A Strange Discovery Part 11

"The work of rescue being thoroughly inaugurated, Pym had a moment in which his mind might roam from the work immediately in hand; and he thought of the aged mystic, Masusaelili. The old man resided in a spot so retired that the various rescue parties might easily have overlooked him; and the temperature was now probably fifty degrees below freezing.

Fortunately, at the instant he thought of the old philosopher, he and Peters were near the city limits, and within a third of a mile of Masusaelili's home; and starting off at a brisk run, the two were five minutes later in the old man's house, standing outside his laboratory door. As the two had hurried along, Peters would continue to murmur against the project: 'What's the use,' he would growl; 'we'll only find the old fellow roasting himself in front of a magic fire of burning snow or ice. _He's_ all right, and we'd better be saving human people.'

"As several raps, increasing from the gentlest to the most vigorous, elicited no response, Pym opened the laboratory door, and with Peters entered. But the old man was nowhere to be seen. Pym hastily returned to the hallway, and discovering a stair leading to a small cellar, he descended. The cellar was filled with _debris_, two small window cas.e.m.e.nts opening to the exterior air were broken and decayed to the last degree of dilapidation, and the icy wind whistled through the rubbish of the doleful spot. He ran back to the laboratory, where Peters was hunting about, hoping to find Masusaelili alive, yet fearing to find his emaciated form lying lifeless amid the ma.s.s of chemical and mechanical appliances which littered the room. Several of the large vase-like objects before alluded to stood here and there; and as the smaller of them might have hidden the body of a large-sized man, the searchers even glanced into them. Each vase sat apart upon the floor, flaring upward like a giant lily to a height of four or five feet; and from each of them projected, within an inch of the floor, a faucet of rude construction, through which pa.s.sed a very primitive spigot. One of these enormous vases, large enough to have secreted two small men, stood inverted; and Pym, with no particular object in view, but simply because he could not think of anything else to do, gave the vase a push, in such a way as to raise for an inch or two from the floor its large rim, flaring out to a diameter of probably four feet.

"'Put that down,' came a hollow and stridulous voice, so unexpected and startling to Pym that he withdrew his hand, allowing the vase to drop back to the floor with a resounding thud.

"'If thou hast aught of importance to impart, 'continued the voice--that of Masusaelili--still stridulous, but now having also the quality possessed by a voice heard through a speaking-tube, 'put thy mouth near to the spigot-hole, and disclose thine errand.'

"Pym placed his lips within an inch of the open faucet, which was only an inch or two lower than his mouth as he stood beside the vase, and from the opening of which came a fog-like vapor, similar in appearance to that exhaled from the mouth and nostrils on a very cold day, and said:

"'We came, sir, to offer our help--to procure for you wood, and, if possible, food; or, if you should so prefer, to remove you in safety to comfortable quarters.'

"For a moment there was silence, during which the fog-like vapor continued to come from the spigot-hole of the inverted vase. Then the voice of the aged mystic was again heard in reply:

"'Youth--and thine ape-like companion--go hence. Through three and fifty of these storms have I safely pa.s.sed. Beneath this vase have I two lamps, alight; oil wherewith to supply with fuel these two lamps for a s.p.a.ce of eight days, which hitherto has been the longest duration of any of these periodical storms; food and water have I sufficient for my body's wants for a week. And, too, have I mental aliment; for have I here a ma.n.u.script written by the youthful sage, aegyptus, who sent it to me by the hand of Azza, long before the legend of Romulus started from its mythic source to float adown the stream of time: a ma.n.u.script which it delighteth my soul once in each century to peruse. Fear not for one who knows no fear. Go hence, and quickly go--go with humiliation in thy heart; for thou hast not yet begun to live, and yet thou presumest to think in danger one who helped to plan and to construct what thou callest the ancient city of Babylon. Youth, when thou didst disturb me, I was reading from my friend, who writes from a village called Sakkarah, of how a foolish Pharaoh thinks to perpetuate his memory by building a mighty pyramidal structure of stone, which my friend terms a device planned by himself to divert the fancy of his ruler, and incidentally to astonish those European barbarians who may happen that way; and, among other matters, this Azza asks for my opinion concerning the outer surface of his pyramid; to which request for advice I remember that I replied, saying that the walls should be constructed so as to ascend in step-like angles. Ha, ha, ha!' came from the spigot-hole a hollow, cracked attempt at derisive laughter--'Ye say--ha, ha!--ye say this Pharaoh was of the _first_ dynasty!--ha, ha!--the first! Go hence, vain child.'

"'But, sir,' insisted Pym, after a pause, 'have you provided for ventilating your--your small apartment?'

"'In the floor beneath me is a knot-hole, which doth open to the outer air; and upon the opening is a flat stone, which, little by little, more or less, I remove and replace in accordance with certain laws, allowing just the proper amount of atmospheric air to enter from below. This oil maketh very little smoke, yet seest thou not some smoke emerge from the open faucet? Feel'st thou not with thine hand the heat escape? Again I say, go hence, vain youth.'

"Pym stood for a moment, meditating; and then something--perhaps something connected with the words several months before whispered into his ear by Masusaelili--impelled him to say:

"'Good sir, we meant you no harm. Tell me, Allwise One, can you read the future?'

"Before a reply came, there was a pause so long that, says Peters, Pym was about to speak again. Then came the voice of this old man who had investigated and pondered for thousands of years that only inexhaustible study in the universe, the phenomenon of consciousness--the aged mystic no doubt being pleasantly warmed and mollified by the appellation 'Allwise One.'

"'None but G.o.d,' said Masusaelili, 'knows of a certainty the future.

Truly wise men, and the lower animals, when they would penetrate the future, use not the crude instrument termed _reason_; but rather do they nestle close to the bosom of--what now call ye Him? Thine ancestors, the barbarians of Britannia, when I was with them, named Him G.o.d. Thus, and only thus, may the future become known to thee. Have faith, as the bird, the fish, the little ant, which, _feeling_ G.o.d, act, and are not disappointed. Think ye that the lowest of G.o.d's creatures would not have heard His warning voice, or seen His beckoning arm, or felt His guiding hand when in the air lurked this present danger? Yet reason told not you! G.o.d shows to us the future, when we should know His edicts in advance, always--always, if only we will look and hearken. But this, good youth, G.o.d doth permit only to those who lean with full confidence upon Him, as do the lower animals. To the consciousness of man it is given, if but the right conditions be attained, truly to know what in the present happeneth anywhere in the universe. _Time_ is a barrier to the voluntary acquisition of knowledge, but _distance_ is not an impediment. My body is confined to this poor vase, but certainly not my mind--it roams in Europe, in Asia, or amid the stars--but wait a moment.

Poor youth! The hand on the dial of thy destiny moves rapidly. Go! Go now, and go in haste; for one who loves thee, at this moment sorely needs thee. Farewell.'

"Pym scarcely heard the word 'farewell;' for he was crossing the threshold of the house as Masusaelili uttered it, and Peters was turning to follow. They ran as rapidly as the snow and the cutting wind would permit, and had covered the necessary three miles in about half an hour.

The air was growing intensely cold. They met a party of three exiles, who were helping to scour the city for any food that might have been left in deserted homes. These men informed Pym that, in spite of the prompt.i.tude and haste of the rescue parties, more than a hundred persons had been frozen to death; and that frozen hands and feet by the thousand had been reported. The Hili-lites were so extremely susceptible to cold that, at a temperature of 20 Fahrenheit, if they were not well protected by clothing, they soon became drowsy, then slept, and, if not found and resuscitated within a very short time, died. One case was reported in which a woman, only six hundred feet from one of the rescue stations, was frozen to death in somewhat less than an hour, though she must have been thoroughly chilled when last seen in an apparently natural condition. During the day a party of three exiles, whilst on one of their rounds, had visited the house of this poor woman, and had carried her three children to the nearest station; and the woman herself, who was at the time hurrying about the room gathering together a few articles, it was supposed had followed close behind them. In this way she was overlooked, until, in the somewhat crowded room to which the children were taken, the youngest child, a little girl of four years, broke into tears and began to cry out for her mother. Then two men hastened back, and found the woman unconscious and apparently dead. The usual methods of resuscitation were inaugurated, and long continued, but the woman could not be revived.

"Peters says that he has during his life-time seen a number of persons who were frozen, several of them fatally; of which a part were in the Eastern States, others in the far north; and that these Hili-lites froze to death very differently from those in the northern part of the north temperate zone. He mentions the case of a Canadian who was exposed to extreme cold during a whole night. When found, the poor fellow was not only unconscious, but apparently dead. The arms and legs were frozen through and through, and the entire body was rigid. He was resuscitated, but afterwards lost his hands and feet. In Hili-li persons lost their lives from exposure to cold whose bodies were very little--a few of them not at all--frozen. The explanation of this difference is to be found in the fact that an animal dies when bodily temperature in the interior of the body reaches a certain degree of reduction, which point of reduction in the Hili-lites is much less than in persons habituated to life in a colder climate. In persons accustomed to a climate as warm as that of Hili-li, the heat-producing functions are feeble, and the heat-expelling functions are very active; but this does not fully explain why, in Peters' words, 'the people there froze to death without freezing.' Any person dying as a result of exposure to cold, dies long before any of the vital organs are frozen; and the Hili-lites no doubt ceased to live with a reduction of bodily temperature which would not have seriously inconvenienced a resident of Scotland or Canada. In the storm of which we speak, the people were nervously depressed as a result of fright.

However, from all I can gather, the temperature was at times certainly as low as 40 Fahrenheit below freezing, at which degree almost any thinly clad person might freeze to death.

"But the hour is late, and, though I had expected to close Peters' story this evening, such a conclusion is, owing to my prolixity, scarcely practicable. If you still expect to start for home in three days, I shall certainly in one more evening complete the telling of Peters'

experiences in Hili-li. The day after tomorrow I shall be engaged during the entire evening, and if we delay our next meeting till the following evening--your last in Bellevue--it is possible that something may happen to prevent our meeting; so, if you are willing, my next and last visit to you here shall be tomorrow evening."

I expressed my satisfaction with the arrangement, and he took his leave.

The following morning, I gave to Arthur, in my own way, an account of the storm in Hili-li, meanwhile leisurely dressing--a performance which, except under pressure, I have never in the morning been able unaided to accomplish in less than an hour. I had completed my toilet, but not my story, when in rushed Castleton.

After a little general conversation, I seemed naturally to return to the Peters story; and now, in a five-minute talk, I so closed it to the point reached by Bainbridge as to satisfy Arthur, and not weary the restless doctor. As I ended, Castleton said:

"I didn't get in to see you yesterday. The last time I was in we were talking of names; and to tell you the truth, it was a matter of names that held me back yesterday at the very time I was going to come up. You see, I have an old friend here in town, ----; you've no doubt heard of him--ex-member of Congress, and as good as appointed Minister to Venezuela right now. A scholar of the deepest erudition; a speaker and writer of great force and nicety, and of exquisite literary taste.

Yesterday we met, and during our talk he told me that his book, the result of many years of thought, was completed. Now, for my part, I never believed that a rose would smell as sweet as it does if we called it a turnip. If Poe had, instead of 'Narrative of A. Gordon Pym,' named his story, 'Adventures of Dirk Peters, the Half-Breed,' he would have sold twice as many books. My friend is about to publish his book. 'Its name?' I asked him. 'There can be little choice of names for a translation of Montesquieu's "Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans,"

with notes by myself,' he replied. 'There can't?' said I; 'well, my friend, let me tell you there can. Now compare this name: "Montesquieu's Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, with ill.u.s.trative notes," etc., with a name like this: "The Roman Aristocrats Ripped, Rooted, and Routed"; or, "How the Roman Plutocrats were Peppered and Pounded." Heavens and Earth! what do the ma.s.ses know about decadence? Why not name his book (and so I said to him), "How the Rich Romans Rotted"? Half the people would think from such a t.i.tle that the Romans were enemies of the United States, and that Montesquieu and my friend were after them hot and fast; and then the story would go out that the French were helping us again. "General Montesquieu" would be heard on all sides, a.s.sociated with endless repet.i.tions of Lafayette memories. Lord, Lord! I sometimes think a man is better under-educated than over-educated."

Then after a pause he continued:

"Pretty good, that talk of Masusaelili's through the faucet--pretty good, pretty good! But, pshaw! for me there's nothing new on earth. Why, sir, I've always drawn my best philosophy out of a spigot-hole. The very sight of a spigot inspires me, and drives away my troubles. But, man alive! We must keep this thing secret. The fellow with an exhaustless stock of _elixir vitae_ isn't half worked out in fiction yet--and besides, how can a person reread his 'Wandering Jew,' and his 'Last Days of Pompeii,' and his 'Zanoni,' with such an outlandish picture as a mystic under a lamp-warmed vase in mind? Why didn't Bainbridge take a not unusual historical license, and say that the aged philosopher was found warming himself before a crystal vase filled with magically glowing rubies?"

After we had laughed a little over this, he said:

"And I suppose Bainbridge tried--in fact I know by what you say that he did try--to air his knowledge on the subject of animal heat? No doubt talked for half an hour about the effects of cold on the animal economy?

Oh, he's a rapid man! You heard, sir, how idiotically he talked that day, just before I cured old man Peters? If Bainbridge had had his way, Peters' story would have been a short one. I suppose his remedy for a frozen Hili-lite would be to send him to the North Pole! Now, sir, I instantly grasped the whole idea of the necessary effect of that cold wave on those Hili-lites, for I now have data in abundance for reading those people through and through. In a word, sir--and observe my sententious brevity--their thermogenistic organization being adynamic, and their thermolysic functions being over-active owing to their thermic environment, and the thermotaxic balance being habitually anomalous, the emergency was not successfully encountered; and this was more particularly the case because the nerve-centres of vital resistance to sudden and extreme thermal abstraction were atrophied."

This was the last remark, except a few words of farewell at the time of my departure for home, that I ever heard from Doctor Castleton. It was his habit, as he was about to leave the presence of an auditor or interlocutor, to fire off, so to speak, a set speech, or a piece of surprising information, and then hastily to retreat--a habit displaying considerable sagacity, and one engendered by street-corner discussion, in which a return fire--or perhaps a troublesome question--was often to be avoided if a dramatic climax was not to be sacrificed. On this occasion, as the last words left his lips he vanished through the doorway, and we were alone.

"Well," said Arthur, "am I allowed to speak?"

"You are," I replied.

"Then tell me," said he, "what it was he said? Why doesn't he, some day when he has time, dictate a dictionary? And isn't there any way to stop such talk by law? That man gets worse instead of better. He forgets everything except words. Says he, the other day, 'Well, Arthur, my boy, when are you coming in to pay your doctor bill?' Now mind, I paid him a'ready, and just think of my teeth! But I told him, nice and easy, how I paid him the two dollars. Then I told him about my teeth rattlin'

whenever I go down the stairs, and asked him what to do for them. He just laughed and gave me a half-dollar, and said, 'Bone-set tea, my boy--drink bone-set tea, and plenty of it;' and so I do."

The TWENTIETH Chapter

"Pym left the exiles," said Bainbridge, on the following evening, as, in accordance with his engagement, he continued the story of the great storm in Hili-li; "and hastened on toward his home. Arrived there, he went directly to the cellar, where he found the three large lamps alight, brilliantly illuminating and comfortably warming the apartment; but Lilama was missing, though he found there one of her maids. This girl told Pym that Lilama had, some four hours earlier, taken with her her maid Ixza, and hastened from the house. Questioned closely, she said that after Pym had gone, Lilama suddenly bethought her of a former servant, an old nurse, who for some years past had lived quite alone, and that Lilama had decided to have the poor old woman found, and cared for. It seems that when the young wife was herself in safety and had the mental leisure to think of others, the thought of her poor old servant and friend in danger grew more and more unbearable. She had waited almost an hour for Pym to return, and then, taking Ixza with her, had gone forth; but where the old nurse resided, only Lilama and Ixza knew.

The maid knew only that Lilama had left the cellar with the intention of a.s.sisting, in some manner, the nurse of her babyhood.

"In ten minutes Pym and Peters, going in different directions, had aroused many of the exiles, who hastened in all directions, to search thoroughly the poorer quarters of the city, and to inquire of everyone whom they might encounter concerning the residence of the old nurse. The exiles had already visited, or sent others to visit, about every house in the city; but in a few instances--particularly where but one person lived in a house--the occupant had been advised, and had consented, to come to a central station and there remain till the storm abated or pa.s.sed; and then, for some purpose delaying, had been overcome by the cold, and, as the system of search included only one visit to each house, had been left to die--the fact transpiring through an accidental second visit, or when the city was later scoured in search of food that might have been overlooked.

"An hour later, one of many messengers who were searching for Pym met him, and told him that Lilama was found. He hastened to the house in which they had found her--a small frame structure, the residence of her former nurse.

"At the entrance of this house stood Peters, waiting for his young friend; and as Pym felt the hand of the old sailor, put forth to stop him in his breathless haste, and as he looked into the hard, rugged face of his old friend, he knew that he must nerve himself for a shock. Alas!

His surmise was only too correct. They entered the main room of the house together, Peters in the rear. Drawing aside from the entrance to the room a portiere--Peters had already visited the room--Pym pa.s.sed in, Peters remaining on the outer side of the curtained doorway, that he might prevent others from following, or even from viewing the young friend who was now to receive one of the keenest stabs with which Destiny ever pierces the human heart.

"For a moment Pym would wholly have mistaken the scene before him, had Peters not said a word of warning as the portiere fell behind his young friend.

"On the lounge which stood against the farther wall as he entered, lay an elderly woman, apparently asleep; and covering her were the outer wraps--scanty, indeed, for such a day--of Lilama. On the left, as Pym swept at a glance the apartment, he saw the maid Ixza, reclining in a large chair; she, also, to all appearances, was asleep. Then he saw his wife. She crouched on the floor at the foot of the lounge, only her wealth of light golden hair at first visible. Stepping to her side, Pym saw her, as many times in the ducal gardens he had seen her drop to the ground in her girlish fas.h.i.+on, to rest. Her arms were intertwined upon the foot of the lounge, her head resting upon them; and there the tired, childlike young wife had gone to sleep--forever.

"How beautiful she was in death! The gentle hand that had never touched the person of another but in helpfulness--how fair, how pallid; the fond sweet eyes that knew no glance but that of love and kindness--they were almost hidden by the drooping lids; the tenderest, loveliest face the sunlight ever kissed, smiled upward at him as he gazed--his heart felt colder than was this dear form he dropped beside and clasped. But the lips--the ripe red lips--the rapturous, maidenly lips, the first touch of which had raised him forever from the coa.r.s.e earth--the arch lips that had bewitched him with their own seductive smile, and could not shape themselves to harsher act than pouting--a fleeting pout, that captivated ere it vanished--he could not look at them in death--he could not.

"Sweet child of a weird land and a strange people! She was one of those whose spotless souls need not the purifying fire of a long earthly life.

For Pym, now and later, the sorrow and the yearning void; for her, only an earlier advancement.

"Pym's mind was shocked; but behind the shock he felt the awful anguish of such a separation. Was this the end? Could it be the end? For him, truly that day his last hope for this life died. But hereafter? Surely this was not to be the end of all! A few more years of grovelling on the clay bosom of the cold, selfish earth, and then--only oblivion? No, no: he would not, he could not believe it.

"As Pym stood there, where many, many other men have stood, and millions yet will stand, did his soul rise into the heavenly atmosphere, or did it question G.o.d's decrees and sink to rise no more? This I cannot answer.

"After such a loss, oh, the weary weight of unutterable woe; the awful sense that hope is dead, whilst the mourner can only stand with streaming eyes and bleeding heart, forever chained to the ghastly corpse of every dear ambition, of every joy, and all that our universe of feeling builds on hope. But we should learn from such a loss a lesson, for the lesson if learned insures our own advancement: such losses are but the purposes of G.o.d unfolding for those we love and for ourselves an eternity of blissful harmony."

Thus Doctor Bainbridge closed; and, though his words were of death, and the thoughts which he expressed were as old as the human race, I was much affected by them. Young as was the speaker, his utterances conveyed to me the impression that he himself had in some way learned the lesson of which he spoke. For several moments we sat in silence; and then, though I knew that he would have a few more words to say, I thought it an appropriate time to thank him for his long, painstaking elaboration of the old sailor's disclosures, which, as I knew partly from my own personal knowledge, had been gained only by untiring perseverance and inexhaustible patience. I thanked him, and complimented him as I thought he deserved; and he was pleased, I plainly saw, with the few words of commendation which he knew came from my heart.