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Tales Of Space And Time
By
H. G. Wells
Contents
V--THE
FIGHT IN THE LION'S THICKET
THE
MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES
There was, until a year ago, a litt=
le and
very grimy-looking shop near Seven Dials, over which, in weather-worn yellow
lettering, the name of "C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities,=
"
was inscribed. The contents of its window were curiously variegated. They
comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and
weapons, a box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-ea=
ten stuffed
monkeys (one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a flyblown ostrich =
egg
or so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glass
fish-tank. There was also, at the moment the story begins, a mass of crysta=
l,
worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at that two
people, who stood outside the window, were looking, one of them a tall, thin
clergyman, the other a black-bearded young man of dusky complexion and
unobtrusive costume. The dusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation, an=
d seemed
anxious for his companion to purchase the article.
While they were
there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard still wagging with the bread =
and
butter of his tea. When he saw these men and the object of their regard, his
countenance fell. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder, and softly shut the
door. He was a little old man, with pale face and peculiar watery blue eyes;
his hair was a dirty grey, and he wore a shabby blue frock coat, an ancient
silk hat, and carpet slippers very much down at heel. He remained watching =
the
two men as they talked. The clergyman went deep into his trouser pocket,
examined a handful of money, and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr.
Cave seemed still more depressed when they came into the shop.
The clergyman,
without any ceremony, asked the price of the crystal egg. Mr. Cave glanced
nervously towards the door leading into the parlour, and said five pounds. =
The
clergyman protested that the price was high, to his companion as well as to=
Mr.
Cave--it was, indeed, very much more than Mr. Cave had intended to ask, whe=
n he
had stocked the article--and an attempt at bargaining ensued. Mr. Cave step=
ped
to the shop-door, and held it open. "Five pounds is my price," he
said, as though he wished to save himself the trouble of unprofitable
discussion. As he did so, the upper portion of a woman's face appeared above
the blind in the glass upper panel of the door leading into the parlour, and
stared curiously at the two customers. "Five pounds is my price,"
said Mr. Cave, with a quiver in his voice.
The swarthy young=
man
had so far remained a spectator, watching Cave keenly. Now he spoke. "=
Give
him five pounds," he said. The clergyman glanced at him to see if he w=
ere
in earnest, and, when he looked at Mr. Cave again, he saw that the latter's
face was white. "It's a lot of money," said the clergyman, and,
diving into his pocket, began counting his resources. He had little more th=
an
thirty shillings, and he appealed to his companion, with whom he seemed to =
be
on terms of considerable intimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity of
collecting his thoughts, and he began to explain in an agitated manner that=
the
crystal was not, as a matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His two custo=
mers
were naturally surprised at this, and inquired why he had not thought of th=
at before
he began to bargain. Mr. Cave became confused, but he stuck to his story, t=
hat
the crystal was not in the market that afternoon, that a probable purchaser=
of
it had already appeared. The two, treating this as an attempt to raise the
price still further, made as if they would leave the shop. But at this point
the parlour door opened, and the owner of the dark fringe and the little ey=
es
appeared.
She was a
coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much larger than Mr. Cav=
e;
she walked heavily, and her face was flushed. "That crystal is for
sale," she said. "And five pounds is a good enough price for it. I
can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take the gentleman's offer!&quo=
t;
Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the irruption, looked angrily at her over the rims of his spectacles, and, without excessive assurance, asserted his right to manage = his business in his own way. An altercation began. The two customers watched the scene with interest and some amusement, occasionally assisting Mrs. Cave wi= th suggestions. Mr. Cave, hard driven, persisted in a confused and impossible story of an enquiry for the crystal that morning, and his agitation became painful. But he stuck to his point with extraordinary persistence. It was t= he young Oriental who ended this curious controversy. He proposed that they sh= ould call again in the course of two days--so as to give the alleged enquirer a = fair chance. "And then we must insist," said the clergyman, "Five= pounds." Mrs. Cave took it on herself to apologise for her husband, explaining that = he was sometimes "a little odd," and as the two customers left, the couple prepared for a free discussion of the incident in all its bearings.<= o:p>
Mrs. Cave talked =
to
her husband with singular directness. The poor little man, quivering with
emotion, muddled himself between his stories, maintaining on the one hand t=
hat
he had another customer in view, and on the other asserting that the crystal
was honestly worth ten guineas. "Why did you ask five pounds?" sa=
id
his wife. "Do let me manage my business my own way!" said Mr. Cav=
e.
Mr. Cave had livi=
ng
with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at supper that night the
transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a high opinion of Mr. Cave's
business methods, and this action seemed a culminating folly.
"It's my opi=
nion
he's refused that crystal before," said the step-son, a loose-limbed l=
out
of eighteen.
"But Five
Pounds!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative young woman of
six-and-twenty.
Mr. Cave's answers
were wretched; he could only mumble weak assertions that he knew his own
business best. They drove him from his half-eaten supper into the shop, to
close it for the night, his ears aflame and tears of vexation behind his
spectacles. "Why had he left the crystal in the window so long? The fo=
lly
of it!" That was the trouble closest in his mind. For a time he could =
see
no way of evading sale.
After supper his
step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up and went out and his wife
retired upstairs to reflect upon the business aspects of the crystal, over a
little sugar and lemon and so forth in hot water. Mr. Cave went into the sh=
op,
and stayed there until late, ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for
goldfish cases but really for a private purpose that will be better explain=
ed
later. The next day Mrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from =
the
window, and was lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She replace=
d it
in a conspicuous position. But she did not argue further about it, as a ner=
vous
headache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave was always disinclined. The =
day
passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if anything, more absent-minded than usu=
al,
and uncommonly irritable withal. In the afternoon, when his wife was taking=
her
customary sleep, he removed the crystal from the window again.
The next day Mr. =
Cave
had to deliver a consignment of dog-fish at one of the hospital schools, wh=
ere
they were needed for dissection. In his absence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to
the topic of the crystal, and the methods of expenditure suitable to a wind=
fall
of five pounds. She had already devised some very agreeable expedients, amo=
ng
others a dress of green silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a
jangling of the front door bell summoned her into the shop. The customer wa=
s an
examination coach who came to complain of the non-delivery of certain frogs
asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of this particular br=
anch
of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman, who had called in a somewhat
aggressive mood, retired after a brief exchange of words--entirely civil so=
far
as he was concerned. Mrs. Cave's eye then naturally turned to the window; f=
or
the sight of the crystal was an assurance of the five pounds and of her dre=
ams.
What was her surprise to find it gone!
She went to the p=
lace
behind the locker on the counter, where she had discovered it the day befor=
e.
It was not there; and she immediately began an eager search about the shop.=
When Mr. Cave
returned from his business with the dog-fish, about a quarter to two in the
afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion, and his wife, extremely
exasperated and on her knees behind the counter, routing among his taxiderm=
ic
material. Her face came up hot and angry over the counter, as the jangling =
bell
announced his return, and she forthwith accused him of "hiding it.&quo=
t;
"Hid what?&q=
uot;
asked Mr. Cave.
"The
crystal!"
At that Mr. Cave,
apparently much surprised, rushed to the window. "Isn't it here?"=
he
said. "Great Heavens! what has become of it?"
Just then, Mr. Ca=
ve's
step-son re-entered the shop from the inner room--he had come home a minute=
or
so before Mr. Cave--and he was blaspheming freely. He was apprenticed to a
second-hand furniture dealer down the road, but he had his meals at home, a=
nd
he was naturally annoyed to find no dinner ready.
But, when he hear=
d of
the loss of the crystal, he forgot his meal, and his anger was diverted from
his mother to his step-father. Their first idea, of course, was that he had
hidden it. But Mr. Cave stoutly denied all knowledge of its fate--freely
offering his bedabbled affidavit in the matter--and at last was worked up to
the point of accusing, first, his wife and then his step-son of having take=
n it
with a view to a private sale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious and
emotional discussion, which ended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous condi=
tion
midway between hysterics and amuck, and caused the step-son to be half-an-h=
our
late at the furniture establishment in the afternoon. Mr. Cave took refuge =
from
his wife's emotions in the shop.
In the evening the
matter was resumed, with less passion and in a judicial spirit, under the
presidency of the step-daughter. The supper passed unhappily and culminated=
in
a painful scene. Mr. Cave gave way at last to extreme exasperation, and went
out banging the front door violently. The rest of the family, having discus=
sed
him with the freedom his absence warranted, hunted the house from garret to
cellar, hoping to light upon the crystal.
The next day the =
two
customers called again. They were received by Mrs. Cave almost in tears. It
transpired that no one could imagine all that she had stood from Cave at
various times in her married pilgrimage.... She also gave a garbled account=
of
the disappearance. The clergyman and the Oriental laughed silently at one
another, and said it was very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to
give them the complete history of her life they made to leave the shop.
Thereupon Mrs. Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's addr=
ess,
so that, if she could get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it. T=
he
address was duly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs. Cave can
remember nothing about it.
In the evening of
that day, the Caves seem to have exhausted their emotions, and Mr. Cave, who
had been out in the afternoon, supped in a gloomy isolation that contrasted
pleasantly with the impassioned controversy of the previous days. For some =
time
matters were very badly strained in the Cave household, but neither crystal=
nor
customer reappeared.
Now, without minc=
ing
the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar. He knew perfectly well
where the crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr. Jacoby Wace, Assistant
Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital, Westbourne Street. It stood on the
sideboard partially covered by a black velvet cloth, and beside a decanter =
of
American whisky. It is from Mr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon whi=
ch
this narrative is based were derived. Cave had taken off the thing to the
hospital hidden in the dog-fish sack, and there had pressed the young
investigator to keep it for him. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first. Hi=
s relationship
to Cave was peculiar. He had a taste for singular characters, and he had mo=
re
than once invited the old man to smoke and drink in his rooms, and to unfold
his rather amusing views of life in general and of his wife in particular. =
Mr.
Wace had encountered Mrs. Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave was not at =
home
to attend to him. He knew the constant interference to which Cave was
subjected, and having weighed the story judicially, he decided to give the
crystal a refuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons for his remarkab=
le affection
for the crystal more fully on a later occasion, but he spoke distinctly of
seeing visions therein. He called on Mr. Wace the same evening.
He told a complic=
ated
story. The crystal he said had come into his possession with other oddments=
at
the forced sale of another curiosity dealer's effects, and not knowing what=
its
value might be, he had ticketed it at ten shillings. It had hung upon his h=
ands
at that price for some months, and he was thinking of "reducing the
figure," when he made a singular discovery.
At that time his
health was very bad--and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this
experience, his physical condition was one of ebb--and he was in considerab=
le
distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment even, he
received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant,
unfeeling, and had a growing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter =
was
mean and over-reaching; and his step-son had conceived a violent dislike for
him, and lost no chance of showing it. The requirements of his business pre=
ssed
heavily upon him, and Mr. Wace does not think that he was altogether free f=
rom
occasional intemperance. He had begun life in a comfortable position, he wa=
s a
man of fair education, and he suffered, for weeks at a stretch, from
melancholia and insomnia. Afraid to disturb his family, he would slip quiet=
ly
from his wife's side, when his thoughts became intolerable, and wander about
the house. And about three o'clock one morning, late in August, chance dire=
cted
him into the shop.
The dirty little
place was impenetrably black except in one spot, where he perceived an unus=
ual
glow of light. Approaching this, he discovered it to be the crystal egg, wh=
ich
was standing on the corner of the counter towards the window. A thin ray sm=
ote
through a crack in the shutters, impinged upon the object, and seemed as it
were to fill its entire interior.
It occurred to Mr.
Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws of optics as he had known
them in his younger days. He could understand the rays being refracted by t=
he
crystal and coming to a focus in its interior, but this diffusion jarred wi=
th
his physical conceptions. He approached the crystal nearly, peering into it=
and
round it, with a transient revival of the scientific curiosity that in his
youth had determined his choice of a calling. He was surprised to find the
light not steady, but writhing within the substance of the egg, as though t=
hat object
was a hollow sphere of some luminous vapour. In moving about to get differe=
nt
points of view, he suddenly found that he had come between it and the ray, =
and
that the crystal none the less remained luminous. Greatly astonished, he li=
fted
it out of the light ray and carried it to the darkest part of the shop. It
remained bright for some four or five minutes, when it slowly faded and went
out. He placed it in the thin streak of daylight, and its luminousness was
almost immediately restored.
So far, at least,=
Mr.
Wace was able to verify the remarkable story of Mr. Cave. He has himself
repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light (which had to be of a less
diameter than one millimetre). And in a perfect darkness, such as could be
produced by velvet wrapping, the crystal did undoubtedly appear very faintly
phosphorescent. It would seem, however, that the luminousness was of some
exceptional sort, and not equally visible to all eyes; for Mr. Harbinger--w=
hose
name will be familiar to the scientific reader in connection with the Paste=
ur Institute--was
quite unable to see any light whatever. And Mr. Wace's own capacity for its
appreciation was out of comparison inferior to that of Mr. Cave's. Even with
Mr. Cave the power varied very considerably: his vision was most vivid duri=
ng
states of extreme weakness and fatigue.
Now, from the out=
set
this light in the crystal exercised a curious fascination upon Mr. Cave. An=
d it
says more for his loneliness of soul than a volume of pathetic writing could
do, that he told no human being of his curious observations. He seems to ha=
ve
been living in such an atmosphere of petty spite that to admit the existenc=
e of
a pleasure would have been to risk the loss of it. He found that as the daw=
n advanced,
and the amount of diffused light increased, the crystal became to all
appearance non-luminous. And for some time he was unable to see anything in=
it,
except at night-time, in dark corners of the shop.
But the use of an=
old
velvet cloth, which he used as a background for a collection of minerals,
occurred to him, and by doubling this, and putting it over his head and han=
ds,
he was able to get a sight of the luminous movement within the crystal even=
in
the daytime. He was very cautious lest he should be thus discovered by his
wife, and he practised this occupation only in the afternoons, while she was
asleep upstairs, and then circumspectly in a hollow under the counter. And =
one
day, turning the crystal about in his hands, he saw something. It came and =
went
like a flash, but it gave him the impression that the object had for a mome=
nt
opened to him the view of a wide and spacious and strange country; and, tur=
ning
it about, he did, just as the light faded, see the same vision again.
Now, it would be
tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases of Mr. Cave's discovery from
this point. Suffice that the effect was this: the crystal, being peered int=
o at
an angle of about 137 degrees from the direction of the illuminating ray, g=
ave
a clear and consistent picture of a wide and peculiar countryside. It was n=
ot
dream-like at all: it produced a definite impression of reality, and the be=
tter
the light the more real and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture: that =
is
to say, certain objects moved in it, but slowly in an orderly manner like r=
eal things,
and, according as the direction of the lighting and vision changed, the pic=
ture
changed also. It must, indeed, have been like looking through an oval glass=
at
a view, and turning the glass about to get at different aspects.
Mr. Cave's
statements, Mr. Wace assures me, were extremely circumstantial, and entirely
free from any of that emotional quality that taints hallucinatory impressio=
ns.
But it must be remembered that all the efforts of Mr. Wace to see any simil=
ar
clarity in the faint opalescence of the crystal were wholly unsuccessful, t=
ry
as he would. The difference in intensity of the impressions received by the=
two
men was very great, and it is quite conceivable that what was a view to Mr.=
Cave
was a mere blurred nebulosity to Mr. Wace.
The view, as Mr. = Cave described it, was invariably of an extensive plain, and he seemed always to= be looking at it from a considerable height, as if from a tower or a mast. To = the east and to the west the plain was bounded at a remote distance by vast red= dish cliffs, which reminded him of those he had seen in some picture; but what t= he picture was Mr. Wace was unable to ascertain. These cliffs passed north and= south--he could tell the points of the compass by the stars that were visible of a night--receding in an almost illimitable perspective and fading into the mi= sts of the distance before they met. He was nearer the eastern set of cliffs, on the occasion of his first vision the sun was rising over them, and black against the sunlight and pale against their shadow appeared a multitude of soaring forms that Mr. Cave regarded as birds. A vast range of buildings sp= read below him; he seemed to be looking down upon them; and, as they approached = the blurred and refracted edge of the picture, they became indistinct. There we= re also trees curious in shape, and in colouring, a deep mossy green and an ex= quisite grey, beside a wide and shining canal. And something great and brilliantly coloured flew across the picture. But the first time Mr. Cave saw these pictures he saw only in flashes, his hands shook, his head moved, the vision came and went, and grew foggy and indistinct. And at first he had the great= est difficulty in finding the picture again once the direction of it was lost.<= o:p>
His next clear
vision, which came about a week after the first, the interval having yielded
nothing but tantalising glimpses and some useful experience, showed him the
view down the length of the valley. The view was different, but he had a
curious persuasion, which his subsequent observations abundantly confirmed,
that he was regarding this strange world from exactly the same spot, althou=
gh
he was looking in a different direction. The long façade of the great
building, whose roof he had looked down upon before, was now receding in
perspective. He recognised the roof. In the front of the façade was a
terrace of massive proportions and extraordinary length, and down the middl=
e of
the terrace, at certain intervals, stood huge but very graceful masts, bear=
ing
small shiny objects which reflected the setting sun. The import of these sm=
all
objects did not occur to Mr. Cave until some time after, as he was describi=
ng
the scene to Mr. Wace. The terrace overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant=
and
graceful vegetation, and beyond this was a wide grassy lawn on which certain
broad creatures, in form like beetles but enormously larger, reposed. Beyond
this again was a richly decorated causeway of pinkish stone; and beyond tha=
t,
and lined with dense red weeds, and passing up the valley exactly parallel =
with
the distant cliffs, was a broad and mirror-like expanse of water. The air s=
eemed
full of squadrons of great birds, manœuvring in stately curves; and ac=
ross
the river was a multitude of splendid buildings, richly coloured and glitte=
ring
with metallic tracery and facets, among a forest of moss-like and lichenous
trees. And suddenly something flapped repeatedly across the vision, like the
fluttering of a jewelled fan or the beating of a wing, and a face, or rather
the upper part of a face with very large eyes, came as it were close to his=
own
and as if on the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and so
impressed by the absolute reality of these eyes, that he drew his head back
from the crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watching t=
hat
he was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of his little s=
hop,
with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. And, as he blinked
about him, the glowing crystal faded, and went out.
Such were the fir=
st
general impressions of Mr. Cave. The story is curiously direct and
circumstantial. From the outset, when the valley first flashed momentarily =
on
his senses, his imagination was strangely affected, and, as he began to
appreciate the details of the scene he saw, his wonder rose to the point of=
a
passion. He went about his business listless and distraught, thinking only =
of
the time when he should be able to return to his watching. And then a few w=
eeks
after his first sight of the valley came the two customers, the stress and =
excitement
of their offer, and the narrow escape of the crystal from sale, as I have
already told.
Now, while the th=
ing
was Mr. Cave's secret, it remained a mere wonder, a thing to creep to cover=
tly
and peep at, as a child might peep upon a forbidden garden. But Mr. Wace ha=
s,
for a young scientific investigator, a particularly lucid and consecutive h=
abit
of mind. Directly the crystal and its story came to him, and he had satisfi=
ed
himself, by seeing the phosphorescence with his own eyes, that there really=
was
a certain evidence for Mr. Cave's statements, he proceeded to develop the
matter systematically. Mr. Cave was only too eager to come and feast his ey=
es on
this wonderland he saw, and he came every night from half-past eight until
half-past ten, and sometimes, in Mr. Wace's absence, during the day. On Sun=
day
afternoons, also, he came. From the outset Mr. Wace made copious notes, and=
it
was due to his scientific method that the relation between the direction fr=
om
which the initiating ray entered the crystal and the orientation of the pic=
ture
were proved. And, by covering the crystal in a box perforated only with a s=
mall
aperture to admit the exciting ray, and by substituting black holland for h=
is
buff blinds, he greatly improved the conditions of the observations; so tha=
t in
a little while they were able to survey the valley in any direction they
desired.
So having cleared=
the
way, we may give a brief account of this visionary world within the crystal.
The things were in all cases seen by Mr. Cave, and the method of working was
invariably for him to watch the crystal and report what he saw, while Mr. W=
ace
(who as a science student had learnt the trick of writing in the dark) wrot=
e a
brief note of his report. When the crystal faded, it was put into its box in
the proper position and the electric light turned on. Mr. Wace asked questi=
ons,
and suggested observations to clear up difficult points. Nothing, indeed, c=
ould
have been less visionary and more matter-of-fact.
The attention of =
Mr.
Cave had been speedily directed to the bird-like creatures he had seen so
abundantly present in each of his earlier visions. His first impression was
soon corrected, and he considered for a time that they might represent a
diurnal species of bat. Then he thought, grotesquely enough, that they migh=
t be
cherubs. Their heads were round, and curiously human, and it was the eyes of
one of them that had so startled him on his second observation. They had br=
oad,
silvery wings, not feathered, but glistening almost as brilliantly as
new-killed fish and with the same subtle play of colour, and these wings we=
re
not built on the plan of bird-wing or bat, Mr. Wace learned, but supported =
by
curved ribs radiating from the body. (A sort of butterfly wing with curved =
ribs
seems best to express their appearance.) The body was small, but fitted with
two bunches of prehensile organs, like long tentacles, immediately under the
mouth. Incredible as it appeared to Mr. Wace, the persuasion at last became
irresistible, that it was these creatures which owned the great quasi-human
buildings and the magnificent garden that made the broad valley so splendid.
And Mr. Cave perceived that the buildings, with other peculiarities, had no
doors, but that the great circular windows, which opened freely, gave the
creatures egress and entrance. They would alight upon their tentacles, fold
their wings to a smallness almost rod-like, and hop into the interior. But =
among
them was a multitude of smaller-winged creatures, like great dragon-flies a=
nd moths
and flying beetles, and across the greensward brilliantly-coloured gigantic
ground-beetles crawled lazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways and
terraces, large-headed creatures similar to the greater winged flies, but
wingless, were visible, hopping busily upon their hand-like tangle of
tentacles.
Allusion has alre=
ady
been made to the glittering objects upon masts that stood upon the terrace =
of
the nearer building. It dawned upon Mr. Cave, after regarding one of these
masts very fixedly on one particularly vivid day, that the glittering object
there was a crystal exactly like that into which he peered. And a still more
careful scrutiny convinced him that each one in a vista of nearly twenty
carried a similar object.
Occasionally one =
of
the large flying creatures would flutter up to one, and, folding its wings =
and
coiling a number of its tentacles about the mast, would regard the crystal
fixedly for a space,--sometimes for as long as fifteen minutes. And a serie=
s of
observations, made at the suggestion of Mr. Wace, convinced both watchers t=
hat,
so far as this visionary world was concerned, the crystal into which they
peered actually stood at the summit of the endmost mast on the terrace, and=
that
on one occasion at least one of these inhabitants of this other world had
looked into Mr. Cave's face while he was making these observations.
So much for the
essential facts of this very singular story. Unless we dismiss it all as the
ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have to believe one of two things: ei=
ther
that Mr. Cave's crystal was in two worlds at once, and that, while it was
carried about in one, it remained stationary in the other, which seems
altogether absurd; or else that it had some peculiar relation of sympathy w=
ith
another and exactly similar crystal in this other world, so that what was s=
een
in the interior of the one in this world was, under suitable conditions,
visible to an observer in the corresponding crystal in the other world; and
vice versa. At present, indeed, we do not know of any way in which two crys=
tals
could so come en rapport, but nowadays we know enough to understand that the
thing is not altogether impossible. This view of the crystals as en rapport=
was
the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace, and to me at least it seems
extremely plausible....
And where was this
other world? On this, also, the alert intelligence of Mr. Wace speedily thr=
ew
light. After sunset, the sky darkened rapidly--there was a very brief twili=
ght
interval indeed--and the stars shone out. They were recognisably the same as
those we see, arranged in the same constellations. Mr. Cave recognised the
Bear, the Pleiades, Aldebaran, and Sirius: so that the other world must be =
somewhere
in the solar system, and, at the utmost, only a few hundreds of millions of=
miles
from our own. Following up this clue, Mr. Wace learned that the midnight sky
was a darker blue even than our midwinter sky, and that the sun seemed a li=
ttle
smaller. And there were two small moons! "like our moon but smaller, a=
nd
quite differently marked" one of which moved so rapidly that its motion
was clearly visible as one regarded it. These moons were never high in the =
sky,
but vanished as they rose: that is, every time they revolved they were ecli=
psed
because they were so near their primary planet. And all this answers quite
completely, although Mr. Cave did not know it, to what must be the conditio=
n of
things on Mars.
Indeed, it seems =
an
exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering into this crystal Mr. Cave did
actually see the planet Mars and its inhabitants. And, if that be the case,
then the evening star that shone so brilliantly in the sky of that distant
vision, was neither more nor less than our own familiar earth.
For a time the
Martians--if they were Martians--do not seem to have known of Mr. Cave's
inspection. Once or twice one would come to peer, and go away very shortly =
to
some other mast, as though the vision was unsatisfactory. During this time =
Mr.
Cave was able to watch the proceedings of these winged people without being
disturbed by their attentions, and, although his report is necessarily vague
and fragmentary, it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression=
of
humanity a Martian observer would get who, after a difficult process of
preparation and with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able to peer at
London from the steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches, at longest, of
four minutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain if the winged Mart=
ians
were the same as the Martians who hopped about the causeways and terraces, =
and
if the latter could put on wings at will. He several times saw certain clum=
sy
bipeds, dimly suggestive of apes, white and partially translucent, feeding
among certain of the lichenous trees, and once some of these fled before on=
e of
the hopping, round-headed Martians. The latter caught one in its tentacles,=
and
then the picture faded suddenly and left Mr. Cave most tantalisingly in the
dark. On another occasion a vast thing, that Mr. Cave thought at first was =
some
gigantic insect, appeared advancing along the causeway beside the canal with
extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearer Mr. Cave perceived that it was a
mechanism of shining metals and of extraordinary complexity. And then, when=
he
looked again, it had passed out of sight.
After a time Mr. =
Wace
aspired to attract the attention of the Martians, and the next time that the
strange eyes of one of them appeared close to the crystal Mr. Cave cried out
and sprang away, and they immediately turned on the light and began to
gesticulate in a manner suggestive of signalling. But when at last Mr. Cave
examined the crystal again the Martian had departed.
Thus far these
observations had progressed in early November, and then Mr. Cave, feeling t=
hat
the suspicions of his family about the crystal were allayed, began to take =
it
to and fro with him in order that, as occasion arose in the daytime or nigh=
t,
he might comfort himself with what was fast becoming the most real thing in=
his
existence.
In December Mr.
Wace's work in connection with a forthcoming examination became heavy, the
sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week, and for ten or eleven days-=
-he
is not quite sure which--he saw nothing of Cave. He then grew anxious to re=
sume
these investigations, and, the stress of his seasonal labours being abated,=
he
went down to Seven Dials. At the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird
fancier's window, and then another at a cobbler's. Mr. Cave's shop was clos=
ed.
He rapped and the
door was opened by the step-son in black. He at once called Mrs. Cave, who =
was,
Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap but ample widow's weeds of the most
imposing pattern. Without any very great surprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave=
was
dead and already buried. She was in tears, and her voice was a little thick.
She had just returned from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own
prospects and the honourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at =
last
able to learn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in his
shop in the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace, and the
crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was smiling, said
Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on the floor at his f=
eet.
He must have been dead five or six hours when he was found.
This came as a gr= eat shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himself bitterly for having neglect= ed the plain symptoms of the old man's ill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached that topic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities. He was dumbfoundered to learn that it was sold.<= o:p>
Mrs. Cave's first
impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs, had been to write to=
the
mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for the crystal, informing him of=
its
recovery; but after a violent hunt in which her daughter joined her, they w=
ere
convinced of the loss of his address. As they were without the means requir=
ed
to mourn and bury Cave in the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven D=
ials
inhabitant demands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Gre=
at Portland
Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at a valuation.
The valuation was his own and the crystal egg was included in one of the lo=
ts.
Mr. Wace, after a few suitable consolatory observations, a little off-hande=
dly
proffered perhaps, hurried at once to Great Portland Street. But there he
learned that the crystal egg had already been sold to a tall, dark man in g=
rey.
And there the material facts in this curious, and to me at least very
suggestive, story come abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Street dealer=
did
not know who the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observed him with
sufficient attention to describe him minutely. He did not even know which w=
ay
this person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained i=
n the
shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, venting his own
exasperation. And at last, realising abruptly that the whole thing had pass=
ed
out of his hands, had vanished like a vision of the night, he returned to h=
is
own rooms, a little astonished to find the notes he had made still tangible=
and
visible upon his untidy table.
His annoyance and
disappointment were naturally very great. He made a second call (equally
ineffectual) upon the Great Portland Street dealer, and he resorted to
advertisements in such periodicals as were likely to come into the hands of=
a
bric-a-brac collector. He also wrote letters to The Daily Chronicle and Nat=
ure,
but both those periodicals, suspecting a hoax, asked him to reconsider his
action before they printed, and he was advised that such a strange story,
unfortunately so bare of supporting evidence, might imperil his reputation =
as
an investigator. Moreover, the calls of his proper work were urgent. So that
after a month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certain dealers, he=
had
reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg, and from that day to =
this
it remains undiscovered. Occasionally, however, he tells me, and I can quite
believe him, he has bursts of zeal, in which he abandons his more urgent
occupation and resumes the search.
Whether or not it
will remain lost for ever, with the material and origin of it, are things
equally speculative at the present time. If the present purchaser is a
collector, one would have expected the enquiries of Mr. Wace to have reached
him through the dealers. He has been able to discover Mr. Cave's clergyman =
and
"Oriental"--no other than the Rev. James Parker and the young Pri=
nce
of Bosso-Kuni in Java. I am obliged to them for certain particulars. The ob=
ject
of the Prince was simply curiosity--and extravagance. He was so eager to bu=
y,
because Cave was so oddly reluctant to sell. It is just as possible that the
buyer in the second instance was simply a casual purchaser and not a collec=
tor
at all, and the crystal egg, for all I know, may at the present moment be w=
ithin
a mile of me, decorating a drawing-room or serving as a paper-weight--its
remarkable functions all unknown. Indeed, it is partly with the idea of suc=
h a
possibility that I have thrown this narrative into a form that will give it=
a
chance of being read by the ordinary consumer of fiction.
My own ideas in t=
he
matter are practically identical with those of Mr. Wace. I believe the crys=
tal
on the mast in Mars and the crystal egg of Mr. Cave's to be in some physica=
l,
but at present quite inexplicable, way en rapport, and we both believe furt=
her
that the terrestrial crystal must have been--possibly at some remote date--=
sent
hither from that planet, in order to give the Martians a near view of our
affairs. Possibly the fellows to the crystals in the other masts are also on
our globe. No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts.
It was on the first day of the new =
year
that the announcement was made, almost simultaneously from three observator=
ies,
that the motion of the planet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that
wheel about the sun, had become very erratic. Ogilvy had already called
attention to a suspected retardation in its velocity in December. Such a pi=
ece
of news was scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater portion of
whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, nor =
outside
the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of a faint remote
speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet cause any very great
excitement. Scientific people, however, found the intelligence remarkable e=
nough,
even before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and
brighter, that its motion was quite different from the orderly progress of =
the
planets, and that the deflection of Neptune and its satellite was becoming =
now
of an unprecedented kind.
Few people withou=
t a
training in science can realise the huge isolation of the solar system. The=
sun
with its specks of planets, its dust of planetoids, and its impalpable come=
ts,
swims in a vacant immensity that almost defeats the imagination. Beyond the
orbit of Neptune there is space, vacant so far as human observation has
penetrated, without warmth or light or sound, blank emptiness, for twenty
million times a million miles. That is the smallest estimate of the distanc=
e to
be traversed before the very nearest of the stars is attained. And, saving a
few comets more unsubstantial than the thinnest flame, no matter had ever t=
o human
knowledge crossed this gulf of space, until early in the twentieth century =
this
strange wanderer appeared. A vast mass of matter it was, bulky, heavy, rush=
ing
without warning out of the black mystery of the sky into the radiance of the
sun. By the second day it was clearly visible to any decent instrument, as a
speck with a barely sensible diameter, in the constellation Leo near Regulu=
s.
In a little while an opera glass could attain it.
On the third day =
of
the new year the newspaper readers of two hemispheres were made aware for t=
he
first time of the real importance of this unusual apparition in the heavens.
"A Planetary Collision," one London paper headed the news, and
proclaimed Duchaine's opinion that this strange new planet would probably
collide with Neptune. The leader writers enlarged upon the topic. So that in
most of the capitals of the world, on January 3rd, there was an expectation,
however vague of some imminent phenomenon in the sky; and as the night foll=
owed
the sunset round the globe, thousands of men turned their eyes skyward to
see--the old familiar stars just as they had always been.
Until it was dawn=
in
London and Pollux setting and the stars overhead grown pale. The Winter's d=
awn
it was, a sickly filtering accumulation of daylight, and the light of gas a=
nd
candles shone yellow in the windows to show where people were astir. But the
yawning policeman saw the thing, the busy crowds in the markets stopped aga=
pe,
workmen going to their work betimes, milkmen, the drivers of news-carts,
dissipation going home jaded and pale, homeless wanderers, sentinels on the=
ir
beats, and in the country, labourers trudging afield, poachers slinking hom=
e, all
over the dusky quickening country it could be seen--and out at sea by seamen
watching for the day--a great white star, come suddenly into the westward s=
ky!
Brighter it was t=
han
any star in our skies; brighter than the evening star at its brightest. It
still glowed out white and large, no mere twinkling spot of light, but a sm=
all
round clear shining disc, an hour after the day had come. And where science=
has
not reached, men stared and feared, telling one another of the wars and
pestilences that are foreshadowed by these fiery signs in the Heavens. Stur=
dy
Boers, dusky Hottentots, Gold Coast negroes, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portugue=
se,
stood in the warmth of the sunrise watching the setting of this strange new=
star.
And in a hundred
observatories there had been suppressed excitement, rising almost to shouti=
ng
pitch, as the two remote bodies had rushed together, and a hurrying to and =
fro,
to gather photographic apparatus and spectroscope, and this appliance and t=
hat,
to record this novel astonishing sight, the destruction of a world. For it =
was
a world, a sister planet of our earth, far greater than our earth indeed, t=
hat
had so suddenly flashed into flaming death. Neptune it was, had been struck=
, fairly
and squarely, by the strange planet from outer space and the heat of the
concussion had incontinently turned two solid globes into one vast mass of
incandescence. Round the world that day, two hours before the dawn, went the
pallid great white star, fading only as it sank westward and the sun mounted
above it. Everywhere men marvelled at it, but of all those who saw it none
could have marvelled more than those sailors, habitual watchers of the star=
s,
who far away at sea had heard nothing of its advent and saw it now rise lik=
e a
pigmy moon and climb zenithward and hang overhead and sink westward with the
passing of the night.
And when next it =
rose
over Europe everywhere were crowds of watchers on hilly slopes, on house-ro=
ofs,
in open spaces, staring eastward for the rising of the great new star. It r=
ose
with a white glow in front of it, like the glare of a white fire, and those=
who
had seen it come into existence the night before cried out at the sight of =
it.
"It is larger," they cried. "It is brighter!" And, inde=
ed
the moon a quarter full and sinking in the west was in its apparent size be=
yond
comparison, but scarcely in all its breadth had it as much brightness now as
the little circle of the strange new star.
"It is
brighter!" cried the people clustering in the streets. But in the dim
observatories the watchers held their breath and peered at one another.
"It is nearer," they said. "Nearer!"
And voice after v=
oice
repeated, "It is nearer," and the clicking telegraph took that up,
and it trembled along telephone wires, and in a thousand cities grimy
compositors fingered the type. "It is nearer." Men writing in
offices, struck with a strange realisation, flung down their pens, men talk=
ing
in a thousand places suddenly came upon a grotesque possibility in those wo=
rds,
"It is nearer." It hurried along awakening streets, it was shouted
down the frost-stilled ways of quiet villages, men who had read these things
from the throbbing tape stood in yellow-lit doorways shouting the news to t=
he
passers-by. "It is nearer." Pretty women, flushed and glittering,
heard the news told jestingly between the dances, and feigned an intelligent
interest they did not feel. "Nearer! Indeed. How curious! How very, ve=
ry
clever people must be to find out things like that!"
Lonely tramps far=
ing
through the wintry night murmured those words to comfort themselves--looking
skyward. "It has need to be nearer, for the night's as cold as charity.
Don't seem much warmth from it if it is nearer, all the same."
"What is a n=
ew
star to me?" cried the weeping woman kneeling beside her dead.
The schoolboy, ri=
sing
early for his examination work, puzzled it out for himself--with the great
white star, shining broad and bright through the frost-flowers of his windo=
w.
"Centrifugal, centripetal," he said, with his chin on his fist.
"Stop a planet in its flight, rob it of its centrifugal force, what th=
en?
Centripetal has it, and down it falls into the sun! And this--!"
"Do we come =
in
the way? I wonder--"
The light of that=
day
went the way of its brethren, and with the later watches of the frosty dark=
ness
rose the strange star again. And it was now so bright that the waxing moon
seemed but a pale yellow ghost of itself, hanging huge in the sunset. In a
South African city a great man had married, and the streets were alight to
welcome his return with his bride. "Even the skies have illuminated,&q=
uot;
said the flatterer. Under Capricorn, two negro lovers, daring the wild beas=
ts
and evil spirits, for love of one another, crouched together in a cane brake
where the fire-flies hovered. "That is our star," they whispered,=
and
felt strangely comforted by the sweet brilliance of its light.
The master
mathematician sat in his private room and pushed the papers from him. His
calculations were already finished. In a small white phial there still rema=
ined
a little of the drug that had kept him awake and active for four long night=
s.
Each day, serene, explicit, patient as ever, he had given his lecture to his
students, and then had come back at once to this momentous calculation. His
face was grave, a little drawn and hectic from his drugged activity. For so=
me
time he seemed lost in thought. Then he went to the window, and the blind w=
ent
up with a click. Half way up the sky, over the clustering roofs, chimneys a=
nd steeples
of the city, hung the star.
He looked at it as
one might look into the eyes of a brave enemy. "You may kill me,"=
he
said after a silence. "But I can hold you--and all the universe for th=
at
matter--in the grip of this little brain. I would not change. Even now.&quo=
t;
He looked at the
little phial. "There will be no need of sleep again," he said. The
next day at noon, punctual to the minute, he entered his lecture theatre, p=
ut
his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and carefully selected a
large piece of chalk. It was a joke among his students that he could not
lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers, and once he h=
ad
been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply. He came and looked u=
nder
his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers of young fresh faces, and spoke with =
his
accustomed studied commonness of phrasing. "Circumstances have
arisen--circumstances beyond my control," he said and paused, "wh=
ich
will debar me from completing the course I had designed. It would seem,
gentlemen, if I may put the thing clearly and briefly, that--Man has lived =
in
vain."
The students glan=
ced
at one another. Had they heard aright? Mad? Raised eyebrows and grinning li=
ps
there were, but one or two faces remained intent upon his calm grey-fringed
face. "It will be interesting," he was saying, "to devote th=
is
morning to an exposition, so far as I can make it clear to you, of the
calculations that have led me to this conclusion. Let us assume--"
He turned towards=
the
blackboard, meditating a diagram in the way that was usual to him. "Wh=
at
was that about 'lived in vain?'" whispered one student to another.
"Listen," said the other, nodding towards the lecturer.
And presently they
began to understand.
That night the st=
ar
rose later, for its proper eastward motion had carried it some way across L=
eo
towards Virgo, and its brightness was so great that the sky became a lumino=
us
blue as it rose, and every star was hidden in its turn, save only Jupiter n=
ear
the zenith, Capella, Aldebaran, Sirius and the pointers of the Bear. It was=
very
white and beautiful. In many parts of the world that night a pallid halo
encircled it about. It was perceptibly larger; in the clear refractive sky =
of
the tropics it seemed as if it were nearly a quarter the size of the moon. =
The
frost was still on the ground in England, but the world was as brightly lit=
as
if it were midsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary print =
by
that cold clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and wan.
And everywhere the
world was awake that night, and throughout Christendom a sombre murmur hung=
in
the keen air over the countryside like the belling of bees in the heather, =
and
this murmurous tumult grew to a clangour in the cities. It was the tolling =
of
the bells in a million belfry towers and steeples, summoning the people to
sleep no more, to sin no more, but to gather in their churches and pray. An=
d overhead,
growing larger and brighter, as the earth rolled on its way and the night
passed, rose the dazzling star.
And the streets a=
nd
houses were alight in all the cities, the shipyards glared, and whatever ro=
ads
led to high country were lit and crowded all night long. And in all the seas
about the civilised lands, ships with throbbing engines, and ships with
bellying sails, crowded with men and living creatures, were standing out to
ocean and the north. For already the warning of the master mathematician had
been telegraphed all over the world, and translated into a hundred tongues.=
The
new planet and Neptune, locked in a fiery embrace, were whirling headlong, =
ever
faster and faster towards the sun. Already every second this blazing mass f=
lew a
hundred miles, and every second its terrific velocity increased. As it flew
now, indeed, it must pass a hundred million of miles wide of the earth and
scarcely affect it. But near its destined path, as yet only slightly pertur=
bed,
spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moons sweeping splendid round the su=
n.
Every moment now the attraction between the fiery star and the greatest of =
the
planets grew stronger. And the result of that attraction? Inevitably Jupiter
would be deflected from its orbit into an elliptical path, and the burning
star, swung by his attraction wide of its sunward rush, would "describ=
e a
curved path" and perhaps collide with, and certainly pass very close t=
o,
our earth. "Earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, floo=
ds,
and a steady rise in temperature to I know not what limit"--so prophes=
ied
the master mathematician.
And overhead, to
carry out his words, lonely and cold and livid, blazed the star of the comi=
ng
doom.
To many who stare= d at it that night until their eyes ached, it seemed that it was visibly approaching. And that night, too, the weather changed, and the frost that h= ad gripped all Central Europe and France and England softened towards a thaw.<= o:p>
But you must not
imagine because I have spoken of people praying through the night and people
going aboard ships and people fleeing towards mountainous country that the
whole world was already in a terror because of the star. As a matter of fac=
t,
use and wont still ruled the world, and save for the talk of idle moments a=
nd
the splendour of the night, nine human beings out of ten were still busy at
their common occupations. In all the cities the shops, save one here and th=
ere,
opened and closed at their proper hours, the doctor and the undertaker plied
their trades, the workers gathered in the factories, soldiers drilled, scho=
lars
studied, lovers sought one another, thieves lurked and fled, politicians
planned their schemes. The presses of the newspapers roared through the nig=
hts,
and many a priest of this church and that would not open his holy building =
to
further what he considered a foolish panic. The newspapers insisted on the
lesson of the year 1000--for then, too, people had anticipated the end. The
star was no star--mere gas--a comet; and were it a star it could not possib=
ly
strike the earth. There was no precedent for such a thing. Common sense was
sturdy everywhere, scornful, jesting, a little inclined to persecute the
obdurate fearful. That night, at seven-fifteen by Greenwich time, the star
would be at its nearest to Jupiter. Then the world would see the turn things
would take. The master mathematician's grim warnings were treated by many a=
s so
much mere elaborate self-advertisement. Common sense at last, a little heat=
ed by
argument, signified its unalterable convictions by going to bed. So, too,
barbarism and savagery, already tired of the novelty, went about their nigh=
tly
business, and save for a howling dog here and there, the beast world left t=
he
star unheeded.
And yet, when at =
last
the watchers in the European States saw the star rise, an hour later it is
true, but no larger than it had been the night before, there were still ple=
nty
awake to laugh at the master mathematician--to take the danger as if it had
passed.
But hereafter the
laughter ceased. The star grew--it grew with a terrible steadiness hour aft=
er
hour, a little larger each hour, a little nearer the midnight zenith, and
brighter and brighter, until it had turned night into a second day. Had it =
come
straight to the earth instead of in a curved path, had it lost no velocity =
to
Jupiter, it must have leapt the intervening gulf in a day, but as it was it
took five days altogether to come by our planet. The next night it had beco=
me a
third the size of the moon before it set to English eyes, and the thaw was
assured. It rose over America near the size of the moon, but blinding white=
to
look at, and hot; and a breath of hot wind blew now with its rising and
gathering strength, and in Virginia, and Brazil, and down the St. Lawrence
valley, it shone intermittently through a driving reek of thunder-clouds,
flickering violet lightning, and hail unprecedented. In Manitoba was a thaw=
and
devastating floods. And upon all the mountains of the earth the snow and ice
began to melt that night, and all the rivers coming out of high country flo=
wed
thick and turbid, and soon--in their upper reaches--with swirling trees and=
the
bodies of beasts and men. They rose steadily, steadily in the ghostly brill=
iance,
and came trickling over their banks at last, behind the flying population of
their valleys.
And along the coa=
st
of Argentina and up the South Atlantic the tides were higher than had ever =
been
in the memory of man, and the storms drove the waters in many cases scores =
of
miles inland, drowning whole cities. And so great grew the heat during the
night that the rising of the sun was like the coming of a shadow. The
earthquakes began and grew until all down America from the Arctic Circle to=
Cape
Horn, hillsides were sliding, fissures were opening, and houses and walls
crumbling to destruction. The whole side of Cotopaxi slipped out in one vas=
t convulsion,
and a tumult of lava poured out so high and broad and swift and liquid that=
in
one day it reached the sea.
So the star, with=
the
wan moon in its wake, marched across the Pacific, trailed the thunderstorms
like the hem of a robe, and the growing tidal wave that toiled behind it,
frothing and eager, poured over island and island and swept them clear of m=
en.
Until that wave came at last--in a blinding light and with the breath of a
furnace, swift and terrible it came--a wall of water, fifty feet high, roar=
ing
hungrily, upon the long coasts of Asia, and swept inland across the plains =
of
China. For a space the star, hotter now and larger and brighter than the su=
n in
its strength, showed with pitiless brilliance the wide and populous country=
; towns
and villages with their pagodas and trees, roads, wide cultivated fields,
millions of sleepless people staring in helpless terror at the incandescent
sky; and then, low and growing, came the murmur of the flood. And thus it w=
as
with millions of men that night--a flight nowhither, with limbs heavy with =
heat
and breath fierce and scant, and the flood like a wall swift and white behi=
nd.
And then death.
China was lit glo= wing white, but over Japan and Java and all the islands of Eastern Asia the great star was a ball of dull red fire because of the steam and smoke and ashes t= he volcanoes were spouting forth to salute its coming. Above was the lava, hot gases and ash, and below the seething floods, and the whole earth swayed and rumbled with the earthquake shocks. Soon the immemorial snows of Thibet and= the Himalaya were melting and pouring down by ten million deepening converging = channels upon the plains of Burmah and Hindostan. The tangled summits of the Indian jungles were aflame in a thousand places, and below the hurrying waters aro= und the stems were dark objects that still struggled feebly and reflected the b= lood-red tongues of fire. And in a rudderless confusion a multitude of men and women fled down the broad river-ways to that one last hope of men--the open sea.<= o:p>
Larger grew the s=
tar,
and larger, hotter, and brighter with a terrible swiftness now. The tropical
ocean had lost its phosphorescence, and the whirling steam rose in ghostly
wreaths from the black waves that plunged incessantly, speckled with
storm-tossed ships.
And then came a
wonder. It seemed to those who in Europe watched for the rising of the star
that the world must have ceased its rotation. In a thousand open spaces of =
down
and upland the people who had fled thither from the floods and the falling
houses and sliding slopes of hill watched for that rising in vain. Hour
followed hour through a terrible suspense, and the star rose not. Once again
men set their eyes upon the old constellations they had counted lost to them
forever. In England it was hot and clear overhead, though the ground quiver=
ed
perpetually, but in the tropics, Sirius and Capella and Aldebaran showed
through a veil of steam. And when at last the great star rose near ten hours
late, the sun rose close upon it, and in the centre of its white heart was a
disc of black.
Over Asia it was =
the
star had begun to fall behind the movement of the sky, and then suddenly, a=
s it
hung over India, its light had been veiled. All the plain of India from the
mouth of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges was a shallow waste of shini=
ng
water that night, out of which rose temples and palaces, mounds and hills,
black with people. Every minaret was a clustering mass of people, who fell =
one
by one into the turbid waters, as heat and terror overcame them. The whole =
land
seemed a-wailing, and suddenly there swept a shadow across that furnace of
despair, and a breath of cold wind, and a gathering of clouds, out of the
cooling air. Men looking up, near blinded, at the star, saw that a black di=
sc
was creeping across the light. It was the moon, coming between the star and=
the
earth. And even as men cried to God at this respite, out of the East with a
strange inexplicable swiftness sprang the sun. And then star, sun and moon
rushed together across the heavens.
So it was that
presently, to the European watchers, star and sun rose close upon each othe=
r,
drove headlong for a space and then slower, and at last came to rest, star =
and
sun merged into one glare of flame at the zenith of the sky. The moon no lo=
nger
eclipsed the star but was lost to sight in the brilliance of the sky. And
though those who were still alive regarded it for the most part with that d=
ull
stupidity that hunger, fatigue, heat and despair engender, there were still=
men
who could perceive the meaning of these signs. Star and earth had been at t=
heir
nearest, had swung about one another, and the star had passed. Already it w=
as
receding, swifter and swifter, in the last stage of its headlong journey
downward into the sun.
And then the clou=
ds
gathered, blotting out the vision of the sky, the thunder and lightning wov=
e a
garment round the world; all over the earth was such a downpour of rain as =
men
had never before seen, and where the volcanoes flared red against the cloud
canopy there descended torrents of mud. Everywhere the waters were pouring =
off
the land, leaving mud-silted ruins, and the earth littered like a storm-worn
beach with all that had floated, and the dead bodies of the men and brutes,=
its
children. For days the water streamed off the land, sweeping away soil and
trees and houses in the way, and piling huge dykes and scooping out Titanic=
gullies
over the country side. Those were the days of darkness that followed the st=
ar
and the heat. All through them, and for many weeks and months, the earthqua=
kes
continued.
But the star had
passed, and men, hunger-driven and gathering courage only slowly, might cre=
ep
back to their ruined cities, buried granaries, and sodden fields. Such few
ships as had escaped the storms of that time came stunned and shattered and
sounding their way cautiously through the new marks and shoals of once fami=
liar
ports. And as the storms subsided men perceived that everywhere the days we=
re
hotter than of yore, and the sun larger, and the moon, shrunk to a third of=
its
former size, took now fourscore days between its new and new.
But of the new
brotherhood that grew presently among men, of the saving of laws and books =
and
machines, of the strange change that had come over Iceland and Greenland and
the shores of Baffin's Bay, so that the sailors coming there presently found
them green and gracious, and could scarce believe their eyes, this story do=
es
not tell. Nor of the movement of mankind now that the earth was hotter,
northward and southward towards the poles of the earth. It concerns itself =
only
with the coming and the passing of the Star.
The Martian
astronomers--for there are astronomers on Mars, although they are very
different beings from men--were naturally profoundly interested by these
things. They saw them from their own standpoint of course. "Considering
the mass and temperature of the missile that was flung through our solar sy=
stem
into the sun," one wrote, "it is astonishing what a little damage=
the
earth, which it missed so narrowly, has sustained. All the familiar contine=
ntal
markings and the masses of the seas remain intact, and indeed the only
difference seems to be a shrinkage of the white discolouration (supposed to=
be
frozen water) round either pole." Which only shows how small the vaste=
st
of human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles.
A STORY OF THE STONE AGE<=
/span>
This story is of a
time beyond the memory of man, before the beginning of history, a time when=
one
might have walked dryshod from France (as we call it now) to England, and w=
hen
a broad and sluggish Thames flowed through its marshes to meet its father R=
hine,
flowing through a wide and level country that is under water in these latter
days, and which we know by the name of the North Sea. In that remote age the
valley which runs along the foot of the Downs did not exist, and the south =
of
Surrey was a range of hills, fir-clad on the middle slopes, and snow-capped=
for
the better part of the year. The cores of its summits still remain as Leith
Hill, and Pitch Hill, and Hindhead. On the lower slopes of the range, below=
the
grassy spaces where the wild horses grazed, were forests of yew and
sweet-chestnut and elm, and the thickets and dark places hid the grizzly be=
ar
and the hyæna, and the grey apes clambered through the branches. And
still lower amidst the woodland and marsh and open grass along the Wey did =
this
little drama play itself out to the end that I have to tell. Fifty thousand
years ago it was, fifty thousand years--if the reckoning of geologists is
correct.
And in those days=
the
spring-time was as joyful as it is now, and sent the blood coursing in just=
the
same fashion. The afternoon sky was blue with piled white clouds sailing
through it, and the southwest wind came like a soft caress. The new-come
swallows drove to and fro. The reaches of the river were spangled with white
ranunculus, the marshy places were starred with lady's-smock and lit with
marsh-mallow wherever the regiments of the sedges lowered their swords, and=
the
northward-moving hippopotami, shiny black monsters, sporting clumsily, came
floundering and blundering through it all, rejoicing dimly and possessed wi=
th
one clear idea, to splash the river muddy.
Up the river and =
well
in sight of the hippopotami, a number of little buff-coloured animals dabbl=
ed
in the water. There was no fear, no rivalry, and no enmity between them and=
the
hippopotami. As the great bulks came crashing through the reeds and smashed=
the
mirror of the water into silvery splashes, these little creatures shouted a=
nd gesticulated
with glee. It was the surest sign of high spring. "Boloo!" they
cried. "Baayah. Boloo!" They were the children of the men folk, t=
he smoke
of whose encampment rose from the knoll at the river's bend. Wild-eyed
youngsters they were, with matted hair and little broad-nosed impish faces,
covered (as some children are covered even nowadays) with a delicate down of
hair. They were narrow in the loins and long in the arms. And their ears ha=
d no
lobes, and had little pointed tips, a thing that still, in rare instances,
survives. Stark-naked vivid little gipsies, as active as monkeys and as ful=
l of
chatter, though a little wanting in words.
Their elders were
hidden from the wallowing hippopotami by the crest of the knoll. The human
squatting-place was a trampled area among the dead brown fronds of Royal Fe=
rn,
through which the crosiers of this year's growth were unrolling to the light
and warmth. The fire was a smouldering heap of char, light grey and black,
replenished by the old women from time to time with brown leaves. Most of t=
he
men were asleep--they slept sitting with their foreheads on their knees. Th=
ey
had killed that morning a good quarry, enough for all, a deer that had been=
wounded
by hunting dogs; so that there had been no quarrelling among them, and some=
of
the women were still gnawing the bones that lay scattered about. Others were
making a heap of leaves and sticks to feed Brother Fire when the darkness c=
ame
again, that he might grow strong and tall therewith, and guard them against=
the
beasts. And two were piling flints that they brought, an armful at a time, =
from
the bend of the river where the children were at play.
None of these
buff-skinned savages were clothed, but some wore about their hips rude gird=
les
of adder-skin or crackling undressed hide, from which depended little bags,=
not
made, but torn from the paws of beasts, and carrying the rudely-dressed fli=
nts
that were men's chief weapons and tools. And one woman, the mate of Uya the
Cunning Man, wore a wonderful necklace of perforated fossils--that others h=
ad
worn before her. Beside some of the sleeping men lay the big antlers of the
elk, with the tines chipped to sharp edges, and long sticks, hacked at the =
ends
with flints into sharp points. There was little else save these things and =
the smouldering
fire to mark these human beings off from the wild animals that ranged the
country. But Uya the Cunning did not sleep, but sat with a bone in his hand=
and
scraped busily thereon with a flint, a thing no animal would do. He was the
oldest man in the tribe, beetle-browed, prognathous, lank-armed; he had a b=
eard
and his cheeks were hairy, and his chest and arms were black with thick hai=
r.
And by virtue both of his strength and cunning he was master of the tribe, =
and
his share was always the most and the best.
Eudena had hidden
herself among the alders, because she was afraid of Uya. She was still a gi=
rl,
and her eyes were bright and her smile pleasant to see. He had given her a
piece of the liver, a man's piece, and a wonderful treat for a girl to get;=
but
as she took it the other woman with the necklace had looked at her, an evil
glance, and Ugh-lomi had made a noise in his throat. At that, Uya had looke=
d at
him long and steadfastly, and Ugh-lomi's face had fallen. And then Uya had
looked at her. She was frightened and she had stolen away, while the feeding
was still going on, and Uya was busy with the marrow of a bone. Afterwards =
he
had wandered about as if looking for her. And now she crouched among the
alders, wondering mightily what Uya might be doing with the flint and the b=
one.
And Ugh-lomi was not to be seen.
Presently a squir=
rel
came leaping through the alders, and she lay so quiet the little man was wi=
thin
six feet of her before he saw her. Whereupon he dashed up a stem in a hurry=
and
began to chatter and scold her. "What are you doing here," he ask=
ed,
"away from the other men beasts?" "Peace," said Eudena,=
but
he only chattered more, and then she began to break off the little black co=
nes
to throw at him. He dodged and defied her, and she grew excited and rose up=
to
throw better, and then she saw Uya coming down the knoll. He had seen the m=
ovement
of her pale arm amidst the thicket--he was very keen-eyed.
At that she forgot
the squirrel and set off through the alders and reeds as fast as she could =
go.
She did not care where she went so long as she escaped Uya. She splashed ne=
arly
knee-deep through a swampy place, and saw in front of her a slope of
ferns--growing more slender and green as they passed up out of the light in=
to
the shade of the young chestnuts. She was soon amidst the trees--she was ve=
ry
fleet of foot, and she ran on and on until the forest was old and the vales
great, and the vines about their stems where the light came were thick as y=
oung
trees, and the ropes of ivy stout and tight. On she went, and she doubled a=
nd doubled
again, and then at last lay down amidst some ferns in a hollow place near a
thicket, and listened with her heart beating in her ears.
She heard footste=
ps
presently rustling among the dead leaves, far off, and they died away and
everything was still again, except the scandalising of the midges--for the
evening was drawing on--and the incessant whisper of the leaves. She laughed
silently to think the cunning Uya should go by her. She was not frightened.
Sometimes, playing with the other girls and lads, she had fled into the woo=
d,
though never so far as this. It was pleasant to be hidden and alone.
She lay a long ti=
me
there, glad of her escape, and then she sat up listening.
It was a rapid
pattering growing louder and coming towards her, and in a little while she
could hear grunting noises and the snapping of twigs. It was a drove of lean
grisly wild swine. She turned about her, for a boar is an ill fellow to pass
too closely, on account of the sideway slash of his tusks, and she made off
slantingly through the trees. But the patter came nearer, they were not fee=
ding
as they wandered, but going fast--or else they would not overtake her--and =
she
caught the limb of a tree, swung on to it, and ran up the stem with somethi=
ng
of the agility of a monkey.
Down below the sh=
arp
bristling backs of the swine were already passing when she looked. And she =
knew
the short, sharp grunts they made meant fear. What were they afraid of? A m=
an?
They were in a great hurry for just a man.
And then, so sudd=
enly
it made her grip on the branch tighten involuntarily, a fawn started in the=
brake
and rushed after the swine. Something else went by, low and grey, with a lo=
ng
body; she did not know what it was, indeed she saw it only momentarily thro=
ugh
the interstices of the young leaves; and then there came a pause.
She remained stiff
and expectant, as rigid almost as though she was a part of the tree she clu=
ng
to, peering down.
Then, far away am=
ong
the trees, clear for a moment, then hidden, then visible knee-deep in ferns,
then gone again, ran a man. She knew it was young Ugh-lomi by the fair colo=
ur
of his hair, and there was red upon his face. Somehow his frantic flight and
that scarlet mark made her feel sick. And then nearer, running heavily and
breathing hard, came another man. At first she could not see, and then she =
saw,
foreshortened and clear to her, Uya, running with great strides and his eyes
staring. He was not going after Ugh-lomi. His face was white. It was
Uya--afraid! He passed, and was still loud hearing, when something else,
something large and with grizzled fur, swinging along with soft swift strid=
es, came
rushing in pursuit of him.
Eudena suddenly
became rigid, ceased to breathe, her clutch convulsive, and her eyes starti=
ng.
She had never seen
the thing before, she did not even see him clearly now, but she knew at onc=
e it
was the Terror of the Woodshade. His name was a legend, the children would
frighten one another, frighten even themselves with his name, and run screa=
ming
to the squatting-place. No man had ever killed any of his kind. Even the mi=
ghty
mammoth feared his anger. It was the grizzly bear, the lord of the world as=
the
world went then.
As he ran he made=
a
continuous growling grumble. "Men in my very lair! Fighting and blood.=
At
the very mouth of my lair. Men, men, men. Fighting and blood." For he =
was
the lord of the wood and of the caves.
Long after he had
passed she remained, a girl of stone, staring down through the branches. All
her power of action had gone from her. She gripped by instinct with hands a=
nd
knees and feet. It was some time before she could think, and then only one
thing was clear in her mind, that the Terror was between her and the
tribe--that it would be impossible to descend.
Presently when her
fear was a little abated she clambered into a more comfortable position, wh=
ere
a great branch forked. The trees rose about her, so that she could see noth=
ing
of Brother Fire, who is black by day. Birds began to stir, and things that =
had
gone into hiding for fear of her movements crept out....
After a time the
taller branches flamed out at the touch of the sunset. High overhead the ro=
oks,
who were wiser than men, went cawing home to their squatting-places among t=
he
elms. Looking down, things were clearer and darker. Eudena thought of going
back to the squatting-place; she let herself down some way, and then the fe=
ar
of the Terror of the Woodshade came again. While she hesitated a rabbit
squealed dismally, and she dared not descend farther.
The shadows gathe=
red,
and the deeps of the forest began stirring. Eudena went up the tree again t=
o be
nearer the light. Down below the shadows came out of their hiding-places and
walked abroad. Overhead the blue deepened. A dreadful stillness came, and t=
hen
the leaves began whispering.
Eudena shivered a=
nd
thought of Brother Fire.
The shadows now w=
ere
gathering in the trees, they sat on the branches and watched her. Branches =
and
leaves were turned to ominous, quiet black shapes that would spring on her =
if
she stirred. Then the white owl, flitting silently, came ghostly through the
shades. Darker grew the world and darker, until the leaves and twigs against
the sky were black, and the ground was hidden.
She remained there
all night, an age-long vigil, straining her ears for the things that went on
below in the darkness, and keeping motionless lest some stealthy beast shou=
ld
discover her. Man in those days was never alone in the dark, save for such =
rare
accidents as this. Age after age he had learnt the lesson of its terror--a
lesson we poor children of his have nowadays painfully to unlearn. Eudena,
though in age a woman, was in heart like a little child. She kept as still,
poor little animal, as a hare before it is started.
The stars gathered
and watched her--her one grain of comfort. In one bright one she fancied th=
ere
was something like Ugh-lomi. Then she fancied it was Ugh-lomi. And near him,
red and duller, was Uya, and as the night passed Ugh-lomi fled before him up
the sky.
She tried to see
Brother Fire, who guarded the squatting-place from beasts, but he was not in
sight. And far away she heard the mammoths trumpeting as they went down to =
the
drinking-place, and once some huge bulk with heavy paces hurried along, mak=
ing
a noise like a calf, but what it was she could not see. But she thought from
the voice it was Yaaa the rhinoceros, who stabs with his nose, goes always
alone, and rages without cause.
At last the little
stars began to hide, and then the larger ones. It was like all the animals
vanishing before the Terror. The Sun was coming, lord of the sky, as the
grizzly was lord of the forest. Eudena wondered what would happen if one st=
ar
stayed behind. And then the sky paled to the dawn.
When the daylight
came the fear of lurking things passed, and she could descend. She was stif=
f,
but not so stiff as you would have been, dear young lady (by virtue of your
upbringing), and as she had not been trained to eat at least once in three
hours, but instead had often fasted three days, she did not feel uncomforta=
bly
hungry. She crept down the tree very cautiously, and went her way stealthily
through the wood, and not a squirrel sprang or deer started but the terror =
of
the grizzly bear froze her marrow.
Her desire was no=
w to
find her people again. Her dread of Uya the Cunning was consumed by a great=
er
dread of loneliness. But she had lost her direction. She had run heedlessly
overnight, and she could not tell whether the squatting-place was sunward or
where it lay. Ever and again she stopped and listened, and at last, very far
away, she heard a measured chinking. It was so faint even in the morning
stillness that she could tell it must be far away. But she knew the sound w=
as
that of a man sharpening a flint.
Presently the tre=
es
began to thin out, and then came a regiment of nettles barring the way. She
turned aside, and then she came to a fallen tree that she knew, with a nois=
e of
bees about it. And so presently she was in sight of the knoll, very far off,
and the river under it, and the children and the hippopotami just as they h=
ad
been yesterday, and the thin spire of smoke swaying in the morning breeze. =
Far
away by the river was the cluster of alders where she had hidden. And at the
sight of that the fear of Uya returned, and she crept into a thicket of bra=
cken,
out of which a rabbit scuttled, and lay awhile to watch the squatting-place=
.
The men were most=
ly
out of sight, saving Wau, the flint-chopper; and at that she felt safer. Th=
ey
were away hunting food, no doubt. Some of the women, too, were down in the
stream, stooping intent, seeking mussels, crayfish, and water-snails, and at
the sight of their occupation Eudena felt hungry. She rose, and ran through=
the
fern, designing to join them. As she went she heard a voice among the brack=
en
calling softly. She stopped. Then suddenly she heard a rustle behind her, a=
nd
turning, saw Ugh-lomi rising out of the fern. There were streaks of brown b=
lood
and dirt on his face, and his eyes were fierce, and the white stone of Uya,=
the
white Fire Stone, that none but Uya dared to touch, was in his hand. In a
stride he was beside her, and gripped her arm. He swung her about, and thru=
st
her before him towards the woods. "Uya," he said, and waved his a=
rms
about. She heard a cry, looked back, and saw all the women standing up, and=
two
wading out of the stream. Then came a nearer howling, and the old woman with
the beard, who watched the fire on the knoll, was waving her arms, and Wau,=
the
man who had been chipping the flint, was getting to his feet. The little
children too were hurrying and shouting.
"Come!"
said Ugh-lomi, and dragged her by the arm.
She still did not
understand.
"Uya has cal=
led
the death word," said Ugh-lomi, and she glanced back at the screaming
curve of figures, and understood.
Wau and all the w=
omen
and children were coming towards them, a scattered array of buff shock-head=
ed
figures, howling, leaping, and crying. Over the knoll two youths hurried. D=
own
among the ferns to the right came a man, heading them off from the wood.
Ugh-lomi left her arm, and the two began running side by side, leaping the
bracken and stepping clear and wide. Eudena, knowing her fleetness and the =
fleetness
of Ugh-lomi, laughed aloud at the unequal chase. They were an exceptionally=
straight-limbed
couple for those days.
They soon cleared=
the
open, and drew near the wood of chestnut-trees again--neither afraid now
because neither was alone. They slackened their pace, already not excessive.
And suddenly Eudena cried and swerved aside, pointing, and looking up throu=
gh
the tree-stems. Ugh-lomi saw the feet and legs of men running towards him.
Eudena was already running off at a tangent. And as he too turned to follow=
her
they heard the voice of Uya coming through the trees, and roaring out his r=
age
at them.
Then terror came =
in
their hearts, not the terror that numbs, but the terror that makes one sile=
nt
and swift. They were cut off now on two sides. They were in a sort of corne=
r of
pursuit. On the right hand, and near by them, came the men swift and heavy,
with bearded Uya, antler in hand, leading them; and on the left, scattered =
as
one scatters corn, yellow dashes among the fern and grass, ran Wau and the
women; and even the little children from the shallow had joined the chase. =
The
two parties converged upon them. Off they went, with Eudena ahead.
They knew there w=
as
no mercy for them. There was no hunting so sweet to these ancient men as the
hunting of men. Once the fierce passion of the chase was lit, the feeble
beginnings of humanity in them were thrown to the winds. And Uya in the nig=
ht
had marked Ugh-lomi with the death word. Ugh-lomi was the day's quarry, the
appointed feast.
They ran straight=
--it
was their only chance--taking whatever ground came in the way--a spread of
stinging nettles, an open glade, a clump of grass out of which a hyæna
fled snarling. Then woods again, long stretches of shady leaf-mould and moss
under the green trunks. Then a stiff slope, tree-clad, and long vistas of
trees, a glade, a succulent green area of black mud, a wide open space agai=
n,
and then a clump of lacerating brambles, with beast tracks through it. Behi=
nd
them the chase trailed out and scattered, with Uya ever at their heels. Eud=
ena
kept the first place, running light and with her breath easy, for Ugh-lomi =
carried
the Fire Stone in his hand.
It told on his
pace--not at first, but after a time. His footsteps behind her suddenly grew
remote. Glancing over her shoulder as they crossed another open space, Eude=
na
saw that Ugh-lomi was many yards behind her, and Uya close upon him, with
antler already raised in the air to strike him down. Wau and the others were
but just emerging from the shadow of the woods.
Seeing Ugh-lomi in
peril, Eudena ran sideways, looking back, threw up her arms and cried aloud,
just as the antler flew. And young Ugh-lomi, expecting this and understandi=
ng
her cry, ducked his head, so that the missile merely struck his scalp light=
ly,
making but a trivial wound, and flew over him. He turned forthwith, the
quartzite Fire Stone in both hands, and hurled it straight at Uya's body as=
he
ran loose from the throw. Uya shouted, but could not dodge it. It took him
under the ribs, heavy and flat, and he reeled and went down without a cry.
Ugh-lomi caught up the antler--one tine of it was tipped with his own
blood--and came running on again with a red trickle just coming out of his
hair.
Uya rolled over
twice, and lay a moment before he got up, and then he did not run fast. The
colour of his face was changed. Wau overtook him, and then others, and he
coughed and laboured in his breath. But he kept on.
At last the two
fugitives gained the bank of the river, where the stream ran deep and narro=
w,
and they still had fifty yards in hand of Wau, the foremost pursuer, the man
who made the smiting-stones. He carried one, a large flint, the shape of an
oyster and double the size, chipped to a chisel edge, in either hand.
They sprang down =
the
steep bank into the stream, rushed through the water, swam the deep current=
in
two or three strokes, and came out wading again, dripping and refreshed, to
clamber up the farther bank. It was undermined, and with willows growing
thickly therefrom, so that it needed clambering. And while Eudena was still
among the silvery branches and Ugh-lomi still in the water--for the antler =
had
encumbered him--Wau came up against the sky on the opposite bank, and the s=
miting-stone,
thrown cunningly, took the side of Eudena's knee. She struggled to the top =
and
fell.
They heard the
pursuers shout to one another, and Ugh-lomi climbing to her and moving jerk=
ily
to mar Wau's aim, felt the second smiting-stone graze his ear, and heard the
water splash below him.
Then it was Ugh-l=
omi,
the stripling, proved himself to have come to man's estate. For running on,=
he
found Eudena fell behind, limping, and at that he turned, and crying savage=
ly
and with a face terrible with sudden wrath and trickling blood, ran swiftly
past her back to the bank, whirling the antler round his head. And Eudena k=
ept
on, running stoutly still, though she must needs limp at every step, and the
pain was already sharp.
So that Wau, risi=
ng
over the edge and clutching the straight willow branches, saw Ugh-lomi towe=
ring
over him, gigantic against the blue; saw his whole body swing round, and the
grip of his hands upon the antler. The edge of the antler came sweeping thr=
ough
the air, and he saw no more. The water under the osiers whirled and eddied =
and
went crimson six feet down the stream. Uya following stopped knee-high acro=
ss
the stream, and the man who was swimming turned about.
The other men who
trailed after--they were none of them very mighty men (for Uya was more cun=
ning
than strong, brooking no sturdy rivals)--slackened momentarily at the sight=
of
Ugh-lomi standing there above the willows, bloody and terrible, between them
and the halting girl, with the huge antler waving in his hand. It seemed as
though he had gone into the water a youth, and come out of it a man full gr=
own.
He knew what there
was behind him. A broad stretch of grass, and then a thicket, and in that
Eudena could hide. That was clear in his mind, though his thinking powers w=
ere
too feeble to see what should happen thereafter. Uya stood knee-deep, undec=
ided
and unarmed. His heavy mouth hung open, showing his canine teeth, and he pa=
nted
heavily. His side was flushed and bruised under the hair. The other man bes=
ide
him carried a sharpened stick. The rest of the hunters came up one by one to
the top of the bank, hairy, long-armed men clutching flints and sticks. Two=
ran
off along the bank down stream, and then clambered to the water, where Wau =
had
come to the surface struggling weakly. Before they could reach him he went
under again. Two others threatened Ugh-lomi from the bank.
He answered back,
shouts, vague insults, gestures. Then Uya, who had been hesitating, roared =
with
rage, and whirling his fists plunged into the water. His followers splashed
after him.
Ugh-lomi glanced =
over
his shoulder and found Eudena already vanished into the thicket. He would
perhaps have waited for Uya, but Uya preferred to spar in the water below h=
im
until the others were beside him. Human tactics in those days, in all serio=
us
fighting, were the tactics of the pack. Prey that turned at bay they gather=
ed
around and rushed. Ugh-lomi felt the rush coming, and hurling the antler at
Uya, turned about and fled.
When he halted to
look back from the shadow of the thicket, he found only three of his pursue=
rs
had followed him across the river, and they were going back again. Uya, wit=
h a
bleeding mouth, was on the farther side of the stream again, but lower down,
and holding his hand to his side. The others were in the river dragging
something to shore. For a time at least the chase was intermitted.
Ugh-lomi stood
watching for a space, and snarled at the sight of Uya. Then he turned and
plunged into the thicket.
In a minute, Eude=
na
came hastening to join him, and they went on hand in hand. He dimly perceiv=
ed
the pain she suffered from the cut and bruised knee, and chose the easier w=
ays.
But they went on all that day, mile after mile, through wood and thicket, u=
ntil
at last they came to the chalkland, open grass with rare woods of beech, and
the birch growing near water, and they saw the Wealden mountains nearer, and
groups of horses grazing together. They went circumspectly, keeping always =
near
thicket and cover, for this was a strange region--even its ways were strang=
e.
Steadily the ground rose, until the chestnut forests spread wide and blue b=
elow
them, and the Thames marshes shone silvery, high and far. They saw no men, =
for
in those days men were still only just come into this part of the world, and
were moving but slowly along the river-ways. Towards evening they came on t=
he
river again, but now it ran in a gorge, between high cliffs of white chalk =
that
sometimes overhung it. Down the cliffs was a scrub of birches and there were
many birds there. And high up the cliff was a little shelf by a tree, where=
on
they clambered to pass the night.
They had had scar=
cely
any food; it was not the time of year for berries, and they had no time to =
go
aside to snare or waylay. They tramped in a hungry weary silence, gnawing at
twigs and leaves. But over the surface of the cliffs were a multitude of
snails, and in a bush were the freshly laid eggs of a little bird, and then
Ugh-lomi threw at and killed a squirrel in a beech-tree, so that at last th=
ey
fed well. Ugh-lomi watched during the night, his chin on his knees; and he
heard young foxes crying hard by, and the noise of mammoths down the gorge,=
and
the hyænas yelling and laughing far away. It was chilly, but they dar=
ed
not light a fire. Whenever he dozed, his spirit went abroad, and straightwa=
y met
with the spirit of Uya, and they fought. And always Ugh-lomi was paralysed =
so
that he could not smite nor run, and then he would awake suddenly. Eudena, =
too,
dreamt evil things of Uya, so that they both awoke with the fear of him in
their hearts, and by the light of the dawn they saw a woolly rhinoceros go
blundering down the valley.
During the day th=
ey
caressed one another and were glad of the sunshine, and Eudena's leg was so
stiff she sat on the ledge all day. Ugh-lomi found great flints sticking ou=
t of
the cliff face, greater than any he had seen, and he dragged some to the le=
dge
and began chipping, so as to be armed against Uya when he came again. And at
one he laughed heartily, and Eudena laughed, and they threw it about in
derision. It had a hole in it. They stuck their fingers through it, it was =
very
funny indeed. Then they peeped at one another through it. Afterwards, Ugh-l=
omi
got himself a stick, and thrusting by chance at this foolish flint, the sti=
ck
went in and stuck there. He had rammed it in too tightly to withdraw it. Th=
at
was still stranger--scarcely funny, terrible almost, and for a time Ugh-lomi
did not greatly care to touch the thing. It was as if the flint had bit and
held with its teeth. But then he got familiar with the odd combination. He
swung it about, and perceived that the stick with the heavy stone on the end
struck a better blow than anything he knew. He went to and fro swinging it,=
and
striking with it; but later he tired of it and threw it aside. In the after=
noon
he went up over the brow of the white cliff, and lay watching by a
rabbit-warren until the rabbits came out to play. There were no men
thereabouts, and the rabbits were heedless. He threw a smiting-stone he had
made and got a kill.
That night they m=
ade
a fire from flint sparks and bracken fronds, and talked and caressed by it.=
And
in their sleep Uya's spirit came again, and suddenly, while Ugh-lomi was tr=
ying
to fight vainly, the foolish flint on the stick came into his hand, and he
struck Uya with it, and behold! it killed him. But afterwards came other dr=
eams
of Uya--for spirits take a lot of killing, and he had to be killed again. T=
hen
after that the stone would not keep on the stick. He awoke tired and rather=
gloomy,
and was sulky all the forenoon, in spite of Eudena's kindliness, and instea=
d of
hunting he sat chipping a sharp edge to the singular flint, and looking
strangely at her. Then he bound the perforated flint on to the stick with
strips of rabbit skin. And afterwards he walked up and down the ledge, stri=
king
with it, and muttering to himself, and thinking of Uya. It felt very fine a=
nd
heavy in the hand.
Several days, more
than there was any counting in those days, five days, it may be, or six, did
Ugh-lomi and Eudena stay on that shelf in the gorge of the river, and they =
lost
all fear of men, and their fire burnt redly of a night. And they were very
merry together; there was food every day, sweet water, and no enemies. Eude=
na's
knee was well in a couple of days, for those ancient savages had quick-heal=
ing
flesh. Indeed, they were very happy.
On one of those d=
ays
Ugh-lomi dropped a chunk of flint over the cliff. He saw it fall, and go
bounding across the river bank into the river, and after laughing and think=
ing
it over a little he tried another. This smashed a bush of hazel in the most
interesting way. They spent all the morning dropping stones from the ledge,=
and
in the afternoon they discovered this new and interesting pastime was also
possible from the cliffbrow. The next day they had forgotten this delight. =
Or
at least, it seemed they had forgotten.
But Uya came in
dreams to spoil the paradise. Three nights he came fighting Ugh-lomi. In the
morning after these dreams Ugh-lomi would walk up and down, threatening him=
and
swinging the axe, and at last came the night after Ugh-lomi brained the ott=
er,
and they had feasted. Uya went too far. Ugh-lomi awoke, scowling under his
heavy brows, and he took his axe, and extending his hand towards Eudena he =
bade
her wait for him upon the ledge. Then he clambered down the white declivity,
glanced up once from the foot of it and flourished his axe, and without loo=
king
back again went striding along the river bank until the overhanging cliff at
the bend hid him.
Two days and nigh=
ts
did Eudena sit alone by the fire on the ledge waiting, and in the night the
beasts howled over the cliffs and down the valley, and on the cliff over
against her the hunched hyænas prowled black against the sky. But no =
evil
thing came near her save fear. Once, far away, she heard the roaring of a l=
ion,
following the horses as they came northward over the grass lands with the
spring. All that time she waited--the waiting that is pain.
And the third day
Ugh-lomi came back, up the river. The plumes of a raven were in his hair. T=
he
first axe was red-stained, and had long dark hairs upon it, and he carried =
the
necklace that had marked the favourite of Uya in his hand. He walked in the
soft places, giving no heed to his trail. Save a raw cut below his jaw there
was not a wound upon him. "Uya!" cried Ugh-lomi exultant, and Eud=
ena
saw it was well. He put the necklace on Eudena, and they ate and drank
together. And after eating he began to rehearse the whole story from the
beginning, when Uya had cast his eyes on Eudena, and Uya and Ugh-lomi, figh=
ting
in the forest, had been chased by the bear, eking out his scanty words with
abundant pantomime, springing to his feet and whirling the stone axe round =
when
it came to the fighting. The last fight was a mighty one, stamping and shou=
ting,
and once a blow at the fire that sent a torrent of sparks up into the night.
And Eudena sat red in the light of the fire, gloating on him, her face flus=
hed
and her eyes shining, and the necklace Uya had made about her neck. It was a
splendid time, and the stars that look down on us looked down on her, our
ancestor--who has been dead now these fifty thousand years.
In the days when
Eudena and Ugh-lomi fled from the people of Uya towards the fir-clad mounta=
ins
of the Weald, across the forests of sweet chestnut and the grass-clad
chalkland, and hid themselves at last in the gorge of the river between the
chalk cliffs, men were few and their squatting-places far between. The near=
est
men to them were those of the tribe, a full day's journey down the river, a=
nd
up the mountains there were none. Man was indeed a newcomer to this part of=
the
world in that ancient time, coming slowly along the rivers, generation afte=
r generation,
from one squatting-place to another, from the south-westward. And the anima=
ls
that held the land, the hippopotamus and rhinoceros of the river valleys, t=
he
horses of the grass plains, the deer and swine of the woods, the grey apes =
in
the branches, the cattle of the uplands, feared him but little--let alone t=
he
mammoths in the mountains and the elephants that came through the land in t=
he summer-time
out of the south. For why should they fear him, with but the rough, chipped
flints that he had not learnt to haft and which he threw but ill, and the p=
oor
spear of sharpened wood, as all the weapons he had against hoof and horn, t=
ooth
and claw?
Andoo, the huge c=
ave
bear, who lived in the cave up the gorge, had never even seen a man in all =
his
wise and respectable life, until midway through one night, as he was prowli=
ng
down the gorge along the cliff edge, he saw the glare of Eudena's fire upon=
the
ledge, and Eudena red and shining, and Ugh-lomi, with a gigantic shadow moc=
king
him upon the white cliff, going to and fro, shaking his mane of hair, and
waving the axe of stone--the first axe of stone--while he chanted of the
killing of Uya. The cave bear was far up the gorge, and he saw the thing sl=
anting-ways
and far off. He was so surprised he stood quite still upon the edge, sniffi=
ng
the novel odour of burning bracken, and wondering whether the dawn was comi=
ng
up in the wrong place.
He was the lord of
the rocks and caves, was the cave bear, as his slighter brother, the grizzl=
y,
was lord of the thick woods below, and as the dappled lion--the lion of tho=
se
days was dappled--was lord of the thorn-thickets, reed-beds, and open plain=
s.
He was the greatest of all meat-eaters; he knew no fear, none preyed on him,
and none gave him battle; only the rhinoceros was beyond his strength. Even=
the
mammoth shunned his country. This invasion perplexed him. He noticed these =
new beasts
were shaped like monkeys, and sparsely hairy like young pigs. "Monkey =
and
young pig," said the cave bear. "It might not be so bad. But that=
red
thing that jumps, and the black thing jumping with it yonder! Never in my l=
ife
have I seen such things before!"
He came slowly al=
ong
the brow of the cliff towards them, stopping thrice to sniff and peer, and =
the
reek of the fire grew stronger. A couple of hyænas also were so intent
upon the thing below that Andoo, coming soft and easy, was close upon them
before they knew of him or he of them. They started guiltily and went lurch=
ing
off. Coming round in a wheel, a hundred yards off, they began yelling and
calling him names to revenge themselves for the start they had had.
"Ya-ha!" they cried. "Who can't grub his own burrow? Who eats
roots like a pig?... Ya-ha!" for even in those days the hyæna's
manners were just as offensive as they are now.
"Who answers=
the
hyæna?" growled Andoo, peering through the midnight dimness at t=
hem,
and then going to look at the cliff edge.
There was Ugh-lomi
still telling his story, and the fire getting low, and the scent of the bur=
ning
hot and strong.
Andoo stood on the
edge of the chalk cliff for some time, shifting his vast weight from foot to
foot, and swaying his head to and fro, with his mouth open, his ears erect =
and
twitching, and the nostrils of his big, black muzzle sniffing. He was very
curious, was the cave bear, more curious than any of the bears that live no=
w,
and the flickering fire and the incomprehensible movements of the man, let
alone the intrusion into his indisputable province, stirred him with a sens=
e of
strange new happenings. He had been after red deer fawn that night, for the
cave bear was a miscellaneous hunter, but this quite turned him from that e=
nterprise.
"Ya-ha!"
yelled the hyænas behind. "Ya-ha-ha!"
Peering through t=
he
starlight, Andoo saw there were now three or four going to and fro against =
the
grey hillside. "They will hang about me now all the night ... until I
kill," said Andoo. "Filth of the world!" And mainly to annoy
them, he resolved to watch the red flicker in the gorge until the dawn came=
to
drive the hyæna scum home. And after a time they vanished, and he hea=
rd
their voices, like a party of Cockney beanfeasters, away in the beechwoods.
Then they came slinking near again. Andoo yawned and went on along the clif=
f,
and they followed. Then he stopped and went back.
It was a splendid
night, beset with shining constellations, the same stars, but not the same
constellations we know, for since those days all the stars have had time to
move into new places. Far away across the open space beyond where the
heavy-shouldered, lean-bodied hyænas blundered and howled, was a
beechwood, and the mountain slopes rose beyond, a dim mystery, until their
snow-capped summits came out white and cold and clear, touched by the first
rays of the yet unseen moon. It was a vast silence, save when the yell of t=
he
hyænas flung a vanishing discordance across its peace, or when from d=
own
the hills the trumpeting of the new-come elephants came faintly on the faint
breeze. And below now, the red flicker had dwindled and was steady, and sho=
ne a
deeper red, and Ugh-lomi had finished his story and was preparing to sleep,=
and
Eudena sat and listened to the strange voices of unknown beasts, and watched
the dark eastern sky growing deeply luminous at the advent of the moon. Down
below, the river talked to itself, and things unseen went to and fro.
After a time the =
bear
went away, but in an hour he was back again. Then, as if struck by a though=
t,
he turned, and went up the gorge....
The night passed,=
and
Ugh-lomi slept on. The waning moon rose and lit the gaunt white cliff overh=
ead
with a light that was pale and vague. The gorge remained in a deeper shadow=
and
seemed all the darker. Then by imperceptible degrees, the day came stealing=
in
the wake of the moonlight. Eudena's eyes wandered to the cliff brow overhead
once, and then again. Each time the line was sharp and clear against the sk=
y,
and yet she had a dim perception of something lurking there. The red of the=
fire
grew deeper and deeper, grey scales spread upon it, its vertical column of
smoke became more and more visible, and up and down the gorge things that h=
ad
been unseen grew clear in a colourless illumination. She may have dozed.
Suddenly she star=
ted
up from her squatting position, erect and alert, scrutinising the cliff up =
and
down.
She made the fain=
test
sound, and Ugh-lomi too, light-sleeping like an animal, was instantly awake=
. He
caught up his axe and came noiselessly to her side.
The light was sti=
ll
dim, the world now all in black and dark grey, and one sickly star still
lingered overhead. The ledge they were on was a little grassy space, six fe=
et
wide, perhaps, and twenty feet long, sloping outwardly, and with a handful =
of
St. John's wort growing near the edge. Below it the soft, white rock fell a=
way
in a steep slope of nearly fifty feet to the thick bush of hazel that fring=
ed
the river. Down the river this slope increased, until some way off a thin g=
rass
held its own right up to the crest of the cliff. Overhead, forty or fifty f=
eet
of rock bulged into the great masses characteristic of chalk, but at the en=
d of
the ledge a gully, a precipitous groove of discoloured rock, slashed the fa=
ce
of the cliff, and gave a footing to a scrubby growth, by which Eudena and
Ugh-lomi went up and down.
They stood as
noiseless as startled deer, with every sense expectant. For a minute they h=
eard
nothing, and then came a faint rattling of dust down the gully, and the
creaking of twigs.
Ugh-lomi gripped =
his
axe, and went to the edge of the ledge, for the bulge of the chalk overhead=
had
hidden the upper part of the gully. And forthwith, with a sudden contractio=
n of
the heart, he saw the cave bear half-way down from the brow, and making a
gingerly backward step with his flat hind-foot. His hind-quarters were towa=
rds
Ugh-lomi, and he clawed at the rocks and bushes so that he seemed flattened
against the cliff. He looked none the less for that. From his shining snout=
to
his stumpy tail he was a lion and a half, the length of two tall men. He lo=
oked
over his shoulder, and his huge mouth was open with the exertion of holding=
up
his great carcase, and his tongue lay out....
He got his footin=
g,
and came down slowly, a yard nearer.
"Bear,"
said Ugh-lomi, looking round with his face white.
But Eudena, with =
terror
in her eyes, was pointing down the cliff.
Ugh-lomi's mouth =
fell
open. For down below, with her big fore-feet against the rock, stood another
big brown-grey bulk--the she-bear. She was not so big as Andoo, but she was=
big
enough for all that.
Then suddenly
Ugh-lomi gave a cry, and catching up a handful of the litter of ferns that =
lay
scattered on the ledge, he thrust it into the pallid ash of the fire.
"Brother Fire!" he cried, "Brother Fire!" And Eudena,
starting into activity, did likewise. "Brother Fire! Help, help! Broth=
er
Fire!"
Brother Fire was
still red in his heart, but he turned to grey as they scattered him.
"Brother Fire!" they screamed. But he whispered and passed, and t=
here
was nothing but ashes. Then Ugh-lomi danced with anger and struck the ashes
with his fist. But Eudena began to hammer the firestone against a flint. And
the eyes of each were turning ever and again towards the gully by which And=
oo
was climbing down. Brother Fire!
Suddenly the huge
furry hind-quarters of the bear came into view, beneath the bulge of the ch=
alk
that had hidden him. He was still clambering gingerly down the nearly verti=
cal
surface. His head was yet out of sight, but they could hear him talking to
himself. "Pig and monkey," said the cave bear. "It ought to =
be
good."
Eudena struck a s=
park
and blew at it; it twinkled brighter and then--went out. At that she cast d=
own
flint and firestone and stared blankly. Then she sprang to her feet and
scrambled a yard or so up the cliff above the ledge. How she hung on even f=
or a
moment I do not know, for the chalk was vertical and without grip for a mon=
key.
In a couple of seconds she had slid back to the ledge again with bleeding
hands.
Ugh-lomi was maki=
ng
frantic rushes about the ledge--now he would go to the edge, now to the gul=
ly.
He did not know what to do, he could not think. The she-bear looked smaller
than her mate--much. If they rushed down on her together, one might live.
"Ugh?" said the cave bear, and Ugh-lomi turned again and saw his
little eyes peering under the bulge of the chalk.
Eudena, cowering =
at
the end of the ledge, began to scream like a gripped rabbit.
At that a sort of
madness came upon Ugh-lomi. With a mighty cry, he caught up his axe and ran
towards Andoo. The monster gave a grunt of surprise. In a moment Ugh-lomi w=
as
clinging to a bush right underneath the bear, and in another he was hanging=
to
its back half buried in fur, with one fist clutched in the hair under its j=
aw.
The bear was too astonished at this fantastic attack to do more than cling =
passive.
And then the axe, the first of all axes, rang on its skull.
The bear's head
twisted from side to side, and he began a petulant scolding growl. The axe =
bit
within an inch of the left eye, and the hot blood blinded that side. At that
the brute roared with surprise and anger, and his teeth gnashed six inches =
from
Ugh-lomi's face. Then the axe, clubbed close, came down heavily on the corn=
er
of the jaw.
The next blow bli=
nded
the right side and called forth a roar, this time of pain. Eudena saw the h=
uge,
flat feet slipping and sliding, and suddenly the bear gave a clumsy leap
sideways, as if for the ledge. Then everything vanished, and the hazels
smashed, and a roar of pain and a tumult of shouts and growls came up from =
far
below.
Eudena screamed a=
nd
ran to the edge and peered over. For a moment, man and bears were a heap
together, Ugh-lomi uppermost; and then he had sprung clear and was scaling =
the
gully again, with the bears rolling and striking at one another among the
hazels. But he had left his axe below, and three knob-ended streaks of carm=
ine
were shooting down his thigh. "Up!" he cried, and in a moment Eud=
ena
was leading the way to the top of the cliff.
In half a minute =
they
were at the crest, their hearts pumping noisily, with Andoo and his wife far
and safe below them. Andoo was sitting on his haunches, both paws at work,
trying with quick exasperated movements to wipe the blindness out of his ey=
es,
and the she-bear stood on all-fours a little way off, ruffled in appearance=
and
growling angrily. Ugh-lomi flung himself flat on the grass, and lay panting=
and
bleeding with his face on his arms.
For a second Eude=
na
regarded the bears, then she came and sat beside him, looking at him....
Presently she put
forth her hand timidly and touched him, and made the guttural sound that was
his name. He turned over and raised himself on his arm. His face was pale, =
like
the face of one who is afraid. He looked at her steadfastly for a moment, a=
nd
then suddenly he laughed. "Waugh!" he said exultantly.
"Waugh!"
said she--a simple but expressive conversation.
Then Ugh-lomi came
and knelt beside her, and on hands and knees peered over the brow and exami=
ned
the gorge. His breath was steady now, and the blood on his leg had ceased to
flow, though the scratches the she-bear had made were open and wide. He
squatted up and sat staring at the footmarks of the great bear as they came=
to
the gully--they were as wide as his head and twice as long. Then he jumped =
up
and went along the cliff face until the ledge was visible. Here he sat down=
for
some time thinking, while Eudena watched him. Presently she saw the bears h=
ad gone.
At last Ugh-lomi
rose, as one whose mind is made up. He returned towards the gully, Eudena
keeping close by him, and together they clambered to the ledge. They took t=
he
firestone and a flint, and then Ugh-lomi went down to the foot of the cliff
very cautiously, and found his axe. They returned to the cliff as quietly as
they could, and set off at a brisk walk. The ledge was a home no longer, wi=
th
such callers in the neighbourhood. Ugh-lomi carried the axe and Eudena the
firestone. So simple was a Palæolithic removal.
They went up-stre=
am,
although it might lead to the very lair of the cave bear, because there was=
no
other way to go. Down the stream was the tribe, and had not Ugh-lomi killed=
Uya
and Wau? By the stream they had to keep--because of drinking.
So they marched through beech trees, with the gorge deepening until the river flowed, a frothing rapid, five hundred feet below them. Of all the changeful things in this world of change, the courses of rivers in deep valleys change least. It was the river Wey, the river we know to-day, and they marched over the very spots where nowadays stand little Guildford and Godalming--the first human beings to come into the land. Once a grey ape chattered and vanished, and a= ll along the cliff edge, vast and even, ran the spoor of the great cave bear.<= o:p>
And then the spoo=
r of
the bear fell away from the cliff, showing, Ugh-lomi thought, that he came =
from
some place to the left, and keeping to the cliff's edge, they presently cam=
e to
an end. They found themselves looking down on a great semi-circular space
caused by the collapse of the cliff. It had smashed right across the gorge,
banking the up-stream water back in a pool which overflowed in a rapid. The
slip had happened long ago. It was grassed over, but the face of the cliffs=
that
stood about the semicircle was still almost fresh-looking and white as on t=
he
day when the rock must have broken and slid down. Starkly exposed and black
under the foot of these cliffs were the mouths of several caves. And as they
stood there, looking at the space, and disinclined to skirt it, because they
thought the bears' lair lay somewhere on the left in the direction they must
needs take, they saw suddenly first one bear and then two coming up the gra=
ss
slope to the right and going across the amphitheatre towards the caves. And=
oo
was first; he dropped a little on his fore-foot and his mien was despondent=
, and
the she-bear came shuffling behind.
Eudena and Ugh-lo=
mi
stepped back from the cliff until they could just see the bears over the ve=
rge.
Then Ugh-lomi stopped. Eudena pulled his arm, but he turned with a forbiddi=
ng
gesture, and her hand dropped. Ugh-lomi stood watching the bears, with his =
axe
in his hand, until they had vanished into the cave. He growled softly, and
shook the axe at the she-bear's receding quarters. Then to Eudena's terror,
instead of creeping off with her, he lay flat down and crawled forward into
such a position that he could just see the cave. It was bears--and he did i=
t as
calmly as if it had been rabbits he was watching!
He lay still, lik=
e a
barked log, sun-dappled, in the shadow of the trees. He was thinking. And
Eudena had learnt, even when a little girl, that when Ugh-lomi became still
like that, jaw-bone on fist, novel things presently began to happen.
It was an hour be=
fore
the thinking was over; it was noon when the two little savages had found th=
eir
way to the cliff brow that overhung the bears' cave. And all the long after=
noon
they fought desperately with a great boulder of chalk; trundling it, with
nothing but their unaided sturdy muscles, from the gully where it had hung =
like
a loose tooth, towards the cliff top. It was full two yards about, it stood=
as
high as Eudena's waist, it was obtuse-angled and toothed with flints. And w=
hen the
sun set it was poised, three inches from the edge, above the cave of the gr=
eat
cave bear.
In the cave
conversation languished during that afternoon. The she-bear snoozed sulkily=
in
her corner--for she was fond of pig and monkey--and Andoo was busy licking =
the
side of his paw and smearing his face to cool the smart and inflammation of=
his
wounds. Afterwards he went and sat just within the mouth of the cave, blink=
ing
out at the afternoon sun with his uninjured eye, and thinking.
"I never was=
so
startled in my life," he said at last. "They are the most
extraordinary beasts. Attacking me!"
"I don't like
them," said the she-bear, out of the darkness behind.
"A feebler s=
ort
of beast I never saw. I can't think what the world is coming to. Scraggy, w=
eedy
legs.... Wonder how they keep warm in winter?"
"Very likely
they don't," said the she-bear.
"I suppose i=
t's
a sort of monkey gone wrong."
"It's a
change," said the she-bear.
A pause.
"The advanta=
ge
he had was merely accidental," said Andoo. "These things will hap=
pen
at times."
"I can't
understand why you let go," said the she-bear.
That matter had b=
een
discussed before, and settled. So Andoo, being a bear of experience, remain=
ed silent
for a space. Then he resumed upon a different aspect of the matter. "He
has a sort of claw--a long claw that he seemed to have first on one paw and
then on the other. Just one claw. They're very odd things. The bright thing,
too, they seemed to have--like that glare that comes in the sky in
daytime--only it jumps about--it's really worth seeing. It's a thing with a
root, too--like grass when it is windy."
"Does it
bite?" asked the she-bear. "If it bites it can't be a plant."=
;
"No----I don=
't
know," said Andoo. "But it's curious, anyhow."
"I wonder if
they are good eating?" said the she-bear.
"They look
it," said Andoo, with appetite--for the cave bear, like the polar bear,
was an incurable carnivore--no roots or honey for him.
The two bears fell
into a meditation for a space. Then Andoo resumed his simple attentions to =
his
eye. The sunlight up the green slope before the cave mouth grew warmer in t=
one
and warmer, until it was a ruddy amber.
"Curious sor=
t of
thing--day," said the cave bear. "Lot too much of it, I think. Qu=
ite
unsuitable for hunting. Dazzles me always. I can't smell nearly so well by
day."
The she-bear did =
not
answer, but there came a measured crunching sound out of the darkness. She =
had
turned up a bone. Andoo yawned. "Well," he said. He strolled to t=
he
cave mouth and stood with his head projecting, surveying the amphitheatre. =
He
found he had to turn his head completely round to see objects on his right-=
hand
side. No doubt that eye would be all right to-morrow.
He yawned again.
There was a tap overhead, and a big mass of chalk flew out from the cliff f=
ace,
dropped a yard in front of his nose, and starred into a dozen unequal
fragments. It startled him extremely.
When he had recov=
ered
a little from his shock, he went and sniffed curiously at the representative
pieces of the fallen projectile. They had a distinctive flavour, oddly
reminiscent of the two drab animals of the ledge. He sat up and pawed the
larger lump, and walked round it several times, trying to find a man about =
it
somewhere....
When night had co=
me
he went off down the river gorge to see if he could cut off either of the
ledge's occupants. The ledge was empty, there were no signs of the red thin=
g,
but as he was rather hungry he did not loiter long that night, but pushed o=
n to
pick up a red deer fawn. He forgot about the drab animals. He found a fawn,=
but
the doe was close by and made an ugly fight for her young. Andoo had to lea=
ve
the fawn, but as her blood was up she stuck to the attack, and at last he g=
ot
in a blow of his paw on her nose, and so got hold of her. More meat but les=
s delicacy,
and the she-bear, following, had her share. The next afternoon, curiously
enough, the very fellow of the first white rock fell, and smashed precisely
according to precedent.
The aim of the th=
ird,
that fell the night after, however, was better. It hit Andoo's unspeculative
skull with a crack that echoed up the cliff, and the white fragments went
dancing to all the points of the compass. The she-bear coming after him and
sniffing curiously at him, found him lying in an odd sort of attitude, with=
his
head wet and all out of shape. She was a young she-bear, and inexperienced,=
and
having sniffed about him for some time and licked him a little, and so fort=
h,
she decided to leave him until the odd mood had passed, and went on her hun=
ting
alone.
She looked up the
fawn of the red doe they had killed two nights ago, and found it. But it was
lonely hunting without Andoo, and she returned caveward before dawn. The sky
was grey and overcast, the trees up the gorge were black and unfamiliar, and
into her ursine mind came a dim sense of strange and dreary happenings. She
lifted up her voice and called Andoo by name. The sides of the gorge re-ech=
oed
her.
As she approached=
the
caves she saw in the half light, and heard a couple of jackals scuttle off,=
and
immediately after a hyæna howled and a dozen clumsy bulks went lumber=
ing
up the slope, and stopped and yelled derision. "Lord of the rocks and
caves--ya-ha!" came down the wind. The dismal feeling in the she-bear's
mind became suddenly acute. She shuffled across the amphitheatre.
"Ya-ha!"
said the hyænas, retreating. "Ya-ha!"
The cave bear was=
not
lying quite in the same attitude, because the hyænas had been busy, a=
nd
in one place his ribs showed white. Dotted over the turf about him lay the
smashed fragments of the three great lumps of chalk. And the air was full of
the scent of death.
The she-bear stop=
ped
dead. Even now, that the great and wonderful Andoo was killed was beyond her
believing. Then she heard far overhead a sound, a queer sound, a little like
the shout of a hyæna but fuller and lower in pitch. She looked up, her
little dawn-blinded eyes seeing little, her nostrils quivering. And there, =
on
the cliff edge, far above her against the bright pink of dawn, were two lit=
tle
shaggy round dark things, the heads of Eudena and Ugh-lomi, as they shouted
derision at her. But though she could not see them very distinctly she could
hear, and dimly she began to apprehend. A novel feeling as of imminent stra=
nge evils
came into her heart.
She began to exam=
ine
the smashed fragments of chalk that lay about Andoo. For a space she stood
still, looking about her and making a low continuous sound that was almost a
moan. Then she went back incredulously to Andoo to make one last effort to
rouse him.
III--THE FIRST HORSEMAN=
span>
In the days before
Ugh-lomi there was little trouble between the horses and men. They lived
apart--the men in the river swamps and thickets, the horses on the wide gra=
ssy
uplands between the chestnuts and the pines. Sometimes a pony would come
straying into the clogging marshes to make a flint-hacked meal, and sometim=
es
the tribe would find one, the kill of a lion, and drive off the jackals, and
feast heartily while the sun was high. These horses of the old time were cl=
umsy
at the fetlock and dun-coloured, with a rough tail and big head. They came
every spring-time north-westward into the country, after the swallows and b=
efore
the hippopotami, as the grass on the wide downland stretches grew long. They
came only in small bodies thus far, each herd, a stallion and two or three
mares and a foal or so, having its own stretch of country, and they went ag=
ain
when the chestnut-trees were yellow and the wolves came down the Wealden
mountains.
It was their cust=
om
to graze right out in the open, going into cover only in the heat of the da=
y.
They avoided the long stretches of thorn and beechwood, preferring an isola=
ted
group of trees void of ambuscade, so that it was hard to come upon them. Th=
ey
were never fighters; their heels and teeth were for one another, but in the
clear country, once they were started, no living thing came near them, thou=
gh
perhaps the elephant might have done so had he felt the need. And in those =
days
man seemed a harmless thing enough. No whisper of prophetic intelligence to=
ld
the species of the terrible slavery that was to come, of the whip and spur =
and
bearing-rein, the clumsy load and the slippery street, the insufficient foo=
d,
and the knacker's yard, that was to replace the wide grass-land and the fre=
edom
of the earth.
Down in the Wey
marshes Ugh-lomi and Eudena had never seen the horses closely, but now they=
saw
them every day as the two of them raided out from their lair on the ledge in
the gorge, raiding together in search of food. They had returned to the led=
ge
after the killing of Andoo; for of the she-bear they were not afraid. The
she-bear had become afraid of them, and when she winded them she went aside.
The two went together everywhere; for since they had left the tribe Eudena =
was
not so much Ugh-lomi's woman as his mate; she learnt to hunt even--as much,
that is, as any woman could. She was indeed a marvellous woman. He would lie
for hours watching a beast, or planning catches in that shock head of his, =
and
she would stay beside him, with her bright eyes upon him, offering no
irritating suggestions--as still as any man. A wonderful woman!
At the top of the
cliff was an open grassy lawn and then beechwoods, and going through the
beechwoods one came to the edge of the rolling grassy expanse, and in sight=
of
the horses. Here, on the edge of the wood and bracken, were the rabbit-burr=
ows,
and here among the fronds Eudena and Ugh-lomi would lie with their
throwing-stones ready, until the little people came out to nibble and play =
in
the sunset. And while Eudena would sit, a silent figure of watchfulness,
regarding the burrows, Ugh-lomi's eyes were ever away across the greensward=
at
those wonderful grazing strangers.
In a dim way he
appreciated their grace and their supple nimbleness. As the sun declined in=
the
evening-time, and the heat of the day passed, they would become active, wou=
ld
start chasing one another, neighing, dodging, shaking their manes, coming r=
ound
in great curves, sometimes so close that the pounding of the turf sounded l=
ike
hurried thunder. It looked so fine that Ugh-lomi wanted to join in badly. A=
nd
sometimes one would roll over on the turf, kicking four hoofs heavenward, w=
hich
seemed formidable and was certainly much less alluring.
Dim imaginings ran
through Ugh-lomi's mind as he watched--by virtue of which two rabbits lived=
the
longer. And sleeping, his brains were clearer and bolder--for that was the =
way
in those days. He came near the horses, he dreamt, and fought, smiting-stone
against hoof, but then the horses changed to men, or, at least, to men with
horses' heads, and he awoke in a cold sweat of terror.
Yet the next day =
in
the morning, as the horses were grazing, one of the mares whinnied, and they
saw Ugh-lomi coming up the wind. They all stopped their eating and watched =
him.
Ugh-lomi was not coming towards them, but strolling obliquely across the op=
en,
looking at anything in the world but horses. He had stuck three fern-fronds
into the mat of his hair, giving him a remarkable appearance, and he walked=
very
slowly. "What's up now?" said the Master Horse, who was capable, =
but inexperienced.
"It looks mo=
re
like the first half of an animal than anything else in the world," he
said. "Fore-legs and no hind."
"It's only o=
ne
of those pink monkey things," said the Eldest Mare. "They're a so=
rt
of river monkey. They're quite common on the plains."
Ugh-lomi continued
his oblique advance. The Eldest Mare was struck with the want of motive in =
his
proceedings.
"Fool!"
said the Eldest Mare, in a quick conclusive way she had. She resumed her
grazing. The Master Horse and the Second Mare followed suit.
"Look! he's
nearer," said the Foal with a stripe.
One of the younger
foals made uneasy movements. Ugh-lomi squatted down, and sat regarding the
horses fixedly. In a little while he was satisfied that they meant neither
flight nor hostilities. He began to consider his next procedure. He did not
feel anxious to kill, but he had his axe with him, and the spirit of sport =
was
upon him. How would one kill one of these creatures?--these great beautiful
creatures!
Eudena, watching =
him
with a fearful admiration from the cover of the bracken, saw him presently =
go
on all fours, and so proceed again. But the horses preferred him a biped to=
a
quadruped, and the Master Horse threw up his head and gave the word to move.
Ugh-lomi thought they were off for good, but after a minute's gallop they c=
ame
round in a wide curve, and stood winding him. Then, as a rise in the ground=
hid
him, they tailed out, the Master Horse leading, and approached him spirally=
.
He was as ignoran=
t of
the possibilities of a horse as they were of his. And at this stage it would
seem he funked. He knew this kind of stalking would make red deer or buffalo
charge, if it were persisted in. At any rate Eudena saw him jump up and come
walking towards her with the fern plumes held in his hand.
She stood up, and=
he
grinned to show that the whole thing was an immense lark, and that what he =
had
done was just what he had planned to do from the very beginning. So that
incident ended. But he was very thoughtful all that day.
The next day this
foolish drab creature with the leonine mane, instead of going about the gra=
zing
or hunting he was made for, was prowling round the horses again. The Eldest
Mare was all for silent contempt. "I suppose he wants to learn somethi=
ng
from us," she said, and "Let him." The next day he was at it
again. The Master Horse decided he meant absolutely nothing. But as a matte=
r of
fact, Ugh-lomi, the first of men to feel that curious spell of the horse th=
at
binds us even to this day, meant a great deal. He admired them unreservedly.
There was a rudiment of the snob in him, I am afraid, and he wanted to be n=
ear
these beautifully-curved animals. Then there were vague conceptions of a ki=
ll. If
only they would let him come near them! But they drew the line, he found, at
fifty yards. If he came nearer than that they moved off--with dignity. I
suppose it was the way he had blinded Andoo that made him think of leaping =
on
the back of one of them. But though Eudena after a time came out in the open
too, and they did some unobtrusive stalking, things stopped there.
Then one memorable
day a new idea came to Ugh-lomi. The horse looks down and level, but he does
not look up. No animals look up--they have too much common-sense. It was on=
ly
that fantastic creature, man, could waste his wits skyward. Ugh-lomi made no
philosophical deductions, but he perceived the thing was so. So he spent a
weary day in a beech that stood in the open, while Eudena stalked. Usually =
the
horses went into the shade in the heat of the afternoon, but that day the s=
ky
was overcast, and they would not, in spite of Eudena's solicitude.
It was two days a=
fter
that that Ugh-lomi had his desire. The day was blazing hot, and the multipl=
ying
flies asserted themselves. The horses stopped grazing before midday, and ca=
me
into the shadow below him, and stood in couples nose to tail, flapping.
The Master Horse,=
by
virtue of his heels, came closest to the tree. And suddenly there was a rus=
tle
and a creak, a thud.... Then a sharp chipped flint bit him on the cheek. The
Master Horse stumbled, came on one knee, rose to his feet, and was off like=
the
wind. The air was full of the whirl of limbs, the prance of hoofs, and snor=
ts
of alarm. Ugh-lomi was pitched a foot in the air, came down again, up again,
his stomach was hit violently, and then his knees got a grip of something b=
etween
them. He found himself clutching with knees, feet, and hands, careering
violently with extraordinary oscillation through the air--his axe gone heav=
en
knows whither. "Hold tight," said Mother Instinct, and he did.
He was aware of a=
lot
of coarse hair in his face, some of it between his teeth, and of green turf
streaming past in front of his eyes. He saw the shoulder of the Master Hors=
e,
vast and sleek, with the muscles flowing swiftly under the skin. He perceiv=
ed
that his arms were round the neck, and that the violent jerkings he experie=
nced
had a sort of rhythm.
Then he was in the
midst of a wild rush of tree-stems, and then there were fronds of bracken
about, and then more open turf. Then a stream of pebbles rushing past, litt=
le
pebbles flying sideways athwart the stream from the blow of the swift hoofs.
Ugh-lomi began to feel frightfully sick and giddy, but he was not the stuff=
to
leave go simply because he was uncomfortable.
He dared not leave
his grip, but he tried to make himself more comfortable. He released his hu=
g on
the neck, gripping the mane instead. He slipped his knees forward, and push=
ing
back, came into a sitting position where the quarters broaden. It was nervo=
us
work, but he managed it, and at last he was fairly seated astride, breathle=
ss
indeed, and uncertain, but with that frightful pounding of his body at any =
rate
relieved.
Slowly the fragme=
nts
of Ugh-lomi's mind got into order again. The pace seemed to him terrific, b=
ut a
kind of exultation was beginning to oust his first frantic terror. The air
rushed by, sweet and wonderful, the rhythm of the hoofs changed and broke up
and returned into itself again. They were on turf now, a wide glade--the
beech-trees a hundred yards away on either side, and a succulent band of gr=
een
starred with pink blossom and shot with silver water here and there, meande=
red
down the middle. Far off was a glimpse of blue valley--far away. The exulta=
tion
grew. It was man's first taste of pace.
Then came a wide
space dappled with flying fallow deer scattering this way and that, and the=
n a
couple of jackals, mistaking Ugh-lomi for a lion, came hurrying after him. =
And
when they saw it was not a lion they still came on out of curiosity. On
galloped the horse, with his one idea of escape, and after him the jackals,
with pricked ears and quickly-barked remarks. "Which kills which?"
said the first jackal. "It's the horse being killed," said the
second. They gave the howl of following, and the horse answered to it as a
horse answers nowadays to the spur.
On they rushed, a
little tornado through the quiet day, putting up startled birds, sending a
dozen unexpected things darting to cover, raising a myriad of indignant
dung-flies, smashing little blossoms, flowering complacently, back into the=
ir
parental turf. Trees again, and then splash, splash across a torrent; then a
hare shot out of a tuft of grass under the very hoofs of the Master Horse, =
and
the jackals left them incontinently. So presently they broke into the open
again, a wide expanse of turfy hillside--the very grassy downs that fall
northward nowadays from the Epsom Stand.
The first hot bol=
t of
the Master Horse was long since over. He was falling into a measured trot, =
and
Ugh-lomi, albeit bruised exceedingly and quite uncertain of the future, was=
in
a state of glorious enjoyment. And now came a new development. The pace bro=
ke
again, the Master Horse came round on a short curve, and stopped dead....
Ugh-lomi became
alert. He wished he had a flint, but the throwing-flint he had carried in a
thong about his waist was--like the axe--heaven knows where. The Master Hor=
se
turned his head, and Ugh-lomi became aware of an eye and teeth. He whipped =
his
leg into a position of security, and hit at the cheek with his fist. Then t=
he
head went down somewhere out of existence apparently, and the back he was
sitting on flew up into a dome. Ugh-lomi became a thing of instinct
again--strictly prehensile; he held by knees and feet, and his head seemed
sliding towards the turf. His fingers were twisted into the shock of mane, =
and
the rough hair of the horse saved him. The gradient he was on lowered again,
and then--"Whup!" said Ugh-lomi astonished, and the slant was the
other way up. But Ugh-lomi was a thousand generations nearer the primordial
than man: no monkey could have held on better. And the lion had been traini=
ng the
horse for countless generations against the tactics of rolling and rearing
back. But he kicked like a master, and buck-jumped rather neatly. In five
minutes Ugh-lomi lived a lifetime. If he came off the horse would kill him,=
he
felt assured.
Then the Master H=
orse
decided to stick to his old tactics again, and suddenly went off at a gallo=
p.
He headed down the slope, taking the steep places at a rush, swerving neith=
er
to the right nor to the left, and, as they rode down, the wide expanse of
valley sank out of sight behind the approaching skirmishers of oak and
hawthorn. They skirted a sudden hollow with the pool of a spring, rank weeds
and silver bushes. The ground grew softer and the grass taller, and on the
right-hand side and the left came scattered bushes of May--still splashed w=
ith
belated blossom. Presently the bushes thickened until they lashed the passi=
ng rider,
and little flashes and gouts of blood came out on horse and man. Then the w=
ay
opened again.
And then came a
wonderful adventure. A sudden squeal of unreasonable anger rose amidst the
bushes, the squeal of some creature bitterly wronged. And crashing after th=
em
appeared a big, grey-blue shape. It was Yaaa the big-horned rhinoceros, in =
one
of those fits of fury of his, charging full tilt, after the manner of his k=
ind.
He had been startled at his feeding, and someone, it did not matter who, wa=
s to
be ripped and trampled therefore. He was bearing down on them from the left,
with his wicked little eye red, his great horn down and his tail like a jur=
y-mast
behind him. For a minute Ugh-lomi was minded to slip off and dodge, and then
behold! the staccato of the hoofs grew swifter, and the rhinoceros and his
stumpy hurrying little legs seemed to slide out at the back corner of
Ugh-lomi's eye. In two minutes they were through the bushes of May, and out=
in
the open, going fast. For a space he could hear the ponderous paces in purs=
uit
receding behind him, and then it was just as if Yaaa had not lost his tempe=
r,
as if Yaaa had never existed.
The pace never
faltered, on they rode and on.
Ugh-lomi was now =
all
exultation. To exult in those days was to insult. "Ya-ha! big nose!&qu=
ot;
he said, trying to crane back and see some remote speck of a pursuer. "=
;Why
don't you carry your smiting-stone in your fist?" he ended with a fran=
tic
whoop.
But that whoop was
unfortunate, for coming close to the ear of the horse, and being quite
unexpected, it startled the stallion extremely. He shied violently. Ugh-lomi
suddenly found himself uncomfortable again. He was hanging on to the horse,=
he
found, by one arm and one knee.
The rest of the r=
ide
was honourable but unpleasant. The view was chiefly of blue sky, and that w=
as
combined with the most unpleasant physical sensations. Finally, a bush of t=
horn
lashed him and he let go.
He hit the ground
with his cheek and shoulder, and then, after a complicated and extraordinar=
ily
rapid movement, hit it again with the end of his backbone. He saw splashes =
and
sparks of light and colour. The ground seemed bouncing about just like the
horse had done. Then he found he was sitting on turf, six yards beyond the
bush. In front of him was a space of grass, growing greener and greener, an=
d a
number of human beings in the distance, and the horse was going round at a
smart gallop quite a long way off to the right.
The human beings =
were
on the opposite side of the river, some still in the water, but they were a=
ll
running away as hard as they could go. The advent of a monster that took to
pieces was not the sort of novelty they cared for. For quite a minute Ugh-l=
omi
sat regarding them in a purely spectacular spirit. The bend of the river, t=
he
knoll among the reeds and royal ferns, the thin streams of smoke going up to
Heaven, were all perfectly familiar to him. It was the squatting-place of t=
he
Sons of Uya, of Uya from whom he had fled with Eudena, and whom he had wayl=
aid in
the chestnut woods and killed with the First Axe.
He rose to his fe=
et,
still dazed from his fall, and as he did so the scattering fugitives turned=
and
regarded him. Some pointed to the receding horse and chattered. He walked
slowly towards them, staring. He forgot the horse, he forgot his own bruise=
s,
in the growing interest of this encounter. There were fewer of them than th=
ere
had been--he supposed the others must have hid--the heap of fern for the ni=
ght
fire was not so high. By the flint heaps should have sat Wau--but then he r=
emembered
he had killed Wau. Suddenly brought back to this familiar scene, the gorge =
and
the bears and Eudena seemed things remote, things dreamt of.
He stopped at the
bank and stood regarding the tribe. His mathematical abilities were of the
slightest, but it was certain there were fewer. The men might be away, but
there were fewer women and children. He gave the shout of home-coming. His
quarrel had been with Uya and Wau--not with the others. "Children of
Uya!" he cried. They answered with his name, a little fearfully becaus=
e of
the strange way he had come.
For a space they
spoke together. Then an old woman lifted a shrill voice and answered him.
"Our Lord is a Lion."
Ugh-lomi did not
understand that saying. They answered him again several together, "Uya
comes again. He comes as a Lion. Our Lord is a Lion. He comes at night. He
slays whom he will. But none other may slay us, Ugh-lomi, none other may sl=
ay
us."
Still Ugh-lomi did
not understand.
"Our Lord is=
a
Lion. He speaks no more to men."
Ugh-lomi stood re=
garding
them. He had had dreams--he knew that though he had killed Uya, Uya still
existed. And now they told him Uya was a Lion.
The shrivelled old
woman, the mistress of the fire-minders, suddenly turned and spoke softly to
those next to her. She was a very old woman indeed, she had been the first =
of
Uya's wives, and he had let her live beyond the age to which it is seemly a
woman should be permitted to live. She had been cunning from the first, cun=
ning
to please Uya and to get food. And now she was great in counsel. She spoke
softly, and Ugh-lomi watched her shrivelled form across the river with a
curious distaste. Then she called aloud, "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi.&q=
uot;
A girl suddenly
lifted up her voice. "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi," she said. And t=
hey
all began crying, "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi."
It was strange how
their manner changed after the old woman called.
He stood quite st=
ill
watching them all. It was pleasant to be called, and the girl who had called
first was a pretty one. But she made him think of Eudena.
"Come over to
us, Ugh-lomi," they cried, and the voice of the shrivelled old woman r=
ose
above them all. At the sound of her voice his hesitation returned.
He stood on the r=
iver
bank, Ugh-lomi--Ugh the Thinker--with his thoughts slowly taking shape.
Presently one and then another paused to see what he would do. He was minde=
d to
go back, he was minded not to. Suddenly his fear or his caution got the upp=
er
hand. Without answering them he turned, and walked back towards the distant
thorn-trees, the way he had come. Forthwith the whole tribe started crying =
to
him again very eagerly. He hesitated and turned, then he went on, then he
turned again, and then once again, regarding them with troubled eyes as they
called. The last time he took two paces back, before his fear stopped him. =
They
saw him stop once more, and suddenly shake his head and vanish among the
hawthorn-trees.
Then all the women
and children lifted up their voices together, and called to him in one last
vain effort.
Far down the rive=
r the
reeds were stirring in the breeze, where, convenient for his new sort of
feeding, the old lion, who had taken to man-eating, had made his lair.
The old woman tur=
ned
her face that way, and pointed to the hawthorn thickets. "Uya," s=
he
screamed, "there goes thine enemy! There goes thine enemy, Uya! Why do=
you
devour us nightly? We have tried to snare him! There goes thine enemy,
Uya!"
But the lion who
preyed upon the tribe was taking his siesta. The cry went unheard. That day=
he
had dined on one of the plumper girls, and his mood was a comfortable
placidity. He really did not understand that he was Uya or that Ugh-lomi was
his enemy.
So it was that
Ugh-lomi rode the horse, and heard first of Uya the lion, who had taken the
place of Uya the Master, and was eating up the tribe. And as he hurried bac=
k to
the gorge his mind was no longer full of the horse, but of the thought that=
Uya
was still alive, to slay or be slain. Over and over again he saw the shrunk=
en
band of women and children crying that Uya was a lion. Uya was a lion!
And presently,
fearing the twilight might come upon him, Ugh-lomi began running.
The old lion was =
in
luck. The tribe had a certain pride in their ruler, but that was all the
satisfaction they got out of it. He came the very night that Ugh-lomi killed
Uya the Cunning, and so it was they named him Uya. It was the old woman, the
fire-minder, who first named him Uya. A shower had lowered the fires to a g=
low,
and made the night dark. And as they conversed together, and peered at one
another in the darkness, and wondered fearfully what Uya would do to them in
their dreams now that he was dead, they heard the mounting reverberations of
the lion's roar close at hand. Then everything was still.
They held their
breath, so that almost the only sounds were the patter of the rain and the =
hiss
of the raindrops in the ashes. And then, after an interminable time, a cras=
h,
and a shriek of fear, and a growling. They sprang to their feet, shouting,
screaming, running this way and that, but brands would not burn, and in a
minute the victim was being dragged away through the ferns. It was Irk, the
brother of Wau.
So the lion came.=
The ferns were st=
ill
wet from the rain the next night, and he came and took Click with the red h=
air.
That sufficed for two nights. And then in the dark between the moons he came
three nights, night after night, and that though they had good fires. He wa=
s an
old lion with stumpy teeth, but very silent and very cool; he knew of fires
before; these were not the first of mankind that had ministered to his old =
age.
The third night he came between the outer fire and the inner, and he leapt =
the
flint heap, and pulled down Irm the son of Irk, who had seemed like to be t=
he leader.
That was a dreadful night, because they lit great flares of fern and ran
screaming, and the lion missed his hold of Irm. By the glare of the fire th=
ey
saw Irm struggle up, and run a little way towards them, and then the lion in
two bounds had him down again. That was the last of Irm.
So fear came, and=
all
the delight of spring passed out of their lives. Already there were five go=
ne
out of the tribe, and four nights added three more to the number. Food-seek=
ing
became spiritless, none knew who might go next, and all day the women toile=
d,
even the favourite women, gathering litter and sticks for the night fires. =
And
the hunters hunted ill: in the warm spring-time hunger came again as though=
it
was still winter. The tribe might have moved, had they had a leader, but th=
ey
had no leader, and none knew where to go that the lion could not follow the=
m.
So the old lion waxed fat and thanked heaven for the kindly race of men. Tw=
o of
the children and a youth died while the moon was still new, and then it was=
the
shrivelled old fire-minder first bethought herself in a dream of Eudena and
Ugh-lomi, and of the way Uya had been slain. She had lived in fear of Uya a=
ll
her days, and now she lived in fear of the lion. That Ugh-lomi could kill U=
ya
for good--Ugh-lomi whom she had seen born--was impossible. It was Uya still
seeking his enemy!
And then came the
strange return of Ugh-lomi, a wonderful animal seen galloping far across the
river, that suddenly changed into two animals, a horse and a man. Following
this portent, the vision of Ugh-lomi on the farther bank of the river.... Y=
es,
it was all plain to her. Uya was punishing them, because they had not hunted
down Ugh-lomi and Eudena.
The men came
straggling back to the chances of the night while the sun was still golden =
in
the sky. They were received with the story of Ugh-lomi. She went across the
river with them and showed them his spoor hesitating on the farther bank. S=
iss
the Tracker knew the feet for Ugh-lomi's. "Uya needs Ugh-lomi," c=
ried
the old woman, standing on the left of the bend, a gesticulating figure of
flaring bronze in the sunset. Her cries were strange sounds, flitting to and
fro on the borderland of speech, but this was the sense they carried: "=
;The
lion needs Eudena. He comes night after night seeking Eudena and Ugh-lomi. =
When
he cannot find Eudena and Ugh-lomi, he grows angry and he kills. Hunt Eudena
and Ugh-lomi, Eudena whom he pursued, and Ugh-lomi for whom he gave the
death-word! Hunt Eudena and Ugh-lomi!"
She turned to the
distant reed-bed, as sometimes she had turned to Uya in his life. "Is =
it
not so, my lord?" she cried. And, as if in answer, the tall reeds bowed
before a breath of wind.
Far into the twil=
ight
the sound of hacking was heard from the squatting-places. It was the men
sharpening their ashen spears against the hunting of the morrow. And in the
night, early before the moon rose, the lion came and took the girl of Siss =
the
Tracker.
In the morning be=
fore
the sun had risen, Siss the Tracker, and the lad Wau-Hau, who now chipped
flints, and One Eye, and Bo, and the Snail-eater, the two red-haired men, a=
nd
Cat's-skin and Snake, all the men that were left alive of the Sons of Uya,
taking their ash spears and their smiting-stones, and with throwing-stones =
in
the beast-paw bags, started forth upon the trail of Ugh-lomi through the
hawthorn thickets where Yaaa the Rhinoceros and his brothers were feeding, =
and
up the bare downland towards the beechwoods.
That night the fi=
res
burnt high and fierce, as the waxing moon set, and the lion left the crouch=
ing
women and children in peace.
And the next day,
while the sun was still high, the hunters returned--all save One Eye, who l=
ay
dead with a smashed skull at the foot of the ledge. (When Ugh-lomi came back
that evening from stalking the horses, he found the vultures already busy o=
ver
him.) And with them the hunters brought Eudena bruised and wounded, but ali=
ve.
That had been the strange order of the shrivelled old woman, that she was t=
o be
brought alive--"She is no kill for us. She is for Uya the Lion." =
Her hands
were tied with thongs, as though she had been a man, and she came weary and
drooping--her hair over her eyes and matted with blood. They walked about h=
er,
and ever and again the Snail-eater, whose name she had given, would laugh a=
nd
strike her with his ashen spear. And after he had struck her with his spear=
, he
would look over his shoulder like one who had done an over-bold deed. The
others, too, looked over their shoulders ever and again, and all were in a
hurry save Eudena. When the old woman saw them coming, she cried aloud with
joy.
They made Eudena
cross the river with her hands tied, although the current was strong and wh=
en
she slipped the old woman screamed, first with joy and then for fear she mi=
ght
be drowned. And when they had dragged Eudena to shore, she could not stand =
for
a time, albeit they beat her sore. So they let her sit with her feet touchi=
ng
the water, and her eyes staring before her, and her face set, whatever they
might do or say. All the tribe came down to the squatting-place, even curly
little Haha, who as yet could scarcely toddle, and stood staring at Eudena =
and the
old woman, as now we should stare at some strange wounded beast and its cap=
tor.
The old woman tore
off the necklace of Uya that was about Eudena's neck, and put it on
herself--she had been the first to wear it. Then she tore at Eudena's hair,=
and
took a spear from Siss and beat her with all her might. And when she had ve=
nted
the warmth of her heart on the girl she looked closely into her face. Euden=
a's
eyes were closed and her features were set, and she lay so still that for a
moment the old woman feared she was dead. And then her nostrils quivered. At
that the old woman slapped her face and laughed and gave the spear to Siss
again, and went a little way off from her and began to talk and jeer at her
after her manner.
The old woman had
more words than any in the tribe. And her talk was a terrible thing to hear.
Sometimes she screamed and moaned incoherently, and sometimes the shape of =
her
guttural cries was the mere phantom of thoughts. But she conveyed to Eudena,
nevertheless, much of the things that were yet to come, of the Lion and of =
the
torment he would do her. "And Ugh-lomi! Ha, ha! Ugh-lomi is slain?&quo=
t;
And suddenly Eude=
na's
eyes opened and she sat up again, and her look met the old woman's fair and=
level.
"No," she said slowly, like one trying to remember, "I did n=
ot
see my Ugh-lomi slain. I did not see my Ugh-lomi slain."
"Tell her,&q=
uot;
cried the old woman. "Tell her--he that killed him. Tell her how Ugh-l=
omi
was slain."
She looked, and a=
ll
the women and children there looked, from man to man.
None answered her.
They stood shame-faced.
"Tell her,&q=
uot;
said the old woman. The men looked at one another.
Eudena's face
suddenly lit.
"Tell her,&q=
uot;
she said. "Tell her, mighty men! Tell her the killing of Ugh-lomi.&quo=
t;
The old woman rose
and struck her sharply across her mouth.
"We could not
find Ugh-lomi," said Siss the Tracker, slowly. "Who hunts two, ki=
lls
none."
Then Eudena's hea=
rt
leapt, but she kept her face hard. It was as well, for the old woman looked=
at
her sharply, with murder in her eyes.
Then the old woman
turned her tongue upon the men because they had feared to go on after Ugh-l=
omi.
She dreaded no one now Uya was slain. She scolded them as one scolds childr=
en.
And they scowled at her, and began to accuse one another. Until suddenly Si=
ss
the Tracker raised his voice and bade her hold her peace.
And so when the s=
un
was setting they took Eudena and went--though their hearts sank within
them--along the trail the old lion had made in the reeds. All the men went
together. At one place was a group of alders, and here they hastily bound
Eudena where the lion might find her when he came abroad in the twilight, a=
nd
having done so they hurried back until they were near the squatting-place. =
Then
they stopped. Siss stopped first and looked back again at the alders. They
could see her head even from the squatting-place, a little black shock under
the limb of the larger tree. That was as well.
All the women and
children stood watching upon the crest of the mound. And the old woman stood
and screamed for the lion to take her whom he sought, and counselled him on=
the
torments he might do her.
Eudena was very w=
eary
now, stunned by beatings and fatigue and sorrow, and only the fear of the t=
hing
that was still to come upheld her. The sun was broad and blood-red between =
the
stems of the distant chestnuts, and the west was all on fire; the evening
breeze had died to a warm tranquillity. The air was full of midge swarms, t=
he
fish in the river hard by would leap at times, and now and again a cockchaf=
er
would drone through the air. Out of the corner of her eye Eudena could see a
part of the squatting-knoll, and little figures standing and staring at her=
. And--a
very little sound but very clear--she could hear the beating of the firesto=
ne.
Dark and near to her and still was the reed-fringed thicket of the lair.
Presently the
firestone ceased. She looked for the sun and found he had gone, and overhead
and growing brighter was the waxing moon. She looked towards the thicket of=
the
lair, seeking shapes in the reeds, and then suddenly she began to wriggle a=
nd
wriggle, weeping and calling upon Ugh-lomi.
But Ugh-lomi was =
far
away. When they saw her head moving with her struggles, they shouted togeth=
er
on the knoll, and she desisted and was still. And then came the bats, and t=
he
star that was like Ugh-lomi crept out of its blue hiding-place in the west.=
She
called to it, but softly, because she feared the lion. And all through the
coming of the twilight the thicket was still.
So the dark crept
upon Eudena, and the moon grew bright, and the shadows of things that had f=
led
up the hillside and vanished with the evening came back to them short and
black. And the dark shapes in the thicket of reeds and alders where the lion
lay, gathered, and a faint stir began there. But nothing came out therefrom=
all
through the gathering of the darkness.
She looked at the squatting-place and saw the fires glowing smoky-red, and the men and women going to and fro. The other way, over the river, a white mist was rising. T= hen far away came the whimpering of young foxes and the yell of a hyæna.<= o:p>
There were long g=
aps
of aching waiting. After a long time some animal splashed in the water, and
seemed to cross the river at the ford beyond the lair, but what animal it w=
as
she could not see. From the distant drinking-pools she could hear the sound=
of
splashing, and the noise of elephants--so still was the night.
The earth was now=
a
colourless arrangement of white reflections and impenetrable shadows, under=
the
blue sky. The silvery moon was already spotted with the filigree crests of =
the
chestnut woods, and over the shadowy eastward hills the stars were multiply=
ing.
The knoll fires were bright red now, and black figures stood waiting against
them. They were waiting for a scream.... Surely it would be soon.
The night suddenly
seemed full of movement. She held her breath. Things were passing--one, two,
three--subtly sneaking shadows.... Jackals.
Then a long waiti=
ng
again.
Then, asserting
itself as real at once over all the sounds her mind had imagined, came a st=
ir
in the thicket, then a vigorous movement. There was a snap. The reeds crash=
ed
heavily, once, twice, thrice, and then everything was still save a measured
swishing. She heard a low tremulous growl, and then everything was still ag=
ain.
The stillness lengthened--would it never end? She held her breath; she bit =
her
lips to stop screaming. Then something scuttled through the undergrowth. He=
r scream
was involuntary. She did not hear the answering yell from the mound.
Immediately the
thicket woke up to vigorous movement again. She saw the grass stems waving =
in
the light of the setting moon, the alders swaying. She struggled violently-=
-her
last struggle. But nothing came towards her. A dozen monsters seemed rushing
about in that little place for a couple of minutes, and then again came
silence. The moon sank behind the distant chestnuts and the night was dark.=
Then an odd sound=
, a
sobbing panting, that grew faster and fainter. Yet another silence, and then
dim sounds and the grunting of some animal.
Everything was st=
ill
again. Far away eastwards an elephant trumpeted, and from the woods came a
snarling and yelping that died away.
In the long inter=
val
the moon shone out again, between the stems of the trees on the ridge, send=
ing
two great bars of light and a bar of darkness across the reedy waste. Then =
came
a steady rustling, a splash, and the reeds swayed wider and wider apart. An=
d at
last they broke open, cleft from root to crest.... The end had come.
She looked to see=
the
thing that had come out of the reeds. For a moment it seemed certainly the
great head and jaw she expected, and then it dwindled and changed. It was a
dark low thing, that remained silent, but it was not the lion. It became
still--everything became still. She peered. It was like some gigantic frog,=
two
limbs and a slanting body. Its head moved about searching the shadows....
A rustle, and it
moved clumsily, with a sort of hopping. And as it moved it gave a low groan=
.
The blood rushing
through her veins was suddenly joy. "Ugh-lomi!" she whispered.
The thing stopped.
"Eudena," he answered softly with pain in his voice, and peering =
into
the alders.
He moved again, a=
nd
came out of the shadow beyond the reeds into the moonlight. All his body wa=
s covered
with dark smears. She saw he was dragging his legs, and that he gripped his
axe, the first axe, in one hand. In another moment he had struggled into the
position of all fours, and had staggered over to her. "The lion,"=
he
said in a strange mingling of exultation and anguish. "Wau!--I have sl=
ain
a lion. With my own hand. Even as I slew the great bear." He moved to
emphasise his words, and suddenly broke off with a faint cry. For a space he
did not move.
"Let me
free," whispered Eudena....
He answered her no
words but pulled himself up from his crawling attitude by means of the alder
stem, and hacked at her thongs with the sharp edge of his axe. She heard him
sob at each blow. He cut away the thongs about her chest and arms, and then=
his
hand dropped. His chest struck against her shoulder and he slipped down bes=
ide
her and lay still.
But the rest of h=
er
release was easy. Very hastily she freed herself. She made one step from the
tree, and her head was spinning. Her last conscious movement was towards hi=
m.
She reeled, and dropped. Her hand fell upon his thigh. It was soft and wet,=
and
gave way under her pressure; he cried out at her touch, and writhed and lay
still again.
Presently a dark
dog-like shape came very softly through the reeds. Then stopped dead and st=
ood
sniffing, hesitated, and at last turned and slunk back into the shadows.
Long was the time
they remained there motionless, with the light of the setting moon shining =
on
their limbs. Very slowly, as slowly as the setting of the moon, did the sha=
dow
of the reeds towards the mound flow over them. Presently their legs were
hidden, and Ugh-lomi was but a bust of silver. The shadow crept to his neck,
crept over his face, and so at last the darkness of the night swallowed them
up.
The shadow became
full of instinctive stirrings. There was a patter of feet, and a faint
snarling--the sound of a blow.
*
There was little
sleep that night for the women and children at the squatting-place until th=
ey
heard Eudena scream. But the men were weary and sat dozing. When Eudena
screamed they felt assured of their safety, and hurried to get the nearest
places to the fires. The old woman laughed at the scream, and laughed again
because Si, the little friend of Eudena, whimpered. Directly the dawn came =
they
were all alert and looking towards the alders. They could see that Eudena h=
ad
been taken. They could not help feeling glad to think that Uya was appeased.
But across the minds of the men the thought of Ugh-lomi fell like a shadow.=
They
could understand revenge, for the world was old in revenge, but they did not
think of rescue. Suddenly a hyæna fled out of the thicket, and came
galloping across the reed space. His muzzle and paws were dark-stained. At =
that
sight all the men shouted and clutched at throwing-stones and ran towards h=
im,
for no animal is so pitiful a coward as the hyæna by day. All men hat=
ed
the hyæna because he preyed on children, and would come and bite when=
one
was sleeping on the edge of the squatting-place. And Cat's-skin, throwing f=
air
and straight, hit the brute shrewdly on the flank, whereat the whole tribe
yelled with delight.
At the noise they
made there came a flapping of wings from the lair of the lion, and three
white-headed vultures rose slowly and circled and came to rest amidst the
branches of an alder, overlooking the lair. "Our lord is abroad,"
said the old woman, pointing. "The vultures have their share of
Eudena." For a space they remained there, and then first one and then
another dropped back into the thicket.
Then over the eas=
tern
woods, and touching the whole world to life and colour, poured, with the
exaltation of a trumpet blast, the light of the rising sun. At the sight of=
him
the children shouted together, and clapped their hands and began to race off
towards the water. Only little Si lagged behind and looked wonderingly at t=
he
alders where she had seen the head of Eudena overnight.
But Uya, the old
lion, was not abroad, but at home, and he lay very still, and a little on o=
ne
side. He was not in his lair, but a little way from it in a place of trampl=
ed
grass. Under one eye was a little wound, the feeble little bite of the first
axe. But all the ground beneath his chest was ruddy brown with a vivid stre=
ak,
and in his chest was a little hole that had been made by Ugh-lomi's
stabbing-spear. Along his side and at his neck the vultures had marked their
claims. For so Ugh-lomi had slain him, lying stricken under his paw and
thrusting haphazard at his chest. He had driven the spear in with all his
strength and stabbed the giant to the heart. So it was the reign of the lio=
n,
of the second incarnation of Uya the Master, came to an end.
From the knoll the
bustle of preparation grew, the hacking of spears and throwing-stones. None
spake the name of Ugh-lomi for fear that it might bring him. The men were g=
oing
to keep together, close together, in the hunting for a day or so. And their
hunting was to be Ugh-lomi, lest instead he should come a-hunting them.
But Ugh-lomi was
lying very still and silent, outside the lion's lair, and Eudena squatted
beside him, with the ash spear, all smeared with lion's blood, gripped in h=
er
hand.
V--THE FIGHT IN THE LION'S
THICKET
Ugh-lomi lay stil=
l,
his back against an alder, and his thigh was a red mass terrible to see. No
civilised man could have lived who had been so sorely wounded, but Eudena g=
ot
him thorns to close his wounds, and squatted beside him day and night, smit=
ing
the flies from him with a fan of reeds by day, and in the night threatening=
the
hyænas with the first axe in her hand; and in a little while he began=
to
heal. It was high summer, and there was no rain. Little food they had during
the first two days his wounds were open. In the low place where they hid we=
re
no roots nor little beasts, and the stream, with its water-snails and fish,=
was
in the open a hundred yards away. She could not go abroad by day for fear of
the tribe, her brothers and sisters, nor by night for fear of the beasts, b=
oth
on his account and hers. So they shared the lion with the vultures. But the=
re
was a trickle of water near by, and Eudena brought him plenty in her hands.=
Where Ugh-lomi lay
was well hidden from the tribe by a thicket of alders, and all fenced about
with bulrushes and tall reeds. The dead lion he had killed lay near his old
lair on a place of trampled reeds fifty yards away, in sight through the
reed-stems, and the vultures fought each other for the choicest pieces and =
kept
the jackals off him. Very soon a cloud of flies that looked like bees hung =
over
him, and Ugh-lomi could hear their humming. And when Ugh-lomi's flesh was
already healing--and it was not many days before that began--only a few bon=
es
of the lion remained scattered and shining white.
For the most part
Ugh-lomi sat still during the day, looking before him at nothing, sometimes=
he
would mutter of the horses and bears and lions, and sometimes he would beat=
the
ground with the first axe and say the names of the tribe--he seemed to have=
no
fear of bringing the tribe--for hours together. But chiefly he slept, dream=
ing
little because of his loss of blood and the slightness of his food. During =
the
short summer night both kept awake. All the while the darkness lasted things
moved about them, things they never saw by day. For some nights the
hyænas did not come, and then one moonless night near a dozen came and
fought for what was left of the lion. The night was a tumult of growling, a=
nd Ugh-lomi
and Eudena could hear the bones snap in their teeth. But they knew the
hyæna dare not attack any creature alive and awake, and so they were =
not
greatly afraid.
Of a daytime Eude=
na
would go along the narrow path the old lion had made in the reeds until she=
was
beyond the bend, and then she would creep into the thicket and watch the tr=
ibe.
She would lie close by the alders where they had bound her to offer her up =
to
the lion, and thence she could see them on the knoll by the fire, small and
clear, as she had seen them that night. But she told Ugh-lomi little of what
she saw, because she feared to bring them by their names. For so they belie=
ved
in those days, that naming called.
She saw the men
prepare stabbing-spears and throwing-stones on the morning after Ugh-lomi h=
ad
slain the lion, and go out to hunt him, leaving the women and children on t=
he
knoll. Little they knew how near he was as they tracked off in single file
towards the hills, with Siss the Tracker leading them. And she watched the
women and children, after the men had gone, gathering fern-fronds and twigs=
for
the night fire, and the boys and girls running and playing together. But the
very old woman made her feel afraid. Towards noon, when most of the others =
were
down at the stream by the bend, she came and stood on the hither side of the
knoll, a gnarled brown figure, and gesticulated so that Eudena could scarce
believe she was not seen. Eudena lay like a hare in its form, with shining =
eyes
fixed on the bent witch away there, and presently she dimly understood it w=
as
the lion the old woman was worshipping--the lion Ugh-lomi had slain.
And the next day =
the
hunters came back weary, carrying a fawn, and Eudena watched the feast
enviously. And then came a strange thing. She saw--distinctly she heard--the
old woman shrieking and gesticulating and pointing towards her. She was afr=
aid,
and crept like a snake out of sight again. But presently curiosity overcame=
her
and she was back at her spying-place, and as she peered her heart stopped, =
for
there were all the men, with their weapons in their hands, walking together
towards her from the knoll.
She dared not move
lest her movement should be seen, but she pressed herself close to the grou=
nd.
The sun was low and the golden light was in the faces of the men. She saw t=
hey
carried a piece of rich red meat thrust through by an ashen stake. Presently
they stopped. "Go on!" screamed the old woman. Cat's-skin grumble=
d,
and they came on, searching the thicket with sun-dazzled eyes.
"Here!" said Siss. And they took the ashen stake with the meat up=
on
it and thrust it into the ground. "Uya!" cried Siss, "behold=
thy
portion. And Ugh-lomi we have slain. Of a truth we have slain Ugh-lomi. This
day we slew Ugh-lomi, and to-morrow we will bring his body to you." And
the others repeated the words.
They looked at ea=
ch
other and behind them, and partly turned and began going back. At first they
walked half turned to the thicket, then facing the mound they walked faster
looking over their shoulders, then faster; soon they ran, it was a race at
last, until they were near the knoll. Then Siss who was hindmost was first =
to
slacken his pace.
The sunset passed=
and
the twilight came, the fires glowed red against the hazy blue of the distant
chestnut-trees, and the voices over the mound were merry. Eudena lay scarce=
ly
stirring, looking from the mound to the meat and then to the mound. She was
hungry, but she was afraid. At last she crept back to Ugh-lomi.
He looked round at
the little rustle of her approach. His face was in shadow. "Have you g=
ot
me some food?" he said.
She said she could
find nothing, but that she would seek further, and went back along the lion=
's
path until she could see the mound again, but she could not bring herself to
take the meat; she had the brute's instinct of a snare. She felt very
miserable.
She crept back at
last towards Ugh-lomi and heard him stirring and moaning. She turned back to
the mound again; then she saw something in the darkness near the stake, and
peering distinguished a jackal. In a flash she was brave and angry; she spr=
ang
up, cried out, and ran towards the offering. She stumbled and fell, and hea=
rd
the growling of the jackal going off.
When she arose on=
ly
the ashen stake lay on the ground, the meat was gone. So she went back, to =
fast
through the night with Ugh-lomi; and Ugh-lomi was angry with her, because s=
he
had no food for him; but she told him nothing of the things she had seen.
Two days passed a=
nd
they were near starving, when the tribe slew a horse. Then came the same
ceremony, and a haunch was left on the ashen stake; but this time Eudena did
not hesitate.
By acting and wor=
ds
she made Ugh-lomi understand, but he ate most of the food before he underst=
ood;
and then as her meaning passed to him he grew merry with his food. "I =
am
Uya," he said; "I am the Lion. I am the Great Cave Bear, I who was
only Ugh-lomi. I am Wau the Cunning. It is well that they should feed me, f=
or
presently I will kill them all."
Then Eudena's hea=
rt
was light, and she laughed with him; and afterwards she ate what he had lef=
t of
the horseflesh with gladness.
After that it was=
he
had a dream, and the next day he made Eudena bring him the lion's teeth and
claws--so much of them as she could find--and hack him a club of alder. And=
he
put the teeth and claws very cunningly into the wood so that the points were
outward. Very long it took him, and he blunted two of the teeth hammering t=
hem
in, and was very angry and threw the thing away; but afterwards he dragged
himself to where he had thrown it and finished it--a club of a new sort set
with teeth. That day there was more meat for them both, an offering to the =
lion
from the tribe.
It was one day--m=
ore
than a hand's fingers of days, more than anyone had skill to count--after
Ugh-lomi had made the club, that Eudena while he was asleep was lying in the
thicket watching the squatting-place. There had been no meat for three days.
And the old woman came and worshipped after her manner. Now while she
worshipped, Eudena's little friend Si and another, the child of the first g=
irl
Siss had loved, came over the knoll and stood regarding her skinny figure, =
and
presently they began to mock her. Eudena found this entertaining, but sudde=
nly
the old woman turned on them quickly and saw them. For a moment she stood a=
nd
they stood motionless, and then with a shriek of rage, she rushed towards t=
hem,
and all three disappeared over the crest of the knoll.
Presently the
children reappeared among the ferns beyond the shoulder of the hill. Little=
Si
ran first, for she was an active girl, and the other child ran squealing wi=
th
the old woman close upon her. And over the knoll came Siss with a bone in h=
is
hand, and Bo and Cat's-skin obsequiously behind him, each holding a piece of
food, and they laughed aloud and shouted to see the old woman so angry. And
with a shriek the child was caught and the old woman set to work slapping a=
nd
the child screaming, and it was very good after-dinner fun for them. Little=
Si
ran on a little way and stopped at last between fear and curiosity.
And suddenly came=
the
mother of the child, with hair streaming, panting, and with a stone in her
hand, and the old woman turned about like a wild cat. She was the equal of =
any
woman, was the chief of the fire-minders, in spite of her years; but before=
she
could do anything Siss shouted to her and the clamour rose loud. Other shock
heads came into sight. It seemed the whole tribe was at home and feasting. =
But
the old woman dared not go on wreaking herself on the child Siss befriended=
.
Everyone made noi=
ses
and called names--even little Si. Abruptly the old woman let go of the child
she had caught and made a swift run at Si for Si had no friends; and Si,
realising her danger when it was almost upon her, made off headlong, with a
faint cry of terror, not heeding whither she ran, straight to the lair of t=
he
lion. She swerved aside into the reeds presently, realising now whither she
went.
But the old woman=
was
a wonderful old woman, as active as she was spiteful, and she caught Si by =
the
streaming hair within thirty yards of Eudena. All the tribe now was running
down the knoll and shouting and laughing ready to see the fun.
Then something
stirred in Eudena; something that had never stirred in her before; and,
thinking all of little Si and nothing of her fear, she sprang up from her
ambush and ran swiftly forward. The old woman did not see her, for she was =
busy
beating little Si's face with her hand, beating with all her heart, and
suddenly something hard and heavy struck her cheek. She went reeling, and s=
aw
Eudena with flaming eyes and cheeks between her and little Si. She shrieked
with astonishment and terror, and little Si, not understanding, set off tow=
ards
the gaping tribe. They were quite close now, for the sight of Eudena had dr=
iven
their fading fear of the lion out of their heads.
In a moment Eudena
had turned from the cowering old woman and overtaken Si. "Si!" she
cried, "Si!" She caught the child up in her arms as it stopped,
pressed the nail-lined face to hers, and turned about to run towards her la=
ir,
the lair of the old lion. The old woman stood waist-high in the reeds, and
screamed foul things and inarticulate rage, but did not dare to intercept h=
er;
and at the bend of the path Eudena looked back and saw all the men of the t=
ribe
crying to one another and Siss coming at a trot along the lion's trail.
She ran straight
along the narrow way through the reeds to the shady place where Ugh-lomi sat
with his healing thigh, just awakened by the shouting and rubbing his eyes.=
She
came to him, a woman, with little Si in her arms. Her heart throbbed in her
throat. "Ugh-lomi!" she cried, "Ugh-lomi, the tribe comes!&q=
uot;
Ugh-lomi sat star=
ing
in stupid astonishment at her and Si.
She pointed with =
Si
in one arm. She sought among her feeble store of words to explain. She could
hear the men calling. Apparently they had stopped outside. She put down Si =
and
caught up the new club with the lion's teeth, and put it into Ugh-lomi's ha=
nd,
and ran three yards and picked up the first axe.
"Ah!" s=
aid
Ugh-lomi, waving the new club, and suddenly he perceived the occasion and,
rolling over, began to struggle to his feet.
He stood but
clumsily. He supported himself by one hand against the tree, and just touch=
ed
the ground gingerly with the toe of his wounded leg. In the other hand he
gripped the new club. He looked at his healing thigh; and suddenly the reeds
began whispering, and ceased and whispered again, and coming cautiously alo=
ng
the track, bending down and holding his fire-hardened stabbing-stick of ash=
in
his hand, appeared Siss. He stopped dead, and his eyes met Ugh-lomi's.
Ugh-lomi forgot he
had a wounded leg. He stood firmly on both feet. Something trickled. He gla=
nced
down and saw a little gout of blood had oozed out along the edge of the hea=
ling
wound. He rubbed his hand there to give him the grip of his club, and fixed=
his
eyes again on Siss.
"Wau!" =
he
cried, and sprang forward, and Siss, still stooping and watchful, drove his
stabbing-stick up very quickly in an ugly thrust. It ripped Ugh-lomi's guar=
ding
arm and the club came down in a counter that Siss was never to understand. =
He
fell, as an ox falls to the pole-axe, at Ugh-lomi's feet.
To Bo it seemed t=
he
strangest thing. He had a comforting sense of tall reeds on either side, an=
d an
impregnable rampart, Siss, between him and any danger. Snail-eater was close
behind and there was no danger there. He was prepared to shove behind and s=
end
Siss to death or victory. That was his place as second man. He saw the butt=
of
the spear Siss carried leap away from him, and suddenly a dull whack and the
broad back fell away forward, and he looked Ugh-lomi in the face over his
prostrate leader. It felt to Bo as if his heart had fallen down a well. He =
had
a throwing-stone in one hand and an ashen stabbing-stick in the other. He d=
id
not live to the end of his momentary hesitation which to use.
Snail-eater was a
readier man, and besides Bo did not fall forward as Siss had done, but gave=
at
his knees and hips, crumpling up with the toothed club upon his head. The
Snail-eater drove his spear forward swift and straight, and took Ugh-lomi in
the muscle of the shoulder, and then he drove him hard with the smiting-sto=
ne
in his other hand, shouting out as he did so. The new club swished
ineffectually through the reeds. Eudena saw Ugh-lomi come staggering back f=
rom
the narrow path into the open space, tripping over Siss and with a foot of
ashen stake sticking out of him over his arm. And then the Snail-eater, who=
se
name she had given, had his final injury from her, as his exultant face cam=
e out
of the reeds after his spear. For she swung the first axe swift and high, a=
nd
hit him fair and square on the temple; and down he went on Siss at prostrate
Ugh-lomi's feet.
But before Ugh-lo=
mi
could get up, the two red-haired men were tumbling out of the reeds, spears=
and
smiting-stones ready, and Snake hard behind them. One she struck on the nec=
k,
but not to fell him, and he blundered aside and spoilt his brother's blow at
Ugh-lomi's head. In a moment Ugh-lomi dropped his club and had his assailan=
t by
the waist, and had pitched him sideways sprawling. He snatched at his club
again and recovered it. The man Eudena had hit stabbed at her with his spea=
r as
he stumbled from her blow, and involuntarily she gave ground to avoid him. =
He
hesitated between her and Ugh-lomi, half turned, gave a vague cry at finding
Ugh-lomi so near, and in a moment Ugh-lomi had him by the throat, and the c=
lub
had its third victim. As he went down Ugh-lomi shouted--no words, but an
exultant cry.
The other red-hai=
red
man was six feet from her with his back to her, and a darker red streaking =
his
head. He was struggling to his feet. She had an irrational impulse to stop =
his
rising. She flung the axe at him, missed, saw his face in profile, and he h=
ad
swerved beyond little Si, and was running through the reeds. She had a
transitory vision of Snake standing in the throat of the path, half turned =
away
from her, and then she saw his back. She saw the club whirling through the =
air,
and the shock head of Ugh-lomi, with blood in the hair and blood upon the s=
houlder,
vanishing below the reeds in pursuit. Then she heard Snake scream like a wo=
man.
She ran past Si to
where the handle of the axe stuck out of a clump of fern, and turning, found
herself panting and alone with three motionless bodies. The air was full of
shouts and screams. For a space she was sick and giddy, and then it came in=
to
her head that Ugh-lomi was being killed along the reed-path, and with an
inarticulate cry she leapt over the body of Bo and hurried after him. Snake=
's
feet lay across the path, and his head was among the reeds. She followed the
path until it bent round and opened out by the alders, and thence she saw a=
ll that
was left of the tribe in the open, scattering like dead leaves before a gal=
e,
and going back over the knoll. Ugh-lomi was hard upon Cat's-skin.
But Cat's-skin was
fleet of foot and got away, and so did young Wau-Hau when Ugh-lomi turned u=
pon
him, and Ugh-lomi pursued Wau-Hau far beyond the knoll before he desisted. =
He
had the rage of battle on him now, and the wood thrust through his shoulder
stung him like a spur. When she saw he was in no danger she stopped running=
and
stood panting, watching the distant active figures run up and vanish one by=
one
over the knoll. In a little time she was alone again. Everything had happen=
ed
very swiftly. The smoke of Brother Fire rose straight and steady from the s=
quatting-place,
just as it had done ten minutes ago, when the old woman had stood yonder
worshipping the lion.
And after a long time, as it seemed, Ugh-lomi reappeared over the knoll, and came back to Eudena, triumphant and breathing heavily. She stood, her hair about her eyes and hot-faced, with the blood-stained axe in her hand, at the place where t= he tribe had offered her as a sacrifice to the lion. "Wau!" cried Ugh-lomi at the sight of her, his face alight with the fellowship of battle, and he waved his new club, red now and hairy; and at the sight of his glowi= ng face her tense pose relaxed somewhat, and she stood sobbing and rejoicing.<= o:p>
Ugh-lomi had a qu=
eer
unaccountable pang at the sight of her tears; but he only shouted
"Wau!" the louder and shook the axe east and west. He called manf=
ully
to her to follow him and turned back, striding, with the club swinging in h=
is
hand, towards the squatting-place, as if he had never left the tribe; and s=
he
ceased her weeping and followed quickly as a woman should.
So Ugh-lomi and
Eudena came back to the squatting-place from which they had fled many days
before from the face of Uya; and by the squatting-place lay a deer half eat=
en,
just as there had been before Ugh-lomi was man or Eudena woman. So Ugh-lomi=
sat
down to eat, and Eudena beside him like a man, and the rest of the tribe
watched them from safe hiding-places. And after a time one of the elder gir=
ls
came back timorously, carrying little Si in her arms, and Eudena called to =
them
by name, and offered them food. But the elder girl was afraid and would not
come, though Si struggled to come to Eudena. Afterwards, when Ugh-lomi had
eaten, he sat dozing, and at last he slept, and slowly the others came out =
of
the hiding-places and drew near. And when Ugh-lomi woke, save that there we=
re
no men to be seen, it seemed as though he had never left the tribe.
Now, there is a t=
hing
strange but true: that all through this fight Ugh-lomi forgot that he was l=
ame,
and was not lame, and after he had rested behold! he was a lame man; and he
remained a lame man to the end of his days.
Cat's-skin and the
second red-haired man and Wau-Hau, who chipped flints cunningly, as his fat=
her
had done before him, fled from the face of Ugh-lomi, and none knew where th=
ey
hid. But two days after they came and squatted a good way off from the knol=
l among
the bracken under the chestnuts and watched. Ugh-lomi's rage had gone, he m=
oved
to go against them and did not, and at sundown they went away. That day, to=
o,
they found the old woman among the ferns, where Ugh-lomi had blundered upon=
her
when he had pursued Wau-Hau. She was dead and more ugly than ever, but whol=
e.
The jackals and vultures had tried her and left her;--she was ever a wonder=
ful
old woman.
The next day the
three men came again and squatted nearer, and Wau-Hau had two rabbits to ho=
ld
up, and the red-haired man a wood-pigeon, and Ugh-lomi stood before the wom=
en
and mocked them.
The next day they=
sat
again nearer--without stones or sticks, and with the same offerings, and
Cat's-skin had a trout. It was rare men caught fish in those days, but
Cat's-skin would stand silently in the water for hours and catch them with =
his
hand. And the fourth day Ugh-lomi suffered these three to come to the
squatting-place in peace, with the food they had with them. Ugh-lomi ate the
trout. Thereafter for many moons Ugh-lomi was master and had his will in pe=
ace.
And on the fulness of time he was killed and eaten even as Uya had been sla=
in.
A STORY OF THE DAYS TO CO=
ME
The excellent Mr.
Morris was an Englishman, and he lived in the days of Queen Victoria the Go=
od.
He was a prosperous and very sensible man; he read the Times and went to
church, and as he grew towards middle age an expression of quiet contented
contempt for all who were not as himself settled on his face. He was one of
those people who do everything that is right and proper and sensible with
inevitable regularity. He always wore just the right and proper clothes,
steering the narrow way between the smart and the shabby, always subscribed=
to the
right charities, just the judicious compromise between ostentation and
meanness, and never failed to have his hair cut to exactly the proper lengt=
h.
Everything that it
was right and proper for a man in his position to possess, he possessed; and
everything that it was not right and proper for a man in his position to
possess, he did not possess.
And among other r=
ight
and proper possessions, this Mr. Morris had a wife and children. They were =
the
right sort of wife, and the right sort and number of children, of course;
nothing imaginative or highty-flighty about any of them, so far as Mr. Morr=
is
could see; they wore perfectly correct clothing, neither smart nor hygienic=
nor
faddy in any way, but just sensible; and they lived in a nice sensible hous=
e in
the later Victorian sham Queen Anne style of architecture, with sham half-t=
imbering
of chocolate-painted plaster in the gables, Lincrusta Walton sham carved oak
panels, a terrace of terra cotta to imitate stone, and cathedral glass in t=
he
front door. His boys went to good solid schools, and were put to respectable
professions; his girls, in spite of a fantastic protest or so, were all mar=
ried
to suitable, steady, oldish young men with good prospects. And when it was a
fit and proper thing for him to do so, Mr. Morris died. His tomb was of mar=
ble,
and, without any art nonsense or laudatory inscription, quietly imposing--s=
uch
being the fashion of his time.
He underwent vari=
ous
changes according to the accepted custom in these cases, and long before th=
is
story begins his bones even had become dust, and were scattered to the four
quarters of heaven. And his sons and his grandsons and his great-grandsons =
and
his great-great-grandsons, they too were dust and ashes, and were scattered
likewise. It was a thing he could not have imagined, that a day would come =
when
even his great-great-grandsons would be scattered to the four winds of heav=
en.
If any one had suggested it to him he would have resented it. He was one of=
those
worthy people who take no interest in the future of mankind at all. He had
grave doubts, indeed, if there was any future for mankind after he was dead=
.
It seemed quite
impossible and quite uninteresting to imagine anything happening after he w=
as
dead. Yet the thing was so, and when even his great-great-grandson was dead=
and
decayed and forgotten, when the sham half-timbered house had gone the way of
all shams, and the Times was extinct, and the silk hat a ridiculous antiqui=
ty,
and the modestly imposing stone that had been sacred to Mr. Morris had been
burnt to make lime for mortar, and all that Mr. Morris had found real and
important was sere and dead, the world was still going on, and people were
still going about it, just as heedless and impatient of the Future, or, ind=
eed,
of anything but their own selves and property, as Mr. Morris had been.
And, strange to t=
ell,
and much as Mr. Morris would have been angered if any one had foreshadowed =
it
to him, all over the world there were scattered a multitude of people, fill=
ed
with the breath of life, in whose veins the blood of Mr. Morris flowed. Jus=
t as
some day the life which is gathered now in the reader of this very story may
also be scattered far and wide about this world, and mingled with a thousan=
d alien
strains, beyond all thought and tracing.
And among the
descendants of this Mr. Morris was one almost as sensible and clear-headed =
as
his ancestor. He had just the same stout, short frame as that ancient man of
the nineteenth century, from whom his name of Morris--he spelt it Mwres--ca=
me;
he had the same half-contemptuous expression of face. He was a prosperous
person, too, as times went, and he disliked the "new-fangled," and
bothers about the future and the lower classes, just as much as the ancestr=
al
Morris had done. He did not read the Times: indeed, he did not know there e=
ver
had been a Times--that institution had foundered somewhere in the interveni=
ng gulf
of years; but the phonograph machine, that talked to him as he made his toi=
let
of a morning, might have been the voice of a reincarnated Blowitz when it d=
ealt
with the world's affairs. This phonographic machine was the size and shape =
of a
Dutch clock, and down the front of it were electric barometric indicators, =
and
an electric clock and calendar, and automatic engagement reminders, and whe=
re
the clock would have been was the mouth of a trumpet. When it had news the =
trumpet
gobbled like a turkey, "Galloop, galloop," and then brayed out its
message as, let us say, a trumpet might bray. It would tell Mwres in full,
rich, throaty tones about the overnight accidents to the omnibus flying-mac=
hines
that plied around the world, the latest arrivals at the fashionable resorts=
in
Tibet, and of all the great monopolist company meetings of the day before,
while he was dressing. If Mwres did not like hearing what it said, he had o=
nly
to touch a stud, and it would choke a little and talk about something else.=
Of course his toi=
let
differed very much from that of his ancestor. It is doubtful which would ha=
ve
been the more shocked and pained to find himself in the clothing of the oth=
er.
Mwres would certainly have sooner gone forth to the world stark naked than =
in
the silk hat, frock coat, grey trousers and watch-chain that had filled Mr.
Morris with sombre self-respect in the past. For Mwres there was no shaving=
to
do: a skilful operator had long ago removed every hair-root from his face. =
His legs
he encased in pleasant pink and amber garments of an air-tight material, wh=
ich
with the help of an ingenious little pump he distended so as to suggest
enormous muscles. Above this he also wore pneumatic garments beneath an amb=
er
silk tunic, so that he was clothed in air and admirably protected against
sudden extremes of heat or cold. Over this he flung a scarlet cloak with its
edge fantastically curved. On his head, which had been skilfully deprived of
every scrap of hair, he adjusted a pleasant little cap of bright scarlet, h=
eld
on by suction and inflated with hydrogen, and curiously like the comb of a
cock. So his toilet was complete; and, conscious of being soberly and
becomingly attired, he was ready to face his fellow-beings with a tranquil =
eye.
This Mwres--the
civility of "Mr." had vanished ages ago--was one of the officials
under the Wind Vane and Waterfall Trust, the great company that owned every
wind wheel and waterfall in the world, and which pumped all the water and
supplied all the electric energy that people in these latter days required.=
He
lived in a vast hotel near that part of London called Seventh Way, and had =
very
large and comfortable apartments on the seventeenth floor. Households and
family life had long since disappeared with the progressive refinement of
manners; and indeed the steady rise in rents and land values, the disappear=
ance
of domestic servants, the elaboration of cookery, had rendered the separate
domicile of Victorian times impossible, even had any one desired such a sav=
age
seclusion. When his toilet was completed he went towards one of the two doo=
rs
of his apartment--there were doors at opposite ends, each marked with a hug=
e arrow
pointing one one way and one the other--touched a stud to open it, and emer=
ged
on a wide passage, the centre of which bore chairs and was moving at a stea=
dy
pace to the left. On some of these chairs were seated gaily-dressed men and
women. He nodded to an acquaintance--it was not in those days etiquette to =
talk
before breakfast--and seated himself on one of these chairs, and in a few
seconds he had been carried to the doors of a lift, by which he descended to
the great and splendid hall in which his breakfast would be automatically
served.
It was a very dif=
ferent
meal from a Victorian breakfast. The rude masses of bread needing to be car=
ved
and smeared over with animal fat before they could be made palatable, the s=
till
recognisable fragments of recently killed animals, hideously charred and
hacked, the eggs torn ruthlessly from beneath some protesting hen,--such th=
ings
as these, though they constituted the ordinary fare of Victorian times, wou=
ld
have awakened only horror and disgust in the refined minds of the people of=
these
latter days. Instead were pastes and cakes of agreeable and variegated desi=
gn,
without any suggestion in colour or form of the unfortunate animals from wh=
ich
their substance and juices were derived. They appeared on little dishes sli=
ding
out upon a rail from a little box at one side of the table. The surface of =
the
table, to judge by touch and eye, would have appeared to a nineteenth-centu=
ry
person to be covered with fine white damask, but this was really an oxidised
metallic surface, and could be cleaned instantly after a meal. There were h=
undreds
of such little tables in the hall, and at most of them were other latter-day
citizens singly or in groups. And as Mwres seated himself before his elegant
repast, the invisible orchestra, which had been resting during an interval,
resumed and filled the air with music.
But Mwres did not
display any great interest either in his breakfast or the music; his eye
wandered incessantly about the hall, as though he expected a belated guest.=
At
last he rose eagerly and waved his hand, and simultaneously across the hall
appeared a tall dark figure in a costume of yellow and olive green. As this
person, walking amidst the tables with measured steps, drew near, the pallid
earnestness of his face and the unusual intensity of his eyes became appare=
nt.
Mwres reseated himself and pointed to a chair beside him.
"I feared you
would never come," he said. In spite of the intervening space of time,=
the
English language was still almost exactly the same as it had been in England
under Victoria the Good. The invention of the phonograph and suchlike means=
of
recording sound, and the gradual replacement of books by such contrivances,=
had
not only saved the human eyesight from decay, but had also by the establish=
ment
of a sure standard arrested the process of change in accent that had hither=
to
been so inevitable.
"I was delay=
ed
by an interesting case," said the man in green and yellow. "A
prominent politician--ahem!--suffering from overwork." He glanced at t=
he
breakfast and seated himself. "I have been awake for forty hours."=
;
"Eh dear!&qu=
ot;
said Mwres: "fancy that! You hypnotists have your work to do."
The hypnotist hel=
ped
himself to some attractive amber-coloured jelly. "I happen to be a good
deal in request," he said modestly.
"Heaven knows
what we should do without you."
"Oh! we're n=
ot
so indispensable as all that," said the hypnotist, ruminating the flav=
our
of the jelly. "The world did very well without us for some thousands of
years. Two hundred years ago even--not one! In practice, that is. Physician=
s by
the thousand, of course--frightfully clumsy brutes for the most part, and
following one another like sheep--but doctors of the mind, except a few
empirical flounderers there were none."
He concentrated h=
is
mind on the jelly.
"But were pe=
ople
so sane--?" began Mwres.
The hypnotist sho=
ok
his head. "It didn't matter then if they were a bit silly or faddy. Li=
fe
was so easy-going then. No competition worth speaking of--no pressure. A hu=
man
being had to be very lopsided before anything happened. Then, you know, they
clapped 'em away in what they called a lunatic asylum."
"I know,&quo=
t;
said Mwres. "In these confounded historical romances that every one is
listening to, they always rescue a beautiful girl from an asylum or somethi=
ng
of the sort. I don't know if you attend to that rubbish."
"I must conf=
ess
I do," said the hypnotist. "It carries one out of oneself to hear=
of
those quaint, adventurous, half-civilised days of the nineteenth century, w=
hen
men were stout and women simple. I like a good swaggering story before all
things. Curious times they were, with their smutty railways and puffing old
iron trains, their rum little houses and their horse vehicles. I suppose you
don't read books?"
"Dear, no!&q=
uot;
said Mwres, "I went to a modern school and we had none of that
old-fashioned nonsense. Phonographs are good enough for me."
"Of
course," said the hypnotist, "of course"; and surveyed the t=
able
for his next choice. "You know," he said, helping himself to a da=
rk
blue confection that promised well, "in those days our business was sc=
arcely
thought of. I daresay if any one had told them that in two hundred years' t=
ime
a class of men would be entirely occupied in impressing things upon the mem=
ory,
effacing unpleasant ideas, controlling and overcoming instinctive but
undesirable impulses, and so forth, by means of hypnotism, they would have
refused to believe the thing possible. Few people knew that an order made
during a mesmeric trance, even an order to forget or an order to desire, co=
uld
be given so as to be obeyed after the trance was over. Yet there were men a=
live
then who could have told them the thing was as absolutely certain to come a=
bout
as--well, the transit of Venus."
"They knew of
hypnotism, then?"
"Oh, dear, y=
es!
They used it--for painless dentistry and things like that! This blue stuff =
is
confoundedly good: what is it?"
"Haven't the
faintest idea," said Mwres, "but I admit it's very good. Take some
more."
The hypnotist
repeated his praises, and there was an appreciative pause.
"Speaking of
these historical romances," said Mwres, with an attempt at an easy,
off-hand manner, "brings me--ah--to the matter I--ah--had in mind when=
I
asked you--when I expressed a wish to see you." He paused and took a d=
eep
breath.
The hypnotist tur=
ned
an attentive eye upon him, and continued eating.
"The fact
is," said Mwres, "I have a--in fact a--daughter. Well, you know I
have given her--ah--every educational advantage. Lectures--not a solitary
lecturer of ability in the world but she has had a telephone direct, dancin=
g,
deportment, conversation, philosophy, art criticism ..." He indicated
catholic culture by a gesture of his hand. "I had intended her to marr=
y a
very good friend of mine--Bindon of the Lighting Commission--plain little m=
an,
you know, and a bit unpleasant in some of his ways, but an excellent fellow
really--an excellent fellow."
"Yes," =
said
the hypnotist, "go on. How old is she?"
"Eighteen.&q=
uot;
"A dangerous
age. Well?"
"Well: it se=
ems
that she has been indulging in these historical romances--excessively.
Excessively. Even to the neglect of her philosophy. Filled her mind with
unutterable nonsense about soldiers who fight--what is it?--Etruscans?"=
;
"Egyptians.&=
quot;
"Egyptians--=
very
probably. Hack about with swords and revolvers and things--bloodshed
galore--horrible!--and about young men on torpedo catchers who blow
up--Spaniards, I fancy--and all sorts of irregular adventurers. And she has=
got
it into her head that she must marry for Love, and that poor little
Bindon--"
"I've met
similar cases," said the hypnotist. "Who is the other young man?&=
quot;
Mwres maintained = an appearance of resigned calm. "You may well ask," he said. "He is"--and his voice sank with shame--"a mere attendant upon the st= age on which the flying-machines from Paris alight. He has--as they say in the romances--good looks. He is quite young and very eccentric. Affects the antique--he can read and write! So can she. And instead of communicating by telephone, like sensible people, they write and deliver--what is it?"<= o:p>
"Notes?"=
;
"No--not
notes.... Ah--poems."
The hypnotist rai=
sed
his eyebrows. "How did she meet him?"
"Tripped com=
ing
down from the flying-machine from Paris--and fell into his arms. The mischi=
ef
was done in a moment!"
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"Well--that's
all. Things must be stopped. That is what I want to consult you about. What
must be done? What can be done? Of course I'm not a hypnotist; my knowledge=
is
limited. But you--?"
"Hypnotism is
not magic," said the man in green, putting both arms on the table.
"Oh, precise=
ly!
But still--!"
"People cann=
ot
be hypnotised without their consent. If she is able to stand out against
marrying Bindon, she will probably stand out against being hypnotised. But =
if
once she can be hypnotised--even by somebody else--the thing is done."=
"You
can--?"
"Oh, certain=
ly!
Once we get her amenable, then we can suggest that she must marry Bindon--t=
hat
that is her fate; or that the young man is repulsive, and that when she sees
him she will be giddy and faint, or any little thing of that sort. Or if we=
can
get her into a sufficiently profound trance we can suggest that she should
forget him altogether--"
"Precisely.&=
quot;
"But the pro=
blem
is to get her hypnotised. Of course no sort of proposal or suggestion must =
come
from you--because no doubt she already distrusts you in the matter."
The hypnotist lea=
nt
his head upon his arm and thought.
"It's hard a=
man
cannot dispose of his own daughter," said Mwres irrelevantly.
"You must gi=
ve
me the name and address of the young lady," said the hypnotist, "=
and
any information bearing upon the matter. And, by the bye, is there any mone=
y in
the affair?"
Mwres hesitated.<= o:p>
"There's a
sum--in fact, a considerable sum--invested in the Patent Road Company. From=
her
mother. That's what makes the thing so exasperating."
"Exactly,&qu=
ot;
said the hypnotist. And he proceeded to cross-examine Mwres on the entire
affair.
It was a lengthy
interview.
And meanwhile
"Elizebeθ Mwres," as she spelt her name, or "Elizabeth =
Morris"
as a nineteenth-century person would have put it, was sitting in a quiet
waiting-place beneath the great stage upon which the flying-machine from Pa=
ris
descended. And beside her sat her slender, handsome lover reading her the p=
oem
he had written that morning while on duty upon the stage. When he had finis=
hed
they sat for a time in silence; and then, as if for their special
entertainment, the great machine that had come flying through the air from
America that morning rushed down out of the sky.
At first it was a
little oblong, faint and blue amidst the distant fleecy clouds; and then it
grew swiftly large and white, and larger and whiter, until they could see t=
he
separate tiers of sails, each hundreds of feet wide, and the lank body they
supported, and at last even the swinging seats of the passengers in a dotted
row. Although it was falling it seemed to them to be rushing up the sky, and
over the roof-spaces of the city below its shadow leapt towards them. They
heard the whistling rush of the air about it and its yelling siren, shrill =
and swelling,
to warn those who were on its landing-stage of its arrival. And abruptly the
note fell down a couple of octaves, and it had passed, and the sky was clear
and void, and she could turn her sweet eyes again to Denton at her side.
Their silence end=
ed;
and Denton, speaking in a little language of broken English that was, they
fancied, their private possession--though lovers have used such little
languages since the world began--told her how they too would leap into the =
air
one morning out of all the obstacles and difficulties about them, and fly t=
o a
sunlit city of delight he knew of in Japan, half-way about the world.
She loved the dre=
am,
but she feared the leap; and she put him off with "Some day, dearest o=
ne,
some day," to all his pleading that it might be soon; and at last came=
a
shrilling of whistles, and it was time for him to go back to his duties on =
the
stage. They parted--as lovers have been wont to part for thousands of years.
She walked down a passage to a lift, and so came to one of the streets of t=
hat
latter-day London, all glazed in with glass from the weather, and with
incessant moving platforms that went to all parts of the city. And by one of
these she returned to her apartments in the Hotel for Women where she lived,
the apartments that were in telephonic communication with all the best lect=
urers
in the world. But the sunlight of the flying stage was in her heart, and the
wisdom of all the best lecturers in the world seemed folly in that light.
She spent the mid=
dle
part of the day in the gymnasium, and took her midday meal with two other g=
irls
and their common chaperone--for it was still the custom to have a chaperone=
in
the case of motherless girls of the more prosperous classes. The chaperone =
had
a visitor that day, a man in green and yellow, with a white face and vivid
eyes, who talked amazingly. Among other things, he fell to praising a new
historical romance that one of the great popular story-tellers of the day h=
ad
just put forth. It was, of course, about the spacious times of Queen Victor=
ia;
and the author, among other pleasing novelties, made a little argument befo=
re
each section of the story, in imitation of the chapter headings of the
old-fashioned books: as for example, "How the Cabmen of Pimlico stopped
the Victoria Omnibuses, and of the Great Fight in Palace Yard," and
"How the Piccadilly Policeman was slain in the midst of his Duty."
The man in green and yellow praised this innovation. "These pithy sent=
ences,"
he said, "are admirable. They show at a glance those headlong, tumultu=
ous
times, when men and animals jostled in the filthy streets, and death might =
wait
for one at every corner. Life was life then! How great the world must have
seemed then! How marvellous! They were still parts of the world absolutely
unexplored. Nowadays we have almost abolished wonder, we lead lives so trim=
and
orderly that courage, endurance, faith, all the noble virtues seem fading f=
rom
mankind."
And so on, taking=
the
girls' thoughts with him, until the life they led, life in the vast and
intricate London of the twenty-second century, a life interspersed with soa=
ring
excursions to every part of the globe, seemed to them a monotonous misery c=
ompared
with the dædal past.
At first Elizabeth
did not join in the conversation, but after a time the subject became so
interesting that she made a few shy interpolations. But he scarcely seemed =
to
notice her as he talked. He went on to describe a new method of entertaining
people. They were hypnotised, and then suggestions were made to them so
skilfully that they seemed to be living in ancient times again. They played=
out
a little romance in the past as vivid as reality, and when at last they awa=
kened
they remembered all they had been through as though it were a real thing.
"It is a thi=
ng
we have sought to do for years and years," said the hypnotist. "I=
t is
practically an artificial dream. And we know the way at last. Think of all =
it
opens out to us--the enrichment of our experience, the recovery of adventur=
e,
the refuge it offers from this sordid, competitive life in which we live!
Think!"
"And you can=
do
that!" said the chaperone eagerly.
"The thing is
possible at last," the hypnotist said. "You may order a dream as =
you
wish."
The chaperone was=
the
first to be hypnotised, and the dream, she said, was wonderful, when she ca=
me
to again.
The other two gir=
ls,
encouraged by her enthusiasm, also placed themselves in the hands of the
hypnotist and had plunges into the romantic past. No one suggested that
Elizabeth should try this novel entertainment; it was at her own request at
last that she was taken into that land of dreams where there is neither any
freedom of choice nor will....
And so the mischi=
ef
was done.
One day, when Den=
ton
went down to that quiet seat beneath the flying stage, Elizabeth was not in=
her
wonted place. He was disappointed, and a little angry. The next day she did=
not
come, and the next also. He was afraid. To hide his fear from himself, he s=
et
to work to write sonnets for her when she should come again....
For three days he
fought against his dread by such distraction, and then the truth was before=
him
clear and cold, and would not be denied. She might be ill, she might be dea=
d;
but he would not believe that he had been betrayed. There followed a week of
misery. And then he knew she was the only thing on earth worth having, and =
that
he must seek her, however hopeless the search, until she was found once mor=
e.
He had some small
private means of his own, and so he threw over his appointment on the flying
stage, and set himself to find this girl who had become at last all the wor=
ld
to him. He did not know where she lived, and little of her circumstances; f=
or
it had been part of the delight of her girlish romance that he should know
nothing of her, nothing of the difference of their station. The ways of the
city opened before him east and west, north and south. Even in Victorian da=
ys
London was a maze, that little London with its poor four millions of people=
; but
the London he explored, the London of the twenty-second century, was a Lond=
on
of thirty million souls. At first he was energetic and headlong, taking time
neither to eat nor sleep. He sought for weeks and months, he went through e=
very
imaginable phase of fatigue and despair, over-excitement and anger. Long af=
ter
hope was dead, by the sheer inertia of his desire he still went to and fro,
peering into faces and looking this way and that, in the incessant ways and
lifts and passages of that interminable hive of men.
At last chance was
kind to him, and he saw her.
It was in a time =
of
festivity. He was hungry; he had paid the inclusive fee and had gone into o=
ne
of the gigantic dining-places of the city; he was pushing his way among the=
tables
and scrutinising by mere force of habit every group he passed.
He stood still,
robbed of all power of motion, his eyes wide, his lips apart. Elizabeth sat
scarcely twenty yards away from him, looking straight at him. Her eyes were=
as
hard to him, as hard and expressionless and void of recognition, as the eye=
s of
a statue.
She looked at him=
for
a moment, and then her gaze passed beyond him.
Had he had only h=
er
eyes to judge by he might have doubted if it was indeed Elizabeth, but he k=
new
her by the gesture of her hand, by the grace of a wanton little curl that
floated over her ear as she moved her head. Something was said to her, and =
she
turned smiling tolerantly to the man beside her, a little man in foolish
raiment knobbed and spiked like some odd reptile with pneumatic horns--the
Bindon of her father's choice.
For a moment Dent=
on
stood white and wild-eyed; then came a terrible faintness, and he sat before
one of the little tables. He sat down with his back to her, and for a time =
he
did not dare to look at her again. When at last he did, she and Bindon and =
two
other people were standing up to go. The others were her father and her
chaperone.
He sat as if
incapable of action until the four figures were remote and small, and then =
he
rose up possessed with the one idea of pursuit. For a space he feared he had
lost them, and then he came upon Elizabeth and her chaperone again in one of
the streets of moving platforms that intersected the city. Bindon and Mwres=
had
disappeared.
He could not cont=
rol
himself to patience. He felt he must speak to her forthwith, or die. He pus=
hed
forward to where they were seated, and sat down beside them. His white face=
was
convulsed with half-hysterical excitement.
He laid his hand =
on
her wrist. "Elizabeth?" he said.
She turned in
unfeigned astonishment. Nothing but the fear of a strange man showed in her
face.
"Elizabeth,&=
quot;
he cried, and his voice was strange to him: "dearest--you know me?&quo=
t;
Elizabeth's face
showed nothing but alarm and perplexity. She drew herself away from him. The
chaperone, a little grey-headed woman with mobile features, leant forward to
intervene. Her resolute bright eyes examined Denton. "What do you
say?" she asked.
"This young
lady," said Denton,--"she knows me."
"Do you know
him, dear?"
"No," s=
aid
Elizabeth in a strange voice, and with a hand to her forehead, speaking alm=
ost
as one who repeats a lesson. "No, I do not know him. I know--I do not =
know
him."
"But--but ...
Not know me! It is I--Denton. Denton! To whom you used to talk. Don't you r=
emember
the flying stages? The little seat in the open air? The verses--"
"No," c=
ried
Elizabeth,--"no. I do not know him. I do not know him. There is
something.... But I don't know. All I know is that I do not know him."=
Her
face was a face of infinite distress.
The sharp eyes of= the chaperone flitted to and fro from the girl to the man. "You see?"= she said, with the faint shadow of a smile. "She does not know you."<= o:p>
"I do not kn=
ow
you," said Elizabeth. "Of that I am sure."
"But, dear--=
the
songs--the little verses--"
"She does not
know you," said the chaperone. "You must not.... You have made a
mistake. You must not go on talking to us after that. You must not annoy us=
on
the public ways."
"But--"
said Denton, and for a moment his miserably haggard face appealed against f=
ate.
"You must not
persist, young man," protested the chaperone.
"Elizabeth!&=
quot;
he cried.
Her face was the =
face
of one who is tormented. "I do not know you," she cried, hand to
brow. "Oh, I do not know you!"
For an instant De=
nton
sat stunned. Then he stood up and groaned aloud.
He made a strange
gesture of appeal towards the remote glass roof of the public way, then tur=
ned
and went plunging recklessly from one moving platform to another, and vanis=
hed
amidst the swarms of people going to and fro thereon. The chaperone's eyes
followed him, and then she looked at the curious faces about her.
"Dear,"
asked Elizabeth, clasping her hand, and too deeply moved to heed observatio=
n,
"who was that man? Who was that man?"
The chaperone rai=
sed
her eyebrows. She spoke in a clear, audible voice. "Some half-witted
creature. I have never set eyes on him before."
"Never?"=
;
"Never, dear=
. Do
not trouble your mind about a thing like this."
*
And soon after th=
is
the celebrated hypnotist who dressed in green and yellow had another client.
The young man paced his consulting-room, pale and disordered. "I want =
to
forget," he cried. "I must forget."
The hypnotist wat=
ched
him with quiet eyes, studied his face and clothes and bearing. "To for=
get
anything--pleasure or pain--is to be, by so much--less. However, you know y=
our
own concern. My fee is high."
"If only I c=
an
forget--"
"That's easy
enough with you. You wish it. I've done much harder things. Quite recently.=
I
hardly expected to do it: the thing was done against the will of the hypnot=
ised
person. A love affair too--like yours. A girl. So rest assured."
The young man came
and sat beside the hypnotist. His manner was a forced calm. He looked into =
the
hypnotist's eyes. "I will tell you. Of course you will want to know wh=
at
it is. There was a girl. Her name was Elizabeth Mwres. Well ..."
He stopped. He had
seen the instant surprise on the hypnotist's face. In that instant he knew.=
He
stood up. He seemed to dominate the seated figure by his side. He gripped t=
he
shoulder of green and gold. For a time he could not find words.
"Give her me
back!" he said at last. "Give her me back!"
"What do you
mean?" gasped the hypnotist.
"Give her me
back."
"Give
whom?"
"Elizabeth M=
wres--the
girl--"
The hypnotist tri=
ed
to free himself; he rose to his feet. Denton's grip tightened.
"Let go!&quo=
t;
cried the hypnotist, thrusting an arm against Denton's chest.
In a moment the t=
wo
men were locked in a clumsy wrestle. Neither had the slightest training--for
athleticism, except for exhibition and to afford opportunity for betting, h=
ad
faded out of the earth--but Denton was not only the younger but the stronge=
r of
the two. They swayed across the room, and then the hypnotist had gone down
under his antagonist. They fell together....
Denton leaped to =
his
feet, dismayed at his own fury; but the hypnotist lay still, and suddenly f=
rom
a little white mark where his forehead had struck a stool shot a hurrying b=
and
of red. For a space Denton stood over him irresolute, trembling.
A fear of the
consequences entered his gently nurtured mind. He turned towards the door.
"No," he said aloud, and came back to the middle of the room.
Overcoming the instinctive repugnance of one who had seen no act of violenc=
e in
all his life before, he knelt down beside his antagonist and felt his heart.
Then he peered at the wound. He rose quietly and looked about him. He began=
to
see more of the situation.
When presently the
hypnotist recovered his senses, his head ached severely, his back was again=
st
Denton's knees and Denton was sponging his face.
The hypnotist did=
not
speak. But presently he indicated by a gesture that in his opinion he had b=
een
sponged enough. "Let me get up," he said.
"Not yet,&qu=
ot;
said Denton.
"You have
assaulted me, you scoundrel!"
"We are
alone," said Denton, "and the door is secure."
There was an inte=
rval
of thought.
"Unless I
sponge," said Denton, "your forehead will develop a tremendous br=
uise."
"You can go =
on
sponging," said the hypnotist sulkily.
There was another
pause.
"We might be=
in
the Stone Age," said the hypnotist. "Violence! Struggle!"
"In the Stone
Age no man dared to come between man and woman," said Denton.
The hypnotist tho=
ught
again.
"What are you
going to do?" he asked.
"While you w=
ere
insensible I found the girl's address on your tablets. I did not know it
before. I telephoned. She will be here soon. Then--"
"She will br=
ing
her chaperone."
"That is all
right."
"But what--?=
I
don't see. What do you mean to do?"
"I looked ab=
out
for a weapon also. It is an astonishing thing how few weapons there are
nowadays. If you consider that in the Stone Age men owned scarcely anything=
but
weapons. I hit at last upon this lamp. I have wrenched off the wires and
things, and I hold it so." He extended it over the hypnotist's shoulde=
rs.
"With that I can quite easily smash your skull. I will--unless you do =
as I
tell you."
"Violence is=
no
remedy," said the hypnotist, quoting from the "Modern Man's Book =
of
Moral Maxims."
"It's an
undesirable disease," said Denton.
"Well?"=
"You will te=
ll
that chaperone you are going to order the girl to marry that knobby little
brute with the red hair and ferrety eyes. I believe that's how things
stand?"
"Yes--that's=
how
things stand."
"And, preten=
ding
to do that, you will restore her memory of me."
"It's
unprofessional."
"Look here! =
If I
cannot have that girl I would rather die than not. I don't propose to respe=
ct
your little fancies. If anything goes wrong you shall not live five minutes.
This is a rude makeshift of a weapon, and it may quite conceivably be painf=
ul
to kill you. But I will. It is unusual, I know, nowadays to do things like
this--mainly because there is so little in life that is worth being violent
about."
"The chapero=
ne
will see you directly she comes--"
"I shall sta=
nd
in that recess. Behind you."
The hypnotist
thought. "You are a determined young man," he said, "and only
half civilised. I have tried to do my duty to my client, but in this affair=
you
seem likely to get your own way...."
"You mean to
deal straightly."
"I'm not goi=
ng
to risk having my brains scattered in a petty affair like this."
"And
afterwards?"
"There is
nothing a hypnotist or doctor hates so much as a scandal. I at least am no
savage. I am annoyed.... But in a day or so I shall bear no malice...."=
;
"Thank you. =
And
now that we understand each other, there is no necessity to keep you sitting
any longer on the floor."
The world, they s=
ay,
changed more between the year 1800 and the year 1900 than it had done in the
previous five hundred years. That century, the nineteenth century, was the =
dawn
of a new epoch in the history of mankind--the epoch of the great cities, the
end of the old order of country life.
In the beginning =
of
the nineteenth century the majority of mankind still lived upon the
countryside, as their way of life had been for countless generations. All o=
ver
the world they dwelt in little towns and villages then, and engaged either
directly in agriculture, or in occupations that were of service to the
agriculturist. They travelled rarely, and dwelt close to their work, because
swift means of transit had not yet come. The few who travelled went either =
on
foot, or in slow sailing-ships, or by means of jogging horses incapable of =
more
than sixty miles a day. Think of it!--sixty miles a day. Here and there, in
those sluggish times, a town grew a little larger than its neighbours, as a
port or as a centre of government; but all the towns in the world with more
than a hundred thousand inhabitants could be counted on a man's fingers. So=
it was
in the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the end, the invention of
railways, telegraphs, steamships, and complex agricultural machinery, had
changed all these things: changed them beyond all hope of return. The vast
shops, the varied pleasures, the countless conveniences of the larger towns
were suddenly possible, and no sooner existed than they were brought into
competition with the homely resources of the rural centres. Mankind were dr=
awn
to the cities by an overwhelming attraction. The demand for labour fell with
the increase of machinery, the local markets were entirely superseded, and
there was a rapid growth of the larger centres at the expense of the open
country.
The flow of
population townward was the constant preoccupation of Victorian writers. In
Great Britain and New England, in India and China, the same thing was remar=
ked:
everywhere a few swollen towns were visibly replacing the ancient order. Th=
at
this was an inevitable result of improved means of travel and transport--th=
at,
given swift means of transit, these things must be--was realised by few; and
the most puerile schemes were devised to overcome the mysterious magnetism =
of
the urban centres, and keep the people on the land.
Yet the developme=
nts
of the nineteenth century were only the dawning of the new order. The first
great cities of the new time were horribly inconvenient, darkened by smoky
fogs, insanitary and noisy; but the discovery of new methods of building, n=
ew
methods of heating, changed all this. Between 1900 and 2000 the march of ch=
ange
was still more rapid; and between 2000 and 2100 the continually accelerated
progress of human invention made the reign of Victoria the Good seem at las=
t an
almost incredible vision of idyllic tranquil days.
The introduction =
of
railways was only the first step in that development of those means of
locomotion which finally revolutionised human life. By the year 2000 railwa=
ys
and roads had vanished together. The railways, robbed of their rails, had
become weedy ridges and ditches upon the face of the world; the old roads,
strange barbaric tracks of flint and soil, hammered by hand or rolled by ro=
ugh
iron rollers, strewn with miscellaneous filth, and cut by iron hoofs and wh=
eels
into ruts and puddles often many inches deep, had been replaced by patent
tracks made of a substance called Eadhamite. This Eadhamite--it was named a=
fter
its patentee--ranks with the invention of printing and steam as one of the =
epoch-making
discoveries of the world's history.
When Eadham
discovered the substance, he probably thought of it as a mere cheap substit=
ute
for india rubber; it cost a few shillings a ton. But you can never tell all=
an
invention will do. It was the genius of a man named Warming that pointed to=
the
possibility of using it, not only for the tires of wheels, but as a road
substance, and who organised the enormous network of public ways that speed=
ily
covered the world.
These public ways
were made with longitudinal divisions. On the outer on either side went foot
cyclists and conveyances travelling at a less speed than twenty-five miles =
an
hour; in the middle, motors capable of speed up to a hundred; and the inner,
Warming (in the face of enormous ridicule) reserved for vehicles travelling=
at
speeds of a hundred miles an hour and upward.
For ten years his
inner ways were vacant. Before he died they were the most crowded of all, a=
nd
vast light frameworks with wheels of twenty and thirty feet in diameter, hu=
rled
along them at paces that year after year rose steadily towards two hundred
miles an hour. And by the time this revolution was accomplished, a parallel
revolution had transformed the ever-growing cities. Before the development =
of
practical science the fogs and filth of Victorian times vanished. Electric
heating replaced fires (in 2013 the lighting of a fire that did not absolut=
ely
consume its own smoke was made an indictable nuisance), and all the city wa=
ys, all
public squares and places, were covered in with a recently invented glass-l=
ike
substance. The roofing of London became practically continuous. Certain
short-sighted and foolish legislation against tall buildings was abolished,=
and
London, from a squat expanse of petty houses--feebly archaic in design--rose
steadily towards the sky. To the municipal responsibility for water, light,=
and
drainage, was added another, and that was ventilation.
But to tell of all
the changes in human convenience that these two hundred years brought about=
, to
tell of the long foreseen invention of flying, to describe how life in
households was steadily supplanted by life in interminable hotels, how at l=
ast
even those who were still concerned in agricultural work came to live in the
towns and to go to and fro to their work every day, to describe how at last=
in
all England only four towns remained, each with many millions of people, and
how there were left no inhabited houses in all the countryside: to tell all=
this
would take us far from our story of Denton and his Elizabeth. They had been
separated and reunited, and still they could not marry. For Denton--it was =
his
only fault--had no money. Neither had Elizabeth until she was twenty-one, a=
nd
as yet she was only eighteen. At twenty-one all the property of her mother
would come to her, for that was the custom of the time. She did not know th=
at
it was possible to anticipate her fortune, and Denton was far too delicate a
lover to suggest such a thing. So things stuck hopelessly between them.
Elizabeth said that she was very unhappy, and that nobody understood her but
Denton, and that when she was away from him she was wretched; and Denton sa=
id
that his heart longed for her day and night. And they met as often as they
could to enjoy the discussion of their sorrows.
They met one day =
at
their little seat upon the flying stage. The precise site of this meeting w=
as
where in Victorian times the road from Wimbledon came out upon the common. =
They
were, however, five hundred feet above that point. Their seat looked far ov=
er
London. To convey the appearance of it all to a nineteenth-century reader w=
ould
have been difficult. One would have had to tell him to think of the Crystal=
Palace,
of the newly built "mammoth" hotels--as those little affairs were
called--of the larger railway stations of his time, and to imagine such
buildings enlarged to vast proportions and run together and continuous over=
the
whole metropolitan area. If then he was told that this continuous roof-space
bore a huge forest of rotating wind-wheels, he would have begun very dimly =
to
appreciate what to these young people was the commonest sight in their live=
s.
To their eyes it =
had
something of the quality of a prison, and they were talking, as they had ta=
lked
a hundred times before, of how they might escape from it and be at last hap=
py
together: escape from it, that is, before the appointed three years were at=
an
end. It was, they both agreed, not only impossible but almost wicked, to wa=
it
three years. "Before that," said Denton--and the notes of his voi=
ce
told of a splendid chest--"we might both be dead!"
Their vigorous yo=
ung
hands had to grip at this, and then Elizabeth had a still more poignant tho=
ught
that brought the tears from her wholesome eyes and down her healthy cheeks.
"One of us," she said, "one of us might be--"
She choked; she c=
ould
not say the word that is so terrible to the young and happy.
Yet to marry and =
be
very poor in the cities of that time was--for any one who had lived
pleasantly--a very dreadful thing. In the old agricultural days that had dr=
awn
to an end in the eighteenth century there had been a pretty proverb of love=
in
a cottage; and indeed in those days the poor of the countryside had dwelt in
flower-covered, diamond-windowed cottages of thatch and plaster, with the s=
weet
air and earth about them, amidst tangled hedges and the song of birds, and =
with
the ever-changing sky overhead. But all this had changed (the change was al=
ready
beginning in the nineteenth century), and a new sort of life was opening for
the poor--in the lower quarters of the city.
In the nineteenth
century the lower quarters were still beneath the sky; they were areas of l=
and
on clay or other unsuitable soil, liable to floods or exposed to the smoke =
of
more fortunate districts, insufficiently supplied with water, and as insani=
tary
as the great fear of infectious diseases felt by the wealthier classes
permitted. In the twenty-second century, however, the growth of the city st=
orey
above storey, and the coalescence of buildings, had led to a different arra=
ngement.
The prosperous people lived in a vast series of sumptuous hotels in the upp=
er
storeys and halls of the city fabric; the industrial population dwelt benea=
th
in the tremendous ground-floor and basement, so to speak, of the place.
In the refinement=
of
life and manners these lower classes differed little from their ancestors, =
the
East-enders of Queen Victoria's time; but they had developed a distinct dia=
lect
of their own. In these under ways they lived and died, rarely ascending to =
the
surface except when work took them there. Since for most of them this was t=
he
sort of life to which they had been born, they found no great misery in suc=
h circumstances;
but for people like Denton and Elizabeth, such a plunge would have seemed m=
ore
terrible than death.
"And yet what
else is there?" asked Elizabeth.
Denton professed =
not
to know. Apart from his own feeling of delicacy, he was not sure how Elizab=
eth
would like the idea of borrowing on the strength of her expectations.
The passage from
London to Paris even, said Elizabeth, was beyond their means; and in Paris,=
as
in any other city in the world, life would be just as costly and impossible=
as
in London.
Well might Denton=
cry
aloud: "If only we had lived in those days, dearest! If only we had li=
ved
in the past!" For to their eyes even nineteenth-century Whitechapel was
seen through a mist of romance.
"Is there
nothing?" cried Elizabeth, suddenly weeping. "Must we really wait=
for
those three long years? Fancy three years--six-and-thirty months!" The
human capacity for patience had not grown with the ages.
Then suddenly Den= ton was moved to speak of something that had already flickered across his mind.= He had hit upon it at last. It seemed to him so wild a suggestion that he made= it only half seriously. But to put a thing into words has ever a way of making= it seem more real and possible than it seemed before. And so it was with him.<= o:p>
"Suppose,&qu=
ot;
he said, "we went into the country?"
She looked at him=
to
see if he was serious in proposing such an adventure.
"The
country?"
"Yes--beyond
there. Beyond the hills."
"How could we
live?" she said. "Where could we live?"
"It is not impossible," he said. "People used to live in the country."<= o:p>
"But then th=
ere
were houses."
"There are t=
he
ruins of villages and towns now. On the clay lands they are gone, of course.
But they are still left on the grazing land, because it does not pay the Fo=
od
Company to remove them. I know that--for certain. Besides, one sees them fr=
om
the flying machines, you know. Well, we might shelter in some one of these,=
and
repair it with our hands. Do you know, the thing is not so wild as it seems.
Some of the men who go out every day to look after the crops and herds migh=
t be
paid to bring us food...."
She stood in fron=
t of
him. "How strange it would be if one really could...."
"Why not?&qu=
ot;
"But no one
dares."
"That is no
reason."
"It would
be--oh! it would be so romantic and strange. If only it were possible."=
;
"Why not
possible?"
"There are so
many things. Think of all the things we have, things that we should miss.&q=
uot;
"Should we m=
iss
them? After all, the life we lead is very unreal--very artificial." He
began to expand his idea, and as he warmed to his exposition the fantastic
quality of his first proposal faded away.
She thought.
"But I have heard of prowlers--escaped criminals."
He nodded. He
hesitated over his answer because he thought it sounded boyish. He blushed.
"I could get some one I know to make me a sword."
She looked at him
with enthusiasm growing in her eyes. She had heard of swords, had seen one =
in a
museum; she thought of those ancient days when men wore them as a common th=
ing.
His suggestion seemed an impossible dream to her, and perhaps for that reas=
on
she was eager for more detail. And inventing for the most part as he went
along, he told her, how they might live in the country as the old-world peo=
ple
had done. With every detail her interest grew, for she was one of those gir=
ls
for whom romance and adventure have a fascination.
His suggestion
seemed, I say, an impossible dream to her on that day, but the next day they
talked about it again, and it was strangely less impossible.
"At first we
should take food," said Denton. "We could carry food for ten or
twelve days." It was an age of compact artificial nourishment, and suc=
h a
provision had none of the unwieldy suggestion it would have had in the nine=
teenth
century.
"But--until =
our
house," she asked--"until it was ready, where should we sleep?&qu=
ot;
"It is
summer."
"But ... Wha=
t do
you mean?"
"There was a
time when there were no houses in the world; when all mankind slept always =
in
the open air."
"But for us!=
The
emptiness! No walls--no ceiling!"
"Dear,"=
he
said, "in London you have many beautiful ceilings. Artists paint them =
and
stud them with lights. But I have seen a ceiling more beautiful than any in
London...."
"But
where?"
"It is the
ceiling under which we two would be alone...."
"You
mean...?"
"Dear,"=
he
said, "it is something the world has forgotten. It is Heaven and all t=
he
host of stars."
Each time they ta=
lked
the thing seemed more possible and more desirable to them. In a week or so =
it
was quite possible. Another week, and it was the inevitable thing they had =
to
do. A great enthusiasm for the country seized hold of them and possessed th=
em.
The sordid tumult of the town, they said, overwhelmed them. They marvelled =
that
this simple way out of their troubles had never come upon them before.
One morning near
Midsummer-day, there was a new minor official upon the flying stage, and
Denton's place was to know him no more.
Our two young peo=
ple
had secretly married, and were going forth manfully out of the city in which
they and their ancestors before them had lived all their days. She wore a n=
ew
dress of white cut in an old-fashioned pattern, and he had a bundle of
provisions strapped athwart his back, and in his hand he carried--rather sh=
ame-facedly
it is true, and under his purple cloak--an implement of archaic form, a
cross-hilted thing of tempered steel.
Imagine that going
forth! In their days the sprawling suburbs of Victorian times with their vi=
le
roads, petty houses, foolish little gardens of shrub and geranium, and all
their futile, pretentious privacies, had disappeared: the towering building=
s of
the new age, the mechanical ways, the electric and water mains, all came to=
an
end together, like a wall, like a cliff, near four hundred feet in height, =
abrupt
and sheer. All about the city spread the carrot, swede, and turnip fields of
the Food Company, vegetables that were the basis of a thousand varied foods,
and weeds and hedgerow tangles had been utterly extirpated. The incessant
expense of weeding that went on year after year in the petty, wasteful and
barbaric farming of the ancient days, the Food Company had economised for e=
ver
more by a campaign of extermination. Here and there, however, neat rows of
bramble standards and apple trees with whitewashed stems, intersected the
fields, and at places groups of gigantic teazles reared their favoured spik=
es.
Here and there huge agricultural machines hunched under waterproof covers. =
The mingled
waters of the Wey and Mole and Wandle ran in rectangular channels; and wher=
ever
a gentle elevation of the ground permitted a fountain of deodorised sewage
distributed its benefits athwart the land and made a rainbow of the sunligh=
t.
By a great archwa=
y in
that enormous city wall emerged the Eadhamite road to Portsmouth, swarming =
in
the morning sunshine with an enormous traffic bearing the blue-clad servant=
s of
the Food Company to their toil. A rushing traffic, beside which they seemed=
two
scarce-moving dots. Along the outer tracks hummed and rattled the tardy lit=
tle
old-fashioned motors of such as had duties within twenty miles or so of the
city; the inner ways were filled with vaster mechanisms--swift monocycles
bearing a score of men, lank multicycles, quadricycles sagging with heavy
loads, empty gigantic produce carts that would come back again filled befor=
e the
sun was setting, all with throbbing engines and noiseless wheels and a
perpetual wild melody of horns and gongs.
Along the very ve=
rge
of the outermost way our young people went in silence, newly wed and oddly =
shy
of one another's company. Many were the things shouted to them as they tram=
ped
along, for in 2100 a foot-passenger on an English road was almost as strang=
e a
sight as a motor car would have been in 1800. But they went on with steadfa=
st
eyes into the country, paying no heed to such cries.
Before them in the
south rose the Downs, blue at first, and as they came nearer changing to gr=
een,
surmounted by the row of gigantic wind-wheels that supplemented the wind-wh=
eels
upon the roof-spaces of the city, and broken and restless with the long mor=
ning
shadows of those whirling vanes. By midday they had come so near that they
could see here and there little patches of pallid dots--the sheep the Meat
Department of the Food Company owned. In another hour they had passed the c=
lay
and the root crops and the single fence that hedged them in, and the
prohibition against trespass no longer held: the levelled roadway plunged i=
nto
a cutting with all its traffic, and they could leave it and walk over the g=
reensward
and up the open hillside.
Never had these
children of the latter days been together in such a lonely place.
They were both ve=
ry
hungry and footsore--for walking was a rare exercise--and presently they sat
down on the weedless, close-cropped grass, and looked back for the first ti=
me
at the city from which they had come, shining wide and splendid in the blue
haze of the valley of the Thames. Elizabeth was a little afraid of the
unenclosed sheep away up the slope--she had never been near big unrestrained
animals before--but Denton reassured her. And overhead a white-winged bird =
circled
in the blue.
They talked but
little until they had eaten, and then their tongues were loosened. He spoke=
of
the happiness that was now certainly theirs, of the folly of not breaking
sooner out of that magnificent prison of latter-day life, of the old romant=
ic
days that had passed from the world for ever. And then he became boastful. =
He
took up the sword that lay on the ground beside him, and she took it from h=
is
hand and ran a tremulous finger along the blade.
"And you could," she said, "you--could raise this and strike a man?"<= o:p>
"Why not? If
there were need."
"But," =
she
said, "it seems so horrible. It would slash.... There would be"--=
her
voice sank,--"blood."
"In the old
romances you have read often enough ..."
"Oh, I know:=
in
those--yes. But that is different. One knows it is not blood, but just a so=
rt
of red ink.... And you--killing!"
She looked at him
doubtfully, and then handed him back the sword.
After they had re=
sted
and eaten, they rose up and went on their way towards the hills. They passed
quite close to a huge flock of sheep, who stared and bleated at their
unaccustomed figures. She had never seen sheep before, and she shivered to
think such gentle things must needs be slain for food. A sheep-dog barked f=
rom
a distance, and then a shepherd appeared amidst the supports of the
wind-wheels, and came down towards them.
When he drew near=
he
called out asking whither they were going.
Denton hesitated,=
and
told him briefly that they sought some ruined house among the Downs, in whi=
ch
they might live together. He tried to speak in an off-hand manner, as thoug=
h it
was a usual thing to do. The man stared incredulously.
"Have you do=
ne
anything?" he asked.
"Nothing,&qu=
ot;
said Denton. "Only we don't want to live in a city any longer. Why sho=
uld
we live in cities?"
The shepherd star=
ed
more incredulously than ever. "You can't live here," he said.
"We mean to
try."
The shepherd star=
ed
from one to the other. "You'll go back to-morrow," he said. "=
;It
looks pleasant enough in the sunlight.... Are you sure you've done nothing?=
We
shepherds are not such great friends of the police."
Denton looked at =
him
steadfastly. "No," he said. "But we are too poor to live in =
the
city, and we can't bear the thought of wearing clothes of blue canvas and d=
oing
drudgery. We are going to live a simple life here, like the people of
old."
The shepherd was a
bearded man with a thoughtful face. He glanced at Elizabeth's fragile beaut=
y.
"They had si=
mple
minds," he said.
"So have
we," said Denton.
The shepherd smil=
ed.
"If you go a=
long
here," he said, "along the crest beneath the wind-wheels, you will
see a heap of mounds and ruins on your right-hand side. That was once a town
called Epsom. There are no houses there, and the bricks have been used for a
sheep pen. Go on, and another heap on the edge of the root-land is Leatherh=
ead;
and then the hill turns away along the border of a valley, and there are wo=
ods
of beech. Keep along the crest. You will come to quite wild places. In some
parts, in spite of all the weeding that is done, ferns and bluebells and ot=
her
such useless plants are growing still. And through it all underneath the wi=
nd-wheels
runs a straight lane paved with stones, a roadway of the Romans two thousand
years old. Go to the right of that, down into the valley and follow it alon=
g by
the banks of the river. You come presently to a street of houses, many with=
the
roofs still sound upon them. There you may find shelter."
They thanked him.=
"But it's a
quiet place. There is no light after dark there, and I have heard tell of
robbers. It is lonely. Nothing happens there. The phonographs of the
story-tellers, the kinematograph entertainments, the news machines--none of
them are to be found there. If you are hungry there is no food, if you are =
ill
no doctor ..." He stopped.
"We shall try
it," said Denton, moving to go on. Then a thought struck him, and he m=
ade
an agreement with the shepherd, and learnt where they might find him, to buy
and bring them anything of which they stood in need, out of the city.
And in the evening they came to the deserted village, with its houses that seemed so small and= odd to them: they found it golden in the glory of the sunset, and desolate and still. They went from one deserted house to another, marvelling at their qu= aint simplicity, and debating which they should choose. And at last, in a sunlit corner of a room that had lost its outer wall, they came upon a wild flower= , a little flower of blue that the weeders of the Food Company had overlooked.<= o:p>
That house they
decided upon; but they did not remain in it long that night, because they w=
ere
resolved to feast upon nature. And moreover the houses became very gaunt and
shadowy after the sunlight had faded out of the sky. So after they had rest=
ed a
little time they went to the crest of the hill again to see with their own =
eyes
the silence of heaven set with stars, about which the old poets had had so =
many
things to tell. It was a wonderful sight, and Denton talked like the stars,=
and
when they went down the hill at last the sky was pale with dawn. They slept=
but
little, and in the morning when they woke a thrush was singing in a tree.
So these young pe=
ople
of the twenty-second century began their exile. That morning they were very
busy exploring the resources of this new home in which they were going to l=
ive
the simple life. They did not explore very fast or very far, because they w=
ent
everywhere hand-in-hand; but they found the beginnings of some furniture.
Beyond the village was a store of winter fodder for the sheep of the Food C=
ompany,
and Denton dragged great armfuls to the house to make a bed; and in several=
of
the houses were old fungus-eaten chairs and tables--rough, barbaric, clumsy
furniture, it seemed to them, and made of wood. They repeated many of the
things they had said on the previous day, and towards evening they found
another flower, a harebell. In the late afternoon some Company shepherds we=
nt
down the river valley riding on a big multicycle; but they hid from them,
because their presence, Elizabeth said, seemed to spoil the romance of this
old-world place altogether.
In this fashion t=
hey
lived a week. For all that week the days were cloudless, and the nights nig=
hts
of starry glory, that were invaded each a little more by a crescent moon.
Yet something of =
the
first splendour of their coming faded--faded imperceptibly day after day;
Denton's eloquence became fitful, and lacked fresh topics of inspiration; t=
he
fatigue of their long march from London told in a certain stiffness of the
limbs, and each suffered from a slight unaccountable cold. Moreover, Denton
became aware of unoccupied time. In one place among the carelessly heaped
lumber of the old times he found a rust-eaten spade, and with this he made a
fitful attack on the razed and grass-grown garden--though he had nothing to
plant or sow. He returned to Elizabeth with a sweat-streaming face, after h=
alf
an hour of such work.
"There were
giants in those days," he said, not understanding what wont and traini=
ng
will do. And their walk that day led them along the hills until they could =
see
the city shimmering far away in the valley. "I wonder how things are g=
oing
on there," he said.
And then came a
change in the weather. "Come out and see the clouds," she cried; =
and
behold! they were a sombre purple in the north and east, streaming up to ra=
gged
edges at the zenith. And as they went up the hill these hurrying streamers
blotted out the sunset. Suddenly the wind set the beech-trees swaying and
whispering, and Elizabeth shivered. And then far away the lightning flashed,
flashed like a sword that is drawn suddenly, and the distant thunder marched
about the sky, and even as they stood astonished, pattering upon them came =
the
first headlong raindrops of the storm. In an instant the last streak of sun=
set
was hidden by a falling curtain of hail, and the lightning flashed again, a=
nd
the voice of the thunder roared louder, and all about them the world scowled
dark and strange.
Seizing hands, th=
ese
children of the city ran down the hill to their home, in infinite astonishm=
ent.
And ere they reached it, Elizabeth was weeping with dismay, and the darkling
ground about them was white and brittle and active with the pelting hail.
Then began a stra=
nge
and terrible night for them. For the first time in their civilised lives th=
ey
were in absolute darkness; they were wet and cold and shivering, all about =
them
hissed the hail, and through the long neglected ceilings of the derelict ho=
me
came noisy spouts of water and formed pools and rivulets on the creaking
floors. As the gusts of the storm struck the worn-out building, it groaned =
and
shuddered, and now a mass of plaster from the wall would slide and smash, a=
nd
now some loosened tile would rattle down the roof and crash into the empty =
greenhouse
below. Elizabeth shuddered, and was still; Denton wrapped his gay and flimsy
city cloak about her, and so they crouched in the darkness. And ever the
thunder broke louder and nearer, and ever more lurid flashed the lightning,
jerking into a momentary gaunt clearness the steaming, dripping room in whi=
ch
they sheltered.
Never before had =
they
been in the open air save when the sun was shining. All their time had been
spent in the warm and airy ways and halls and rooms of the latter-day city.=
It
was to them that night as if they were in some other world, some disordered
chaos of stress and tumult, and almost beyond hoping that they should ever =
see
the city ways again.
The storm seemed =
to
last interminably, until at last they dozed between the thunderclaps, and t=
hen
very swiftly it fell and ceased. And as the last patter of the rain died aw=
ay
they heard an unfamiliar sound.
"What is
that?" cried Elizabeth.
It came again. It=
was
the barking of dogs. It drove down the desert lane and passed; and through =
the
window, whitening the wall before them and throwing upon it the shadow of t=
he
window-frame and of a tree in black silhouette, shone the light of the waxi=
ng
moon....
Just as the pale =
dawn
was drawing the things about them into sight, the fitful barking of dogs ca=
me
near again, and stopped. They listened. After a pause they heard the quick
pattering of feet seeking round the house, and short, half-smothered barks.
Then again everything was still.
"Ssh!"
whispered Elizabeth, and pointed to the door of their room.
Denton went half-=
way
towards the door, and stood listening. He came back with a face of affected
unconcern. "They must be the sheep-dogs of the Food Company," he
said. "They will do us no harm."
He sat down again
beside her. "What a night it has been!" he said, to hide how keen=
ly
he was listening.
"I don't like
dogs," answered Elizabeth, after a long silence.
"Dogs never =
hurt
any one," said Denton. "In the old days--in the nineteenth
century--everybody had a dog."
"There was a
romance I heard once. A dog killed a man."
"Not this so=
rt
of dog," said Denton confidently. "Some of those romances--are
exaggerated."
Suddenly a half b= ark and a pattering up the staircase; the sound of panting. Denton sprang to his feet and drew the sword out of the damp straw upon which they had been lyin= g. Then in the doorway appeared a gaunt sheep-dog, and halted there. Behind it stared another. For an instant man and brute faced each other, hesitating.<= o:p>
Then Denton, being
ignorant of dogs, made a sharp step forward. "Go away," he said, =
with
a clumsy motion of his sword.
The dog started a=
nd
growled. Denton stopped sharply. "Good dog!" he said.
The growling jerk=
ed
into a bark.
"Good dog!&q=
uot;
said Denton. The second dog growled and barked. A third out of sight down t=
he
staircase took up the barking also. Outside others gave tongue--a large num=
ber
it seemed to Denton.
"This is
annoying," said Denton, without taking his eye off the brutes before h=
im.
"Of course the shepherds won't come out of the city for hours yet. Nat=
urally
these dogs don't quite make us out."
"I can't
hear," shouted Elizabeth. She stood up and came to him.
Denton tried agai=
n,
but the barking still drowned his voice. The sound had a curious effect upon
his blood. Odd disused emotions began to stir; his face changed as he shout=
ed.
He tried again; the barking seemed to mock him, and one dog danced a pace
forward, bristling. Suddenly he turned, and uttering certain words in the
dialect of the underways, words incomprehensible to Elizabeth, he made for =
the
dogs. There was a sudden cessation of the barking, a growl and a snapping.
Elizabeth saw the snarling head of the foremost dog, its white teeth and
retracted ears, and the flash of the thrust blade. The brute leapt into the=
air
and was flung back.
Then Denton, with=
a
shout, was driving the dogs before him. The sword flashed above his head wi=
th a
sudden new freedom of gesture, and then he vanished down the staircase. She
made six steps to follow him, and on the landing there was blood. She stopp=
ed,
and hearing the tumult of dogs and Denton's shouts pass out of the house, r=
an
to the window.
Nine wolfish
sheep-dogs were scattering, one writhed before the porch; and Denton, tasti=
ng
that strange delight of combat that slumbers still in the blood of even the
most civilised man, was shouting and running across the garden space. And t=
hen
she saw something that for a moment he did not see. The dogs circled round =
this
way and that, and came again. They had him in the open.
In an instant she
divined the situation. She would have called to him. For a moment she felt =
sick
and helpless, and then, obeying a strange impulse, she gathered up her white
skirt and ran downstairs. In the hall was the rusting spade. That was it! S=
he
seized it and ran out.
She came none too
soon. One dog rolled before him, well-nigh slashed in half; but a second had
him by the thigh, a third gripped his collar behind, and a fourth had the b=
lade
of the sword between its teeth, tasting its own blood. He parried the leap =
of a
fifth with his left arm.
It might have been
the first century instead of the twenty-second, so far as she was concerned.
All the gentleness of her eighteen years of city life vanished before this
primordial need. The spade smote hard and sure, and cleft a dog's skull. An=
other,
crouching for a spring, yelped with dismay at this unexpected antagonist, a=
nd
rushed aside. Two wasted precious moments on the binding of a feminine skir=
t.
The collar of
Denton's cloak tore and parted as he staggered back; and that dog too felt =
the
spade, and ceased to trouble him. He sheathed his sword in the brute at his
thigh.
"To the
wall!" cried Elizabeth; and in three seconds the fight was at an end, =
and
our young people stood side by side, while a remnant of five dogs, with ears
and tails of disaster, fled shamefully from the stricken field.
For a moment they
stood panting and victorious, and then Elizabeth, dropping her spade, cover=
ed
her face, and sank to the ground in a paroxysm of weeping. Denton looked ab=
out
him, thrust the point of his sword into the ground so that it was at hand, =
and
stooped to comfort her.
*
At last their more
tumultuous emotions subsided, and they could talk again. She leant upon the
wall, and he sat upon it so that he could keep an eye open for any returning
dogs. Two, at any rate, were up on the hillside and keeping up a vexatious
barking.
She was tear-stai=
ned,
but not very wretched now, because for half an hour he had been repeating t=
hat
she was brave and had saved his life. But a new fear was growing in her min=
d.
"They are the
dogs of the Food Company," she said. "There will be trouble."=
;
"I am afraid=
so.
Very likely they will prosecute us for trespass."
A pause.
"In the old
times," he said, "this sort of thing happened day after day."=
;
"Last
night!" she said. "I could not live through another such night.&q=
uot;
He looked at her.=
Her
face was pale for want of sleep, and drawn and haggard. He came to a sudden
resolution. "We must go back," he said.
She looked at the
dead dogs, and shivered. "We cannot stay here," she said.
"We must go
back," he repeated, glancing over his shoulder to see if the enemy kept
their distance. "We have been happy for a time.... But the world is too
civilised. Ours is the age of cities. More of this will kill us."
"But what ar=
e we
to do? How can we live there?"
Denton hesitated.=
His
heel kicked against the wall on which he sat. "It's a thing I haven't
mentioned before," he said, and coughed; "but ..."
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"You could r=
aise
money on your expectations," he said.
"Could I?&qu=
ot;
she said eagerly.
"Of course y=
ou
could. What a child you are!"
She stood up, and=
her
face was bright. "Why did you not tell me before?" she asked.
"And all this time we have been here!"
He looked at her =
for
a moment, and smiled. Then the smile vanished. "I thought it ought to =
come
from you," he said. "I didn't like to ask for your money. And
besides--at first I thought this would be rather fine."
There was a pause=
.
"It has been
fine," he said; and glanced once more over his shoulder. "Until a=
ll
this began."
"Yes," =
she
said, "those first days. The first three days."
They looked for a
space into one another's faces, and then Denton slid down from the wall and
took her hand.
"To each
generation," he said, "the life of its time. I see it all plainly
now. In the city--that is the life to which we were born. To live in any ot=
her
fashion ... Coming here was a dream, and this--is the awakening."
"It was a
pleasant dream," she said,--"in the beginning."
For a long space
neither spoke.
"If we would
reach the city before the shepherds come here, we must start," said
Denton. "We must get our food out of the house and eat as we go."=
Denton glanced ab=
out
him again, and, giving the dead dogs a wide berth, they walked across the
garden space and into the house together. They found the wallet with their
food, and descended the blood-stained stairs again. In the hall Elizabeth
stopped. "One minute," she said. "There is something here.&q=
uot;
She led the way i=
nto
the room in which that one little blue flower was blooming. She stooped to =
it,
she touched it with her hand.
"I want
it," she said; and then, "I cannot take it...."
Impulsively she
stooped and kissed its petals.
Then silently, si=
de
by side, they went across the empty garden-space into the old high road, and
set their faces resolutely towards the distant city--towards the complex
mechanical city of those latter days, the city that had swallowed up mankin=
d.
Prominent if not
paramount among world-changing inventions in the history of man is that ser=
ies
of contrivances in locomotion that began with the railway and ended for a
century or more with the motor and the patent road. That these contrivances,
together with the device of limited liability joint stock companies and the
supersession of agricultural labourers by skilled men with ingenious machin=
ery,
would necessarily concentrate mankind in cities of unparallelled magnitude =
and work
an entire revolution in human life, became, after the event, a thing so obv=
ious
that it is a matter of astonishment it was not more clearly anticipated. Yet
that any steps should be taken to anticipate the miseries such a revolution
might entail does not appear even to have been suggested; and the idea that=
the
moral prohibitions and sanctions, the privileges and concessions, the
conception of property and responsibility, of comfort and beauty, that had
rendered the mainly agricultural states of the past prosperous and happy, w=
ould
fail in the rising torrent of novel opportunities and novel stimulations, n=
ever
seems to have entered the nineteenth-century mind. That a citizen, kindly a=
nd
fair in his ordinary life, could as a shareholder become almost murderously
greedy; that commercial methods that were reasonable and honourable on the
old-fashioned countryside, should on an enlarged scale be deadly and
overwhelming; that ancient charity was modern pauperisation, and ancient
employment modern sweating; that, in fact, a revision and enlargement of the
duties and rights of man had become urgently necessary, were things it could
not entertain, nourished as it was on an archaic system of education and
profoundly retrospective and legal in all its habits of thought. It was kno=
wn
that the accumulation of men in cities involved unprecedented dangers of
pestilence; there was an energetic development of sanitation; but that the
diseases of gambling and usury, of luxury and tyranny should become endemic,
and produce horrible consequences was beyond the scope of nineteenth-centur=
y thought.
And so, as if it were some inorganic process, practically unhindered by the
creative will of man, the growth of the swarming unhappy cities that mark t=
he
twenty-first century accomplished itself.
The new society w=
as
divided into three main classes. At the summit slumbered the property owner,
enormously rich by accident rather than design, potent save for the will and
aim, the last avatar of Hamlet in the world. Below was the enormous multitu=
de
of workers employed by the gigantic companies that monopolised control; and
between these two the dwindling middle class, officials of innumerable sort=
s,
foremen, managers, the medical, legal, artistic, and scholastic classes, and
the minor rich, a middle class whose members led a life of insecure luxury =
and
precarious speculation amidst the movements of the great managers.
Already the love
story and the marrying of two persons of this middle class have been told: =
how
they overcame the obstacles between them, and how they tried the simple
old-fashioned way of living on the countryside and came back speedily enough
into the city of London. Denton had no means, so Elizabeth borrowed money on
the securities that her father Mwres held in trust for her until she was
one-and-twenty.
The rate of inter=
est
she paid was of course high, because of the uncertainty of her security, and
the arithmetic of lovers is often sketchy and optimistic. Yet they had very
glorious times after that return. They determined they would not go to a
Pleasure city nor waste their days rushing through the air from one part of=
the
world to the other, for in spite of one disillusionment, their tastes were
still old-fashioned. They furnished their little room with quaint old Victo=
rian
furniture, and found a shop on the forty-second floor in Seventh Way where
printed books of the old sort were still to be bought. It was their pet
affectation to read print instead of hearing phonographs. And when presently
there came a sweet little girl, to unite them further if it were possible,
Elizabeth would not send it to a creche, as the custom was, but insisted on
nursing it at home. The rent of their apartments was raised on account of t=
his
singular proceeding, but that they did not mind. It only meant borrowing a
little more.
Presently Elizabe=
th
was of age, and Denton had a business interview with her father that was not
agreeable. An exceedingly disagreeable interview with their money-lender
followed, from which he brought home a white face. On his return Elizabeth =
had
to tell him of a new and marvellous intonation of "Goo" that their
daughter had devised, but Denton was inattentive. In the midst, just as she=
was
at the cream of her description, he interrupted. "How much money do you
think we have left, now that everything is settled?"
She stared and
stopped her appreciative swaying of the Goo genius that had accompanied her
description.
"You don't
mean...?"
"Yes," =
he
answered. "Ever so much. We have been wild. It's the interest. Or
something. And the shares you had, slumped. Your father did not mind. Said =
it
was not his business, after what had happened. He's going to marry again....
Well--we have scarcely a thousand left!"
"Only a
thousand?"
"Only a
thousand."
And Elizabeth sat
down. For a moment she regarded him with a white face, then her eyes went a=
bout
the quaint, old-fashioned room, with its middle Victorian furniture and gen=
uine
oleographs, and rested at last on the little lump of humanity within her ar=
ms.
Denton glanced at=
her
and stood downcast. Then he swung round on his heel and walked up and down =
very
rapidly.
"I must get
something to do," he broke out presently. "I am an idle scoundrel=
. I
ought to have thought of this before. I have been a selfish fool. I wanted =
to
be with you all day...."
He stopped, looki=
ng
at her white face. Suddenly he came and kissed her and the little face that
nestled against her breast.
"It's all ri=
ght,
dear," he said, standing over her; "you won't be lonely now--now
Dings is beginning to talk to you. And I can soon get something to do, you
know. Soon.... Easily.... It's only a shock at first. But it will come all
right. It's sure to come right. I will go out again as soon as I have reste=
d,
and find what can be done. For the present it's hard to think of
anything...."
"It would be
hard to leave these rooms," said Elizabeth; "but----"
"There won't=
be
any need of that--trust me."
"They are
expensive."
Denton waved that
aside. He began talking of the work he could do. He was not very explicit w=
hat
it would be; but he was quite sure that there was something to keep them
comfortably in the happy middle class, whose way of life was the only one t=
hey
knew.
"There are
three-and-thirty million people in London," he said: "some of them
must have need of me."
"Some
must."
"The trouble=
is
... Well--Bindon, that brown little old man your father wanted you to marry.
He's an important person.... I can't go back to my flying-stage work, becau=
se
he is now a Commissioner of the Flying Stage Clerks."
"I didn't kn=
ow
that," said Elizabeth.
"He was made
that in the last few weeks ... or things would be easy enough, for they lik=
ed
me on the flying stage. But there's dozens of other things to be done--doze=
ns.
Don't you worry, dear. I'll rest a little while, and then we'll dine, and t=
hen
I'll start on my rounds. I know lots of people--lots."
So they rested, a=
nd
then they went to the public dining-room and dined, and then he started on =
his
search for employment. But they soon realised that in the matter of one
convenience the world was just as badly off as it had ever been, and that w=
as a
nice, secure, honourable, remunerative employment, leaving ample leisure for
the private life, and demanding no special ability, no violent exertion nor
risk, and no sacrifice of any sort for its attainment. He evolved a number =
of
brilliant projects, and spent many days hurrying from one part of the enorm=
ous
city to another in search of influential friends; and all his influential
friends were glad to see him, and very sanguine until it came to definite
proposals, and then they became guarded and vague. He would part with them
coldly, and think over their behaviour, and get irritated on his way back, =
and stop
at some telephone office and spend money on an animated but unprofitable
quarrel. And as the days passed, he got so worried and irritated that even =
to
seem kind and careless before Elizabeth cost him an effort--as she, being a
loving woman, perceived very clearly.
After an extremely
complex preface one day, she helped him out with a painful suggestion. He h=
ad
expected her to weep and give way to despair when it came to selling all th=
eir
joyfully bought early Victorian treasures, their quaint objects of art, the=
ir
antimacassars, bead mats, repp curtains, veneered furniture, gold-framed st=
eel
engravings and pencil drawings, wax flowers under shades, stuffed birds, an=
d all
sorts of choice old things; but it was she who made the proposal. The sacri=
fice
seemed to fill her with pleasure, and so did the idea of shifting to apartm=
ents
ten or twelve floors lower in another hotel. "So long as Dings is with=
us,
nothing matters," she said. "It's all experience." So he kis=
sed
her, said she was braver than when she fought the sheep-dogs, called her
Boadicea, and abstained very carefully from reminding her that they would h=
ave
to pay a considerably higher rent on account of the little voice with which
Dings greeted the perpetual uproar of the city.
His idea had been=
to
get Elizabeth out of the way when it came to selling the absurd furniture a=
bout
which their affections were twined and tangled; but when it came to the sal=
e it
was Elizabeth who haggled with the dealer while Denton went about the runni=
ng
ways of the city, white and sick with sorrow and the fear of what was still=
to
come. When they moved into their sparsely furnished pink-and-white apartmen=
ts
in a cheap hotel, there came an outbreak of furious energy on his part, and=
then
nearly a week of lethargy during which he sulked at home. Through those days
Elizabeth shone like a star, and at the end Denton's misery found a vent in
tears. And then he went out into the city ways again, and--to his utter
amazement--found some work to do.
His standard of
employment had fallen steadily until at last it had reached the lowest leve=
l of
independent workers. At first he had aspired to some high official position=
in
the great Flying or Wind Vane or Water Companies, or to an appointment on o=
ne
of the General Intelligence Organisations that had replaced newspapers, or =
to
some professional partnership, but those were the dreams of the beginning. =
From
that he had passed to speculation, and three hundred gold "lions"=
out
of Elizabeth's thousand had vanished one evening in the share market. Now he
was glad his good looks secured him a trial in the position of salesman to =
the
Suzannah Hat Syndicate, a Syndicate, dealing in ladies' caps, hair decorati=
ons,
and hats--for though the city was completely covered in, ladies still wore
extremely elaborate and beautiful hats at the theatres and places of public
worship.
It would have been
amusing if one could have confronted a Regent Street shopkeeper of the nine=
teenth
century with the development of his establishment in which Denton's duties =
lay.
Nineteenth Way was still sometimes called Regent Street, but it was now a
street of moving platforms and nearly eight hundred feet wide. The middle s=
pace
was immovable and gave access by staircases descending into subterranean wa=
ys
to the houses on either side. Right and left were an ascending series of
continuous platforms each of which travelled about five miles an hour faster
than the one internal to it, so that one could step from platform to platfo=
rm
until one reached the swiftest outer way and so go about the city. The
establishment of the Suzannah Hat Syndicate projected a vast façade =
upon
the outer way, sending out overhead at either end an overlapping series of =
huge
white glass screens, on which gigantic animated pictures of the faces of
well-known beautiful living women wearing novelties in hats were thrown. A
dense crowd was always collected in the stationary central way watching a v=
ast
kinematograph which displayed the changing fashion. The whole front of the
building was in perpetual chromatic change, and all down the
façade--four hundred feet it measured--and all across the street of
moving ways, laced and winked and glittered in a thousand varieties of colo=
ur
and lettering the inscription--
SUZANNA! 'ETS! SUZANNA!
'ETS!
A broadside of
gigantic phonographs drowned all conversation in the moving way and roared
"hats" at the passer-by, while far down the street and up, other
batteries counselled the public to "walk down for Suzannah," and
queried, "Why don't you buy the girl a hat?"
For the benefit of
those who chanced to be deaf--and deafness was not uncommon in the London of
that age, inscriptions of all sizes were thrown from the roof above upon th=
e moving
platforms themselves, and on one's hand or on the bald head of the man befo=
re
one, or on a lady's shoulders, or in a sudden jet of flame before one's fee=
t,
the moving finger wrote in unanticipated letters of fire "'ets r chip
t'de," or simply "'ets." And spite of all these efforts so h=
igh
was the pitch at which the city lived, so trained became one's eyes and ear=
s to
ignore all sorts of advertisement, that many a citizen had passed that plac=
e thousands
of times and was still unaware of the existence of the Suzannah Hat Syndica=
te.
To enter the buil=
ding
one descended the staircase in the middle way and walked through a public
passage in which pretty girls promenaded, girls who were willing to wear a
ticketed hat for a small fee. The entrance chamber was a large hall in which
wax heads fashionably adorned rotated gracefully upon pedestals, and from t=
his
one passed through a cash office to an interminable series of little rooms,
each room with its salesman, its three or four hats and pins, its mirrors, =
its kinematographs,
telephones and hat slides in communication with the central depôt, its
comfortable lounge and tempting refreshments. A salesman in such an apartme=
nt
did Denton now become. It was his business to attend to any of the incessant
stream of ladies who chose to stop with him, to behave as winningly as
possible, to offer refreshment, to converse on any topic the possible custo=
mer
chose, and to guide the conversation dexterously but not insistently towards
hats. He was to suggest trying on various types of hat and to show by his
manner and bearing, but without any coarse flattery, the enhanced impression
made by the hats he wished to sell. He had several mirrors, adapted by vari=
ous
subtleties of curvature and tint to different types of face and complexion,=
and
much depended on the proper use of these.
Denton flung hims=
elf
at these curious and not very congenial duties with a good will and energy =
that
would have amazed him a year before; but all to no purpose. The Senior
Manageress, who had selected him for appointment and conferred various small
marks of favour upon him, suddenly changed in her manner, declared for no
assignable cause that he was stupid, and dismissed him at the end of six we=
eks
of salesmanship. So Denton had to resume his ineffectual search for employm=
ent.
This second search
did not last very long. Their money was at the ebb. To eke it out a little
longer they resolved to part with their darling Dings, and took that small
person to one of the public creches that abounded in the city. That was the
common use of the time. The industrial emancipation of women, the correlated
disorganisation of the secluded "home," had rendered creches a
necessity for all but very rich and exceptionally-minded people. Therein
children encountered hygienic and educational advantages impossible without
such organisation. Creches were of all classes and types of luxury, down to=
those
of the Labour Company, where children were taken on credit, to be redeemed =
in
labour as they grew up.
But both Denton a=
nd
Elizabeth being, as I have explained, strange old-fashioned young people, f=
ull
of nineteenth-century ideas, hated these convenient creches exceedingly and=
at
last took their little daughter to one with extreme reluctance. They were
received by a motherly person in a uniform who was very brisk and prompt in=
her
manner until Elizabeth wept at the mention of parting from her child. The m=
otherly
person, after a brief astonishment at this unusual emotion, changed suddenly
into a creature of hope and comfort, and so won Elizabeth's gratitude for l=
ife.
They were conducted into a vast room presided over by several nurses and wi=
th
hundreds of two-year-old girls grouped about the toy-covered floor. This was
the Two-year-old Room. Two nurses came forward, and Elizabeth watched their
bearing towards Dings with jealous eyes. They were kind--it was clear they =
felt
kind, and yet ...
Presently it was =
time
to go. By that time Dings was happily established in a corner, sitting on t=
he
floor with her arms filled, and herself, indeed, for the most part hidden b=
y an
unaccustomed wealth of toys. She seemed careless of all human relationships=
as
her parents receded.
They were forbidd=
en
to upset her by saying good-bye.
At the door Eliza=
beth
glanced back for the last time, and behold! Dings had dropped her new wealth
and was standing with a dubious face. Suddenly Elizabeth gasped, and the
motherly nurse pushed her forward and closed the door.
"You can come
again soon, dear," she said, with unexpected tenderness in her eyes. F=
or a
moment Elizabeth stared at her with a blank face. "You can come again
soon," repeated the nurse. Then with a swift transition Elizabeth was
weeping in the nurse's arms. So it was that Denton's heart was won also.
And three weeks a=
fter
our young people were absolutely penniless, and only one way lay open. They
must go to the Labour Company. So soon as the rent was a week overdue their=
few
remaining possessions were seized, and with scant courtesy they were shown =
the
way out of the hotel. Elizabeth walked along the passage towards the stairc=
ase
that ascended to the motionless middle way, too dulled by misery to think.
Denton stopped behind to finish a stinging and unsatisfactory argument with=
the
hotel porter, and then came hurrying after her, flushed and hot. He slacken=
ed
his pace as he overtook her, and together they ascended to the middle way in
silence. There they found two seats vacant and sat down.
"We need not=
go
there--yet?" said Elizabeth.
"No--not til=
l we
are hungry," said Denton.
They said no more=
.
Elizabeth's eyes
sought a resting-place and found none. To the right roared the eastward way=
s,
to the left the ways in the opposite direction, swarming with people. Backw=
ards
and forwards along a cable overhead rushed a string of gesticulating men,
dressed like clowns, each marked on back and chest with one gigantic letter=
, so
that altogether they spelt out:
"PURKINJE'S DIGES=
TIVE
PILLS."
An anæmic
little woman in horrible coarse blue canvas pointed a little girl to one of
this string of hurrying advertisements.
"Look!"
said the anæmic woman: "there's yer father."
"Which?"
said the little girl.
"'Im wiv his
nose coloured red," said the anæmic woman.
The little girl b=
egan
to cry, and Elizabeth could have cried too.
"Ain't 'e
kickin' 'is legs!--just!" said the anæmic woman in blue, trying =
to
make things bright again. "Looky--now!"
On the faç=
ade
to the right a huge intensely bright disc of weird colour span incessantly,=
and
letters of fire that came and went spelt out--
"DOES THIS MAKE Y=
OU
GIDDY?"
Then a pause,
followed by
"TAKE A PURKINJE'S
DIGESTIVE PILL."
A vast and desola=
ting
braying began. "If you love Swagger Literature, put your telephone on =
to
Bruggles, the Greatest Author of all Time. The Greatest Thinker of all Time.
Teaches you Morals up to your Scalp! The very image of Socrates, except the
back of his head, which is like Shakspeare. He has six toes, dresses in red,
and never cleans his teeth. Hear HIM!"
Denton's voice be=
came
audible in a gap in the uproar. "I never ought to have married you,&qu=
ot;
he was saying. "I have wasted your money, ruined you, brought you to
misery. I am a scoundrel.... Oh, this accursed world!"
She tried to spea=
k,
and for some moments could not. She grasped his hand. "No," she s=
aid
at last.
A half-formed des=
ire
suddenly became determination. She stood up. "Will you come?"
He rose also.
"We need not go there yet."
"Not that. B=
ut I
want you to come to the flying stages--where we met. You know? The little
seat."
He hesitated.
"Can you?" he said, doubtfully.
"Must,"=
she
answered.
He hesitated still
for a moment, then moved to obey her will.
And so it was they
spent their last half-day of freedom out under the open air in the little s=
eat
under the flying stages where they had been wont to meet five short years a=
go.
There she told him, what she could not tell him in the tumultuous public wa=
ys,
that she did not repent even now of their marriage--that whatever discomfort
and misery life still had for them, she was content with the things that had
been. The weather was kind to them, the seat was sunlit and warm, and overh=
ead
the shining aëroplanes went and came.
At last towards
sunsetting their time was at an end, and they made their vows to one another
and clasped hands, and then rose up and went back into the ways of the city=
, a
shabby-looking, heavy-hearted pair, tired and hungry. Soon they came to one=
of
the pale blue signs that marked a Labour Company Bureau. For a space they s=
tood
in the middle way regarding this and at last descended, and entered the
waiting-room.
The Labour Company
had originally been a charitable organisation; its aim was to supply food,
shelter, and work to all comers. This it was bound to do by the conditions =
of
its incorporation, and it was also bound to supply food and shelter and med=
ical
attendance to all incapable of work who chose to demand its aid. In exchange
these incapables paid labour notes, which they had to redeem upon recovery.
They signed these labour notes with thumb-marks, which were photographed and
indexed in such a way that this world-wide Labour Company could identify any
one of its two or three hundred million clients at the cost of an hour's in=
quiry.
The day's labour was defined as two spells in a treadmill used in generating
electrical force, or its equivalent, and its due performance could be enfor=
ced
by law. In practice the Labour Company found it advisable to add to its
statutory obligations of food and shelter a few pence a day as an inducemen=
t to
effort; and its enterprise had not only abolished pauperisation altogether,=
but
supplied practically all but the very highest and most responsible labour t=
hroughout
the world. Nearly a third of the population of the world were its serfs and
debtors from the cradle to the grave.
In this practical,
unsentimental way the problem of the unemployed had been most satisfactorily
met and overcome. No one starved in the public ways, and no rags, no costume
less sanitary and sufficient than the Labour Company's hygienic but inelega=
nt
blue canvas, pained the eye throughout the whole world. It was the constant
theme of the phonographic newspapers how much the world had progressed sinc=
e nineteenth-century
days, when the bodies of those killed by the vehicular traffic or dead of
starvation, were, they alleged, a common feature in all the busier streets.=
Denton and Elizab=
eth
sat apart in the waiting-room until their turn came. Most of the others
collected there seemed limp and taciturn, but three or four young people
gaudily dressed made up for the quietude of their companions. They were life
clients of the Company, born in the Company's creche and destined to die in=
its
hospital, and they had been out for a spree with some shillings or so of ex=
tra
pay. They talked vociferously in a later development of the Cockney dialect,
manifestly very proud of themselves.
Elizabeth's eyes =
went
from these to the less assertive figures. One seemed exceptionally pitiful =
to
her. It was a woman of perhaps forty-five, with gold-stained hair and a pai=
nted
face, down which abundant tears had trickled; she had a pinched nose, hungry
eyes, lean hands and shoulders, and her dusty worn-out finery told the stor=
y of
her life. Another was a grey-bearded old man in the costume of a bishop of =
one
of the high episcopal sects--for religion was now also a business, and had =
its
ups and downs. And beside him a sickly, dissipated-looking boy of perhaps
two-and-twenty glared at Fate.
Presently Elizabe=
th
and then Denton interviewed the manageress--for the Company preferred women=
in
this capacity--and found she possessed an energetic face, a contemptuous
manner, and a particularly unpleasant voice. They were given various checks,
including one to certify that they need not have their heads cropped; and w=
hen
they had given their thumb-marks, learnt the number corresponding thereunto,
and exchanged their shabby middle-class clothes for duly numbered blue canv=
as
suits, they repaired to the huge plain dining-room for their first meal und=
er these
new conditions. Afterwards they were to return to her for instructions about
their work.
When they had made
the exchange of their clothing Elizabeth did not seem able to look at Dento=
n at
first; but he looked at her, and saw with astonishment that even in blue ca=
nvas
she was still beautiful. And then their soup and bread came sliding on its =
little
rail down the long table towards them and stopped with a jerk, and he forgot
the matter. For they had had no proper meal for three days.
After they had di=
ned
they rested for a time. Neither talked--there was nothing to say; and prese=
ntly
they got up and went back to the manageress to learn what they had to do.
The manageress
referred to a tablet. "Y'r rooms won't be here; it'll be in the Highbu=
ry
Ward, Ninety-seventh Way, number two thousand and seventeen. Better make a =
note
of it on y'r card. You, nought nought nought, type seven, sixty-four, b.c.d=
.,
gamma forty-one, female; you 'ave to go to the Metal-beating Company and try
that for a day--fourpence bonus if ye're satisfactory; and you, nought seven
one, type four, seven hundred and nine, g.f.b., pi five and ninety, male; y=
ou
'ave to go to the Photographic Company on Eighty-first Way, and learn somet=
hing
or other--I don't know--thrippence. 'Ere's y'r cards. That's all. Next! Wha=
t?
Didn't catch it all? Lor! So suppose I must go over it all again. Why don't=
you
listen? Keerless, unprovident people! One'd think these things didn't
matter."
Their ways to the=
ir
work lay together for a time. And now they found they could talk. Curiously
enough, the worst of their depression seemed over now that they had actually
donned the blue. Denton could talk with interest even of the work that lay
before them. "Whatever it is," he said, "it can't be so hate=
ful
as that hat shop. And after we have paid for Dings, we shall still have a w=
hole
penny a day between us even now. Afterwards--we may improve,--get more
money."
Elizabeth was less
inclined to speech. "I wonder why work should seem so hateful," s=
he
said.
"It's odd,&q=
uot;
said Denton. "I suppose it wouldn't be if it were not the thought of b=
eing
ordered about.... I hope we shall have decent managers."
Elizabeth did not
answer. She was not thinking of that. She was tracing out some thoughts of =
her
own.
"Of
course," she said presently, "we have been using up work all our =
lives.
It's only fair--"
She stopped. It w=
as
too intricate.
"We paid for
it," said Denton, for at that time he had not troubled himself about t=
hese
complicated things.
"We did
nothing--and yet we paid for it. That's what I cannot understand."
"Perhaps we =
are
paying," said Elizabeth presently--for her theology was old-fashioned =
and
simple.
Presently it was =
time
for them to part, and each went to the appointed work. Denton's was to mind=
a
complicated hydraulic press that seemed almost an intelligent thing. This p=
ress
worked by the sea-water that was destined finally to flush the city drains-=
-for
the world had long since abandoned the folly of pouring drinkable water into
its sewers. This water was brought close to the eastward edge of the city b=
y a
huge canal, and then raised by an enormous battery of pumps into reservoirs=
at
a level of four hundred feet above the sea, from which it spread by a billi=
on
arterial branches over the city. Thence it poured down, cleansing, sluicing,
working machinery of all sorts, through an infinite variety of capillary ch=
annels
into the great drains, the cloacae maximae, and so carried the sewage out to
the agricultural areas that surrounded London on every side.
The press was
employed in one of the processes of the photographic manufacture, but the
nature of the process it did not concern Denton to understand. The most sal=
ient
fact to his mind was that it had to be conducted in ruby light, and as a
consequence the room in which he worked was lit by one coloured globe that
poured a lurid and painful illumination about the room. In the darkest corn=
er
stood the press whose servant Denton had now become: it was a huge, dim,
glittering thing with a projecting hood that had a remote resemblance to a
bowed head, and, squatting like some metal Buddha in this weird light that
ministered to its needs, it seemed to Denton in certain moods almost as if =
this
must needs be the obscure idol to which humanity in some strange aberration=
had
offered up his life. His duties had a varied monotony. Such items as the
following will convey an idea of the service of the press. The thing worked
with a busy clicking so long as things went well; but if the paste that came
pouring through a feeder from another room and which it was perpetually
compressing into thin plates, changed in quality the rhythm of its click
altered and Denton hastened to make certain adjustments. The slightest delay
involved a waste of paste and the docking of one or more of his daily pence=
. If
the supply of paste waned--there were hand processes of a peculiar sort
involved in its preparation, and sometimes the workers had convulsions which
deranged their output--Denton had to throw the press out of gear. In the
painful vigilance a multitude of such trivial attentions entailed, painful =
because
of the incessant effort its absence of natural interest required, Denton had
now to pass one-third of his days. Save for an occasional visit from the
manager, a kindly but singularly foul-mouthed man, Denton passed his working
hours in solitude.
Elizabeth's work =
was
of a more social sort. There was a fashion for covering the private apartme=
nts
of the very wealthy with metal plates beautifully embossed with repeated
patterns. The taste of the time demanded, however, that the repetition of t=
he
patterns should not be exact--not mechanical, but "natural"--and =
it
was found that the most pleasing arrangement of pattern irregularity was
obtained by employing women of refinement and natural taste to punch out the
patterns with small dies. So many square feet of plates was exacted from
Elizabeth as a minimum, and for whatever square feet she did in excess she
received a small payment. The room, like most rooms of women workers, was u=
nder
a manageress: men had been found by the Labour Company not only less exacti=
ng
but extremely liable to excuse favoured ladies from a proper share of their
duties. The manageress was a not unkindly, taciturn person, with the harden=
ed
remains of beauty of the brunette type; and the other women workers, who of
course hated her, associated her name scandalously with one of the metal-wo=
rk
directors in order to explain her position.
Only two or three=
of
Elizabeth's fellow-workers were born labour serfs; plain, morose girls, but
most of them corresponded to what the nineteenth century would have called a
"reduced" gentlewoman. But the ideal of what constituted a
gentlewoman had altered: the faint, faded, negative virtue, the modulated v=
oice
and restrained gesture of the old-fashioned gentlewoman had vanished from t=
he
earth. Most of her companions showed in discoloured hair, ruined complexion=
s,
and the texture of their reminiscent conversations, the vanished glories of=
a conquering
youth. All of these artistic workers were much older than Elizabeth, and two
openly expressed their surprise that any one so young and pleasant should c=
ome
to share their toil. But Elizabeth did not trouble them with her old-world
moral conceptions.
They were permitt=
ed,
and even encouraged to converse with each other, for the directors very
properly judged that anything that conduced to variations of mood made for
pleasing fluctuations in their patterning; and Elizabeth was almost forced =
to
hear the stories of these lives with which her own interwove: garbled and
distorted they were by vanity indeed and yet comprehensible enough. And soon
she began to appreciate the small spites and cliques, the little
misunderstandings and alliances that enmeshed about her. One woman was
excessively garrulous and descriptive about a wonderful son of hers; another
had cultivated a foolish coarseness of speech, that she seemed to regard as=
the
wittiest expression of originality conceivable; a third mused for ever on
dress, and whispered to Elizabeth how she saved her pence day after day, an=
d would
presently have a glorious day of freedom, wearing ... and then followed hou=
rs
of description; two others sat always together, and called one another pet
names, until one day some little thing happened, and they sat apart, blind =
and
deaf as it seemed to one another's being. And always from them all came an
incessant tap, tap, tap, tap, and the manageress listened always to the rhy=
thm
to mark if one fell away. Tap, tap, tap, tap: so their days passed, so their
lives must pass. Elizabeth sat among them, kindly and quiet, grey-hearted,
marvelling at Fate: tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap.
So there came to
Denton and Elizabeth a long succession of laborious days, that hardened the=
ir
hands, wove strange threads of some new and sterner substance into the soft
prettiness of their lives, and drew grave lines and shadows on their faces.=
The
bright, convenient ways of the former life had receded to an inaccessible
distance; slowly they learnt the lesson of the underworld--sombre and
laborious, vast and pregnant. There were many little things happened: things
that would be tedious and miserable to tell, things that were bitter and
grievous to bear--indignities, tyrannies, such as must ever season the brea=
d of
the poor in cities; and one thing that was not little, but seemed like the =
utter
blackening of life to them, which was that the child they had given life to
sickened and died. But that story, that ancient, perpetually recurring stor=
y,
has been told so often, has been told so beautifully, that there is no need=
to
tell it over again here. There was the same sharp fear, the same long anxie=
ty,
the deferred inevitable blow, and the black silence. It has always been the
same; it will always be the same. It is one of the things that must be.
And it was Elizab=
eth
who was the first to speak, after an aching, dull interspace of days: not,
indeed, of the foolish little name that was a name no longer, but of the
darkness that brooded over her soul. They had come through the shrieking,
tumultuous ways of the city together; the clamour of trade, of yelling
competitive religions, of political appeal, had beat upon deaf ears; the gl=
are
of focussed lights, of dancing letters, and fiery advertisements, had fallen
upon the set, miserable faces unheeded. They took their dinner in the
dining-hall at a place apart. "I want," said Elizabeth clumsily,
"to go out to the flying stages--to that seat. Here, one can say
nothing...."
Denton looked at =
her.
"It will be night," he said.
"I have
asked,--it is a fine night." She stopped.
He perceived she
could find no words to explain herself. Suddenly he understood that she wis=
hed
to see the stars once more, the stars they had watched together from the op=
en
downland in that wild honeymoon of theirs five years ago. Something caught =
at
his throat. He looked away from her.
"There will =
be
plenty of time to go," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
And at last they =
came
out to their little seat on the flying stage, and sat there for a long time=
in
silence. The little seat was in shadow, but the zenith was pale blue with t=
he
effulgence of the stage overhead, and all the city spread below them, squar=
es
and circles and patches of brilliance caught in a mesh-work of light. The
little stars seemed very faint and small: near as they had been to the
old-world watcher, they had become now infinitely remote. Yet one could see
them in the darkened patches amidst the glare, and especially in the northw=
ard
sky, the ancient constellations gliding steadfast and patient about the pol=
e.
Long our two peop=
le
sat in silence, and at last Elizabeth sighed.
"If I
understood," she said, "if I could understand. When one is down t=
here
the city seems everything--the noise, the hurry, the voices--you must live,=
you
must scramble. Here--it is nothing; a thing that passes. One can think in
peace."
"Yes," =
said
Denton. "How flimsy it all is! From here more than half of it is swall=
owed
by the night.... It will pass."
"We shall pa=
ss
first," said Elizabeth.
"I know,&quo=
t;
said Denton. "If life were not a moment, the whole of history would se=
em
like the happening of a day.... Yes--we shall pass. And the city will pass,=
and
all the things that are to come. Man and the Overman and wonders unspeakabl=
e.
And yet ..."
He paused, and th=
en
began afresh. "I know what you feel. At least I fancy.... Down there o=
ne
thinks of one's work, one's little vexations and pleasures, one's eating and
drinking and ease and pain. One lives, and one must die. Down there and
everyday--our sorrow seemed the end of life....
"Up here it =
is
different. For instance, down there it would seem impossible almost to go on
living if one were horribly disfigured, horribly crippled, disgraced. Up
here--under these stars--none of those things would matter. They don't
matter.... They are a part of something. One seems just to touch that
something--under the stars...."
He stopped. The
vague, impalpable things in his mind, cloudy emotions half shaped towards
ideas, vanished before the rough grasp of words. "It is hard to
express," he said lamely.
They sat through a
long stillness.
"It is well = to come here," he said at last. "We stop--our minds are very finite. After all we are just poor animals rising out of the brute, each with a min= d, the poor beginning of a mind. We are so stupid. So much hurts. And yet ...<= o:p>
"I know, I
know--and some day we shall see.
"All this
frightful stress, all this discord will resolve to harmony, and we shall kn=
ow
it. Nothing is but it makes for that. Nothing. All the failures--every litt=
le
thing makes for that harmony. Everything is necessary to it, we shall find.=
We
shall find. Nothing, not even the most dreadful thing, could be left out. N=
ot
even the most trivial. Every tap of your hammer on the brass, every moment =
of
work, my idleness even ... Dear one! every movement of our poor little one =
...
All these things go on for ever. And the faint impalpable things. We, sitti=
ng
here together.--Everything ...
"The passion
that joined us, and what has come since. It is not passion now. More than
anything else it is sorrow. Dear ..."
He could say no m=
ore,
could follow his thoughts no further.
Elizabeth made no
answer--she was very still; but presently her hand sought his and found it.=
Under the stars o=
ne
may reach upward and touch resignation, whatever the evil thing may be, but=
in
the heat and stress of the day's work we lapse again, come disgust and anger
and intolerable moods. How little is all our magnanimity--an accident! a ph=
ase!
The very Saints of old had first to flee the world. And Denton and his
Elizabeth could not flee their world, no longer were there open roads to
unclaimed lands where men might live freely--however hardly--and keep their
souls in peace. The city had swallowed up mankind.
For a time these =
two
Labour Serfs were kept at their original occupations, she at her brass stam=
ping
and Denton at his press; and then came a move for him that brought with it
fresh and still bitterer experiences of life in the underways of the great
city. He was transferred to the care of a rather more elaborate press in the
central factory of the London Tile Trust.
In this new situa=
tion
he had to work in a long vaulted room with a number of other men, for the m=
ost
part born Labour Serfs. He came to this intercourse reluctantly. His upbrin=
ging
had been refined, and, until his ill fortune had brought him to that costum=
e,
he had never spoken in his life, except by way of command or some immediate=
necessity,
to the white-faced wearers of the blue canvas. Now at last came contact; he=
had
to work beside them, share their tools, eat with them. To both Elizabeth and
himself this seemed a further degradation.
His taste would h=
ave
seemed extreme to a man of the nineteenth century. But slowly and inevitabl=
y in
the intervening years a gulf had opened between the wearers of the blue can=
vas
and the classes above, a difference not simply of circumstances and habits =
of
life, but of habits of thought--even of language. The underways had develop=
ed a
dialect of their own: above, too, had arisen a dialect, a code of thought, =
a language
of "culture," which aimed by a sedulous search after fresh distin=
ction
to widen perpetually the space between itself and "vulgarity." The
bond of a common faith, moreover, no longer held the race together. The last
years of the nineteenth century were distinguished by the rapid development
among the prosperous idle of esoteric perversions of the popular religion:
glosses and interpretations that reduced the broad teachings of the carpent=
er
of Nazareth to the exquisite narrowness of their lives. And, spite of their=
inclination
towards the ancient fashion of living, neither Elizabeth nor Denton had been
sufficiently original to escape the suggestion of their surroundings. In
matters of common behaviour they had followed the ways of their class, and =
so
when they fell at last to be Labour Serfs it seemed to them almost as though
they were falling among offensive inferior animals; they felt as a
nineteenth-century duke and duchess might have felt who were forced to take
rooms in the Jago.
Their natural imp= ulse was to maintain a "distance." But Denton's first idea of a dignif= ied isolation from his new surroundings was soon rudely dispelled. He had imagi= ned that his fall to the position of a Labour Serf was the end of his lesson, t= hat when their little daughter had died he had plumbed the deeps of life; but indeed these things were only the beginning. Life demands something more fr= om us than acquiescence. And now in a roomful of machine minders he was to lea= rn a wider lesson, to make the acquaintance of another factor in life, a factor = as elemental as the loss of things dear to us, more elemental even than toil.<= o:p>
His quiet
discouragement of conversation was an immediate cause of offence--was
interpreted, rightly enough I fear, as disdain. His ignorance of the vulgar
dialect, a thing upon which he had hitherto prided himself, suddenly took u=
pon
itself a new aspect. He failed to perceive at once that his reception of the
coarse and stupid but genially intended remarks that greeted his appearance
must have stung the makers of these advances like blows in their faces.
"Don't understand," he said rather coldly, and at hazard, "N=
o,
thank you."
The man who had
addressed him stared, scowled, and turned away.
A second, who also
failed at Denton's unaccustomed ear, took the trouble to repeat his remark,=
and
Denton discovered he was being offered the use of an oil can. He expressed =
polite
thanks, and this second man embarked upon a penetrating conversation. Dento=
n,
he remarked, had been a swell, and he wanted to know how he had come to wear
the blue. He clearly expected an interesting record of vice and extravaganc=
e.
Had Denton ever been at a Pleasure City? Denton was speedily to discover how
the existence of these wonderful places of delight permeated and defiled th=
e thought
and honour of these unwilling, hopeless workers of the underworld.
His aristocratic
temperament resented these questions. He answered "No" curtly. The
man persisted with a still more personal question, and this time it was Den=
ton
who turned away.
"Gorblimey!&=
quot;
said his interlocutor, much astonished.
It presently forc=
ed
itself upon Denton's mind that this remarkable conversation was being repea=
ted
in indignant tones to more sympathetic hearers, and that it gave rise to
astonishment and ironical laughter. They looked at Denton with manifestly
enhanced interest. A curious perception of isolation dawned upon him. He tr=
ied
to think of his press and its unfamiliar peculiarities....
The machines kept
everybody pretty busy during the first spell, and then came a recess. It was
only an interval for refreshment, too brief for any one to go out to a Labo=
ur
Company dining-room. Denton followed his fellow-workers into a short galler=
y,
in which were a number of bins of refuse from the presses.
Each man produced=
a
packet of food. Denton had no packet. The manager, a careless young man who
held his position by influence, had omitted to warn Denton that it was
necessary to apply for this provision. He stood apart, feeling hungry. The
others drew together in a group and talked in undertones, glancing at him e=
ver
and again. He became uneasy. His appearance of disregard cost him an increa=
sing
effort. He tried to think of the levers of his new press.
Presently one, a =
man
shorter but much broader and stouter than Denton, came forward to him. Dent=
on
turned to him as unconcernedly as possible. "Here!" said the
delegate--as Denton judged him to be--extending a cube of bread in a not too
clean hand. He had a swart, broad-nosed face, and his mouth hung down towar=
ds
one corner.
Denton felt doubt=
ful
for the instant whether this was meant for civility or insult. His impulse =
was
to decline. "No, thanks," he said; and, at the man's change of
expression, "I'm not hungry."
There came a laugh
from the group behind. "Told you so," said the man who had offered
Denton the loan of an oil can. "He's top side, he is. You ain't good
enough for 'im."
The swart face gr=
ew a
shade darker.
"Here,"
said its owner, still extending the bread, and speaking in a lower tone;
"you got to eat this. See?"
Denton looked into
the threatening face before him, and odd little currents of energy seemed t=
o be
running through his limbs and body.
"I don't want
it," he said, trying a pleasant smile that twitched and failed.
The thickset man
advanced his face, and the bread became a physical threat in his hand. Dent=
on's
mind rushed together to the one problem of his antagonist's eyes.
"Eat it,&quo=
t;
said the swart man.
There came a paus=
e,
and then they both moved quickly. The cube of bread described a complicated
path, a curve that would have ended in Denton's face; and then his fist hit=
the
wrist of the hand that gripped it, and it flew upward, and out of the
conflict--its part played.
He stepped back
quickly, fists clenched and arms tense. The hot, dark countenance receded,
became an alert hostility, watching its chance. Denton for one instant felt
confident, and strangely buoyant and serene. His heart beat quickly. He felt
his body alive, and glowing to the tips.
"Scrap,
boys!" shouted some one, and then the dark figure had leapt forward,
ducked back and sideways, and come in again. Denton struck out, and was hit.
One of his eyes seemed to him to be demolished, and he felt a soft lip under
his fist just before he was hit again--this time under the chin. A huge fan=
of
fiery needles shot open. He had a momentary persuasion that his head was
knocked to pieces, and then something hit his head and back from behind, and
the fight became an uninteresting, an impersonal thing.
He was aware that
time--seconds or minutes--had passed, abstract, uneventful time. He was lyi=
ng
with his head in a heap of ashes, and something wet and warm ran swiftly in=
to
his neck. The first shock broke up into discrete sensations. All his head
throbbed; his eye and his chin throbbed exceedingly, and the taste of blood=
was
in his mouth.
"He's all
right," said a voice. "He's opening his eyes."
"Serve
him----well right," said a second.
His mates were
standing about him. He made an effort and sat up. He put his hand to the ba=
ck
of his head, and his hair was wet and full of cinders. A laugh greeted the
gesture. His eye was partially closed. He perceived what had happened. His
momentary anticipation of a final victory had vanished.
"Looks
surprised," said some one.
"'Ave any
more?" said a wit; and then, imitating Denton's refined accent.
"No, thank
you."
Denton perceived =
the
swart man with a blood-stained handkerchief before his face, and somewhat in
the background.
"Where's that
bit of bread he's got to eat?" said a little ferret-faced creature; and
sought with his foot in the ashes of the adjacent bin.
Denton had a mome=
nt
of internal debate. He knew the code of honour requires a man to pursue a f=
ight
he has begun to the bitter end; but this was his first taste of the bittern=
ess.
He was resolved to rise again, but he felt no passionate impulse. It occurr=
ed
to him--and the thought was no very violent spur--that he was perhaps after=
all
a coward. For a moment his will was heavy, a lump of lead.
"'Ere it
is," said the little ferret-faced man, and stooped to pick up a cindery
cube. He looked at Denton, then at the others.
Slowly, unwilling=
ly,
Denton stood up.
A dirty-faced alb=
ino
extended a hand to the ferret-faced man. "Gimme that toke," he sa=
id.
He advanced threateningly, bread in hand, to Denton. "So you ain't 'ad
your bellyful yet," he said. "Eh?"
Now it was coming.
"No, I haven't," said Denton, with a catching of the breath, and
resolved to try this brute behind the ear before he himself got stunned aga=
in.
He knew he would be stunned again. He was astonished how ill he had judged
himself beforehand. A few ridiculous lunges, and down he would go again. He
watched the albino's eyes. The albino was grinning confidently, like a man =
who
plans an agreeable trick. A sudden perception of impending indignities stung
Denton.
"You leave '=
im
alone, Jim," said the swart man suddenly over the blood-stained rag.
"He ain't done nothing to you."
The albino's grin
vanished. He stopped. He looked from one to the other. It seemed to Denton =
that
the swart man demanded the privilege of his destruction. The albino would h=
ave
been better.
"You leave '=
im
alone," said the swart man. "See? 'E's 'ad 'is licks."
A clattering bell
lifted up its voice and solved the situation. The albino hesitated. "L=
ucky
for you," he said, adding a foul metaphor, and turned with the others
towards the press-room again. "Wait for the end of the spell, mate,&qu=
ot;
said the albino over his shoulder--an afterthought. The swart man waited for
the albino to precede him. Denton realised that he had a reprieve.
The men passed
towards an open door. Denton became aware of his duties, and hurried to join
the tail of the queue. At the doorway of the vaulted gallery of presses a
yellow-uniformed labour policeman stood ticking a card. He had ignored the
swart man's hæmorrhage.
"Hurry up
there!" he said to Denton.
"Hello!"=
; he
said, at the sight of his facial disarray. "Who's been hitting you?&qu=
ot;
"That's my
affair," said Denton.
"Not if it
spiles your work, it ain't," said the man in yellow. "You mind
that."
Denton made no
answer. He was a rough--a labourer. He wore the blue canvas. The laws of
assault and battery, he knew, were not for the likes of him. He went to his
press.
He could feel the
skin of his brow and chin and head lifting themselves to noble bruises, felt
the throb and pain of each aspiring contusion. His nervous system slid down=
to
lethargy; at each movement in his press adjustment he felt he lifted a weig=
ht.
And as for his honour--that too throbbed and puffed. How did he stand? What
precisely had happened in the last ten minutes? What would happen next? He =
knew
that here was enormous matter for thought, and he could not think save in
disordered snatches.
His mood was a so=
rt
of stagnant astonishment. All his conceptions were overthrown. He had regar=
ded
his security from physical violence as inherent, as one of the conditions of
life. So, indeed, it had been while he wore his middle-class costume, had h=
is
middle-class property to serve for his defence. But who would interfere amo=
ng
Labour roughs fighting together? And indeed in those days no man would. In =
the Underworld
there was no law between man and man; the law and machinery of the state had
become for them something that held men down, fended them off from much
desirable property and pleasure, and that was all. Violence, that ocean in
which the brutes live for ever, and from which a thousand dykes and contriv=
ances
have won our hazardous civilised life, had flowed in again upon the sinking
underways and submerged them. The fist ruled. Denton had come right down at
last to the elemental--fist and trick and the stubborn heart and
fellowship--even as it was in the beginning.
The rhythm of his
machine changed, and his thoughts were interrupted.
Presently he could
think again. Strange how quickly things had happened! He bore these men who=
had
thrashed him no very vivid ill-will. He was bruised and enlightened. He saw
with absolute fairness now the reasonableness of his unpopularity. He had
behaved like a fool. Disdain, seclusion, are the privilege of the strong. T=
he
fallen aristocrat still clinging to his pointless distinction is surely the
most pitiful creature of pretence in all this clamant universe. Good heaven=
s!
what was there for him to despise in these men?
What a pity he had
not appreciated all this better five hours ago!
What would happen=
at
the end of the spell? He could not tell. He could not imagine. He could not
imagine the thoughts of these men. He was sensible only of their hostility =
and
utter want of sympathy. Vague possibilities of shame and violence chased one
another across his mind. Could he devise some weapon? He recalled his assau=
lt
upon the hypnotist, but there were no detachable lamps here. He could see
nothing that he could catch up in his defence.
For a space he
thought of a headlong bolt for the security of the public ways directly the
spell was over. Apart from the trivial consideration of his self-respect, he
perceived that this would be only a foolish postponement and aggravation of=
his
trouble. He perceived the ferret-faced man and the albino talking together =
with
their eyes towards him. Presently they were talking to the swart man, who s=
tood
with his broad back studiously towards Denton.
At last came the =
end
of the second spell. The lender of oil cans stopped his press sharply and
turned round, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes had the
quiet expectation of one who seats himself in a theatre.
Now was the crisi=
s,
and all the little nerves of Denton's being seemed leaping and dancing. He =
had
decided to show fight if any fresh indignity was offered him. He stopped his
press and turned. With an enormous affectation of ease he walked down the v=
ault
and entered the passage of the ash pits, only to discover he had left his
jacket--which he had taken off because of the heat of the vault--beside his
press. He walked back. He met the albino eye to eye.
He heard the
ferret-faced man in expostulation. "'E reely ought, eat it," said=
the
ferret-faced man. "'E did reely."
"No--you lea=
ve
'im alone," said the swart man.
Apparently nothing
further was to happen to him that day. He passed out to the passage and
staircase that led up to the moving platforms of the city.
He emerged on the
livid brilliance and streaming movement of the public street. He became acu=
tely
aware of his disfigured face, and felt his swelling bruises with a limp,
investigatory hand. He went up to the swiftest platform, and seated himself=
on
a Labour Company bench.
He lapsed into a
pensive torpor. The immediate dangers and stresses of his position he saw w=
ith
a sort of static clearness. What would they do to-morrow? He could not tell.
What would Elizabeth think of his brutalisation? He could not tell. He was
exhausted. He was aroused presently by a hand upon his arm.
He looked up, and=
saw
the swart man seated beside him. He started. Surely he was safe from violen=
ce
in the public way!
The swart man's f=
ace
retained no traces of his share in the fight; his expression was free from
hostility--seemed almost deferential. "'Scuse me," he said, with a
total absence of truculence. Denton realised that no assault was intended. =
He
stared, awaiting the next development.
It was evident the
next sentence was premeditated. "Whad--I--was--going--to say--was
this," said the swart man, and sought through a silence for further wo=
rds.
"Whad--I--wa=
s--going--to
say--was this," he repeated.
Finally he abando=
ned
that gambit. "You're aw right," he cried, laying a grimy hand on
Denton's grimy sleeve. "You're aw right. You're a ge'man. Sorry--very
sorry. Wanted to tell you that."
Denton realised t=
hat
there must exist motives beyond a mere impulse to abominable proceedings in=
the
man. He meditated, and swallowed an unworthy pride.
"I did not m=
ean
to be offensive to you," he said, "in refusing that bit of
bread."
"Meant it
friendly," said the swart man, recalling the scene; "but--in fron=
t of
that blarsted Whitey and his snigger--Well--I 'ad to scrap."
"Yes," =
said
Denton with sudden fervour: "I was a fool."
"Ah!" s=
aid
the swart man, with great satisfaction. "That's aw right. Shake!"=
And Denton shook.=
The moving platfo=
rm
was rushing by the establishment of a face moulder, and its lower front was=
a
huge display of mirror, designed to stimulate the thirst for more symmetric=
al
features. Denton caught the reflection of himself and his new friend,
enormously twisted and broadened. His own face was puffed, one-sided, and
blood-stained; a grin of idiotic and insincere amiability distorted its
latitude. A wisp of hair occluded one eye. The trick of the mirror presented
the swart man as a gross expansion of lip and nostril. They were linked by
shaking hands. Then abruptly this vision passed--to return to memory in the
anæmic meditations of a waking dawn.
As he shook, the
swart man made some muddled remark, to the effect that he had always known =
he
could get on with a gentleman if one came his way. He prolonged the shaking
until Denton, under the influence of the mirror, withdrew his hand. The swa=
rt
man became pensive, spat impressively on the platform, and resumed his them=
e.
"Whad I was
going to say was this," he said; was gravelled, and shook his head at =
his
foot.
Denton became
curious. "Go on," he said, attentive.
The swart man took
the plunge. He grasped Denton's arm, became intimate in his attitude.
"'Scuse me," he said. "Fact is, you done know 'ow to scrap. =
Done
know 'ow to. Why--you done know 'ow to begin. You'll get killed if you don't
mind. 'Ouldin' your 'ands--There!"
He reinforced his
statement by objurgation, watching the effect of each oath with a wary eye.=
"F'r instanc= e. You're tall. Long arms. You get a longer reach than any one in the brasted vault. Gobblimey, but I thought I'd got a Tough on. 'Stead of which ... 'Sc= use me. I wouldn't have 'it you if I'd known. It's like fighting sacks. 'Tisn' right. Y'r arms seemed 'ung on 'ooks. Reg'lar--'ung on 'ooks. There!"<= o:p>
Denton stared, and
then surprised and hurt his battered chin by a sudden laugh. Bitter tears c=
ame
into his eyes.
"Go on,"=
; he
said.
The swart man
reverted to his formula. He was good enough to say he liked the look of Den=
ton,
thought he had stood up "amazing plucky. On'y pluck ain't no good--ain=
't
no brasted good--if you don't 'old your 'ands.
"Whad I was
going to say was this," he said. "Lemme show you 'ow to scrap. Je=
st
lemme. You're ig'nant, you ain't no class; but you might be a very decent
scrapper--very decent. Shown. That's what I meant to say."
Denton hesitated.
"But--" he said, "I can't give you anything--"
"That's the
ge'man all over," said the swart man. "Who arst you to?"
"But your
time?"
"If you don't
get learnt scrapping you'll get killed,--don't you make no bones of that.&q=
uot;
Denton thought.
"I don't know," he said.
He looked at the =
face
beside him, and all its native coarseness shouted at him. He felt a quick
revulsion from his transient friendliness. It seemed to him incredible that=
it
should be necessary for him to be indebted to such a creature.
"The chaps a=
re
always scrapping," said the swart man. "Always. And, of course--if
one gets waxy and 'its you vital ..."
"By God!&quo=
t;
cried Denton; "I wish one would."
"Of course, =
if
you feel like that--"
"You don't
understand."
"P'raps I
don't," said the swart man; and lapsed into a fuming silence.
When he spoke aga=
in
his voice was less friendly, and he prodded Denton by way of address.
"Look see!" he said: "are you going to let me show you 'ow to
scrap?"
"It's
tremendously kind of you," said Denton; "but--"
There was a pause.
The swart man rose and bent over Denton.
"Too much
ge'man," he said--"eh? I got a red face.... By gosh! you are--you=
are
a brasted fool!"
He turned away, a=
nd
instantly Denton realised the truth of this remark.
The swart man
descended with dignity to a cross way, and Denton, after a momentary impuls=
e to
pursuit, remained on the platform. For a time the things that had happened
filled his mind. In one day his graceful system of resignation had been
shattered beyond hope. Brute force, the final, the fundamental, had thrust =
its
face through all his explanations and glosses and consolations and grinned
enigmatically. Though he was hungry and tired, he did not go on directly to=
the
Labour Hotel, where he would meet Elizabeth. He found he was beginning to
think, he wanted very greatly to think; and so, wrapped in a monstrous clou=
d of
meditation, he went the circuit of the city on his moving platform twice. Y=
ou
figure him, tearing through the glaring, thunder-voiced city at a pace of f=
ifty
miles an hour, the city upon the planet that spins along its chartless path
through space many thousands of miles an hour, funking most terribly, and
trying to understand why the heart and will in him should suffer and keep
alive.
When at last he c=
ame
to Elizabeth, she was white and anxious. He might have noted she was in
trouble, had it not been for his own preoccupation. He feared most that she
would desire to know every detail of his indignities, that she would be
sympathetic or indignant. He saw her eyebrows rise at the sight of him.
"I've had ro=
ugh
handling," he said, and gasped. "It's too fresh--too hot. I don't
want to talk about it." He sat down with an unavoidable air of sullenn=
ess.
She stared at him=
in
astonishment, and as she read something of the significant hieroglyphic of =
his
battered face, her lips whitened. Her hand--it was thinner now than in the =
days
of their prosperity, and her first finger was a little altered by the metal
punching she did--clenched convulsively. "This horrible world!" s=
he
said, and said no more.
In these latter d=
ays
they had become a very silent couple; they said scarcely a word to each oth=
er
that night, but each followed a private train of thought. In the small hour=
s,
as Elizabeth lay awake, Denton started up beside her suddenly--he had been
lying as still as a dead man.
"I cannot st=
and
it!" cried Denton. "I will not stand it!"
She saw him dimly,
sitting up; saw his arm lunge as if in a furious blow at the enshrouding ni=
ght.
Then for a space he was still.
"It is too m=
uch--it
is more than one can bear!"
She could say
nothing. To her, also, it seemed that this was as far as one could go. She
waited through a long stillness. She could see that Denton sat with his arms
about his knees, his chin almost touching them.
Then he laughed.<= o:p>
"No," he
said at last, "I'm going to stand it. That's the peculiar thing. There
isn't a grain of suicide in us--not a grain. I suppose all the people with a
turn that way have gone. We're going through with it--to the end."
Elizabeth thought=
grayly,
and realised that this also was true.
"We're going
through with it. To think of all who have gone through with it: all the
generations--endless--endless. Little beasts that snapped and snarled, snap=
ping
and snarling, snapping and snarling, generation after generation."
His monotone, end=
ed
abruptly, resumed after a vast interval.
"There were
ninety thousand years of stone age. A Denton somewhere in all those years.
Apostolic succession. The grace of going through. Let me see! Ninety--nine
hundred--three nines, twenty-seven--three thousand generations of men!--men
more or less. And each fought, and was bruised, and shamed, and somehow held
his own--going through with it--passing it on.... And thousands more to come
perhaps--thousands!
"Passing it =
on. I
wonder if they will thank us."
His voice assumed=
an
argumentative note. "If one could find something definite ... If one c=
ould
say, 'This is why--this is why it goes on....'"
He became still, =
and
Elizabeth's eyes slowly separated him from the darkness until at last she c=
ould
see how he sat with his head resting on his hand. A sense of the enormous
remoteness of their minds came to her; that dim suggestion of another being
seemed to her a figure of their mutual understanding. What could he be thin=
king
now? What might he not say next? Another age seemed to elapse before he sig=
hed
and whispered: "No. I don't understand it. No!" Then a long inter=
val,
and he repeated this. But the second time it had the tone almost of a solut=
ion.
She became aware =
that
he was preparing to lie down. She marked his movements, perceived with
astonishment how he adjusted his pillow with a careful regard to comfort. He
lay down with a sigh of contentment almost. His passion had passed. He lay
still, and presently his breathing became regular and deep.
But Elizabeth
remained with eyes wide open in the darkness, until the clamour of a bell a=
nd
the sudden brilliance of the electric light warned them that the Labour Com=
pany
had need of them for yet another day.
That day came a
scuffle with the albino Whitey and the little ferret-faced man. Blunt, the
swart artist in scrapping, having first let Denton grasp the bearing of his
lesson, intervened, not without a certain quality of patronage. "Drop =
'is
'air, Whitey, and let the man be," said his gross voice through a show=
er
of indignities. "Can't you see 'e don't know 'ow to scrap?" And
Denton, lying shamefully in the dust, realised that he must accept that cou=
rse
of instruction after all.
He made his apolo=
gy
straight and clean. He scrambled up and walked to Blunt. "I was a fool,
and you are right," he said. "If it isn't too late ..."
That night, after=
the
second spell, Denton went with Blunt to certain waste and slime-soaked vaul=
ts
under the Port of London, to learn the first beginnings of the high art of
scrapping as it had been perfected in the great world of the underways: how=
to
hit or kick a man so as to hurt him excruciatingly or make him violently si=
ck,
how to hit or kick "vital," how to use glass in one's garments as=
a
club and to spread red ruin with various domestic implements, how to antici=
pate
and demolish your adversary's intentions in other directions; all the pleas=
ant devices,
in fact, that had grown up among the disinherited of the great cities of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, were spread out by a gifted exponent =
for
Denton's learning. Blunt's bashfulness fell from him as the instruction
proceeded, and he developed a certain expert dignity, a quality of fatherly
consideration. He treated Denton with the utmost consideration, only
"flicking him up a bit" now and then, to keep the interest hot, a=
nd
roaring with laughter at a happy fluke of Denton's that covered his mouth w=
ith
blood.
"I'm always
keerless of my mouth," said Blunt, admitting a weakness. "Always.=
It
don't seem to matter, like, just getting bashed in the mouth--not if your
chin's all right. Tastin' blood does me good. Always. But I better not 'it =
you
again."
Denton went home,=
to
fall asleep exhausted and wake in the small hours with aching limbs and all=
his
bruises tingling. Was it worth while that he should go on living? He listen=
ed
to Elizabeth's breathing, and remembering that he must have awaked her the
previous night, he lay very still. He was sick with infinite disgust at the=
new
conditions of his life. He hated it all, hated even the genial savage who h=
ad
protected him so generously. The monstrous fraud of civilisation glared sta=
rk before
his eyes; he saw it as a vast lunatic growth, producing a deepening torrent=
of
savagery below, and above ever more flimsy gentility and silly wastefulness=
. He
could see no redeeming reason, no touch of honour, either in the life he had
led or in this life to which he had fallen. Civilisation presented itself as
some catastrophic product as little concerned with men--save as victims--as=
a
cyclone or a planetary collision. He, and therefore all mankind, seemed liv=
ing utterly
in vain. His mind sought some strange expedients of escape, if not for hims=
elf
then at least for Elizabeth. But he meant them for himself. What if he hunt=
ed
up Mwres and told him of their disaster? It came to him as an astonishing t=
hing
how utterly Mwres and Bindon had passed out of his range. Where were they? =
What
were they doing? From that he passed to thoughts of utter dishonour. And
finally, not arising in any way out of this mental tumult, but ending it as
dawn ends the night, came the clear and obvious conclusion of the night bef=
ore:
the conviction that he had to go through with things; that, apart from any =
remoter
view and quite sufficient for all his thought and energy, he had to stand up
and fight among his fellows and quit himself like a man.
The second night's
instruction was perhaps less dreadful than the first; and the third was even
endurable, for Blunt dealt out some praise. The fourth day Denton chanced u=
pon
the fact that the ferret-faced man was a coward. There passed a fortnight of
smouldering days and feverish instruction at night; Blunt, with many
blasphemies, testified that never had he met so apt a pupil; and all night =
long
Denton dreamt of kicks and counters and gouges and cunning tricks. For all =
that
time no further outrages were attempted, for fear of Blunt; and then came t=
he
second crisis. Blunt did not come one day--afterwards he admitted his delib=
erate
intention--and through the tedious morning Whitey awaited the interval betw=
een
the spells with an ostentatious impatience. He knew nothing of the scrapping
lessons, and he spent the time in telling Denton and the vault generally of
certain disagreeable proceedings he had in mind.
Whitey was not
popular, and the vault disgorged to see him haze the new man with only a
languid interest. But matters changed when Whitey's attempt to open the
proceedings by kicking Denton in the face was met by an excellently executed
duck, catch and throw, that completed the flight of Whitey's foot in its or=
bit
and brought Whitey's head into the ash-heap that had once received Denton's.
Whitey arose a shade whiter, and now blasphemously bent upon vital injuries.
There were indecisive passages, foiled enterprises that deepened Whitey's
evidently growing perplexity; and then things developed into a grouping of
Denton uppermost with Whitey's throat in his hand, his knee on Whitey's che=
st, and
a tearful Whitey with a black face, protruding tongue and broken finger
endeavouring to explain the misunderstanding by means of hoarse sounds.
Moreover, it was evident that among the bystanders there had never been a m=
ore
popular person than Denton.
Denton, with prop=
er
precaution, released his antagonist and stood up. His blood seemed changed =
to
some sort of fluid fire, his limbs felt light and supernaturally strong. The
idea that he was a martyr in the civilisation machine had vanished from his
mind. He was a man in a world of men.
The little
ferret-faced man was the first in the competition to pat him on the back. T=
he
lender of oil cans was a radiant sun of genial congratulation.... It seemed
incredible to Denton that he had ever thought of despair.
Denton was convin=
ced
that not only had he to go through with things, but that he could. He sat on
the canvas pallet expounding this new aspect to Elizabeth. One side of his =
face
was bruised. She had not recently fought, she had not been patted on the ba=
ck,
there were no hot bruises upon her face, only a pallor and a new line or so
about the mouth. She was taking the woman's share. She looked steadfastly at
Denton in his new mood of prophecy. "I feel that there is something,&q=
uot;
he was saying, "something that goes on, a Being of Life in which we li=
ve
and move and have our being, something that began fifty--a hundred million
years ago, perhaps, that goes on--on: growing, spreading, to things beyond =
us--things
that will justify us all.... That will explain and justify my fighting--the=
se
bruises, and all the pain of it. It's the chisel--yes, the chisel of the Ma=
ker.
If only I could make you feel as I feel, if I could make you! You will, dea=
r, I
know you will."
"No," s=
he
said in a low voice. "No, I shall not."
"So I might =
have
thought--"
She shook her hea=
d.
"No," she said, "I have thought as well. What you say--doesn=
't
convince me."
She looked at his
face resolutely. "I hate it," she said, and caught at her breath.
"You do not understand, you do not think. There was a time when you sa=
id
things and I believed them. I am growing wiser. You are a man, you can figh=
t,
force your way. You do not mind bruises. You can be coarse and ugly, and st=
ill
a man. Yes--it makes you. It makes you. You are right. Only a woman is not =
like
that. We are different. We have let ourselves get civilised too soon. This
underworld is not for us."
She paused and be=
gan
again.
"I hate it! I
hate this horrible canvas! I hate it more than--more than the worst that can
happen. It hurts my fingers to touch it. It is horrible to the skin. And the
women I work with day after day! I lie awake at nights and think how I may =
be
growing like them...."
She stopped. &quo=
t;I
am growing like them," she cried passionately.
Denton stared at =
her
distress. "But--" he said and stopped.
"You don't
understand. What have I? What have I to save me? You can fight. Fighting is
man's work. But women--women are different.... I have thought it all out, I
have done nothing but think night and day. Look at the colour of my face! I
cannot go on. I cannot endure this life.... I cannot endure it."
She stopped. She
hesitated.
"You do not =
know
all," she said abruptly, and for an instant her lips had a bitter smil=
e.
"I have been asked to leave you."
"Leave me!&q=
uot;
She made no answer
save an affirmative movement of the head.
Denton stood up
sharply. They stared at one another through a long silence.
Suddenly she turn=
ed
herself about, and flung face downward upon their canvas bed. She did not s=
ob,
she made no sound. She lay still upon her face. After a vast, distressful v=
oid
her shoulders heaved and she began to weep silently.
"Elizabeth!&=
quot;
he whispered--"Elizabeth!"
Very softly he sat
down beside her, bent down, put his arm across her in a doubtful caress,
seeking vainly for some clue to this intolerable situation.
"Elizabeth,&=
quot;
he whispered in her ear.
She thrust him fr=
om
her with her hand. "I cannot bear a child to be a slave!" and bro=
ke
out into loud and bitter weeping.
Denton's face
changed--became blank dismay. Presently he slipped from the bed and stood on
his feet. All the complacency had vanished from his face, had given place to
impotent rage. He began to rave and curse at the intolerable forces which
pressed upon him, at all the accidents and hot desires and heedlessness that
mock the life of man. His little voice rose in that little room, and he sho=
ok
his fist, this animalcule of the earth, at all that environed him about, at=
the
millions about him, at his past and future and all the insensate vastness of
the overwhelming city.
In Bindon's young=
er
days he had dabbled in speculation and made three brilliant flukes. For the
rest of his life he had the wisdom to let gambling alone, and the conceit to
believe himself a very clever man. A certain desire for influence and
reputation interested him in the business intrigues of the giant city in wh=
ich
his flukes were made. He became at last one of the most influential
shareholders in the company that owned the London flying stages to which the
aëroplanes came from all parts of the world. This much for his public
activities. In his private life he was a man of pleasure. And this is the s=
tory
of his heart.
But before procee=
ding
to such depths, one must devote a little time to the exterior of this perso=
n.
Its physical basis was slender, and short, and dark; and the face, which was
fine-featured and assisted by pigments, varied from an insecure
self-complacency to an intelligent uneasiness. His face and head had been
depilated, according to the cleanly and hygienic fashion of the time, so th=
at
the colour and contour of his hair varied with his costume. This he was
constantly changing.
At times he would
distend himself with pneumatic vestments in the rococo vein. From among the
billowy developments of this style, and beneath a translucent and illuminat=
ed
headdress, his eye watched jealously for the respect of the less fashionable
world. At other times he emphasised his elegant slenderness in close-fitting
garments of black satin. For effects of dignity he would assume broad pneum=
atic
shoulders, from which hung a robe of carefully arranged folds of China silk,
and a classical Bindon in pink tights was also a transient phenomenon in the
eternal pageant of Destiny. In the days when he hoped to marry Elizabeth, h=
e sought
to impress and charm her, and at the same time to take off something of his
burthen of forty years, by wearing the last fancy of the contemporary buck,=
a
costume of elastic material with distensible warts and horns, changing in
colour as he walked, by an ingenious arrangement of versatile chromatophore=
s.
And no doubt, if Elizabeth's affection had not been already engaged by the
worthless Denton, and if her tastes had not had that odd bias for old-fashi=
oned
ways, this extremely chic conception would have ravished her. Bindon had co=
nsulted
Elizabeth's father before presenting himself in this garb--he was one of th=
ose
men who always invite criticism of their costume--and Mwres had pronounced =
him
all that the heart of woman could desire. But the affair of the hypnotist
proved that his knowledge of the heart of woman was incomplete.
Bindon's idea of
marrying had been formed some little time before Mwres threw Elizabeth's
budding womanhood in his way. It was one of Bindon's most cherished secrets
that he had a considerable capacity for a pure and simple life of a grossly
sentimental type. The thought imparted a sort of pathetic seriousness to the
offensive and quite inconsequent and unmeaning excesses, which he was pleas=
ed
to regard as dashing wickedness, and which a number of good people also wer=
e so
unwise as to treat in that desirable manner. As a consequence of these
excesses, and perhaps by reason also of an inherited tendency to early deca=
y,
his liver became seriously affected, and he suffered increasing inconvenien=
ce
when travelling by aëroplane. It was during his convalescence from a
protracted bilious attack that it occurred to him that in spite of all the
terrible fascinations of Vice, if he found a beautiful, gentle, good young
woman of a not too violently intellectual type to devote her life to him, he
might yet be saved to Goodness, and even rear a spirited family in his like=
ness
to solace his declining years. But like so many experienced men of the worl=
d,
he doubted if there were any good women. Of such as he had heard tell he was
outwardly sceptical and privately much afraid.
When the aspiring
Mwres effected his introduction to Elizabeth, it seemed to him that his good
fortune was complete. He fell in love with her at once. Of course, he had
always been falling in love since he was sixteen, in accordance with the ex=
tremely
varied recipes to be found in the accumulated literature of many centuries.=
But
this was different. This was real love. It seemed to him to call forth all =
the
lurking goodness in his nature. He felt that for her sake he could give up a
way of life that had already produced the gravest lesions on his liver and =
nervous
system. His imagination presented him with idyllic pictures of the life of =
the
reformed rake. He would never be sentimental with her, or silly; but always=
a
little cynical and bitter, as became the past. Yet he was sure she would ha=
ve
an intuition of his real greatness and goodness. And in due course he would
confess things to her, pour his version of what he regarded as his
wickedness--showing what a complex of Goethe, and Benvenuto Cellini, and
Shelley, and all those other chaps he really was--into her shocked, very
beautiful, and no doubt sympathetic ear. And preparatory to these things he
wooed her with infinite subtlety and respect. And the reserve with which
Elizabeth treated him seemed nothing more nor less than an exquisite modesty
touched and enhanced by an equally exquisite lack of ideas.
Bindon knew nothi=
ng
of her wandering affections, nor of the attempt made by Mwres to utilise
hypnotism as a corrective to this digression of her heart; he conceived he =
was
on the best of terms with Elizabeth, and had made her quite successfully
various significant presents of jewellery and the more virtuous cosmetics, =
when
her elopement with Denton threw the world out of gear for him. His first as=
pect
of the matter was rage begotten of wounded vanity, and as Mwres was the most
convenient person, he vented the first brunt of it upon him.
He went immediate=
ly
and insulted the desolate father grossly, and then spent an active and
determined day going to and fro about the city and interviewing people in a
consistent and partly-successful attempt to ruin that matrimonial speculato=
r.
The effectual nature of these activities gave him a temporary exhilaration,=
and
he went to the dining-place he had frequented in his wicked days in a
devil-may-care frame of mind, and dined altogether too amply and cheerfully
with two other golden youths in their early forties. He threw up the game; =
no woman
was worth being good for, and he astonished even himself by the strain of w=
itty
cynicism he developed. One of the other desperate blades, warmed with wine,
made a facetious allusion to his disappointment, but at the time this did n=
ot
seem unpleasant.
The next morning
found his liver and temper inflamed. He kicked his phonographic-news machin=
e to
pieces, dismissed his valet, and resolved that he would perpetrate a terrib=
le
revenge upon Elizabeth. Or Denton. Or somebody. But anyhow, it was to be a
terrible revenge; and the friend who had made fun at him should no longer s=
ee him
in the light of a foolish girl's victim. He knew something of the little
property that was due to her, and that this would be the only support of the
young couple until Mwres should relent. If Mwres did not relent, and if
unpropitious things should happen to the affair in which Elizabeth's
expectations lay, they would come upon evil times and be sufficiently amena=
ble
to temptation of a sinister sort. Bindon's imagination, abandoning its beau=
tiful
idealism altogether, expanded the idea of temptation of a sinister sort. He
figured himself as the implacable, the intricate and powerful man of wealth
pursuing this maiden who had scorned him. And suddenly her image came upon =
his
mind vivid and dominant, and for the first time in his life Bindon realised
something of the real power of passion.
His imagination s=
tood
aside like a respectful footman who has done his work in ushering in the
emotion.
"My God!&quo=
t;
cried Bindon: "I will have her! If I have to kill myself to get her! A=
nd
that other fellow--!"
After an interview
with his medical man and a penance for his overnight excesses in the form of
bitter drugs, a mitigated but absolutely resolute Bindon sought out Mwres.
Mwres he found properly smashed, and impoverished and humble, in a mood of
frantic self-preservation, ready to sell himself body and soul, much more a=
ny
interest in a disobedient daughter, to recover his lost position in the wor=
ld.
In the reasonable discussion that followed, it was agreed that these misgui=
ded
young people should be left to sink into distress, or possibly even assiste=
d towards
that improving discipline by Bindon's financial influence.
"And then?&q=
uot;
said Mwres.
"They will c=
ome
to the Labour Company," said Bindon. "They will wear the blue
canvas."
"And then?&q=
uot;
"She will
divorce him," he said, and sat for a moment intent upon that prospect.=
For
in those days the austere limitations of divorce of Victorian times were
extraordinarily relaxed, and a couple might separate on a hundred different
scores.
Then suddenly Bin=
don
astonished himself and Mwres by jumping to his feet. "She shall divorce
him!" he cried. "I will have it so--I will work it so. By God! it
shall be so. He shall be disgraced, so that she must. He shall be smashed a=
nd
pulverised."
The idea of smash=
ing
and pulverising inflamed him further. He began a Jovian pacing up and down =
the
little office. "I will have her," he cried. "I will have her!
Heaven and Hell shall not save her from me!" His passion evaporated in=
its
expression, and left him at the end simply histrionic. He struck an attitude
and ignored with heroic determination a sharp twinge of pain about the
diaphragm. And Mwres sat with his pneumatic cap deflated and himself very
visibly impressed.
And so, with a fa=
ir
persistency, Bindon sat himself to the work of being Elizabeth's malignant
providence, using with ingenious dexterity every particle of advantage weal=
th
in those days gave a man over his fellow-creatures. A resort to the
consolations of religion hindered these operations not at all. He would go =
and
talk with an interesting, experienced and sympathetic Father of the Huysman=
ite
sect of the Isis cult, about all the irrational little proceedings he was
pleased to regard as his heaven-dismaying wickedness, and the interesting, =
experienced
and sympathetic Father representing Heaven dismayed, would with a pleasing
affectation of horror, suggest simple and easy penances, and recommend a
monastic foundation that was airy, cool, hygienic, and not vulgarised, for
viscerally disordered penitent sinners of the refined and wealthy type. And
after these excursions, Bindon would come back to London quite active and
passionate again. He would machinate with really considerable energy, and
repair to a certain gallery high above the street of moving ways, from whic=
h he
could view the entrance to the barrack of the Labour Company in the ward wh=
ich
sheltered Denton and Elizabeth. And at last one day he saw Elizabeth go in,=
and
thereby his passion was renewed.
So in the fullnes=
s of
time the complicated devices of Bindon ripened, and he could go to Mwres and
tell him that the young people were near despair.
"It's time f=
or
you," he said, "to let your parental affections have play. She's =
been
in blue canvas some months, and they've been cooped together in one of those
Labour dens, and the little girl is dead. She knows now what his manhood is
worth to her, by way of protection, poor girl. She'll see things now in a
clearer light. You go to her--I don't want to appear in this affair yet--and
point out to her how necessary it is that she should get a divorce from
him...."
"She's
obstinate," said Mwres doubtfully.
"Spirit!&quo=
t;
said Bindon. "She's a wonderful girl--a wonderful girl!"
"She'll
refuse."
"Of course s=
he
will. But leave it open to her. Leave it open to her. And some day--in that
stuffy den, in that irksome, toilsome life they can't help it--they'll have=
a
quarrel. And then--"
Mwres meditated o=
ver
the matter, and did as he was told.
Then Bindon, as he
had arranged with his spiritual adviser, went into retreat. The retreat of =
the
Huysmanite sect was a beautiful place, with the sweetest air in London, lit=
by
natural sunlight, and with restful quadrangles of real grass open to the sk=
y,
where at the same time the penitent man of pleasure might enjoy all the
pleasures of loafing and all the satisfaction of distinguished austerity. A=
nd,
save for participation in the simple and wholesome dietary of the place and=
in certain
magnificent chants, Bindon spent all his time in meditation upon the theme =
of
Elizabeth, and the extreme purification his soul had undergone since he fir=
st
saw her, and whether he would be able to get a dispensation to marry her fr=
om
the experienced and sympathetic Father in spite of the approaching
"sin" of her divorce; and then ... Bindon would lean against a pi=
llar
of the quadrangle and lapse into reveries on the superiority of virtuous lo=
ve
to any other form of indulgence. A curious feeling in his back and chest th=
at
was trying to attract his attention, a disposition to be hot or shiver, a
general sense of ill-health and cutaneous discomfort he did his best to ign=
ore.
All that of course belonged to the old life that he was shaking off.
When he came out =
of
retreat he went at once to Mwres to ask for news of Elizabeth. Mwres was
clearly under the impression that he was an exemplary father, profoundly
touched about the heart by his child's unhappiness. "She was pale,&quo=
t;
he said, greatly moved; "She was pale. When I asked her to come away a=
nd
leave him--and be happy--she put her head down upon the table"--Mwres
sniffed--"and cried."
His agitation was=
so
great that he could say no more.
"Ah!" s=
aid
Bindon, respecting this manly grief. "Oh!" said Bindon quite sudd=
enly,
with his hand to his side.
Mwres looked up
sharply out of the pit of his sorrows, startled. "What's the matter?&q=
uot;
he asked, visibly concerned.
"A most viol=
ent
pain. Excuse me! You were telling me about Elizabeth."
And Mwres, after a
decent solicitude for Bindon's pain, proceeded with his report. It was even
unexpectedly hopeful. Elizabeth, in her first emotion at discovering that h=
er
father had not absolutely deserted her, had been frank with him about her
sorrows and disgusts.
"Yes," =
said
Bindon, magnificently, "I shall have her yet." And then that novel
pain twitched him for the second time.
For these lower p=
ains
the priest was comparatively ineffectual, inclining rather to regard the bo=
dy
and them as mental illusions amenable to contemplation; so Bindon took it t=
o a
man of a class he loathed, a medical man of extraordinary repute and
incivility. "We must go all over you," said the medical man, and =
did
so with the most disgusting frankness. "Did you ever bring any children
into the world?" asked this gross materialist among other impertinent
questions.
"Not that I =
know
of," said Bindon, too amazed to stand upon his dignity.
"Ah!" s=
aid
the medical man, and proceeded with his punching and sounding. Medical scie=
nce
in those days was just reaching the beginnings of precision. "You'd be=
tter
go right away," said the medical man, "and make the Euthanasia. T=
he
sooner the better."
Bindon gasped. He=
had
been trying not to understand the technical explanations and anticipations =
in
which the medical man had indulged.
"I say!"=
; he
said. "But do you mean to say ... Your science ..."
"Nothing,&qu=
ot;
said the medical man. "A few opiates. The thing is your own doing, you
know, to a certain extent."
"I was sorely
tempted in my youth."
"It's not th=
at
so much. But you come of a bad stock. Even if you'd have taken precautions
you'd have had bad times to wind up with. The mistake was getting born. The
indiscretions of the parents. And you've shirked exercise, and so forth.&qu=
ot;
"I had no on=
e to
advise me."
"Medical men=
are
always willing."
"I was a
spirited young fellow."
"We won't ar=
gue;
the mischief's done now. You've lived. We can't start you again. You ought
never to have started at all. Frankly--the Euthanasia!"
Bindon hated him =
in
silence for a space. Every word of this brutal expert jarred upon his
refinements. He was so gross, so impermeable to all the subtler issues of
being. But it is no good picking a quarrel with a doctor. "My religious
beliefs," he said, "I don't approve of suicide."
"You've been
doing it all your life."
"Well, anyho=
w,
I've come to take a serious view of life now."
"You're bound
to, if you go on living. You'll hurt. But for practical purposes it's late.
However, if you mean to do that--perhaps I'd better mix you a little someth=
ing.
You'll hurt a great deal. These little twinges ..."
"Twinges!&qu=
ot;
"Mere
preliminary notices."
"How long ca=
n I
go on? I mean, before I hurt--really."
"You'll get =
it
hot soon. Perhaps three days."
Bindon tried to a=
rgue
for an extension of time, and in the midst of his pleading gasped, put his =
hand
to his side. Suddenly the extraordinary pathos of his life came to him clear
and vivid. "It's hard," he said. "It's infernally hard! I've
been no man's enemy but my own. I've always treated everybody quite
fairly."
The medical man
stared at him without any sympathy for some seconds. He was reflecting how
excellent it was that there were no more Bindons to carry on that line of
pathos. He felt quite optimistic. Then he turned to his telephone and order=
ed
up a prescription from the Central Pharmacy.
He was interrupte=
d by
a voice behind him. "By God!" cried Bindon; "I'll have her
yet."
The physician sta=
red
over his shoulder at Bindon's expression, and then altered the prescription=
.
So soon as this
painful interview was over, Bindon gave way to rage. He settled that the
medical man was not only an unsympathetic brute and wanting in the first
beginnings of a gentleman, but also highly incompetent; and he went off to =
four
other practitioners in succession, with a view to the establishment of this
intuition. But to guard against surprises he kept that little prescription =
in
his pocket. With each he began by expressing his grave doubts of the first
doctor's intelligence, honesty and professional knowledge, and then stated =
his
symptoms, suppressing only a few more material facts in each case. These we=
re always
subsequently elicited by the doctor. In spite of the welcome depreciation of
another practitioner, none of these eminent specialists would give Bindon a=
ny
hope of eluding the anguish and helplessness that loomed now close upon him=
. To
the last of them he unburthened his mind of an accumulated disgust with med=
ical
science. "After centuries and centuries," he exclaimed hotly;
"and you can do nothing--except admit your helplessness. I say, 'save
me'--and what do you do?"
"No doubt it=
's
hard on you," said the doctor. "But you should have taken precaut=
ions."
"How was I to
know?"
"It wasn't o=
ur
place to run after you," said the medical man, picking a thread of cot=
ton
from his purple sleeve. "Why should we save you in particular? You
see--from one point of view--people with imaginations and passions like you=
rs
have to go--they have to go."
"Go?"
"Die out. It=
's
an eddy."
He was a young man
with a serene face. He smiled at Bindon. "We get on with research, you
know; we give advice when people have the sense to ask for it. And we bide =
our
time."
"Bide your
time?"
"We hardly k=
now
enough yet to take over the management, you know."
"The
management?"
"You needn't=
be
anxious. Science is young yet. It's got to keep on growing for a few
generations. We know enough now to know we don't know enough yet.... But the
time is coming, all the same. You won't see the time. But, between ourselve=
s,
you rich men and party bosses, with your natural play of the passions and
patriotism and religion and so forth, have made rather a mess of things;
haven't you? These Underways! And all that sort of thing. Some of us have a
sort of fancy that in time we may know enough to take over a little more th=
an
the ventilation and drains. Knowledge keeps on piling up, you know. It keep=
s on
growing. And there's not the slightest hurry for a generation or so. Some
day--some day, men will live in a different way." He looked at Bindon =
and
meditated. "There'll be a lot of dying out before that day can come.&q=
uot;
Bindon attempted =
to
point out to this young man how silly and irrelevant such talk was to a sick
man like himself, how impertinent and uncivil it was to him, an older man
occupying a position in the official world of extraordinary power and
influence. He insisted that a doctor was paid to cure people--he laid great
stress on "paid"--and had no business to glance even for a moment=
at
"those other questions." "But we do," said the young ma=
n,
insisting upon facts, and Bindon lost his temper.
His indignation
carried him home. That these incompetent impostors, who were unable to save=
the
life of a really influential man like himself, should dream of some day rob=
bing
the legitimate property owners of social control, of inflicting one knew not
what tyranny upon the world. Curse science! He fumed over the intolerable
prospect for some time, and then the pain returned, and he recalled the mad=
e-up
prescription of the first doctor, still happily in his pocket. He took a do=
se
forthwith.
It calmed and soo=
thed
him greatly, and he could sit down in his most comfortable chair beside his
library (of phonographic records), and think over the altered aspect of
affairs. His indignation passed, his anger and his passion crumbled under t=
he
subtle attack of that prescription, pathos became his sole ruler. He stared
about him, at his magnificent and voluptuously appointed apartment, at his
statuary and discreetly veiled pictures, and all the evidences of a cultiva=
ted
and elegant wickedness; he touched a stud and the sad pipings of Tristan's =
shepherd
filled the air. His eye wandered from one object to another. They were cost=
ly
and gross and florid--but they were his. They presented in concrete form his
ideals, his conceptions of beauty and desire, his idea of all that is preci=
ous
in life. And now--he must leave it all like a common man. He was, he felt, a
slender and delicate flame, burning out. So must all life flame up and pass=
, he
thought. His eyes filled with tears.
Then it came into=
his
head that he was alone. Nobody cared for him, nobody needed him! at any mom=
ent
he might begin to hurt vividly. He might even howl. Nobody would mind.
According to all the doctors he would have excellent reason for howling in a
day or so. It recalled what his spiritual adviser had said of the decline of
faith and fidelity, the degeneration of the age. He beheld himself as a pat=
hetic
proof of this; he, the subtle, able, important, voluptuous, cynical, complex
Bindon, possibly howling, and not one faithful simple creature in all the w=
orld
to howl in sympathy. Not one faithful simple soul was there--no shepherd to
pipe to him! Had all such faithful simple creatures vanished from this harsh
and urgent earth? He wondered whether the horrid vulgar crowd that perpetua=
lly
went about the city could possibly know what he thought of them. If they di=
d he
felt sure some would try to earn a better opinion. Surely the world went fr=
om
bad to worse. It was becoming impossible for Bindons. Perhaps some day ... =
He
was quite sure that the one thing he had needed in life was sympathy. For a
time he regretted that he left no sonnets--no enigmatical pictures or somet=
hing
of that sort behind him to carry on his being until at last the sympathetic=
mind
should come....
It seemed incredi=
ble
to him that this that came was extinction. Yet his sympathetic spiritual gu=
ide
was in this matter annoyingly figurative and vague. Curse science! It had
undermined all faith--all hope. To go out, to vanish from theatre and stree=
t,
from office and dining-place, from the dear eyes of womankind. And not to be
missed! On the whole to leave the world happier!
He reflected that=
he
had never worn his heart upon his sleeve. Had he after all been too
unsympathetic? Few people could suspect how subtly profound he really was
beneath the mask of that cynical gaiety of his. They would not understand t=
he
loss they had suffered. Elizabeth, for example, had not suspected....
He had reserved t=
hat.
His thoughts having come to Elizabeth gravitated about her for some time. H=
ow
little Elizabeth understood him!
That thought beca=
me
intolerable. Before all other things he must set that right. He realised th=
at
there was still something for him to do in life, his struggle against Eliza=
beth
was even yet not over. He could never overcome her now, as he had hoped and
prayed. But he might still impress her!
From that idea he
expanded. He might impress her profoundly--he might impress her so that she
should for evermore regret her treatment of him. The thing that she must
realise before everything else was his magnanimity. His magnanimity! Yes! he
had loved her with amazing greatness of heart. He had not seen it so clearly
before--but of course he was going to leave her all his property. He saw it
instantly, as a thing determined and inevitable. She would think how good he
was, how spaciously generous; surrounded by all that makes life tolerable f=
rom his
hand, she would recall with infinite regret her scorn and coldness. And when
she sought expression for that regret, she would find that occasion gone
forever, she should be met by a locked door, by a disdainful stillness, by a
white dead face. He closed his eyes and remained for a space imagining hims=
elf
that white dead face.
From that he pass=
ed
to other aspects of the matter, but his determination was assured. He medit=
ated
elaborately before he took action, for the drug he had taken inclined him t=
o a
lethargic and dignified melancholy. In certain respects he modified details=
. If
he left all his property to Elizabeth it would include the voluptuously app=
ointed
room he occupied, and for many reasons he did not care to leave that to her=
. On
the other hand, it had to be left to some one. In his clogged condition this
worried him extremely.
In the end he dec=
ided
to leave it to the sympathetic exponent of the fashionable religious cult,
whose conversation had been so pleasing in the past. "He will
understand," said Bindon with a sentimental sigh. "He knows what =
Evil
means--he understands something of the Stupendous Fascination of the Sphinx=
of
Sin. Yes--he will understand." By that phrase it was that Bindon was
pleased to dignify certain unhealthy and undignified departures from sane
conduct to which a misguided vanity and an ill-controlled curiosity had led
him. He sat for a space thinking how very Hellenic and Italian and Neronic,=
and
all those things, he had been. Even now--might one not try a sonnet? A pene=
trating
voice to echo down the ages, sensuous, sinister, and sad. For a space he fo=
rgot
Elizabeth. In the course of half an hour he spoilt three phonographic coils,
got a headache, took a second dose to calm himself, and reverted to magnani=
mity
and his former design.
At last he faced =
the
unpalatable problem of Denton. It needed all his newborn magnanimity before=
he
could swallow the thought of Denton; but at last this greatly misunderstood
man, assisted by his sedative and the near approach of death, effected even
that. If he was at all exclusive about Denton, if he should display the
slightest distrust, if he attempted any specific exclusion of that young ma=
n,
she might--misunderstand. Yes--she should have her Denton still. His magnan=
imity
must go even to that. He tried to think only of Elizabeth in the matter.
He rose with a si=
gh,
and limped across to the telephonic apparatus that communicated with his
solicitor. In ten minutes a will duly attested and with its proper thumb-ma=
rk
signature lay in the solicitor's office three miles away. And then for a sp=
ace
Bindon sat very still.
Suddenly he start=
ed
out of a vague reverie and pressed an investigatory hand to his side.
Then he jumped
eagerly to his feet and rushed to the telephone. The Euthanasia Company had
rarely been called by a client in a greater hurry.
So it came at last
that Denton and his Elizabeth, against all hope, returned unseparated from =
the
labour servitude to which they had fallen. Elizabeth came out from her cram=
ped
subterranean den of metal-beaters and all the sordid circumstances of blue
canvas, as one comes out of a nightmare. Back towards the sunlight their
fortune took them; once the bequest was known to them, the bare thought of
another day's hammering became intolerable. They went up long lifts and sta=
irs
to levels that they had not seen since the days of their disaster. At first=
she
was full of this sensation of escape; even to think of the underways was in=
tolerable;
only after many months could she begin to recall with sympathy the faded wo=
men
who were still below there, murmuring scandals and reminiscences and folly,=
and
tapping away their lives.
Her choice of the
apartments they presently took expressed the vehemence of her release. They
were rooms upon the very verge of the city; they had a roof space and a bal=
cony
upon the city wall, wide open to the sun and wind, the country and the sky.=
And in that balco=
ny
comes the last scene in this story. It was a summer sunsetting, and the hil=
ls
of Surrey were very blue and clear. Denton leant upon the balcony regarding
them, and Elizabeth sat by his side. Very wide and spacious was the view, f=
or
their balcony hung five hundred feet above the ancient level of the ground.=
The
oblongs of the Food Company, broken here and there by the ruins--grotesque
little holes and sheds--of the ancient suburbs, and intersected by shining
streams of sewage, passed at last into a remote diapering at the foot of th=
e distant
hills. There once had been the squatting-place of the children of Uya. On t=
hose
further slopes gaunt machines of unknown import worked slackly at the end of
their spell, and the hill crest was set with stagnant wind vanes. Along the
great south road the Labour Company's field workers in huge wheeled mechani=
cal
vehicles, were hurrying back to their meals, their last spell finished. And
through the air a dozen little private aëroplanes sailed down towards =
the
city. Familiar scene as it was to the eyes of Denton and Elizabeth, it would
have filled the minds of their ancestors with incredulous amazement. Denton=
's
thoughts fluttered towards the future in a vain attempt at what that scene
might be in another two hundred years, and, recoiling, turned towards the p=
ast.
He shared somethi=
ng
of the growing knowledge of the time; he could picture the quaint smoke-gri=
med
Victorian city with its narrow little roads of beaten earth, its wide
common-land, ill-organised, ill-built suburbs, and irregular enclosures; the
old countryside of the Stuart times, with its little villages and its petty
London; the England of the monasteries, the far older England of the Roman
dominion, and then before that a wild country with here and there the huts =
of
some warring tribe. These huts must have come and gone and come again throu=
gh a
space of years that made the Roman camp and villa seem but yesterday; and b=
efore
those years, before even the huts, there had been men in the valley. Even
then--so recent had it all been when one judged it by the standards of
geological time--this valley had been here; and those hills yonder, higher,
perhaps, and snow-tipped, had still been yonder hills, and the Thames had
flowed down from the Cotswolds to the sea. But the men had been but the sha=
pes
of men, creatures of darkness and ignorance, victims of beasts and floods,
storms and pestilence and incessant hunger. They had held a precarious foot=
hold
amidst bears and lions and all the monstrous violence of the past. Already =
some
at least of these enemies were overcome....
For a time Denton
pursued the thoughts of this spacious vision, trying in obedience to his
instinct to find his place and proportion in the scheme.
"It has been
chance," he said, "it has been luck. We have come through. It hap=
pens
we have come through. Not by any strength of our own....
"And yet ...=
No.
I don't know."
He was silent for=
a
long time before he spoke again.
"After
all--there is a long time yet. There have scarcely been men for twenty thou=
sand
years--and there has been life for twenty millions. And what are generation=
s?
What are generations? It is enormous, and we are so little. Yet we know--we
feel. We are not dumb atoms, we are part of it--part of it--to the limits of
our strength and will. Even to die is part of it. Whether we die or live, we
are in the making....
"As time goes
on--perhaps--men will be wiser.... Wiser....
"Will they e=
ver
understand?"
He became silent
again. Elizabeth said nothing to these things, but she regarded his dreaming
face with infinite affection. Her mind was not very active that evening. A
great contentment possessed her. After a time she laid a gentle hand on his
beside her. He fondled it softly, still looking out upon the spacious
gold-woven view. So they sat as the sun went down. Until presently Elizabeth
shivered.
Denton recalled
himself abruptly from these spacious issues of his leisure, and went in to
fetch her a shawl.
THE MAN WHO COULD WORK
MIRACLES
It is doubtful whether the gift was
innate. For my own part, I think it came to him suddenly. Indeed, until he =
was
thirty he was a sceptic, and did not believe in miraculous powers. And here,
since it is the most convenient place, I must mention that he was a little =
man,
and had eyes of a hot brown, very erect red hair, a moustache with ends tha=
t he
twisted up, and freckles. His name was George McWhirter Fotheringay--not the
sort of name by any means to lead to any expectation of miracles--and he was
clerk at Gomshott's. He was greatly addicted to assertive argument. It was
while he was asserting the impossibility of miracles that he had his first
intimation of his extraordinary powers. This particular argument was being =
held
in the bar of the Long Dragon, and Toddy Beamish was conducting the opposit=
ion
by a monotonous but effective "So you say," that drove Mr.
Fotheringay to the very limit of his patience.
There were presen=
t,
besides these two, a very dusty cyclist, landlord Cox, and Miss Maybridge, =
the
perfectly respectable and rather portly barmaid of the Dragon. Miss Maybrid=
ge
was standing with her back to Mr. Fotheringay, washing glasses; the others =
were
watching him, more or less amused by the present ineffectiveness of the
assertive method. Goaded by the Torres Vedras tactics of Mr. Beamish, Mr.
Fotheringay determined to make an unusual rhetorical effort. "Looky he=
re,
Mr. Beamish," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Let us clearly understand wh=
at a
miracle is. It's something contrariwise to the course of nature done by pow=
er
of Will, something what couldn't happen without being specially willed.&quo=
t;
"So you
say," said Mr. Beamish, repulsing him.
Mr. Fotheringay
appealed to the cyclist, who had hitherto been a silent auditor, and receiv=
ed
his assent--given with a hesitating cough and a glance at Mr. Beamish. The
landlord would express no opinion, and Mr. Fotheringay, returning to Mr.
Beamish, received the unexpected concession of a qualified assent to his
definition of a miracle.
"For
instance," said Mr. Fotheringay, greatly encouraged. "Here would =
be a
miracle. That lamp, in the natural course of nature, couldn't burn like that
upsy-down, could it, Beamish?"
"You say it
couldn't," said Beamish.
"And you?&qu=
ot;
said Fotheringay. "You don't mean to say--eh?"
"No," s=
aid
Beamish reluctantly. "No, it couldn't."
"Very
well," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Then here comes someone, as it migh=
t be
me, along here, and stands as it might be here, and says to that lamp, as I
might do, collecting all my will--Turn upsy-down without breaking, and go on
burning steady, and--Hullo!"
It was enough to =
make
anyone say "Hullo!" The impossible, the incredible, was visible to
them all. The lamp hung inverted in the air, burning quietly with its flame
pointing down. It was as solid, as indisputable as ever a lamp was, the pro=
saic
common lamp of the Long Dragon bar.
Mr. Fotheringay s=
tood
with an extended forefinger and the knitted brows of one anticipating a
catastrophic smash. The cyclist, who was sitting next the lamp, ducked and
jumped across the bar. Everybody jumped, more or less. Miss Maybridge turned
and screamed. For nearly three seconds the lamp remained still. A faint cry=
of
mental distress came from Mr. Fotheringay. "I can't keep it up," =
he
said, "any longer." He staggered back, and the inverted lamp sudd=
enly
flared, fell against the corner of the bar, bounced aside, smashed upon the
floor, and went out.
It was lucky it h=
ad a
metal receiver, or the whole place would have been in a blaze. Mr. Cox was =
the
first to speak, and his remark, shorn of needless excrescences, was to the
effect that Fotheringay was a fool. Fotheringay was beyond disputing even so
fundamental a proposition as that! He was astonished beyond measure at the
thing that had occurred. The subsequent conversation threw absolutely no li=
ght
on the matter so far as Fotheringay was concerned; the general opinion not =
only
followed Mr. Cox very closely but very vehemently. Everyone accused Fotheri=
ngay
of a silly trick, and presented him to himself as a foolish destroyer of co=
mfort
and security. His mind was in a tornado of perplexity, he was himself incli=
ned
to agree with them, and he made a remarkably ineffectual opposition to the
proposal of his departure.
He went home flus=
hed
and heated, coat-collar crumpled, eyes smarting and ears red. He watched ea=
ch
of the ten street lamps nervously as he passed it. It was only when he found
himself alone in his little bed-room in Church Row that he was able to grap=
ple
seriously with his memories of the occurrence, and ask, "What on earth
happened?"
He had removed his
coat and boots, and was sitting on the bed with his hands in his pockets
repeating the text of his defence for the seventeenth time, "I didn't =
want
the confounded thing to upset," when it occurred to him that at the
precise moment he had said the commanding words he had inadvertently willed=
the
thing he said, and that when he had seen the lamp in the air he had felt th=
at
it depended on him to maintain it there without being clear how this was to=
be
done. He had not a particularly complex mind, or he might have stuck for a =
time
at that "inadvertently willed," embracing, as it does, the abstru=
sest
problems of voluntary action; but as it was, the idea came to him with a qu=
ite
acceptable haziness. And from that, following, as I must admit, no clear
logical path, he came to the test of experiment.
He pointed resolu=
tely
to his candle and collected his mind, though he felt he did a foolish thing.
"Be raised up," he said. But in a second that feeling vanished. T=
he
candle was raised, hung in the air one giddy moment, and as Mr. Fotheringay
gasped, fell with a smash on his toilet-table, leaving him in darkness save=
for
the expiring glow of its wick.
For a time Mr.
Fotheringay sat in the darkness, perfectly still. "It did happen, after
all," he said. "And 'ow I'm to explain it I don't know." He
sighed heavily, and began feeling in his pockets for a match. He could find
none, and he rose and groped about the toilet-table. "I wish I had a
match," he said. He resorted to his coat, and there was none there, and
then it dawned upon him that miracles were possible even with matches. He
extended a hand and scowled at it in the dark. "Let there be a match in
that hand," he said. He felt some light object fall across his palm, a=
nd
his fingers closed upon a match.
After several
ineffectual attempts to light this, he discovered it was a safety-match. He
threw it down, and then it occurred to him that he might have willed it lit=
. He
did, and perceived it burning in the midst of his toilet-table mat. He caug=
ht
it up hastily, and it went out. His perception of possibilities enlarged, a=
nd
he felt for and replaced the candle in its candlestick. "Here! you be
lit," said Mr. Fotheringay, and forthwith the candle was flaring, and =
he
saw a little black hole in the toilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising fr=
om
it. For a time he stared from this to the little flame and back, and then
looked up and met his own gaze in the looking glass. By this help he commun=
ed
with himself in silence for a time.
"How about
miracles now?" said Mr. Fotheringay at last, addressing his reflection=
.
The subsequent
meditations of Mr. Fotheringay were of a severe but confused description. So
far, he could see it was a case of pure willing with him. The nature of his
experiences so far disinclined him for any further experiments, at least un=
til
he had reconsidered them. But he lifted a sheet of paper, and turned a glas=
s of
water pink and then green, and he created a snail, which he miraculously
annihilated, and got himself a miraculous new tooth-brush. Somewhen in the
small hours he had reached the fact that his will-power must be of a
particularly rare and pungent quality, a fact of which he had certainly had
inklings before, but no certain assurance. The scare and perplexity of his
first discovery was now qualified by pride in this evidence of singularity =
and by
vague intimations of advantage. He became aware that the church clock was
striking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily duties at
Gomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumed undressing, in
order to get to bed without further delay. As he struggled to get his shirt
over his head, he was struck with a brilliant idea. "Let me be in
bed," he said, and found himself so. "Undressed," he stipula=
ted;
and, finding the sheets cold, added hastily, "and in my nightshirt--no=
, in
a nice soft woollen nightshirt. Ah!" he said with immense enjoyment.
"And now let me be comfortably asleep...."
He awoke at his u=
sual
hour and was pensive all through breakfast-time, wondering whether his
overnight experience might not be a particularly vivid dream. At length his
mind turned again to cautious experiments. For instance, he had three eggs =
for
breakfast; two his landlady had supplied, good, but shoppy, and one was a
delicious fresh goose-egg, laid, cooked, and served by his extraordinary wi=
ll.
He hurried off to Gomshott's in a state of profound but carefully concealed
excitement, and only remembered the shell of the third egg when his landlady
spoke of it that night. All day he could do no work because of this astonis=
hingly
new self-knowledge, but this caused him no inconvenience, because he made up
for it miraculously in his last ten minutes.
As the day wore on his state of mind passed from wonder to elation, albeit the circumstances of his dismissal from the Long Dragon were still disagreeable to recall, and a garbled account of the matter that had reached his colleagues led to some b= adinage. It was evident he must be careful how he lifted frangible articles, but in other ways his gift promised more and more as he turned it over in his mind= . He intended among other things to increase his personal property by unostentat= ious acts of creation. He called into existence a pair of very splendid diamond studs, and hastily annihilated them again as young Gomshott came across the counting-house to his desk. He was afraid young Gomshott might wonder how he had come by them. He saw quite clearly the gift required caution and watchfulness in its exercise, but so far as he could judge the difficulties attending its mastery would be no greater than those he had already faced in the study of cycling. It was that analogy, perhaps, quite as much as the fe= eling that he would be unwelcome in the Long Dragon, that drove him out after sup= per into the lane beyond the gas-works, to rehearse a few miracles in private.<= o:p>
There was possibl=
y a
certain want of originality in his attempts, for apart from his will-power =
Mr.
Fotheringay was not a very exceptional man. The miracle of Moses' rod came =
to
his mind, but the night was dark and unfavourable to the proper control of
large miraculous snakes. Then he recollected the story of
"Tannhäuser" that he had read on the back of the Philharmonic
programme. That seemed to him singularly attractive and harmless. He stuck =
his
walking-stick--a very nice Poona-Penang lawyer--into the turf that edged the
footpath, and commanded the dry wood to blossom. The air was immediately fu=
ll
of the scent of roses, and by means of a match he saw for himself that this
beautiful miracle was indeed accomplished. His satisfaction was ended by
advancing footsteps. Afraid of a premature discovery of his powers, he
addressed the blossoming stick hastily: "Go back." What he meant =
was
"Change back;" but of course he was confused. The stick receded a=
t a
considerable velocity, and incontinently came a cry of anger and a bad word
from the approaching person. "Who are you throwing brambles at, you
fool?" cried a voice. "That got me on the shin."
"I'm sorry, =
old
chap," said Mr. Fotheringay, and then realising the awkward nature of =
the
explanation, caught nervously at his moustache. He saw Winch, one of the th=
ree
Immering constables, advancing.
"What d'yer =
mean
by it?" asked the constable. "Hullo! It's you, is it? The gent th=
at
broke the lamp at the Long Dragon!"
"I don't mean
anything by it," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Nothing at all."
"What d'yer =
do
it for then?"
"Oh,
bother!" said Mr. Fotheringay.
"Bother inde=
ed!
D'yer know that stick hurt? What d'yer do it for, eh?"
For the moment Mr.
Fotheringay could not think what he had done it for. His silence seemed to
irritate Mr. Winch. "You've been assaulting the police, young man, this
time. That's what you done."
"Look here, =
Mr.
Winch," said Mr. Fotheringay, annoyed and confused, "I'm very sor=
ry.
The fact is----"
"Well?"=
He could think of=
no
way but the truth. "I was working a miracle." He tried to speak i=
n an
off-hand way, but try as he would he couldn't.
"Working a--=
--!
'Ere, don't you talk rot. Working a miracle, indeed! Miracle! Well, that's
downright funny! Why, you's the chap that don't believe in miracles.... Fact
is, this is another of your silly conjuring tricks--that's what this is. No=
w, I
tell you----"
But Mr. Fothering= ay never heard what Mr. Winch was going to tell him. He realised he had given himself away, flung his valuable secret to all the winds of heaven. A viole= nt gust of irritation swept him to action. He turned on the constable swiftly = and fiercely. "Here," he said, "I've had enough of this, I have! I'll show you a silly conjuring trick, I will! Go to Hades! Go, now!"<= o:p>
He was alone!
Mr. Fotheringay
performed no more miracles that night, nor did he trouble to see what had
become of his flowering stick. He returned to the town, scared and very qui=
et,
and went to his bed-room. "Lord!" he said, "it's a powerful
gift--an extremely powerful gift. I didn't hardly mean as much as that. Not
really.... I wonder what Hades is like!"
He sat on the bed=
taking
off his boots. Struck by a happy thought he transferred the constable to San
Francisco, and without any more interference with normal causation went sob=
erly
to bed. In the night he dreamt of the anger of Winch.
The next day Mr.
Fotheringay heard two interesting items of news. Someone had planted a most
beautiful climbing rose against the elder Mr. Gomshott's private house in t=
he
Lullaborough Road, and the river as far as Rawling's Mill was to be dragged=
for
Constable Winch.
Mr. Fotheringay w=
as
abstracted and thoughtful all that day, and performed no miracles except
certain provisions for Winch, and the miracle of completing his day's work =
with
punctual perfection in spite of all the bee-swarm of thoughts that hummed
through his mind. And the extraordinary abstraction and meekness of his man=
ner
was remarked by several people, and made a matter for jesting. For the most
part he was thinking of Winch.
On Sunday evening=
he
went to chapel, and oddly enough, Mr. Maydig, who took a certain interest in
occult matters, preached about "things that are not lawful." Mr.
Fotheringay was not a regular chapel goer, but the system of assertive
scepticism, to which I have already alluded, was now very much shaken. The
tenor of the sermon threw an entirely new light on these novel gifts, and he
suddenly decided to consult Mr. Maydig immediately after the service. So so=
on
as that was determined, he found himself wondering why he had not done so
before.
Mr. Maydig, a lea=
n,
excitable man with quite remarkably long wrists and neck, was gratified at a
request for a private conversation from a young man whose carelessness in
religious matters was a subject for general remark in the town. After a few
necessary delays, he conducted him to the study of the Manse, which was con=
tiguous
to the chapel, seated him comfortably, and, standing in front of a cheerful
fire--his legs threw a Rhodian arch of shadow on the opposite wall--request=
ed
Mr. Fotheringay to state his business.
At first Mr.
Fotheringay was a little abashed, and found some difficulty in opening the
matter. "You will scarcely believe me, Mr. Maydig, I am afraid"--=
and
so forth for some time. He tried a question at last, and asked Mr. Maydig h=
is
opinion of miracles.
Mr. Maydig was st=
ill
saying "Well" in an extremely judicial tone, when Mr. Fotheringay
interrupted again: "You don't believe, I suppose, that some common sor=
t of
person--like myself, for instance--as it might be sitting here now, might h=
ave
some sort of twist inside him that made him able to do things by his will.&=
quot;
"It's
possible," said Mr. Maydig. "Something of the sort, perhaps, is p=
ossible."
"If I might =
make
free with something here, I think I might show you by a sort of
experiment," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Now, take that tobacco-jar on=
the
table, for instance. What I want to know is whether what I am going to do w=
ith
it is a miracle or not. Just half a minute, Mr. Maydig, please."
He knitted his br=
ows,
pointed to the tobacco-jar and said: "Be a bowl of vi'lets."
The tobacco-jar d=
id
as it was ordered.
Mr. Maydig started
violently at the change, and stood looking from the thaumaturgist to the bo=
wl
of flowers. He said nothing. Presently he ventured to lean over the table a=
nd
smell the violets; they were fresh-picked and very fine ones. Then he stare=
d at
Mr. Fotheringay again.
"How did you=
do
that?" he asked.
Mr. Fotheringay
pulled his moustache. "Just told it--and there you are. Is that a mira=
cle,
or is it black art, or what is it? And what do you think's the matter with =
me?
That's what I want to ask."
"It's a most
extraordinary occurrence."
"And this day
last week I knew no more that I could do things like that than you did. It =
came
quite sudden. It's something odd about my will, I suppose, and that's as fa=
r as
I can see."
"Is that--the
only thing. Could you do other things besides that?"
"Lord,
yes!" said Mr. Fotheringay. "Just anything." He thought, and=
suddenly
recalled a conjuring entertainment he had seen. "Here!" He pointe=
d.
"Change into a bowl of fish--no, not that--change into a glass bowl fu=
ll of
water with goldfish swimming in it. That's better! You see that, Mr.
Maydig?"
"It's
astonishing. It's incredible. You are either a most extraordinary ... But
no----"
"I could cha=
nge
it into anything," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Just anything. Here! be=
a
pigeon, will you?"
In another moment=
a
blue pigeon was fluttering round the room and making Mr. Maydig duck every =
time
it came near him. "Stop there, will you," said Mr. Fotheringay; a=
nd
the pigeon hung motionless in the air. "I could change it back to a bo=
wl
of flowers," he said, and after replacing the pigeon on the table work=
ed
that miracle. "I expect you will want your pipe in a bit," he sai=
d,
and restored the tobacco-jar.
Mr. Maydig had
followed all these later changes in a sort of ejaculatory silence. He stare=
d at
Mr. Fotheringay and, in a very gingerly manner, picked up the tobacco-jar,
examined it, replaced it on the table. "Well!" was the only
expression of his feelings.
"Now, after =
that
it's easier to explain what I came about," said Mr. Fotheringay; and
proceeded to a lengthy and involved narrative of his strange experiences,
beginning with the affair of the lamp in the Long Dragon and complicated by
persistent allusions to Winch. As he went on, the transient pride Mr. Maydi=
g's
consternation had caused passed away; he became the very ordinary Mr.
Fotheringay of everyday intercourse again. Mr. Maydig listened intently, the
tobacco-jar in his hand, and his bearing changed also with the course of the
narrative. Presently, while Mr. Fotheringay was dealing with the miracle of=
the
third egg, the minister interrupted with a fluttering extended hand--
"It is
possible," he said. "It is credible. It is amazing, of course, bu=
t it
reconciles a number of amazing difficulties. The power to work miracles is =
a gift--a
peculiar quality like genius or second sight--hitherto it has come very rar=
ely
and to exceptional people. But in this case ... I have always wondered at t=
he
miracles of Mahomet, and at Yogi's miracles, and the miracles of Madame
Blavatsky. But, of course! Yes, it is simply a gift! It carries out so
beautifully the arguments of that great thinker"--Mr. Maydig's voice
sank--"his Grace the Duke of Argyll. Here we plumb some profounder
law--deeper than the ordinary laws of nature. Yes--yes. Go on. Go on!"=
Mr. Fotheringay
proceeded to tell of his misadventure with Winch, and Mr. Maydig, no longer
overawed or scared, began to jerk his limbs about and interject astonishmen=
t.
"It's this what troubled me most," proceeded Mr. Fotheringay;
"it's this I'm most mijitly in want of advice for; of course he's at S=
an
Francisco--wherever San Francisco may be--but of course it's awkward for bo=
th
of us, as you'll see, Mr. Maydig. I don't see how he can understand what has
happened, and I daresay he's scared and exasperated something tremendous, a=
nd
trying to get at me. I daresay he keeps on starting off to come here. I send
him back, by a miracle, every few hours, when I think of it. And of course,
that's a thing he won't be able to understand, and it's bound to annoy him;
and, of course, if he takes a ticket every time it will cost him a lot of m=
oney.
I done the best I could for him, but of course it's difficult for him to put
himself in my place. I thought afterwards that his clothes might have got
scorched, you know--if Hades is all it's supposed to be--before I shifted h=
im.
In that case I suppose they'd have locked him up in San Francisco. Of cours=
e I
willed him a new suit of clothes on him directly I thought of it. But, you =
see,
I'm already in a deuce of a tangle----"
Mr. Maydig looked
serious. "I see you are in a tangle. Yes, it's a difficult position. H=
ow
you are to end it ..." He became diffuse and inconclusive.
"However, we=
'll
leave Winch for a little and discuss the larger question. I don't think thi=
s is
a case of the black art or anything of the sort. I don't think there is any
taint of criminality about it at all, Mr. Fotheringay--none whatever, unless
you are suppressing material facts. No, it's miracles--pure miracles--mirac=
les,
if I may say so, of the very highest class."
He began to pace =
the
hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringay sat with his arm on the ta=
ble
and his head on his arm, looking worried. "I don't see how I'm to mana=
ge
about Winch," he said.
"A gift of
working miracles--apparently a very powerful gift," said Mr. Maydig,
"will find a way about Winch--never fear. My dear Sir, you are a most
important man--a man of the most astonishing possibilities. As evidence, for
example! And in other ways, the things you may do...."
"Yes, I've
thought of a thing or two," said Mr. Fotheringay. "But--some of t=
he
things came a bit twisty. You saw that fish at first? Wrong sort of bowl and
wrong sort of fish. And I thought I'd ask someone."
"A proper
course," said Mr. Maydig, "a very proper course--altogether the
proper course." He stopped and looked at Mr. Fotheringay. "It's p=
ractically
an unlimited gift. Let us test your powers, for instance. If they really are
... If they really are all they seem to be."
And so, incredibl= e as it may seem, in the study of the little house behind the Congregational Cha= pel, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 10, 1896, Mr. Fotheringay, egged on and insp= ired by Mr. Maydig, began to work miracles. The reader's attention is specially = and definitely called to the date. He will object, probably has already objecte= d, that certain points in this story are improbable, that if any things of the sort already described had indeed occurred, they would have been in all the= papers a year ago. The details immediately following he will find particularly har= d to accept, because among other things they involve the conclusion that he or s= he, the reader in question, must have been killed in a violent and unprecedented manner more than a year ago. Now a miracle is nothing if not improbable, an= d as a matter of fact the reader was killed in a violent and unprecedented manne= r a year ago. In the subsequent course of this story that will become perfectly clear and credible, as every right-minded and reasonable reader will admit.= But this is not the place for the end of the story, being but little beyond the hither side of the middle. And at first the miracles worked by Mr. Fotherin= gay were timid little miracles--little things with the cups and parlour fitment= s, as feeble as the miracles of Theosophists, and, feeble as they were, they w= ere received with awe by his collaborator. He would have preferred to settle the Winch business out of hand, but Mr. Maydig would not let him. But after they had worked a dozen of these domestic trivialities, their sense of power gre= w, their imagination began to show signs of stimulation, and their ambition enlarged. Their first larger enterprise was due to hunger and the negligenc= e of Mrs. Minchin, Mr. Maydig's housekeeper. The meal to which the minister conducted Mr. Fotheringay was certainly ill-laid and uninviting as refreshm= ent for two industrious miracle-workers; but they were seated, and Mr. Maydig w= as descanting in sorrow rather than in anger upon his housekeeper's shortcomings, before = it occurred to Mr. Fotheringay that an opportunity lay before him. "Don't= you think, Mr. Maydig," he said, "if it isn't a liberty, I----"<= o:p>
"My dear Mr.
Fotheringay! Of course! No--I didn't think."
Mr. Fotheringay w=
aved
his hand. "What shall we have?" he said, in a large, inclusive
spirit, and, at Mr. Maydig's order, revised the supper very thoroughly.
"As for me," he said, eyeing Mr. Maydig's selection, "I am
always particularly fond of a tankard of stout and a nice Welsh rarebit, and
I'll order that. I ain't much given to Burgundy," and forthwith stout =
and
Welsh rarebit promptly appeared at his command. They sat long at their supp=
er,
talking like equals, as Mr. Fotheringay presently perceived, with a glow of
surprise and gratification, of all the miracles they would presently do.
"And, by the bye, Mr. Maydig," said Mr. Fotheringay, "I might
perhaps be able to help you--in a domestic way."
"Don't quite
follow," said Mr. Maydig pouring out a glass of miraculous old Burgund=
y.
Mr. Fotheringay
helped himself to a second Welsh rarebit out of vacancy, and took a mouthfu=
l.
"I was thinking," he said, "I might be able (chum, chum) to =
work
(chum, chum) a miracle with Mrs. Minchin (chum, chum)--make her a better
woman."
Mr. Maydig put do=
wn
the glass and looked doubtful. "She's---- She strongly objects to
interference, you know, Mr. Fotheringay. And--as a matter of fact--it's well
past eleven and she's probably in bed and asleep. Do you think, on the
whole----"
Mr. Fotheringay
considered these objections. "I don't see that it shouldn't be done in=
her
sleep."
For a time Mr. Ma=
ydig
opposed the idea, and then he yielded. Mr. Fotheringay issued his orders, a=
nd a
little less at their ease, perhaps, the two gentlemen proceeded with their
repast. Mr. Maydig was enlarging on the changes he might expect in his hous=
ekeeper
next day, with an optimism that seemed even to Mr. Fotheringay's supper sen=
ses
a little forced and hectic, when a series of confused noises from upstairs
began. Their eyes exchanged interrogations, and Mr. Maydig left the room ha=
stily.
Mr. Fotheringay heard him calling up to his housekeeper and then his footst=
eps
going softly up to her.
In a minute or so=
the
minister returned, his step light, his face radiant. "Wonderful!"=
he
said, "and touching! Most touching!"
He began pacing t=
he
hearthrug. "A repentance--a most touching repentance--through the crac=
k of
the door. Poor woman! A most wonderful change! She had got up. She must have
got up at once. She had got up out of her sleep to smash a private bottle of
brandy in her box. And to confess it too!... But this gives us--it opens--a
most amazing vista of possibilities. If we can work this miraculous change =
in
her ..."
"The thing's
unlimited seemingly," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And about Mr. Winch-=
-"
"Altogether
unlimited." And from the hearthrug Mr. Maydig, waving the Winch diffic=
ulty
aside, unfolded a series of wonderful proposals--proposals he invented as he
went along.
Now what those
proposals were does not concern the essentials of this story. Suffice it th=
at
they were designed in a spirit of infinite benevolence, the sort of benevol=
ence
that used to be called post-prandial. Suffice it, too, that the problem of
Winch remained unsolved. Nor is it necessary to describe how far that series
got to its fulfilment. There were astonishing changes. The small hours found
Mr. Maydig and Mr. Fotheringay careering across the chilly market-square un=
der
the still moon, in a sort of ecstasy of thaumaturgy, Mr. Maydig all flap and
gesture, Mr. Fotheringay short and bristling, and no longer abashed at his
greatness. They had reformed every drunkard in the Parliamentary division,
changed all the beer and alcohol to water (Mr. Maydig had overruled Mr.
Fotheringay on this point); they had, further, greatly improved the railway
communication of the place, drained Flinder's swamp, improved the soil of O=
ne
Tree Hill, and cured the Vicar's wart. And they were going to see what coul=
d be
done with the injured pier at South Bridge. "The place," gasped M=
r.
Maydig, "won't be the same place to-morrow. How surprised and thankful
everyone will be!" And just at that moment the church clock struck thr=
ee.
"I say,"
said Mr. Fotheringay, "that's three o'clock! I must be getting back. I=
've
got to be at business by eight. And besides, Mrs. Wimms--"
"We're only
beginning," said Mr. Maydig, full of the sweetness of unlimited power.
"We're only beginning. Think of all the good we're doing. When people
wake--"
"But--,"
said Mr. Fotheringay.
Mr. Maydig gripped
his arm suddenly. His eyes were bright and wild. "My dear chap," =
he
said, "there's no hurry. Look"--he pointed to the moon at the
zenith--"Joshua!"
"Joshua?&quo=
t;
said Mr. Fotheringay.
"Joshua,&quo=
t;
said Mr. Maydig. "Why not? Stop it."
Mr. Fotheringay
looked at the moon.
"That's a bit
tall," he said after a pause.
"Why not?&qu=
ot;
said Mr. Maydig. "Of course it doesn't stop. You stop the rotation of =
the
earth, you know. Time stops. It isn't as if we were doing harm."
"H'm!" = said Mr. Fotheringay. "Well." He sighed. "I'll try. Here--"<= o:p>
He buttoned up his
jacket and addressed himself to the habitable globe, with as good an assump=
tion
of confidence as lay in his power. "Jest stop rotating, will you,"
said Mr. Fotheringay.
Incontinently he =
was
flying head over heels through the air at the rate of dozens of miles a min=
ute.
In spite of the innumerable circles he was describing per second, he though=
t;
for thought is wonderful--sometimes as sluggish as flowing pitch, sometimes=
as
instantaneous as light. He thought in a second, and willed. "Let me co=
me
down safe and sound. Whatever else happens, let me down safe and sound.&quo=
t;
He willed it only
just in time, for his clothes, heated by his rapid flight through the air, =
were
already beginning to singe. He came down with a forcible, but by no means
injurious bump in what appeared to be a mound of fresh-turned earth. A large
mass of metal and masonry, extraordinarily like the clock-tower in the midd=
le
of the market-square, hit the earth near him, ricochetted over him, and flew
into stonework, bricks, and masonry, like a bursting bomb. A hurtling cow h=
it
one of the larger blocks and smashed like an egg. There was a crash that ma=
de
all the most violent crashes of his past life seem like the sound of fallin=
g dust,
and this was followed by a descending series of lesser crashes. A vast wind
roared throughout earth and heaven, so that he could scarcely lift his head=
to
look. For a while he was too breathless and astonished even to see where he=
was
or what had happened. And his first movement was to feel his head and reass=
ure
himself that his streaming hair was still his own.
"Lord!"
gasped Mr. Fotheringay, scarce able to speak for the gale, "I've had a
squeak! What's gone wrong? Storms and thunder. And only a minute ago a fine
night. It's Maydig set me on to this sort of thing. What a wind! If I go on
fooling in this way I'm bound to have a thundering accident!...
"Where's May=
dig?
"What a
confounded mess everything's in!"
He looked about h=
im
so far as his flapping jacket would permit. The appearance of things was re=
ally
extremely strange. "The sky's all right anyhow," said Mr.
Fotheringay. "And that's about all that is all right. And even there it
looks like a terrific gale coming up. But there's the moon overhead. Just a=
s it
was just now. Bright as midday. But as for the rest--Where's the village?
Where's--where's anything? And what on earth set this wind a-blowing? I did=
n't
order no wind."
Mr. Fotheringay
struggled to get to his feet in vain, and after one failure, remained on all
fours, holding on. He surveyed the moonlit world to leeward, with the tails=
of
his jacket streaming over his head. "There's something seriously
wrong," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And what it is--goodness knows.&qu=
ot;
Far and wide noth=
ing
was visible in the white glare through the haze of dust that drove before a
screaming gale but tumbled masses of earth and heaps of inchoate ruins, no
trees, no houses, no familiar shapes, only a wilderness of disorder vanishi=
ng
at last into the darkness beneath the whirling columns and streamers, the
lightnings and thunderings of a swiftly rising storm. Near him in the livid
glare was something that might once have been an elm-tree, a smashed mass of
splinters, shivered from boughs to base, and further a twisted mass of iron
girders--only too evidently the viaduct--rose out of the piled confusion.
You see, when Mr.=
Fotheringay
had arrested the rotation of the solid globe, he had made no stipulation
concerning the trifling movables upon its surface. And the earth spins so f=
ast
that the surface at its equator is travelling at rather more than a thousand
miles an hour, and in these latitudes at more than half that pace. So that =
the
village, and Mr. Maydig, and Mr. Fotheringay, and everybody and everything =
had
been jerked violently forward at about nine miles per second--that is to sa=
y, much
more violently than if they had been fired out of a cannon. And every human
being, every living creature, every house, and every tree--all the world as=
we
know it--had been so jerked and smashed and utterly destroyed. That was all=
.
These things Mr.
Fotheringay did not, of course, fully appreciate. But he perceived that his
miracle had miscarried, and with that a great disgust of miracles came upon
him. He was in darkness now, for the clouds had swept together and blotted =
out
his momentary glimpse of the moon, and the air was full of fitful struggling
tortured wraiths of hail. A great roaring of wind and waters filled earth a=
nd
sky, and, peering under his hand through the dust and sleet to windward, he=
saw
by the play of the lightnings a vast wall of water pouring towards him.
"Maydig!&quo=
t; screamed
Mr. Fotheringay's feeble voice amid the elemental uproar. "Here!--Mayd=
ig!
"Stop!"
cried Mr. Fotheringay to the advancing water. "Oh, for goodness' sake,
stop!
"Just a
moment," said Mr. Fotheringay to the lightnings and thunder. "Stop
jest a moment while I collect my thoughts.... And now what shall I do?"=
; he
said. "What shall I do? Lord! I wish Maydig was about.
"I know,&quo=
t;
said Mr. Fotheringay. "And for goodness' sake let's have it right this
time."
He remained on all
fours, leaning against the wind, very intent to have everything right.
"Ah!" he
said. "Let nothing what I'm going to order happen until I say 'Off!'..=
..
Lord! I wish I'd thought of that before!"
He lifted his lit=
tle
voice against the whirlwind, shouting louder and louder in the vain desire =
to
hear himself speak. "Now then!--here goes! Mind about that what I said
just now. In the first place, when all I've got to say is done, let me lose=
my
miraculous power, let my will become just like anybody else's will, and all
these dangerous miracles be stopped. I don't like them. I'd rather I didn't
work 'em. Ever so much. That's the first thing. And the second is--let me be
back just before the miracles begin; let everything be just as it was before
that blessed lamp turned up. It's a big job, but it's the last. Have you got
it? No more miracles, everything as it was--me back in the Long Dragon just=
before
I drank my half-pint. That's it! Yes."
He dug his fingers
into the mould, closed his eyes, and said "Off!"
Everything became
perfectly still. He perceived that he was standing erect.
"So you
say," said a voice.
He opened his eye=
s.
He was in the bar of the Long Dragon, arguing about miracles with Toddy
Beamish. He had a vague sense of some great thing forgotten that
instantaneously passed. You see that, except for the loss of his miraculous
powers, everything was back as it had been, his mind and memory therefore w=
ere
now just as they had been at the time when this story began. So that he knew
absolutely nothing of all that is told here, knows nothing of all that is t=
old
here to this day. And among other things, of course, he still did not belie=
ve
in miracles.
"I tell you =
that
miracles, properly speaking, can't possibly happen," he said,
"whatever you like to hold. And I'm prepared to prove it up to the hil=
t."
"That's what=
you
think," said Toddy Beamish, and "Prove it if you can."
"Looky here,=
Mr.
Beamish," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Let us clearly understand what a
miracle is. It's something contrariwise to the course of nature done by pow=
er
of Will...."
THE END