The Xenolite Press ~Electro~Book~ of Olaf Stapledon's Odd John




                                        ODD JOHN
                                A STORY BETWEEN JEST AND EARNEST BY


                                          OLAF STAPLEDON




                        Contents




    I John and the Author
    II The First Phase
  III Enfant Terrible
  IV John and His Elders
  V    Thought and Action
  VI Many Inventions
  VII Financial Ventures

  VIII Scandalous Adolescence

  IX Methods of a Young Anthropologist
  X    The World's Plight
  XI Strange Encounters
  XII John in the Wilderness
XIII John Seeks His Kind
XIV Engineering Problems
XV Jacqueline
XVI Adian

XVII Ng-Gunko and Lo

XVIII The Skid's First Voyage

XIX The Colony Is Founded
XX     The Colony in Being
XXI The Beginning of the End
XXII The End



                                           CHAPTER I

                                   JOHN AND THE AUTHOR

WHEN I told John that I intended to write his biography, he laughed. "My dear man!" he said,
"But of course it was inevitable." The word "man" on John's lips was often equivalent to "fool."
   "Well," I protested, "a cat may look at a king."
   He replied, "Yes, but can it really see the king? Can you, puss, really see me?"
   This from a queer child to a full-grown man.
   John was right. Though I had known him since he was a baby, and was in a sense intimate
with him, I knew almost nothing of the inner, the real John. To this day I know little but the
amazing facts of his career. I know that he never walked till he was six, that before he was ten he
committed several burglaries and killed a policeman, that at eighteen, when he still looked a
young boy, he founded his preposterous colony in the South Seas, and that at twenty-three, in
appearance but little altered, he outwitted the six warships that six Great Powers had sent to seize
him. I know also how John and all his followers died.
   Such facts I know; and even at the risk of destruction by one or other of the six Great Powers,
I shall tell the world all that I can remember.
    Something else I know, which will be very difficult to explain. In a confused way I know why
he founded his colony. I know too that although he gave his whole energy to this task, he never
seriously expected to succeed. He was convinced that sooner or later the world would find him
out and destroy his work. "Our chance," he once said, "is not as much as one in a million." And
then he laughed.
    John's laugh was strangely disturbing. It was a low, rapid, crisp chuckle. It reminded me of
that whispered crackling prelude which sometimes precedes a really great crash of thunder. But
no thunder followed it, only a moment's silence; and for his hearers an odd tingling of the scalp.
    I believe that this inhuman, this ruthless but never malicious laugh of John's contained the key
to all that baffles me in his character. Again and again I asked myself why he laughed just then,
what precisely was he laughing at, what did his laughter really mean, was that strange noise
really laughter at all, or some emotional reaction incomprehensible to my kind? Why, for
instance, did the infant John laugh through his tears when he had upset a kettle and was badly
scalded? I was not present at his death, but I feel sure that, when his end came, his last breath
spent itself in zestful laughter. Why?
    In failing to answer these questions, I fail to understand the essential John. His laughter, I am
convinced, sprang from some aspect of his experience entirely beyond my vision. I am therefore,
of course, as John affirmed, a very incompetent biographer. But if I keep silence, the facts of his
unique career will be lost for ever. In spite of my incompetence, I must record all that I can, in the
hope that, if these pages fall into the hands of some being of John's own stature, he may
imaginatively see through them to the strange but glorious spirit of John himself.
    That others of his kind, or approximately of his kind, are now alive, and that yet others will
appear, is at least probable. But as John himself discovered, the great majority of these very rare
supernormals, whom John sometimes called "wide-awakes," are either so delicate physically or
so unbalanced mentally that they leave no considerable mark on the world. How pathetically one-
sided the supernormal development may be is revealed in Mr. J. D. Beresford's account of the
unhappy Victor Stott. I hope that the following brief record will at least suggest a mind at once
more strikingly "superhuman" and more broadly human.
    That the reader may look for something more than an intellectual prodigy I will here at the
outset try to give an impression of John's appearance in his twenty-third and last summer.
    He was indeed far more like a boy than a man, though in some moods his youthful face would
assume a curiously experienced and even patriarchal expression. Slender, long limbed, and with
that unfinished coltish look characteristic of puberty, he had also a curiously finished grace all his
own. Indeed to those who had come to know him he seemed a creature of ever-novel beauty. But
strangers were often revolted by his uncouth proportions. They called him spiderish. His body,
they complained, was so insignificant, his legs and arms so long and lithe, his head all eye and
brow.
    Now that I have set down these characters I cannot conceive how they might make for beauty.
But in John they did, at least for those of us who could look at him without preconceptions
derived from Greek gods, or film stars. With characteristic lack of false modesty, John once said
to me, "My looks are a rough test of people. If they don't begin to see me beautiful when they
have had a chance to learn, I know they're dead inside, and dangerous."
    But let me complete the description. Like his fellow-colonists, John mostly went naked. His
maleness, thus revealed, was immature in spite of his twenty-three years. His skin, burnt by the
Polynesian sun, was of a grey, almost a green, brown, warming to a ruddier tint in the cheeks. His
hands were extremely large and sinewy. Somehow they seemed more mature than the rest of his
body. "Spiderish" seemed appropriate in this connexion also. His head was certainly large but not
out of proportion to his long limbs. Evidently the unique development of his brain depended more
on manifold convolutions than on sheer bulk. All the same his was a much larger head than it
looked, for its visible bulk was scarcely at all occupied by the hair, which was but a close skull-
cap, a mere superficies of negroid but almost white wool. His nose was small but broad, rather
Mongolian perhaps. His lips, large but definite, were always active. They expressed a kind of
running commentary on his thoughts and feelings. Yet many a time I have seen those lips harden
into granitic stubbornness. John's eyes were indeed, according to ordinary standards, much too
big for his face, which acquired thus a strangely cat-like or falcon-like expression. This was
emphasized by the low and level eyebrows, but often completely abolished by a thoroughly
boyish and even mischievous smile. The whites of John's eyes were almost invisible. The pupils
were immense. The oddly green irises were as a rule mere filaments. But in tropical sunshine the
pupils narrowed to mere pinpricks. Altogether, his eyes were the most obviously "queer" part of
him. His glance, however, had none of that weirdly compelling power recorded in the case of
Victor Stott. Or rather, to feel their magic, one needed to have already learnt something of the
formidable spirit that used them.



                                          CHAPTER II

                                      THE FIRST PHASE

JOHN'S father, Thomas Wainwright, had reason to believe that Spaniards and Moroccans had
long ago contributed to his making. There was indeed something of the Latin, even perhaps of the
Arab, in his nature. Every one admitted that he had a certain brilliance; but he was odd, and was
generally regarded as a failure. A medical practice in a North-country suburb gave little scope for
his powers, and many opportunities of rubbing people up the wrong way. Several remarkable
cures stood to his credit; but he had no bedside manner, and his patients never accorded him the
trust which is so necessary for a doctor's success.
    His wife was no less a mongrel than her husband, but one of a very different kind. She was of
Swedish extraction. Finns and Lapps were also among her ancestors. Scandinavian in appearance,
she was a great sluggish blonde, who even as a matron dazzled the young male eye. It was
originally through her attraction that I became the youthful friend of her husband, and later the
slave of her more than brilliant son. Some said she was "just a magnificent female animal," and
so dull as to be subnormal. Certainly conversation with her was sometimes almost as one-sided as
conversation with a cow. Yet she was no fool. Her house was always in good order, though she
seemed to spend no thought upon it. With the same absent-minded skill she managed her rather
difficult husband. He called her "Pax." "So peaceful," he would explain. Curiously her children
also adopted this name for her. Their father they called invariably "Doc." The two elder, girl and
boy, affected to smile at their mother's ignorance of the world; but they counted on her advice.
John, the youngest by four years, once said something which suggested that we had all misjudged
her. Some one had remarked on her extraordinary dumbness. Out flashed John's disconcerting
laugh, and then, "No one notices the things that interest Pax, and so she just doesn't talk."
    John's birth had put the great maternal animal to a severe strain. She carried her burden for
eleven months, till the doctors decided that at all costs she must be relieved. Yet when the baby
was at last brought to light, it had the grotesque appearance of a seven-months fetus. Only with
great difficulty was it kept alive in an incubator. Not till a year after the forced birth was this
artificial womb deemed no longer necessary.
    I saw John frequently during his first year, for between me and the father, though he was
many years my senior, there had by now grown up a curious intimacy based on common
intellectual interests, and perhaps partly on a common admiration for Pax.
    I can remember my shock of disgust when I first saw the thing they had called John. It
seemed impossible that such an inert and pulpy bit of flesh could ever develop into a human
being. It was like some obscene fruit, more vegetable than animal, save for an occasional
incongruous spasm of activity.
    When John was a year old, however, he looked almost like a normal new-born infant, save
that his eyes were shut. At eighteen months he opened them; and it was as though a sleeping city
had suddenly leapt into life. Formidable eyes they were for a baby, eyes seen under a magnifying
glass, each great pupil like the mouth of a cave, the iris a mere rim, an edging of bright emerald.
Strange how two black holes can gleam with life! It was shortly after his eyes had opened that
Pax began to call her strange son "Odd John." She gave the words a particular and subtle intona-
tion which, though it scarcely varied, seemed to express sometimes merely affectionate apology
for the creature's oddity, but sometimes defiance, and sometimes triumph, and occasionally awe.
The adjective stuck to John throughout his life.
    Henceforth John was definitely a person and a very wide-awake person, too. Week by week
he became more and more active and more and more interested. He was for ever busy with eyes
and ears and limbs.
    During the next two years John's body developed precariously, but without disaster. There
were always difficulties over feeding, but when he had reached the age of three he was a
tolerably healthy child, though odd, and in appearance extremely backward. This backwardness
distressed Thomas. Pax, however, insisted that most babies grew too fast. "They don't give their
minds a chance to knit themselves properly," she declared. The unhappy father shook his head.
    When John was in his fifth year I used to see him nearly every morning as I passed the
Wainwrights' house on my way to the railway station. He would be in his pram in the garden
rioting with limbs and voice. The din, I thought, had an odd quality. It differed indescribably
from the vocalization of any ordinary baby, as the call of one kind of monkey differs from that of
another species. It was a rich and subtle shindy, full of quaint modulations and variations. One
could scarcely believe that this was a backward child of four. Both behaviour and appearance
suggested an extremely bright six-months infant. He was too wide awake to be backward, too
backward to be four. It was not only that those prodigious eyes were so alert and penetrating.
Even his clumsy efforts to manipulate his toys seemed purposeful beyond his years. Though he
could not manage his fingers at all well, his mind seemed to be already setting them very definite
and intelligent tasks. Their failure distressed him.
    John was certainly intelligent. We were all now agreed on that point. Yet he showed no sign
of crawling, and no sign of talking. Then suddenly, long before he had attempted to move about
in his world, he became articulate. On a certain Tuesday he was merely babbling as usual. On
Wednesday he was exceptionally quiet, and seemed for the first time to understand something of
his mother's baby-talk. On Thursday morning he startled the family by remarking very slowly but
very correctly, "I—want—milk." That afternoon he said to a visitor who no longer interested
him, "Go—away. I—do—not—like—you—much."
    These linguistic achievements were obviously of quite a different type from the first remarks
of ordinary children.
    Friday and Saturday John spent in careful conversation with his delighted relatives. By the
following Tuesday, a week after his first attempt, he was a better linguist than his seven-year-old
brother, and speech had already begun to lose its novelty for him. It had ceased to be a new art,
and had become merely a useful means of communication, to be extended and refined only as
new spheres of experience came within his ken and demanded expression.
    Now that John could talk, his parents learned one or two surprising facts about him. For
instance, he could remember his birth. And immediately after that painful crisis, when he had
been severed from his mother, he actually had to learn to breathe. Before any breathing reflex
awoke, he had been kept alive by artificial respiration, and from this experience he had
discovered how to control his lungs. With a prolonged and desperate effort of will he had, so to
speak, cranked the engine, until at last it "fired" and acted spontaneously. His heart also, it
appeared, was largely under voluntary control. Certain early "cardiac troubles," very alarming to
his parents, had in fact been voluntary interferences of a too daring nature. His emotional reflexes
also were far more under control than in the rest of us. Thus if, in some anger-provoking
situation, he did not wish to feel angry, he could easily inhibit the anger reflexes. And if anger
seemed desirable he could produce it. He was indeed "Odd John."
About nine months after John had learnt to speak, some one gave him a child's abacus. For the
rest of that day there was no talking, no hilarity;
and meals were dismissed with impatience. John had suddenly discovered the intricate delights of
number. Hour after hour he performed all manner of operations on the new toy. Then suddenly he
flung it away and lay back staring at the ceiling.
    His mother thought he was tired. She spoke to him. He took no notice. She gently shook his
arm. No response. "John!" she cried in some alarm, and shook more violently. "Shut up, Pax," he
said, "I'm busy with numbers."
    Then, after a pause, "Pax, what do you call the numbers after twelve?" She counted up to
twenty, then up to thirty. "You're as stupid as that toy, Pax." When she asked why, he found he
had not words to explain himself;
but after he had indicated various operations on the abacus, and she had told him the names of
them, he said slowly and triumphantly, "You're stupid, Pax, dear, because you (and the toy there)
'count' in tens and not in twelves. And that's stupid because twelves have 'fourths' and 'threeths', I
mean 'thirds', and tens have not." When she explained that all men counted in tens because when
counting began, they used their five fingers, he looked fixedly at her, then laughed his crackling,
crowing laugh. Presently he said, "Then all men are stupid."
     This, I think, was John's first realization of the stupidity of Homo sapiens, but not the last.
     Thomas was jubilant over John's mathematical shrewdness, and wanted to report his case to
the British Psychological Society. But Pax showed an unexpected determination to "keep it all
dark for the present." "He shall not be experimented on," she insisted. "They'd probably hurt him.
And anyhow they'd make a silly fuss." Thomas and I laughed at her fears, but she won the battle.
     John was now nearly five, but still in appearance a mere baby. He could not walk. He could
not, or would not, crawl. His legs were still those of an infant. Moreover, his walking was
probably seriously delayed by mathematics, for during the next few months he could not be
persuaded to give his attention to anything but numbers and the properties of space. He would lie
in his pram in the garden by the hour doing "mental arithmetic" and "mental geometry," never
moving a muscle, never making a sound. This was most unhealthy for a growing child, and he
began to ail. Yet nothing would induce him to live a more normal and active life.
     Visitors often refused to believe that he was mentally active out there for all those hours. He
looked pale and "absent." They privately thought he was in a state of coma, and developing as an
imbecile. But occasionally he would volunteer a few words which would confound them.
     John's attack upon geometry began with an interest in his brothers box of bricks and in a
diaper wallpaper. Then came a phase of cutting up cheese and soap into slabs, cubes, cones, and
even into spheres and ovoids. At first John was extremely clumsy with a knife, cutting his fingers
and greatly distressing his mother. But in a few days he had become amazingly dextrous. As
usual, though he was backward in taking up a new activity, once he had set his mind to it, his
progress was fantastically rapid. His next stage was to make use of his sister's school-set of
geometrical instruments. For a week he was enraptured, covering innumerable sheets.
     Then suddenly he refused to take any further interest in visual geometry. He preferred to lie
back and meditate. One morning he was troubled by some question which he could not formulate.
Pax could make nothing of his efforts, but later his father helped him to extend his vocabulary
enough to ask, "Why are there only three dimensions? When I grow up shall I find more?"
     Some weeks later came a much more startling question. "If you went in a straight line, on and
on and on, how far would you have to go to get right back here?"
     We laughed, and Pax exclaimed, "Odd John!" This was early in 1915. Then Thomas
remembered some talk about a "theory of relativity" that was upsetting all the old ideas of
geometry. In time he became so impressed by this odd question of John's, and others like it, that
he insisted on bringing a mathematician from the university to talk to the child.
     Pax protested, but not even she guessed that the result would be disastrous. The visitor was at
first patronizing, then enthusiastic, then bewildered; then, with obvious relief, patronizing again;
then badly flustered. When Pax tactfully persuaded him to go (for the child's sake, of course), he
asked if he might come again, with a colleague.
     A few days later the two of them turned up and remained in conference with the baby for
hours. Thomas was unfortunately going the round of his patients. Pax sat beside John's high
chair, silently knitting, and occasionally trying to help her child to express himself. But the
conversation was far beyond her depth. During a pause for a cup of tea, one of the visitors said,
"It's the child's imaginative power that is so amazing. He knows none of the jargon and none of
the history, but he has seen it all already for himself. It's incredible. He seems to visualize what
can't be visualized."
     Later in the afternoon, so Pax reported, the visitors began to grow rather agitated, and even
angry; and John's irritatingly quiet laugh seemed to make matters worse. When at last she insisted
on putting a stop to the discussion, as it was John's bedtime, she noticed that both the guests were
definitely "out of control." "There was a wild look about them both," she said, "and when I
shooed them out of the garden they were still wrangling; and they never said good-bye."
     But it was a shock to learn, a few days later, that two mathematicians on the university staff
had been found sitting under a street lamp together at 2 a.m. drawing diagrams on the pavement
and disputing about "the curvature of space."
     Thomas regarded his youngest child simply as an exceptionally striking case of the "infant
prodigy." His favourite comment was, "Of course, it will all fizzle out when he gets older." But
Pax would say, "I wonder."
     John worried mathematics for another month, then suddenly put it all behind him. When his
father asked him why he had given it up, he said, "There's not much in number really. Of course,
it's marvellously pretty, but when you've done it all—well, that's that. I've finished number. I
know all there is in that game. I want another. You can't suck the same piece of sugar for ever."
     During the next twelve months John gave his parents no further surprises. It is true he learned
to read and write, and took no more than a week to outstrip his brother and sister. But after his
mathematical triumphs this was only a modest achievement. The surprising thing was that the
will to read should have developed so late. Pax often read aloud to him out of books belonging to
the elder children, and apparently he did not see why she should be relieved of this duty.
     But there came a time when Anne, his sister, was ill, and his mother was too occupied to read
to him. One day he clamoured for her to start a new book, but she would not. "Well, show me
how to read before you go," he demanded. She smiled, and said, "It's a long job. When Anne's
better I'll show you."
     In a few days she began the task, in the orthodox manner. But John had no patience with the
orthdox manner. He invented a method of his own. He made Pax read aloud to him and pass her
finger along the line as she read, so that he could follow, word by word. Pax could not help
laughing at the barbarousness of this method, but with John it worked. He simply remembered
the "look" of every "noise" that she made, for his power of retention seemed to be infallible.
Presently, without stopping her, he began analysing out the sounds of the different letters, and
was soon cursing the illogicality of English spelling. By the end of the lesson John could read,
though of course his vocabulary was limited. During the following week he devoured all the
children's books in the house, and even a few "grown-up" books. These, of course, meant almost
nothing to him, even though the words were mostly familiar. He soon gave them up in disgust.
One day he picked up his sister's school geometry, but tossed it aside in five minutes with the
remark, "Baby book!"
     Henceforth John was able to read anything that interested him; but he showed no sign of
becoming a book-worm. Reading was an occupation fit only for times of inaction, when his over-
taxed hands demanded repose. For he had now entered a phase of almost passionate manual
constructive-ness, and was making all manner of ingenious models out of cardboard, wire, wood,
plasticine, and any other material that came to hand. Drawing, also, occupied much of his time.
                                           CHAPTER III

                                       ENFANT TERRIBLE

AT last, at the age- of six, John turned his attention to locomotion. In this art he had hitherto been
even more backward than the appearance of his body seemed to warrant. Intellectual and
constructive interests had led to the neglect of all else.
    But now at last he discovered the need of independent travel, and also the fascination of
conquering the new art. As usual, his method of learning was original and his progress rapid. He
never crawled. He began by standing upright with his hands on a chair, balancing alternately on
each foot. An hour of this exhausted him, and for the first time in his life he seemed utterly
disheartened. He who had treated mathematicians as dull-witted children now conceived a new
and wistful respect for his ten-year-old brother, the most active member of the family. For a week
he persistently and reverently watched Tommy walking, running, "ragging" with his sister. Every
moment was noted by the anxious John. He also assiduously practised balancing, and even took a
few steps, holding his mother's hand.
    By the end of the week, however, he had a sort of nervous breakdown, and for days
afterwards he never set foot to ground. With an evident sense of defeat, he reverted to reading,
even to mathematics.
    When he was sufficiently recovered to take the floor again, he walked unaided right across the
room, and burst into hysterical tears of joy—a most un-John-like proceeding. The art was now
conquered. It was only necessary to strengthen his muscles by exercise.
    But John was not content with mere walking. He had conceived a new aim in life; and with
characteristic resolution he set himself to achieve it.
    At first he was greatly hampered by his undeveloped body. His legs were still almost fetal, so
short and curved they were. But under the influence of constant use, and (seemingly) of his
indomitable will, they soon began to grow straight and long and strong. At seven he could run
like a rabbit and climb like a cat. In general build he now looked about four; but something wiry
and muscular about him suggested an urchin of eight or nine. And though his face was infantile
in shape, its expression was sometimes almost that of a man of forty. But the huge eyes and close
white wool gave him an ageless, almost an inhuman look.
    He had now achieved a very striking control of his muscles. There was no more learning of
skilled movements. His limbs, nay the individual muscles themselves, did precisely as he willed.
This was shown unmistakably when, in the second month after his first attempt to walk, he
learned to swim. He stood in the water for a while watching his sister's well-practised strokes,
then lifted his feet from the bottom and did likewise.
    For many months John's whole energy was given to emulating the other children in various
kinds of physical prowess; and in imposing his will upon them. They were at first delighted with
his efforts. All except Tommy, who already realized that he was being outclassed by his kid
brother. The older children of the street were more generous, because they were at first less
affected by John's successes. But increasingly John put them all in the shade.
    It was of course John, looking no more than a rather lanky four-year-old, who, when a
precious ball had lodged in one of the roof-gutters, climbed a drain-pipe, crawled along the
gutter, threw down the ball; and then for .sheer joy clambered up a channel between two slopes of
tiles, and sat astraddle on the crest of the roof. Pax was in town, shopping. The neighbours were
of course terrified for the child's life. Then John, foreseeing amusement, simulated panic and
inability to move. Apparently he had quite lost his head. He clung trembling to the tiles. He
whimpered abjectly. Tears trickled down his cheeks. A local building contractor was hurriedly
called up on the phone. He sent men and ladders. When the rescuer appeared on the roof, John
"pulled snooks" at him, and scuttled for his drain-pipe, down which he descended like a monkey,
before the eyes of an amazed and outraged crowd.
    When Thomas learned of this escapade, he was both horrified and delighted. "The prodigy,"
he said, "has advanced from mathematics to acrobatics." But Pax said only, "I do wish he
wouldn't draw attention to himself."
    John's devouring passion was now personal prowess and dominance. The unfortunate
Tommy, formerly a masterful little devil, was eclipsed and sick at heart. But his sister Anne
adored the brilliant John, and was his slave. Hers was an arduous life. I can sympathize with her
very keenly, for at a much later stage I was to occupy her post.
    John was now either the hero or the loathed enemy of every child in the neighbourhood. At
first he had no intuition of the effect his acts would have on others, and was regarded by most as
a "beastly cocky little freak." The trouble was simply that he always knew when others did not,
and nearly always could when others could not. Strangely he showed no sign of arrogance; but
also he made no effort to assume false modesty.
    One example, which marked the turning-point in his policy towards his fellows, will show his
initial weakness in this respect, and his incredible suppleness of mind.
    The big schoolboy neighbour, Stephen, was in the next garden struggling with a dismembered
and rather complicated lawn-mower. John climbed the fence, and watched for a few minutes in
silence. Presently he laughed. Stephen took no notice. Then John bent down, snatched a cog-
wheel from the lad's hands, put it in place, assembled the other parts, turned a nut here and a
grub-screw there, and the job was finished. Stephen meanwhile stood in sheepish confusion. John
moved toward the fence saying, "Sorry you're no good at that sort of thing, but I'll always help
when I'm free." To his immense surprise, the other flew at him, knocked him down twice, then
pitched him over the fence. John, seated on the grass rubbing various parts of his body, must
surely have felt at least a spasm of anger, but curiosity triumphed over rage, and he inquired
almost amiably, "Why did you want to do that?" But Stephen left the garden without answering.
    John sat meditating. Then he heard his father's voice indoors, and rushed to find him. "Hi!
Doc!" he cried, "if there was a patient you couldn't cure, and one day some one else came and
cured him, what would you do?" Thomas, busy with other matters, replied carelessly, "Dunno!
Probably knock him down for interfering." John gasped, "Now just why? Surely that would be
very stupid." His father, still preoccupied, answered, "I suppose so, but one isn't always sensible.
It depends how the other fellow behaved. If he made me feel a fool, I'm sure I'd want to knock
him down." John gazed at his father for some time, then said, "I see!"
    "Doc!" he suddenly began again, "I must get strong, as strong as Stephen. If I read all those
books" (glancing at the medical tomes), "shall I learn how to get frightfully strong?" The father
laughed. "I'm afraid not," he said.
    Two ambitions now dominated John's behaviour for six months, namely to become an
invincible fighter, and to understand his fellow human-beings.
    The latter was for John the easier task. He set about studying our conduct and our motives,
partly by questioning us, partly by observation. He soon discovered two important facts, first that
we were often surprisingly ignorant of our own motives, and second that in many respects he
differed from the rest of us. In later years he himself told me that this was the time when he first
began to realize his uniqueness.
    Need I say that within a fortnight, John was apparently a changed character? He had assumed
with perfect accuracy that veneer of modesty and generosity which is so characteristic of the
English.
      In spite of his youth and his even more youthful appearance John now became the unwilling
and unassuming leader in many an escapade. The cry was always, "John will know what to do,"
or "Fetch that little devil John, he's a marvel at this kind of job." In the desultory warfare which
was carried on with the children of the Council School (they passed the end of the street four
times a day), it was John who planned ambushes;
and John who could turn defeat into victory by the miraculous fury of an unexpected onslaught.
He was indeed an infant Jove, equipped with thunder-bolts instead of fists.
    These battles were partly a repercussion of a greater war in Europe, but also, I believe, they
were deliberately fostered by John for his own ends. They gave him opportunities both for
physical prowess and for a kind of unacknowledged leadership.
    No wonder the children of the neighbourhood told one another, "John's a great little sport
now," while their mothers, impressed more by his manners than his military genius, said to one
another, "John's a dear these days. He's lost all his horrid freakishness and conceit."
    Even Stephen was praiseful. He told his mother, "That kid's all right really. The hiding did
him good. He has apologized about the mower, and hoped he hadn't jiggered it up."
    But fate had a surprise in store for Stephen.
    In spite of his father's discouragement, John had been spending odd moments among the
medical and physiological books. The anatomical drawings interested him greatly, and to
understand them properly, he had to read. His vocabulary was of course very inadequate, so he
proceeded in the manner of Victor Stott, and read through from cover to cover, first a large
English dictionary, then a dictionary of physiological terms. Very soon he became so fluent that
he had only to run his eye rapidly down the middle of a printed page to be able to understand it
and retain it indefinitely.
    But John was not content with theory. One day, to Pax's horror, he was found cutting up a
dead rat on the dining-room floor, having thoughtfully spread a newspaper to protect the carpet.
Henceforth his anatomical studies, both practical and theoretical, were supervised by Doc. For a
few months John was enthralled. He showed great skill in dissection and microscopy. He
catechized his father at every opportunity, and often exposed the confusion of his answers; till at
last Pax, remembering the mathematicians, insisted that the tired doctor must have respite.
Henceforth John studied unaided.
    Then suddenly he dropped biology as he had dropped mathematics. Pax asked, "Have you
finished with 'life' as you finished with 'number?' "No," replied John, "but life doesn't hang
together like number. It won't make a pattern. There's something wrong with all those books. Of
course, I often see
they're stupid, but there must be something deeper wrong too, which I can't see."
    About this time, by the way, John was actually sent to school, but his career lasted only three
weeks. "His influence is too disturbing," said the head mistress, "and he is quite unteachable. I
fear the child, though apt in some limited directions, is really subnormal, and needs special treat-
ment." Henceforth, to satisfy the law. Pax herself pretended to teach him. To please her, he
glanced at the school books, and could repeat them at will. As for understanding them, those that
interested him he understood as well as the authors; those that bored him he ignored. Over these
he could show the stupidity of a moron.
    When he had finished with biology, John gave up all intellectual pursuits and concentrated on
his body. That autumn he read nothing but adventure stories and several works on jiu-jitsu. Much
of his time he spent in practising this art, and in gymnastic exercises of his own invention. Also
he dieted himself extremely carefully upon principles of his own. John's digestive organs had
been his one weak spot. They seemed to remain infantile longer even than the rest of his body.
Up to his sixth year they were unable to cope with anything but specially prepared milk, and fruit
juice. The food-shortage caused by the war had added to the difficulty of nourishing John, and he
was always liable to minor digestive troubles. But now he took matters into his own hands, and
worked out an intricate but very scanty diet, consisting of fruit, cheese, malted milk, and whole-
meal bread, carefully spaced with rest and exercise. We laughed at him; all but Pax, who saw to it
that his demands should be fulfilled.
    Whether through diet, or gymnastics, or sheer strength of will, he certainly became
exceptionally strong for his weight and age. One by one the boys of the neighbourhood found
themselves drawn into a quarrel with John. One by one they were defeated. Of course it was not
strength but agility and cunning that made him fit to cope with opponents much bigger than
himself. "If that kid once gets hold of you the way he wants, you're done," it used to be said, "and
you can't hit him, he's too quick."
    The strange thing was that in every quarrel it seemed to the public that not John but the other
was the aggressor.
    The climax was the case of Stephen, now captain of his school's First Fifteen, and a
thoroughly good friend to John.
    One day when I was talking to Thomas in his study we heard an unusual scuffling in the
garden. Looking out, we saw Stephen rushing vainly at the elusive John; who, as he leapt side,
landed his baby fist time after time with dire effect on Stephen's face. It was a face almost unrec-
ognizable with rage and perplexity, shockingly unlike the kindly Stephen. Both combatants were
plastered with blood, apparently from Stephen's nose.
    John too was a changed being. His lips were drawn back in an inhuman blend of snarl and
smile. One eye was half closed from Stephen's only successful blow, the other cavernous like the
eye of a mask. For when John was enraged, the iris drew almost entirely out of sight.
    The conflict was so unprecedented and so fantastic that for some moments Thomas and I
were paralysed. At last Stephen managed to seize the diabolic child; or was allowed to seize him.
We dashed downstairs to the rescue. But when we reached the garden, Stephen was lying on his
stomach writhing and gasping, with his arms pinned behind him in the grip of John's tarantula
hands.
    The appearance of John at that moment gave me a startling impression of something fiendish.
Crouched and clutching, he seemed indeed a spider preparing to suck the life out of the tortured
boy beneath him. The sight, I remember, actually made me feel sick.
     We stood bewildered by this unexpected turn of events. John looked around, and his eye met
mine. Never have I seen so arrogant, so hideous an expression of the lust of power as on that
childish face.
     For some seconds we gazed at one another. Evidently my look expressed the horror that I felt,
for his mood rapidly changed. Rage visibly faded out and gave place first to curiosity then to
abstraction. Suddenly John laughed that enigmatic laugh of his. There was no ring of triumph in
it, rather a note of self-mockery, and perhaps of awe.
     He released his victim, rose and said, "Get up, Stephen, old man. I'm sorry I made you lose
 your hair." But Stephen had fainted.
     We never discovered what it was all about. When we questioned John, he said, "It's all over.
Let's forget about it. Poor old Stephen! But no, 7 won't forget."
     When we questioned Stephen a few days later, he said, "I can't bear to think of it. It was my
fault, really. I see that now. Somehow I went mad, when he was intending to be specially decent,
too. But to be licked by a kid like that! But he's not a kid, he's lightning."
     Now I do not pretend to be able to understand John, but I cannot help having one or two
theories about him. In the present case my theory is this. He was at this time plainly going
through a phase of concentrated self-assertion. I do not believe, however, that he had been
nursing a spirit of revenge ever since the affair of the mower. I believe he had determined in cold
blood to try his strength, or rather his skill, against the most formidable of his acquaintances; and
that with this end in view he had deliberately and subtly goaded the wretched Stephen into fury.
John's own rage, I suspect, was entirely artificial. He could fight better in a sort of cold fury, so
he produced one. As I see it, the great test had to be no friendly bout, but a real wild-beast,
desperate encounter. Well, John got what he wanted. And having got it, he saw, in a flash and
once for all, right through it and beyond it. So at least I believe.


                             CHAPTER IV JOHN AND HIS ELDERS


THOUGH the fight with Stephen was, I believe one of the chief landmarks in John's life,
outwardly things went on much as before; save that he gave up fighting, and spent a good deal
more time by himself.
    Between him and Stephen, friendship was restored, but it was henceforth an uncomfortable
friendship. Each seemed anxious to be amicable, but neither felt at ease with the other. Stephen's
nerve, I think, had been seriously shaken. It was not that he feared another licking, but that his
self-respect had suffered. I took an opportunity to suggest that his defeat had been no disgrace,
since John was clearly no ordinary child. Stephen jumped at this consolation. With a hysterical
jerk in his voice he said, "I felt—I can't say what I felt—like a dog biting its master and being
punished. I felt—sort of guilty, wicked."
    John, I think, was now beginning to realize more clearly the gulf that separated him from the
rest of us. At the same time, he was probably feeling a keen need for companionship, but
companionship of a calibre beyond that of normal human beings. He continued to play with his
old companions, and was indeed still the moving spirit in most of their activities;
but always he played with a certain aloofness, as it were with his tongue in his cheek. Though in
appearance he was by far the smallest and most infantile of the whole gang, he reminded me
sometimes of a little old man with snowy hair condescending to play with young gorillas. Often
he would break away in the middle of some wild game and drift into the garden to lie dreaming
on the lawn. Or he would hang around his mother and discuss life with her, while she did her
house-work, tidied the garden, or (a common occupation with Pax) just waited for the next thing
to happen.
     In some ways John with his mother suggested a human foundling with a wolf foster-mother;
or, better, a cow foster-mother. He obviously gave her complete trust and affection, and even a
deep though perplexed reverence; but he was troubled when she could not follow his thought or
understand his innumerable questions about the universe.
     The foster-mother image is not perfect. In one respect, indeed, it is entirely false. For though
intellectually Pax was by far his inferior, there was evidently another field in which she was at
this time his equal, perhaps even his superior. Both mother and son had a peculiar knack of ap-
preciating experience, a peculiar relish which was at bottom, I believe, simply a very special and
subtle sense of humour. Often have I seen a covert glance of understanding and amusement pass
between them when the rest of us found nothing to tickle us. I guessed that this veiled merriment
was in some way connected with John's awakening interest in persons and his rapidly developing
insight into his own motives. But what it was in our behaviour that these two found so piquant, I
could never discover.
     With his father John's relation was very different. He made good use of the doctor's active
 mind, but between them there was no spontaneous sympathy, and little community of taste save
 intellectual interest. I have often seen on John's face while he was listening to his father a fleeting
 contortion of ridicule, even disgust. This happened especially at times when Thomas believed
 himself to be giving the boy some profound comment on human nature or the universe. Needless
 to say it was not only Thomas, but myself also and many another that roused in John this ridicule
 or revulsion. But Thomas was the chief offender, perhaps because he was the most brilliant, and
 the most impressive example of the mental limitations of his species. I suspect that John often
 deliberately incited his father to betray himself in this manner. It was as though the boy had said
 to himself, "I have somehow to understand these fantastic beings who occupy the planet. Here is
 a fine specimen. I must experiment on him."
     At this point I had better say that I myself was becoming increasingly intrigued by the
 fantastic being, John. I was also unwittingly coming under his influence. Looking back on this
 period, I can see that he had already marked me down for future use, and was undertaking the
 first steps of my capture. His chief method was the cool assumption that though I was a middle-
 aged man, I was his slave; that however much I might laugh at him and scold him, I secretly
 recognized him as a superior being, and was at heart his faithful hound. For the present I might
 amuse myself playing at an independent life (I was at this time a rather half-hearted free-lance
 journalist), but sooner or later I must come to heel.
     When John was nearly eight and a half in actual years, he was as a rule taken for a very
 peculiar child of five or six. He still played childish games, and was accepted by other children
 as a child, though a bit of a freak. Yet he could take part in any adult conversation. Of course, he
 was always either far too brilliant or far too ignorant of life to play his part in anything like a
 normal manner; but he was never simply inferior. Even his most naive remarks were apt to have
 a startling significance.
      But John's naivety was rapidly disappearing. He was now reading an immense amount at an
 incredible rate. No book, on any subject which did not lie outside his experience, took him more
 than a couple of hours to master, however tough its matter. Most he could assimilate thoroughly
 in a quarter of an hour. But the majority of books he glanced at only for a -few motnenis. Then-
 flung aside as worthless.
      Now and then, in the course of his reading, he would demand to be taken (by his father or
 mother or myself) to watch- some process of manufacture, or to go down a mine, or see over a
 ship, or visit some place of historic interest, or to observe experiments in some laboratory. Great
 efforts were made to fulfil these demands, but in many cases we had not the necessary influence.
 Many projected trips, moreover, were prevented by Pax's dread of unnecessary publicity for the
 boy. Whenever we did undertake an expedition, we had to pretend to the authorities that John's
 presence was accidental, and his interest childish and unintelligent.
     John was by no means dependent on his elders for seeing the world. He had developed a habit
of entering into conversation with all kinds of persons, "to find out what they were doing and
what they thought about things." Any one who was tactfully accosted in street or train or country
road by this small boy with huge eyes, hair like lamb's wool, and adult speech was likely to find
himself led on to say much more than he intended. By such novel research John learned, I am
convinced, more about human nature and our modern social problems in a month or two than
most of us learn in a lifetime.
     I was privileged to witness one of these interviews. On this occasion the subject was the
proprietor of a big general store in the neighbouring industrial city. Mr. Magnate (it is safer not to
reveal his name) was to be accosted while he was travelling to business by the 9^30 train. John
consented to my presence, but only on condition that I should pretend to be a stranger.
     We let the quarry pass through the turnstile and settle himself in his first-class compartment.
Then we went to the booking office, where I rather self-consciously demanded "a first single and
a half." Independently we strayed into Mr. Magnate's carriage. When I arrived, John was already
settled in the corner opposite to the great man, who occasionally glanced from his paper at the
queer child with a clifE for brow and caves for eyes. Soon after I had taken my post, in the corner
diagonally opposite to John, two other business men entered, and settled themselves to read their
papers.
     John was apparently deep in Comic Cuts, or some such periodical. Though this had been
bought merely to serve as stage property, I believe he was quite capable of enjoying it; for at this
time, in spite of his wonderful gifts, he was still at heart "the little vulgar boy". In the
conversation which followed he was obviously to some extent playing up to the business man's
idea of a precocious yet naive child. But also he was a naive child, backward as well as
diabolically intelligent. I myself, though I knew him well, could not decide how much of his talk
on this occasion was sincere, and how much mere acting.
     When the train had started, John began to watch his prey so intently that Mr. Magnate took
cover behind a wall of newspaper. Presently John's curiously precise treble gathered all eyes
upon him. "Mr. Magnate," he said, "may I talk to you?" The newspaper was lowered, and its
owner endeavoured to look neither awkward nor condescending.
    "Certainly, boy, go ahead. What's your name?"
    "Oh, my name's John. I'm a queer child, but that doesn't matter. It's you we're going to talk
about."
    We all laughed. Mr. Magnate shifted in his seat, but continued to look his part.
    "Well," he said, "you certainly are a queer child." He glanced at his adult fellow travellers for
confirmation. We duly smiled.
    "Yes," replied John, "but you see from my point of view you are a queer man." Mr. Magnate
hung for a moment between amusement and annoyance; but since we had all laughed, except
John, he chose to be tickled and benevolent.
    "Surely," he said, "there's nothing remarkable about me. I'm just a business man. Why do you
think I'm queer?"
    "Well," said John, "I'm thought queer because I have more brains than most children. Some
say I have more brains than I ought to have. "You're queer because you have more money than
most people; and (some say) more than you ought to have."
    Once more we laughed, rather anxiously.
    John continued: "I haven't found out yet what to do with my brains, and I'm wondering if you
have found out what to do with your money."
    "My dear boy, you may not believe me, but the fact is I have no real choice. Needs of all sorts
keep cropping up, and I have to fork out."
    "I see," said John; "but then you can't fork out for all the possible needs. You must have some
sort of big plan or aim to help you to choose."
    "Well now, how shall I put it? I'm James Magnate, with a wife and family and a rather
complicated business and a whole lot of obligations rising out of all that. All the money I control,
or nearly all, goes in keeping all those balls rolling, so to speak."
    "I see," said John again. " *My station and its duties,' as Hegel said, and no need to worry
about the sense of it all."
    Like a dog encountering an unfamiliar and rather formidable smell, Mr. Magnate sniffed this
remark, bristled, and vaguely growled.
    "Worry!" he snorted. "There's plenty of that; but it's practical day-today worry about how to
get goods cheap enough to sell them at a profit instead of a loss. If I started worrying about "the
sense of it all' the business would soon go to pieces. No time for that. I find myself with a pretty
big job that the country needs doing, and I just do it."
    There was a pause, then John remarked, "How splendid it must be to have a pretty big job that
needs doing, and to do it well! Do you do it well, sir? And does it really need doing? But of
course you do, and it must;
else the country wouldn't pay you for it."
    Mr. Magnate looked anxiously at all his fellow travellers in turn, wondering whether his leg
was being pulled. He was reassured, however, by John's innocent and respectful gaze. The boy's
next remark was rather disconcerting. "It must be so snug to feel both safe and important."
    "Well, I don't know about that," the great man replied. "But I give the public what it wants,
and as cheaply as I can, and I get enough out of it to keep my family in reasonable comfort."
    "Is that what you make money for, to keep your family in comfort?"
     "That and other things. I get rid of my money in all sorts of ways. If you must know, quite a
lot goes to the political party that I think can govern the country best. Some goes to hospitals and
other charities in our great city. But most goes into the business itself to make it bigger and
better."
     "Wait a minute," said John. "You've raised a lot of interesting points. I mustn't lose any of
them. First, about comfort. You live in that big half-timbered house on the hill, don't you?"
     "Yes. It's a copy of an Elizabethan mansion. I could have done without it, but my wife had set
her heart on it. And putting it up was a great thing for the local building trade."
     "And you have a Rolls, and a Wolseley?"
     "Yes," said the Magnate, adding with magnanimity. "Come up the hill on Saturday and I'll
give you a run in the Rolls. When she's doing eighty it feels like thirty."
     John's eyelids sank and rose again, a movement which I knew as an expression of amused
contempt. But why was he contemptuous? He was a bit of a speed-hog himself. Never, for
instance, was he satisfied with my cautious driving. Was it that he saw in this remark a cowardly
attempt to side-track the conversation? After the interview I learned that he had already made
several trips in the Magnate car, having suborned the chauffeur. He had even learned to drive it,
with cushions behind him, so as to help his short legs to reach the pedals.
   "Oh, thank you, I should love to go in your Rolls," he said, looking gratefully into the
benevolent grey eyes of the rich man. "Of course, you couldn't work properly unless you had
reasonable comfort. And that means a big house and two cars, and furs and jewels for your wife,
and first-class railway fares, and swank schools for your children." He paused, while Mr.
Magnate looked suspiciously at him. Then he added, "But you won't be really comfortable till
you've got that knighthood. Why doesn't it come? You've paid enough already, haven't you?"
     One of our fellow passengers sniggered. Mr. Magnate coloured, gasped, muttered, "Offensive
little brat!" and retired behind his paper.
     "Oh, sir, I'm sorry," said John, "I thought it was all quite respectable. Surely it's just like
Poppy Day. Pay your money, and you get your badge, and everyone knows you have done your
bit. And that's true comfort, to know that everyone knows you're all right."
     The paper dropped again, and its owner said, with mild firmness, "Look here, young man!
You mustn't believe everything you're told, specially when it's libellous. I know you don't mean
harm yourself, but— be more critical of what you hear."
     "I'm frightfully sorry," said John, looking pained and abashed. "It's so hard to know what one
may say and what not."
     "Yes, of course," said Magnate amiably. "Perhaps I had better explain things a bit. Any one
who finds himself in a position like mine, if he's worth his salt, has to make the best possible use
of his opportunities for serving the Empire. Now he can do this partly by running his business
well, partly by personal influence. And if he is to have influence he must not only be, buJ: also
appear, a man of weight. He must spend a good deal on keeping up a certain style in his way of
life. The public does attend more to a man who lives a bit expensively than to a man who doesn't.
Often it would be more comfortable not to live expensively. Just as it would be more comfortable
for a judge in court on a hot day to do without his robe and wig. But he mustn't. He must sacrifice
comfort to dignity. At Christmas I bought my wife a rather good diamond necklace (South
African—the money stayed in the Empire). Whenever we go to an important function, say a
dinner at the Town Hall, she's got to wear it. She doesn't always want to. Says it's heavy or hard,
or something. But I say, 'My dear, it's a sign that you count. It's a badge of office. Better wear it.'
And about the knighthood. If anyone says I want to buy one, it's just a mean lie. I give what I can
to my party because I know quite well, with my experience, that it's the party of common sense
and loyalty. No other party cares seriously for British prosperity and power. No other cares about
our great Empire and its mission to lead the world. Well, clearly I must support that party in any
way open to me. If they saw fit to give me a knighthood, I'd be proud. I'm not one of those prigs
who turn up their noses at it. I'd be glad, partly because it would mean that the people who really
count were sure I was really serving the Empire, partly because the knighthood would give me
more weight to go on serving the Empire with."
    Mr. Magnate glanced at his fellow passengers. We all nodded approval. "Thank you, sir," said
John, with solemn, respectful eyes. "And it all depends on money, doesn't it? If I'm going to do
anything big, I must get money, somehow. I have a friend who keeps saying, 'Money's power.' He
has a wife who's always tired and cross, and five children, ugly dull things. He's out of a job. Had
to sell his push-bike the other day. He says it's not fair that he should be where he is and—you
where you are. But it's all his own fault really. If he had been as wide awake as you, he'd be as
rich as you. Your being rich doesn't make anyone else poor, does it? If all the slum people were
as wide awake as you, they'd all have big houses and Rollses and diamonds. They'd all be some
use to the Empire, instead of being just a nuisance."
    The man opposite me tittered. Mr. Magnate looked at him with the sidelong glance of a shy
horse, then pulled himself together and laughed.
    "My lad," he said, "you're too young to understand these things. I don't think we shall do
much good by talking any more about them."
    "I'm sorry," John replied, seemingly crushed. "I thought I did understand." Then after a pause
he continued: "Do you mind if we go on just a little bit longer? I want to ask you something else."
    "Oh, very well, what is it?"
    "What do you think about?"
    "What do I think about? Good heavens, boy! All sorts of things. My business, my home, my
wife and children, and—about the state of the country."
    "The state of the country? What about it?"
    "Well," said Mr. Magnate, "that's much too long a story. I think about how England is to
recover her foreign trade—so that more money may come into the country, and people may live
happier, fuller lives. I think about how we can strengthen the hands of the Government against
the foolish people who want to stir up trouble, and those who talk wildly against the Empire. I
think——"
    Here John interrupted. "What makes life full and happy?"
    "You are a box of questions! I should say that for happiness people need plenty of work to
keep them out of mischief, and some amusement to keep them fresh."
    "And, of course," John interposed, "enough money to buy their amusements with."
    "Yes," said Mr. Magnate. "But not too much. Most of them would only waste it or damage
themselves with it. And if they had a lot, they wouldn't work to get more."
    "But you have a lot, and you work."
    "Yes, but I don't work for money exactly. I work because my business is a fascinating game,
and because it is necessary to the country. I regard myself as a sort of public servant."
    "But," said John, "aren't they public servants too? Isn't their work necessary too?"
    "Yes, boy. But they don't as a rule look at it that way. They won't work unless they're driven."
    "Oh, I see!" John said. "They're a different sort from you. It must be wonderful to be you. I
wonder whether I shall turn out like you or like them."
    "Oh, I'm not really different," said Mr. Magnate generously. "Or if I am, it's just
circumstances that have made me so. As for you, young man, I expect you'll go a long way."
    "I want to, terribly," said John. "But I don't know which way yet. Evidently whatever I do I
must have money. But tell me, why do you bother about the country, and about other people?"
    "I suppose," said Mr. Magnate, laughing, "I bother about other people because when I see
them unhappy I feel unhappy myself. And also," he added more solemnly, "because the Bible
tells us to love our neighbours. And I suppose I bother about the country partly because I must
have something big to be interested in, something bigger than myself."
    "But you are big, yourself," said John, with hero-worship in his eyes, and not a twinkle.
    Mr. Magnate said hastily, "No, no, only a humble instrument in the service of a very big
thing."
    "What thing do you mean?" asked John.
    "Our great Empire, of course, boy."
    We were arriving at our destination. Mr. Magnate rose and took his hat from the rack. "Well,
young man," he said, "we have had an interesting talk. Come along on Saturday afternoon about
2.30, and we'll get the chauffeur to give you a quarter of an hour's spin in the Rolls."
    "Thank you, sir!" said John. "And may I see Mrs. Magnate's necklace? I love jewels."
    "Certainly you shall," Mr. Magnate answered.
    When I had met John again outside the station, his only comment on the journey was his
characteristic laugh.


                            CHAPTER V THOUGHT AND ACTION


DURING the six months which followed this incident, John became increasingly independent of
his elders. The parents knew that he was well able to look after himself, so they left him almost
entirely to his own devices. They seldom questioned him about his doings, for anything like
prying was repugnant to them both; and there seemed to be no mystery about John's movements.
He was continuing his study of man and man's world. Sometimes he would volunteer an account
of some incident in his day's adventure; sometimes he would draw upon his store of data to illus-
trate a point in discussion.
    Though his tastes remained in some respects puerile, it was clear from his conversation that in
other respects he was very rapidly developing. He would still spend days at a stretch in making
mechanical toys, such as electric boats. His electric railway system spread its ramifications all
over the garden in a maze of lines, tunnels, viaducts, glass-roofed stations. He won many a
competition in flying home-made model aeroplanes. In all these activities he seemed at heart a
typical schoolboy, though abnormally skilful and original. But the actual time spent in this way
was really not great. The only boyish occupation which seemed to fill a large proportion of his
time was sailing. He had made himself a minute but seaworthy canoe, fitted both with sail and an
old motor-bicycle engine. In this he spent many hours exploring the estuary and the sea-coast,
and studying the sea-birds, for which he had a surprising passion. This interest, which at times
seemed almost obsessive, he explained apologetically by saying, "They do their simple jobs with
so much more style than man shows in his complicated job. Watch a gannet in flight, or a curlew
probing the mud for food. Man, I suppose, is about as clever along his own line as the earliest
birds were at flight. He's a sort of archiopteryx of the spirit."
    Even the most childish activities which sometimes gripped John were apt to be illuminated in
this manner by the more mature side of his nature. His delight in Comic Cuts, for instance, was
half spontaneous, half a relish of his own silliness in liking the stuff.
    At no time of his life did John outgrow his childhood interests. Even in his last phase he was
always capable of sheer schoolboy mischief and make-believe. But already this side of his nature
was being subordinated to the mature side. We knew, for instance, that he was already forming
opinions about the proper aims of the individual, about social policy, about international affairs.
We knew also that he was reading a great deal of physics, biology, psychology, astronomy; and
that philosophical problems were now seriously occupying him. His reaction to philosophy was
curiously unlike that of the normal philosophically minded adult human being. When one of the
great classical philosophical puzzles attracted his attention for the first time, he plunged into the
literature of the subject, read solidly for a week, and then gave up philosophy entirely till the next
puzzle occurred to him.
    After several of these raids upon the territory of philosophy he undertook a serious campaign.
For nearly three months philosophy appeared to be his main intellectual interest. It was summer-
time, and he liked to study out of doors. Every morning he would set off on his push-bike with a
box of books and food strapped on the carrier. Leaving his bicycle at the top of the clay cliffs
which formed the coastline of the estuary, he would climb down to the shore, and settle himself
for the day. Having undressed and put on his scanty "bathers," he would lie in the full sunshine
reading, or thinking. Sometimes he broke off to bathe or wander about the mud flats watching the
birds. Shelter from rain was provided by two rusty pieces of corrugated iron sheeting laid across
two low walls, which he built of stones from a ruined lime-kiln near at hand. Sometimes, when
the tide was up, he went by the sea route in his canoe. On calm days he might be seen a mile or
two from the coast, drifting and reading.
    I once asked John how his philosophical researches were progressing. His answer is worth
recording. "Philosophy," he said, "is really very helpful to the growing mind, but it's terribly
disappointing too. At first I thought I'd found the mature human intelligence at work at last.
Reading Plato, and Spinoza, and Kant, and some of the modern realists too, I almost felt I had
come across people of my own kind. I walked in step with them. I played their game with a sense
that it called out powers that I had never exercised before. Sometimes I couldn't follow them. I
seemed to miss some vital move. The exhilaration of puzzling over these critical points, and
feeling one had met a real master mind at last! But as I went on from philosopher to philosopher
and browsed around all over the place, I began to realize the shocking truth that these critical
points were not what I thought they were, but just outrageous howlers. It had seemed incredible
that these obviously well-developed minds could make simple mistakes;
and so I had respectfully dismissed the possibility, and looked for some profound truth. But oh
my God, I was wrong! Howler after howler! Sometimes a philosopher's opponents spot his
howlers, and are frightfully set up with their own cleverness. But most of them never get spotted
at all, so far as I can discover. Philosophy is an amazing tissue of really fine thinking and
incredible, puerile mistakes. It's like one of those rubber 'bones' they give dogs to chew, damned
good for the mind's teeth, but as food—no bloody good at all."
    I ventured to suggest that perhaps he was not really in a position to judge the philosophers.
"After all," I said, "you're ridiculously young to tackle philosophy. There are spheres of
experience that you have not touched yet."
    "Of course there are," he said. "But—well, for instance, I have little sexual experience, yet.
But even now I can see that a man is blathering if he says that sex (properly defined) is the real
motive behind all agricultural activities. Take another case. I have no religious experience, yet.
Maybe I shall have it, some day. Maybe there's really no such thing. But I can see quite well that
religious experience (properly defined) is no evidence that the sun goes round the earth, and no
evidence that the universe has a purpose, such as the fulfilment of personality. The howlers of
philosophers are mostly less obvious than these, but of the same kind."
    At the time of which I am speaking, when John was nearly nine, I had no idea that he was
leading a double life, and that the hidden part of it was melodramatic. On one single occasion my
suspicion was roused for a few moments, but the possibility that fkshed upon me was too fan-
tastic and horrible to be seriously entertained.
    One morning I happened to go round to the Wainwrights to borrow one of Thomas's medical
books. It must have been about 11.30. John, who had recently developed the habit of reading late
at night and rising late in the morning, was being turned out of bed by his indignant mother.
"Come and get your breakfast before you dress," she said. "I'll keep it no longer."
    Pax offered me "morning tea," so we both sat down at the breakfast-table. Presently a
blinking and scowling John appeared, wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas. Pax and I
talked about one thing and another. In the course of conversation she said, "Matilda has come
with a really lurid story to-day." (Matilda was the washerwoman.) "She's as pleased as Punch
about it. She says a policeman was found murdered in Mr. Magnate's garden this morning,
stabbed, she says." John said nothing, and went on with his breakfast. We continued talking for a
while, and then the thing happened that startled me. John reached across the table for the butter,
exposing part of his arm beyond the end of the dressing-gown sleeve. On the inner side of the
wrist was a rather nasty-looking scrape with a certain amount of dirt still in it. I felt pretty sure
that there had been no scrape there when I saw him on the previous evening. Nothing very
remarkable in that, but what disturbed me was this: John himself saw that scrape, and then
glanced quickly at me. For a fraction of a second his eyes held mine; then he took up the butter-
dish. In that moment I seemed to see John, in the middle of the night, scraping his arm as he
climbed up the drain-pipe to his bedroom. And it seemed to me that he was returning from Mr.
Magnate's. I pulled myself together at once, reminding myself that what I had seen was a very
ordinary abrasion, that John was far too deeply engrossed in his intellectual adventures to indulge
in noctural pranks, and anyhow far too sensible to risk a murder charge. But that sudden look?
    The murder gave the suburb matter for gossip for many weeks. There had recently been a
number of extremely clever burglaries in the neighbourhood, and the police were making
vigorous efforts to discover the culprit. The murdered man had been found lying on his back in a
flower-bed with a neat knife-wound in his chest. He must have died "instantaneously," for his
heart was pierced. A diamond necklace and other valuable pieces of jewellery had disappeared
from the house. Slight marks on a window-sill and a drain-pipe suggested that the burglar had
climbed in and out by an upper storey. If so, he must have ascended the drain-pipe and then
accomplished an almost impossible hand-traverse, or rather finger-tip-traverse, up and along one
of the ornamental timbers of the pseudo-Elizabethan house.
    Sundry arrests were made, but the perpetrator of the crime was never detected. The epidemic
of burglaries, however, ceased, and in time the whole matter was forgotten.
    At this point it seems well to draw upon information given me by John himself at a much
later stage, in fact during the last year of his life, when the colony had been successfully founded,
and had not yet been discovered by the "civilized" world. I was already contemplating writing his
biography, and had formed a habit of jotting down notes of any striking incident or conversation
as soon as possible after the event. I can, therefore, give the account of the murder approximately
in John's own words.
   "I was in a bad mess, mentally, in those days," said John. "I knew I was different from all other
human beings whom I had ever met, but I didn't realize how different. I didn't know what I was
going to do with my life, but I knew I should soon find something pretty big and desperate to do,
and that I must make myself ready for it. Also, remember, I was a child; and I had a child's taste
for the melodramatic, combined with an adult's cunning and resolution.
    "I can't possibly make you really understand the horrible muddle I was in, because after all
your mind doesn't work along the same lines as mine. But think of it this way, if you like. I found
myself in a thoroughly bewildering world. The people in it had built up a huge system of thought
and knowledge, and I could see quite well that it was shot through and through with error. From
my point of view, although so far as it went it was sound enough for practical purposes, as a
description of the world it was simply crazy. But what the right description was I could not
discover. I was too young. I had insufficient data. Huge fields of experience were still beyond
me. So there I was, like some one in the dark in a strange room, just feeling about among
unknown objects. And all the while I had a frantic itch to be getting on with my work, if only I
could find out what it was.
    "Add to all this that as I grew older I grew more and more lonely, because fewer and fewer
people were able to meet me half-way. There was Pax. She really could help, bless her, because
she really did see things from my angle—sometimes. And even when she didn't she had the sense
to guess I was seeing something actual, and not merely fantasies. But at bottom she definitely
belonged with the rest of you, not with me. Then there was you, much blinder than Pax, but more
sympathetic with the active side of me."
    Here I interposed half seriously, half mischievously, "At least a trusty hound." John laughed,
and I added, "And sometimes rising to an understanding beyond my canine capacity, through
sheer devotion." He looked at me and smiled, but did not, as I had hoped he would, assent.
    "Well," he continued, "I was most damnably lonely. I was living in a world of phantoms, or
animated masks. No one seemed really alive. I had a queer notion that if I pricked any of you,
there would be no bleeding, but only a gush of wind. And I couldn't make out why you were like
that, what it was that I missed in you. The trouble really was that I didn't clearly knew what it was
in myself that made me different from you.
     "Two clear points emerged from my perplexity. First and simplest, I must make myself
independent, I must acquire power. In the crazy world in which I found myself, this meant getting
hold of much money. Second I must make haste to sample all sorts of experience, and I must
accurately experience my own reactions to all sorts of experience.
     "It seemed to me, in my childishness, that I should at any rate begin to fulfil both these needs
by bringing off a few burglaries. I should get money, and I should get experience, and I should
watch my reactions very carefully. Conscience did not prick me at all. I felt that Mr. Magnate and
his like were fair game.
     "I first set about studying the technique, partly by reading, partly by discussing the subject
 with my friend the policeman whom I was afterwards forced to kill. I also undertook a number of
 experimental and innocuous burglaries on our neighbours. House after house I entered by night,
 and after locating but not removing the small treasures which they contained, I retired home to
 bed, well satisfied with my progress.
     "At last I felt ready for serious work. In my first house I took only some old-fashioned
 jewellery, which, I surmised, would not be missed for some time. Then I began taking modern
 jewellery, cash, silver plate. I found extraordinarily little difficulty in acquiring the stuff. Getting
 rid of it was much more ticklish work. I managed to make an arrangement with the purser of a
 foreign-going vessel. He turned up at his home in our suburb every few weeks and bought my
 swag. I have no doubt that when he parted with it, in foreign ports he got ten times what he gave
 me for it. Looking back, I realize how lucky I was that the export side of my venture never
 brought me to disaster. My purser might so easily have been spotted by the police. Of course, I
 was still far too ignorant of society to realize the danger. Bright as I was, I had not the data.
     "Well, things were swimmingly for some months. I entered dozens of houses and collected
 several hundred pounds from my purser. But naturally the suburb had got thoroughly excited by
 this epidemic of house-breaking. Indeed, I had been forced to extend my operations to other dis-
 tricts so as to dissipate the attention of the police. It was clear that if I went on indefinitely I
 should be caught. But I had been badly bitten by the game. It gave me a sense of independence
 and power, especially independence, independence of your crazy world.
     "I promised myself three more ventures. The first, and the only one to be accomplished, was
 the Magnate burglary. I went over the ground pretty carefully, and I ascertained the movements
 of the police pretty thoroughly too. On the actual night all went according to plan until, with my
 pockets bulging with Mrs. Magnate's pearls and diamonds (in her full regalia she must have
 looked like Queen Elizabeth), I started back along that finger-traverse. Suddenly a torch flashed
 on me from below, and a quiet cheery voice said, 'Got you this time, my lad.' I said nothing, for I
 recognized the voice, and did not wish mine to be recognized in turn. The constable was my own
 particular pal, Smithson, who had unwittingly taught me so much.
     "I hung motionless by my finger-tips, thinking hard, and keeping my face to the wall. But it
 was useless to conceal my identity, for he said, 'Buck up, John, boy, come along down or you'll
 drop and break your leg. You're a sport, but you're beat this time/
     "I must have hung motionless for three seconds at most, but in that time I saw myself and my
world as never before. An idea toward which I had been long but doubtfully groping suddenly
displayed itself to me with complete clarity and certainty. I had already, some time before, come
to think of myself as definitely of a different biological species from Homo saf'iens, the species
of that amiable bloodhound behind the torch. But at last I realized for the first time that this
difference carried with it what I should now describe as a far-reaching spiritual difference, that
my purpose in life, and my attitude to life, were to be different from anything which the normal
species could conceive, that I stood, as it were, on the threshold of a world far beyond the reach
of those sixteen hundred million crude animals that at present ruled the planet. The discovery
made me feel, almost for the first time in my life, fear, dread. I saw, too, that this burglary game
was not worth the candle, that I had been behaving very much like a creature of the inferior
species, risking my future and much more than my personal success for a cheap kind of self-
expression. If that amiable bloodhound got me, I should lose my independence. I should be
henceforth known, marked, and in the grip of the law. That simply must not be. All these childish
escapades had been a blind, fumbling preparation for a life-work which at last stood out more or
less clearly before me. It was my task, unique being that I was, to 'advance the spirit' on this
planet. That was the phrase which flashed into my mind. And though at that early stage I had
only a very dim idea about 'spirit' and its 'advance,' I saw quite clearly that I must set about the
more practical side of my task either by taking charge of the common species and teaching it to
bring out the best in itself, or, if that proved impossible, by founding a finer human type of my
own.
     "Such were the thoughts that flashed on me in the first couple of seconds as I hung by my
finger-tips in the blaze of poor Smithson's torch. If ever you do write that threatened biography,
you'll find it quite impossible to persuade your readers that I, a child of nine, could have had such
thoughts in such circumstances. Also, of course, you won't be able to give anything of the actual
character of my new attitude, because it involved a kind of experience beyond your grasp.
     "During the next two seconds or so I was desperately considering if there was any way to
avoid killing the faithful creature. My fingers were giving out. With their last strength I reached
the drain-pipe, and began to descend. Half-way I stopped, 'How's Mrs. Smithson?' I said. 'Bad,'
he answered. 'Look sharp, I want to get home.' That made matters worse. How could I do it?
Well, it just had to be done, there was no way out of it. I thought of killing myself, and getting
out of the whole mess that way. But I couldn't do that. It ^yould be sheer betrayal of the thing I
must live for. I thought of just accepting Smithson and the law; but no, that, I knew, was betrayal
also. The killing just had to be. It was my own childishness that had got me into this scrape, but
now—the killing just had to be. All the same, I hated the job. I had not yet reached the stage of
liking whatever had to be done. I felt over again, and far more distressingly, the violent repulsion
which had surprised me years earlier, when I had to kill a mouse. It was that one I had tamed, you
remember, and the maids wouldn't stand it running about the house.
    "Well, Smithson had to die. He was standing at the foot of the pipe. I pretended to slip, and
fell on him, overbalancing him by kicking off from the wall. We both went down with a crash.
With my left hand I seized the torch, and with my right I whipped out my little scout's knife. The
position of the human heart was not unknown to me. I plunged the knife home, leaning on it with
all my weight. Smithson flung me off with one frantic spasm, then lay still.
    "The scrimmage had made a considerable noise, and I heard a bed creak in the house. For a
moment I looked at Smithson's open eyes and open mouth. I pulled out the knife, and then there
was a spurt of blood."
    John's account of this strange incident showed me how little I had known of his real character
at that time.
    "You must have felt pretty bad on the way home," I said.
    "As a matter of fact," he answered, "I didn't. The bad feeling ended when I made my decision.
And I didn't go straight home. I went to Smith-son's house, intending to kill his wife. I knew she
was down with cancer and in for a lot of pain, and would be broken-hearted over her husband's
death; so I decided to take one more risk and put her out of her misery. But when I got there, by
secret ways of my own, I found the house lit up and awake. She was evidently having a bad
night. So I had to leave her, poor wretch. Even that didn't really upset me. You may say I was
saved by the insensitivity of childhood. Perhaps to some extent; though I had a pretty vivid notion
of what Pax would suffer if she lost her husband. What really saved me was a kind of fatalism.
What must be, must be. I felt no remorse for my own past folly. The 'I' that had committed that
folly was incapable of realizing how foolish it was being. The new T,' that had suddenly
awakened, realized very clearly, and was anxious to make amends so far as possible; but of
remorse or shame it felt nothing."
    To this confession I could make only one reply, "Odd John!"
    I then asked John if he was preyed on by the dread of being caught. "No," he said. "I had done
all I could. If they caught me, they caught me. But I had done the job as efficiently as it is ever
done. I had worn rubber gloves, and left a few false fingerprints, made by an ingenious little
instrument of my own. My only serious anxiety was over my purser. I sold him the swag in small
instalments over a period of several months."


                                          CHAPTER VI



                                       MANY INVENTIONS


ALTHOUGH I did not at the time know that John was responsible for the murder, I noticed that a
change came over him. He became less communicative, in a way more aloof from his friends,
both juvenile and adult, and at the same time more considerate and even gentle. I say "in a way"
more aloof, because, though less ready to talk about himself, and more prone to solitariness, he
had also his sociable times. He could indeed be a most sympathetic companion, the sort in whom
one was tempted to confide all manner of secret hopes and fears that were scarcely admitted by
oneself. One day, for instance, I found myself discovering, under the influence of John's presence
and my own effort to explain myself, that I had already become very strongly attracted to a
certain Pax-like young woman, and further that I had been kept from recognizing this feeling
through an obscure sense of loyalty to John. The discovery of the strength of my feeling for John
was more of a shock than the discovery of my feeling for the girl. I knew that I was deeply
interested in John, but till that day I had no idea how subtle and far-reaching were the tentacles
with which the strange child had penetrated me.
    My reaction was a violent and rather panicky rebellion. I flaunted before John the new-found
normal sexual attraction which he himself had pointed out to me, and I ridiculed the notion that I
was psychologically his captive. He replied, "Well, be careful. Don't spoil your life for me." It
was strange to be talking like this to a child of less than ten years old. It was distressing to feel
that he knew more about me than I knew about myself. For in spite of my denial, I knew that he
was right.
    Looking back, I recognize that John's interest in my case was partly due to curiosity about a
relationship which he himself could not yet experience, partly to straightforward affection for a
well-known companion, partly to the need to understand as fully as possible one whom he
intended to use for his own ends. For it is clear that he did intend to use me, that he did not for a
moment intend me to free myself. He wanted my affair with the Pax-like girl to go forward and
complete itself not only because, as my friend, he espoused my need, but also because, if I were
to give it up for his sake, I should become a vindictive rather than a willing slave. He preferred, I
imagine, to be served by a free and roving hound rather than by a chained and hungry wolf.
    His feeling for individuals of the species which, as a species, he heartily despised, was a
strange blend of contempt and respect, detachment and affection. He despised us for our stupidity
and fecklessness; he respected us for our occasional efforts to surmount our natural disabilities.
Though he used us for his own ends with calm aloofness, he could also, when fate or our own
folly brought us into trouble, serve us with surprising humility and devotion.
    His growing capacity for personal relationships with members of the inferior species was
shown most quaintly in his extraordinary friendship with a little girl of six. Judy's home was
close to John's, and she had come to regard John as her private property. He played uproarious
games with her, helped her to climb trees, and taught her to swim and roller-skate. He told her
wildly imaginative stories. He patiently explained to her the sorry jokes of Comic Cuts. He drew
pictures of battle and murder, shipwreck and volcanic eruption for Judy's sole delight. He mended
her toys. He chaffed her for her stupidity or praised her for her intelligence as occasion
demanded. If any one was less than kind to her, John rushed to her defence. In all communal
games it was taken for granted that John and Judy must be on the same side. In return for this
devotion she mauled him, laughed at him, scolded him, called him "stoopid Don," showed no
respect at all for his marvellous powers, and presented him with all the most cherished results of
her enterprise in the "hand-work" class at school.
    I once challenged John, "Why are you so fond of Judy?" He answered promptly, imitating her
unusually backward baby speech, "Doody made for be'n' ton' of. Can't not be ton' of Doody."
Then after a pause he said, "I'm fond of Judy as I'm fond of sea-birds. She does only simple
things, but she does them all with style. She be's Judy as thoroughly and perfectly as a gannet be's
a gannet. If she could grow up to do the grown-up things as well as she does the baby things,
she'd be glorious. But she won't. When it comes to doing the more difficult things, I suppose
she'll mess up her style like—like the rest of you. It's a pity. But meanwhile she's—Judy."
    "What about yourself?" I said. "Do you expect to grow up without losing your style?"
    "I've not found my style yet," he answered. "I'm groping. I've messed things pretty badly
already. But when I do find it—well, we shall see. Of course," he added surprisingly, "God may
find grown-ups as delightful to watch as I find Judy; because, I suppose, he doesn't want them to
have a finer style than they actually have. Sometimes I can feel that way about them myself. I can
feel their bad style is part of what they are, and strangely fascinating to watch. But I have an idea
God expects something different from me. Or, leaving out the God myth, Z expect something
different from me."
    A few weeks after the murder, John developed a surprising interest in a very homely sphere,
namely the management of a house. He would spend an hour at a time in following Martha the
maid about the house on her morning's work, or in watching the culinary operations. For her
entertainment he kept up a stream of small talk compounded of scandal, broad humour, and chaff
about her "gentlemen friends." The same minute-observation, but a very different kind of talk
was devoted to Pax when she was in the pantry or the larder, or when she was "tidying" a room or
mending clothes. Sometimes he would break oft his tittle-tattle to say, "Why not do it this way?"
Martha's response to such suggestions varied from haughty contempt to grudging acceptance,
according to her mood. Pax invariably gave serious attention to the new idea, though sometimes
she would begin by protesting, "But my way works well enough; why bother?" In the end,
however, she nearly always adopted John's improvement, with an odd little smile which might
equally well have meant maternal pride or indulgence.
    Little by little John introduced a number of small labour-saving devices into the house,
shifting a hook or a shelf to suit the natural reach of the adult arm, altering the balance of the
coal-scuttle, reorganizing the larder and the bathroom. He tried to introduce his methods into the
surgery, suggesting new ways of cleaning test-tubes, sterilizing instruments and storing drugs;
but after a few attempts he gave up this line of activity, since, as he put it, "Doc likes to muddle
along in his own way."
    After two or three weeks John's interest in household economy seemed to fade, save for
occasional revivals in relation to some particular problem. He now spent most of his time away
from home, ostensibly reading on the shore. But as the autumn advanced, and we began to
inquire how he managed to keep himself warm, he apparently developed a passion for long walks
by himself. He also spent much time in excursions into the neighbouring city. "I'm going to town
for the day to see some fellows I'm interested in," he would tell us; and in the evening he would
return tired and absorbed.
    It was toward the end of the winter that John, now about ten and a half, took me into his
confidence with regard to the amazing commercial operations which had been occupying him
during the previous six months. One filthy Sunday morning, when the windows were plastered
with sleet, he suggested a walk. I indignantly refused. "Come on," he insisted. "It's going to be
amusing for you. I want to show you my workshop." He slowly winked first one huge eye and
then the other.
    By the time we had reached the shore my inadequate mackintosh was letting water through on
my shoulders, and I was cursing John, and myself too. We tramped along the soaked sands till we
reached a spot where the steep clay cliffs gave place to a slope, scarcely less steep, but covered
with thorn bushes. John went down on his knees and led the way, crawling on all-fours up a track
between the bushes. I was expected to follow. I found it almost impossible to force my larger
bulk where John had passed with ease. When I had gone a few yards I was jammed, thorns
impaling me on every side. Laughing at my predicament and my curses, John turned and cut me
adrift with his knife, the same, doubtless, as had killed the constable. After another ten yards the
track brought us into a small clearing on the steep slope. Standing erect at last, I grumbled, "Is
this what you call your workshop?" John laughed, and said, "Lift that." He was pointing to a rusty
sheet of corrugated iron, which lay derelict on the hillside. One end of it was buried under a mass
of rubbish. The exposed part was about three feet square. I tugged its free end up a couple of
inches, cut my fingers on the rusty jagged edge, and let go with a curse. "Can't be bothered," I
said. "Do your own dirty work, if you can." "Of course you can't be bothered," he replied, "nor
would anyone else who found it." He then worked his hand under the free corners of the sheet,
and disentangled some rusty wire. The sheet was now easily lifted, and opened like a trap door in
the hillside. It revealed a black hole between three big stones. John crawled inside, and bade me
follow; but before I could wedge my way through he had to move one of the stones. I found
myself in a low cave, illuminated by John's flash-light. So this was the workshop! It had evi-
dently been cut out of the clay slope and lined with cement. The ceiling was covered with rough
planks, and shored up here and there with wooden posts.
    John now lit an acetylene lamp, which was let into the outer wall. Shutting its glass face, he
remarked, "Its air comes in by a pipe from outside, and its fumes go out by another. There's an
independent ventilation system for the room." Pointing to a dozen round holes in the wall,
"Drainpipes," he said. Such pipes were a common sight on the coast, for they were used for
draining the fields; and the ever-crumbling cliff often exposed them.
    For a few minutes I crouched in silence, surveying the little den. John watched me, with a grin
of boyish satisfaction. There was a bench, a small lathe, a blow-lamp, and quantities of tools. On
the back wall was a tier of shelves covered with a jumble of articles. John took one of these and
handed it to me, saying, "This is one of my earlier gadgets, the world's perfect wool-winder. No
curates need henceforth apply. The Church's undoing! Put the skein on those prongs, and an end
of wool in that slot, then waggle the lever, so, and you get a ball of wool as sleek as the curate's
head. All made of aluminum sheeting, and a few aluminum knitting needles."
"Damned ingenious," I said, "but what good is it to you?" "Why, you fool! I'm going to patent it
and sell the patent." Producing a deep leather pouch, he said, "This is a detachable and untearable
trouser-pocket for boys; and men, if they'll have the sense to use it. The pocket itself clips on to
this L-shaped strip, so; and all your trousers have strips like this, firmly sewn into the lining. You
have one pair of pockets for all your trousers, so there's no bother about emptying pockets when
you change your clothes. And no more holes for Mummy to mend. And no more losing your
treasures. Your pocket clips tight shut, so."
    Even my interest in John's amazing enterprise (so childish and so brilliant, I told myself)
could not prevent me from feeling wet and chilled. Taking off my dripping mackintosh, I said,
"Don't you get horribly cold working in this hole in the winter?"
    "I heat the place with this," he said, turning to a little oil-stove with a flue leading round the
room and through the wall. He proceeded to light it, and put a kettle on the top, saying, "Let's
have some coffee."
    He then gave me a "gadget for sweeping out corners." On the end of a long tubular handle
was a brush like a big blunt cork-screw. This could be made to rotate by merely pressing it into
the awkward corner. The rotatory motion was obtained by a device reminiscent of a "propelling"
pencil, for the actual shaft of the brush was keyed into a spiral groove within the hollow handle.
    "It's possible the thing I'm on now will bring more money than anything else, but it's damned
hard to make even an inch or two of it by hand." The article which John now showed me was
destined to become one of the most popular and serviceable of modern devices connected with
clothing. Throughout Europe and America it has spawned its myriads of offspring. Nearly all the
most ingenious and lucrative of John's inventions have had such outstanding success that almost
every reader must be familiar with every one of them. I could mention a score of them; but for
private reasons, connected with John's family, I must refrain from doing so. I will only say that,
save for one universally adopted improvement in road-traffic appliances, he worked entirely in
the field of household and personal labour-saving devices. The outstanding fact about John's
career as an inventor was his knack of producing not merely occasional successes but a steady
flow of "best sellers." Consequently to describe only a few minor achievements and interesting
failures must give a very false impression of his genius. The reader must supplement this meagre
report by means of his own imagination. Let him, in the act of using any of the more cunning and
efficient little instruments of modern comfort, remind himself that this may well be one of the
many "gadgets" which were conceived by the urchin-superman in his subterranean lair.
     For some time John continued to show me his inventions. I may mention a parsley cutter, a
potato-peeler, a number of devices for using old razor-blades as penknife, scissors, and so on.
Others, to repeat, were destined never to be taken up, or never to become popular. Of these
perhaps the most noteworthy was a startlingly efficient dodge for saving time and trouble in the
watercloset. John himself had doubts about some, including the detachable pocket. "The trouble
is," he said, "that however good my inventions are, Homo sapiens may be too prejudiced to use
them. I expect he'll stick to his bloody pockets."

    The kettle was boiling, so he made the coffee and produced a noble cake, made by Pax.
    While we were drinking and munching I asked him how he got all his plant. "It's all paid for,"
he said. "I came in for a bit of money. I'll tell you about that some day. But I want much more
money, and I'll get it too."
    "You were lucky to find this cave," I said. He laughed. "Find it, you chump! I made it. Dug it
out with pick and spade and my own lily-white hands." (At this point he reached out a grubby
and sinewy bunch of tentacles for a biscuit.) "It was the hell of a grind, but it hardened my
muscles."
    "And how did you transport the stuff, that lathe, for instance?" "By sea, of course." "Not in
the canoe!" I protested. "Had it all sent to X," he said, naming a little port on the other side of the
estuary. "There's a bloke over there who acts as my agent in little matters like that. He's safe,
because I know things about him that he doesn't want the police to know. Well, he dumped the
cases of parts on the shore over there one night while I pinched one of the Sailing Club's cutters
and took her over to fetch the stuff. It had to be done at spring tide, and of course the weather was
all wrong. When I got the stuff over I nearly died lugging it up here from the shore, though it was
all in small pieces. And I only just managed to get the cutter back to her moorings before dawn.
Thank God that's all over. Have another cup, won't you?"
    Toasting ourselves over the oil-stove, we now discussed the part which John intended me to
play in his preposterous adventure. I was at first inclined to scoff at the whole project, but what
with his diabolical persuasiveness and the fact that he had already achieved so much, I found
myself agreeing to carry out my share of the plan. "You see," he said, "all this stuff must be
patented and the patents sold to manufacturers. It's quite useless for a kid like me to interview
patents agents and business men. That's where you come in. You're going to launch all these
things, sometimes under your own name, sometimes under sham names. I don't want people to
know they all come from one little brain."
    "But, John," I said, "I should get stung every time. I know nothing about the job."
    "That's all right," he answered. "I'll tell you exactly what to do in each case. And if you do
make a few mistakes, it doesn't matter."
    One odd feature of the relationship which he had planned for us was that, though we expected
to deal with large sums of money, there was not to be any regularized business arrangement
between us, no formal agreement about profit-sharing and liabilities. I suggested a written
contract, but he dismissed the idea with contempt. "My dear man," he said, "how could I enforce
a contract against you without coming out of hiding, which I must not do on any account?
Besides, I know perfectly well that so long as you keep in physical and mental health you're
entirely reliable. And you ought to know the same of me. This is to be a friendly show. You can
take as much as you like of the dibs, when they begin to come in. I'll bet my boots you won't
want to take half as much as your services are worth. Of course, if you start taking that girl of
yours to the Riviera by air every week-end, we'll have to begin regularizing things. But you
won't."
     I asked him about a banking account. "Oh," he said, "I've had one running for some time at a
 London branch of the ———— Bank. But the payments will have to be made to you at your
 bank mostly, so as to keep me dark. These gadgets are to go out as yours, not mine, and as the in-
 ventions of lots of imaginary people. You're their agent."
     "But," I protested, "don't you see you're giving me absolute power to swindle you out of the
 whole proceeds? Suppose I just use you? Suppose the taste of power goes to my head, and I
 collar everything? I'm only Homo sapiens, not Homo superior!' And for once I privately felt that
 John was perhaps not so superior after all.
     John laughed delightedly at the title, but said, "My dear thing, you just won't. No, no, I refuse
 to have any business arrangements. That would be too 'sapient' altogether. We should never be
 able to trust one another. Probably I'd cheat you all round, just for fun."
     "Oh, well," I sighed, "you'll keep accounts and see how the money goes."
     "Keep accounts, man! What in hell do I want with accounts? I keep 'em in my head, but never
 look at 'em."



                                          CHAPTER VII

                                    FINANCIAL VENTURES

HENCEFORTH my own work was seriously interfered with by my increasing duties in
connexion with John's commercial enterprise. I spent a great deal of my time travelling about the
country, visiting patent agents and manufacturers. Quite often John accompanied me. He had
always to be introduced as "a young friend of mine who would so like to see the inside of a
factory." In this way he picked up a lot of knowledge of the powers and limitations of different
kinds of machines, and was thus helped to produce easily manufacturable designs.
    It was on these expeditions that I first came to realize that even John had his disability, his
one blind spot, I called it. I approached these industrial gentlemen with painful consciousness that
they could do what they liked with me. Generally I was keot from disaster by the advice of the
patent agents, who, being primarily scientists, were on our side not only professionally but by
sympathy. But quite often the manufacturer managed to get at me direct. On several of these
occasions I was pretty badly stung. Nevertheless, I learned in time to be more able to hold my
own with the commercial mind. John, on the other hand, seemed incapable of believing that these
people were actually less interested in producing ingenious articles than in getting the better of
us, and of every one else. Of course, he knew intellectually that it was so. He was as
contemptuous of the morality as of the intelligence of Homo sapiens. But he could not "feel it in
his bones" that men could really "be such fools as to care so much about sheer money-making as
a game of skill." Like any other boy, he could well appreciate the thrill of beating a rival in
personal combat, and the thrill of triumph in practical invention. But the battle of industrial
competition made no appeal whatever to him, and it took him many months of bitter experience
to realize how much it meant to most men. Though he was himself in the thick of a great
commercial adventure, he never felt the fascination of business undertakings as such. Though he
could enter zestfully into most of man's instinctive and primitive passions, the more artificial
manifestations of those passions, and in particular the lust of economic individualism, found no
spontaneous echo in him. In time, of course, he learned to expect men to manifest such passions,
and he acquired the technique of dealing with them. But he regarded the whole commercial world
with a contempt which suggested now the child, and now the philosopher. He was at once below
it and above it.
     Thus it was that in the first phase of John's commercial life it fell to me to play the part of
hard-headed business man. Unfortunately, as was said, I myself was extremely ill-equipped for
the task, and at the outset we parted with several good inventions for a price which we
subsequently discovered to be ludicrously inadequate.
     But in spite of early disasters we were in the long run amazingly successful. We launched
scores of ingenious contrivances which have since become universally recognized as necessary
adjuncts of modern life. The public remarked on the spate of minor inventions which (it was said)
showed the resilience of human capacity a few years after the war.
     Meanwhile our bank balance increased by leaps and bounds, while our expenses remained
minute. When I suggested setting up a decent workshop in my name in a convenient place, John
would not hear of it. He produced a number of poor arguments against the plan, and I concluded
that he was determined to cling to his lair for no reason but boyish love of sensationalism. But
presently he divulged his real reason, and it horrified me. "No," he said, "we mustn't spend yet.
We must speculate. That bank balance must be multiplied by a hundred, and then by a thousand."
     I protested that I knew nothing about finance, and that we might easily lose all we had. He
assured me that he had been studying finance, and that he already had a few neat little plans in
mind. "John," I said, "you simply mustn't do it. That's the sort of field where sheer intelligence is
not enough. You want half a lifetime's special knowledge of the stock market. And anyhow it's
nearly all luck."
     It was no use talking. After all, he had good reason to trust his own judgment rather than
 mine. And he gave evidence that he had gone into the subject thoroughly, both by reading the
 financial journals and by ingratiating himself with local stockbrokers on the morning and
evening trains to town. He had by now passed far beyond the naive child that had interviewed
Mr. Magnate, and he was, as ever, an adept at making people talk about their own work.
     "It's now or never," he said. "We're entering a boom, inevitable after the war; but in a few
years we shall be in the midst of such a slump that people will wonder if civilization is going
smash. You'll see."
     I laughed at his assurance, and was treated to a lecture on economics and the state of Western
society, the sort of thing that in eight or ten years was to be generally accepted among the more
advanced students of social problems. At the end of this discourse John said, "We'll put half our
capital into British light industry—motors, electricity and so on, because that sort of thing is
bound to go ahead, comparatively. The rest we'll use for speculation."
     "We'll lose the whole lot, I expect," I grumbled. Then I tried a new line of attack. "Anyhow
isn't all this money-making a bit too trivial for Homo superior? I believe you're bitten by the
speculation bug after all. I mean, what is the object of it all?"
     "It's all right, Fido, old thing," he answered. (It was about this time that he began to use this
nickname for me. When I protested, he assured me that it was meant to be Φαίδω, which name,
he said, was connected with the Greek for "brilliant.") "It's all right. I'm quite sane still. I don't
care a damn about finance for its own sake, but in the world of Horn. sap. it's the quickest way to
get power, which means money. And I must have money, big money. Now don't snort! We've
made a good little start, but it's only a start."
     "What about advancing the spirit,' as you called it?"
     "That's the goal, all right; but you seem to forget I'm only a child, and very backward too, in
all that really matters. I must do the things I can do before the things I can't yet do. And what I
can do is to prepare— by getting (a) experience, (b) independence. See?"
     Evidently the thing had to be. But it was with grave misgiving that I agreed to act as John's
financial agent; and when he insisted on indulging in various wild speculations against my
advice, I began to tell myself that I had been a fool to treat him as anything but a brilliant child.
     John's financial operations did not spontaneously hold his attention as his practical inventions
had done. And by now both kinds of activity were being subordinated increasingly to the study of
human society and the absorbing personal contacts which came to him with adolescence. There
was a certain absent-mindedness and dilatoriness about his buying and selling of stock, very
exasperating to me, his agent. For though most of our common fortune was in my name, I could
never bring myself to act without his consent.
    During the first six months of our speculative ventures we lost far more than we gained. John
at last woke up to the fact that if we went on this way we should lose everything. After hearing of
a particularly devastating disaster he indulged in a memorable outburst. "Blast!" he said. "It
means I must take this damned dull game much more seriously. And there's so much else to be
done just now, far more important in the long run. I see it may be as difficult for me to beat Hom.
sap. at this game as it is for Hom., sap. to beat apes at acrobatics. The human body is not
equipped for the jungle, and my mind may not be equipped for the jungle of individualistic
finance. But I'll get round it somehow, just as Hom.. sap. got round acrobatics."
    It was characteristic of John that when he had made a serious mistake through lack of
experience he never tried to conceal the fact. On this occasion he recounted with complete
detachment, neither blaming nor excusing himself, how he, the intellectual superior of all men,
had been tricked by a common swindler. One of his financial acquaintances had evidently
guessed that the boy's interest in speculation had ulterior sources, in fact that some adult with
money to invest was using him as a spy. This individual proceeded to treat John extremely well,
and to "prattle to him about his ventures," anxiously pledging him to secrecy. In this way Homo
superior was completely diddled by Homo sapiens. John insisted that I should put large sums of
money into concerns which his friend had advocated. At first I refused; but John was blandly
confident in his alleged "inside information that it's an absolute scoop," and finally I consented. I
need not recount the history of these disastrous speculations. Suffice it that we lost everything
that we had risked, and that John's friend disappeared.
    For some time after this disaster we refrained from speculation. John spent a good deal of his
time away from home and away from his workshop also. When I asked what he had been up to,
he usually said, "studying finance," but refused any further information. During this period his
health began to deteriorate. His digestion, always his weakest spot, gave him some trouble, and
he complained of headaches. Evidently he was leading a rather unwholesome life.
    He began to spend many of his nights away from home. His father had relatives in London,
and increasingly often John was allowed to visit them. But the relatives did not for long tolerate
his independence. (He disappeared every morning and returned late at night or not till the next
day, and refused to give an account of his actions.) Consequently these visits had to cease. But
John, meanwhile, had learnt that, in summer, he could live the life of a stray cat in the
Metropolis, in spite of the police. To his parents he said that he knew "a man who had a flat who
would let him sleep there any night." Actually, as I learned much later, he used to sleep in parks
and under bridges.
    I learned also how he had occupied himself. By a series of tricks of the "gate-crashing" type
he had managed to make contacts with several big financiers in London, and had set about
captivating and amusing them, and unobtrusively picking their brains, before they sent him by car
with a covering note to his indignant relatives, or paid his railway fare home to the North, and
sent the letter by post.
    Here is a specimen, one of many such documents which caused much perturbation to Doc and
Pax.
DEAR SIR,
   Your small son's bicycle tour came to an untimely end yesterday evening owing to a collision
with my car near Guildford. He fully admits that the fault was his own. He is unhurt, but the
bicycle is past repair. As it was late, I took him to my home for the night. I congratulate you on
having a very remarkable boy whose precocious passion for finance was extremely entertaining
to my party. My chauffeur will put him on the 10.26 at Euston this morning. I am telegraphing
you to that effect.
                                        Yours faithfully,
                                         (Signed by a personage whose name I had better not divulge.)

   John's parents, and I also, knew that he was on a bicycling tour, but we supposed him to have
gone into North Wales. The fact that he had been so soon encountered in Surrey proved that he
must have taken his bicycle by train. Needless to say, John did not turn up by the 10.26 from
Euston. He gave the chauffeur the slip, poor man, by jumping out of the car in a traffic jam. That
night he spent as the guest of another financier. If I remember rightly, he arrived in the late
afternoon at the front door with a story that he and his mother were staying somewhere near, and
that he had lost his way and forgotten the address. As police inquiries failed to discover his
mother in the neighbourhood, he was kept for the night, and then for the following night, in fact
for the Saturday and Sunday. I have no doubt that he made good use of the time. On Monday
morning, when the great man had gone to business, he disappeared.
    After some months spent partly on such adventures, partly on close study of the literature of
finance and political economy and social changes, John felt himself ready to take action once
more. He knew that I was likely to be sceptical of his plans, so he operated with money standing
in his own name, and told me nothing until, six months later, he was able to show me the results
in the shape of a considerable sum standing to his credit.
    As time passed it became clear that he had mastered financial speculation as effectively as he
had mastered mathematics. I have no knowledge of the principles, on which he went to work, for
henceforth I played no part in his business deals, save occasionally as his agent when a personal
interview was to be undertaken. I remember his saying once when we were reviewing our
position, "After all there's not much in this speculation game, once you know your facts and get
the hang of the way money trickles about the world. Of course there's a frightful lot of mere
flukiness about it. You can never be quite sure which way the cat will jump. But if you know
your cat well (Hom. sap. I mean), and if you know the ground well, you can't go far wrong in the
long run."
    By the use of his new technique John gradually, throughout the earlier part of his
adolescence, amassed a very imposing fortune, much of which was legally owned by me. It may
seem strange that he never told his parents about his wealth until the time came for him to use it
on a lavish scale. "I don't want to upset their lives sooner than I need," he said, "and I don't want
to give them the worry of trying not to blab." On the other hand he allowed them to know that 7
had come in for a lot of money (supposed to be entirely due to luck on the Stock Exchange), and
he was glad that I should help his parents in a number of ways, such as paying for the education
of his brother and sister, and taking them all (John included) on foreign holidays. The parental
gratitude, I may say, was extremely embarrassing. John made it more so by joining unctuously in
the chorus, and dubbing me "The Benefactor," which title he soon shortened aggravatingly to
"The Benny," and subsequendy changed to "The Bean."



                                          CHAPTER VIII

                                SCANDALOUS ADOLESCENCE

ALTHOUGH during a large part of his fourteenth year finance constituted John's main
occupation, his attention was never wholly absorbed by it; and after his period of intensive study
and speculation he was able to continue the business of gaining monetary power while giving the
best of his energies to very different matters. He was increasingly intrigued by the new
experiences consequent on adolescence. At the same time he was very seriously engaged on the
study of the potentialities and limitations of Homo sapiens as manifested in contemporary world-
problems. And as his opinion of the normal species became more and more unflattering, he began
to turn his attention to the search for other individuals of his own calibre. Though all these
activities were pursued together, it will be convenient to deal with them separately.
    The onset of John's adolescence was very late compared with that of the normal human being,
and its duration was extremely prolonged. At fourteen he was physically comparable with a
normal child of ten. When he died, at twenty-three, he was still in appearance a lad of seventeen.
Yet, though physically he was always far behind his years, mentally, and not merely in
intelligence but also in temperament and sensibility, he often seemed to be incredibly advanced
beyond his actual age. This mental precocity, I should say, was entirely due to imaginative
power. Whereas the normal child clings to the old interests and attitudes long after more de-
veloped capacities have actually begun to awaken in him, John seemed to seize upon every
budding novelty in his own nature and "force" it into early bloom by the sheer intensity and heat
of his imagination.
    This was obvious, for instance, in the case of his sexual experience. It should be said that his
parents were for their time exceptional in their attitude to sex in their children. All three grew up
unusually free from the common shames and obsessions. Doc took a frankly physiological view
of sexual development; and Pax treated the sexual curiosity and experimentation of her children
in a perfectly open and humorous way.
    Thus John may be said to have had an exceptionally good start. But the use which he made of
it was very different from that which satisfied his brother and sister. They were exceptional only
in being permitted to develop naturally, and in thus escaping the normal distortions. They did all
that most children were solemnly forbidden to do, and they were not condemned. I have no doubt
that they practised whatever "vices" they happened to think of, and then passed light-heartedly to
other interests. In the home circle they would prattle about sex and conception in a shameless
manner; but not in public, "because people don't understand yet that it doesn't matter." Later they
obviously had their romantic attachments. And later still they both married, and are seemingly
well content.
    The case of John was strikingly different. Like them, he passed in infancy through a phase of
intense interest in his own body. Like them he found peculiar gratification in certain parts of his
body. But whereas with them sexual interest began long before consciousness of personality had
become at all precise, with John self-consciousness and other-consciousness were already vivid
and detailed long before the onset of adolescence. Consequently, when that great change first
began to affect him, and his imagination seized upon its earliest mental symptoms, he plunged
headlong into kinds of behaviour that might have been deemed far beyond his years.
    For instance, when John was ten, but physiologically much younger, he went through a phase
of sexual interest more or less equivalent to the infantile sexuality of the normal type, but
enlivened by his precocious intelligence and imagination. For some weeks he amused himself
and out-raged the neighbours by decorating walls and gate-posts with "naughty" drawings in
which particular adults whom he disliked were caricatured in the act of committing various
"wicked" practices. He also enticed his friends into his evil ways, and caused such a storm among
the local parents that his father had to intervene. This phase, I take it, was due largely to a sense
of impotence and consequent inferiority. He was trying to be sexually mature before his body
was ready. After a week or two he apparently worked through this interest, as he had worked
through the interest in personal combat.
    But as the months advanced into years, he obviously felt an increasing delight in his own
body, and this came in time to change his whole attitude to life. At fourteen he was generally
taken for a strange child of ten, though it was not unusual for an observer sensitive to facial
expression to suppose him some kind of "genius" of eighteen with arrested physique. His general
proportions were those of a ten-year-old; but over a childlike skeleton he bore a lean and knotted
musculature about which his father used to say that it was not quite human, and that there ought
to be a long prehensile tail to complete the picture. How far this muscular development was due
to nature, and how far to his deliberate physical culture, I do not know.
    His face was already changing from the infantile to the boyish in underlying structure; but the
ceaseless expressive movements of mouth and nostrils and brows were already stamping it with
an adult, alien, and almost inhuman character. Thinking of him at this period, I recall a creature
which appeared as urchin but also as sage, as imp but also as infant deity. In summer his usual
dress was a coloured shirt, shorts and sandshoes, all of them fairly grubby. His large head and
close platinum wool, and his immense green-rimmed, falcon eyes, gave one a sense that these
commonplace clothes had been assumed as a disguise.
    Such was his general appearance when he began to discover a vast attractiveness in his own
person, and a startling power of seducing others to delight in him no less luxuriously than he did
himself. His will to conquest was probably much exaggerated by the knowledge that from the
point of view of the normal species there was something grotesque and repellent about him. His
narcissism was also, I imagine, aggravated and prolonged by the fact that, from his own point of
view, there was no other to meet him on an equal footing, none fit for him to regard with that
blend of selfishness and devotion which is romantic love.
    I must make it clear that in reporting John's behaviour at this time I do not seek to defend it.
Much of it seems to me outrageous. Had it been perpetrated by anyone other than John, I should
have unhesitatingly condemned it as the expression of a self-centred and shockingly perverted
mind. But in spite of the most reprehensible incidents in his career, I am convinced that John was
far superior to the rest of us in moral sensibility, as in intelligence. Therefore, even in respect of
the seemingly disgraceful conduct which I have now to describe, I feel that the right course is not
to condemn but to suspend judgement and try to understand. I tell myself that, if John was indeed
a .superior being, much of his conduct would certainly outrage us, simply because we, with our
grosser sensibility, would never be able to apprehend its true nature. In fact, had his behaviour
been simply an idealization of normal human behaviour, I should have been less disposed to
regard him as of an essentially different and superior type. On the other hand it should be
remembered that, though superior in capacity, he was also juvenile, and may well have suffered
in his own way from the inexperience and crudity of the juvenile mind. Finally, his circumstances
were such as to warp him, for he found himself alone in a world of beings whom he regarded as
only half human.
    It was in his fourteenth year that John's new consciousness of himself first appeared, and
shortly after his fourteenth birthday that it expressed itself in what I can only call an orgy of
ruthless vamping. I myself was one of the few persons within his circle at whom he never "set his
cap," and I was exempt only because he could not regard me as fair game. I was his slave, his
hound, toward whom he felt a certain responsibility. One other who escaped was Judy; for there
again he felt no need to enforce his attractiveness, and there again he felt responsibility and
affection.
    So far as I know, his first serious affair was with the unfortunate Stephen, now a consciously
grown-up young man who went to business every day. Stephen had a girl friend whom he took
out on Saturdays on his motor-bike. One Saturday, when John and I were returning from a
business trip in my car (we had visited a rubber factory), we stopped for tea at a popular roadside
cafe. We found Stephen and his girl inside, almost ready to leave. John persuaded them to "stay
and talk to us for a bit". The girl was obviously reluctant, having perhaps already had reason to
dislike John's behaviour toward her man; but Stephen delayed departure. Then began a most
distressing scene. John behaved toward Stephen in a manner calculated to eclipse the young
woman at his side. He prattled. He sparkled with just the right standard of wit to fascinate
Stephen and pass over the head of his simple companion. He kept the whole conversation well
beyond her powers, occasionally appealing to her in a manner likely to trap her into making
herself ridiculous. He faced Stephen now with the shy hauteur of a deer, now with seductiveness.
He found excuses to move about the room and display his curiously feline, though also coltish,
grace. Stephen was obviously captivated against his will, and, I feel sure, not for the first time.
Toward the girl his gallantry grew laboured and false. She, poor outclassed little creature, could
not conceal her distress, but Stephen never noticed it, for he was hypnotized. At last she looked at
her watch and tremulously snapped, "It's frightfully late. Please take me home." But even as they
were leaving the room John enticed Stephen back for a final sally.
   When the couple had gone I told John very emphatically what I thought of his behaviour. He
looked at me with the offensive complacency of a cat, then drawled, "Homo sapiens!" Whether
he was referring to me or to Stephen was not clear. But presently he said, "Tickle him the right
way, and you've got him."
    A week later people were talking about the change in Stephen. They said "he ought to be
ashamed to carry on that way with the boy," and that John would be ruined. When I saw the two
of them together, I felt that Stephen was struggling heroically against an obsession. He shunned
all physical contact with John, but when contact came, either by accident or through John's
contrivance, he was electrified, and could not help prolonging it under a pretence of ragging.
John himself appeared to be suffering from a conflict of luxury and disgust. It was clear that he
was gratified by his conquest, but at the same time he was repelled. Often he would terminate an
amatory brawl with harshness, venting his repulsion by some unexpected piece of brutality,
pushing his thumb fiercely into Stephen's eye, or tearing at his ear. As on an earlier occasion, my
disgust and indignation at this kind of behaviour seemed to lead John to self-criticism. He was
not above learning from his inferiors. His attitude to Stephen changed back to "man to man"
comradeship, tempered by an almost humble gentleness. Stephen, too, slowly woke from his
infatuation, but he woke with lasting scars.
    For some weeks John refrained, so far as I know, from activities of this kind. But his
behaviour toward his elders had become definitely more self-conscious and more body-
conscious. He was evidently discovering in his own person an interest which had hitherto escaped
him. He studied the art of displaying the bizarre attractiveness of his young body to the best
advantage in the eyes of the inferior species. Of course he was far too intelligent to indulge in
those excesses of adornment which so often render the adolescent ludicrous. Indeed, I doubt
whether any but the most intimate and persevering observer would have guessed that the artistry
of his behaviour was at all conscious. That it actually was so I inferred from the fact that it varied
according to the standards of his audience, now expressing the crudest sort of self-delight and
shameless seductiveness, now attaining to that unadorned and steely grace which was to
characterize the later John.
    During the eighteen months before he reached the age of sixteen John indulged in occasional
and abortive love-affairs with older boys and young men. He was still sexually undeveloped, but
imagination forestalled his physique, and made him capable of amatory sensitiveness beyond his
years. Throughout this phase, however, he seemed indifferent to the fact that most girls showed
some degree of physical repulsion in his presence.
    But when he was sixteen, and in appearance a queer sort of twelve-year-old) he turned his
attention to woman. For some weeks the girls with whom he came in contact had shown a more
positive, often a positively vindictive, attitude to him. This suggests at least that they were being
forced to take note of him with new eyes, and that he had already begun to study a new technique
of behaviour, directed toward the opposite sex.
    Having perfected his technique, he proceeded to use it with cold deliberation upon one of the
acknowledged stars of local society. This haughty young woman, who bore the surprising name
of Europa, was the daughter of a wealthy shipowner. She was fair, large, athletic. Her normal
expression was a rather contemptuous pout, tempered by a certain cow-like wistfulness about the
eyes. She had been engaged twice, but rumour affirmed that her experience of the opposite sex
had been far more intimate than was justified by mere betrothal.
    One afternoon down at the bathing place accident (seemingly) brought John to the notice of
Europa. She was lying in the sun, attended by her admirers. Unwitting, she had settled herself
close to John's towel. Her elbow was on the corner of it. John, needing to dry himself after a
swim, approached her from behind, mildly tugged at the towel and murmured, "Excuse me." She
turned, found a grotesque young face close to her own, gave a start of repulsion, hastily released
the towel, and recovered her composure by remarking to her audience, "Heavens! What an imp!"
John must have heard.
    Later, when Europa executed one of her admirable dives from the top board, John evidently
managed to get entangled with her under water, for they came up together in close contact. John
laughed, and broke away. Europa was left gasping for a moment, then she, too, laughed, and
returned to the diving platform. John, looking like a gargoyle, was already squatting on one of the
boards. As she stretched her arms for the dive, she remarked with kindly contempt, "You won't
catch me this time, little monkey." John dropped like a stone, and entered the water half a second
behind her. After a considerable time they appeared together again. Europa was seen to smack his
face, break from his clinging arm, and make for shore. There, she sunned and preened herself.
    John now disported himself in her view, diving and swimming. He had invented a stroke of
his own, very different from the "trudgeon" which was still at this time almost unchallenged in
the remote northern provinces. Lying on his stomach in the water and flicking his feet alternately,
while his arms behaved in the ordinary "trudgeon" manner, he was able to outstrip many experts
older than himself. Some said that if he would only learn a decent stroke he would develop into a
really fine swimmer. No one in the little provincial suburb realized that John's eccentric stroke, or
something very like it, a product of Polynesia, was even then ousting the "trudgeon" from the
more advanced swimming circles of Europe and America, and even England.
    With this eccentric stroke John displayed his prowess before the reluctantly attentive eyes of
Europa. Presently he came out of the water and played ball with his companions, running,
leaping, twisting, with that queer grace which few could detect, but by which those few were
strangely enthralled. Europa, talking to her swains, watched and was evidently intrigued.
    In the course of the game John threw the ball, seemingly by accident, so that it knocked her
cigarette from her hand. He leapt to her, sank on one knee, took the outraged fingers and kissed
them, with mock gallantry and a suggestion of real tenderness. Every one laughed. Still holding
Euro-pa's hand, he brought his great eyes to bear upon her face, inquiringly. The proud Europa
laughed, unaccountably blushed, withdrew her hand.
  This was the beginning. There is no need to follow the stages by which the urchin captured the
princess. It is enough to dwell for a moment on their relations when the affair was at its height.
Little knowing what was in store for her, Europa encouraged the juvenile philanderer, not only at
the swimming pool, where they gambolled together, but also by taking him out in her car. John, I
should say, was much too wise, and much too occupied with other matters, to make his society
cheap. Their meetings were not very frequent; but they were frequent enough to secure his prey.
    The metaphor is perhaps unjust. I do not pretend to be able to analyse John's motives
adequately, even the comparatively simple motives of his adolescence. Though I feel fairly sure
that the origin of his attack upon Europa was his new craving to be admired by a woman in her
prime, I can well believe that, as the relationship developed, he came to regard her in a much
more complex manner. He sometimes watched her with an expression in which aloofness
struggled not only with contempt but with genuine admiration. His delight in her caresses was
doubtless in part due to dawning sexual appreciation. But though he could imaginatively judge
her and enjoy her from the point of view of the male of her species, he was, I think, always
conscious of her biological and spiritual inferiority to himself. The delight of conquest and the
luxury of physical contact with a full-blooded and responsive woman were always for him
poisoned by the sense that this contact was with a brute, with something which could never
satisfy his deeper needs, and might debase him.
    On Europa the relationship had striking effects. The swains found themselves spurned. Bitter
taunts were flung. It was said that she had "fallen for a kid, and a freak kid, too." She herself was
obviously torn between the need to preserve her dignity and the half-sexual, half-maternal hunger
which John had inspired. Horror at her plight and revulsion from the strangeness of the thing that
had enthralled her made matters worse. She once said something to me which revealed the nerve
of her feeling for John. It was at a tennis party. She and I were alone for a few minutes.
Examining her racquet, she suddenly asked, "Do you blame me, about John?" While I was trying
to reply, she added, "I expect you know what a power he has. He's like—a god pretending to be a
monkey. When you've been noticed by him, you can't bother about ordinary people."
     The climax of this strange affair must have happened very shortly after that incident. I heard
 the story from John himself several years later. He had laughingly threatened to invade Europa's
 bedroom one night by way of the window. It seemed to her an impossible feat, and she dared him
 to do it. In the small hours of the following morning she woke to a soft touch on her neck. She
 was being kissed. Before she had time to scream a well-known boyish voice made known that
 the invader was John. What with astonishment, amusement, defiance and sexual-maternal
 craving, Eur-opa seems to have made but a half-hearted resistance to the boy's advances. I can
 imagine that in the grip of his still childish arms she found an intoxicating blend of the innocent
 and the virile. After some protest and sweet struggle she threw prudence to the winds and
 responded with passion. But when she began to cling to him, revulsion and horror invaded him.
 The spell was broken.
      The caressing fingers, which at first had seemed to open up for him a new world of mutual
 intimacy, affection, trust, in relation with a spirit of his own stature, became increasingly sub-
 human, "as though a dog were smelling round me, or a monkey." The impression became so
 strong that he finally sprang from the bed and disappeared through the window, leaving his shirt
 and shorts behind him. So hasty was his retreat that he actually bungled the descent in a most un-
 John-like manner, fell heavily into a flower-bed, and limped home in the darkness with a
 sprained ankle.
      For some weeks John was painfully torn between attraction and repulsion, but never again
 did he climb into Europa's window. She, for her part, was evidently horrified at her own
 behaviour, for she deliberately avoided her boy-lover, and when she encountered him in public
 she acted the part of the remote though kindly adult. Presently, however, she realized that John's
 attitude to her had changed, that his ardour had apparently cooled and given place to a gentle and
 disconcerting protectiveness.
     When John took me into his confidence about his relations with Europa, he said, if I
remember rightly, something like this. "That one night gave me my first real shaking. Before, I
had been sure of myself;
suddenly I found myself swept this way and that by currents that I could neither stem nor
understand. I had done something that night which I knew deeply I was meant to do, but it was
somehow all wrong. Time after time, during the next few weeks, I went to Europa intending to
make love to her, but when I found her I just didn't. Before I reached her I'd he all full of the
recollection of that night, and her vital responsiveness, and her so-called beauty; but when I saw
her—well, I felt as Titania felt when she woke to see that Bottom was an ass. Dear Europa
seemed just a nice old donkey, a fine one of course, but rather ridiculous and pitiable because of -
her soullessness. I felt no resentment against her, just kindness and responsibility. Once, for the
sake of experiment, I started being amorous, and she, poor thing, rejoiced like an encouraged
dog. But it wouldn't do. Something fierce in me rose up and stopped me, and filled me with an
alarming desire to get my knife into her breasts and smash up her face. Then something else
woke in me that looked down on the whole matter from a great height and felt a sort of passion of
contemptuous affection for us both; but gave me a mighty scolding."
     At this point, I remember, there was a long silence. At last John told me something which it is
better not to report. I did, indeed, write a careful account of this most disturbing incident in his
career; and I confess that at the time I was so deeply under the spell of his personality that I could
not feel his behaviour to have been vile. I recognized, of course, that it was flagrantly
unconventional. But I had so deep an affection and respect for both the persons concerned that I
gladly saw the affair as John wished me to see it. Years later, when I innocently showed my
manuscript to others of my species, they pointed out that to publish such matter would be to
shock many sensitive readers, and to incur the charge of sheer licentiousness.
     I am a respectable member of the English middle class, and wish to remain so. All I will say,
then, is that the motive of the behaviour which John confessed seems to have been double. First,
he neeeded soothing after the disastrous incident with Europa, and, therefore, he sought delicate
and intimate contact with a being whose sensibility and insight were not wholly incomparable
with his own; with a being, moreover, who was beloved, who also loved him deeply, and would
gladly go to any lengths for his sake. Second, he needed to assert his moral independence of
Homo sapiens, to free himself of all deep unconscious acquiescence in the conventions of the
species that had nurtured him. He needed, therefore, to break what was one of the most cherished
of all the taboos of that species.


                                           CHAPTER IX



                         METHODS OF A YOUNG ANTHROPOLOGIST



JOHN had been engaged in studying his world ever since he was born; but from fourteen to
seventeen this study became much more earnest and methodical than it had been, and took the
form of a far-reaching examination of the normal species in respect of its nature, achievement
and present plight.
    This vast enterprise had to be carried on in secret. John was determined not to attract attention
to himself. He had to behave as a naturalist who studies the habits of some dangerous brute by
stalking it with field-glass and camera, and by actually insinuating himself among the herd under
a stolen skin, and an assumed odour.
    Unfortunately, I cannot give at all a full account of this phase of John's career, for I played
but a minor part in it. His disguise was always the precocious but naive "schoolboy" character
which had served him so well in making contact with financiers; and his approach was very often
a development of the "gate-crashing" tactics which he had used in the same connexion. This
technique was combined with his diabolically skilled vamping. Always his methods were nicely
adjusted to the mentality of the particular quarry. I will mention only a few examples, to give the
reader some idea of the procedure, and then I will pass on to record some of the ruthless
judgements which his researches enabled him to make.
    He effected contact with a Cabinet minister by being taken ill outside the great man's private
residence at the moment when the minister's wife was entering the house. It will be remembered
that John had remarkable control over his organic reflexes, and could influence his glandular
secretions, his temperature, his digestive processes, the rate of his heart-beat, the distribution of
blood in his body, and so on. By careful manipulation of these controls he was able to produce a
disorder the symptoms of which were sufficiently alarming though its after-effects were not
serious. A pale pathetic wreck, he was laid on a couch and mothered by the minister's wife while
the minister himself phoned for the family doctor. Before the physician arrived, John was already
an intriguing little convalescent, and was busy attaching the minister to himself with subtle bonds
of compassion and interest. The medical pundit did his best to conceal his bewilderment, and
recommended that the boy should rest where he was till his parents were found. But John wailed
that his parents were away for the day, and the house would be shut till the evening. Might he
stay until their return, and then go home in a taxi? By the time he left the house he had already
gained some insight into the mind of his host, and had secured an invitation to come again.
    The artificial illness had proved so successful that it became one of his favourite methods. He
used it, for instance, to make contact with a Communist leader, supplementing it with an account
of his shocking home-conditions since his father "got the sack for organizing a strike." Variants
of the same method of artificial illness, with appropriate religious trimmings, were used also
upon a bishop, a Catholic priest, and several other clerical gentlemen. It also proved effective
with a woman M.P.
    As an example of a different approach I may mention that John bagged an eminent
astronomer-physicist by writing him a schoolboyish letter of the naive-brilliant kind, begging to
be shown over an observatory. The request was granted, and John turned up at the appointed
rendezvous equipped with schoolcap and a pocket telescope. This meeting led to other con-
nexions among physicists, biologists, physiologists.
  The epistolary method was also used upon a well-known Cambridge philosopher and social
writer. This time the handwriting was disguised;
and, when finally John called on his man, he turned up with dyed hair, dark glasses and a
Cockney accent. He intended to assume a very different character from that which had served
with the astronomer; and he was anxious to avoid all possibility that the philosopher might
identify him as the lad whom the astronomer had encountered.
    The letter by which he effected this contact was nicely adapted to Its purpose. It combined
crude handwriting, bad spelling, dislike of religion, scraps of striking though crude philosophical
analysis, and enthusiasm for the philosopher's books. I quote a characteristic passage:
    My father beet me for saying if god made the world he made a mess. I said you said it was
silly to beet children, so he beet me again for knowing you said it. I said being abel to beet a
fellow didn't proove he was wrong. He said I was evil to answer back on my father. I said wots
good and evil anyhow but just wot I like and dont like. He said it was blastphemy. Please let me
call and ask you some questiuns about how a mind works and wot it is.
     John had already made several visits to the philosopher's rooms in Cambridge, when he
received a note from the astronomer. I should have explained that a young schoolmaster in a
London suburb was allowing John to use his flat as a postal address. The astronomer asked John
to come and meet "another very wide-awake boy," who lived in Cambridge and was a friend of
the philosopher. The ingenuity and relish which John displayed in defeating the repeated efforts
of both men to bring about this meeting afforded me an amusing sidelight on his character, but I
have not space to describe it.
     The epistolary approach was used with equal effect upon a well-known modern poet. In this
case the style of the letter and the persona which John assumed in the subsequent interviews were
very different from those which had served for the astronomer and the philosopher. They were
adjusted, moreover, not precisely to the conscious mentality of the poet as he was then known to
the public and to himself, but to a mood or attitude in him which was subsequently to dominate
his work. I quote the most striking passage from John's letter:
   In all my hideous frustration of spirit, at home, at school, and in my confused attempts to
come to terms with the modern world, the greatest comfort and source of strength is your poetry.
How is it, I wonder, that, although you seem simply to describe a tortured and degenerate
civilization, the very describing lends it dignity and significance, as though revealing it to be,
after all, not mere frustration, but the necessary darkness before some glorious enlightenment.
    John's efforts were not directed solely upon the intelligentsia and the leaders of political and
social movements. Using appropriate methods, he made friends with engineers, artisans,, clerks,
dock-labourers. He acquired first-hand information about the mental differences between South
Wales and Durham coal-miners. He was smuggled into Trade Union meetings. He had his soul
saved in Baptist chapels. He received messages from a mythical dead sister in spiritualists'
seances. He spent some weeks attached to a gipsy caravan, touring the southern counties. This
post he apparently gained by showing his proficiency at petty theft and at repairing pots and pans.
     One activity he repeated again and again, spending on it a length of time which seemed to me
disproportionate to its significance. He became very friendly with the owner of a fishing smack
near home, and would often spend days or nights with this man and his mate on the estuary or
the open sea. When I asked John why he gave so much attention to the fishing community and
these two men in particular, he said, "Well, they're damned fine stuff, these fishermen, and Abe
and Mark are two of the best. You see, when Homo sapiens is up against the sort of job and the
sort of life that's not really beyond him, he's all right. It's only when civilization gives him a job
that's too much for his intelligence or too much for his imagination that he fails. And then the
failure poisons him through and through." It was not till long afterwards that I realized his
ulterior purpose in giving so much attention to the sea. At one time he became very friendly with
the skipper of a coasting schooner, and made several voyages with him up and down the narrow
seas. I ought to have realized that one motive of these adventures was the desire to learn how to
handle a ship.
     One other matter should be mentioned here. John's study of Homo sapiens now extended to
the European Continent. In my capacity of family benefactor I was charged with the task of
persuading Doc and Pax to join me on excursions to France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia. John
always accompanied us, with or without his brother and sister. Since Doc could not leave his
practice frequently or for long at a time, these occasional family holidays had to be supplemented
by trips in which the parents did not participate. I would announce that I had to "run over to Paris
to a journalists' conference," or to Berlin to see a newspaper proprietor, or to Prague to report on
a conference of philosophers, or to Moscow to see what they were doing about education. Then I
would ask the parents to let me take John. Consent was certain, and our plans were often laid in
detail before it was given. In this way John was enabled to carry on abroad the researches that he
was already pursuing in the British Isles.
     Foreign travel in John's company was apt to be a humiliating experience. Not only did he
learn to speak a new language in an incredibly short time and in a manner indistinguishable from
that of the native; he was also amazingly quick at learning foreign customs and intuiting foreign
attitudes of mind. Consequently, even in countries with which I was familiar I found myself
outclassed by my companion within a few days after his arrival.
     When it was a case of learning a language entirely new to him, John simply read through a
grammar and a dictionary, took concentrated courses of pronunciation from one or two natives or
from gramophone records, and proceeded to the country. At this stage he would be regarded by
natives as a native child who had been in foreign parts for some time and had lost touch
somewhat with his own speech. At the end of a week or so, in the case of most European
 languages, no one would suspect that he had ever been out of the country. Later in his career,
 when his travels took him farther afield, he reckoned that even an Eastern language, such as
 Japanese, could be thoroughly mastered in a fortnight from his landing in the country.
    Travelling with John on the European Continent I often asked myself why I allowed this
strange being to hold me perpetually as his slave. I had much time for thought, for John was as
often as not away hunting some writer or scientist or priest, some politician or popular agitator.
Or else he was getting in touch with the workers by travelling in third or fourth class railway
carriages, or talking to navvies. While he was thus engaged he often preferred to be without me.
Every now and then, however, I was needed to act the part of guardian or travelling tutor.
Sometimes, when John was particularly anxious to avoid giving any suggestion of his unique
superiority, he would coach me carefully before the interview, priming me with questions to ask
and observations to make.
    On one occasion, for instance, he persuaded me to take him to an eminent psychiatrist. John
himself played the part of a backward and neurotic child while I discussed his case with the
professional man. This interview led to a course of treatment for John, and occasional meetings
between the psychiatrist and myself to discuss progress. The poor man remained throughout
ignorant that his small patient, seemingly so absorbed in his own crazy fantasies, was all the
while experimenting on the physician, and that my own intelligent, though often provoking,
questions had all originated in the mind of the patient himself.
    Why did I let John use me thus? Why did I allow him to occupy so much of my time and
attention, and to interfere so seriously with my career as a journalist? It could hardly be said that
he was lovable. Of course, he was unique material for the journalist or the biographer, and I had
already decided that some day I would tell the world all that I knew of him. But it is clear that
even at this early stage the unfledged spirit of John exercised over me a fascination more subtle
than that of novelty. I think I felt already that he was groping towards some kind of spiritual re-
orientation which would put the whole of existence in a new light. And I hoped that I myself
should catch some gleam of this illumination. Not till much later did I realize that his vision was
essentially beyond the range of normal human minds.
    For the present the only kind of illumination which came to John was apparently a devastating
conviction of the futility of the normal species. To this discovery he reacted sometimes with mere
contempt, sometimes with horror at the doom which awaited the human world, and with terror at
his own entanglement in it. But on other occasions his mood was compassion, and on others
again sardonic delight, and yet on others delight of a more serene kind in which compassion and
horror and grim relish were strangely transmuted.

                                           CHAPTER X



                                     THE WORLD'S PLIGHT


I SHALL now try to give some idea of John's reactions to our world by setting down, more or
less at random, some of his comments on individuals and types, institutions and movements,
which he studied during this period.
    Let us begin with the psychiatrist. John's verdict on this eminent manipulator of minds
seemed to me to show both his contempt for Homo sapiens and his sympathetic appreciation of
the difficulties of beings that are neither sheer animal nor fully human.
    After our last visit to the consulting-room, indeed before the door was closed behind us, John
indulged in a long chuckling laugh that reminded me of the cry of a startled grouse. "Poor devil!"
he cried. "What else could he do anyhow? He's got to seem wise at all costs, even when he's abso-
lutely blank. He's in the same fix as a successful medium. He's not just a quack. There's a lot of
real sound stuff in his trade. No doubt when he's dealing with straightforward cases of a fairly
low mental order, with troubles that are at bottom primitive, he fixes them up all right. But even
then he doesn't really know what he's doing or how he gets his cures. Of course, he has his
theories, and they're damned useful, too. He gives the wretched patient doses of twaddle, as a
doctor might give bread pills, and the poor fool laps it all up and feels hopeful and manages to
cure himself. But when another sort of case comes along, who is living habitually on a mental
storey about six floors above our friend's own snug little flat, so to speak, there must be a glorious
fiasco. How can a mind of his calibre possibly understand a mind that's at all aware of the really
human things? I don't mean the highbrow things. I mean subtle human contacts, and world-con-
tacts. He is a sort of highbrow, with his modern pictures and his books on the unconscious. But
he's not human in the full sense, even according to the standards of Homo sapiens. He's not really
grown up. And so, though he doesn't know it, the poor man is all at sea when he comes up against
really grown-up people. For instance, in spite of his modern pictures, he hasn't a notion what art
is after, though he thinks he has. And he knows less of philosophy, real philosophy, than an
ostrich knows about the upper air. You can't blame him. His wings just wouldn't carry his big
fleshy pedestrian mind. But that's no reason why he should make matters worse by burying his
head in the sand and kidding himself he sees the foundations of human nature. When a really
winged case comes along, with all sorts of troubles due to not giving his wings exercise, our
friend hasn't the slightest perception what's the matter. He says in effect, 'Wings? What's wings?
Just flapdoodle. Look at mine. Get 'em atrophied as quick as possible, and bury your head in the
sand to make sure.' In fact he puts the patients into a sort of coma of the spirit. If it lasts, he's
permanently 'cured,' poor man, and completely worthless. Often it does last, because your
psychiatrist is an extremely good suggestionist. He could turn a saint into a satyr by mere sleight
of mind. God! Think of a civilization that hands over the cure of souls to toughs like that! Of
course, you can't blame him. He's a decent sort on his own plane, and doing his bit. But it's no use
expecting a vet to mend a fallen angel."
    If John was critical of psychiatry, he was no less so of the churches. It was not only with the
purpose of studying Homo sapiens that he had begun to take an interest in religious practices and
doctrines. His motive was partly (so he told me) the hope that some light might be thrown upon
certain new and perplexing experiences of his own which might perhaps be of the kind that the
normal species called religious. He actually attended a few services at churches and chapels. He
always returned from these expeditions in a state of excitement, which found outlet sometimes in
ribald jests about the proceedings, sometimes in almost hysterical exasperation and perplexity.
Coming out from an emotional chapel service of the Bethel type he remarked, "Ninety-nine per
cent. slush and one per cent.—something else, but what?" A tensity about his voice made me turn
to look at him. To my amazement I saw tears in his eyes. Now John's lachrymatory reflexes were
normally under absolute voluntary control. Since his infancy I had never known him weep except
by deliberate policy. Yet these were apparently spontaneous tears, and he seemed unconscious of
them. Suddenly he laughed and said, "This soul-saving! If one were God, wouldn't one laugh at
it, or squirm! What does it matter whether we're saved or not? Sheer blasphemy to want to be, I
should say. But what is it that does matter, and comes through all the slush like light through a
filthy window?"
     On Armistice Day he persuaded me to go with him to a service in a Roman Catholic
cathedral. The great building was crowded. Artificiality and insincerity were blotted out by the
solemnity of the occasion. The ritual was somehow disturbing even to an agnostic like me. One
felt a rather terrifying sense of the power which worship in the grand tradition could have upon
massed and susceptible believers.
     John had entered the cathedral in his normal mood of aloof interest in the passions of Homo
sapiens. But as the service proceeded, he became less aloof and more absorbed. He ceased to
look about him with his inscrutable hawklike stare. His attention, I felt, was no longer
concentrated on individuals of the congregation, or on the choir, or on the priest, but on the
totality of the situation. An expression strangely foreign to all that I knew of him now began to
flicker on his face, an expression with which I was to become very familiar in later years, but
cannot to this day satisfactorily interpret. It suggested surprise, perplexity, a kind of incredulous
rapture, and withal a slightly bitter amusement. I naturally assumed that John was relishing the
folly and self-importance of our kind; but when we were leaving the cathedral he startled me by
saying, "How splendid it might be, if only they could keep from wanting their God to be human!"
He must have seen that I was taken aback for he laughed and said, "Oh, of course I see it's nearly
all tripe. That priest! The way he bows to the altar is enough to show the sort he is. The whole
thing is askew, intellectually and emotionally; but—well, don't you get that echo of something
not wrong, of some experience that happened ages ago, and was right and glorious? I suppose it
happened to Jesus and his friends. And something remotely like it was happening to about a
fiftieth of that congregation. Couldn't you feel it happening? But, of course, as soon as they got it
they spoilt it by trying to fit it all into the damned silly theories their Church gives them."
     I suggested to John that this excitement which he and others experienced was just the sense of
a great crowd and a solemn occasion, and that we should not "project" that excitement, and
persuade ourselves we were in touch with something superhuman.
     John looked quickly at me, then burst into hearty laughter. "My dear man," he said, and this I
believe was almost the first time he used this devastating expression, "even if you can't tell the
difference between being excited by a crowd and the other thing, I can. And a good many of your
own kind can, too, till they let the psychologists muddle them."
     I tried to persuade him to be more explicit, but he only said, "I'm just a kid, and it's all new to
me. Even Jesus couldn't really say what it was he saw. As a matter of fact, he didn't try to say
much about it. He talked mostly about the way it could change people. When he did talk about it,
itself, he nearly always said the wrong thing, or else they reported him all wrong. But how do I
know? I'm only a kid."
     It was in a very different mood that John returned from an interview with a dignitary of the
Anglican Church, one who was at the time well known for his efforts to revitalize the Church by
making its central doctrines live once more in men's hearts. John had been away for some days.
When he returned he seemed much less interested in the Churchman than in an earlier encounter
with a Communist. After listening to a disquisition on Marxism I said, "But what about the
Reverend Gentleman?" "Oh, yes, of course, there was the Reverend Gentleman, too. A dear man,
so sensible and understanding. I wish the Communist bloke could be a bit sensible, and a bit dear.
But Homo sapiens evidently can't be that when he has any sort of fire in him. Funny how
members of your species, when they do get any sort of real insight and grasp some essential truth,
like Communism, nearly always go crazy with it. Funny, too, what a religious fellow that
Communist really is. Of course, he doesn't know it, and he hates the word. Says men ought to
care for Man and nothing else. A moral sort of cove, he is, full of 'oughts.' Denies morality, and
then damns people for not being communist saints. Says men are all fools or knaves or wasters
unless you can get 'em to care for the Class War. Of course, he tells you the Class War is needed
to emancipate the Workers. But what really gets him about it isn't that. The fire inside him,
though he doesn't know it, is a passion for what he calls dialectical materialism, for the dialectic
of history. The one selfishness in him is the longing to be an instrument of the Dialectic, and
oddly enough what he really means by that, in his heart of hearts, is what Christians so quaintly
describe as the law of God, or God's will. Strange! He says the sound element in Christianity was
love of one's fellow men. But he doesn't really love them, not as actual persons. He'd slaughter
the lot of them if he thought that was part of the Dialectic of History. What he really shares with
Christians, real Christians, is a most obscure but teasing, firing awareness of something super-
individual. Of course, he thinks it's just the mass of individuals, the group. But he's wrong.
What's the group, anyhow, but just everybody lumped together, and nearly all fools or limps or
knaves? It's not simply the group that'fires him. It's justice, righteousness, and the whole spiritual
music that ought to be made by the group. Damned funny that! Of course, I know all Communists
are not religious, some are merely—well, like that bloody little man the other day. But this fellow
is religious. And so was Lenin, I guess. It's not enough to say his root motive was desire to
avenge his brother. In a sense that's true. But one can feel behind nearly everything he said a
sense of being the chosen instrument of Fate, of the Dialectic, of what might almost as well be
called God."
    "And the Reverend Gentleman?" I queried. "The Reverend Gentleman? Oh, him! Well, he's
religious in about the same sense as firelight is sunshine. The coal-trees once lapped up the sun's
full blaze, and now in the grate they give off a glow and a flicker that snugs up his room nicely,
so long as the curtains are drawn and the night kept at arm's length. Outside, every one is
floundering about in the dark and the wet, and all he can do is to tell them to make a nice little
fire and squat down in front of it. One or two he actually fetches into his own beautiful room, and
they drip all over the carpet, and leave muddy marks, and spit into the fire. He gets very unhappy
about it, but he puts up with it nobly because, though he hasn't a notion what worship is, he does
up to a point try to love his neighbours. Funny, that, when you think of the Communist who
doesn't. Of course, if people got really nasty, the Reverend would phone the police."
    Lest the reader should suppose that John was not critical of the Communists, I will quote
some of his comments on that other Communist, referred to above. "He knows in an obscure way
that he's an utter waster, though he pretends to himself that he's noble and unfortunate. Of course
he is unfortunate, frightfully unfortunate, in being the sort he is. And of course that's society's
fault as much as his own. So the wretched creature has to spend his life putting out his tongue at
society, or at the powers that be in society. He's just a hate-bag. But even his hate isn't really
sincere. It's a posture of self-defence, self-justification, not like the hate that smashed the Tsar,
and turned creative and made Russia. Things haven't got bad enough for that in England yet. At
present all that can be done by blokes like this is to spout hate and give the other side a fine
excuse for repressing Communism. Of course, hosts of well-off people and would-be-well-off
people are just as ashamed of themselves subconsciously as that blighter, and just as full of hate,
and in need of a scapegoat to exercise their hate upon. He and his like are a godsend to them."
     I said there was more excuse for the have-nots to hate than for the haves. This remark brought
from John a bit of analysis and prophecy that has since been largely justified.
     "You talk," he said, "as if hate were rational, as if men only hated what they had reason to
hate. If you want to understand modern Europe and the world, you have to keep in mind three
things that are really quite distinct although they are all tangled up together. First there's this
almost universal need to hate something, rationally or irrationally, to find something to unload
your own sins on to, and then smash it. In perfectly healthy minds (even of your species) this
need to hate plays a small part. But nearly all minds are damnably unhealthy, and so they must
have something to hate. Mostly, they just hate their neighbours or their wives or husbands or
parents or children. But they get a much more exalted sort of excitement by hating foreigners. A
nation, after all, is just a society for hating foreigners, a sort of super-hate-club. The second thing
to bear in mind is the obvious one of economic disorder. The people with economic power try to
run the world for their own profit. Not long ago they succeeded, more or less, but now the job has
got beyond them, and, as we all know, there's the hell of a mess. This gives hate a new outlet.
The have-nots with very good reason exercise their hate upon the haves, who have made the mess
and can't clean it up. The haves fear and therefore zestfully hate the have-nots. What people can't
realize is that if there were no deep-rooted need to hate in almost every mind the social problem
would be at least intelligently faced, perhaps solved. Then there's the third factor, namely, the
growing sense that there^s something all wrong with modern solely-scientific culture. I don't
mean that people are intellectually doubtful about science. It's much deeper than that. They are
simply finding that modern culture isn't enough to live by. It just doesn't work in practice. It has
got a screw loose somewhere. Or some vital bit of it is dead. Now this horror against modern
culture, against science and mechanization and standardization, is only just beginning to be a
serious factor. It's newer than Bolshevism. The Bolshies, and all the socially left-wing people, are
still content with modern culture. Or rather, they put all its faults down to capitalism, dear
innocent theorists. But the essence of it they still accept. They're rationalistic, scientific,
mechanistic, brass-tack-istic. But another crowd, scattered about all over the place, are having the
hell of a deep revulsion against all this. They don't know what's the matter with it, but they're sure
it's not enough. Some of them, feeling that lack, just creep back into church, specially the Roman
Church. But too much water has passed under the bridge since the churches were alive, so that's
no real use. The crowds who can't swallow the Christian dope are terribly in need of something,
though they don't know what, or even know they're in need at all. And this deep need gets mixed
up with their hate-need; and, if they're middle class, it gets mixed up also with their fear of social
revolution. And this fear, along with their hate-need, may get played on by any crook with an axe
to grind, or by any able man with an itch for bossing. That's what happened in Italy. That sort of
thing will spread. I'd bet my boots that in a few years there'll be a tremendous anti-left movement
all over Europe, inspired partly by fear and hate, partly by that vague, fumbling suspicion that
there's something all wrong with scientific culture. It's more than an intellectual suspicion. It's a
certainty of the bowels, call it a sort of brute-blind religious hunger. Didn't you -feel the
beginnings of it in Germany last year when we were there? A deep, still-unconscious revulsion
from mechanism, and from rationality, and from democracy, and from sanity. That's it, a
confused craving to be mad, possessed in some way. Just the thing for the well-to-do haters to use
for their own ends. That's what's going to get Europe. And its power depends on its being a
hotch-potch of self-seeking, sheer hate, and this bewildered hunger of the soul, which is so
worthy and so easily twisted into something bloody. If Christianity could hold it in and discipline
it, it might do wonders. But Christianity's played out. So these folk will probably invent some
ghastly religion of their own. Their God will be the God of the hate-club, the nation. That's what's
coming. The new Messiahs (one for each tribe) won't triumph by love and gentleness, but by hate
and ruth-lessness. Just because that s what you all really want, at the bottom of your poor
diseased bowels and crazy minds. Jesus Christ!"
     I was not much impressed by this tirade. I said the best minds had outgrown that old tribal
god, and the rest would follow the best minds in the long run. John's laughter disconcerted me.
     "The best minds!" he said. "One of the main troubles of your unhappy species is that the best
minds can go even farther astray than the second best, much farther than the umpteenth best.
That's what has been happening during the last few centuries. Swarms of the best minds have
been leading the populace down blind alley after blind alley, and doing it with tremendous
courage and resource. Your trouble, as a species, is that you can't keep hold of everything at
once. Any one who is very wide awake toward one set of facts invariably loses sight of all the
other equally important sets. And as you have practically no inner experience to orientate you,
compass-wise, to the cardinal points of reality, there's no telling how far astray you'll go, once
you start in the wrong direction."
     Here I interjected, "Surely that is one of the penalties of being gifted with intelligence; it may
lead one forward, but it may lead one badly astray."
     John replied, "It's one of the penalties of being more than beast and less than fully human.
Pterodactyls had a great advantage over the old-fashioned creepy crawly lizards, but they had
their special dangers. Because they could fly a bit, they could crash. Finally, they were outclassed
by birds. Well, I'm a bird."
     He paused, and then said, "Centuries ago all the best minds were in the Church. In those days
there was nothing to compare with Christianity for practical significance and theoretical interest.
And so the best minds swarmed upon it, and generation after generation of them used their bright
intelligences on it. Little by little they smothered the actual living spirit of religion, with their
busy theorizing. Not only so but they also used their religion, or rather their precious doctrines, to
explain all physical events. Presently there came along a generation of best minds that found all
this ratiocination very unconvincing, and began watching how things really did happen in
physical nature. They and their successors made modern science, and gave man physical power,
and changed the face of the earth. All this was as impressive in its own way as the effects of
religion had been, real live religion, in a quite different way, centuries earlier. So now nearly all
the best minds buzzed off to science, or to the job of working out a new scientific view of the
universe and a new scientific way of feeling and acting. And being so impressed by science and
by industry and the business attitude to life, they lost whatever trace of the old religion they ever
had, and also they became even more blind to their own inner nature than they need have been.
They were too busy with science, or industry, or empire-building, to bother about interior things.
Of course, a few of the best minds, and some ordinary folk, had mistrusted fashionable thought
all the way through. But after the war mistrust became widespread. The war made Nineteenth
Century culture look pretty silly, didn't it? So what happened? Some of the best minds (the best
minds, mind you) tumbled helter-skelter back to the Churches. Others, the most social ones,
declared that we ought all to live to improve mankind, or to make the future generations happy.
Others, feeling that mankind was really past hope, just struck a fine attitude of despair, based
either on contempt and hate of their fellows or on a compassion which was at bottom self-pity.
Others, the bright young things of literature and art, set out to enjoy themselves as best they
might in a crashing world. They were out for pleasure at any price, pleasure not entirely
unrefined. For instance, though they demanded unrestrained sexual pleasure, it was to be highly
conscious and discriminating. They also demanded aesthetic pleasure of a rather self-indulgent
sort, and the thoroughly self-indulgent pleasure of tasting ideas, just for their spiciness or tang, so
to speak. Bright young things! Yes, blowflies of a decaying civilization. Poor wretches! How
they must hate themselves, really. But damn it, after all, they're mostly good stuff gone wrong."
    John had recently spent some weeks studying the intelligentsia. He had made his entry into
Bloomsbury by acting the part of a precocious genius, and allowing a well-known writer to
exhibit him as a curio. Evidently he flung himself into the life of these brilliant and disorientated
young men and women with characteristic thoroughness, for when he returned he was something
of a wreck. I need not retail his account of his experiences, but his analysis of the plight of the
leaders of our thought is worth reporting.
    "You see," he said, "they really are in a sense the leaders of thought, or leaders of fashion in
thought. What they think and feel to-day, the rest think and feel next year or so. And some of
them really are, according to the standards of Horn. sap., first-class minds, or might have been, in
different circumstances. (Of course, most are just riff-raff, but they don't count.) Well, the
situation's really very simple, and very desperate. Here is the centre to which nearly all the best
sensibility and best intellect of the country gets attracted in the expectation of meeting its kind
and enriching its experience; but what happens? The poor little flies find themselves caught in a
web, a subtle mesh of convention, so subtle in fact that most of them are unaware of it. They buzz
and buzz and imagine they are free fliers, when as a matter of fact each one is stuck fast on his
particular strand of the web. Of course, they have the reputation of being the most unconventional
people of all. The centre imposes on them a convention of uncon-ventionality, of daring thought
and conduct. But they can only be 'daring' within the limits of their convention. They have a
sameness of intellectual and moral taste which makes them fundamentally all alike in spite of
their quite blatant superficial differences. That wouldn't matter so much if their taste were really
discriminate taste, but it's not, in most cases; and such innate powers of precision and delicacy as
they actually have get dulled by the convention. If the convention were a sound one, all might be
well, but it's not. It consists in trying to be 'brilliant' and 'original,' and in craving 'experience.'
Some of them are brilliant and original according to the standards of your species; and some of
them have the gift for experience. But when they do achieve brilliance and experience, this is in
spite of the web, and consists at best in a certain flutter and agitation, not in flight. The influence
of the all-pervading convention turns brilliance into brightness, originality into perversity, and
deadens the mind to all but the cruder sorts of experience. I don't mean merely crudity in sex-
experience and personal relations, though indeed their quite sound will to break the old customs
and avoid sentimentality at all costs has led them in the end to a jading and coarsening
extravagance. What I mean is crudity of—well, of spirit. Though they are often very intelligent
(for your species) they haven't got any of the finer aspects of experience to use their intelligence
on. And that seems to be due partly to a complete lack of spiritual discipline, partly to an obscure,
half-conscious funk. You see they're all very sensitive creatures, very susceptible to pleasure and
pain; and early in their lives, whenever they bumped into anything like a fundamental experience,
they found it terribly upsetting. And so they formed habits of avoiding that sort of thing. And
they made up for this persistent avoidance by drenching themselves in all sorts of minor and
superficial (though sensational) experiences; and also by talking big about Experience with a
capital E, and buzzing intellectually."
    This analysis made me feel uncomfortable, for though I was not one of "them" I could not
disguise from myself that the same sort of condemnation might apply to me. John evidently saw
my thoughts, for he grinned, and moreover indulged in an entirely vulgar wink. Then he said,
"Strikes home, old thing, doesn't it? Never mind, you're not in the web. You're an outsider. Fate
has kept you safely fluttering in the backward North."
    Some weeks after this conversation John's mood seemed to change. Hitherto he had been
light-hearted, sometimes even ribald, both in the actual pursuit of his investigation and in his
comments. In his more serious phases he displayed the sympathetic though aloof interest of an
anthropologist observing the customs of a primitive tribe. He had always been ready to talk about
his experiences and to defend his judgements. But now he began to be much less communicative,
and, when he did condescend to talk, much more terse and grim. Banter and friendly
contemptuousness vanished. In their place he developed a devastating habit of coldly, wearily
pulling to pieces whatever one said to him. Finally this reaction also vanished, and his only
response to any remark of general interest was a steady gloomy stare. So might a lonely man gaze
at his frisking dog when the need of human intercourse was beginning to fret him. Had any one
other than John treated one in that way, the act would have been offensive. Coming from John it
was merely disturbing. It roused in me a painful self-consciousness, and an irresistible tendency
to look away and busy myself with something.
    Once only did John express himself freely. By appointment I had met him in his subterranean
workshop to discuss a financial project which I proposed to undertake. He was lying in his little
bunk, swinging one leg over the side. Both hands were behind his head. I embarked on my theme,
but his attention was obviously elsewhere. "Damn it, can't you listen?" I said. "Are you inventing
a gadget or what?" "Not inventing," he replied, "discovering." There was such solemnity in his
voice that a wave of irrational panic seized me. "Oh, for God's sake do be explicit. What's up with
you these days? Can't you tell a fellow?" He transferred his gaze from the ceiling to my face. He
stared. I started to fill my pipe.
  "Yes, I'll tell you," he said, "if I can, or as much as I can. Some time ago I asked myself a
question, namely this. Is the plight of the world to-day a mere incident, an illness that might have
been avoided and may be cured? Or is it something inherent in the very nature of your species?
Well, I have got my answer. Homo sapiens is a spider trying to crawl out of a basin. The higher
he crawls, the steeper the hill. Sooner or later, down he goes. So long as he's on the bottom, he
can get along quite nicely, but as soon as he starts climbing, he begins to slip. And the higher he
climbs the farther he falls. It doesn't matter which direction he tries. He can make civilization
after civilization, but every time, long before he begins to be really civilized, skid!"
      I protested against John's assurance. "It may be so," I said, "but how can you possibly J^now?
 Horn. sap. is an inventive animal. Might not the spider some time or other contrive to make his
 feet sticky? Or—well, suppose he's not a spider at all but a beetle. Beetles have win'gs. They
 often forget how to use them, but—aren't there signs that Horn. sap/s present climb is different
 from all the others? Mechanical power is a stickiness for his feet. And I believe his wing-cases
 are stirring, too."
      John regarded me in silence. Pulling himself together, he said, as if from a great distance,
 "No wings. No wings." Then, in a more normal voice, "And as for mechanical power, if he knew
 how to use it, it might help him up a few steps farther, but he doesn't. You see, for every type of
 creature there's a limit of possible development of capacity, a limit inherent in the ground plan of
 its organization. Homo sapiens reached his limit a million years ago, but he has only recently
 begun to use his powers dangerously. In achieving science and mechanism he has brought about
 a state of affairs which cannot be dealt with properly save by capacity which is much more
 developed than his. Of course, he may not slip just yet. He may succeed in muddling through this
 particular crisis of history. But if he does, it will only be muddling through to stagnation, not to
 the soaring that even he in his own heart is desperately craving. Mechanical power, you see, is
 indeed vitally necessary to the full development of the human spirit; but to the sub-human spirit
 it is lethal."
      "But, how can you know that? Aren't you being a bit too confident in your own judgement?"
      John's lips compressed themselves and assumed a crooked smile. "You're right," he said.
 "There's just one possibility that I have not mentioned. If the species as a whole, or a large
 proportion of the world population, were to be divinely inspired, so that their nature became truly
 human at a stride, all would soon be well."
     I took this for irony, but he went on to say, "Oh, no, I'm quite serious. It's possible; if you
interpret "divinely inspired' to mean lifted out of their pettiness by a sudden and spontaneous
access t)f strength to their own rudimentary spiritual nature. It happens again and again in
individuals here and there. When Christianity came, it happened to large numbers. But they were
a very small proportion of the whole, and the thing petered out. Short of that kind of thing, or
rather something much more widespread and much more powerful than the Christian miracle,
there's no hope. The early Christians, you see, and the early Buddhists and so on, remained at
bottom what I should call sub-human, in spite of their miracle. In intelligence they remained what
they were before the miracle; and in will, though they were profoundly changed by the new thing
in them, the change was insecure. Or rather the new thing seldom managed to integrate their
whole being into a new and harmonious order. Its rule was precarious. The new psychological
compound, so to speak, was a terribly unstable compound. Or, putting it in another way, they
managed to become saints, but seldom angels. The sub-human and the human were always in
violent conflict in them. And so they mostly got obsessed with the idea of sin, and saving their
souls, instead of being able to pass on to live the new life with fluency and joy, and with creative
effect in the world."
    At this point we fell silent. I relit my pipe, and John remarked, "Match number nine, you
funny old thing!" It was true. There lay the eight burnt matches, though I had no recollection of
using them. John from his position on the bed could not see the ash-tray. He must have noticed
the actual re-lightings. It was simply that he observed whatever happened however engrossed he
might be. "You funnier young thing!" I retorted.
    Presently he began talking again. He kept his eye on me, but I felt that he was talking rather to
himself than to me. "At one time," he said, "I thought I should simply take charge of the world
and help Homo sapiens to remake himself on a more human plan. But now I realize that only
what men call 'God' could do that. Unless perhaps a great invasion of superior beings from
another planet, or another dimension, could do it. But I doubt if they would trouble to do it. They
would probably merely use the Terrestrials as cattle or museum pieces or pets, or just vermin. All
the same, if they wanted to make a better job of Horn. sap, I expect they could. But 7 can't do it. I
believe, if I set my mind to it, I could fairly easily secure power and take charge of the normal
species; and, once in charge, I could make a much more satisfactory world, and a much happier
world; but always I should have to accept the ultimate limitations of capacity in the normal
species. To make them try to live beyond their capacity would be like trying to civilize a pack of
monkeys. There would be worse chaos than ever, and they would unite against me, and sooner or
later destroy me. So I'd just have to accept the creature with all its limitations. And that would be
to waste my best powers. I might as well spend my life chicken-farming."
     "You arrogant young cub!" I protested. "I don't believe we are as bad as you think."
     "Oh, don't you! Of course not, you're one of the pack," he said. "Look here, now! I've spent
 some time and trouble poking about in Europe, and what do I find? In my simplicity I thought
 the fellows who had come to the top, the best minds, the leaders in every walk, would be
 something like real human beings, fundamentally sane, rational, efficient, self-detached, loyal to
 the best in them. Actually they are nothing of the sort. Mostly they're even below the average.
 Their position has underminded them. Think of old Z (naming a Cabinet minister). You'd be
 amazed if you could see him as I have seen him. He simply can't experience anything clearly and
 correctly, except things that bear on his petty little self-esteem. Everything has to penetrate to
 him through a sort of eider-down of preconceived notions, cliches, diplomatic phrases. He has no
 more idea of the real issues in politics to-day than a mayfly has of the fish in the stream it's
 fluttering on. He has, of course, the trick of using a lot of phrases that might mean very important
 things, but they don't mean them to him. They are just counters for him, to be used in the game of
 politics. He's simply not alive, to the real things. That's what's the matter with him. And take Y,
 the Press magnate. He's just a nimble-witted little guttersnipe who has found out how to hoax the
 world into giving him money and power. Talk to him about the real things, and he just hasn't a
 notion what you're driving at. But it's not only that sort that terrify me with their combination of
 power and inanity. Take the real leaders, take young X, whose revolutionary ideas are going to
 have a huge effect on social thought. He's got a brain, and he's using it on the right side, and he
 has nerve, too. But— well, I've seen enough of him to spot his real motive, hidden from himself,
 of course. He had a thin time long ago, and now he wants to get his own back, he wants to make
 the oppressor frightened of him. He wants to use the have-nots to break the haves, for his own
 satisfaction. Well, let him get his own back, and good luck to him. But fancy taking that as your
 life's goal, even unconsciously! It has made him do damned good work, but it has crippled him,
 too, poor devil. Or take that philosopher bloke, W, who did so much toward showing up the old
 school with their simple trust in words. He's really in much the same fix as X. I know him pretty
 well, the perky old bird. And knowing him I can see the mainspring of all that brilliant work
 quite clearly, namely, the idea of himself as bowing to no man and no god, as purged of prejudice
 and sentimentality, as faithful to reason yet not blindly trustful of it. All that is admirable. But it
 obsesses him, and actually warps his reasoning. You can't be a real philosopher if you have an
 obsession. On the other hand, take V. He knows all about electrons and all about galaxies, and
 he's first class at his job. Further, he has glimmers of spiritual experience. Well, what's the
 mechanism this time? He's a kind creature, very sympathetic. And he likes to think that the
 universe is all right from the human point of view. Hence all his explorations and speculations.
 Well, so long as he sticks to science he is sound enough. But his spiritual experience tells him
 science is all very superficial. Right, again; but his is not very deep spiritual experience, and it
 gets all mixed up with kindliness, and he tells us things about the universe that are sheer
 inventions of his kindliness."
     John paused. Then with a sigh he resumed. "It's no good going on about it. The upshot is
simple enough. Homo sapiens is at the end of his tether, and I'm not going to spend my life
tinkering a doomed species."
     "You're mighty sure of yourself, aren't you?" I put in. "Yes," he said, "perfectly sure of myself
in some ways, and still utterly unsure in others, in ways I can't explain. But one thing is stark
clear. If I were to take over Horn. sap. I should freeze up inside, and grow quite incapable of
doing what is my real job. That job is what I'm not yet sure about, and can't possibly explain. But
it begins with something very interior to me. Of course, it's not just saving my soul. I, as an
individual, might damn myself without spoiling the world. Indeed, my damning myself might
happen to be an added beauty to the world. I don't matter on my own account, but I have it in me
to do something that does matter. This I J^now. And I'm pretty sure I have to begin with—well,
interior discovery of objective reality, in preparation for objective creation. Can you make
anything of that?"
     "Not much," I said, "but go on."
     "No," he said, "I won't go on along that line, but I'll tell you something else. I've had the hell
of a fright lately. And I'm not easily frightened. This was only the second time, ever. I went to the
Cup Tie Final last week to see the crowd. You remember, it was a close fight (and a damned
good game from beginning to end) and three minutes before time there was trouble over a foul.
The ball went into goal before the referee's whistle had got going for the foul, and that goal
would have won the match. Well, the crowd got all het up about it, as you probably heard. That's
what frightened me. I don't mean I was scared of being hurt in a row. No, I should have quite
enjoyed a bit of a row, if I'd known which side to be on, and there'd been something to fight
about. But there wasn't. It clearly was a foul. Their precious, 'sporting instinct' ought to have kept
them straight, but it didn't. They just lost their heads, went brute-mad over it. What got me was
the sudden sense of being different from every one else, of being a human being alone in a vast
herd of cattle. Here was a fair sample of the world's population, of the sixteen hundred millions
of Homo sapiens. And this fair sample was expressing itself in a thoroughly characteristic way,
an inarticulate bellowing and braying, and here was I, a raw, ignorant, blundering little creature,
but human, really human, perhaps the only real human being in the world; and just because I was
really human, and had in me the possibility of some new and transcendent spiritual achievement,
I was more important than all the rest of the sixteen hundred million put together. That was a
terrifying thought in itself. What made matters worse was the bellowing crowd. Not that I was
afraid of them, but of the thing they were a sample of. Not that I was afraid as a private
individual, so to speak. The thought was very exhilarating from that point of view. If they had
turned on me I'd have made a damned good fight for it. What terrified me was the thought of the
immense responsibility, and the immense odds against my fulfilling it."
    John fell silent; and I was so stunned by his prodigious self-importance that I had nothing to
say. Presently he began again.
    "Of course I know, Fido old thing, the whole business must seem fantastic to you. But,
perhaps, by being a bit more precise on one point I may make the thing clearer. It's already pretty
common knowledge of course that another world-war is likely, and that if it does come it may
very well be the end of civilization. But I know something that makes the whole situation look
much worse than it's generally thought to be. I don't really \now what will happen to the species
in the long run, but I do know that unless a miracle happens there is bound to be a most ghastly
mess in the short run for psychological reasons. I have looked pretty carefully into lots of minds,
big and little, and it's devastatingly clear to me that in big matters Homo sapiens is a species with
very slight educable capacity. He has entirely failed to learn his lesson from the last war. He
shows no more practical intelligence than a moth that has fluttered through a candle-flame once
and will do so again as soon as it has recovered from the shock. And again and yet again, till its
wings are burnt. Intellectually many people realize the danger. But they are not the sort to act on
the awareness. It's as though the moth J^new that the flame meant death, yet simply couldn't stop
its wings from taking it there. Then what with this new crazy religion of nationalism that's
beginning, and the steady improvement in the technique of destruction, a huge disaster is simply
inevitable, barring a miracle, which of course may happen. There might be some sort of sudden
leap forward to a more human mentality, and therefore a world-wide social and religious
revolution. But apart from that possibility I should give the disease fifteen to twenty years to
come to a head. Then one fine day a few great powers will attack one another, and—phut!
Civilization will have gone in a few weeks. Now, of course, if I took charge I could probably
stave off the smash. But, as I say, it would mean chucking the really vital thing I can do.
Chicken-farming is not worth such a sacrifice. The upshot is, Fido, I'm through with your bloody
awful species. I must strike out on my own, and, if possible, in such a way as to avoid being
smashed in the coming disaster."

                                           CHAPTER XI



                                     STRANGE ENCOUNTERS


THE grave decision about the plight of Homo sapiens seems to have occurred at a time when
John's own development had ripened him for a far-reaching spiritual crisis. Some weeks after the
incident which I have just described he seemed to retire within himself more than ever, and to
shun companionship even with those who had counted themselves among his friends. His former
lively interest in the strange creatures among whom he lived apparently evaporated. His
conversation became perfunctory; save on rare occasions when he flared up into hostile
arrogance. Sometimes he seemed to long for intimacy and yet be quite unable to attain it. He
would persuade me to go off with him for a day on the hills or for an evening at the theatre, and
after a brave effort to restore our accustomed relationship, he would fall miserably silent, scarcely
listening to my attempts at conversation. Or he would dog his mother's footsteps for a while, and
yet find nothing to say to her. She was thoroughly frightened about his state, and indeed feared
that "his brain was giving out," so blankly miserable and speechless could he be. One night, so
she told me, she heard sounds in his room and crept in to see what was the matter. He was
"sobbing like a child that can't wake from a bad dream." She stroked his head and begged him to
tell her all about it. Still sobbing, he said, "Oh, Pax, I'm so lonely/'
     When this distressful state of affairs had lasted many weeks, John disappeared from home.
His parents were well used to absences of a few days, but this time they received a post card,
bearing a Scotch postmark, saying that he was going to have a holiday in the mountains, and
would not be back "for quite a long time."
     A month later, when we were beginning to feel anxious about him, an acquaintance of mine,
Ted Brinston, who knew that John had disappeared, told me that a friend of his, McWhist, who
was a rock-climber, had encountered "a sort of wild boy in the mountains of northern Scotland."
He offered to put me in touch with McWhist.
     After some delay Brinston asked me to dine with him to meet McWhist and his climbing
companion, Norton. When the occasion arrived I was surprised and disconcerted to find that both
men seemed reluctant to speak frankly about the incident that had brought us four together. Alco-
hol, however, or my anxiety about John, finally broke down their reluc-tance. They had been
exploring the little-known crags of Ross and Cro-marty, pitching their tent for a few days at a
time beside a handy burn or loch. One hot day, as they were climbing a grassy spur of a mountain
(which they refused to name) they heard a strange noise, apparently coming from the head of the
glen to the right of them. They were so intrigued by its half-animal, half-human character that
they went in search of its cause. Presently they came down to the stream and encountered a naked
boy sitting beside a little waterfall and chanting or howling "in a way that gave me the creeps,"
said McWhist. The lad saw them and fled, disappearing among the birch-trees. They searched,
but could not find him.
     A few days later they told this story in a little public-house. A red-bearded native, who had
not drunk too little, immediately retailed a number of yarns about encounters with such a lad—if
it was a lad, and not some sort of kelpie. The good man's own sister-in-law's nephew said he had
actually chased him and seen him turn into a wisp of mist. Another had come face to face with
him round a rock, and the creature's eyes were as large as cannon balls, and black as hell.
     Later in the week the climbers came upon the wild boy again. They had been climbing a
rather difficult chimney, and had reached a point where further direct ascent seemed impossible.
McWhist, who was leading, had just brought his second man up, and was preparing to traverse
round a very exposed buttress in search of a feasible route. Suddenly a small hand appeared
round the far side of the buttress, feeling for a hold. A moment later a lean brown shoulder edged
its way round into view, followed by the strangest face that McWhist had ever seen. From his
description I judged confidently that it was John. I was disturbed by the stress that McWhist laid
on the leanness of the face. The cheeks seemed to have shrunk to pieces of leather, and there was
a startling brightness about the eyes. No sooner had John appeared than his face took on an
expression of disgust almost amounting to horror, and he vanished back round the buttress.
McWhist traversed out to catch a view of him- again. John was already half-way down a smooth
face of rock which the climbers had attempted on the way up and then rejected in favour of the
chimney. Recounting the incident, McWhist ejaculated. "God! The lad could climb! He oozed
from hold to hold." When John reached the bottom of the bad pitch, he cut away to the left and
disappeared.
     Their final encounter with John was more prolonged. They were groping their way down the
mountain late one evening in a blizzard. They were both wet through. The wind was so violent
that they could hardly make headway against it. Presently they realized that they had missed their
way in the cloud, and were on the wrong spur of the mountain. Finally they found themselves
hemmed in by precipices, but they roped themselves and managed to climb down a gully or wide
chimney, choked with fallen rocks. Half-way down, they were surprised to smell smoke, and saw
it issuing from behind a great slab jammed in an angle of rocks beside their route. With
considerable difficulty McWhist worked his way by rare and precarious holds over to a little
platform near the smoking slab, and Norton followed. Light came from under it and behind it. A
step or two of scrambling brought them to the illuminated space between one end of the slab and
the clifF. The sides and opposite end of the slab were jammed in a mass of lesser rocks, and held
in position by the two sides of the chimney. Stooping, they peered through the bright hole into a
little irregular cave, which was lit by a fire of peat and heather. Stretched on a bed of dried grass
and heather lay John. He was gazing into the fire, and his face was streaming with tears. He was
naked, but there was a jumble of deer-skin beside him. By the fire was part of a cooked bird on a
flat stone.
     Feeling unaccountably abashed by the tears of this strange lad, the climbers quietly withdrew.
Whispering together, however, they decided that they really must do something about him.
Therefore, making a noise on the rocks with their boots as though in the act of reaching the cave,
they remained out of sight while McWhist demanded, "Is anyone there?" No answer was given.
Once more they peered through the tiny entrance. John lay as before, and took no notice. Near the
bird lay a stout bone knife or dirk, obviously "home-made," but carefully pointed and edged.
Other implements of bone or antler were scattered about. Some of them were decorated with
engraved patterns. There was also a sort of pan-pipe of reeds and a pair of hide sandals or
moccasins. The climbers were struck by the fact that there were no traces whatever of
civilization, nothing, for instance, that was made of metal.
     Cautiously they spoke again, but still John took no notice. McWhist crept through the
entrance, noisily, and laid a hand on the boy's bare foot, gently shaking it. John slowly looked
round and stared in a puzzled way at the intruder; then suddenly his whole form came alive with
hostile intelligence. He sprang into a crouching posture, clutching a sort of stiletto made of the
largest tine of an antler. McWhist was so startled by the huge glaring eyes and the inhuman snarl
that he backed out of the cramping entrance of the cave.
     "Then," said McWhist, "an odd thing happened. The boy's anger seemed to vanish, and he
stared intently at me as though I were a strange beast that he had never seen before. Suddenly he
seemed to think of something else. He dropped his weapon, and began gazing into the fire again
with that look of utter misery. Tears welled in his eyes again. His mouth twisted itself in a kind of
desperate smile."
    Here McWhist paused in his narrative, looking both distressed and awkward. He sucked
violently at his pipe. At last he proceeded.
    "Obviously we couldn't leave the kid like that, so I asked cautiously if we could do anything
for him. He did not answer. I crept in again, and squatted beside him, waiting. As gently as I
could I put a hand on his knee. He gave a start and a shudder, looked at me with a frown, as if
trying to get things straight in his mind, made a quick movement for the stiletto, checked himself,
and finally broke into a wry boyish grin, remarking, 'Oh, come in, please. Don't knock, it's a
shop.' He added, 'Can't you blighters leave a fellow alone?' I said we had come upon him quite by
accident, but of course we couldn't help being puzzled about him. I said we'd been very struck
with his climbing, the other day. I said it seemed a pity for him to be stuck up here alone.
Wouldn't he come along with us? He shook his head, smiling, and said he was quite all right
there. He was just having a bit of a rough holiday, and thinking about things. At first it had been
difficult feeding himself, but now he'd got the technique, and there was plenty of time for the
thinking. Then he laughed. A sudden sharp crackle it was that made my scalp tingle."
    Here Norton broke in and said, "I had crawled into the cave by then, and I was terribly struck
by the gaunt condition he was in. There wasn't a bit of fat on him anywhere. His muscles looked
like skeins of cord under his skin. He was covered with scars and bruises. But the most disturbing
thing was the look on his face, a look that I have only seen on some one that had just come out of
the anaesthetic after a bad op.—sort of purified. Poor kid, he'd evidently been through it all right,
but through what?"
    "At first," said McWhist, "we thought he was mad. But now I'm ready to swear he wasn't. He
was possessed. Something that we don't know anything about had got him, something good or
bad, I don't know which. The whole business gave me the creeps, what with the noise of the
storm outside, and the dim firelight, and the smoke that kept blowing back on us down the sort of
chimney he'd made for it. We were a bit light-headed with lack of food, too. He offered us the
rest of his bird, by the way, and some bilberries, but of course we didn't want to run him short.
We asked if there wasn't anything we could do for him, and he answered, yes, there was, we
could make a special point of not telling anyone about him. I said, couldn't we take a message to
his people. He grew very serious and emphatic, and said, 'No, don't tell a soul, not a soul. Forget.
If the papers get on to my tracks,' he said very slowly and coldly, T shall just have to kill myself.'
This put us in a hole. We felt we really ought to do something and yet somehow we felt we must
promise."
    McWhist paused, then said crossly, "And we did promise. And then we cleared out, and
floundered about in the dark till we reached our tent. We roped to get down the rock, and the lad
went in front, unroped, to show us the way." He paused again, then added, "The other day when I
happened to hear from Brinston about your lost lad, I broke my promise. And now I'm feeling
damned bad about it."
    I laughed, and said, "Well, no harm's done. I shan't tell the Press."
    Norton spoke again. "It's not as simple as that. There's something McWhist hasn't told you
yet. Go on, Mac."
     "Tell him yourself," said McWhist, "I'd rather not."
     There was a pause, then Norton laughed awkwardly, and said, "Well, when one tries to
describe it in cold blood over a cup of coffee, it just sounds crazy. But damn it, if the thing didn't
happen, something mighty queer must have happened to us, for we both saw it, as clearly as you
see us now."
     He paused. McWhist rose from his arm-chair and began examining the rows of books on
shelves behind us.
     Norton proceeded: "The lad said something about making us realize we'd come up against
something big that we couldn't understand, said he'd give us something to remember, and help us
to keep the secret. His voice had changed oddly. It was very low and quiet and composed. He
stretched his skinny arm up to the roof, saying, 'This slab must weigh fifty tons. Above it there's
just blizzard. You can see the raindrops in the doorway there.' He pointed to the cave entrance.
'What of it?' he said in a cold proud voice. 'Let us see the stars.' Then, my God, you won't believe
it, of course, but the boy lifted that blasted rock upon his finger-tips like a trap door. A terrific
gust of wind and sleet entered, but immediately died away. As he lifted he rose to his feet.
Overhead was a windless, clear, starry sky. The smoke of the fire rose as a wavering column,
illuminated at the base, and spreading dimly far above us, where it blotted out a few stars with a
trail of darkness. He pushed the rock back till it was upright, then leaned lightly against it with
one arm, crooking the other on his hip. 'There!' he said. In the starlight and firelight I could see
his face as he gazed upwards. Transfigured, I should call it, bright, keen, peaceful.
     "He stayed still for perhaps half a minute, and silent; then, looking down at us, he smiled, and
said, 'Don't forget. We have looked at the stars together.' Then he gently lowered the rock into
position again, and said, 'I think you had better go now. I'll take you down the first pitch. It's
difficult by night.' As we were both pretty well paralysed with bewilderment we made no
immediate sign of quitting. He laughed, gently, reassuringly, and said something that has haunted
me ever since. (I don't know about McWhist.) He said, 'It was a childish miracle. But I am still a
child. While the spirit is in the agony of outgrowing its childishness, it may solace itself now and
then by returning to its playthings, knowing well that they are trivial.' By now we were creeping
out of the cave, and into the blizzard."
     There was a silence. Presently McWhist faced us again, and glared rather wildly at Norton.
"We were given a great sign," he said, "and we have been unfaithful."
     I tried to calm him by saying, "Unfaithful in the letter, perhaps, but not in the spirit. I'm pretty
sure John wouldn't mind my knowing. And as to the miracle, I wouldn't worry about that," I said,
with more confidence than I felt. "He probably hypnotized you both in some odd sort of way.
He's a weird kid."

    Toward the end of the summer Pax received a post card, saying "Home late to-morrow. Hot
bath, please. John."
    On the first opportunity I had a long talk with John about his holiday. It was a surprise to me
to find that he was ready to talk with perfect frankness, and that he had apparently quite got over
the phase of uncommunicative misery which had caused us so much anxiety before his flight
from home. I doubt if I really understood what he told me, and I am sure there was a good deal
that he didn't tell me because he knew I wouldn't understand. I had a sense that he was all the
while trying to translate his actual thoughts into language intelligible to me, and that the
translation seemed to him very crude. I can give only so much of his statement as I understood.



                                         CHAPTER XII

                                 JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS

JOHN said that when he had begun to realize the tragic futility of Homo sapiens he was seized
with "a panicky sense of doom," and along with that "a passion of loneliness." He felt more
lonely in the presence of others than in isolation. At the same time, apparently, something strange
was happening to his own mind. At first he thought perhaps he was going mad, but clung to the
faith that he was after all merely growing up. Anyhow he was convinced that he must cut right
adrift and face this upheaval in himself undisturbed. It was as though a grub were to feel
premonitions of dissolution and regeneration, and to set purposefully about protecting itself with
a cocoon.
    Further, if I understood him, he felt spiritually contaminated by contact with the civilization
of Homo sapiens. He felt he must for a while at least strip away every vestige of it from his own
person, face the universe in absolute nakedness, prove that he could stand by himself, without de-
pending in any way whatever on the primitive and debased creatures who dominated the planet.
At first I thought this hunger for the simple life was merely an excuse for a boyish adventure, but
now I realize that it did have for him a grave importance which I could only dimly comprehend.
    Of some such kind were the motives that drove him into the wildest region of this island. The
thoroughness with which he carried out his plan amazed me. He simply walked out of a Highland
railway station, had a good meal in an inn, strode up on to the moors toward the high mountains,
and, when he judged himself safe from interruption, took ofE all his clothes, including his shoes,
and buried them in a hole among the rocks. He then took his bearings carefully, so as to be able
to recover his property in due season, and moved away in his nakedness, seeking food and shelter
in the wilderness.
    His first days were evidently a terrible ordeal. The weather turned wet and cold. John, it must
be remembered, was an extremely hardy creature, and he had prepared himself for this adventure
by a course of exposure, and by studying beforehand all possible means of securing food in the
valleys and moors of Scotland without so much as a knife or a piece of string to aid him. But fate
was at first against him. The bad weather made shelter a necessity, and in seeking it he had to
spend much time that might otherwise have been spent in the search for food.
    He passed the first night under a projecting rock, wrapped in heather and grass that he had
collected before the weather broke. Next day he caught a frog, dismembered it with a sharp stone,
and ate it raw. He also ate large quantities of dandelion leaves, and other green stuff which from
previous study he knew to be edible. Certain fungi, too, contributed to his diet on that day, and
indeed throughout his adventure. On the second day he was feeling "pretty queer." On the third
evening he was in a high fever, with a bad cough and diarrhoea. On the previous day, foreseeing
possible illness, he had greatly improved his shelter, and laid by a store of such food as he
considered least indigestible. For some days, he didn't know how long, he lay desperately sick,
scarcely able to crawl to the stream for water. "I must have been delirious at one time," he said,
"because I seemed to have a visit from Pax. Then I came to and found there wasn't any Pax, and I
thought I was dying, and I loved myself desperately, knowing I was indeed a rare bright thing.
And it was torture to be just wasted like that. And then that unspeakable joy came, that joy of
seeing things as it were through God's eyes, and finding them after all right, fitting, in the pic-
ture." There followed a few days of convalescence, during which, he said, "I seemed to have lost
touch completely with all the motives of my adventure. I just lay and wondered why I had been
such a self-important fool. Fortunately, before I was strong enough to crawl back to civilization I
lashed myself into facing this spiritual decay. For even in my most abject state I vaguely J^new
that somewhere there was another 'I,' and a better one. Well, I set my teeth and determined to go
on with the job even if it killed' me."
    Soon after he had come to this decision some local boys with a dog came up the hill right on
to his hiding-place. He leapt up and fled. They must have caught a glimpse of his small naked
figure, for they gave chase, hallooing excitedly. As soon as he was on his feet he realized that his
legs were like water. He collapsed. "But then," he said, "I suddenly managed to tap some deep
reserve of vitality, so to speak. I simply jumped up and ran like hell round a corner of hillside,
and farther, to a rocky place. There I climbed a pretty bad pitch into a hole I knew of and had
counted on. Then I must have fainted. In fact, I think I must have lain unconscious for almost
twenty-four hours, for when I came to, the sun seemed to have gone back to early morning. I was
cold as death, and one huge ache, and so weak I couldn't move from the twisted position I was
in."
    Later in the day he managed to crawl back to his lair, and with great difficulty moved his
bedding to a safer but less comfortable spot. The weather was now hot and bright. For ten days or
so he spent nearly all his time creeping about in search of frogs, lizards, snails, birds' eggs and
green stuff, or just lying in the sun recovering his strength. Sometimes he managed to catch a few
fish by "tickling" them in a pool in the river. The whole of one day he spent in trying to get a
flame by striking sparks from stones on a handful of dry grass. At last he succeeded, and began to
cook his meal, in an ecstasy of pride and anticipation. Suddenly he noticed a man, far away but
obviously interested in the smoke of his fire. He put it out at once and decided to go much farther
into the wilds.
    Meanwhile, though his feet had been hardened with long practice at home, they were now
terribly sore, and quite unfit for "a walking tour." He made moccasins out of ropes of twisted
grass which he bound round his feet and ankles. They kept in place for a while, but were always
either coming undone or wearing through. After many days of exploration, and several nights
without shelter, two of which were wet, he found the high cave where later the climbers
discovered him. "It was only just in time," he said. "I was in a pretty bad state. Feet swollen and
bleeding, ghastly cough, diarrhoea. But in that cave I soon felt snugger than I had ever felt in my
life, by contrast with the past few weeks. I made myself a lovely bed, and a fireplace, and I felt
fairly safe from intrusion, because mine was a remote mountain, and anyhow very few people
could climb those rocks. Not far below there were grouse and ptarmigan; and deer. On my first
morning, sitting in the sun on my roof, positively happy, I watched a herd of them crossing a
moor, stepping so finely, ears spread, heads high."
    The deer seem to have become his chief interest for a while. He was fascinated by their
beauty and freedom. True, they now depended for their existence on a luxurious civilization; but
equally they had existed before there was any civilization at all. Moreover, he coveted the huge
material wealth that the slaughter of one stag would afford him. And he had apparently a queer
lust to try his strength and cunning against a worthy quarry. For at this time he was content to be
almost wholly the primitive hunter, "though with a recollection, away at the back of my mind,
that all this was just a process of getting clean in spirit for a very different enterprise."
    For ten days or so he did little but devise means for catching birds and hares, and spent all
spare time in resting, recuperating, and brooding over the deer. His first hare, caught after many
failures, he took by arranging a trap in its runway. A huge stone was precariously held in position
by a light stick, which the creature dislodged. Its back was broken. But a fox ate most of it in the
night. From its skin, however, he made a rough bow-string, also soles and thongs for his foot-
gear. By splitting its thigh bones and filing them on the rock he made some fragile little knives to
help him in preparing his food. Also he made some minute sharp arrowheads. With a diversity of
traps, and his toy bow and arrows, and vast patience and aptitude, he managed to secure enough
game to restore him to normal strength. Practically his whole time was spent in hunting, trapping,
cooking, making little tools of bone or wood or stone. Every night he rolled himself in his grass
bedding dead tired, but at peace. Sometimes he took his bedding outside the cave and slept on a
ledge of the precipice, under stars and driving cloud.
    But there were the deer; and beyond them the spiritual problem which was the real motive of
his adventure, and had not yet been consciously faced at all. It was clear that if he did not greatly
improve his way of life, he would have no time for that concentrated meditation and spiritual
exercise which he so greatly needed. The killing of the stag became a symbol for him. The
thought of it stirred unwonted feelings in him. "It was as though all the hunters of the past
challenged me," he said, "and as though, as though—well, as though the angels of God ordered
me to do this little mighty deed in preparation for mightier deeds to come. I dreamt of stags, of
their beauty and power and speed. I schemed and plotted, and rejected every plan. I stalked the
herd, weaponless, intent only on learning their ways. One day I came upon some deer-stalkers,
and I stalked them too, until they brought down a stag of ten; and how I despised them for their
easy slaughter. To me they were just vermin preying upon my game. But when I had thought that
thought, I laughed at myself; for / had no more right to the creatures than any one else."
    The story of how John finally took his stag seemed to me almost incredible, yet I could not
but believe it. He had marked down as his quarry the finest beast of the herd, an eight-year-old
monarch, bearing besides his brow, bay and tray, "three on top" on the right, and four on the left.
The weight of antler gave his head a superb poise. One day John and the stag met one another
face to face round a shoulder of moor. They stood for full three seconds, twenty paces apart,
gazing at one another, the stag's wide nostrils taking the scent of him. Then the beast swung
round and cantered easefully away.
    When John described that meeting, his strange eyes seemed to glow with dark fire. He said, I
remember, "With my soul I saluted him. Then I pitied him, because he was doomed, and in the
prime. But I remembered that I too was doomed. I suddenly knew that I should never reach my
prime. And I laughed aloud, for him and for me, because life is brief and wild, and death too is in
the picture."
     John took long to decide on the method of his attack. Should he dig a pit for him, or lasso him
with a cord of hide, or set a mighty stone to fell him, or pierce him with a bone-pointed arrow?
Few of these devices seemed practicable; all but the last seemed ugly, and that last was not
practicable. For some time he busied himself making dirks of various kinds, of wood, of the
fragile bones of hares, of keen stone splinters from a neighbouring mountain. Patient experiment
produced at last a preposterous little stiletto of hard wood pointed with bone, the whole "stream-
lined" by filing upon the rock. With this fantastic weapon and his knowledge of anatomy, he
proposed to leap on the stag from a hiding-place and pierce its heart. And this in the end he did,
after many days of fruitless stalking and waiting. There was a little glade where the deer
sometimes grazed, and beside it a rock some ten feet high. On the top of this rock he secreted
himself early one morning, when the wind was such that his scent would not betray him. The
great stag came round the shoulder of hill, attended by three hinds. Cautiously they snifEed and
peered; then, at last, lowered their heads and peacefully grazed. Hour after hour John lay, waiting
for the right beast to stray below the rock. But it was as though the stag deliberately avoided the
danger-spot. Finally the four deer left the glade. Two more days were spent in vain watching. Not
till the fourth day did John leap from the rock upon the back of the grazing stag, bringing it down
with its right flank to the ground. Before the creature could regain its feet John had thrust his
primitive weapon home with all his weight. The stag half righted itself, wildly swung its antlers,
tearing John's arm, then collapsed. And John, to his own surprise, behaved in a style most
unseemly in a hunter. For the third time in his life, he burst into spontaneous tears.
     For days afterwards he struggled to dismember the carcass with his inadequate implements.
This task proved even more difficult than the killing, but in the end he found himself with a large
quantity of meat, an invaluable hide, and the antlers, which, with desperate efforts, he smashed in
pieces with a great stone and worked up as knives and other tools, by scraping them on the rocks.
     At the end he could hardly lift his hands with fatigue, and they were covered with bleeding
blisters. But the deed was accomplished. The hunters of all the ages saluted him, for he had done
what none of them could have done. A child, he had gone naked into the wilderness and
conquered it. And the angels of heaven smiled at him, and beckoned him to a higher adventure.
     John's way of life now changed. It had become a fairly easy matter for him to keep himself
alive, and even in comfort. He set his traps, and let fly his arrows, and gathered his green things;
but all was now routine work. He was able to carry it out while giving his best attention to the
strange and disturbing events which were beginning to occur within his own mind.
     It is obviously quite impossible for me to give anything like a true account of the spiritual side
of John's adventure in the wilderness. Yet to ignore it would be to ignore all that was most
distinctive in John. I must at least try to set down as much of it as I was able to understand, for
that little seems to me to have real significance for beings of my own species. Even if as a matter
of fact I have merely misunderstood what he told me, my misunderstanding afforded at least to
me a real enlightenment.
     For a time he seems to have been chiefly concerned with art. He "sang against the waterfall."
He made and played his pan-pipes, apparently adopting some weird scale of his own. He played
strange themes and figures on the shores of the loch, in the woods, on the mountain-tops, and in
his rock home. He decorated his tools with engraved angles and curves consonant with their form
and use. On pieces of bone and stone he recorded symbolically his adventures with fish and birds;
and with the stag. He devised strange shapes which epitomized for him the tragedy of Homo
sapiens, and the promise of his own kind. At the same time he was allowing the perceptual forms
with which he was surrounded to work themselves deeply into his mind. He accepted with insight
the quality of moor and sky and crag. From the bottom of his heart he gave thanks for all these
subtle contacts with material reality; and found in them a spiritual refreshment which we also
find, though confusedly and grudgingly. He was also constantly, and ever surprisingly,
illuminated by the beauty of the beasts and birds on which he preyed, a beauty significant of their
power and their frailty, their vitality and their obtuseness. Such perceived organic forms seem to
have moved him far more deeply than I could comprehend. The stag, in particular, that he had
killed and devoured, and now daily used, seems to have had some deep symbolism for him which
I could but dimly appreciate, and will not attempt to describe. I remember his exclaiming, "How I
knew him and praised him! And his death was his life's crown."
    This remark epitomized, I believe, some new enlightenment which John was now receiving
about himself and about Homo sapiens and indeed about all living things. The actual nature of
that enlightenment I find it impossible to conceive, but certain dim reflections of it I do seem able
to detect, and must try to record.
    It will be remembered that John had shown, even as an infant, a surprising detachment and
strange relish in situations in which he himself was the sufferer. Referring to this, he now said, "I
could always enjoy the 'realness' and the neatness of my own pains and griefs, even while I de-
tested them. But now I found myself faced with something of quite a new order of horribleness,
and one which I could not get into place. Hitherto my distresses had been merely isolated smarts
and temporary frustrations, but now I saw my whole future as something at once much more
vivid and much more painfully frustrated than anything I had conceived. You see, I knew so
clearly by now that I was a unique being, far more awake than other people. I was beginning to
understand myself and discover all sorts of new and exquisite capacities in myself; and at the
same time I saw now all too clearly that I was up against a savage race which would never
tolerate me or my kind, and would sooner or later smash me with its brute weight. And when I
told myself that after all this didn't really matter, and that I was just a little self-important microbe
making a fuss over nothing, something in me cried out imperiously that, even if I was of no
account, the things I could do, the beauty I could make, and the worship that I was now beginning
to conceive, did most emphatically matter, and must be brought to fruition. And I saw that there
would be no fruition, that the exquisite things that it was my office to do would never be done.
This was a sort of agony altogether different from anything that my adolescent mind had ever
known."
    While he was wrestling with this horror, and before he had triumphed over it, there came
upon him the realization that for members of the normal species every pain, every distress of
body and of mind, had this character of insurmountable hideousness which he himself had found
only in respect of the highest reach of his experience, and was determined to conquer even there.
It came as a shocking revelation to him that normal human beings were quite incapable of
detachment and zest even in sufferings upon the personal plane. In fact he realized clearly for the
first time the torture that lies in wait at every turn for beings who are more sensitive and more
awakened than the beasts and yet not sensitive enough, not fully awakened. The thought of the
agony of this world of nightmare-ridden half-men crushed him as nothing else had ever done.
    His attitude to the normal species was undergoing a great change. When he had fled into the
wilderness his dominant reaction was disgust. One or two of us he unreasonably cherished, but as
a species he loathed us. He had recently seen too much, lived at too close quarters, been fouled
and poisoned. His researches into the world of men had been too devastating for a mind which,
though superior in quality, was immature and delicate. But the wild had cleansed him, healed
him, brought him to sanity again. He could now put Homo sapiens at arm's length for study and
appreciation. And he saw that, though no divinity, the creature was after all a noble and even a
lovable beast, indeed the noblest and most lovable of them all; nay further, that its very
repulsiveness lay in its being something more than beast, but not enough more. A normal human
being, he now ungrudgingly admitted, was indeed a spirit of a higher order than any beast, though
in the main obtuse, heartless, unfaithful to the best in himself.
    Realizing all this, and realizing for the first time the incapacity of Homo sapiens to accept his
pains and sorrows with equanimity, John was overwhelmed with pity, a passion which he had not
hitherto experienced in any intensity; save on particular occasions, as when Judy's dog was run
over by a car, and when Pax was ill and in great pain. And even then his pity was always
tempered by his assumption that every one, even little Judy, could always "look at it from outside
and enjoy it," as he himself could do.
    For many days John seems to have been at grips with this newly realized problem of the
absoluteness of evil, and the novel fact that beings that were tissues of folly and baseness could
yet be pitiable and, in their kind, beautiful. What he sought was not an intellectual solution but an
emotional enlightenment. And this, little by little, he seems to have gained. When I pressed him
to tell me more of this strange enlightenment, he said it was just "seeing my own fate and the
piteous plight of the normal species in the same way as I had always, since I was a kid, seen
bumps and burns and disappointments. It was a case of delighting in their clear-cut form, and in
their unity with the rest of things, and the way they—how shall I put it?—deepened and
quickened the universe." Here, I remember, John paused, then repeated, "Yes, deepened and
quickened the universe,—that's the main point. But it wasn't a case of understanding that they did
so, but just seeing and feeling that they did so."
    I asked him if what he meant was some kind of coming face to face with God. He laughed,
and said, "What do I know about God? No more than the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that's
nothing whatever."
    He said that when McWhist and Norton came upon him in the cave he was "still desperately
puzzling things out," and that their presence filled him just for a moment with the old disgust at
their species, but that he had really done with all that long ago, and when he saw them there,
looking so blank, he remembered his first close meeting with the stag. And suddenly the stag
seemed to symbolize the whole normal human species, as a thing with a great beauty and dignity
of its own, and a rightness of its own, so long as it was not put into situations too difficult for it.
Homo sapiens, poor thing, had floundered into a situation too difficult for him, namely the
present world-situation. The thought of Homo sapiens trying to run a mechanized civilization
suddenly seemed to him as ludicrous and pathetic as the thought of a stag in the driving-seat of a
motor-car.
    I took this opportunity of asking him about the "miracle" with which he had so impressed his
visitors. He laughed again. "Well," he said, "I had been discovering all sorts of odd powers. For
instance I found that by a kind of telepathy I could get in touch with Pax and talk to her. It's true.
You can ask her about it. Also I could sometimes feel what you were thinking about, though you
were too dull to catch my messages and respond to me. And I had made queer little visits to
events in my own past life. I just lived them again, with full vividness, as though they were 'now.'
And in a telepathic way I had begun to get something very like evidence that after all I was not
the only one of my kind in the world, that there were in fact quite a number of us scattered about
in different countries. And then again, when McWhist and Norton appeared in the cave I found
that by looking at them I could read the whole of their past lives in their faces, and I saw how
thoroughly sound they both were within the limitations of their kind! And I thought I saw
something about their future, something that I won't tell you. Then, when it was necessary to
impress them, I suddenly got the idea of lifting the roof and clearing away the blizzard so that we
could see the stars. And I knew perfectly well that I could do it, so I did it."
    I looked at John with misgiving. "Oh yes," he said, "I know you think I'm mad, and that all I
did was to hypnotize them. Well, put it that I hypnotized myself too, for I saw the whole thing as
clearly as they did. But, believe me, to say I hypnotized us all is no more true and no less true
than to say I actually shifted the rock and the blizzard. The truth of the matter was something
much more subtle and tremendous than any plain little physical miracle could ever be. But never
mind that. The important thing was that, when I did see the stars (riotously darting in all
directions according to the caprice of their own wild natures, yet in every movement confirming
the law), the whole tangled horror that had tormented me finally presented itself to me in its true
and beautiful shape. And I knew that the first, blind stage of my childhood had ended."
I had indeed sensed a change in John. Even physically he had altered strikingly during his six
months' absence. He was harder, more close-knit;
and there were lines on his face suggestive of ordeals triumphantly passed. Mentally, though still
capable of a most disconcerting impishness, he had also acquired that indefinable peacefulness
and strength which is quite impossible to the adolescent of the normal species, and is very seldom
acquired even by the mature. He himself said that his "discovery of sheer evil" had fortified him.
When I asked, "how fortified?" he said, "My dear, it is a great strength to have faced the worst
and to have -felt it a feature of beauty. Nothing ever after can shake one."
    He was right. By what magic he did it I do not know, but in all his future, and in the final
destruction of all that he most cherished, he accepted the worst not with resignation, merely, but
with a strange joy that must remain to the rest of us incomprehensible.
    I will mention one other point that emerged in my long talk with John. It will be remembered
that after performing his "miracle" he apologized for it. I questioned him on this matter, and he
said something like this: "To enjoy exercising one's powers is healthy. Children enjoy learning to
walk. Artists enjoy painting pictures. As a baby I exulted in the tricks I could do with numbers,
and later in my inventions, and recently in killing my stag. And of course the full exercise of
one's powers really is part of the life of the spirit. But it is only a part, and sometimes we are
inclined to take it as the whole purpose of our existence, especially when we discover new
powers. Well, in Scotland, when I began to come into all those queer powers that I mentioned just
now, I was tempted to regard the exercise of them as the true end of my life. I said to myself,
'Now at last, in these wonderful ways, I shall indeed advance the spirit. But after the momentary
exaltation of lifting the rock I saw clearly that such acts were in no sense the goal of the spirit, but
just a by-play of its true life, amusing, and sometimes useful, and often dangerous, but never
themselves the goal."
    "Then tell me," I said, perhaps rather excitedly, "what is the goal, the true life of the spirit?"
John suddenly grinned like a boy of ten, and laughed that damnably disturbing laugh of his. "I'm
afraid I can't tell you, Mr. Journalist," he said. "It is time your interview was concluded. Even if I
knew what the true life of the spirit was, I couldn't put it into English, or any "sapient" language.
And if I could, you wouldn't understand." After a pause he added, "Perhaps we might safely say
this much about it anyhow. It's not doing any one particular kind of thing, like miracles, or even
good deeds. It's doing everything that comes along to be done, and doing it not only with all one's
might but with—spiritual taste, discrimination, full consciousness of what one is doing. Yes, it's
that. And it's more. It's—praise of life, and of all things in their true setting." Once more he
laughed, and said, "What stuff! To describe the spiritual life, we should have to remake language
from the foundations upwards."


                                          CHAPTER XIII



                                      JOHN SEEKS HIS KIND


FOR many weeks after his return from the wilderness John spent a good deal of his time at home,
or in the neighbouring city. Apparently he was content to sink back into the interests of the
normal adolescent. He resumed his friendship with Stephen, and with Judy. Often he took the
child to a picture show, a circus, or any entertainment suited to her years. He acquired a motor-
bicycle, on which, upon the very day of the purchase, Judy was treated to a wild ride. The
neighbours said that John's holiday had done him good. He was much more normal now. With his
brother and sister too, on the rare occasions when he met them, John became more fraternal.
Anne was now married. Tom was a successful young architect. The two brothers had generally
maintained a relation of restrained hostility to one another, but now hostility seemed to have
mellowed into mutual tolerance. After a family reunion Tom remarked, "Our infant prodigy's
positively growing up." Doc was delighted by John's new companionable-ness, and often talked
to him at great length. Their main topic was John's future. Doc was anxious to persuade him to
take to medicine and become "a greater Lister." John used to attend to these exhortations
thoughtfully, seeming to be almost persuaded. Once Pax was present. She shook her head,
smilingly but reprovingly at John. "Don't believe him, Doc," she said, "he's pulling your leg." In
this period, by the way, John and Pax often went together to a theatre or concert. Indeed, mother
and son were now seeing a great deal of each other. Pax's interest in the drama, and in "persons,"
seemed to afford him an unfailing common platform. Occasionally they even went up to London
together for a week-end, "to see the shows."
    There came a time when I began to feel a certain curiosity as to the meaning of this prolonged
period of relaxation. John's behaviour seemed now almost completely normal. There was, indeed,
one unusual but unobtrusive feature about it. In the midst of conversation or any other activity he
would sometimes give a noticeable start of surprise. He would then perhaps repeat the
immediately preceding remark, whether his own or the other person's; and then he would look
around him with amused interest. I fancied that for some time after such an incident he was more
alert than before it. Not that in the earlier stage he had seemed at all absent-minded. He was at all
times thoroughly adjusted to his surroundings. But after these curious jerks the current of his life
seemed to reach a higher tension.
    One evening I accompanied the three WainWrights to the local Repertory Theatre. During an
interval, while we were drinking coffee in the foyer and discussing the play, John gave a more
violent start than usual, spilling his coffee into the saucer. He laughed, and looked about him with
surprised interest. After a moment's awkward silence, in which Pax regarded her boy with veiled
solicitude, John continued his comments on the play, but (as it seemed to me) with new
penetration. "My point is just this," he said. "The thing's too lifelike to be really alive. It's not a
portrait but a death-mask."
    Next day I asked him what had happened when he spilt his coffee. We were in my flat. John
had come to inquire if the post had brought information about some patent or other. I was at my
writing-table. He was standing at the window, looking out across the deserted promenade to the
wintry sea. He was chewing an apple that he had picked up from a dish on my table. "Yes," he
said, "it's time you were told, even if you can't believe. At present I am looking for other people
more or less like me, and to do it I become a sort of divided personality. Part of me remains
where my body is, and behaves quite correctly, but the other, the essential I, goes off in search of
them. Or if you like, I stay put all the time, but reach out in search of them. Anyhow, when I
come back, or stop the search, I get a bit of a jolt, taking up the threads of ordinary life again."
    "You never seem to lose the threads," I said.
    "No," he answered. "The incoming 'I' comes slick into possession of all the past experiences
of the residential one, so to speak. But the sudden jump from God knows where to here gives a
bit of a jar, all the same."
    "And when you're away," I asked, "where do you go, what do you find?"
    "Well," he said, "I had better begin at the beginning. I told you before that when I was in
Scotland I used to find myself in telepathic touch with people, and that some of the people
seemed queer people, or people in a significant way more like me than you. Since I came home
I've been working up the technique for tuning in to the people I want. Unfortunately it's much
easier to pick up the thoughts of folk one knows well than of strangers. So much depends on the
general form of the mind, the matrix in which the thoughts occur, so to speak. To get you or Pax I
have only to think of you. I can get your actual consciousness, and if I want to, I can get a good
bit of the deeper layers of you too."
    I was seized with horror, but I comforted myself with incredulity.
    "Oh, yes, I can," said John. "While I've been talking, half your mind was listening and the
other half was thinking about a quarrel you had last night with——" I cut him short with an
expostulation.
    "Righto, don't get excited," said John. "You haven't much to be ashamed of. And anyhow I
don't want to pry. But just now,—well, you kept fairly shouting the stuff at me, because while
you were attending to me you were thinking about it. You'll probably soon learn how to shut me
out at will."
    I grunted, and John continued: "As I was saying, it's much harder to get in touch with people
one doesn't know, and at first I didn't know any of the people I was looking for. On the other
hand, I found that the people of my sort make, so to speak, a much bigger 'noise' telepathically
than the rest. At least they do when they want to, or when they don't care. But when they want
not to, they can shut themselves off completely. Well, at last I managed to single out from the
general buzz of telepathic 'noise,' made by the normal species, a few outstanding streaks or
themes that seemed to have about them something or other of the special quality that I was look-
ing for."
    John paused, and I interjected, "What sort of quality?"
    He looked at me for some seconds in silence. Believe it or not, but that prolonged gaze had a
really terrifying effect on me. I am not suggesting that there was something magical about it. The
effect was of the same kind as any normal facial expression may have. But knowing John as I
did, and remembering the strange events of his summer in Scotland, I was no doubt peculiarly
susceptible. I can only describe what I felt by means of an image. It was as though I was
confronted with a mask made of some semi-transparent substance, and illuminated from within
by a different and a spiritually luminous face. The mask was that of a grotesque child, half
monkey, half gargoyle, yet wholly urchin, with its huge cat's eyes, its flat little nose, its teasing
lips. The inner face,—obviously it cannot be described, for it was the same in every feature, yet
wholly different. I can only say that it seemed to me to combine the august and frozen smile of a
Buddha with the peculiar creepy grimness that the battered Sphinx can radiate when the dawn
first touches its face. No, these images fail utterly. I cannot describe the symbolical intention that
John's features forced upon me in those seconds. I can only say that I longed to look away and
could not, or dared not. Irrational terror welled up in me. When one is under the dentist's drill,
one may endure a few moments of real torture without flinching. But as the seconds pile up, it
becomes increasingly difficult not to move, not to scream. And so with me, looked at by John.
With this difference, that I was bound, and could not stir, that I had passed the screaming point
and could not scream. I believe my terror was largely a wild dread that John was about to laugh,
and that his laugh would annihilate me. But he did not laugh.
     Suddenly the spell broke, and I leapt up to put more coal on the fire. John was gazing out of
the window, and saying, in his normal friendly voice, "Well, of course I can't tell you what that
special quality is, can I? Think of it this way. It's seeing each thing, each event, on its eternal
side, instead of merely as a dated thing; seeing it as a living leaf on the tree Yggdrasill, flushed
with the sap of eternity, and not merely as a plucked and dried and dated specimen in the book of
history."
     There was a long silence, then he continued his report. "The first trace of mentality like my
own gave me a lot of trouble. I could only catch occasional glimpses of this fellow, and I couldn't
make him take any notice of me. And the stuff that did come through to me was terribly
incoherent and bewildering. I wondered whether this was the fault of my technique, or whether
his was a mind too highly developed for me to understand. I tried to find out where he was, so
that I could go and see him. He was evidently living in a large building with lots of rooms and
many other people. But he had very little to do with the others. Looking out of his window, he
saw trees and houses and a long grassy hill. He heard an almost continuous noise of trains and
motor traffic. At least I recognized it as that, but it didn't seem to mean much to him. Clearly, I
thought, there's a main line and a main road quite close to where he lives. Somehow I must find
that .place. So I bought the motor-bike. Meanwhile I kept on studying him. I couldn't catch any of
his thoughts, but only his perceptions, and the way he felt about them. One striking thing was his
music. Sometimes when I found him he was outside the house in a sloping field with trees
between it and the main road; and he would be playing a pipe, a sort of recorder, but with the
octave very oddly divided. I discovered that each of his hands had five fingers and a thumb. Even
so, I couldn't make out how he managed all the extra notes. The kind of music he played was
extraordinarily fascinating to me. Something about it, the mental pose of it, made me quite sure
the man was really my sort. I discovered, by the way, that he had the not very helpful name of
James Jones. Once when I got him he was out in the grounds and near a gap in the trees, so that
he could see the road. Presently a bus flashed past. It was a 'Green Line" bus, and it was labelled
'BRIGHTON. I noticed with surprise that these words apparently meant nothing to James Jones.
But they meant a lot to me. I went off on the bike to search the Green Line routes out of Brighton.
It took me a couple of days to find the right spot—the big building, the grassy hill, and so on. I
stopped and asked someone what the building was. It was a lunatic asylum."
     John's narrative was interrupted by my guffaw of relief. "Funny," he said, "but not quite
unexpected. After pulling lots of wires I got permission to see James Jones, who was a relative of
mine, I said. They told me at the Asylum that there was a family likeness, and when I saw James
Jones I knew what they meant. He's a little old man with a big head and huge eyes, like mine.
He's quite bald, except for a few crisp white curls above the ears. His mouth was smaller than
mine (for the size of him) and it had a sort of suffering sweetness about it, specially when he let it
do a peculiar compressed pout, which was a characteristic mannerism of his. Before I saw him
they had told me a bit about him. He gave no trouble, they said, except that his health was very
bad, and they had to nurse him a lot. He hardly ever spoke, and then only in monosyllables. He
could understand simple remarks about matters within his ken, but it was often impossible to get
him to attend to what was said to him. Yet oddly enough, he seemed to have a lively interest in
everything happening around him. Sometimes he would listen intently to people's voices; but not,
apparently, for their significance, simply for their musical quality. He seemed to have an absorb-
ing interest in perceived rhythms of all sorts. He would study the grain of a piece of wood, poring
over it by the hour; or the ripples on a duck-pond. Most music, ordinary music invented by Homo
sapiens, seemed at once to interest and outrage him; though when one of the doctors played a
certain bit of Bach, he was gravely attentive, and afterwards went off to play oddly twisted
variants of it on his queer pipe. Certain jazz tunes had such a violent effect on him that after
hearing one record he would sometimes be prostrate for days. They seemed to tear him with some
kind of conflict of delight and disgust. Of course the authorities regarded his own pipe-playing as
the caterwauling of a lunatic.
     "Well, when we were brought face to face, we just stood and looked at one another for so
long that the attendant found it uncomfortable. Presently James Jones, keeping his eyes on mine,
said one word, with quiet emphasis and some surprise, “Friend!' I smiled and nodded. Then I felt
him catch a glimpse of my mind, and his face suddenly lit up with intense delight and surprise.
Very slowly, as if painfully searching for each word, he said, 'You—are—not—mad, NOT
MAD! We two, NOT MAD! But these—' (slowly pointing, at the attendant and smiling) 'All
mad, quite, quite mad. But kind and clever. He cares for me. I cannot care for self. Too busy
with—with——' The sentence trailed into silence. Smiling seraphically, he nodded slowly, again
and again. Then he came forward and laid a hand for an instant on my head. That was the end.
When I said yes, we were friends, and he and I saw things the same way, he nodded again; but
when he tried to speak, an expression of almost comic perplexity came over his face. Looking
into his mind, I saw that it was already a welter of confusion. He perceived, but he could not find
any mundane significance in what he perceived. He saw the two human beings that confronted
him, but he no longer connected my visible appearance with human personality, with the mind
that he was still striving to communicate with. He didn't even see us as physical objects at all, but
just as colour and shape, without any meaning. I asked him to play to me. He could not
understand. The attendant put the pipe into his hand, closing the fingers over it. He looked
blankly at it. Then with a sudden smile of enlightenment he put it to his ear, like a child listening
to a shell. The attendant took it again, and played a few notes on it, but in vain. Then I took it and
played a little air that I had heard him play before I found him. His attention was held. Perplexity
cleared from his face. To our surprise he spoke, slowly but without difficulty, ‘Yes, John
Wainwright,' he said, 'you heard me play that the other day. I knew some person was listening.
Give me my pipe.'
     "He took it, seated himself on the edge of the table, and played, with his eyes fixed on mine."
     John startled me with one sharp gasp of laughter. "God! it was music," he said. "If you could
have heard it! I mean if you could have really heard it, and not merely as a cow might! It was
lucid. It straightened out the tangles of my mind. It showed me just precisely the true, appropriate
attitude of the adult human spirit to its world. Well, he played on, and I went on listening,
hanging on to every note, to remember it. Then the attendant interrupted. He said this sort of
noise always upset the other patients. It wasn't as if it was real music, but such crazy stuff. That
was why J. J. was really only allowed to play out of doors.
     "The music stopped with a squawk. J. J. looked with a kindly but tortured smile at the
attendant. Then he slid back into insanity. So complete was his disintegration that he actually
tried to eat the mouthpiece."
     I believe I saw John shudder. He was now standing at the window once more, and he stood
silent, while I wondered what to say. Then he exclaimed, "Where's your field-glass, quick!
Damned if that's not a grey phalarope. Priceless little devil, isn't he!" In turn we watched the
small silvery bird as it swam hither and thither in search of food, heedless of the buffeting wave-
crests. Beside the gulls it was a yacht amongst the liners. "Yes," said John, answering my
thought, "the way you feel when you watch that little blighter, just observant and delighted,
and—well, curiously pious yet aloof,—yes, that's the starting-point, the very first moment, of
what J. J. was working out in his music. If you could hold that always, and fill it out with a whole
world of overtones, you'd be well on the way to 'us’. "
     In the tone of John's "us" there was something of the shy audacity with which a newly
married couple first speak of "us." It began to dawn on me that the discovery of his own kind,
even in a lunatic asylum, must have been for John a deeply moving experience. I began to realize
that, having lived for nearly eighteen years with mere animals, he had at last discovered a human
being.
     John sighed, and took up his narrative. "Well, of course James Jones was no good as a partner
in the job of founding a new world. I've seen him several times since, and he always plays to me,
and I come away a little clearer in my head, and a little more grown up. But he's incurably mad,
all the same. So I started 'listening in' again; rather gloomily, for I was afraid they might all turn
out to be mad. And really the next one almost cured me of looking any more. You see, I was
trying to get in touch with the near ones first, because they were handier. I had already spotted a
strain of French thinking that must be one of us, and also an Egyptian, and a Chinese or Tibetan.
But for the present I left these alone. Well, my next was an infant more or less, the son of a
crofter in South Uist (Outer Hebrides). He's a ghastly cripple; no legs, and arms like a newt's
arms. And there's something wrong with his mouth, so that he can't talk. And he's always sick,
because his digestion doesn't work properly. In fact he's the sort any decent society would drown
at birth. But the mother loves him like a tigress; though she's scared stiff of him too, and loathes
him. Neither parent has any idea he's—what he is. They think he's just an ordinary little cripple.
And because he's a cripple, and because they treat him all wrong, he's brewing the most
murderous hate imaginable. Within the first five minutes of my visit he spotted me as different
from the others. He got me telepathically. I got him too, but he shut his mind up immediately.
Now you'd think that finding a kindred spirit for the first time ever would be an occasion for
thanksgiving. But he didn't take it that way at all. He evidently felt at once there wasn't room for
him and me together on the same planet. But he didn't let on he was going to do anything about it.
He kept his mind shut like an oyster, and his face as blank as a piece of paper. I began to think I
had made a mistake, that he was not one of us after all. Yet all the circumstances corresponded
with my earlier telepathic glimpses of him,—the minute room with a flagged floor, the peat fire,
his mother's face, with one eye slightly bigger than the other, and traces of a moustache at the
corners of her lips. By the way, his parents were quite old people, both grey. This made me
curious, because the kid looked about a three-year-old. I asked how old the baby was, but they
seemed unwilling to say. I tactfully said the child had a terribly wise face, not like a baby's. The
father blurted out that he was eighteen years old, and the mother gave a high-pitched hysterical
sort of laugh. Gradually I succeeded in making friends with his parents. (I had told them, by the
way, that I was on a fishing holiday with a party on the neighbouring island.) I flattered them by
telling them I had read in a book that deformed children sometimes turned out to be great
geniuses. Meanwhile I was still trying to get behind the kid's defences to see what his mind was
like inside. It's impossible to give you a clear idea of the murderous trick he played on me. He
must have made up his mind as soon as he saw me that he'd do me in. He chose the only effective
weapon he had, and it was a diabolic one. It happened this way, so far as I can tell you. I had
turned from his parents and was talking to him, trying to make friends. He just stared at me
blankly. I tried harder and harder to open the oyster, and was just about ready to give up in
disgust when, my God, the oyster opened wide, and I—well, this is the indescribable thing. I can
only carry on with the image. The mental oyster opened wide and tried to swallow me into itself.
And itself was—just the bottomless black pit of Hell. Of course, that sounds silly and romantic to
you. But that's what it was like. I felt myself dropping plumb into the most appalling gulf of
darkness, of mental and spiritual darkness, in which there was nothing whatever but eternally
unsatisfied black hate;
a sort of dank atmosphere of poison, in which everything that I had ever cared for seemed to
moulder away into nastiness. I can't explain, I can't explain."
    John had been sitting on the corner of my writing-table. He got up suddenly and walked to the
window. "Thank God for light," he said, looking at the grey sky. "If there was some one who
could understand, I could tell it all and be rid of it, perhaps. But naif-telling it just makes it all
come welling up again. And some say there's no Hell!"
    He remained silent for some time, looking out of the window. Then he said, "Look at that
cormorant. He's got a conger fatter than his own neck." I came up beside him, and we watched
the fish writhing and lashing. Sometimes bird and prey disappeared together under water. Once
the conger got away, but was speedily recovered. After many failures, the cormorant caught it by
the head, and swallowed it, slick, so that nothing was to be seen of it but its tail, and a huge
swelling in the bird's neck.
    "And now," said John, "he'll be digested. That's what nearly happened to me. I felt my whole
mind being disintegrated by the digestive juices of that Satanic young mollusc. I don't know what
happened next. I remember seeing a perfectly diabolic expression on the kid's face; and then I
must have saved myself somehow, for presently I found myself lying on the grass some way from
the house, alone and in a cold sweat. The very sight of the house in the distance gave me the
creeps. I couldn't think. I kept seeing that infantile grin of hate, and turning stupid again. After a
while I realized I was cold, so I got up and walked toward the little bay where the boats were.
Presently I began to ask myself what sort of a devil this baby Satan really was. Was he one of
‘us,' or something quite different? But there was very little doubt in my mind, actually. Of course
he was one of us, and probably a much mightier one than either J. J. or myself. But everything
had gone wrong with him, from conception onwards. His body had failed him, and was
tormenting him, and his mind was as crippled as his body, and his parents were quite unable to
give him a fair chance. So the only self-expression possible to him was hate. And he had
specialized in hate pretty thoroughly. But the oddest thing about it all was this. The further I got
away from the experience, the more clearly it was borne in on me that his ecstasy of hate was
really quite self-detached. He wasn't hating for himself. He hated himself as much as me. He
hated everything, including hate. And he hated it all with a sort of sacred fervour. And why?
Because, as I begin to discover, there's a sort of minute, blazing star of worship right down in the
pit of his hell. He sees everything from the side of eternity just as clearly as I do, perhaps more
clearly; but—how shall I put it?—he conceives his part in the picture to be the devil's part, and
he's playing it with a combination of passion and detachment like a great artist, and for the glory
of God, if you understand what I mean. And he's right. It's the only thing he can do, and he does
it with style. I take off my hat to him, in spite of everything. But it's pretty ghastly, really. Think
of the life he's living; just like an infant's, and with his powers! I dare say he'll manage to find
some trick for blowing up the whole planet some day, if he lives much longer. And there's
another thing. I've got to keep a sharp look out or he'll catch me again. He can reach me
anywhere, in Australia or Patagonia. God! I can feel him now! Give me another apple, and let's
talk about something else."
    Crunching his second Cox, John became calm again. Presently he went on with his narrative.
"I haven't done much since that affair. It took me some time to get my mind straight, and then I
felt depressed about the chances of ever finding any one anywhere that was really my sort and yet
also sane. But after ten days or so I began the search again. I found an old gipsy woman who was
a sort of half-baked one of 'us.' But she's always having fits. She tells fortunes, and perhaps has
some sort of glimpses of the future. But she's as old as the hills, and cares for nothing but fortune-
telling and rum. Yet she's quite definitely one of us, up to a point; not intellectually, though she
has the reputation of being damnably cunning, but in insight. She sees things on their eternal side
all right, though not very steadily. Then there are several others in asylums, quite hopeless. And a
hermaphrodite adolescent in a sort of home for incurables. And a man doing a life-sentence for
murder. I fancy he might have been the real thing if he hadn't had a bit of his skull knocked in
when he was a kid. Then there's a lightning calculator, but he doesn't seem to be anything else.
He's not really one of us at all, but he's got just one of the essential factors in his make up. Well,
that's all there is of Homo superior in these islands."
    John began pacing the room, quickly, methodically, like a polar bear in its cage. Suddenly he
stopped, and clenched his fists and cried out, "Cattle! Cattle! A whole world of cattle! My God,
how they stink!" He stared at the wall. Then he sighed, and turning to me he said, "Sorry, Fido,
old man! That was a lapse. What do you say to a walk before lunch?"



                                          CHAPTER XIV

                                  ENGINEERING PROBLEMS

NOT long after John told me of his efforts to make contact with other supernormals he took me
into his confidence about his plans for the future. We were in the subterranean workshop. He was
absorbed in a new invention, a sort of generator-accumulator, he said. His bench was covered
with test-tubes, jars, bits of metal, bottles, insulated wires, voltmeters, lumps of stone. He was so
intent on his work that I said, "I believe you're regressing to childhood. This sort of thing has got
hold of you again and made you forget all about—Scotland."
     "No, you're wrong," he said. "This gadget is an important part of my plan. When I have
finished this test I'll tell you." Silently he proceeded with the experiment. Presently, with a little
shout of triumph, he said, "Got it, this time!"
     Over a cup of coffee we discussed his plans. He was determined to search the whole world in
the hope of discovering a few others of his kind, and of suitable age for joining with him in the
founding of a little colony of supernormals in some remote part of the earth. In order to do this
without loss of time, he said, he must have an ocean-going yacht and a small aeroplane, or flying
machine of some kind, which could be stowed on the yacht. When I protested that he knew
nothing about flying and less about designing planes, he replied, "Oh yes, I do. I learned to fly
yesterday." It seems he had managed to persuade a certain brilliant young airman to give him not
only a joy-ride but a long spell in control of the machine. "Once you get the feel of it," he said,
"it's easy enough. I landed twice, and took off Lwice, and did a few stunts. But of course there's a
good deal more to learn. As for designing, I'm on the job already, and on the yacht design too.
But a lot depends on this new gadget. I can't explain it very well. At least, I can explain, in a way,
but you just won't believe it. I've been looking into nuclear chemistry lately, and in the light of
my Scotch experiences an idea struck me. Probably even you know (though you have a genius for
keeping out of touch with science) that there's the hell of a lot of energy locked up in every
atomic nucleus, and that the reason why you can't release it is that the unlocking would take a
fantastically powerful electric current, to overcome the forces that hold the electrons and protons,
and so on, together. Well, I've found a much handier key. But it's not a physical key at all but a
psychical one. It's no use trying to overcome those terrific interlocking forces. You must just
abolish them for the time being; send them to sleep, so to speak. The interlocking forces, and the
disruptive forces too, are just the spontaneous urges of the basic physical units, call them
electrons and protons, if you like. What I do, then, is to hypnotize the little devils so that they go
limp for a moment and loosen their grip on one another. Then when they wake up they barge
about in hilarious freedom, and all you have to do is to see that their barging drives your
machinery."
    I laughed, and said I liked his parable. "Parable be damned," he said. "It's only a parable in the
sense that the protons and electrons themselves are merely fictitious characters in a parable.
They're not really independent entities at all, but determinations within a system—the cosmos.
And they're not really just physical, but determinations within a psychophysical system. Of
course if you take Sapient' physics as God's truth, and not as an abstraction from a more profound
truth, the whole idea seems crazy. But I thought it worth looking into, and I find it works. Of
course there are difficulties. The main one is the psychological one. The 'sapient' mind could
never do the trick; it's not awake enough. But the supernormal has the necessary influence, and
practice makes the job reasonably safe and easy. The physical difficulties," he said, glancing at
his apparatus, "are all connected with selecting the most favourable atoms to work on, and with
tapping the flood of energy as it comes into action. I'm working on those problems now. Ordinary
mud from the estuary is pretty good for the job. There's a minute percentage of a very convenient
element in it."
    With a pair of tweezers he took a pinch of mud from a test-tube and put it in a platinum bowl.
He opened the trap-door of the workshop and placed the bowl outside, then returned, almost
closing the trap-door. We both looked through the opening at the little bowl. Smiling, he said,
"Now all you little electrons and protons go to sleep, and don't wake up till Mummy tells you."
Turning to me, he added, "The patter, I may say, is for the audience, not for the rabbits in the
conjurer's hat."
    An expression of grave concentration came over his face. His breathing quickened. "Now!" he
said. There was a terrific flash, and a report like a gun.
    John wiped his forehead with a grubby pocket handkerchief, and remarked, "Alone I did it!"
We returned to our coffee, and his plans.
    "I've still got to find some really good way of bottling the energy till it's wanted. You can't be
at one and the same time hypnotizing electrons and navigating a ship. I may simply have to use
the energy to drive a dynamo and charge an accumulator. But there's a more interesting
possibility. I may be able, when I have hypnotized the little beggars, to give them a sort of 'post-
hypnotic suggestion,' so that they can only wake up and barge about again in response to some
particular stimulus. See?"
     I laughed. We both sipped our coffee. I may as well say at once that the "post-hypnotic"
 system turned out ultimately to be feasible, and was adopted.
     "Well, you can see," he said, "there are great possibilities in this new 'dodge of mine. Now,
 while the yacht and plane are building, you are to come on the Continent with me. (I'm sure
 Bertha will be glad to have a holiday from you.) I want to do a bit of research. There's an
 obviously supernormal mind in Paris, and one in Egypt, and perhaps others, not too far away.
 When I have the yacht and plane I'll do the world tour in search of the rest. If I find a few
 suitable young things, I'll voyage in the Pacific to find a satisfactory island for the Colony."
     During the next two months John was absorbed in the practical work of designing the yacht
 and the plane, perfecting the new power technique, and improving his flying.
      At this time he was often to be seen "playing at boats" on the Park Lake or the more
 boisterous Estuary, like any ordinary boy. He was now over eighteen, but in appearance under
 fifteen. Thus his behaviour seemed quite normal. He produced a large number of models and
 fitted them out with electric motors or steam engines. These he dispatched across the lake in all
 weathers, observing their performance with great care. The design was largely determined by the
 necessity of stowing the plane on board, with wings folded, and by the need for extreme sea-
 worthiness. John's final choice was an extraordinary craft which local yachtsmen regarded as a
 mere caricature of a ship. John made a special three-foot model to this design, and fitted her out
 in great detail. In general shape she was ludicrously broad in the beam, and of shallow draft, in
 fact an exaggeration of the speed-boat hull; a sort of cross between a speed-boat and a life-boat,
 with a saucer somewhere in her ancestry, and perhaps a flat pebble of the "ducks and drakes"
 type. She was certainly a delightful toy; and I feel sure that John thoroughly enjoyed her simply
 as a toy, and had put much more work into her than was needed for mere experimentation. She
 represented a vessel the size of a small tug. No detail was omitted from her equipment. There
 were bunks for nine persons, but twenty could sleep on board at a pinch, and she could be
 handled comfortably by a single navigator. There was a realistic dining-saloon, with tables,
 chairs, cupboards. There was a latrine, glass portholes, minute navigation controls. These
 controls could be operated by some sort of radio device on shore. The engine was a fairly
 detailed replica of the sub-atomic engine that John intended for the actual ship.
      Much entertainment was afforded by the antics which John made his model perform. On the
 Park Lake he would send her in leisurely pursuit of the terrified ducks. On the estuary, when the
 tide was in, he would stop her far out at sea, and persuade some kindly member of the sailing
 club to salvage her in a dinghy. When the sweating oarsman had reached the little derelict, and
 was putting out his hand to seize her, John (on shore, and half a mile away) would set her going
 for a yard or two and watch the man's repeated efforts to recover her. Finally he would let her out
 at full speed for the shore, and she would return to her master's hand like a well-trained dog.
     John had also been at work on several model planes. He used to spend much time flying them;
but in secret, for he feared that, if they were seen performing their surprising antics, they would
attract too much attention. He therefore used to retire with them into the wilds of North Wales, by
means of his motor-bike or my car. There he would try out his models in the fickle mountain
winds, their sub-atomic power enabling them to perform feats which no elastic-driven model
could possibly achieve.
     His final choice was a surprising mechanism, made on the same scale as the model yacht, and
capable of being dismantled and stowed on board. With this stub-winged instrument he would
amuse himself and me by the hour, making it rise from the surface of a "Ilyn" (it had both wheels
and floats), and climb heavenwards, till we had to use a field-glass to follow it. It maintained its
equilibrium automatically, but was steered by radio from the ground. When he had become adept
in the management of this mechanical bird, he sometimes used it for a modern sort of hawking,
sending the sparrow-like little object in chase of curlews, buzzards and ravens. This sport needed
very delicate perception as well as control. As a rule the quarry would hurry away as soon as it
realized it was being chased. The plane would then chevy it, or even swoop upon its back. But
one old raven turned to fight, and before John could bring his toy's superior speed into operation
for escape, the raven's horny neb had slashed one of the silken wings, and the plane came
tumbling to the heather.
     The plans for the yacht and the plane were finished before John reached the age of nineteen. I
need not describe how I negotiated with shipbuilders and aeroplane manufacturers, and finally
placed orders for the actual construction. I gained the reputation of being a mad millionaire; for
the designs appeared to be quite unworkable, and I would not consider any of the objections
raised against them. The main trouble was that in both plane and yacht the space allotted to the
generation of power was by all ordinary standards quite insufficient. Contracts for the generators
and machinery were distributed among several engineering firms in such a manner as to arouse as
little curiosity as possible.


                                   CHAPTER XV JACQUELINE


WHEN these problems of engineering had been solved, John was able to turn his attention once
more to his telepathic researches. As he still looked too young to be wandering about the
Continent by himself, he insisted on taking me with him to Paris. When we were approaching our
destination he showed signs of eagerness. Well might he, for he expected to find a being who
could meet him as an equal and afford him a far more satisfying companionship than any he had
yet known. But when we had lodged ourselves in a little hotel in the rue Bertholet (off the avenue
de Claude Bernard) he became almost disheartened. When I questioned him he laughed awk-
wardly, and said, "I'm having a new sensation. I'm feeling shy! She doesn't seem particularly
keen on my coming. She won't help me to find her. I know she's somewhere in the Quartier Latin.
She passes the end of this street quite often. I know she knows some one is looking for her, and
yet she won't help. Also, she's evidently very old and wise. She remembers the Franco-Prussian
War. I've been trying to see what she sees when she looks in a mirror, so as to get her face; but I
can't catch her at the right time."
    At that moment his head jerked, and he said without any pause, "While I was talking to you, /,
the real I, was in touch with her. She's in a certain cafe. She'll be there for some time. Let's find
her."
    He had an obscure feeling that the cafe was near the Odeon, so thither we hastened. After
some hesitation he selected a certain establishment, and we entered. As soon as he had passed
through the door, he whispered excitedly, "This is it all right. This is the room she is seeing at the
moment." He stood for a second or two, a queer little foreigner, jostled by waiters and a stream of
guests. Then he made his way to an empty table at the far side of the room.
    "There she is," said John, with surprise in his voice, almost with awe. Following his gaze I
saw at a near table two women. One had her back to us, but I judged that she was under thirty, for
her figure was slim and the curve of her cheek almost juvenile. The other was extravagantly old.
Her face was a relief map; all ridges and valleys. I studied her with disappointment, for she had a
dull and peevish face, and she was looking at John with offensive curiosity.
    But now the other woman turned her head and looked about the room. There was no
mistaking those large eyes. They were John's, though heavy-lidded. For a moment they rested on
me, then on John. The drooping lids were lifted to reveal two black and lofty caverns more
abysmal even than John's. The whole face lit up with intelligence and amusement. She rose, and
advanced toward John, who also rose. They faced one another in silence. Then the woman said,
"Alors c'est toi qui me cherches tou jours!"
    She was not what I had expected. In spite of the great eyes, she might almost have passed for
a normal woman, an eccentric specimen of the normal species. Her head, though large, did not
look noticeably out of proportion to her body, for she was tall, and the black hair which scarcely
showed under her close-fitting hat added little to its size. Her ample mouth, I guessed, had been
skilfully reduced by painting.
    But though passably "human," according to the standards of Homo sapiens, she was strange.
Were I an imaginative writer, and not merely a journalist, I might be able to suggest symbolically
something of the almost "creepy" effect she had on me, something of its remote and sleepy
power. As it is I can only record certain obvious features, and in general that curious combination
of the infantile, or even the foetal, with the mature. The protruding brow, the short broad nose,
the great distance between the great eyes, the surprising breadth of the whole face, the marked
furrow from nose to lips—all these characters were definitely foetal; and yet the precisely
chiselled lips themselves and the delicate moulding of the eyelids produced an expression of
subtle experience suggestive of an ageless divinity. To me at least, prepared of course by
familiarity with John's own strangeness, this strange face seemed to combine idiosyncrasy and
universality. Here, in spite of a vaguely repulsive uncouthness, was a living symbol of
womanhood. Yet here also was a being utterly different from any other, something unique and
individual. When I looked from her to the most attractive girl in the room I was shocked to find
that it was the normal beauty that was repulsive. With something like vertigo I looked once more
at the adorable grotesque.
    While I was watching her, she and John stood regarding one another in complete silence.
Presently the New Woman, as I had already cynically named her for my private amusement,
asked us to move to her table, which we accordingly did. Her real name was given as Jacqueline
Castagnet. The old lady, introduced as Mme. Lemattre, regarded us with hostility, but had to put
up with us. She was thoroughly commonplace; yet I was struck with certain points of likeness
with Jacqueline, certain indescribable traits of expression and of voice. I guessed that the two
women were mother and daughter. Later it turned out that I was right; and yet also quite wrong.
    There followed a few aimless remarks, and then Jacqueline began speaking in a language
quite unknown to me. For a second John looked surprised, then laughed, and answered,
apparently in the same tongue. For half an hour or so they continued speaking, while I laboured
to maintain conversation with Mme. Lemattre in very bad French.
    Presently the old lady reminded Jacqueline that they were both due elsewhere. When the two
women had left us, John and I remained at the table for a while. He was silent and absorbed. I
asked what language they had been talking. "English," he said. "She wanted to tell me a lot about
herself, and didn't want, the old one to know about it, so she started in on English-back-to-front.
I've never tried that before, but it's quite easy, for us." There was a faint stress on the "us." John
evidently knew that I felt "left out," for he continued: "I had better tell you the gist of what she
said. The old lady is her daughter, but doesn't know it. Jacqueline was married to a man called
Caze eighty-three years ago, but she cleared out when the child was four. A few days ago she
came across this old thing, and recognized her as her baby daughter, and made friends with her.
Mme. Lemattre showed her a photograph ‘of my mother who died when I was quite little—
strangely like you, my dear. Perhaps you are some sort of great niece of mine.' Jacqueline herself
was born in 1765."
    John's account of the amazing life story of Jacqueline I can only summarize. It deserves to be
recorded in a fat volume, but my concern is with John.
    Her parents were peasants of that bleak country called "Lousy Champagne," between
Chalons-sur-Marne and the Forest of Argonne. They were thrifty even to miserliness. Jacqueline,
with her supernormal intelligence and sensibility and her ravenous capacity for life, was brought
up in very cramping circumstances. This was probably a cause of the passion for pleasure and
power which played so great a part in the earlier phases of her career. Like John, she took an
unconscionable time a-growing up. This was a grievance to her parents, who were impatient for
her to help run the house and on the land, and later were indignant that at an age when other girls
were ready for marriage she was still a breastless child. The life which she was compelled to lead
was physically healthy, but devastating to her spirit. She soon realized that she had capacities for
all manner of subtle experience beyond the reach of her fellow mortals, and that the sane course
was to devote herself to the exercise of these capacities; but her monotonous and dour existence
made it impossible for her to detach herself from the less developed cravings of her nature, the
increasing hunger for luxury and power. The fact that she inhabited a world of half-wits was
borne in on her most obviously in the perception that the neighbouring peasants' daughters,
though they eclipsed her in normal sexual appeal, were too stupid to make full use of this asset as
a means to dominance.
    Before adolescence had properly begun, when she was only nineteen, she had already
determined to beat them all at their own game, and indeed to become a queen among women. In
the neighbouring town of Ste. Mene-hould she sometimes saw fine ladies passing through in their
coaches on their way to Paris, or breaking their journey at the local inn. She observed them with
scientific care, and laid the foundations of her future technique.
  When she was on the threshold of womanhood, her parents betrothed her to a neighbouring
farmer. She ran away. Making full use of her only two weapons, sex and intelligence, she
struggled through from the humblest and most brutish sort of prostitution to become the mistress
of a wealthy Parisian merchant. For some years she lived upon him, latterly giving him nothing in
return but the terrible charm of her society once a week at dinner.
    When she had reached the age of thirty-five she fell in love, for the first time in her life, with
a young artist, one of those who were preparing the way for the vital and triumphant movement
of Parisian painting. This novel experience brought to a climax the great conflict which
tormented her. She who had followed the most ancient profession without repugnance was now
horrified at herself. For the young man had wakened in her those dormant capacities which had
perforce been thwarted by her career. She used her technique to capture him, and easily
succeeded. They lived together. For a few months both were happy.
    Gradually, however, she came to realize that, after all, she was mated to something which,
from her point of view, was little better than an ape. She had known, of course, that her peasant
clients, her Parisian clients, and her amiable wealthy patron, were "subhuman"; the artist, she had
persuaded herself, was an exception. Yet she still clung to her man. To break with the being to
whom she had given her soul, even though in error, would, she felt, have killed her. Moreover,
she still genuinely, though irrationally, loved him. He was her almost-human animal. She cared
for him as a huntswoman and a spinster might care for her horse. He was not human, and could
never be the mate of her spirit, but he was a noble animal and she was proud of his animal
attainments, namely of his triumphs in the sphere of "subhuman" art. She entered into his work
with enthusiasm. She was not merely his source of inspiration; increasingly she took command of
his artistic faculty. The more she possessed him, the more clearly the unhappy man realized that
his native genius was being overborne and suffocated by the flood of her fertile imagination. His
was a complex tragedy. He seems to have recognized that the pictures which he produced under
her influence were more daring and aesthetically more triumphant than anything he could
produce without her; but he realized also that he was losing his reputation, that even the most
sensitive of his follow-artists could not appreciate them. He made a stand for independence, and
began to regain his self-respect and reputation. On her this turn of affairs had the effect of rousing
all her suppressed disgust. Each was striving to be rid of the other, yet each craved the other.
There was a quarrel, in which she played the part of the divinity who had come down to raise him
to her own level, and was rejected. Next day he shot himself.
    This tragedy evidently had a profound effect on her still juvenile mind. The finality of the
deed bred in her a new tenderness and respect for the subhuman beings who surrounded her.
Somehow this death lessened the distance between her and them. Though her passion for self-
expression soon returned, and though she sometimes indulged it ruthlessly, it was tempered by
the recollection that she had killed the one being in the world who for a whole month had seemed
to her superior to herself.
    For a few years after the death of the artist Jacqueline lived in great poverty on savings which
she had accumulated in her association with the merchant. She tried to make a name for herself as
a writer, under a masculine pseudonym; but the stuff which she produced was too remote to be
appreciated, and she could not bring herself to write in a different vein. When she was in her
forties, and still in the first flush of maturity, her obsessive craving for luxury and power returned
with such insistence that, in a panic, she became a nun. She did not believe any of the explicit
doctrines of the Church; but she made up her mind to pay lip service to all its superstitions for the
sake of its flicker of genuine and corporate religious experience, which, she felt, she needed for
the strengthening of her better nature. Her presence in the nunnery, however, very soon caused
such an upheaval that the institution was finally disbanded, and Jacqueline, with bitter laughter in
her heart, returned to her original calling.
    But to her own surprise prostitution now afforded her something more than the means to
wealth and power. Her experience in the nunnery had not been wholly barren. She had learned a
good deal about the spiritual cravings of the subhuman kind; and this knowledge she now put to
good use. Her motive in returning to prostitution had been purely self-regarding, but she soon
discovered that the more human of her clients were suffering from an unconscious need for
something more than carnal satisfaction. And she found exaltation in ministering to this
essentially spiritual need. Carnal satisfaction she gave ungrudgingly. Her own initial distaste at
intercourse with beings of a lowly order gave way to delight in her new office. Many a man
whose real need was not merely copulation but intimacy with a sensitive yet fearless woman,
many who needed moreover help in the seemingly hopeless task of "coming to terms with the
universe," found in Jacqueline a well of strength. As her reputation grew, ever greater demands
were made on her. Hoping to save herself from a breakdown, she chose disciples, young women
who were ready to live her life and give themselves as she gave herself. Some of them were
partially successful, but none could do as she had done. The strain increased until at last she fell
seriously ill.
    When she recovered, her old self-seeking passion was once more uppermost. Using all her
prowess she fought her way up the social ladder of Europe, till, at fifty-seven and on the
threshold of full maturity, she married a Russian prince. She did so knowing that he was a
worthless creature and a half-wit, even by normal standards. So skilfully did she play her cards
during the next fifteen years that she had a good prospect of setting him on the throne. Increasing
disgust and horror, however, flung her into another mental disorder. From this she emerged once
more her true self.
    She cut adrift, disguised herself, and fled back to Paris to carry on her old profession.
Occasionally she met one or other of her former clients, now well advanced in years. But as she
herself had retained her youthful appearance, and indeed seemed to have the full flower of
womanhood still ahead of her, she easily persuaded them that she was the former Jacque-line's
young niece.
    All this while she had never had a child, never conceived. In her early years she had taken
precaution to avoid such a disaster; but in maturity, though she had felt no craving for
motherhood, she had been less reluctant to risk it, and less cautious. As the decades passed and
her remaining caution dwindled out, she came to suspect that she was sterile, and in the end she
ceased to take any precautions at all. On her return from Russia an obscure sense that in missing
motherhood she had missed a valuable experience developed into a definite hunger to have a
baby of her own.
    Not a few of her clients had tried to persuade her to accept marriage. Hitherto she had laughed
at these suitors, but when she had passed her eightieth year, she began to be seriously attracted by
the prospect of a spell of quiet married life. Among her clients was a young Parisian lawyer, Jean
Caze. Whether he was in fact the father of her child she did not know; but when, to her
amazement, she found that she had conceived, she singled him out as a suitable husband. He, it so
happened, had never thought of marrying her; but when she had slipped the idea into his mind, he
pressed her ardently, overcame her feigned reluctance and carried her off in pride. After eleven
months of pregnancy she bore her daughter, and very nearly died in the ordeal. Four years of
maternal duties and of companionship with the faithful Caze were enough for her. Jean, she
knew, would treasure the infant; and indeed he did, to the extent of spoiling her for life.
Jacqueline fled not only from Paris but from France, and started all over again in Dresden.
    Throughout the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century Jacqueline appears to have had
alternating spells of exalted prostitution and marriage. She counted among her husbands, she
said, a British ambassador, a famous writer, and a West African negro who was a private in the
French colonial army. Never again did she conceive. Probably John was right in surmising that
she had the power of preventing conception by an act of volition, though she had no idea how she
exercised this power.
    Since the close of the nineteenth century Jacqueline had not indulged in marriage. She had
preferred to carry on her profession, because of her "great affection for the dear children," by
which she meant her clients. Hers must have been a strange life. Of course she gave herself for
money, like any member of her profession, or of any other profession. Nevertheless, her heart
was in her work, and she chose her clients, not according to their power to pay, but according to
their needs and their capacity to benefit by her ministrations. She seems to have combined in her
person the functions of harlot, psycho-analyst and priest.
    During the war of 1914-18 she was drawn into overstraining herself once more. So many
tragic cases came her way. And after the war, being wholly without national prejudices, she
moved to Germany, where the need was greater. It was in Germany, in 1925, that she had once
more collapsed, and was forced to spend a year in a "mental home." When we met her she was
again established in Paris, and again at work.
    On the day after our meeting in the cafe John had left me to amuse myself as best I could
while he visited Jacqueline. He stayed away four days, and when he returned he was haggard and
obviously in great distress. Not till long afterwards could he bring himself to tell the cause of his
misery, and then he said only, "She's glorious, and hurt, and I can't help her, and she won't help
me. She was terribly kind and sweet to me. Said she had never met any one like me, wished we'd
met a hundred years ago. She says my work is going to be great. But really she thinks it's just
schoolboy adventure, no more."


                                     CHAPTER XVI ADLAN


JOHN continued his search. I accompanied him. I shall not at this stage describe the few suitable
supernormal youngsters whom he discovered and persuaded to prepare themselves for the great
adventure. There was a young girl in Marseilles, an older girl in Moscow, a boy in Finland, a girl
in Sweden, another in Hungary, and a young man in Turkey. Save for these, John found nothing
but lunatics, cripples, invalids, and inveterate old vagabonds in whom the superior mentality had
been hopelessly distorted by contact with the normal species.
    But in Egypt John actually met his superior. This incident was so strange that I hesitate to
record it, or even to believe it myself.
    John had for long been convinced that a very remarkable mind was secreted somewhere in the
Levant or the Nile Delta. From Turkey we took ship to Alexandria. Thence, after further
investigation, we moved to Port Said. Here we spent some weeks. As far as I was concerned, they
were weeks of idleness. There was nothing for me to do but to play tennis, bathe and indulge in
mild flirtations. John himself seemed to be idling. He bathed, rowed in the harbour, wandered
about the town. He was unusually absent-minded, and sometimes almost irritable.
    When Port Said was beginning to bore me excessively, I suggested that we should try Cairo.
"Go yourself," said John, "if you want to, but I'm staying here. I'm busy." I therefore took him at
his word, and crossed the Delta by train. Long before we reached Cairo the Great Pyramids came
into view, overtopping the palm trees and the unseen city. I shall not forget that first glimpse of
them, for later it seemed to symbolize the experience that John himself was passing through in
Port Said. They were grey-blue, in the blue sky. They were curiously simple, remote, secure.
    I took a room at Shepheard's Hotel, and gave myself over to sightseeing. One day, about three
weeks after I left Port Said, a telegram came from John. It said merely, "Home, John." Nothing
loath, I packed my traps and took the next train for Port Said.
    As soon as I arrived, John made me book accommodation for three to Toulon by an Orient
boat that was due to pass through the Canal a few days later. The new member of the party, he
said, was on his way from Upper Egypt, and would join us as soon as he could. Before giving
details of our future fellow passenger I must try to report what John told me of the very different
being with whom he was in contact during my absence in Cairo.
    "You see," he said, "the fellow I was after (Adlan, by name) turned out to have died thirty-
five years ago. He was trying to get me from his place in the past, and at first I didn't realize.
When at last we effected some sort of communication, he managed to show me what he was
seeing, and I noticed that the steamers in the harbour were all little low old things with yards on
their masts. Also there wasn't any Canal Company's Building where it ought to have been. (You
know, the green-domed thing.) You can imagine how exciting this was. It took me a long time to
get myself into the past instead of his coming to me in the present."
    John's story must be condensed. In order to secure a less precarious footing in the past, John,
under Adlan's direction, made the acquaintance of a middle-aged Englishman, a ship-chandler,
who had spent much of his childhood in Port Said in Adlan’s time. This Anglo-Egyptian, Harry
Robinson, was easily persuaded to talk about his early experiences, and to describe Adlan, whom
he used at one time to meet almost daily. John soon made himself familiar with Robinson's mind
to such an extent that he was able to reach back and establish himself quite firmly in the child
Harry and in the Port Said that had long since vanished.
    Seen through Harry's eyes, Adlan turned out to be an aged and poverty-stricken native
boatman. His face, John said, was like a mummy's, black and pinched and drawn, but very much
alive, with a frequent and rather grim smile. His gigantic head bore upon its summit a fez which
was ridiculously small for it. When, as occasionally happened, this covering fell off, his cranium
was seen to be perfectly bald. John said it reminded him of a dark and polished and curiously
moulded lump of wood. He had the typical great eyes, one of which was bloodshot, and running
with yellow mucus. Like so many natives, he had suffered from ophthalmia. His bare brown legs
and feet were covered with scars. Several toe-nails had been lost.
    Adlan made his living by ferrying passengers between the liners and the shore, and by
transporting European residents to and from the "bath-houses"—wooden erections built out over
the sea on angle-irons. The Robinson family hired Adlan and his boat several times a week to
row them across the harbour to their "bath house." He had to wait while they bathed and lunched.
Then he would row them back to the town. It was while Adlan was tugging at the oars in his
long-prowed and gaily painted boat, and while Harry was prattling to his parents or his sister or
even to Adlan himself, that John, regarding the scene through Harry's eyes, carried on his
telepathic conversations with the unique Egyptian.
    John's projection of his mind into the past took him back to the year 1896. At this time Adlan
claimed that he was three hundred and eighty-four years old. John would have been less inclined
to believe this before he met Jacqueline, but by now he was ready to accept it. Adlan, then, was
born in 1512, somewhere in the Soudan. Most of his first century was spent as the wise man of
his tribe, but in the end he resolved to exchange his primitive environment for something more
civilized. He travelled down the Nile, and settled in Cairo, where in time he gained a reputation
as a sorcerer. During the seventeenth century he played an active part in the turbulent political
life of Egypt, and was at one time the power behind the throne. But political activities could not
satisfy him. He was drawn into them much as an intelligent spectator might be drawn into a game
of chess played by blockheads. He could not help seeing how the game might be played most
effectively, and presently he found himself playing it. Toward the end of the eighteenth century,
he became more and more absorbed in the development of his "occult" powers, and chiefly his
most recent art, that of projecting himself into the past.
    A few years before Napoleon's Egyptian expedition Adlan broke with his political life entirely
by faking a suicide. For some years he continued to live in Cairo, but in complete obscurity and
very humble circumstances. He made his living as a water-carrier, driving his ass, laden with
swollen and dripping skins, along the dusty streets. Meanwhile he continued to improve his
supernormal powers, and would sometimes use them to practise psycho-therapy upon his fellow-
proletarians. But his chief interest was exploration of the past. At this time the knowledge of
Ancient Egypt was extremely scanty, and Adlan’s passion was to gain direct experience of the
great race of long ago. Hitherto his powers had only enabled him to reach a few years back, to
events which occurred in an environment similar to his own. But presently he determined to bury
himself in some obscure village and till the soil of the Delta, entering into the life of the primitive
agriculturalists whose customs and culture had probably changed little since the days of the
Pharaohs. For many decades he wielded the hoe and the shadoof, and in due course he learned to
be almost as familiar with ancient Memphis as with modern Cairo.
     In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, however, when he was still in appearance no
more than middle-aged, he conceived the need to explore other cultures. For this purpose he
settled in Alexandria, and took up his old profession of water-carrier. Here, with less ease and
less success than in his study of Ancient Egypt, he made his entry into Ancient Greece, learning
to project himself into the era of the great Library, and even into Greece itself of the age of Plato.
     Not till the last quarter of the nineteenth century did Adian ride his donkey along the strip of
sand between Lake Menzaleh and the sea, and settle in Port Said, once more as a water-carrier.
He did not practise his old profession exclusively. Sometimes he would hire out his donkey to a
European passenger, ashore for the day. Then he would run barefoot behind the tall white ass,
affectionately whacking its hind-quarters, and crying "Haa! Haa!" Once, when his beast, which
he called "Two Lovely Black Eyes," was stolen, he ran thirty miles in chase of it, following its
footprints on the moist shore. When at last he overtook the thief, he battered him, and returned in
triumph on the ass. Sometimes he would board the liners and amuse the passengers with
conjuring tricks with rings and balls and restless little yellow chicks. Sometimes he would sell
them silk or jewellery.
     Adlan’s object in moving to Port Said had been to put himself into touch with contemporary
European life and thought, and if possible to make some kind of contact with India and China.
The Canal was by now the most cosmopolitan spot in all the world. Levantines, Greeks,
Russians, Lascars, Chinese firemen, Europeans on their way to the East, Asiatics on their way to
London and Paris, Moslem pilgrims on their way to Mecca, —all passed through Port Said.
Scores of races, scores of languages, scores of religions and cultures jostled one another in that
most flagrantly mongrel town.
     Adlan soon learned how to get the best out of his new environment. His methods were
diverse, but all depended chiefly on telepathy and extreme intelligence. He constructed little by
little in his own mind a very clear picture of European, and even Indian and Chinese culture. He
did not, indeed, find any culture ready to hand in the minds of the beings with whom he made
contact in Port Said, for they, residents and passengers alike, were nearly all quite philistine. But
by a brilliant process of inference from the meagre and incoherent traces of thought in these
migrants he was able to reconstruct the cultural matrix in which they had developed. This method
he supplemented by reading books lent him by a shipping agent who had a liking for literature.
He learned also to extend his telepathic reach to such an extent that, by conjuring up all that he
knew of John Ruskin (let us say), he could make contact with that didactic sage in his remote
home by Coniston Water.
     Presently it became evident to Adlan that the really interesting period of European thought lay
in the future. Could he, then, explore the future as he had explored the past? This proved a far
more difficult task, and one which he could never have performed at all effectively had he not, by
great good luck, discovered John, a mind of somewhat the same calibre as his own. He conceived
the idea of teaching that fellow-supernormal to reach back into the past to him, so that he himself
might learn about the future without the precarious and dangerous labour of projecting himself
into it.
     I was surprised to hear from John, that, though only a few weeks had passed since our arrival
in Egypt, he had in that period spent many months with Adlan. Or perhaps I should say that his
interviews with Adlan (through the mind of Harry) were distributed over a period of many
months in Adlan’s life. Day after day the old man would ferry the Robinsons to their bathhouse,
pulling steadily at his battered oars, and prattling in kitchen Arabic to Harry about ships and
camels. And at the same time he would be carrying on a most earnest and subtle telepathic
conversation with John about relativity or the quantum theory or the economic determination of
history. John was soon convinced that he had encountered a mind which either through native
superiority or though prolonged meditation was far in advance of his own, even in ability to cope
with Western European culture. But Adlan’s brilliance made his way of life seem all the more
perplexing. With some complacency John assured himself that if he were to live as long as Adlan
he would not have to spend his old age toiling for a pittance from Homo sapiens. But before he
parted from Adlan he began to take a humbler view of himself and a more respectful attitude to
Adlan.
     The old man was greatly interested in John's biological knowledge, and its bearing upon
himself and John. "Yes," he said, "we are very different from other men. I have known it since I
was eight. Indeed these creatures that surround us are scarcely men at all. But perhaps, my son,
you take that difference too seriously. No, I should not say that. What I mean is that though for
you this project of founding the new species is the true way, for me there is another way. And
each of us must serve Allah in the way that Allah demands of him."
     It was not, John explained, that Adlan threw cold water on his great adventure. On the
contrary he entered into it with sympathy and made many helpful suggestions. Indeed one of his
favourite occupations, as he plied his oars, was to expound to John with prophetic enthusiasm the
kind of world that "John's New Men" would make, and how much more vital and more happy it
would be than the world of Homo sapiens. This enthusiasm was undoubtedly sincere, yet, said
John, there was a delicate mockery behind it. It was not wholly unlike the zeal with which grown
men enter into the games of children. One day John deliberately challenged him by referring to
his project as the greatest adventure that man could ever face. Adlan was resting on his oars
before crossing the harbour, for an Austrian Lloyd steamer was passing into the Canal. Harry was
intent upon the liner, but John induced him to turn his eyes on the old boatman. Adian was
looking gravely at the lad. "My son, my dear son," he said, "Allah wills of his creatures two kinds
of service. One is that they should toil to fulfil his active purpose in the world, and that is the
service which you have most at heart. The other is that they should observe with understanding
and praise with discriminate delight the excellent form of his handiwork. And this is my service,
to lay at Allah's feet such a life of praise that no man, not even you, my very dear son, can give
him. He has fashioned you in such a manner that you may serve him best in action, though in
action inspired always by deep-searching contemplation. But me he has fashioned such that I
must serve him directly through contemplation and praise, though for this end I had first to pass
through the school of action."
    John protested that the end of praise would be far better served by a world of the New Men
than by a few isolated lofty spirits in a world of subhuman creatures; and that, therefore, the most
urgent of all tasks was to bring such a world into being.
    But Adlan replied, "It seems so to you, because you are fashioned for action, and because you
are young. And indeed it is so. Spirits of my kind know well that in due season spirits of your
kind will in fact create the new world. But we know also that for us there is another task. It may
even be that part of my task is actually to peer so far into the future that I may see and praise
those great deeds which you, or some other, are destined to perform."
    When John had reported this speech to me he said, "Then the old man broke off his
communication with me, and also ceased prattling to Harry. Presently he thought to me again.
His mind embraced me with grave tenderness, and he said, 'It is time for you to leave me, you
very dear and godlike child. I have seen something of the future that lies before you. And though
you could bear the foreknowledge without faltering from the way of praise, it is not for me to tell
you." Next day I met him again, but he was uncommunicative. At the end of the trip, when the
Robinsons were stepping out of the boat, he took Harry in his arms and set him on the land,
saying in the lingo that passed as Arabic with European residents, ('L hwaga swoia, quai's ketfr.
(the little master, very nice). To me he said in his thoughts, ‘To-night, or perhaps to-morrow, I
will die. For I have praised the past and the present, and the near future too, with all the insight
that Allah has given me. And peering into the farther future I have been able to see nothing but
obscure and terrible things which it is not in me to praise. Therefore it is certain that I have
fulfilled my task, and may now rest.' "
Next day another boat took Harry and his parents to the bath houses.


                                         CHAPTER XVII



                                      NG-GUNKO AND LO


IT will be remembered that we booked passages for three persons by Orient to Toulon and
England. The third member of the party turned up three hours before the ship sailed.
    John explained that in discovering this amazing child, who went by the name of Ng-Gunko,
he had been helped by Adian. The old man in the past had been in touch with this contemporary
of John's, and had helped the two to make contact with one another.
    Ng-Gunko was a native of some remote patch of forest-clad mountain in or near Abyssinia;
and though only a child he had at John's request found his way from his native country to Port
Said by a series of adventures which I will not attempt to describe.
    As time advanced and he failed to appear, I became more and more sceptical and impatient,
but John was confident that he would arrive. He turned up at our hotel as I was trying to shut my
cabin trunk. He was a grotesque and filthy little blackamoor, and I resented the prospect of shar-
ing accommodation with him. He appeared to be about eight years old, but was in fact over
twelve. He wore a long, blue and very grubby caftan and a battered fez. These clothes, we
subsequently learned, he had acquired on his journey, in order to attract less attention. But he
could not help attracting attention. My own first reaction to his appearance was frank incredulity.
"There ain't no such beast," I said to myself. Then I remembered, that, when a species mutates, it
often produces a large crop of characters so fantastic that many of the new types are not even
viable. Ng-Gunko was decidedly viable, but he was a freak. Though his face was a dark blend of
the negroid and the Semitic with an unmistakable reminiscence of the Mongolian, his negroid
wool was not black but sombre red. And though his right eye was a huge black orb not
inappropriate to his dark complexion, his left eye was considerably smaller, and the iris was deep
blue. These discrepancies gave his whole face a sinister comicality which was borne out by his
expression. His full lips were frequently stretched in a grin which revealed three small white teeth
above and one below. The rest had apparently not yet sprouted.
    Ng-Gunko spoke English fluently but incorrectly, and with an uncouth pronunciation. He had
picked up this foreign tongue on his six-weeks' journey down the Nile valley. By the time we
reached London his English was as good as our own.
    The task of making Ng-Gunko fit for a trip on an Orient liner was arduous. We scrubbed him
all over and applied insecticide. On his legs there were several festering sores. John sterilized the
sharpest blade of his penknife and cut away all the bad flesh, while Ng-Gunko lay perfectly still,
but sweating, and pulling the most hideous grimaces, which expressed at once torture and
amusement. We purchased European clothes, which, of course, he detested. We had him
photographed for his passport, which John had already arranged with the Egyptian authorities. In
triumph we took him off to the ship in his new white shorts and shirt.
    Throughout the voyage we were busy helping him to acquire European ways. He must not
pick his nose in public, still less blow it in the natural manner. He must not take hold of his meat
and vegetables with his hands. He had to acquire the technique of the bathroom and the water-
closet. He must not relieve himself in inappropriate places. He must not, though a mere child,
saunter into the crowded dining-saloon without his clothes. He must not give evidence that he
was excessively intelligent. He must not stare at his fellow-passengers. Above all, he must, we
said, restrain his apparently irresistible impulse to play practical jokes on them.
    Though frivolous, Ng-Gunko was certainly of superior intelligence. It was, for instance,
remarkable that a child who had lived his fourteen years in the forest should easily grasp the
principle of the steam turbine, and should be able to ask the chief engineer (who showed us round
the engine room) questions which made that experienced old Scot scratch his head. It was on this
expedition that John had to whisper fiercely to the little monster, "If you don't take the trouble to
bottle up your blasted curiosity I'll pitch you over-board."
    When we reached our northern suburb Ng-Gunko was installed in the Wainwright household.
As we did not want him to cause more of a sensation than need be, we dyed his hair black and
made him wear spectacles with a dark glass for one eye. Only in the house might he be without
them. Unfortunately he was too young to be able to resist the temptation of startling the natives.
Walking along the street with John or me, muffled to the eyes against the alien climate, duly
spectacled and demure, he would sometimes drop a pace behind as we were approaching some
old lady or child. Then, projecting his chin above his scarf, he would whip off his glasses and
assume a maniacal grin of hate. How often he did this without being caught I do not know; but on
one occasion he was so successful that the victim let out a scream. John turned upon his protege
and seized him by the throat. "Do that again," he said, "and I'll have that eye of yours right out,
and step on it." Never again did Ng-Gunko play the trick when John was present. But with me he
did, knowing I was too amiable to report him.
    In a few weeks, however, Ng-Gunko began to enter more seriously into the spirit of the great
adventure. The conspiratorial atmosphere appealed to him. And the task of preparing himself to
play his part gradually absorbed his attention. But he remained at heart a little savage. Even his
extraordinary passion for machinery suggested the uncritical delight of the primitive mind in its
first encounter with the marvels of our civilization. He had a mechanical gift which in some ways
eclipsed even John's. Within a few days of his arrival he was riding the motor-bicycle and
making it perform incredible "stunts." Very soon he took it to pieces and put it together again. He
mastered the principles of John's psycho-physical power unit, and found, to his intense delight,
that he could perform the essential miracle of it himself. It began to be taken for granted that he
would be the responsible engineer of the yacht, and of the future colony, leaving John free for
more exalted matters. Yet in all Ng-Gunko's actions, and in his whole attitude to life, there was
an intensity and even a passion which was very different from John's invariable calm. Indeed I
sometimes wondered whether he was emotionally a true supernormal, whether he had anything
unusual in his nature beyond brilliant intelligence. But when I suggested this to John he laughed.
"Ng-Gunko's a kid," he said, "but Ng-Gunko's all right. Amongst other things he has a natural gift
for telepathy, and when I have trained him a bit he may beat me in that direction. But we are both
beginners."
    Not long after our return from Egypt another supernormal arrived. This was the girl whom
John had found in Moscow. Like others of her kind, she looked much younger than she was. She
seemed a child, not yet on the threshold of womanhood, but was actually seventeen. She had run
away from home, taken a job as stewardess on a Soviet steamer, and slipped ashore at an English
port. Thence, equipped with a sufficiency of English money, which she had secured in Russia,
she had found her way to the Wainwrights.
    Lo was at first glance a much more normal creature than either Ng-Gunko or John. She might
have been Jacqueline's youngest sister. No doubt her head was strikingly large, and her eyes
occupied more of her face than was normal, but her features were regular, and her sleek black
hair was long enough to pass for a "shingle." She was clearly of Asiatic origin, for her cheek
bones were high, and her eyes, though great, were deeply sunk within their half-closed and
slanting lids. Her nose was broad and flat, like an ape's, her complexion definitely "yellow." She
suggested to me a piece of sculpture come to life, something in which the artist had stylized the
human in terms of the feline. Her body, too, was feline, "so lean and loose," said John. "It feels
breakable, and yet it's all steel springs covered with loose velvet."
    During the few weeks which passed before the sailing of the yacht, Lo occupied the room
which had once belonged to Anne, John's sister. Relations between her and Pax were never easy,
yet always amicable. Lo was exceptionally silent. This, I am sure, would not trouble Pax, for she
was generally drawn to silent persons. Yet with Lo she seemed to feel constantly an obligation to
talk, and an inability to talk naturally. To all her remarks Lo would reply appropriately, even
amiably, yet whatever she said seemed to make matters worse. Whenever Lo was present, Pax
would seem ill at ease. She would make silly little mistakes in her work, putting things into
wrong drawers, sewing buttons on in the wrong place, breaking her needle, and so on. And
everything took longer than it should.
    I never discovered why Pax was so uncomfortable with Lo. The girl was, indeed, a
disconcerting person, but I should have expected Pax to be more, not less, able to cope with her
than others were. It was not only Lo's silence that was so disturbing, but also her almost complete
lack of facial expression, or rather of changes of expression for her very absence of expression
was itself expressive of a profound detachment from the world around her. In all ordinary social
situations, when others would show amusement or pleasure or exasperation, and Ng-Gunko
would register intense emotion, Lo's features remained unmoved.
At first I imagined that she was simply insensitive, perhaps dull-witted, but one curious fact about
her soon proved that I was wrong. She discovered a passion for the novel, and most of all for Jane
Austen. She read all the works of that incomparable authoress over and over again, indeed so
often that John, whose interest ran in very different channels, began to chaff her. This roused her
to deliver her one long speech. "Where I come from," she said, "there is nothing like Jane Austen.
But in me there is something like that, and these old books are helping me to know myself. Of
course, they are only 'sapient,' I know; but that is half the fun. It's so interesting to transpose it all
to suit us. For instance, if Jane could understand me, which she couldn't, what, I ask myself,
would she say about me? I find the answer extraordinarily enlightening. Of course, our minds are
quite outside her range, but her attitude can be applied to us. Her attitude to her little world is so
intelligent and sprightly that it gives it a significance that it could never have discovered in itself.
Well, I want to regard even us, even our virtuous Colony, in a Jane-like manner. I want to give it
a kind of significance that would have remained hidden even from its earnest and noble leader.
You know, John, I fancy Homo sapiens has still quite a lot to teach you about personality. Or if
you are too busy to learn, then I must, or the colony will be intolerable."
    To my surprise John replied by giving her a hearty kiss, and she remarked, demurely, "Odd
John, you have indeed a lot to learn."
    This incident may suggest to the reader that Lo was lacking in humour. She was not. Indeed
she had a gift of not unkindly wit. Though she seemed incapable of smiling, she often roused
others to laughter. And yet, as I say, she was mysteriously disconcerting to most of us. Even John
was sometimes uncomfortable in her presence. Once when he was giving me some instructions
about finance he broke off to say, "That girl's laughing at me, in spite of her solemn face. She
never laughs at all, and yet she's always laughing. Now tell me, Lo, what's amusing you." Lo
replied, "Dear and important John, it is you who are laughing, at your own reflection in me.'
     Lo's chief occupation during her few weeks in England was to master the science and art of
medicine, and to make herself acquainted with all the most advanced work on the subject of
embryology. The reason for this I did not learn till much later. Her vocational training she
pursued partly by means of an intensive study under an embryologist of some distinction at the
local university, partly by prolonged discussion with John.
     As the time approached when the yacht was to be ready and the adventure to begin, Lo's
studies became more and more exacting. She began to show signs of strain. We urged her to take
a holiday for a few days. "No," she said, "I must get to the end of this business before we sail.
Then I will rest." We asked if she was sleeping all right. She was evasive. John became
suspicious. "Do you sleep, ever?" he asked. She hesitated, then replied, "Not ever, if I can help it.
In fact it is some years since I last slept. And then I slept for ages. But I will never sleep again if I
can help it." Her first answer to John's incredulous "Why?" was a shudder; then she added as an
afterthought, "It is a waste of time. I do go to bed, but I read all night; or just think."
     I forget whether I mentioned that all the other supernormals were brief sleepers. John, for
instance, was satisfied with four hours a night, and could comfortably do entirely without sleep
for three nights at a stretch.
     A few days after this incident I learned that Lo had not come down to breakfast, and that Pax
had found her still in bed, and asleep. "But it's all wrong," said Pax, "It's more like a fit. She's
lying there with her eyes tight shut and awful expressions of horror and rage passing over her
face;
and she keeps muttering Russian or something, and her hands keep clawing at her chest."
     We tried to wake her, but could not. We sat her upright. We put cold water on her. We
shouted at her. We shook her and pricked her, but it was no good. That evening she began to
scream. She kept it up, off and on, all that night. I stayed with the Wainwrights, though I could do
nothing. But somehow I couldn't go. The whole street was kept awake. It was sometimes just an
inarticulate screech like an animal beside itself with pain and fury, sometimes a torrent of
Russian, shouted at the top of her voice, but so blurred that John could make nothing of it.
     Next morning she quietened down, and for more than a week she slept without stirring. One
morning she came down to breakfast as though nothing had happened, but looking, so John said,
"like a corpse animated by a soul out of Hell." As she sat down she said to John, "Now do you
understand why I like Jane Austen, better for instance than Dostoievski?"
     It took her some time to regain her strength and her normal equanimity. One day, when she
had settled down to work again, she told Pax a bit about herself. Away back in her infancy,
before the Revolution, when her people lived in a small town beyond the Urals, she used to sleep
every night; but she often had bad dreams, which she said were extremely terrifying, and
completely indescribable in terms of any normal experience. All she could say of them was that
she felt herself turn into a mad beast or a devil, yet that inwardly she always remained her sane
little self, an impotent spectator of her own madness. As she grew older, these infantile terrors
left her. During the Revolution and the years immediately following it her family experienced
terrible sufferings from civil war and famine. She was still in appearance an infant but mentally
well able to appreciate the significance of events going on around her. She had, for instance, al-
ready reached a conviction that, though both sides in the civil war were equally capable of
brutality and generosity, the spirit of the one was on the whole right, the other wrong. Even at
that early age she felt, vaguely but with conviction, that the horror of her life, the bombardments,
the fires, the mass executions, the cold, the hunger, must somehow be embraced, not shunned.
Triumphantly she did embrace them. But there came a time when her town was sacked by the
Whites. Her father was killed. Her mother fled with her in a refugee train crowded with wounded
men and women. The journey was, of course, desperately fatiguing. Lo fell asleep, and was
plunged once more into her nightmare, with the difference that it was now peopled with all the
horrors of the civil war, and she herself was forced to watch impotently while her other self
perpetrated the most hideous atrocities.
    Ever since those days any great strain was liable to bring sleep upon her, with all its horrors.
She reported, however, that the attacks were now much less frequent; but that on the other hand
the content of her dreams was more terrible, because—she couldn't properly explain—because it
was more universal, more metaphysical, more cosmically significant, and at the same time more
definitely an expression of something Satanic (her own word) within her very self.


                        CHAPTER XVIII THE SKID'S FIRST VOYAGE


HENCEFORTH Pax was more at ease with Lo. She had nursed her, received her confidence, and
found occasion to pity her. All the same it was clear that the continued presence of Lo was a
strain on Pax. When the yacht was launched, John himself said to me, "We must get away as
soon as possible now. Lo is killing Pax, though she does her best not to. Poor Pax! She's being
driven into old age at last." It was true. Her hair was fading, and her mouth drawn.
    It was with mixed feelings that I learned that I was not to take part in the coming voyage in
search of additional members for the colony. I could live my own life. I could marry and settle
down, holding myself in readiness to serve John when he should need me. But how could I live
without John? I tried to persuade him that I was necessary to him. A saucer-like craft wandering
the oceans with a crew of three children would attract less attention if she carried one adult. But
my suggestion was dismissed. John claimed that he no longer looked a child, and further declared
that he could touch up his face so as to appear at least twenty-five.
    I need not describe in detail the preparations which these three young eccentrics undertook in
order to fit themselves for their adventure. Both Ng-Gunko and Lo had to learn to fly; and all
three had to become familiar with the mannerisms of their own queer aeroplane and their own
queer yacht. The vessel was launched on the Clyde by Pax, and christened Skid, under which odd
but appropriate name she was duly registered. I may mention that for the Board of Trade
inspection she was fitted with a normal motor-engine, which was subsequently removed to make
room for the psycho-physical power unit and motor.
    When both yacht and plane were ready for use, a trial trip was made among the Western Isles.
On this trip I was tolerated as a guest. The experience was enough to cure me of any desire for a
longer voyage in such a diabolical vessel. The three-foot model had somehow failed to make me
imagine the discomforts of the actual boat. Her great beam made her fairly steady, but she was so
shallow, and therefore low in the water, that every considerable wave splashed over her, and in
rough weather she was always awash. This did not greatly matter, as her navigating controls were
all under cover in a sort of stream-lined deck-house reminiscent of a sporting saloon motor-car.
In fine weather one could stretch one's legs on deck, but below deck there was scarcely room to
move, as she was a mass of machinery, bunks, stores. And there was the plane. This strange
instrument. minute by ordinary standards, and folded up like a fan, occupied a large amount of
her space.
    After emerging from Greenock we skidded comfortably down the Clyde, past Arran, and
round the Mull of Kintyre. Then we struck heavy weather, and I was violently sick. So also,
much to my satisfaction, was Ng-Gunko. Indeed, he was so ill that John decided to make for
shelter, lest he should die. But quite suddenly Ng-Gunko learned to control his vomiting reflexes.
He stopped being sick, lay still for ten minutes, then leapt from his bunk with a shout of triumph,
only to be hurled into the galley by a lurch of the ship.
    The trials were said to be entirely successful. When she was going full speed the Skid lifted
the whole fore part of herself right out of the water and set up a mountain-range of water and
foam on either side of her. Though the weather was rather wild, the plane also was tested. It was
heaved out aft on a derrick and unfolded while afloat. All three members of the crew took a turn
at flying it. The most surprising thing about it was that, owing to its cunning design and its
immense reserve of power, it rose straight from the water without taxiing.
    A week later the Skid set out on her first long voyage. Our farewells were made at the dock.
The Wainright parents reacted very differently to the departure of their youngest son. Doc was
genuinely anxious about the dangers of the voyage in such a vessel, and mistrustful of the
abilities of the juvenile crew. Pax showed no anxiety, so complete was her confidence in John.
But clearly she found it difficult to face his departure without showing distress. Hugging her, he
said, "Dear Pax," then sprang on board. Lo, who had already made her farewells, came back to
Pax, took both her hands, and said, actually smiling, "Dear mother of important John!" To this
odd remark Pax replied simply with a kiss.
    My slender knowledge of the voyage is derived partly from John's laconic letters, partly from
conversation after his return. The programme was determined by his telepathic researches.
Distance, apparently, made no difference to the ease with which he could pick up the psychic
processes of other supernormals. Success depended entirely on his ability to "tune in" to their
mental "setting" or mode of experience, and this depended on the degree of similarity of their
mode to his own. Thus he was already in clear communication with a supernormal in Tibet, and
two others in China, but for the rest he could only make the vaguest guesses as to the existence
and location of possible members of the colony.
    Letters told us that the Skid had spent an unprofitable three weeks on the West Coast of
Africa. John had flown into the hinterland, pursuing traces of a supernormal in some oasis in the
Sahara. He struck a sand storm of peculiar violence, and made a forced landing in the desert, with
his engine choked with sand. "When the wind had dropped I cleaned her guts," said John, "and
then flew back to the Skid, still chewing sand." What epic struggles were involved in this
adventure I can only guess.
    At Cape Town the Skid was docked, and the three young people set off to comb South Africa,
following up certain meagre traces of the supernormal mentality. Both John and Lo soon returned
empty-handed. In his letter John remarked, "Delicious to watch the Whites treating the Blacks as
an inferior species. Lo says it reminds her of her mother's stories of Tsarist Russia."
     John and Lo waited impatiently for some weeks while Ng-Gunko, doubtless revelling in his
return to native conditions, nosed about in the remote woodlands and saltpans of Ngamiland. He
was in telepathic communication with John, but there seemed to be some mystery about his ac-
tivities. John grew anxious, for the lad was dangerously juvenile, and possibly of a less balanced
type than himself. At last he was driven to tell Ng-Gunko that if he did not "chuck his antics" the
Skid would sail without him. The reply was merely a cheerful assurance that he would be starting
back in a day or two. A week later came a message that combined a cry of triumph and an S.O.S.
He had secured his prey, and was making his way through the wilds to civilization, but had no
money for the return railway journey. John therefore set out to fly to the spot indicated, while Lo,
single handed, took the Skid round to Durban.
     John had already been waiting some days at the primitive settlement when Ng-Gunko
appeared, dead beat, but radiant. He removed a bundle from his back, uncovered the end of it,
and displayed to the indignant John a minute black infant, immature, twitching and gasping.
     Ng-Gunko, it seems, had traced the telepathic intimations to a certain tribe and a certain
woman. His African experiences had enabled him to detect in this woman's attitude to the life of
the forest something akin to his own. Further investigation led him to believe that though she
herself was in some slight degree supernormal, the main source of those obscure hints which he
had been pursuing was not the mother but her unborn child, in whose pre-natal experiences Ng-
Gunko recognized the rudiments of supernormal intensity. It was indeed remarkable that before
birth a mind should have any telepathic influence at all. The mother had already carried her baby
for eleven months. Now Ng-Gunko knew that he himself had been born late, and that his mother
had not been delivered of him till certain incentives had been used upon her by the wise women
of the tribe. This treatment he persuaded the black matron to undergo, for she was weary to death.
As best he could, Ng-Gunko applied what he knew of the technique. The baby was born, but the
mother died. Ng-Gunko fled with his prize. When John asked how he had fed the baby on the
long journey, Ng-Gunko explained that in his Abyssinian days he and other youngsters used to
milk wild antelopes. They stalked them, and by means of a process that reminded me of
"tickling" trout, they persuaded the mothers to let themselves be milked. This trick had served on
the journey. The infant, of course, had not thrived, but it was alive.
     The kidnapper was pained to find that his exploit, far from being applauded, was condemned
 and ridiculed. What on earth, John demanded, could they possibly do with the creature? And
 anyhow, was he really at all worth bothering about? Ng-Gunko was convinced that he had
 secured an infant superman who would outclass them all; and in time John himself was
 impressed by his telepathic explorations of the new-comer.
     The plane set out for Durban with the baby in Ng-Gunko's arms. One would have expected
 the care and maintenance of it to fall to Lo, but her attitude toward it was aloof. Moreover, Ng-
 Gunko himself made it clear that he would bear all responsibility for the new-comer, who
 somehow acquired the name Sambo. Ng-Gunko became as devoted to Sambo as a mother to her
 first-born or a schoolboy to his white mice.
     The Skid now headed for Bombay. Somewhere north of the Equator she ran into very heavy
 weather. This was a matter of small importance to a craft of her seaworthiness, though it must
 have greatly increased the discomfort of her crew. At a much later date I learned of a sinister
 incident that occurred in those wild days, an incident to which John made no reference in his
 letters. The Skid sighted a small British steamer, the Frome, in distress. Her steering engine was
 out of action, and she was labouring broadside-on to the storm. The Skid stood by, till, when the
 Frome's plight was obviously hopeless, the crew took to the two remaining boats. The Skid
 attempted to take them both in tow. This operation was evidently very dangerous, for a sea flung
 one of the boats bodily on to the after deck of the yacht, thrusting her stern under water, and
 threatening to sink her. Ng-Gunko, who was dealing with the tow rope, had a foot rather badly
 crushed. The boat then floated off, and capsized. Of her crew only two were rescued, both by the
 Skid, The other boat was successfully taken in tow. A few days later the weather improved, and
 the Skid and her charge made good progress toward Bombay. But now the two strangers on
 board the Skid began to show great curiosity. Here were three eccentric children and a black baby
 cruising the ocean in a most eccentric craft driven by some unintelligible source of power. The
 two seamen were loud in praise of their rescuers. They assured John that they would speak up for
 him in the public inquiry which would be held over the loss of the Frome.
     This was all very inconvenient. The three supernormals discussed the situation telepathically,
 and agreed that drastic action was demanded. John produced an automatic pistol and shot the two
 guests. The noise caused great excitement in the boat. Ng-Gunko slipped the tow rope, and John
 cruised round while Ng-Gunko and Lo, lying on the deck with rifles, disposed of all the Frames
 survivors. When this grim task was finished, the corpses were thrown to the sharks. The boat was
 scrubbed of blood stains, and then scuttled. The Skid proceeded to Bombay.
      Long afterwards, when John told me about this shocking incident, I was as much perplexed
 as revolted. Why, I asked, if he dared not risk a little publicity, had he been willing to risk
 destruction in the work of rescuing the ship's boats? And how did he fail to realize, during that
 operation, that publicity was inevitable? And was there, I demanded, any enterprise whatever,
 even the founding of a new species, that could justify such cold butchery of human beings? If
 this was the way of Homo superior, I said, thank God I was of another species. We might be
 weak and stupid, but at least we were able sometimes to feel the sanctity of human life. Was not
 this piece of brutality on exactly the same footing as the innumerable judicial murders, political
 murders, religious murders, that had sullied the record of Homo sapiens? These, I declared, had
 always seemed to their perpetrators righteous acts, but were regarded by the more human of our
 kind as barbarous.
     John answered with that mildness and thoughtfulness with which he treated me only on those
rare occasions when I gave him matter for serious consideration. He first pointed out that the Skid
had still to spend much time in contact with the world of Homo sapiens. Her crew had work to do
in India, Tibet and China. It was certain, therefore, that if their part in the Frome incident became
public, they would be forced to give evidence at the inquiry. He insisted, further, that if they were
discovered, their whole venture would be ruined. Had they at that early stage known all that they
knew later about hypnotically controlling the humbler species, they might indeed have abolished
from the minds of the Frame's survivors all memory of the rescue. "But you see," he said, "we
could not do it. We had deliberately risked publicity, as we had risked destruction by the storm,
hoping to avoid it. We tried to set up a process of 'oblivifaction' in our guests, but we failed. As
for the wickedness of the act, Fido, it naturally revolts you, but you are leaving something out of
account. Had we been members of your species, concerned only with the dreamlike purposes of
the normal mind, what we did would have been a crime. For today the chief lesson which your
species has to learn is that it is far better to die, far better to sacrifice even the loftiest of all
'sapient' purposes, than to kill beings of one's own mental order. But just as you kill wolves and
tigers so that the far brighter spirits of men may flourish, so we killed those unfortunate creatures
that we had rescued. Innocent as they were, they were dangerous. Unwittingly they threatened the
noblest practical venture that has yet occurred on this planet. Think! If you, and Bertha, had
found yourselves in a world of great apes, clever in their own way, lovable too, but blind, brutish,
and violent, would you have refused to kill? Would you have sacrificed the founding of a human
world? To refuse would be cowardly, not physically, but spiritually. Well, if we could wipe out
your whole species, frankly, we would. For if your species discovers us, and realizes at all what
we are, it will certainly destroy us. And we know, you must remember, that Homo sapiens has
little more to contribute to the music of this planet, nothing in fact but vain repetition. It is time
for finer instruments to take up the theme."
     When he had done, John looked at me almost pleadingly. He seemed to long for my approval,
the approval of a half-human thing, his faithful hound. Did he, after all, feel guilty? I think not. I
think this strong desire to persuade me sprang simply from affection. For my part, such is my
faith in John, that though I cannot approve, I cannot condemn. There must surely be some aspect
that I am too stupid or insensitive to grasp. John, I feel, must be right. Though he did what would
have been utterly wrong if it had been done by any of us, I have an almost passionate faith that,
done by John, and in John's circumstances, the terrible deed was right.
     But to return to the story. At Bombay John and Lo spent some time studying Indian and
Tibetan languages, and otherwise preparing themselves for contact with Eastern races. When at
length they left the Sl^id, and Bombay, Ng-Gunko remained behind to nurse Sambo and his
damaged foot. The two explorers set out together in the plane; but Lo, disguised as a Nepalese
boy, was put down at an Indian hill station. There, it was hoped, she might develop a telepathic
contact which was thought to indicate a supernormal in some such environment. John himself
continued his flight over the great mountains to Tibet to meet the young Buddhist monk with
whom he had often been in communication.
     In his brief letter describing his expedition to Tibet John scarcely mentioned the actual
journey, though the flight over the Himalayas must have been an exacting task even for a
superman in a superplane. He said only, "She took the jump splendidly, and then was blown right
back again into India, head over heels, too. She dropped my thermos flask. Coming back I saw it
on the ridge, but let it lie."
     As the Tibetan monk was able to guide him telepathically, he found the monastery quite
easily. John described Langatse as a supernormal of forty years, physically but little advanced
beyond the threshold of manhood. He had been born without eyes. Blindness had forced him to
concentrate on his telepathic powers, which he had developed far beyond John's own attainment.
He could always see telepathically what other people were seeing; consequently, for reading he
had simply to use some one else's eyes. The other would cast his eye over the page while
Langatse followed telepathically. He had trained several young men to perform this task for him
so well that he could read almost as quickly as John. One curious effect of his blindness was that,
since he could use many pairs of eyes at a time, and could see all round an object at once, his
mental imagery was of a kind quite inconceivable to ordinary persons. As John put it, he grasped
things visually, instead of merely having a single aspect of them. He saw things mentally from
every point of view at once.
    John had originally hoped to persuade Langatse to join his great adventure, but he soon found
that this was out of the question. The Tibetan regarded the whole matter much as Adlan had done.
He was interested, encouraging, but aloof. To him the founding of a new world, though it must
indeed some day be accomplished by some one, was not a matter of urgency, and must not tempt
him from his own more lofty spiritual services. Nevertheless he consented gladly to be the
spiritual adviser of the colony, and meanwhile he would impart to John all that he knew of the
telepathic technique and other supernormal activities. At one time Lan-gatse suggested that John
should give up his enterprise and settle in Tibet to share the more exacting and more exalted
spiritual adventures on which he himself was engaged. But, reminding that John was not to be
easily persuaded, he soon desisted. John stayed at the monastery a week. During his return flight
he received a message from Langaste to the effect that, after grave spiritual exercise, he had
decided to help John by seeking out and preparing any young super-normals that were in Asia
and suited to the adventure.
    John received a communication also from Lo. She had discovered two remarkable sisters,
both younger than herself. They would join the expedition; but as the elder was just now in a very
poor state of health, and the younger a little child, they must stay where they were for the present.
    The Skid now set her course for the China Seas. In Canton John met Shen Kuo, the Chinese
supernormal boy with whom he had already had some communication. Shen Kuo readily agreed
to make his way inland to join the two other boys and two girls whom Langatse had discovered in
the remote Eastern Province of Sze Chwan. Thence the five would journey to Tibet to Langatse's
monastery, to undergo a course of spiritual discipline in preparation for their new life. Langatse
reported that he had also secured three Tibetan boys and a girl for the colony, and that these also
would be prepared at the monastery.
    One other convert was made. This was a half-caste Chinese American girl resident in San
Francisco. This child, who went by the name of Washingtonia Jong, was also discovered by
Langatse telepathically. The Skid crossed the Pacific to pick her up, and she straightway became
a member of the crew. I did not meet her till a much later date; but I may as well say at once that
"Washy," as she was called, appeared to me at first a quite normal young person, a keen little
American flapper with rather Chinese eyes and black cropped hair. But I was to find that there
was more in her than that.
    John’s next task was to discover a suitable island for the colony. It must have a temperate or
subtropical climate. It must have a fertile soil, and be well situated for fishing. It must be remote
from any frequented steamer route. This last requirement was extremely important, for complete
secrecy was essential. Even the most remote and unconsidered island would certainly be visited
sooner or later; so John had thought out certain steps to prevent ships from reaching his island,
and certain others to ensure that any visitors who should make a landing should not spread news
of the colony among the normal species. Of these devices I shall speak in due season.
    The Skid crossed the Equator and began a systematic exploration of the South Seas. After
many weeks of cruising a suitable though minute island was discovered somewhere in the angle
between the routes from New Zealand to Panama and New Zealand to Cape Horn, and well away
from both courses. This discovery was an incredible stroke of luck, indeed it might well have
been an act of Providence. For the island was one which was not marked on any charts, and there
were clear signs that it had only within the last twenty years or so been thrown up by sub-oceanic
disturbance. There were no non-human mammals on it, and no reptiles. Vegetation was still
scanty and undiversified. Yet the island was inhabited. A small native group had taken possession
of it, and were living by fishing around its coasts. Many varieties of plants and trees they
themselves had brought over from their original home and established on the island.
    I did not hear about these original inhabitants till much later, when I visited the island. "They
were simple and attractive creatures," said John, "but, of course, we could not allow them to
interfere with our plans. It might have been possible to obliterate from their minds every
recollection of the island and of ourselves, and then to transport them. But though I had learned
much from Langatse, our technique of oblivifaction was still unreliable. Moreover, where could
we have deposited the natives without rousing protests, and curiosity? We might have kept them
alive on the island, as domestic animals, but this would have wrecked our plans. It would also
have undermined the natives spiritually. So we decided to destroy them. One bit of hypnotic
technique (or magic, if you like) I felt sure I could now perform successfully on normal minds in
which there were strong religious convictions. This we decided to use. The natives had welcomed
us to their island and arranged a feast for us. After the feast there were ritual dances and religious
rites. When the excitement was at a climax I made Lo dance for them. And when she had done, I
said to them, in their own language, that we were gods, that we needed their island, that they
must therefore make a great funeral pyre for themselves, mount it together, lie down together,
and gladly die. This they did, most gladly, men, women and children. When they had all died we
set fire to the faggots and their bodies were burnt."
    I cannot defend this act. But I may point out that, had the invaders been members of the
normal species, they would probably have baptised the natives, given them prayer books and
European clothes, rum and all the diseases of the White Man. They would also have enslaved
them economically, and in time they would have crushed their spirits by confronting them at
every turn with the White Man's trivial superiority. Finally, when all had died of drink or
bitterness, they would have mourned for them.
    Perhaps the only defence of the psychological murders which the super-normals committed
when they took possession of the island would run as follows. Having made up their minds that at
all costs the island must be theirs, and unencumbered, they did not shirk the consequences of
their decision. With open eyes they went about their task, and fulfilled it in the cleanest possible
way. Whether the end which they so ruthlessly pursued did in fact justify the means, I simply do
not feel competent to decide. All my sympathies lie with the view that murder can never be
justified, however lofty the end at stake. Certainly, had the killing been perpetrated by members
of my own kind, such a deed would have deserved the sternest condemnation. But who am I that
I should judge beings who in daily contact with me constantly proved themselves my superiors
not only in intelligence but in moral insight?
    When the five superior beings, John and Lo, Ng-Gunko and Washing-tonia and the infant
Sambo, had taken possession of the island, they spent some weeks resting from their travels,
preparing the site for future settlement, and conferring with Langatse and those who were under
his guidance. It was arranged that as soon as the Asiatics were spiritually equipped they should
find their way as best they could to one of the French Polynesian islands, whence the Skid would
fetch them. Meanwhile, however, the Skid would make a hurried trip to England via the Straits of
Magellan to secure materials for the founding of the colony, and to fetch the remaining European
supernormals.



                                         CHAPTER XIX

                                  THE COLONY IS FOUNDED

THE S^id reached England three weeks before the date on which I was to be married. As she had
no radio, and her voyage had been speedy, she arrived unannounced. Bertha and I had been
shopping. We called at my flat to deposit some parcels before going out for the evening. Arm in
arm, we entered my sitting-room, and found the Skid's crew snugly installed, eating my apples
and some chocolates which I kept for Bertha's entertainment. We stood for a moment in silence. I
felt Bertha's arm tighten on mine. John was enjoying his apple in an easy chair by the fire. Lo,
squatting on the hearth rug, was turning over the pages of the New Statesman. Ng-Gunko was in
the other easy chair, chewing sweets and bending over Sambo. I think he was helping the infant
to readjust the thick and unfamiliar clothes without which he could not have faced the English
climate. Sambo, all head and stomach, with limbs that were mere buds, cocked an inquisitive eye
at me. Washingtonia, whom I had not seen before, struck me at that moment as reassuringly
commonplace among those freaks.
     John had risen, and was saying with his mouth full, "Hullo, old Fido, hullo, Bertha! You'll
hate me. Bertha, but I must have Fido to help me for a few weeks, buying stores and things."
     "But we're just going to get married," I protested.
     "Damn!" said John.
     Then to my surprise I assured John that of course we would put it off for a couple of months.
Bertha wilted on to a chair with a voiceless "Of course."
      "Good," cried John cheerfully. "After this affair I may not bother you any more."
Unexpectedly my heart sank.
     The following weeks were spent in a whirl of practical activities. The Skid had to be
reconditioned, the plane repaired. Tools and machinery, electric fittings and plumbing materials
must be bought and shipped to Valparaiso to await transhipment. Timber must be sent from the
South American forests to the same port. General stores must be purchased in England. My task
was to negotiate all these transactions, under John's direction. John himself prepared a list of
books which I must somehow procure and dispatch. There were to be scores of technical works
on various biological subjects, tropical agriculture, medicine and so on. There were to be books
on theoretical physics, astronomy, philosophy, and a rather intriguing selection of purely literary
works in many languages. Most difficult to procure were many scores of Asiatic writings with
titles suggestive of the occult.
     Shortly before the Skid's next sailing-date the additional European members of the party
began to arrive. John himself went to Hungary to fetch Jelli, a mite said to be seventeen years old.
She was no beauty. The frontal and the occipital regions of her head were repulsively over-
developed, so that the back of her head stretched away behind her, and her brow protruded
beyond her nose, which was rudimentary. In profile her head suggested a croquet mallet. She had
a hare-lip and short bandy legs. Her general appearance was that of a cretin; yet she had
supernormal intelligence and temperament, and also hyper-sensitive vision. Not only did she
distinguish two primary colours within the spectrum-band that we call blue, but also she could
see well down into the infra-red. In addition to this colour-discrimination, she had a sense of form
that was, so to speak, much finer-grained than ours. Probably there were more nerve-endings in
her retinae than in normal eyes, for she could read a newspaper at twenty yards' distance, and she
could see at a glance that a penny was not accurately circular. So sensitive was she to form that, if
the parts of a puzzle picture were flung down before her, she took in their significant relations at
a glance, and could construct the picture without a pause. This amazing percipience often caused
her distress, for no man-made article appeared to her to achieve the shape that its maker intended.
And in the sphere of art she was excruciated, not merely by inaccuracy of execution but also by
crudity of conception.
     Besides Jelli, there was the French girl, Marianne Laffon, quite normal in contrast with Jelli,
and rather pretty with her dark eyes and olive skin. She was seemingly a repository of the whole
of French culture, and could quote any passage of any classic, and, by some magic of her own, so
amplify it that one seemed to plumb the author's mind.
     There was also a Swedish girl, Sigrid, whom John called the Comb-Wielder, "because she has
such a gift for combing out tangled minds till they're all sleek and sane." She had been a
consumptive, but had apparently cured herself by some sort of mental "immunizing" of her
tissues. Even after her cure she retained the phthisic's cheerfulness. A great-eyed, fragile thing,
she combined her wonderful gift of sympathy and insight with a maternal tenderness toward
brute strength. When she found it being brutal, she censured but still loved it. She was moved to
send it away howling with its tail between its legs, but at the same time she "felt all sloppy about
it, as though it were just a delicious little naughty boy."
     Several young male supernormals turned up, one by one, to join the Skid. (The Wainwrights'
house became at this time a shocking slum.) There was Kemi, the Fin, a younger John; Shahm,
the Turk, a few years older than John, but well content to be his subordinate; and Kargis from the
Caucasus.
     Of these, Shahm was from the normal point of view the most attractive, for he had the build
of a Russian dancer and in social intercourse a lightness of touch which one took according to
one's mood, either as charming frivolity or as sublime detachment.
     Kargis, who was not much younger than John, arrived in a state bordering on mania. He had
had a very trying journey in a tramp steamer, and his unstable mind had failed to stand the strain.
In appearance he was of John's type, but darker and less hardy. I found it very difficult to form a
consistent idea of this strange being. He oscillated between excitement and lethargy, between
passion and detachment. The cause of these fluctuations was not, I was assured, anything in his
body's physiological rhythm, but external events which were hidden from me. When I inquired
what kind of events, Lo, who was trying to help me, said, "He's like Sigrid in having a great sense
of personality. But he regards persons rather differently from her way. She just loves them, and
laughs at them too, and helps them, and cures them. But for him each person is like a work of art,
having a particular quality or style, or ideal form which he embodies well or ill. And when a
person is jarringly untrue to his peculiar style or ideal form, Kargis is excruciated."
     The ten young people and one helpless infant set sail in the Skid in August of 1928.
     John kept in communication with us by the ordinary mail. As I shall explain later, the Skid,
and sometimes the plane, had occasion to make frequent voyages among the Islands or to
Valparaiso. Thus it was possible to post John's brief and guarded letters. From these documents
we learned first that the voyage out had been uneventful; that they had called at Valparaiso to
load as much of the stores as possible; that they had reached the island; that the Skid, manned by
Ng-Gunko, Kemi and Marianne, was plying to and from Valparaiso to transport the rest of the
stores; that the building of the settlement was now well under way; that the Asiatic members had
arrived, and were "settling in nicely," that a hurricane had struck the island, destroying all the
temporary buildings, depositing the damaged Skid on a little hill beside the harbour, and hurting
one of the Tibetan boys; that they had sowed large tracts of fruit and vegetables; that they had
built six canoes for fishing; that Kargis had fallen seriously ill of some digestive disease and was
expected to die; that he had recovered; that the remains of a Galapagos lizard had been washed up
on the shore after God knows how long a journey; that Sigrid had tamed an albatross, and that it
stole the breakfast; that the Colony had suffered its first tragedy, for Yang Chung had been
caught by a shark, and Kemi had been seriously mauled in the vain attempt to rescue him, that
Sambo was spending all his time reading, but could not yet sit upright; that they had made for
themselves pipes on the James Jones model, but with special attachments so that they could be
played by normal five-fingered hands; that Tsomotre (one of the Tibetans) and Shahm were
composing wonderful music; that Jelli had developed acute appendicitis and Lo had operated
successfully; that Lo herself had been working too hard on some embryological experiments and
had fallen into one of her terrible nightmares; that she was awake again; that Marianne and Shen
Kuo had gone to live on the far side of the Island "because they wanted to be alone for a bit"; that
"Washy" was going mad, for she complained of feeling hate for Lankor (a Tibetan girl) who had
won the heart of Shahm; that "Washy" had tried to kill Lankor and herself; that Sigrid, in spite of
prolonged and patient efforts, had failed to cure "Washy," and was now herself showing signs of
strain;
that both girls were now being cured from afar by Langatse's telepathic influence; that the
Colonists had completed their stone library and meetinghouse, and the observatory was being
started; that Tsomotre and Lankor, who were evidently the most expert telepathists, were now
able to provide the colony with the news of the world in daily bulletins; that the more advanced
members of the party, under the direction of Langatse, were undergoing severe exercises in
spiritual discipline, which in time should raise them to a new plane of experience; that a severe
earthquake had caused the whole island to sink nearly two feet, so that they had to lay several
new courses of stone on the quays, and would henceforth need to keep the Skid in readiness for a
sudden exodus, in case the island should disappear. As the months protracted themselves into
years, John's letters became less frequent and more brief. He was evidently entirely absorbed in
the affairs of the colony; and as the party became more and more concerned with supernormal
activities, he found it increasingly difficult to give us an intelligible account of their life.
    In the spring of 1932, however, I was greatly surprised to receive a long letter from John, the
main purport of which was to urge me to visit the island as soon as possible. I quote the essential
passage. "You will laugh when I tell you I want you to come and use your journalistic prowess
upon us. In fact I want you to write that threatened biography after all, not for our sakes but for
your own species. I must explain. We have made a wonderful start. Sometimes it was a bit grim,
but now we have worked out a very satisfactory life and society. Our practical activities run
smoothly, delightfully, and we are able at last to join in a great effort to reach the higher planes of
experience. Already we are very different mentally from what we were when we landed. Some of
us have seen far and deep into reality, and we have at least gained a clear view of the work we
have undertaken. But a number of signs suggest that before very many months have passed the
colony will be destroyed. If your species discovers us, it will certainly try to smash us; and we are
not yet in a position to defeat it. Langatse has urged us (and he is right) to push on with the
spiritual part of our work, so as to complete as much as possible of it before the end. But also we
may as well leave records of our little adventure as an example for any future supernormals who
may attempt to found the new world, and for the benefit of the more sensitive members of Homo
sapiens. Langatse will take charge of the record for supernormals; the record for your species
entails only normal powers and can be done satisfactorily by yourself."
    I was now a tolerably successful free-lance journalist, and I had a full programme before me. I
was married, and Bertha was expecting a child. Yet I eagerly accepted the invitation. That
afternoon I made inquiries about steamers for Valparaiso, and replied to John (post restante at
that city), telling him when to expect me.
    Guiltily, I broke my news to Bertha. She was hard hit by it, but she said, "Yes, if John wants
you, of course you must go." Then I went round to the Wainwrights'. Pax greatly surprised me,
for no sooner had I begun to tell her about the letter than she interrupted me. "I know," she said,
"for some weeks he has been giving me little stray visions of the island, and even talking to me.
He said he would be asking for you."


                                           CHAPTER XX



                                     THE COLONY IN BEING


WHEN I arrived at Valparaiso the Skid was waiting for me, manned by Ng-Gunko and Kemi.
Both lads had appreciably matured since I had last seen them, nearly four years earlier. Those
crowded years seemed to have speeded up the slow growth natural to their kind. Ng-Gunko, in
particular, who was actually sixteen and might have been taken for twelve, had acquired a grace
and a seriousness which I never expected of him. Both seemed in a great hurry to put to sea. I
asked if there was any special engagement to keep on the island. "No," said Ng-Gunko, "but we
may have less than a year to live, and we love the island, and all our friends. We want to go
home."
    As soon as my baggage and some cases of books and stores had been transhipped in the Skid's
dinghy, we got under way. Ng-Gunko and Kemi promptly divested themselves of their clothes,
for it was a hot day. Kem’s fair skin had been burnt to the colour of the teak woodwork of the
Skid.
    When we had come within about forty miles of the island, Kemi, who was at the helm, said,
glancing from the magnetic to the gyroscopic compass, "They must be using the deflector. That
means some ship has come too close, and they're heading her off." He went on to explain that on
the island they had an instrument for deflecting a magnetic compass at any range up to about fifty
miles. This was the fourth occasion for its use.
    At last we sighted the island, a minute grey hump on the horizon. As we approached, it rose
and displayed itself as a double mountain. Even when we were quite close to land I failed to
detect any sign of habitation. Ng-Gunko explained that the buildings had all been placed in such a
manner as to escape detection. Not till the island had opened put its little harbour to embrace us
did I see the corner of one wooden building protruding from behind some trees. Not till we had
entered the inner harbour did the whole settlement appear. It consisted of a score or more of small
wooden buildings, with a larger stone building behind them and slightly higher up the slope.
Most of the little wooden buildings, I was told, were the private houses of the residents. The
stone building was the library and meeting-house. There were also buildings on the quayside,
including a stone power-station. Somewhat remote from the rest of the settlement was a col-
lection of wooden sheds which were said to be temporary labs.
    The Sf^id was moored alongside the lowest of three stone quays, for the tide was out. The
colonists were waiting to receive us and unload. They were a bunch of naked, sunburnt
youngsters of both sexes and very diverse appearance. John sprang on board to greet me, and I
found myself tongue-tied. He had become a dazzling figure, at least to my faithful eyes. There
was a new firmness and a new dignity about him. His face was brown and smooth and hard like a
hazel nut. His whole body was like shaped and bees-waxed oak. His hair was bleached to a
dazzling whiteness. I noted among the party several unfamiliar faces, the Asiatics, of course,
from China, Tibet and India. Seeing all these supernormals together, I was struck by a pervading
Chinese or Mongolian expression about them. They had come from many lands, but they had a
family likeness. John might well be right in guessing that all had sprung from a single "sporting
point” centuries ago, probably in Central Asia. From that original mutation, or perhaps from a
number of similar mutations, successive generations of offspring had spread over Asia, Europe,
Africa, interbreeding with the normal kind, but producing occasionally a true supernormal
individual.
    Subsequently I learned that Shen Kuo's direct researches in the past had confirmed this
theory.
    I had been dreading life in this colony of superior persons. I expected to feel unwanted, to be
as useless and distracting as a dog at a highbrow concert. But my reception reassured me. The
younger members accepted me gaily and carelessly, treating me much as nieces and nephews
might treat an uncle whose special office it was to make a fool of himself. The elders of the party
were more restrained, but genial.
    I was assigned one of the wooden cottages or shacks as my private residence. It was
surrounded by a verandah. "You may prefer to have your bed out here," said John. "There are no
mosquitoes." I noticed at once that the cottage had been made with the care and accuracy of fine
cabinet-making. It was sparsely furnished with solid and simple articles of waxed wood. On one
wall of the sitting-room was a carved panel representing in an abstract manner a boy and a girl
(of the supernormal type) apparently at sea in a canoe, and hunting a shark. In the bedroom was
another carving, much more abstract, but vaguely suggestive of sleep. On the bed were sheets and
blankets, woven of rough yarns unknown to me. I was surprised to see electric light, an electric
stove, and beyond the bedroom a minute bathroom with hot and cold taps. The water was heated
by an electric contrivance in the bathroom itself. Fresh water was plentiful, I was told, for it was
distilled from the sea as a sort of by-product of the psycho-physical power-station.
    Glancing at the small electric clock, let into the wall, John said, "There'll be a meal in a few
minutes. That long building is the feeding-house, with the kitchen alongside of it." He pointed to
a low wooden building among the trees. In front of it was a terrace, and on the terrace, tables.
    I shall not forget my first meal on the island. I was seated between John and Lo. The table
was crowded with unfamiliar eatables, especially tropical and sub-tropical fruits, fish, and a queer
sort of bread, all served in vessels made of wood or of shell. Marianne and the two Chinese girls
seemed responsible for the meal, for they kept disappearing into the kitchen to produce new
dishes.
     Looking at the slight naked figures of various shades from Ng-Gunko's nigger-brown to
Sigrid’s rich cream, all seated round the table and munching with the heartiness of a school treat,
I felt that I had strayed into an island of goblins. This was in the main an effect of the two rows of
large heads and eyes like field-glass lenses, but was accentuated by the disproportionately large
hands which were busy with the food. The islanders were certainly a collection of young freaks,
but one or two of them were freakish even in relation to the standards of the group itself. There
was Jelli with her hammer-head and hare-lip, Ng-Gunko with his red wool and discrepant eyes,
Tsomotre, a Tibetan boy, whose head seemed to grow straight out of his shoulders without the
intervention of a neck, Hwan Te, a Chinese youngster, whose hands outclassed all the others in
size, and bore, in addition to the normal set of fingers, an extra and very useful thumb.
     Since the death of Yang Chung the party comprised eleven youths and boys (including
Sambo) and ten girls, of whom the youngest was a little Indian child. Of these twenty-one
individuals, three lads and a girl were Tibetan, two youths and two girls were Chinese, two girls
were Indian. All the others were of European origin, except Washingtonia Jong. I was to discover
that of the Asiatics the outstanding personalities were Tsomotre, the neckless expert in telepathy,
and Shen Kuo, a Chinese youth of John's age who specialized in direct research into the past.
This gentle and rather frail young man, who, I noticed, was given specially prepared food, was
said to be in some ways the most "awakened" member of the colony. John once said half
seriously, "Shen Kuo is a reincarnation of Adlan."
     On my first afternoon John took me for a tour of inspection round the island. We went first to
the power-house, a stone building on the quay. Outside the door the infant Sambo lay upon a mat,
kicking with his crooked black legs. Curiously, he seemed to have changed less than the other
supernormals. His legs were still too weak to support him. As we passed, he piped to John, "Hi!
What about a bit of a talk? I've got a problem." John replied without checking his progress,
"Sorry, too busy just now." Within we found Ng-Gunko, his back shining with sweat, shovelling
sand, or rather dried ooze, into a sort of furnace. "Convenient," I said, laughing, "to be able to
bum mud." Ng-Gunko paused, grinning, and wiping his brow with the back of his hand.
     John explained. "The element that we use now is particularly easy to disintegrate by the
psychical technique, but also it occurs only in very small quantities. Of course, if we
disintegrated all this mass of stuff and let it go off with a bang, the whole island would be blown
up. But only about a millionth part of the raw material is the element we want. The furnace
merely frees the desired atoms as a sort of ash, which has to be refined out of the other ash, and
stored in that hermetically sealed container."
    He now led the way into another room, and pointed to a much smaller and very solid-looking
bit of mechanism. "That," he said, "is where the real business is done. Every now and then Ng-
Gunko puts a pinch of the stuff on a sticky wafer, pops it in there, and 'hypnotizes' it. That makes
it go invisible and intangible and materially non-existent, at least for ordinary purposes; because,
you see, it has gone to sleep and can't take any effect on anything. Well, either Ng-Gunko wakes
it up again at once, and it sends the hell of a blast of power into that engine, to drive the dynamos;
or it is taken away for use on the Skid, or elsewhere."
    We passed into a room full of machinery, a mass of cylinders, rods, wheels, tubes, dials.
Beyond that were three big dynamos, and beyond them the plant for distilling sea-water.
    We then moved over to the laboratory, a rambling collection of wooden buildings rather apart
from the settlement. There we found Lo and Hwan Te working with microscopes. Lo explained
that they were "trying to spot a bug that's got at the maize plantation." The place was much like
any ordinary lab., crowded with jars, test-tubes, retorts and so on. It evidently served for work on
both the physical and the biological sciences, but the biological was preponderant. On one side of
the room was an immense cupboard, or rather series of small cupboards. These, I learned, were
incubators for use in embryological work. I was to hear more of this later.
    The library and meeting-room was a stone erection which had evidently been built to last, and
to delight the eye. It was quite a small building of one storey, and I was not surprised to learn that
most of the books were still housed in wooden sheds. But the shelves of the library itself were
already filled with all the most prized volumes. When we entered the room, we found Jelli, Shen
Kuo and Shahm surrounded by piles of books. The smaller half of the building was occupied by
the meeting-room, which was panelled with strange woods and decorated with much-stylized
carvings. Of these works, some repelled and intrigued me, others moved me not at all. The
former, John s,aid, had been done by Kargis, the latter by Jelli. It was plain that Jelli's creations
had a significance unperceived by me, for John was evidently held by them, and to my surprise
we found Lankor, the Tibetan girl, standing motionless before one of them, her lips moving.
When he saw her, John said, lowering his voice, "She's far away, but we mustn't risk disturbing
her."
    After leaving the library we walked through a big kitchen garden, where several of the young
people were at work, and thence up the valley between the island's two mountains. Here we
passed through fields of maize and groves of baby orange-trees and shaddock, which, it was
hoped, would some day bear a rich crop. The vegetation of the island ranged from tropical to
subtropical and even temperate. The extinct native pioneers had introduced much valuable
tropical vegetation, such as the ubiquitous and invaluable coco-palm, and also bread-fruit,
mango, and guava. Owing to the saltness of the air none but the coco-palm had really prospered
until the supernormals had invented a spray to counteract the salt. When we had climbed out of
the valley by a little track amongst a tangle of aromatic bushes, we presently emerged upon, a
tract of bare hillside consisting of rock, covered in places with dried sub-oceanic ooze. Here and
there a wind-borne seed had alighted and prospered, and founded a little colony of vegetation. On
a shoulder of the mountain John pointed out "the island's main attraction for sightseers." It was
the keel and broken ribs of a wooden vessel evidently wrecked and sunk before the island rose
from the bottom of the Pacific. Within it were bits of crockery and a human skull.
    On the top of the little mountain we came upon the unfinished observatory. Its walls had risen
only a foot from the ground, yet the whole place had a deserted look. To my question John
replied, "When we found out how short a time lay before us, we abandoned all work of that kind,
and concentrated on undertakings that we could bring to some sort of conclusion. I'll tell you
more about them, some day."
    I have reached the part of my narrative that I intended to present with most detail and greatest
effect, but several attempts to tackle it have finally convinced me that the task is beyond my
powers. Again and again I have tried to plan an anthropological and psychological report on the
colony. Always I have failed. I can give only a few incoherent observations. I can say, for
instance, that there was something incomprehensible, something "inhuman," about the emotional
life of the islanders. In all normal situations, though of course their behaviour varied from the
exuberance of Ng-Gunko and the fastidiousness of Kargis to the perfect composure of Lo, their
emotions seemed on the whole normal. Doubtless, even in the most hearty expression of normal
emotion in everyday situations, there was a curious self-observation and a detached relish, which
seemed to me not quite "human." But it was in grave and exceptional situations and particularly
in disaster that the islanders revealed themselves as definitely of a different texture from that of
Homo sapiens. One incident must serve as an example.
    Shortly after my arrival Hsi Met, the Chinese girl, commonly called May, was seized with a
terrible fit, and in disastrous circumstances. In her, apparently, the supernormal nature, though
highly developed, was very precariously established. Her fit was evidently caused by a sudden
reversion to the normal, but to the normal in a distorted and savage form. One day she was out
fishing with Shahm, who had recently become her mate. She had been strange all the morning.
Suddenly she flew at him and began tearing him with nails and teeth. In the scuffle the boat
capsized, and the inevitable shark seized May by the leg. Fortunately Shahm wore a sheath-knife,
for use in cleaning fish. With this he attacked the shark, which by good luck was a young one.
There was a desperate struggle. Finally the brute released its prey and fled. Shahm, mauled and
exhausted, succeeded with great difficulty in bringing May back to land. During the following
three weeks he nursed her constantly, refusing to allow anyone to relieve him. What with her
almost severed leg and her mental disorder, she was in a desperate plight. Sometimes her true self
seemed to reappear, but more often she was either unconscious or maniacal. Shahm was hard put
to it to restrain her from doing serious hurt to herself or to him. When at last she seemed to be
recovering, Shahm was ecstatically delighted. Presently, however, she grew much worse. One
morning, when I took his breakfast over to their cottage, he greeted me with a gaunt but placid
face, and said, "Her soul is torn too deeply now. She will never mend. This morning she knows
me, and has reached out her hand for me. But she is not herself, she is frightened. And very soon
she will not know me ever again. I will sit with my dear this morning as usual, but when she is
asleep I must kill her." Horrified, I rushed to fetch John. But when I had told him, he merely
sighed and said, "Shahm knows best."
    That afternoon, in the presence of the whole colony, Shahm carried the dead Hsi Met to a
great rock beside the harbour. Gently he laid her down, gazed at her for a moment with longing,
then stepped back among his companions. Thereupon John, using the psycho-physical technique,
caused a sufficient number of the atoms of her flesh to disintegrate, so that there was a violent
outpouring of their pent-up energies, and her whole body was speedily consumed in a dazzling
conflagration. When this was done, Shahm passed his hand over his brow, and then went down
with Kemi and Sigrid to the canoes. The rest of the day they spent repairing the nets. Shahm
talked easily, even gaily, about May; and laughed, even, over the desperate battle of her spirit
with the powers of darkness. And sometimes while he worked, he sang. I said to myself, "Surely
this is an island of monsters."
    I must now try to convey something of my vivid impression that strange and lofty activities
were all the while going on around me on the island although I could not detect them. I felt as
though I were playing blind man's buff with invisible spirits. The bodily eye watched unhindered
the bright perceived world and the blithe physical activities of these young people; but the mind's
eye was blindfold, and the mind's ear could gather only vague hints of incomprehensible
happenings.
    One of the most disconcerting features of life on the island was that much of the conversation
of the colonists was carried on telepathically. So far as I could judge, vocal speech was in process
of atrophy. The younger members still used it as the normal means of communication, and even
among the elders it was often indulged in for its own sake, much as we may prefer to walk rather
than take a bus. The spoken language was prized chiefly for its aesthetic value. Not only did the
islanders make formal poems for one another as frequently as the cultured Japanese; they also
delighted sometimes to converse with one another in subtle metre, assonance and rhyme. Vocal
speech was used also for sheer emotional expression, both deliberately and inadvertently. Our
civilization had left its mark on the island in such ejaculations as "damn" and "blast" and several
which we do not yet tolerate in print. In all reactions to the personality of others, too, speech
played an important part. It was often a vehicle for the expression of rivalry, friendship and love.
But even in this field all finer intercourse, I was told, depended on telepathy. Speech was but an
obbligato to the real theme. Serious discussion was always carried on telepathically and in
silence. Sometimes, however, emotional stress would give rise to speech as a spontaneous but
unconsidered accompaniment of telepathic discourse. In these circumstances vocal activity
tended to be blurred and fragmentary like the speech of a sleeper. Such mutterings were rather
frightening to one who could not enter into the telepathic conversation. At first, by the way, I had
been irrationally disturbed whenever a group of the islanders, working in silence in the garden or
elsewhere, suddenly began to laugh for no apparent reason though actually in response to some
telepathic jest. In time I came to accept these oddities without the "nervy" creepiness which they
used to arouse in me.
    There were happenings on the island far more strange than the normal now of telepathic
conversation. On my third evening, for instance, all the colonists gathered in the meeting-room.
John explained that this was one of the regular twelfth-day meetings "to review our position in
relation to the universe." I was advised to come, but to go away when I was bored. The whole
party sat in the carved wooden chairs round the walls of the room. There was silence. Having had
some experience of Quaker meetings, I was not at first ill at ease. But presently a rather terrifying
absolute stillness came upon the company. Not only gross fidgetings, but even those almost
imperceptible movements which characterize all normal living, ceased, and became noticeable
through their absence. I might have been in a roomful of stone images. On every face was an
expression of intent but calm concentration which was not solemn, was even perhaps faintly
amused. Suddenly and with keen scrutiny, all eyes turned upon me. I was seized with a sudden
panic; but immediately there came over all the intent faces a reassuring smile. Then followed an
experience which I can only describe by saying that I felt directly the presence of those
supernormal minds, felt telepathically a vague but compelling sense of their immature majesty,
felt myself straining desperately to rise to their level, felt myself breaking under the strain, so that
I had finally to flee back into my little isolated and half-human self, with the thankfulness of one
who falls asleep after great toil, but with the loneliness of an exile.
     The many eyes were now turned from me. The young winged minds had soared beyond my
reach.
     Presently Tsomotre, the neckless Tibetan, moved to a sort of harpsichord, tuned to the strange
intervals which the islanders enjoyed. He played. To me his music was indescribably unpleasant.
I could have screamed, or howled like a dog. When he had done, a faint involuntary murmur
from several throats seemed to indicate deep approval. Shahm rose from his seat, looking with
keen inquiry at Lo, who hesitated, then also rose. Tsomotre began playing once more, tentatively.
Lo, meanwhile, had opened a huge chest, and after a brief search she took from it a folded cloth,
which when she had shaken it out was revealed as an ample and undulatory length of silk, striped
in many colours. This she wrapped around her. The music once more took definite form. Lo and
Shahm glided into a solemn dance, which quickened presently to a storm of wild movement. The
silk whirled and floated, revealing the tawny limbs of Lo;
or was gathered about her with pride and disdain. Shahm leapt hither and thither around her,
pressed toward her, was rejected, half accepted, spurned again. Now and then came moments of
frank sexual contact, stylized and knit into the movement-pattern of the dance. The end suggested
to me that the two lovers, now clinging together, were being engulfed in some huge catastrophe.
They glanced hither and thither, above, below, with expressions of horror and exaltation, and at
one another with gleams of triumph. They seemed to thrust some invisible assailant from them,
but less and less effectively, till gradually they sank together to the ground. Suddenly they sprang
up and apart to perform slow marionette-like antics which meant nothing to me. The music
stopped, and the dance. As she returned to her seat, Lo flashed a questioning, taunting look at
John.
     Later, when I had described this incident in my notes, I showed my account of it to Lo. When
she had glanced at it, she said, "But you have missed the point, you old stupid. You've made it
into a love story. Of course, what you say is all right—but it's all wrong too, you poor dear."
     After the dance the company relapsed into silence and immobility. Ten minutes later I slipped
away to refresh myself with a walk. When I returned, the atmosphere seemed to have changed.
No one noticed my entrance. There was something indescribably eerie in the spectacle of those
young faces staring with adult gravity at nothing. Most disturbing of all was Sambo, sitting like a
little black doll in his ample chair. Tears were trickling down his cheeks, but his soft little mouth
seemed to have grown hard and proud and old. After a few minutes I fled.
     Next morning, though the meeting had not ended till dawn, the normal life of the colony was
afoot once more. I asked John to explain what had been happening at the meeting. He said they
had at first merely been looking into their motives. The young especially had still a lot to learn in
this respect. Both young and old had also done a good deal of work upon their deeper mutual
relations, relations which in the normal species would have been far below the threshold of
consciousness.
     All the colonists, John said, had been engaged in making themselves known to one another as
fully as possible. They had also, all of them, been disciplining themselves, making their minds
more seemly and more effective. This they had performed in the presence of Langatse, their spir-
itual adviser, and of course under his guidance. With him they had also meditated deeply about
metaphysics. In addition to all this, said John, they had been learning to expand their "now" to
embrace hours, days; and narrowing it also to distinguish the present and the past strokes of a
gnat's wing. "And we explored the remote past," he said, "helped greatly by Shen Kuo, whose
genius moves in that sphere. We attained also a kind of astronomical consciousness. Some of us
at least glimpsed the myriads of peopled worlds, and even the minds of stars and of nebulae. We
saw also very clearly that we must soon die. And there were other things which I must not tell
you."
     Life on the island did not consist entirely of this exalted corporate activity. The islanders had
to do a good deal of hard work of a much more practical kind. Every day two or three canoes
would go out fishing. Nets and boats and harpoons had to be repaired. There was constant work
in the garden and fruit-groves, and in the maize-fields. Hitherto there had been endless building
operations in wood and stone, but when the islanders had discovered their impending fate, such
work was abandoned. A good deal of minor woodwork was still afoot. Much of the "crockery"
was made of wood, and the rest of shell or gourd. The machinery needed constant attention, and
so did the Skid. I was surprised to learn that the Skid had made many voyages among the
Polynesian Islands, actually bartering some of the handicrafts of the colony for native produce.
Later I found that these voyages had another purpose.
     All this manual work was entered into rather as sport than as toil, for it had never been a
tyranny. The most serious attention of every member was given to very different matters. The
younger islanders spent much time in the library and the lab, absorbing the culture of the inferior
species. The elders were concerned with a prolonged research into the physical and mental
attributes of their own kind. In particular they were grappling with the problem of breeding. At
what age might their young women safely conceive? Or should reproduction be ectogenetic? And
how could they ensure that the offspring should be both viable and supernormal? This research
was evidently the chief work of the laboratory. Originally its aim had been mainly practical, but
even after the discovery of their impending doom the islanders continued these biological
experiments for their theoretical interest.
    When we entered the labs we found several persons at work. Lo, Kargis and the two Chinese
boys were apparently in charge of the research. Delicate experiments were being carried out on
the germ cells of molluscs, fishes and specially imported mammals. Still more difficult work was
in progress upon human ova and spermatozoa, both normal and supernormal. I was shown a
series of thirty-eight living human embryos, each in its own incubator. These startled me
considerably, but the story of their conception and capture startled me even more. Indeed, it filled
me with horror, and with violent though short-lived moral indignation. The eldest of these
embryos was three months old. Its father, I was told, was Shahm, its mother a native of the
Tuamofu Archipelago. The unfortunate girl had been seduced, brought to the island, operated
upon, and killed while still under the anaesthetic. The more recent specimens, however, had been
secured by milder methods, for Lo had invented a technique by which the fertilized ovum could
be secured without violence to the mother. In all the more recent cases the mothers had yielded
up their treasure unwittingly, and without leaving their native islands. They were merely
persuaded to agree to comply with certain instructions given by the supernormal father. The
technique apparently combined physical and psychical methods, and was imposed upon the girls
as a sublime religious ritual.
    There was also a series of five much younger and ectogenetically fertilized ova. In these cases
both father and mother were members of the colony. Lo herself had contributed one specimen.
The father was Tsomotre. "You see," she said, "I am rather young for gestation, but my ova are
all right for experimental purposes." I was puzzled. I knew well that sexual intercourse was
practised on the island. Why then had the fertilization of this ovum been carried out artificially?
As tactfully as I could, I stated my difficulty. Lo answered with some asperity, "Why, of course,
because I was not in love with Tsomotre."
    Since I am on this subject of sex I had better pursue it. The younger members of the colony,
such as Ng-Gunko and Jelli, were only on the threshold of adolescence. Nevertheless, they were
very sensitive to one another, both physically and mentally. Moreover, though physically
backward, they were (so to speak) imaginatively precocious, as John had been. Consequently the
mental side of sexual love was surprisingly developed among them.
    Among the elder members there were, of course, more serious attachments. As they had
discovered how to bring conception under direct voluntary control, their unions were followed by
no practical difficulties. They had, however, produced a crop of emotional stresses.
    From what I was told, I gathered that there must have been a subtle difference between the
love experiences of the islanders and those of normal persons. So far as I can tell, the difference
was caused by two characteristics of the supernormal, namely, more discriminate awareness of
self and of others, and greater detachment. The greater accuracy of self- and other-consciousness
was of course responsible for a high degree of mutual understanding, tolerance and sympathy in
ordinary relations. It seems to have rendered the loves of these strange beings at once
exceptionally vivid and in most cases exceptionally harmonious. Occasionally some surge of
crude and juvenile emotion would threaten to blot out this insight, but then detachment would
normally supervene to prevent disaster; Thus between the very different spirits of Shahm and and
Lankor there arose a passionate relationship in which there were frequent conflicts of desire.
With beings like us this would have produced endless strife. But in them mutual insight and self-
detachment seems to have kindled in each the spirit of the other, so that the result was not strife
but the mental aggrandizement of both. On the other hand, when the unhappy Washingtonia
found herself forsaken by Shahm, primitive impulses had triumphed in her to such an extent that,
as I have reported, she hated her rival. Such an irrational emotion was from the supernormal point
of view sheer insanity. The girl herself was terrified at her own derangement. A similar incident
occurred when Marianne favoured Kargis rather than Huan Te. But the Chinese youth apparently
cured himself without help. Yet not strictly without help, for all the islanders had formed a habit
of recounting their amatory experiences to Jacqueline, far away in France; and she had often
played the part of the wise woman, comforting them, helping these complicated and
inexperienced young creatures to make effective spiritual contact with one another.
    When the young people had enjoyed one another promiscuously for a period of many months,
they seem to have passed into a new phase. They gradually sorted themselves out into more or
less constant couples. In some cases a couple would actually build for themselves a single
cottage, but as a rule they were content to make free of each other's private homes. In spite of
these permanent "marriages" there were many fleeting unions, which did not seem to break up
the more serious relationship. Thus at one time or other nearly every lad was mated with nearly
every lass. This statement may suggest that the islanders lived in a ceaseless round of pro-
miscuous sexual activity. They did nothing of the sort. The sexual impulse was not violent in
them. But though coitus was on the whole a rare event on the island, it was always permitted
when both parties desired it. Moreover, though the culminating sexual act was rare, much of the
normal social life of the island was flushed, so to speak, with a light-hearted and elegant
sexuality.
    I believe that there were only one male and one female who had never spent a night in one
another's arms, and indeed had never embraced at all. These, surprisingly, and in spite of their
long connexion and deep mutual intimacy and respect, were John and Lo. Neither of them had a
permanent mate. Each had played a part in the light-hearted promiscuity of the colony. Their
seeming detachment from one another I attributed at first to sheer sexual indifference. But I was
mistaken. When I remarked to John in my blundering way that I was surprised that he never
seemed to be in love with Lo, he said simply, "But I am in love with Lo, always." I concluded
that she was not attracted by him, but John read my thoughts, and said, "No, it's mutual all right."
    "Then why?" I demanded. John said nothing until I had pressed him again. He looked away,
like any bashful adolescent. Just as I was about to apologize for prying, he said, "I just don't
know. At least, I half know. Have you noticed that she never lets me so much as touch her? And
I'm frightened of touching her. And sometimes she shuts me right out of her mind. That hurts. I'm
frightened even of trying to make telepathic contact with her, unless she begins it, in case she
doesn't want it. And yet I know her so well. Of course, we are very young, and though we have
both had many loves and have learnt a lot, I think we mean so much to one another that we are
afraid of spoiling it all by some false step. We are frightened to begin until we have learned much
more about the art of living. Probably if we were to live another twenty years—but we shall not.
That "not" sounded with an undercurrent of grief which shocked me. I did not believe John would
ever be shaken by purely personal emotion.
    I decided to make an opportunity for asking Lo about her relations with John. One day, while
I was meditating a tactful approach, she discovered my intention telepathically, and said, "About
me and John—I keep him away because I know, and he knows too, that we are not in a position
yet to give our best to one another. Jacqueline advised me to be careful, and she's right. You see,
John is amazingly backward in some ways. He's cleverer than most of us, but quite simple about
some things. That's why he's—Odd John. Though I'm the younger, I feel much older. It would
never do to go all the way with him before he's really grown up. These years on the island with
him have been very beautiful, in their kind. In another five we might be ready. But of course,
since we have to die soon, I shall not wait too long. If the tree is to be destroyed, 'we must pluck
the fruit before it is ripe."
    When I had written and revised the foregoing account of life on the island, I realized that it
failed almost completely to convey even so much of the spirit of the little community as I myself
had been able to appreciate. But, try as I may, I cannot give concrete embodiment to that strange
combination of lightness and earnestness, of madness and superhuman sanity, of sublime
common sense and fantastic extravagance, which characterized so much on the island.
    I must now give up the attempt, and pass on to describe the sequence of events which led to
the destruction of the colony, and the death of all its members.
                             CHAPTER XXI




                      THE BEGINNING OF THE END




WHEN I had been on the island nearly four months a British surveying vessel discovered us. We
knew beforehand from telepathic sources that she was likely to come our way, for she had orders
to study the oceanic conditions of the South-east Pacific. We knew also that she had a gyroscopic
compass. It would be difficult to lead her astray.
     This vessel, the Vising, strayed about the ocean for some weeks, following the dictates of
research. With innumerable zigzags she approached the island. When she came within range of
our deflector her officers were perplexed by the discrepancy between the magnetic and
gyroscopic compasses, but the ship maintained her true course. On one of her laps she passed
within twenty miles of the island, but at night. Would she on the next lap miss us entirely? No!
Approaching from the south-west, she sighted us far away on the port bow. The effect was
unexpected. Since no island had any business to be in that spot, the officers concluded that the
gyro was wrong after all, although their observation of the sun had seemed to confirm it. This
island, then, must be one of the Tuamotu Group. The Vising, therefore veered away from us.
Tsomotre, our chief telepathist, reported that the officers of the Vising were feeling very much
like people lost in the dark.
     A month later the Vising sighted us again. This time she changed her course and headed for
the island. We saw her approaching, a minute toy vessel, white, with buff funnel. She plunged
and swayed, and grew larger. When she was within a few miles of the island, she cruised round
it, inspecting. She came a mile or two nearer and described another circle, at half speed, using the
lead. She anchored. A motor-launch was lowered. It left the Vising and nosed along the coast till
it found the entrance to our harbour. In the outer harbour it came to shore and landed an officer
and three men. They advanced inland among the brushwood.
     We still hoped that they might make a perfunctory examination and then return. Between the
inner and the outer harbours, and along the slopes of the outer harbour itself, there was a dense
wilderness of scrub, which would give pause to any explorer. The actual channel to the inner
harbour had been concealed with a curtain of vegetation hung from a rope which stretched from
shore to shore.
     The invaders wandered about in the comparatively open space for a while, then turned back
to the launch. Presently one of them stooped and picked up something. John, who was in hiding
beside me, watching both the bodies and the minds of the four men, exclaimed, "God! He's found
one of your bloody cigarette-ends—a fresh one, too." In horror I sprang to my feet, crying, "Then
he must find me." I plunged down the hillside, shouting. The men turned and waited for me. As I
approached, naked, dirty and considerably scratched by the scrub, they gaped at me in astonish-
ment. Panting, I poured out an impromptu story. I was the sole survivor of a schooner, wrecked
on the island. I had smoked my last cigarette today. At first they believed me. While we made our
way toward the launch, they fired questions at me. I played my part tolerably well, but by the
time we reached the Vising, they were growing suspicious. Though superficially dirty after my
stampede, I was quite decently groomed. My hair was short, I was beardless, my nails were cut
and clean. Under cross-examination by the Commander of the vessel I became confused; and
finally, in despair, I told them the whole truth. Naturally they concluded that I was mad. All the
same, the Commander determined to make further investigations on the island. He himself came
with the party. I was taken, too, in case I should prove useful.
    I now feigned complete idiocy, hoping they might still find nothing. But they discovered the
camouflage curtain, and forced the launch through it it into the inner harbour. The settlement was
now in full view. John and the others had decided that it was useless to hide, and were standing
about on the quay, waiting for us. As we came alongside, John advanced to greet us. He was an
uncouth but imposing figure, with his dazzling white hair, his eyes of a nocturnal beast, and his
lean body. Behind him the others waited, a group of unclad boys and girls with formidable heads.
One of the Vikings officers was heard to exclaim, "Jesus Christ! What a troupe!"
    The invaders were fluttered by the sight of naked young women, several of whom were of the
white race.
    We took the officers to the feeding-house terrace, and gave them light refreshments, including
our best Chablis. John explained to them rather fully about the colony; and though, of course,
they could not appreciate the more subtle aspect of the great adventure, and were frankly though
politely incredulous of the "new species" idea, they were sympathetic. They appreciated the
sporting aspect of the matter. They were also impressed by the fact that I, the only adult and the
only normal human figure among these juvenile freaks, was obviously a quite unimportant person
on the island.
    Presently John took them to see the power-station, which they just wouldn't believe, and the
Skid, which impressed them more than anything else. To them she was a subtle blend of the crazy
and the shipshape. There followed a tour of the other buildings and the estate. I was surprised that
John was so anxious to show everything, more surprised that he made no attempt to persuade the
Commander not to report on the island and its inhabitants. But John's policy was more subtle.
After the tour of inspection he persuaded the Commander to allow all his men to leave the launch
and come to the terrace for refreshments. There the party spent another half-hour. John and Lo
and Marianne talked to the officers. Other islanders talked to the men. When at last the party
made its farewells on the quay, the Commander assured John that he would make a full report on
the island, and give high praise to its inhabitants.
    As we watched the launch retreating, several of the islanders showed signs of mirth. John
explained that throughout the interview the visitors had been subjected to an appropriate
psychological treatment, and that by the time they reached the Vising their memory of recent
events on the island would be so obscure that they would be quite unable to produce a plausible
report, or even to give their shipmates an account of their adventure. "But," said John, "this is the
beginning of the end. If only we could have treated the whole ship's company thoroughly, all
might have been well. As it is, some distorted information is sure to get through and rouse the
curiosity of your species."
    For three months the life of the island proceeded undisturbed. But it was a changed life.
Knowledge that the end could not be far off produced a fresh intensity of consciousness in all
personal relations and social activities. The islanders evidently discovered a new and passionate
love of their little society, a kind of poignant and exalted patriotism, such as must have been felt
in Greek city-states when the enemy was at the gates. But it was a patriotism curiously free from
hate. The impending disaster was regarded less as an attack by human enemies than as a natural
catastrophe, like destruction by an avalanche.
    The programme of activities on the island was now altered considerably. All work that could
not bear fruit within the next few months was abandoned. The islanders told me that they had
certain supreme tasks on hand which must if possible be finished before the end. The true
purpose of the awakened spirit, they reminded me, is twofold, namely to help in the practical task
of world-building, and to employ itself to the best of its capacity in intelligent worship. Under the
first head they had at least created something glorious though ephemeral, a miscrocosm, a world
in little. But the more ambitious part of their practical purpose, the founding of the new species,
they were destined never to fulfil. Therefore they were concentrating all their strength upon the
second aim. They must apprehend existence as precisely and zestfully as they could, and salute
That in the universe which was of supreme excellence. This purpose, with the aid of Langatse,
they might yet advance to a definite plane of achievement which at present still lay beyond them,
though their most mature minds had already glimpsed it. With their unique practical experience
and their consciousness of approaching doom they might, they said, within a few months ofFer to
the universal Spirit such a bright and peculiar jewel of worship as even the great Langatse
himself, alone and thwarted, could not create.
     This most exalting and most exacting of all tasks made it necessary for them to give up all but
 the necessary daily toil in the fields and in the canoes. Not that very much of their time could be
 devoted to their spiritual exercises, for there was danger of overstraining their powers. It was
 necessary therefore to secure plentiful relaxation. Much of the life of the colony during this
 period seemed to consist of recreation. There was much bathing in the shark-free harbour, much
 love-making, much dancing and music and poetry, and much aesthetic juggling with colour and
 form. It was difficult for me to enter into the aesthetic appreciation of the islanders, but from
 their reactions to their own art in this period I judged that the pervading sense of finality had
 sharpened their sensibility. Certainly in the sphere of personal relations the knowledge that the
 group would soon be destroyed produced a passion of sociality. Solitariness lost its charm.
     One night Chargut, who was on duty as telepathic look-out, reported that a British light
 cruiser was under orders to make a search for the mysterious island which had somehow
 temporarily undermined the sanity of so many of the Viking's crew.
     Some weeks later the vessel entered the zone of our deflector, but had little difficulty in
 keeping her course. She had expected some sort of crazi-ness on the part of the magnetic needle,
 and trusted only to her gyroscopic compass. After some groping, she reached the island. This
 time the islanders made no attempt at concealment. From a convenient shoulder of the mountain
 we watched the grey ship drop anchor and heave slowly in the swell, displaying her red bottom-
 colour. A launch left her. When it was near enough, we signalled it round to the harbour
 entrance. John received the visitors on the quay. The lieutenant (in white duck and stiff collar)
 was inclined to stand on his dignity as the representative of the British Navy. The presence of
 naked white girls obviously increased his hauteur by upsetting his equilibrium. But refreshments
 on the terrace, combined with secret psychological treatment, soon produced a more friendly
 atmosphere. Once more I was impressed by John's wisdom in keeping a store of good wine and
 cigars.
     I have not space to give details of this second encounter with Homo sapiens. There was
 unfortunately much coming and going between the cruiser and the shore, and it was impossible
 to administer a thorough hypnotic inoculation to every man who saw the settlement. A good deal
 was achieved, however, and the visit of the Commander himself, a grizzled and a kindly
 gentleman of the sea, was particularly satisfactory. John soon discovered telepathically that he
 was a man of imagination and courage, and that he regarded his calling with unusual detachment.
 Therefore, seeing that a number of the naval men had escaped with only slight psychological
 treatment, it seemed best not to administer "oblivifaction" to the Commander, but instead to
 attempt the more difficult enterprise of rousing in him an overmastering interest in the colony,
 and loyalty to its purpose. The Commander was one of those exceptional seamen who spend a
 good deal of their time in reading. His mind had a background of ideas which rendered him
 susceptible to the technique. His was not, indeed, a brilliant intellect, but he had dabbled in
 popular science and popular philosophy, and his sense of values was intuitively discriminate,
 though uncultivated.
     The cruiser remained for some days off the island, and during this time the Commander spent
 much of his time ashore. His first official act was to annex the island to the British Empire. I was
 reminded of the way in which robins and other birds annex gardens and orchards, regardless of
 human purposes. But alas in this case the robin represented a Great Power —the power, indeed,
 of the jungle over this minute garden of true humanity.
     Though the Commander alone was to be allowed clear memory of his experiences on the
 island, all the visitors were treated in such a way as to help them to appreciate the colony as well
 as it was in them to do. Some were of course impervious, but many were affected to some extent.
 All were forced to use every ounce of their imagination to envisage the colony at least as a gay
 and romantic experiment. In most cases, doubtless, the notion that they conceived of it was
 extremely crude and false; but in one or two, besides the Commander, all sorts of rudimentary
 and inhibited spiritual capacities were roused into unfamiliar and disturbing activity.
     When at last the time came for the visitors to leave the island, I noticed that their demeanour
 was different from what it had been on their arrival. There was less formality, less of a gulf
 between officers and men, less strict discipline. I noticed, too, that some who had formerly
 looked at the young women with disapproval or lust or both, now bade them farewell with
 friendly courtesy, and with some appreciation of their uncouth beauty. I noticed also on the faces
 of the more sensitive a look of anxiety, as though they did not feel altogether "at home" in their
 own minds. The Commander himself was pale. As he shook hands with John, he muttered, "I'll
 do my best, but I'm not hopeful."
     The cruiser departed. Events on board her were followed by our tele-pathists with intense
interest. Tsomotre and Chargut and Lankor reported that amnesia for all events on the island was
rapidly spreading; that some of those who still had clear recollection were so tortured by their
spiritual upheaval, and the contrast between the island and the ship, that they were losing all
sense of discipline and patriotism; that two had committed suicide;
that a vague panic was spreading, a sense that madness was afoot amongst them; that, apart from
the Commander, none who had been in close contact with the islanders could now recall more
than the most confused and incredible memories of the island; that those who escaped severe
psychological treatment were also very confused, but that they remembered enough to make them
a source of grave danger; that the Commander had addressed the whole ship's company, ordering
them, imploring them, to keep strict silence ashore on the subject of their recent experiences. He
himself must of course report to the Admiralty, but the crew must regard the whole matter as an
official secret. To spread incredible stories would only cause trouble, and get the ship into
disgrace. Privately, of course, he intended to make a perfectly colourless and harmless report.
    Some weeks later the telepathists announced that fantastic stories of the island were current in
the Navy; that a reference had been made in a foreign paper to "an immoral and communistic
colony of children on a British island in the Pacific"; that foreign secret services were nosing out
the truth, in case it should prove diplomatically useful; that the British Admiralty was holding a
secret inquiry; that the Commander of the cruiser had been dismissed from the Service for
making a false report; that the Soviet Government had collected a good deal of information about
the island, and intended to embarrass Britain by organizing a secret expedition to make contact
with the colony; that the British Government had learnt of this intention, and was determined to
evacuate the island at once. We were told also that the world at large knew practically nothing of
the matter. The British Press had been warned against making any reference to it. The Foreign
Press had not given serious attention to the vague rumour which one paper had published.
    The visit of the second cruiser ended much as the previous incident, but at one stage it
entailed desperate measures. The second Commander had perhaps been chosen for his
uncompromising character. He was in fact a bit of a bully. Moreover, his instructions were
emphatic, and he had no thought but to carry them out promptly. He sent a launch to give the
islanders five hours to pack up and come aboard. The lieutenant returned "in a state of nerves"
and reported that the instructions were not being carried out. The Commander himself came
ashore with a party of armed men. He was determined to stand no nonsense. Refusing offers of
hospitality, he announced that all the islanders must come aboard at once.
    John asked for an explanation, trying to lead the man into normal conversation. He also
pointed out that most of the islanders were not British subjects, and that the colony was doing no
harm to any one. It was no use. The Commander was something of a sadist, and the sight of
unclad female flesh had put him in a mood of ruthlessness. He merely ordered the arrest of every
member of the colony.
    John intervened in a changed and solemn voice. "We will not leave the island alive. Any one
that you seize will drop down dead."
   The Commander laughed. Two tars approached Chargut, who happened to be the nearest. The
Tibetan looked around at John, and, at the first touch of the sailors' hands, he dropped. The sailors
examined him. There was no sign of life.
   The Commander was flustered; but, pulling himself together, he repeated his order. John said,
"Be careful! Don't you see yet that you're up against something you can't understand? Not one of
us will be taken alive." The sailors hesitated. The Commander snapped out, "Obey orders. Better
begin on a girl, for safety." They approached Sigrid, who turned with her bright smile to John,
and extended a hand behind her to feel for Kargis, her mate. One of the sailors laid a gentle and
hesitating paw on her shoulder. She collapsed backwards into the arms of Kargis, dead.
    The Commander was now thoroughly upset, and the sailors were showing signs of
insubordination. He tried to reason with John, assuring him that the islanders would be well
treated on the ship; but John merely shook his head. Kargis was sitting on the ground with the
dead Sigrid in his arms. His own face looked dead. After a moment's contemplation of Kargis the
Commander said, "I shall consult with the Admiralty about you. Meanwhile you may stay here."
He and his men returned to their boat. The cruiser departed.
    On the island the two bodies were laid upon the great rock by the harbour. For some time we
all stood round in silence, while the seagulls cried. One of the Indian girls, who had been attached
to Chargut, fainted. But Kargis showed now no sign of grief. The desolate expression that had
come over his face when Sigrid fell dead in his arms had soon cleared. The supernormal mind
would never for long succumb to emotion that must perforce be barren. For a few moments he
stood gazing on the face of Sigrid. Suddenly he laughed. It was a John-like laugh. Then Kargis
stooped and kissed the cold lips of his mate, gently but with a smile. He stepped aside. Once
more John availed himself of the psycho-physical technique. There was a fierce blaze. The bodies
were consumed.
    Some days later I ventured to ask John why he had sacrificed these two lives, and indeed why
the islanders could not come to terms with Britain. No doubt the colony would have to be
disbanded, but its members would be allowed to return to their respective countries, and each of
them might expect a long life of intense experience and action. John shook his head and replied,
"I cannot explain. I can only say that we are one together now, and there is no life for us apart.
Even if we were to do as you suggest and go back into the world of your species, we should be
watched, controlled, persecuted. The things that we live for beckon us to die. But we are not
ready yet. We must stave off the end for a while so that we may finish our work."
    Shortly after the departure of the second cruiser an incident occurred which gave me fresh
understanding of the mentality of the islanders. Ng-Gunko had for some time been absorbed in
private researches. With the self-importance and mysteriousness of a child he announced that he
would rather not explain until he had finished his experiments. Then one day, grinning with pride
and excitement, he summoned the whole company to the laboratory and gave a full account of his
work. His speech was telepathic; so also were the subsequent discussions. My report is based on
information given me by John, and also by Shen Kuo and others.
    Ng-Gunko had invented a weapon which, he said, would make it impossible for Homo
sapiens ever again to interfere with the island. It would project a destructive ray, derived from
atomic disintegration, with such effect that a battleship could be annihilated at forty miles'
distance, or an aeroplane at any height within the same radius. A projector placed on the higher of
the two mountain-tops could sweep the whole horizon. The designs were complete in every
detail, but their execution would involve huge co-operative work, and certain castings and
wrought-steel parts would have to be ordered secretly in America or Japan. Smaller weapons,
however, could be laboriously made at once on the island, and fitted to the Skid and the plane to
equip them for dealing with any attack that might be expected within the next few months.
    Careful scrutiny proved that the invention was capable of doing all that was claimed for it.
The discussion passed on to the detailed problems of constructing the weapon. But at this point,
apparently, Shen Kuo interposed, and urged that the project should be abandoned. He pointed out
that it would absorb the whole energy of the colony, and that the great spiritual task would have
to be shelved, at any rate for a very long time. "Any resistance on our part," he said, "would bring
the whole force of the inferior species against us, and there would be no peace till we had
conquered the world. That would take a long time. We are young, and we should have to spend
the most critical years of our lives in warfare. When we had finished the great slaughter, should
we be any longer fit mentally for our real work, for the founding of a finer species, and for
worship? No! We should be ruined, hopelessly distorted in spirit. Violent practical undertakings
would have blotted out for ever such insight as we have now gained into the true purpose of life.
Perhaps if we were all thirty years older we should be sufficiently mature to pass through a
decade of warfare without becoming too impoverished, spiritually, for our real work. But as
things are, surely the wise course is to forego the weapon, and make up our minds to fulfil as
much as possible of our accepted spiritual task of worship before we are destroyed."
    I could tell by merely watching the faces of the islanders that they were now in the throes of a
conflict of wills such as they had never before experienced. The issue was not merely one of life
and death; it was one of fundamental principle. When Shen Kuo had done, there was a clamour of
protest and argument, much of which was actually vocal; for the islanders were deeply moved. It
was soon agreed that the decision should be postponed for a day. Meanwhile there must be a
solemn meeting in the meeting-room, and all hearts must be deeply searched in a most earnest
effort to reach mental accord and the right decision. The meeting was silent. It lasted for many
hours. When it was over I learned that all, including Ng-Gunko and John himself, had accepted
with conviction and with gladness the views of Shen Kuo.
    The weeks passed. Telepathic observation informed us that, when the second cruiser had left
us, considerable amnesia and other mental derangements had occurred among those of the crew
who had landed on the island. The Commander's report was incoherent and incredible. Like the
first Commander, he was disgraced. The Foreign Offices of the world, through their secret
services, ferreted out as much as possible of this latest incident. They did not form anything like
an accurate idea of events, but they procured shreds of truth embroidered with fantastic
exaggeration. There was a general feeling that something more was at stake than a diplomatic
coup, and the discomfiture of the British Government. Something weird, something quite beyond
reckoning was going on on that remote island. Three ships had been sent away with their crews in
mental confusion. The islanders, besides being physically eccentric and morally perverse, seemed
to have powers which in an earlier age would have been called diabolic. In a vague subconscious
way Homo sapiens began to realize that his supremacy was challenged.
    The Commander of the second cruiser had informed his Government that the islanders were
of many nationalities. The Government, feeling itself to be in an extremely delicate position in
which a false step might expose it as guilty of murdering children, yet feeling that the situation
must be dealt with firmly and speedily before the Communists could make capital out of it,
decided to ask other Powers to co-operate and share responsibility.
    Meanwhile the Soviet vessel had left Vladivostok and was already in the South Seas. Late one
afternoon we sighted her, a small trading-vessel of unobtrusive appearance. She dropped anchor
and displayed the Red Flag, with its golden device.
    The Captain, a grey-haired man in a peasant blouse, who seemed to me to be still inwardly
watching the agony of the Civil War, brought us a flattering message from Moscow. We were
invited to migrate to Russian territory, where, we were assured, we should be left free to manage
our colony as we wished. We should be immune from persecution by the Capitalist Powers on
account of our Communism and our sexual customs. While he was delivering himself of this
speech, slowly, but in excellent English, a woman who was apparently one of his officers was
making friendly advances to Sambo, who had crawled toward her to examine her boots. She
smiled, and whispered a few endearments. When the Captain had finished, Sambo looked up at
the woman and remarked. "Comrade, you have the wrong approach." The Russians were taken
aback, for Sambo was still in appearance an infant.
     "Yes," said John, laughing, "Comrades, you have the wrong approach. Like you, we are
Communists, but we are other things also. For you, Communism is the goal, but for us it is the
beginning. For you the group is sacred, but for us it is only the pattern made up of individuals.
Though we are Communists, we have reached beyond Communism to a new individualism. Our
Communism is individualistic. In many ways we admire the achievements of the New Russia; but
if we were to accept this offer we should very soon come into conflict with your Government.
From our point of view it is better for our colony to be destroyed than to be enslaved by any alien
Power." At this point he began to speak in Russian, with great rapidity, sometimes turning to one
or other of his companions for confirmation of his assertions. Once more the visitors were taken
aback. They interjected remarks, they began arguing with each other. The discussion seemed to
become heated.
    Presently the whole company moved to the feeding terrace, where the visitors were given
refreshments, and their psychological treatment was continued. As I cannot understand Russian I
do not know what was said to them; but from their expressions I judged that they were greatly
excited, and that, while some were roused to bewildered enthusiasm, others kept their heads so
far as to recognize in these strange beings a real danger to their species and more particularly to
the Revolution.
    When the Russians departed, they were all thoroughly confused in mind. Subsequently, we
learned from our telepathists that the Captain's report to his Government had been so brief, self-
contradictory and incredible, that he was relieved of his command on the score of insanity.
    News that the Russian expedition had occurred, and that it had left the islanders in possession,
confirmed the worst fears of the Powers. Obviously, the island was an outpost of Communism.
Probably it was now a highly fortified base for naval and aerial attack upon Australia and New
Zealand. The British Foreign Office redoubled its efforts to persuade the Pacific Powers to take
prompt action together.
    Meanwhile the incoherent stories of the crew of the Russian vessel had caused a flutter in the
Kremlin. It had been intended that when the islanders had been transported to Russian territory
the story of their persecution by Britain should be published in the Soviet Press. But such was the
mystery of the whole matter that the authorities were at a loss, and decided to prevent all
reference to the island.
    At this point they received a diplomatic note protesting against their interference in an affair
which concerned Britain alone. The party in the Soviet Government which was anxious to prove
to the world that Russia was a respectable Power now gained the upper hand. The Russian reply
to Britain was a request for permission to take part in the proposed international expedition. With
grim satisfaction Britain granted the request.
     Telepathically the islanders watched the little fleet converging on it from Asia and America.
Near Pitcairn Island the vessels assembled. A few days later we saw a tuft of smoke on the
horizon, then another, and others. Six vessels came into view, all heading toward us. They
displayed the ensigns of Britain, France, the United States, Holland, Japan, and Russia; in fact,
"the Pacific Powers." When the vessels had come to anchor, each dispatched a motor-launch,
bearing its national flag in the stern.
     The fleet of launches crowded into the harbour. John received the visitors on the quay. Homo
superior faced the little mob of Homo sapiens, and it was immediately evident that Homo
superior was indeed the better man. It had been intended to effect a prompt arrest of all the
islanders, but an odd little hitch occurred. The Englishman, who was to be spokesman, appeared
to have forgotten his part. He stammered a few incoherent words, then turned for help to his
neighbour the Frenchman. There followed an anxious whispered discussion, the rest of the party
crowding round the central couple. The islanders watched in silence. Presently the Englishman
came to the fore again, and began to speak, rather breathlessly. "In the name of the Governments
of the Pacif—" He stopped, frowning distractedly and staring at John. The Frenchman stepped
forward, but John now intervened. "Gentlemen," he said, pointing, "let us move over to the shady
end of that terrace. Some of you have evidently been affected by the sun." He turned and strode
away, the little flock following him obediently.
     On the terrace, wine and cigars appeared. The Frenchman was about to accept, when the
Japanese cried, "Do not take. It is perhaps drugged." The Frenchman paused, withdrew his hand
and smiled deprecatingly at Marianne, who was offering the refreshments. She set the tray on the
table.
     The Englishman now found his tongue, and blurted out in a most unofficial manner, "We've
come to arrest you all. You'll be treated decently, of course. Better start packing at once."
     John regarded him in silence for a moment, then said affably, "But please tell us, what is our
offence, and your authority?"
     Once more the unfortunate man found that the power of coherent speech had left him. He
stammered something about "The Pacific Powers" and "boys and girls on the loose," then turned
plaintively to his colleagues for help. Babel ensued, for every one attempted to explain, and no
one could express himself. John waited. Presently he began speaking. "While you find your
speech," he said, "I will tell you about our colony." He went on to give an account of the whole
venture. I noticed that he said almost nothing about the biological uniqueness of the islanders. He
affirmed only that they were sensitive and freakish creatures who wanted to live their own life.
Then he drew a contrast between the tragic state of the world and the idyllic life of the islanders.
It was a consummate piece of pleading, but I knew that it was really of much less importance
than the telepathic influence to which the visitors were all the while being subjected. Some of
them were obviously deeply moved. They had been raised to an unaccustomed clarity and
poignancy of experience. All sorts of latent and long-inhibited impulses came to life in them.
They looked at John and his companions with new eyes, and at one another also.
     When John had finished, the Frenchman poured himself out some wine. Begging the others to
fill their glasses and drink to the colony, he made a short but eloquent speech, declaring that he
recognized in the spirit of these young people something truly noble, something, indeed, almost
French. If his Government had known the facts, it would not have participated in this attempt to
suppress the little society. He submitted to his colleagues that the right course was for them all to
leave the island and communicate with their Governments.
    The wine was circulated and accepted by all, save one. Throughout John's speech the
Japanese representative had remained unmoved. Probably he had not understood well enough to
feel the full force of John's eloquence. Possibly, also, his Asiatic mind was not to be mastered
telepathically by the same technique as that which applied to his colleagues. But the main source
of his successful resistance, so John told me later, was almost certainly the influence of the
terrible Hebridean infant, who, ever desiring to destroy John, had contrived to be telepathically
present at this scene. I had seen John watching the Jap with an expression in which were blended
amusement, anxiety and admiration. This dapper but rather formidable little man now rose to his
feet, and said, "Gentlemen, you have been tricked. This lad and his companions have strange
powers which Europe does not understand. But we understand. I have felt them. I have fought
against them. I have not been tricked. I can see that these are not boys and girls;
they are devils. If they are left, some day they will destroy us. The world will be for them, not for
us. Gentlemen, we must obey our orders. In the name of the Pacific Powers I—I——" Confusion
seized him.
    John intervened and said, almost threateningly, "Remember, any one of us that you try to
arrest, dies."
    The Japanese, whose face was now a ghastly colour, completed his sentence, "I arrest you
all." He shouted a command in Japanese. A party of armed Japanese sailors stepped on to the
terrace. The lieutenant in command of them approached John, who faced him with a stare of
contempt and amusement. The man came to a stand a few yards from him. Nothing happened.
    The Japanese Commander himself stepped forward to effect the arrest. Shahm barred his way,
saying, "You shall take me first." The Jap seized him. Shahm collapsed. The Jap looked down at
him with horror, then stepped over him and moved toward John. But the other officers
intervened. All began talking at once. After a while it was agreed that the islanders should be left
in peace until the representatives of Homo sapiens had communicated with their Governments.
     Our visitors left us. Next morning the Russian ship weighed anchor and sailed. One by one
the others followed suit.


                                    CHAPTER XXII THE END


JOHN was under no illusion that the colony had been saved; but if we could gain another three
months* respite, he said, the immediate task which the islanders had undertaken would be
finished. A minor part of this work consisted in completing certain scientific records, which were
to be entrusted to me for the benefit of the normal species. There was also an amazing document,
written by John himself, and purporting to give an account of the whole story of the Cosmos.
Whether it should be taken as a plain statement of fact or a poetic fantasy I do not know. These
various documents were now being typed, filed and packed in wooden cases; for the time had
come for my departure. "If you stay much longer," John said, "you will die along with the rest of
us, and our records will be lost. To us it matters not at all whether they are saved or not, but they
may prove of interest to the more enlightened members of your own species. You had better not
attempt to publish them till a good many years have passed, and the Governments have ceased to
feel sore about us. Meanwhile, if you like, you can perpetuate the biography—as fiction, of
course, since no one would believe it."
     One day Tsomotre reported that a party of toughs was being secretly equipped for our
destruction by agents of certain governments which I will not name.
     The wooden chests were loaded on to the Skid along with my baggage. The whole colony
assembled on the quay to bid me farewell. I shook hands with them all in turn; and Lo, to my
surprise, kissed me. "We do love you, Fido," she said. "If they were all like you, domestic, there'd
have been no trouble. Remember, when you write about us, that we loved you." Sambo, when his
turn came, clambered from Ng-Gunko's arms to mine, then hurriedly back again. "I'd go with you
if I wasn't so tied up with these snobs that I couldn't live without them."
     John's parting words were these. "Yes, say in the biography that I loved you very much." I
could not reply.
     Kemi and Marianne, who were in charge of the Skid, were already hauling in the mooring
lines. We crept out of the little harbour and gathered speed as we passed between the outer
headlands. The double pyramid of the island shrank, faded, and was soon a mere cloud on the
horizon.

    I was taken to one of the least important of the French islands, one on which there were no
Europeans. By night we unloaded the baggage in the dinghy and set it on a lonely beach. Then
we made our farewells, and very soon the Skid with her crew vanished into the darkness. When
morning came I went in search of natives and arranged for the transport of my goods and myself
to civilization. Civilization? No, that I had left behind for ever.
    Of the end of the colony I know very little. For some weeks I hung about in the South Seas
trying to pick up information. At last I came upon one of the hooligans who had taken part in the
final scene. He was very reluctant to speak, not only because he knew that to blab was to risk
death, but also because the whole affair had evidently got on his nerves. Bribery and alcohol,
however, loosened his tongue.
    The assassins had been warned to take no risks. The enemy, though in appearance juvenile,
was said to be diabolically cunning and treacherous. Machine-guns might be useful, and it would
be advisable not to parley.
    A large and well-armed party of the invaders landed outside the harbour, and advanced upon
the settlement. The islanders must have known telepathically that these ruffians were too base to
be dealt with by the technique which had been used on former invaders. Probably it would have
been easy to destroy them by atomic disintegration as soon as they landed, though I remember
being told that it was much more difficult to disintegrate the atoms of living bodies than of
corpses. Apparently no attempt was made to put this method in action. Instead, John seems to
have devised a new and subtler method of defence; for according to my informant the landing-
party very soon "began to feel there were devils in the place." They were apparently seized with a
nameless horror. Their flesh began to creep, their limbs to tremble. This was all the more
terrifying because it was broad daylight, and the sun was beating heavily down on them. No
doubt the supernormals were making their presence felt telepathically in some grim and
formidable manner unintelligible to us. As the invaders advanced hesitatingly through the
brushwood, this terrifying sense of some overmastering presence became more and more intense.
In addition they began to experience a crazy fear of one another. Every man cast sidelong glances
of fright and hate at his neighbour. Suddenly they all fell upon one another, using knives, fire-
arms, teeth and fingers. The brawl lasted only a few minutes, but several were killed, many
wounded. The survivors took to their heels, and to the boats.
     For two days the ship lay off the island, while her crew debated violently among themselves.
Some were for abandoning the venture; but others pointed out that to return empty-handed was to
go to certain destruction;
for the great ones who had sent them had made it clear that, though success would be generously
rewarded, failure would be punished ruthlessly. There was nothing for it but to try again. Another
landing-party was organized, and fortified with large quanties of rum. The result was much the
same as on the former occasion; but it was noticed that those who were most drunk were least
affected by the sinister influence.
     The assassins took three more days to screw up their courage for another landing. The bodies
 of their dead comrades were visible upon the hill-side. How many of the living were destined to
 join that ghastly company? The party made itself so drunk that it could hardly row the boats. It
 braced itself with uproarious song. Also it carried the brave liquor with it in a keg. After the
 landing the gruesome influence was again felt, but this time the invaders answered it with
 reinforcements of rum and revelry. Reeling, clinging together, dropping their weapons, tripping
 over roots and one another's feet, but defiantly singing, they advanced over the spur of hill, and
 saw the harbour and the settlement beneath them. They floundered down the slope. One of them
 accidentally discharged a pistol into his own thigh. He collapsed, yelling, but the others rushed
 on.
     They stumbled into the presence of the supernormals, who were gathered near the power-
 station. There the reeling assailants sheepishly came to a stand. By now the effects of the rum
 were somewhat abated; and the sight of those strange beings, motionless, with their great calm
 eyes, seems to have dismayed the assassins. Suddenly they fled.
     For some days they wrangled among themselves, and kept to their ship. They dared not land
 again; they dared not sail.
     One afternoon, however, they were amazed to see a prodigious and dazzling spread of flame
 rise from behind the hill, and light up land and sea. There followed a muffled roar which echoed
 from the clouds like thunder. The blaze died down, but it was followed by an even more alarm-
 ing phenomenon. The whole island began to sink. Waves appeared to be clambering up the hills.
 Presently the ship's anchor released itself from the sinking bottom, and she was cast adrift. The
 island continued to descend, and the sea swept in upon it, bearing the gyrating vessel over the
 tops of the sunken trees. The twin peaks were submerged. Converging currents met above their
 heads and reared a great spout of ocean. This liquid horn, descending, drove hills of water
 outwards in all directions. The ship was overwhelmed. Her top-hamper, boats, and most of her
 deck-houses were torn away. Half the crew were lost overboard.
     This cataclysm apparently occurred on the i5th December 1933. It may, of course, have been
 an effect of purely physical causes. Even when I first heard of it, however, I was inclined to think
 that it was not. I suspected that the islanders had been holding their assailants at bay in order to
 gain a few days for the completion of their high spiritual task, or in order to bring it at least to a
 point beyond which there was no hope of further advancement. I liked to believe that during the
 few days after the repulse of the third landing-party they accomplished this aim. They then
 decided, I thought, not to await the destruction which was bound sooner or later to overtake them
 at the hands of the less human species, either through these brutish instruments or through the
 official forces of the Great Powers. The supernormals might have chosen to end their career by
 simply falling dead, but seemingly they desired to destroy their handiwork along with
 themselves. They would not allow their home, and all the objects of beauty with which they had
 adorned it, to fall into subhuman clutches. Therefore they deliberately blew up their power-
 station, thereby destroying not only themselves but their whole settlement. I surmised further that
 this mighty convulsion must have spread downwards into the precarious foundations of the
 island, disturbing them so violently that the whole island collapsed.
     As soon as I had gleaned as much information as possible, I hurried home with my
documentary treasures, wondering how I should give the news to Pax. It did not seem to me
likely that she would have learnt it already from John. When I landed in England, she and Doc
met me. Her face showed me that she was prepared. At once she said, "You need not break the
news gently, because we know the main part of it. John gave me visions of it. I saw those tipsy
brutes routed by his power. And in a few days afterwards I saw many happy things on the island.
I saw John and Lo, walking together on the shore, like lovers at last. One day I saw all the young
people sitting in a panelled room, evidently their meeting-room. I heard John say that it was time
to die. They all rose and went away, in couples and little groups; and presently they gathered
round the door of a stone building that must have been their power-station. Ng-Gunko went
through the door, carrying Sambo. Suddenly there was blinding light and noise and pain, then
nothing."