brief notes, one to Colonel Adye, gave them to
his servant to take, with explicit instructions as to her way of
leaving the house. "There is no danger," he said, and added a
mental reservation, "to you." He remained meditative for a space
after doing this, and then returned to his cooling lunch.

He ate with gaps of thought. Finally he struck the table sharply.
"We will have him!" he said; "and I am the bait. He will come too
far."

He went up to the belvedere, carefully shutting every door after
him. "It's a game," he said, "an odd game--but the chances are
all for me, Mr. Griffin, in spite of your invisibility. Griffin
_contra mundum_ ... with a vengeance."

He stood at the window staring at the hot hillside. "He must get
food every day--and I don't envy him. Did he really sleep last
night? Out in the open somewhere--secure from collisions. I wish
we could get some good cold wet weather instead of the heat.

"He may be watching me now."

He went close to the window. Something rapped smartly against the
brickwork over the frame, and made him start violently back.

"I'm getting nervous," said Kemp. But it was five minutes before he
went to the window again. "It must have been a sparrow," he said.

Presently he heard the front-door bell ringing, and hurried
downstairs. He unbolted and unlocked the door, examined the chain,
put it up, and opened cautiously without showing himself. A
familiar voice hailed him. It was Adye.

"Your servant's been assaulted, Kemp," he said round the door.

"What!" exclaimed Kemp.

"Had that note of yours taken away from her. He's close about here.
Let me in."

Kemp released the chain, and Adye entered through as narrow an
opening as possible. He stood in the hall, looking with infinite
relief at Kemp refastening the door. "Note was snatched out of her
hand. Scared her horribly. She's down at the station. Hysterics.
He's close here. What was it about?"

Kemp swore.

"What a fool I was," said Kemp. "I might have known. It's not an
hour's walk from Hintondean. Already?"

"What's up?" said Adye.

"Look here!" said Kemp, and led the way into his study. He handed
Adye the Invisible Man's letter. Adye read it and whistled softly.
"And you--?" said Adye.

"Proposed a trap--like a fool," said Kemp, "and sent my proposal
out by a maid servant. To him."

Adye followed Kemp's profanity.

"He'll clear out," said Adye.

"Not he," said Kemp.

A resounding smash of glass came from upstairs. Adye had a silvery
glimpse of a little revolver half out of Kemp's pocket. "It's a
window, upstairs!" said Kemp, and led the way up. There came a
second smash while they were still on the staircase. When they
reached the study they found two of the three windows smashed,
half the room littered with splintered glass, and one big flint
lying on the writing table. The two men stopped in the doorway,
contemplating the wreckage. Kemp swore again, and as he did so the
third window went with a snap like a pistol, hung starred for a
moment, and collapsed in jagged, shivering triangles into the room.

"What's this for?" said Adye.

"It's a beginning," said Kemp.

"There's no way of climbing up here?"

"Not for a cat," said Kemp.

"No shutters?"

"Not here. All the downstairs rooms--Hullo!"

Smash, and then whack of boards hit hard came from downstairs.
"Confound him!" said Kemp. "That must be--yes--it's one of the
bedrooms. He's going to do all the house. But he's a fool. The
shutters are up, and the glass will fall outside. He'll cut his
feet."

Another window proclaimed its destruction. The two men stood on the
landing perplexed. "I have it!" said Adye. "Let me have a stick or
something, and I'll go down to the station and get the bloodhounds
put on. That ought to settle him! They're hard by--not ten
minutes--"

Another window went the way of its fellows.

"You haven't a revolver?" asked Adye.

Kemp's hand went to his pocket. Then he hesitated. "I haven't
one--at least to spare."

"I'll bring it back," said Adye, "you'll be safe here."

Kemp, ashamed of his momentary lapse from truthfulness, handed him
the weapon.

"Now for the door," said Adye.

As they stood hesitating in the hall, they heard one of the
first-floor bedroom windows crack and clash. Kemp went to the door
and began to slip the bolts as silently as possible. His face was a
little paler than usual. "You must step straight out," said Kemp. In
another moment Adye was on the doorstep and the bolts were dropping
back into the staples. He hesitated for a moment, feeling more
comfortable with his back against the door. Then he marched, upright
and square, down the steps. He crossed the lawn and approached the
gate. A little breeze seemed to ripple over the grass. Something
moved near him. "Stop a bit," said a Voice, and Adye stopped dead
and his hand tightened on the revolver.

"Well?" said Adye, white and grim, and every nerve tense.

"Oblige me by going back to the house," said the Voice, as tense
and grim as Adye's.

"Sorry," said Adye a little hoarsely, and moistened his lips with
his tongue. The Voice was on his left front, he thought. Suppose he
were to take his luck with a shot?

"What are you going for?" said the Voice, and there was a quick
movement of the two, and a flash of sunlight from the open lip of
Adye's pocket.

Adye desisted and thought. "Where I go," he said slowly, "is my own
business." The words were still on his lips, when an arm came round
his neck, his back felt a knee, and he was sprawling backward. He
drew clumsily and fired absurdly, and in another moment he was
struck in the mouth and the revolver wrested from his grip. He made
a vain clutch at a slippery limb, tried to struggle up and fell
back. "Damn!" said Adye. The Voice laughed. "I'd kill you now if it
wasn't the waste of a bullet," it said. He saw the revolver in
mid-air, six feet off, covering him.

"Well?" said Adye, sitting up.

"Get up," said the Voice.

Adye stood up.

"Attention," said the Voice, and then fiercely, "Don't try any
games. Remember I can see your face if you can't see mine. You've
got to go back to the house."

"He won't let me in," said Adye.

"That's a pity," said the Invisible Man. "I've got no quarrel with
you."

Adye moistened his lips again. He glanced away from the barrel of
the revolver and saw the sea far off very blue and dark under the
midday sun, the smooth green down, the white cliff of the Head, and
the multitudinous town, and suddenly he knew that life was very
sweet. His eyes came back to this little metal thing hanging
between heaven and earth, six yards away. "What am I to do?" he
said sullenly.

"What am _I_ to do?" asked the Invisible Man. "You will get help. The
only thing is for you to go back."

"I will try. If he lets me in will you promise not to rush the
door?"

"I've got no quarrel with you," said the Voice.

Kemp had hurried upstairs after letting Adye out, and now crouching
among the broken glass and peering cautiously over the edge of the
study window sill, he saw Adye stand parleying with the Unseen.
"Why doesn't he fire?" whispered Kemp to himself. Then the revolver
moved a little and the glint of the sunlight flashed in Kemp's
eyes. He shaded his eyes and tried to see the source of the
blinding beam.

"Surely!" he said, "Adye has given up the revolver."

"Promise not to rush the door," Adye was saying. "Don't push a
winning game too far. Give a man a chance."

"You go back to the house. I tell you flatly I will not promise
anything."

Adye's decision seemed suddenly made. He turned towards the house,
walking slowly with his hands behind him. Kemp watched him--puzzled.
The revolver vanished, flashed again into sight, vanished again,
and became evident on a closer scrutiny as a little dark object
following Adye. Then things happened very quickly. Adye leapt
backwards, swung around, clutched at this little object, missed it,
threw up his hands and fell forward on his face, leaving a little
puff of blue in the air. Kemp did not hear the sound of the shot.
Adye writhed, raised himself on one arm, fell forward, and lay
still.

For a space Kemp remained staring at the quiet carelessness of
Adye's attitude. The afternoon was very hot and still, nothing
seemed stirring in all the world save a couple of yellow butterflies
chasing each other through the shrubbery between the house and the
road gate. Adye lay on the lawn near the gate. The blinds of all
the villas down the hill-road were drawn, but in one little green
summer-house was a white figure, apparently an old man asleep. Kemp
scrutinised the surroundings of the house for a glimpse of the
revolver, but it had vanished. His eyes came back to Adye. The game
was opening well.

Then came a ringing and knocking at the front door, that grew at
last tumultuous, but pursuant to Kemp's instructions the servants
had locked themselves into their rooms. This was followed by a
silence. Kemp sat listening and then began peering cautiously out
of the three windows, one after another. He went to the staircase
head and stood listening uneasily. He armed himself with his
bedroom poker, and went to examine the interior fastenings of the
ground-floor windows again. Everything was safe and quiet. He
returned to the belvedere. Adye lay motionless over the edge of the
gravel just as he had fallen. Coming along the road by the villas
were the housemaid and two policemen.

Everything was deadly still. The three people seemed very slow in
approaching. He wondered what his antagonist was doing.

He started. There was a smash from below. He hesitated and went
downstairs again. Suddenly the house resounded with heavy blows and
the splintering of wood. He heard a smash and the destructive clang
of the iron fastenings of the shutters. He turned the key and
opened the kitchen door. As he did so, the shutters, split and
splintering, came flying inward. He stood aghast. The window frame,
save for one crossbar, was still intact, but only little teeth of
glass remained in the frame. The shutters had been driven in with
an axe, and now the axe was descending in sweeping blows upon the
window frame and the iron bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt
aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside,
and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The
revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the
closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door,
and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing.
Then the blows of the axe with its splitting and smashing
consequences, were resumed.

Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment the
Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him
a moment, and then--

A ringing came at the front door again. It would be the policemen.
He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the bolts. He made
the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three people
blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door
again.

"The Invisible Man!" said Kemp. "He has a revolver, with two
shots--left. He's killed Adye. Shot him anyhow. Didn't you see him on
the lawn? He's lying there."

"Who?" said one of the policemen.

"Adye," said Kemp.

"We came in the back way," said the girl.

"What's that smashing?" asked one of the policemen.

"He's in the kitchen--or will be. He has found an axe--"

Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man's resounding
blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the kitchen,
shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to
explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give.

"This way," said Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the
policemen into the dining-room doorway.

"Poker," said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He handed the poker
he had carried to the policeman and the dining-room one to the
other. He suddenly flung himself backward.

"Whup!" said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on his poker.
The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney
Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little
weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the
floor.

At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a moment
by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters--possibly
with an idea of escaping by the shattered window.

The axe receded into the passage, and fell to a position about two
feet from the ground. They could hear the Invisible Man breathing.
"Stand away, you two," he said. "I want that man Kemp."

"We want you," said the first policeman, making a quick step
forward and wiping with his poker at the Voice. The Invisible Man
must have started back, and he blundered into the umbrella stand.

Then, as the policeman staggered with the swing of the blow he had
aimed, the Invisible Man countered with the axe, the helmet crumpled
like paper, and the blow sent the man spinning to the floor at the
head of the kitchen stairs. But the second policeman, aiming behind
the axe with his poker, hit something soft that snapped. There was a
sharp exclamation of pain and then the axe fell to the ground. The
policeman wiped again at vacancy and hit nothing; he put his foot on
the axe, and struck again. Then he stood, poker clubbed, listening
intent for the slightest movement.

He heard the dining-room window open, and a quick rush of feet
within. His companion rolled over and sat up, with the blood
running down between his eye and ear. "Where is he?" asked the man
on the floor.

"Don't know. I've hit him. He's standing somewhere in the hall.
Unless he's slipped past you. Doctor Kemp--sir."

Pause.

"Doctor Kemp," cried the policeman again.

The second policeman began struggling to his feet. He stood up.
Suddenly the faint pad of bare feet on the kitchen stairs could be
heard. "Yap!" cried the first policeman, and incontinently flung
his poker. It smashed a little gas bracket.

He made as if he would pursue the Invisible Man downstairs. Then he
thought better of it and stepped into the dining-room.

"Doctor Kemp--" he began, and stopped short.

"Doctor Kemp's a hero," he said, as his companion looked over his
shoulder.

The dining-room window was wide open, and neither housemaid nor
Kemp was to be seen.

The second policeman's opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HUNTER HUNTED


Mr. Heelas, Mr. Kemp's nearest neighbour among the villa holders,
was asleep in his summer house when the siege of Kemp's house
began. Mr. Heelas was one of the sturdy minority who refused to
believe "in all this nonsense" about an Invisible Man. His wife,
however, as he was subsequently to be reminded, did. He insisted
upon walking about his garden just as if nothing was the matter,
and he went to sleep in the afternoon in accordance with the custom
of years. He slept through the smashing of the windows, and then
woke up suddenly with a curious persuasion of something wrong. He
looked across at Kemp's house, rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Then he put his feet to the ground, and sat listening. He said he
was damned, but still the strange thing was visible. The house
looked as though it had been deserted for weeks--after a violent
riot. Every window was broken, and every window, save those of the
belvedere study, was blinded by the internal shutters.

"I could have sworn it was all right"--he looked at his watch--"twenty
minutes ago."

He became aware of a measured concussion and the clash of glass,
far away in the distance. And then, as he sat open-mouthed, came a
still more wonderful thing. The shutters of the drawing-room window
were flung open violently, and the housemaid in her outdoor hat and
garments, appeared struggling in a frantic manner to throw up the
sash. Suddenly a man appeared beside her, helping her--Dr. Kemp!
In another moment the window was open, and the housemaid was
struggling out; she pitched forward and vanished among the shrubs.
Mr. Heelas stood up, exclaiming vaguely and vehemently at all these
wonderful things. He saw Kemp stand on the sill, spring from the
window, and reappear almost instantaneously running along a path in
the shrubbery and stooping as he ran, like a man who evades
observation. He vanished behind a laburnum, and appeared again
clambering over a fence that abutted on the open down. In a second
he had tumbled over and was running at a tremendous pace down the
slope towards Mr. Heelas.

"Lord!" cried Mr. Heelas, struck with an idea; "it's that Invisible
Man brute! It's right, after all!"

With Mr. Heelas to think things like that was to act, and his cook
watching him from the top window was amazed to see him come pelting
towards the house at a good nine miles an hour. There was a
slamming of doors, a ringing of bells, and the voice of Mr. Heelas
bellowing like a bull. "Shut the doors, shut the windows, shut
everything!--the Invisible Man is coming!" Instantly the house was
full of screams and directions, and scurrying feet. He ran himself
to shut the French windows that opened on the veranda; as he did so
Kemp's head and shoulders and knee appeared over the edge of the
garden fence. In another moment Kemp had ploughed through the
asparagus, and was running across the tennis lawn to the house.

"You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, shutting the bolts. "I'm very
sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!"

Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, rapping and
then shaking frantically at the French window. Then, seeing his
efforts were useless, he ran along the veranda, vaulted the end,
and went to hammer at the side door. Then he ran round by the side
gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill-road. And Mr.
Heelas staring from his window--a face of horror--had scarcely
witnessed Kemp vanish, ere the asparagus was being trampled this
way and that by feet unseen. At that Mr. Heelas fled precipitately
upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his purview. But as
he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam.

Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward
direction, and so it was he came to run in his own person the very
race he had watched with such a critical eye from the belvedere
study only four days ago. He ran it well, for a man out of
training, and though his face was white and wet, his wits were cool
to the last. He ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of
rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints,
or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the
bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would.

For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill-road
was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the
town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote. Never had
there been a slower or more painful method of progression than
running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun,
looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred--by
his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout
for an eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea
had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were
stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that
was the police station. Was that footsteps he heard behind him?
Spurt.

The people below were staring at him, one or two were running, and
his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite
near now, and the "Jolly Cricketers" was noisily barring its doors.
Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel--the drainage
works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and
slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go for the police
station. In another moment he had passed the door of the "Jolly
Cricketers," and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with
human beings about him. The tram driver and his helper--arrested
by the sight of his furious haste--stood staring with the tram
horses unhitched. Further on the astonished features of navvies
appeared above the mounds of gravel.

His pace broke a little, and then he heard the swift pad of his
pursuer, and leapt forward again. "The Invisible Man!" he cried to
the navvies, with a vague indicative gesture, and by an inspiration
leapt the excavation and placed a burly group between him and the
chase. Then abandoning the idea of the police station he turned
into a little side street, rushed by a greengrocer's cart,
hesitated for the tenth of a second at the door of a sweetstuff
shop, and then made for the mouth of an alley that ran back into
the main Hill Street again. Two or three little children were
playing here, and shrieked and scattered at his apparition, and
forthwith doors and windows opened and excited mothers revealed
their hearts. Out he shot into Hill Street again, three hundred
yards from the tram-line end, and immediately he became aware of a
tumultuous vociferation and running people.

He glanced up the street towards the hill. Hardly a dozen yards off
ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing viciously with
a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists
clenched. Up the street others followed these two, striking and
shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he
noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop-door with a stick in
his hand. "Spread out! Spread out!" cried some one. Kemp suddenly
grasped the altered condition of the chase. He stopped, and looked
round, panting. "He's close here!" he cried. "Form a line across--"

He was hit hard under the ear, and went reeling, trying to face
round towards his unseen antagonist. He just managed to keep his
feet, and he struck a vain counter in the air. Then he was hit
again under the jaw, and sprawled headlong on the ground. In
another moment a knee compressed his diaphragm, and a couple of
eager hands gripped his throat, but the grip of one was weaker than
the other; he grasped the wrists, heard a cry of pain from his
assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through
the air above him, and struck something with a dull thud. He felt
a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his throat suddenly
relaxed, and with a convulsive effort, Kemp loosed himself, grasped
a limp shoulder, and rolled uppermost. He gripped the unseen elbows
near the ground. "I've got him!" screamed Kemp. "Help! Help--hold!
He's down! Hold his feet!"

In another second there was a simultaneous rush upon the struggle,
and a stranger coming into the road suddenly might have thought an
exceptionally savage game of Rugby football was in progress. And
there was no shouting after Kemp's cry--only a sound of blows
and feet and heavy breathing.

Then came a mighty effort, and the Invisible Man threw off a couple
of his antagonists and rose to his knees. Kemp clung to him in
front like a hound to a stag, and a dozen hands gripped, clutched,
and tore at the Unseen. The tram conductor suddenly got the neck
and shoulders and lugged him back.

Down went the heap of struggling men again and rolled over. There
was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild scream
of "Mercy! Mercy!" that died down swiftly to a sound like choking.

"Get back, you fools!" cried the muffled voice of Kemp, and there
was a vigorous shoving back of stalwart forms. "He's hurt, I tell
you. Stand back!"

There was a brief struggle to clear a space, and then the circle of
eager faces saw the doctor kneeling, as it seemed, fifteen inches
in the air, and holding invisible arms to the ground. Behind him a
constable gripped invisible ankles.

"Don't you leave go of en," cried the big navvy, holding a
blood-stained spade; "he's shamming."

"He's not shamming," said the doctor, cautiously raising his knee;
"and I'll hold him." His face was bruised and already going red; he
spoke thickly because of a bleeding lip. He released one hand and
seemed to be feeling at the face. "The mouth's all wet," he said.
And then, "Good God!"

He stood up abruptly and then knelt down on the ground by the side
of the thing unseen. There was a pushing and shuffling, a sound of
heavy feet as fresh people turned up to increase the pressure of
the crowd. People now were coming out of the houses. The doors of
the "Jolly Cricketers" stood suddenly wide open. Very little was said.

Kemp felt about, his hand seeming to pass through empty air. "He's
not breathing," he said, and then, "I can't feel his heart. His
side--ugh!"

Suddenly an old woman, peering under the arm of the big navvy,
screamed sharply. "Looky there!" she said, and thrust out a
wrinkled finger.

And looking where she pointed, everyone saw, faint and transparent
as though it was made of glass, so that veins and arteries and
bones and nerves could be distinguished, the outline of a hand, a
hand limp and prone. It grew clouded and opaque even as they stared.

"Hullo!" cried the constable. "Here's his feet a-showing!"

And so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet and creeping along
his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change
continued. It was like the slow spreading of a poison. First came
the little white nerves, a hazy grey sketch of a limb, then the
glassy bones and intricate arteries, then the flesh and skin, first
a faint fogginess, and then growing rapidly dense and opaque.
Presently they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and
the dim outline of his drawn and battered features.

When at last the crowd made way for Kemp to stand erect, there lay,
naked and pitiful on the ground, the bruised and broken body of a
young man about thirty. His hair and brow were white--not grey
with age, but white with the whiteness of albinism--and his eyes
were like garnets. His hands were clenched, his eyes wide open, and
his expression was one of anger and dismay.

"Cover his face!" said a man. "For Gawd's sake, cover that face!"
and three little children, pushing forward through the crowd, were
suddenly twisted round and sent packing off again.

Someone brought a sheet from the "Jolly Cricketers," and having
covered him, they carried him into that house. And there it was, on
a shabby bed in a tawdry, ill-lighted bedroom, surrounded by a crowd
of ignorant and excited people, broken and wounded, betrayed and
unpitied, that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself
invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist the world has ever
seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career.



THE EPILOGUE


So ends the story of the strange and evil experiments of the
Invisible Man. And if you would learn more of him you must go to a
little inn near Port Stowe and talk to the landlord. The sign of
the inn is an empty board save for a hat and boots, and the name is
the title of this story. The landlord is a short and corpulent
little man with a nose of cylindrical proportions, wiry hair, and a
sporadic rosiness of visage. Drink generously, and he will tell you
generously of all the things that happened to him after that time,
and of how the lawyers tried to do him out of the treasure found
upon him.

"When they found they couldn't prove who's money was which, I'm
blessed," he says, "if they didn't try to make me out a blooming
treasure trove! Do I _look_ like a Treasure Trove? And then a
gentleman gave me a guinea a night to tell the story at the Empire
Music 'All--just to tell 'em in my own words--barring one."

And if you want to cut off the flow of his reminiscences abruptly,
you can always do so by asking if there weren't three manuscript
books in the story. He admits there were and proceeds to explain,
with asseverations that everybody thinks _he_ has 'em! But bless you!
he hasn't. "The Invisible Man it was took 'em off to hide 'em when
I cut and ran for Port Stowe. It's that Mr. Kemp put people on with
the idea of _my_ having 'em."

And then he subsides into a pensive state, watches you furtively,
bustles nervously with glasses, and presently leaves the bar.

He is a bachelor man--his tastes were ever bachelor, and there
are no women folk in the house. Outwardly he buttons--it is
expected of him--but in his more vital privacies, in the matter
of braces for example, he still turns to string. He conducts his
house without enterprise, but with eminent decorum. His movements
are slow, and he is a great thinker. But he has a reputation for
wisdom and for a respectable parsimony in the village, and his
knowledge of the roads of the South of England would beat Cobbett.

And on Sunday mornings, every Sunday morning, all the year round,
while he is closed to the outer world, and every night after ten,
he goes into his bar parlour, bearing a glass of gin faintly tinged
with water, and having placed this down, he locks the door and
examines the blinds, and even looks under the table. And then,
being satisfied of his solitude, he unlocks the cupboard and a box
in the cupboard and a drawer in that box, and produces three
volumes bound in brown leather, and places them solemnly in the
middle of the table. The covers are weather-worn and tinged with an
algal green--for once they sojourned in a ditch and some of the
pages have been washed blank by dirty water. The landlord sits down
in an armchair, fills a long clay pipe slowly--gloating over the
books the while. Then he pulls one towards him and opens it, and
begins to study it--turning over the leaves backwards and forwards.

His brows are knit and his lips move painfully. "Hex, little two up
in the air, cross and a fiddle-de-dee. Lord! what a one he was for
intellect!"

Presently he relaxes and leans back, and blinks through his smoke
across the room at things invisible to other eyes. "Full of
secrets," he says. "Wonderful secrets!"

"Once I get the haul of them--_Lord_!"

"I wouldn't do what _he_ did; I'd just--well!" He pulls at his
pipe.

So he lapses into a dream, the undying wonderful dream of his life.
And though Kemp has fished unceasingly, no human being save the
landlord knows those books are there, with the subtle secret of
invisibility and a dozen other strange secrets written therein.
And none other will know of them until he dies.

___________________________________________________________________