The Water Ghost and Others Part 7

"I obeyed his order, and then a most singular thing happened. Strange sights met my gaze. At first I could see nothing but the Palisades opposite me, but in an instant my horizon seemed to broaden, the vista through the telescope deepened, and before I knew it my sight was speeding, now through a beautiful country, over fields, hills, and valleys; then on through great cities, out to and over a broad, gently undulating stretch which I at once recognized as the prairie lands of the west. In a minute more I began to catch the idea of this wonderful gla.s.s, for I now saw rising up before me the wonderful beauties of the Yosemite, and then, like a flash of the lightning, my vision pa.s.sed over the Sierra Nevada range, my eye swept down upon San Francisco, and was soon speeding over the waters of the Pacific.

"Two minutes later I saw the strange paG.o.das of the Chinese rising before me. Sweeping my gla.s.s to the north, bleak Siberia met my gaze; then to the south I saw India, her jungles, her waste places. Not long after, a most awful sight met my gaze. I saw a huge s.h.i.+p at the moment of foundering in the Indian Ocean. Horrified, I turned my gla.s.s again to the north, and the minarets of Stamboul rose up before me; then the dome of St. Peter's at Rome; then Paris; then London; then the Atlantic Ocean. I levelled my gla.s.s due west, and finally I could see nothing but one small, black speck--as like to a fleck of dust as to anything else--on the lens at the other end. With a movement of my hand, I tried to wipe it off, but it still remained, and, in answer to a chuckle at my side, I put the gla.s.s down.

"'It is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw,' I said.

"'Yes, it is,' said the other.

"'One can almost see around the world with it,' I cried, breathless nearly with enthusiasm.

"'One can--quite,' said the inventor, calmly.

"'Nonsense!' I said. 'Don't claim too much, my friend.'

"'It is true,' said he. 'Did you notice a speck on the gla.s.s? I am sure you did, for you tried to remove it.'

"'Yes,' said I, 'I did. But what of it? What does that signify?'

"'It proves what I said,' he answered. 'You did see all the way around the world with that gla.s.s. The black spot on the lens that you thought was a piece of dust was the back of your own head.'

"'Nonsense, my boy! The back of my head is bigger than that,' I said.

"'Certainly it is,' he responded; 'but you must make some allowance for perspective. The back of your head is a trifle less than twenty-four thousand miles from the end of your nose the way you were looking at it.'"

"You mean to say--" began the lieutenant, as the doctor paused to chalk his cue.

"Never mind what I mean to say," said the doctor. "Reflect upon what I have said."

"But the man and the telescope--what became of them?" asked the lieutenant.

"I was about to tell you that. The old fellow who had made this marvellous gla.s.s, which to two eyes that he knew of, and to only two, would work as was desired, feeling that he was about to die, had come to me to offer the gla.s.s for sale on two considerations. One was a consideration of $25. The other was that I would leave no stone unturned to discover a possible third person younger than myself with an eye similar to those we had, to whom at my death the gla.s.s should be transmitted, exacting from him the promise that he too would see that it was pa.s.sed along in the same manner into the hands of posterity. I was also to acquaint the world with the story of the gla.s.s and the name of its inventor to the fullest extent possible."

"And you, of course, accepted?"

"I did," said the doctor; "but having no money in my pocket, I went down into the house to borrow it of my wife, and upon my return to the roof, found no trace of the gla.s.s, the old man, or the roof either."

"What!" cried the lieutenant. "Are you crazy?"

"No," smiled the doctor. "Not at all. For the moment I reached the roof of the house, I opened my eyes, and found myself still swinging in the hammock under the trees."

"And the moral?" queried the lieutenant. "You promised a moral, or I should not have listened."

"Always have money in your pocket," replied the doctor, pocketing the last ball, and putting up his cue. "Then you are not apt to lose great bargains such as I lost for the want of $25."

"It's a good idea," returned the lieutenant. "And you live up to it, I suppose?"

"I do," returned the oculist, tapping his pocket significantly. "Always!"

"Then," said the lieutenant, earnestly, "I wish you'd lend me a tenner, for really, doctor, I have gone clean broke."

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

I do not a.s.sert that what I am about to relate is in all its particulars absolutely true. Not, understand me, that it is not true, but I do not feel that I care to make an a.s.sertion that is more than likely to be received by a sceptical age with sneers of incredulity. I will content myself with a simple narration of the events of that evening, the memory of which is so indelibly impressed upon my mind, and which, were I able to do so, I should forget without any sentiments of regret whatsoever.

The affair happened on the night before I fell ill of typhoid fever, and is about the sole remaining remembrance of that immediate period left to me. Briefly the story is as follows:

Notwithstanding the fact that I was overworked in the practice of my profession--it was early in March, and I was preparing my contributions for the coming Christmas issues of the periodicals for which I write--I had accepted the highly honorable position of Entertainment Committeeman at one of the small clubs to which I belonged. I accepted the office, supposing that the duties connected with it were easy of performance, and with absolutely no notion that the faith of my fellow-committeemen in my judgment was so strong that they would ultimately manifest a desire to leave the whole programme for the club's diversion in my hands. This, however, they did; and when the month of March a.s.sumed command of the calendar I found myself utterly f.a.gged out and at my wits' end to know what style of entertainment to provide for the club meeting to be held on the evening of the 15th of that month. I had provided already an unusually taking variety of evenings, of which one in particular, called the "Martyrs' Night," in which living authors writhed through selections from their own works, while an inhuman audience, every man of whom had suffered even as the victims then suffered, sat on tenscore of camp-stools puffing the smoke of twenty-five score of free cigars into their faces, and gloating over their misery, was extremely successful, and had gained for me among my professional brethren the enviable t.i.tle of "Machiavelli Junior." This performance, in fact, was the one now uppermost in the minds of the club members, having been the most recent of the series; and it had been prophesied by many men whose judgment was una.s.sailable that no man, not even I, could ever conceive of anything that could surpa.s.s it.

Disposed at first to question the accuracy of a prophecy to the effect that I was, like most others of my kind, possessed of limitations, I came finally to believe that perhaps, after all, these male Ca.s.sandras with whom I was thrown were right. Indeed, the more I racked my brains to think of something better than the "Martyrs' Night," the more I became convinced that in that achievement I had reached the zenith of my powers. The thing for me to do now was to hook myself securely on to the zenith and stay there. But how to do it? That was the question which drove sleep from my eyes, and deprived me for a period of six weeks of my reason, my hair departing immediately upon the restoration thereof--a not uncommon after-symptom of typhoid.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It was a typical March night, this one upon which the extraordinary incident about to be related took place. It was the kind of night that novelists use when they are handling a mystery that in the abstract would amount to nothing, but which in the concrete of a bit of wild, weird, and windy nocturnalism sends the reader into hysterics. It may be--I shall not attempt to deny it--that had it happened upon another kind of an evening--a soft, mild, balmy June evening, for instance--my own experience would have seemed less worthy of preservation in the amber of publicity, but of that the reader must judge for himself. The fact alone remains that upon the night when my uncanny visitor appeared, the weather department was apparently engaged in getting rid of its remnants. There was a large percentage of withering blast in the general make-up of the evening; there were rain and snow, which alternated in pattering upon my window-pane and whitening the apology for a wold that stands three blocks from my flat on Madison Square; the wind whistled as it always does upon occasions of this sort, and from all corners of my apartment, after the usual fas.h.i.+on, there seemed to come sounds of a supernatural order, the effect of which was to send cold chills off on their regular trips up and down the spine of their victim--in this instance myself. I wish that at the time the hackneyed quality of these sensations had appealed to me. That it did not do so was shown by the highly nervous state in which I found myself as my clock struck eleven. If I could only have realized at that hour that these symptoms were the same old threadbare premonitions of the appearance of a supernatural being, I should have left the house and gone to the club, and so have avoided the visitation then imminent. Had I done this, I should doubtless also have escaped the typhoid, since the doctors attributed that misfortune to the shock of my experience, which, in my then wearied state, I was unable to sustain--and what the escape of typhoid would have meant to me only those who have seen the bills of my physician and druggist for services rendered and prescriptions compounded are aware. That my mind unconsciously took thought of spirits was shown by the fact that when the first chill came upon me I arose and poured out for myself a stiff b.u.mper of old Reserve Rye, which I immediately swallowed; but beyond this I did not go. I simply sat there before my fire and cudgelled my brains for an idea whereby my fellow-members at the Gutenberg Club might be amused. How long I sat there I do not know. It may have been ten minutes; it may have been an hour--I was barely conscious of the pa.s.sing of time--but I do know that the clock in the Dutch Reformed Church steeple at Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue was clanging out the first stroke of the hour of midnight when my door-bell rang.

Theretofore--if I may be allowed the word--the tintinnabulation of my door-bell had been invariably pleasing unto me. I am fond of company, and company alone was betokened by its ringing, since my creditors gratify their pa.s.sion for interviews at my office, if perchance they happen to find me there. But on this occasion--I could not at the moment tell why--its clanging seemed the very essence of discord. It jangled with my nervous system, and as it ceased I was conscious of a feeling of irritability which is utterly at variance with my nature outside of business hours. In the office, for the sake of discipline, I frequently adopt a querulous manner, finding it necessary in dealing with office-boys, but the moment I leave shop behind me I become a different individual entirely, and have been called a moteless sunbeam by those who have seen only that side of my character. This, by-the-way, must be regarded as a confidential communication, since I am at present engaged in preparing a vest-pocket edition of the philosophical works of Schopenhauer in words of one syllable, and were it known that the publisher had intrusted the magnificent pessimism of that ill.u.s.trious juggler of words and theories to a "moteless sunbeam" it might seriously interfere with the sale of the work; and I may say, too, that this request that my confidence be respected is entirely disinterested, inasmuch as I declined to do the work on the royalty plan, insisting upon the payment of a lump sum, considerably in advance.

But to return. I heard the bell ring with a sense of profound disgust. I did not wish to see anybody. My whiskey was low, my quinine pills few in number; my chills alone were present in a profusion bordering upon ostentation.

"I'll pretend not to hear it," I said to myself, resuming my work of gazing at the flickering light of my fire--which, by-the-way, was the only light in the room.

"Ting-a-ling-a-ling" went the bell, as if in answer to my resolve.

"Confound the luck!" I cried, jumping from my chair and going to the door with the intention of opening it, an intention however which was speedily abandoned, for as I approached it a sickly fear came over me--a sensation I had never before known seemed to take hold of my being, and instead of opening the door, I pushed the bolt to make it the more secure.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"There's a hint for you, whoever you are!" I cried. "Do you hear that bolt slide, you?" I added, tremulously, for from the other side there came no reply--only a more violent ringing of the bell.

"See here!" I called out, as loudly as I could, "who are you, anyhow. What do you want?"

There was no answer, except from the bell, which began again.

"Bell-wire's too cheap to steal!" I called again. "If you want wire, go buy it; don't try to pull mine out. It isn't mine, anyhow. It belongs to the house."

Still there was no reply, only the clanging of the bell; and then my curiosity overcame my fear, and with a quick movement I threw open the door.

"Are you satisfied now?" I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my laugh was short-lived.

"What made that bell ring?" I suddenly asked myself, and then the feeling of fear came upon me again. I gathered my somewhat shattered self together, sprang to my feet, slammed the door with such force that the corridors echoed to the sound, slid the bolt once more, turned the key, moved a heavy chair in front of it, and then fled like a frightened hare to the sideboard in my dining-room. There I grasped the decanter holding my whiskey, seized a gla.s.s from the shelf, and started to pour out the usual dram, when the gla.s.s fell from my hand, and was s.h.i.+vered into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor; for, as I poured, I glanced through the open door, and there in my sanctum the flicker of a random flame divulged the form of a being, the eyes of whom seemed fixed on mine, piercing me through and through. To say that I was petrified but dimly expresses the situation. I was granitized, and so I remained, until by a more luminous flicker from the burning wood I perceived that the being wore a flaring red necktie.

"He is human," I thought; and with the thought the tension on my nervous system relaxed, and I was able to feel a sufficiently well-developed sense of indignation to demand an explanation. "This is a mighty cool proceeding on your part," I said, leaving the sideboard and walking into the sanctum.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Yes," he replied, in a tone that made me jump, it was so extremely sepulchral--a tone that seemed as if it might have been acquired in a damp corner of some cave off the earth. "But it's a cool evening."

"I wonder that a man of your coolness doesn't hire himself out to some refrigerating company," I remarked, with a sneer which would have delighted the soul of Ca.s.sius himself.